Beware Feeling You’re Not Good Enough to Deserve It
I’m reading
Did you know that Sleepy Time Tea (Celestial Seasonings) is run by a eugenics cult who believe Adam and Eve were aliens meant to eradicate all dark races? I did not know!
In the 1920s as lynchings and race riots roiled the country, WEB Du Bois launched 'The Brownies’ Book,' a kids' magazine to reflect Black children's beauty back to them, and fight white supremacy
“If they were aboveboard, they could’ve had the world from me.” At 93 years old, Beverley Schottenstein decided her JPMorgan financial advisers needed to pay—even though they were her own grandsons. Love this rich grandma energy!
When it comes to creating and maintaining a community fridge, it takes a village.
Toni Morrison "was a caretaker of a blossoming universe of Black literature, stewarding a cadre of writers and thinkers who would change the world"
"I was raised really hard, but I’m actually very soft." A++ interview of Janicza Bravo
Ariel Levy x Glennon Doyle is worth a read!
“I wish I’d written more books and spent less time being in love” A delightful sentence in delightful book review about what looks to be a delightful book about a delightful life.
“I’m not a perfectionist. But I like what I like how I like it.” Megan Thee Stallion speaking for all perfectionists everywhere.
“Deceptively genteel on the surface, her novels gesture at vast and intricate political problems.” Shirley Hazzard is back!
“It shouldn’t have taken ten years to realize the discourse about Britney Spears had been a hurtful, unhealthy constant.”
Hollywood loves to make movies about itself—yet studios and distributors can’t be trusted to properly preserve their films. Martin Scorsese on the need to stop treating cinema as “content.” It’s a great read but I also think it’s fair to say that Scorsese’s Fran Lebowitz docuseries on Netflix is in fact “content.”
Forcing everyone I know to read this one: “The resilience of youth may be overestimated, mental health professionals say.”
Pick up the damn phone and call your friends. Related: GOSSIP! It’s vital in friendship and we have missed a year of it and all the goodness it brings.
It’s from a few weeks ago but I am still haunted by this article about children having to apologize to their parents and grandparents for infecting them with COVID. My driving fear in the pandemic hasn’t been getting COVID myself. What I could never forgive myself for is infecting someone else. I am terrified of that possibility and every decision I’ve made in the past year has been with that terror in mind.
Reminder: even as more and more people are getting vaccinated, we still don’t know much about transmission so vaccinated or not, masking and social distancing are still the norm. Bonus: this warmed my heart
Life Pro Tip
I’m still in the quarantine phase where I look around my small apartment wondering what else I can fix or projects I can tackle. Sorting through my bathroom cabinets was the obvious answer for me. I love going through my skincare products and culling the herd. It’s very satisfying and very easy to make decisions around because I promise you that most things in your bathroom have already gone bad. Throw them out.
Skincare products and makeup don’t really come with a discernible sell-by-date. It’s annoying. I’m always surprised at what is relatively shelf stable and what isn’t. The shelf-life also really depends on when a product is first opened, how it's stored and the type of packaging. It can be very confusing to keep track of so meet the PAO Symbol:
Most products have a Period After Opening (PAO) symbol which acts as a guideline for when you should throw the thing out after you've opened it. The symbol includes the letter 'm' which stands for month and a number before the letter 'm' (which stands for the amount of months), i.e. '6m' means that once you've opened a product you should realistically stop using this product after six months. Anyway go through your products and throw the old stuff out. You will be disgusted with yourself but it’s OK!
Hang in there
Things you must beware of right now—
A year seems like a lot of time now at this end—it isn’t. It took me three years to reclaim my full flow. Don’t lose your sense of urgency on the one hand, on the other, don’t be too hard on yourself—or expect too much.
Beware the terror of not producing.
Beware the urge to justify your decision.
Watch out for the kitchen sink and the plumbing and that painting that always needed being done. But remember the body needs to create too.
Beware feeling you’re not good enough to deserve it.
Beware feeling you’re too good to need it.
Beware all the hatred you’ve stored up inside you, and the locks on your tender places.
Audre Lorde’s letter to Pat Parker in Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989, a tiny book everyone should read. Pat Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and began exchanging letters five years later, a correspondence which continued until the year before Parker’s death.
This newsletter usually goes out on Saturdays but I got stoned and thought it already had. See you Wednesday!
I really enjoy this newsletter! Thank you for your labor putting it together. :)