#7 Wednesday Round Up

cults and beans

Happy Wednesday (It’s Saturday)

Good Morrow Children of My Heart, Flowers of My Soul, 

Today’s newsletter is mostly about navigating a complicated relationship with work and also beans. As always, if you are here for the recommendations and don’t super jive with these front porch postulations, scrollie pollie ollie down to those links! They are weird this week. Enjoy :)

While getting out of the shower the other day, I almost slipped on my bathmat. I didn’t all the way slip, but I lost my balance a tiny bit. The image of me falling backward, hitting my head on the edge of the bathtub, and suffering a swift and immediate intracranial hematoma flashed quickly through my mind. After spending a few seconds thinking how long would it take them to find me? I became aware that going down that particular thought path would not be a fruitful one and would not make me feel any better, so I physically shook my headful of wet hair — not unlike a dog— and exhaled deeply. I decided to focus on the fact that, even though it may take longer to discover my gravely injured body in the event of an accidental fall, I have never known peace like living alone. And that— that peace—  was my reality. My reality was not in fact dying of a brain bleed alone in my bathtub, at least not today. And how wonderful is it that? I get to walk around naked and wholly unbloodied, heat my heinie on my wall heater and moisturize my parched skin as a lightning storm rattles my windows.  I get to cook what I want and write what I like, and the forces that seemed so intent on me giving it all up, don’t have the power over me that they once did. 

Today is a blue day — not a deep indigo of despondency, but more of a baby blue of contemplation. I am experiencing the kind of soft melancholy that sits you down gently and says truly wild things like even if you started today, you’d never be able to read every book in this library before you die or everyone you’ve ever met you’ll either die before or have to live your life without. Okay, maybe those are indigo thoughts, but there is no adrenaline or panic, is what I’m saying. It’s calmer and deeper and does not leave you with an abundance of action steps. Sometimes things are sad, and there is nothing you can do to change them. There is no potion and no spell that can extract the venom of lost time. But, as a friend routinely reminds me, I do have a knack for finding silver linings in some of the most tempestuous clouds, so this newsletter is my attempt. AKA It gets better… and then worse, but that worse is better than the worse before, and then it gets better again; I promise.

Something that helps me a lot is reminders from friends that I am worthy of love and belonging even when I don’t feel happy. That my presence is desired even if I am not brimming with kinetic energy, creativity, or a palpable zest for life. Sometimes life isn’t zesty— sometimes it’s sour and sometimes it’s bitter and sometimes you can’t point to anything that’s wrong except wave your hands at everything. Maybe nothing is wrong specifically, but nothing feels right generally, and you can get lost in all those thoughts you think—  all those scenarios you play in your head, all those intrusive voices that seem to be the loudest in the room. Like when you’re driving to a birthday party, all dressed up and ready to go, but then you pass the house where you used to live, and Florence and the Machine is singing about silver in her lungs, and all of a sudden you’re crying, and crying people aren’t allowed to go to birthday parties so maybe you should just turn around? Don’t—  in case no one has said it to you lately— you are wanted. Your sadness or your anger or your confusion isn’t offensive, and you’re allowed to bring it to the party. There is no morality in happiness, and there is no such thing as happy people. Happy is a feeling that comes and goes, and it’s not your fault for not feeling it all the time.

I have a bleeding heart and a noisy mind, and I am always going to be a little bit heartbroken about the state of things, but I’d rather be authentically pissed than artificially happy to preserve the comfort of someone else. Thinking about big questions doesn’t mean I’m negative, claiming anger doesn’t mean I’m ill, choosing my joy doesn’t I’m selfish, and asking why doesn’t mean I’m stupid. All it means is that I’m comfortable with who I am becoming— fuck ups and all. And I’m never gonna give up on myself because my horse has gotten me this far, and I trust her. 

And I guess that’s why I started this newsletter in the first place — it was a way to chronicle the things that put me back together after losing the job that I thought made me me. These lists, these activities, these moments of beauty and connection anchor me to an aggressively optimistic mindset that no matter how bad things get, there is beauty in the ordinary, and there is love in people, and things don’t need to last in order for them to be important. Just because someone or some job or some thing took your spark or took your joy or took your safety ortook your sense of self, doesn’t mean you gave informed consent to lose it. It’s inside you still; that thing that made you want to wake up and groove is a part of you. Your fire may have made you a better teacher, nurse, therapist, or analyst, but those jobs aren’t all your fire is for. You brought it with you, and you keep it still. And you get to choose when to light that motherfucker up again and cause a ruckus in your soul. 

Fight on, gremlins. You deserve it :) 

Leaving My Dream Career: I Love Teaching, But I Hate My Job

If you’ve been around for a while, you know that about nine months ago I decided to leave my job. I didn’t have another one lined up, I didn’t have a side hustle I’d built to sustain me, and I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do instead, but I had reached a breaking point where staying was worse than leaving. 

I was once a teacher who never thought I’d quit my job. I never saw teaching as a stepping stone to something else, and I never had my eyes set on administration or district positions. Working with kids every single day was what I was meant to do. I got so many things out of helping facilitate and support a child go from not understanding something and not believing they ever could to then being able to do it with some support, and then eventually do it on their own and teach it to someone else confidently. To see a kid build their belief in themself that they can learn something they do not yet know felt like magic, and it made me feel like I was a part of something greater than myself. 

When I decided to leave teaching, I was looking for answers to try to understand my experience—  why was this thing that I loved more than anything also the source of so much pain? I used to think the answer to feeling free while working was the centuries-old adage, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It’s attributed to Confucius, but what isn’t? I have no idea who said it, really, but I know that I would like a refund. First, let me say, the luxury of being able to choose a career I feel passionate about is a privilege. I didn’t have to negotiate my survival or get a job to support a family as my parents and grandparents did. What I’ve learned, however, is that a job you love can still steal your joy if you aren’t careful. Constant vigilance!

You can be so passionate about your life’s work—believe in the mission of what you’re doing so much—that you divert all of your time and energy to it. And it may seem worth it, and maybe it is, but there is also a chance it feels like the most important thing because you’ve designed it that way. A false sense of urgency has tripped me up more than once and had me putting off very ordinary joy (a picnic, a matinee movie, a walk through a museum or a few chapters of a book) and choosing to continue work that served someone else. The greater good! As a result, I was missing so many everyday wonders that other parts of my life could bring.

I became so caught up in the hamster wheel of teaching, working at least thirteen-hour days and weekends, that I didn’t even know what else I could do with my time apart from sleep. If someone asked me what my hobbies were, I would have recited things I once found joyful before I had started teaching (I rollerbladed as a kid, right?) because I hadn’t had a minute left to spare or a joule left to spend doing anything apart from teaching and surviving. In my downtime, I stared at the wall, cried, or got so high on weed gummies that I became afraid of my own hands. I had no energy to pour my curiosity into self-discovery; it all went toward self-recovery. 

Most of the time, even if the school (insert any highly demanding job, highly controlling partner, or highly controlling group here) doesn’t treat you well, they don’t want you to actually leave — why would they? They reap so many benefits from the work you do. The teacher has to be the one to leave, and though they are up against very real questions about their security, (how will I procure health insurance, how am I going to pay my rent, what happens to my retirement?) they are also up against their own conditioning that tells them they’ll never make it out there on their own, that they don’t have any valuable skills beyond cutting and gluing, and that they have no viable career options. That the only alternative is sitting at a desk from 9-5 pushing paperwork or being a cog in a corporate machine. This is as good as it gets, and at least it’s good some of the time, right? Let me be clear: none of this is true. This self-doubt is thrust upon you intentionally so that you do not collectively organize for better treatment. We should feel lucky, right? Because at least we get to do what we love! This is not enough, at least it wasn’t for me. I realized I could not stay in a situation where I felt constantly needed but never valued. 

My friend Lauren said something I’ll never forget as summer was winding down. “I miss you during the year. You disappear from August to June.” This is the life of many teachers I know who are deeply committed to their work. We are motivated to teach because we believe children of all zip codes, languages, religions, races, and class backgrounds deserve to learn. What this means in a capitalistic society, however, is that our identities and our self-worth are inextricably bound to our labor, and when that is the case, we will labor for free so that we can still feel valuable. I felt like if I didn’t continue working as hard as I was, I would be hurting the students and providing them with a subpar education, thereby being a part of the problem instead of the solution. However, continuing to work as hard as I did meant that I showed up to my friends’ birthday parties and family dinners exhausted and despondent if I showed up at all. 

When I was teaching, though I felt lonely and downtrodden a lot of the time, it had been comforting knowing I was in good company, that other educators got it and were equally miserable, but that we were in it together. We had shared jargon and shared strategies, and there was community there through the bonds of collective exploitation. And I told myself that I couldn’t leave, because if I did, I would lose the only community I had. I would lose the only language I knew how to speak. So I told myself the stress was worth it, while principals planned half-assed teacher appreciation pizza lunches that tried to make us forget that we’ve never had a single fire-drill in seven years and that our paychecks would be late (again). 

I remember people trying to tell me to slow down, that I couldn’t possibly reach every kid, that I couldn’t keep working at that rate or it was going to kill me, and my response was always: watch me. Maybe if I wasn’t as driven or I didn’t see as much potential as I did, I would have tried my hand at something else. But I kept getting the sense that I was made to do this and that if I worked hard enough, it would get better. Never feeling like a good enough teacher, but feeling like schools were the only place I could be successful was the rock and the hard place I sat trapped in for most of my twenties. I loved learning how to be a better teacher, I was ravenous for answers, and I couldn’t imagine a life where I wasn’t teaching. I realized, eventually, that this inability to imagine leaving the classroom was actually by design. For teachers, but also for many different professionals, it can feel like teaching is not just what we do, but who we are. And to leave who you are is, well, terrifying? 

I have come to understand my relationship with teaching as an abusive one—one where shame, gaslighting, and manipulation were used to keep me in my place, working tirelessly for the good of the children but at the expense of my own spirit. I had told myself that my rapid decline in mental and physical health was discomfort I should sit in. I moved the goalpost of what qualified being sick — coming in with migraines that resulted in hospitalizations because I was committed to the kids. Phrases like “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” and “this is what you signed up for” rattle in teachers’ heads for years as they blame themselves for the abuses they face within such an exploitative system. I don’t know any teacher who didn’t fear retaliation, shunning, and shame when thinking about taking a sick day let alone moving out of the classroom. Recovering from that fear and attempting to rediscover your sense of self outside of your career can be a brutal journey. 

After quitting, I had to contend with “who am I?” every morning I woke up without a school to drive to, a lesson to prep, or a breakfast to skip. I didn’t have papers to grade, but I also didn’t have daily, nervous diarrhea at 7:30 am. I didn’t have an agenda to write on a whiteboard, but I also didn’t have a lunch that went uneaten because a principal scheduled a last-minute meeting during my twenty-six-minute break. I didn’t have a group of spritely sixth graders showing me all their friendship bracelets, but I also didn’t miss any of my friends’ dinner parties because I was too exhausted to drive. 

Winding through the same roads that once took me to and from school, I notice the rising sun and the palm trees silhouetted against the early sky, the Grand Lake Theater sign like an urban lighthouse guiding me home. When I was teaching I was lucky if I noticed that the car in front of me had stopped at a red light. I feel grateful to be here, is a conscious, present thought I have almost daily now. I want to be alive to see all of this. Since leaving, I have found a book club community of hilarious people who make me feel free and held (🎵 Hold me….don’t hold me down! Carry me…but keep my feet on the ground!🎵), I have an entire windowsill garden of plants I’ve propagated from other plants, I have posters on my walls from concerts I’ve attended, I have polaroids on my fridge from cozy nights with pals, and I have hundreds of miles on my car from crossing the Bay Bridge to have sleepovers with Dev and from long drives down the coast to see my sister.

I lost some things I miss, but I have gained so much in leaving my job. Solid ground to scrape my knees on feels much better than space I only ever floated in. Teaching was never my purpose — building a life I don’t want to escape is. I miss the kids, but I’d rather be away from school than lost to myself. There is still grief in the right decisions; there is no way around feeling loss. But my soul feels lighter, and sometimes the easy way out is the right way forward. I hope y’all like this week’s recommendations! Enjoy :)

Listening Round Up

🎧Sedona Vibes by sarakatenelson24 (happy, summer, alt indie pop w/ some rock throwbacks)\

I have loved the song Sedona by Houndmouth since my last year of college. A roommate of mine, Libby, had gone on a road trip through the Southwest and came back to our apartment playing this song, and even though I wasn’t even on that road trip, I felt like I was whenever this song came on. There’s just something about it.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

PS. Houndmouth just announced their East Coast / South East tour and Oliver Hazard is opening! Sucks for us West Coasters, but, if you’re back east definitely check them out! Schedule is here

🎧Jeffrey Martin (sad acoustic americanna?)

Recommendation by way of Lily (who has her own newsletter now here!). I saw Jeffrey Martin on February 9 at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco, and though it was like woooooooff sad music, it was beautiful too. He opened his solo set—just him and his guitar sittin’ on a stool— with “I hate California. I really, just never like spending any time here. But you guys seem pretty cool.” And anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for a grumpy misanthrope. My sunshine needs a grump, and that night it was Jeffrey Martin whose records are mostly acoustic and wrapped in pain and freedom. He has an album coming out later this year but none of his songs have names yet, because you know, in addition to California he also hates naming things. So, I have no more information for you than that.

He is currently on tour, heading to PNW and through Montana, making his way back east. Schedule here.

Watching Round Up

🎬The Banshees of Inisherin (Drama)

Alright y’all. The lead-up to the Oscars is upon us, and that means some of us are gonna be watching some weird shit in the name of being cultured. This movie attracted me for a few reasons. 1) My friend Tessa who *is* an actor and whose taste I trust, recommended it. 2) Mad-Eye Moody (FKA Brendan Gleeson) stars alongside Colin Ferrell’s eyebrows, and I’ll see those fuckers in anything. 3) It is set in Ireland, and I am a slag for a seaside village off the coast of any isle. And finally, 4) The premise of this movie is that two friends who were once inseparable are transitioning out of friendship for no other reason than one just isn’t feeling it anymore. Friend breakups are some of the most confusing and heartbreaking separations a person can weather, and I’ll dive into any narrative that tries to take it on.

Lana can tell you, I wasn’t altogether well after seeing this movie. I went to a solo matinee, and I was prepared to be sad, but I wasn’t really prepared for what I witnessed. Have you ever been to a place where you can feel the suffering that happened there? Almost like trauma still lives in the topography of the landscape even though the war is over? Even though things are different now? Stories set in places like these are difficult to do well by design — do you focus on the overwhelming memory of violence that lingers or do you ignore it because you want this beautiful place and its people to be remembered for more than what they endured? It’s hard to get it right, and I think this film succeeds in illustrating the end of a friendship between two men and does justice to the environment that raised them, however there were some storylines that made me want to scream MUST EVERYONE SUFFER!? AT ALL TIMES?!

CONTENT WARNING: dismemberment. But like, consensual and almost gentle but still altogether shocking. ⭐⭐⭐

🎬Bones and All (romance, horror, thriller, WTF)

This film was recommended to me by my young, hip, genZ friend Arina. She is old enough to legally order an alcoholic drink but young enough to text me in the middle of the night I JUST TOOK A HOT DOG SHOT with a selfie of her wearing a hat that says “I shot the dog.” If you’re wondering, a Hot Dog Shot “is basically a shot, and they add tequila, mustard, ketchup, a cocktail, and it also has a hot dog weenie at the bottom that is NOT cooked, and you eat it and drink it all, and if you do, you get a hat. And this guy named steve paid for it for me and I did the shot and I got a hat.” You actually could not pay me to be 22 again, but I hope she keeps that hat forever.

Honestly y’all, I’m not sure this rec is any less depressing than the one before. Part nostalgic 80s road trip movie, part cannibal Bonnie and Clyde, Bones and All provides delicious (no pun intended) enough cinematography and costumes to warrant a watch but, if you’re looking for a laid-back joyful time, this really, and I cannot stress this enough, really, is not it.

Taylor Russell plays Marren Yaerly (it took me 47 minutes to figure out if she was saying “I’m Erin” or “I’m Marren” but I digress) who is a young cannibal unable to resist trying to eat her friends alive. Abandoned by her single father, she sets off in search of answers, meeting a few cannibals who teach her more about herself along the way: namely Lee a soft sort of glamcowboy, played by Timmy Chamalamadingdong and Sully, a rugged and off-putting fisherman, played by Mark Rylance. Chloë Sevigny also appears, and I would follow her batshit performances anywhere. A legend among mere mortals.

CONTENT WARNING: dismemberment. I can’t totally help that this week’s flicks all happen to involve missing fingers, but I can promise it wasn’t intentional, nor a new niche interest of mine. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reading Round Up

📚Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (nonfiction book)

This book was really interesting to me and actually very helpful in understanding why leaving teaching felt so much harder than just quitting a job. I’m not calling public education a cult, but it’s not not a cult. And many of the same abuses of power are present in education with specific regard to how people wield language as a tool for exploitation. If you are a word nerd, I highly recommend this!

There are these things Amanda Montell writes about in her 2019 book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, called thought-terminating clichés, which is a term coined by a psychiatrist named Robert J. Lifton in 1961. We are surrounded by them and they are wielded by people and institutions that would rather we just not question the status quo too deeply, not think about things too critically, not react to daily violence with anything other than a bowed head. The mantras or mottos they repeat on the surface may seem benign and even empowering, but many of them become a high-control group’s greatest weapon in ushering you away from your instinct. You become excellent at gaslighting yourself away from your intuition and toward the desires of whoever is leading you. 

Some of these clichés Montell mentions are “it is what it is,” “boys will be boys,” “everything happens for a reason,” as responses people may give when you question something that doesn’t make sense. After reading her work I now hear them everywhere. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” “don’t worry, be happy.” The list goes on and on. And I get it, life seems sweeter when you can tie ugly things in pretty bows because who wants to go around critically thinking about everything all the time. And maybe my life would be easier if I could turn my brain off to all the things in this world that don’t make sense and put all my faith in someone who suppose to know all the answers. But if there is anything I learned from being raised by a man who doesn’t trust “the” banks, its suspicion. I was born a-questionin’ and a-questionin’ is where I’ll stay. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cooking Round Up:

🧁 Raspberry Orange Scones (American Scones…Don’t Get Your Knickers in a Twist, Brits) ⭐⭐⭐

Okay, this recipe is the most dysfunctional thing I’ve ever seen. I tried and failed TWICE, and I refuse to believe it was all my fault. Sure, the first time I forgot to pull apart the scones and accidentally just put a giant ball of dough in the oven, but I learned. And the second time, the scones came out just as flat and sad looking. My British friend says it’s because the recipe calls for heavy cream and she would, and I quote, never even consider putting cream in her scone dough. (Clotted cream ON the scones afterward of course. Don’t say “whipped cream” or she’ll curse you and your entire history). HOWEVER the flavors are why I am sharing this with you today. The flavors are delicious. These are basically like muffintops. 

Recipe Changes: 

  • I amended this recipe using raspberries & blueberries because the entire Bay Area was out of cranberries. 

  • I made my own whipped cream (sorry Lana) with the leftover cream 

🧁 Alicia’s Birthday Salad (Twenty NOINE!)

People freaked out over this salad, so after the 4th person said “wow this salad is really good,” I wrote it down. Also, shout out to Camille, who is a new friend who ate this salad. Camille, I love you. Move to Oakland. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ingredients:

- homemade sourdough croutons (stale bread tossed with olive oil, salt, roasted at like 400 for like 25 mins? Til they are crunchy)

  • mixed greens

  • sliced apples

  • cherry tomatoes

  • bleu cheese crumbles

  • toasted almonds

Dressing: Red Wine VinaigretteI use a mason jar and measure on the little lines and then screw the top on and shake it all up.

  • Olive oil and red wine vinegar (3:1 ratio)

  • 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

  • Spoonful of dijon mustard

  • Smaller spoonful of honey

  • Oregano

  • Salt

  • Pepper

🧁 Weezie Beans

Every woman on my mom’s side knows these beans. They are just beans, but they are also a portal to another dimension and make your house smell like 1973. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Directions: Bring 6-8 cups of water to a boil and add your beans and spices. Let simmer for 3-6 hours. Let the house smell like your grandma and do a crossword puzzle or embroider something.  I don’t have exact measurements because I learned how to make these by sniffing and watching. I eat them alone or with homemade bread.

Ingredients:

  • 1 bag of pinto beans (you can soak them or not, my grandma did not give one single damn about soaking)

  • 6 cups of water (add more if you’re cooking longer than a few hours)

  • 1 ham hock (I was too lazy to add this, don’t tell my Auntie Julie!)

  • 2 bay leaves

  • some cumin

  • some paprika

  • salt/pepper

  • fresh rosemary

Making Round Up 

Last week, I tried to get up from my couch, but quickly discovered I could not. I was stuck. By what, I did not year know. After rocking back and forth a few times like my Grandma Weezie used to do, I finally got to my feet with a loud rip. I turned around to see a giant brown cluster of melted milk duds that had come from somewhere and had adhered my pajama bottoms to the cushion of my sofa. I looked to the camera The Office style, and was humiliated. How had this happened? How am I an adult? Well, obviously, I have since FLIPPED the cushion but, you and I both know there is the residue of a C list candy on the other side. So, I have decided to begin a project to fix it. Behold! The embroidered couch. I am a beginner embroiderer, so I am sure this will take 7-10 business years, but I am so inspired by how adorable this is?

Laughing Round Up

Acknowledgements:

Shout out to my Aunties! Aunt Chris and Aunt Carina, thank you for facetiming me on Superbowl Sunday. Bummer about the Eagles — next time! I feel your love across the miles, always. Auntie Julie, thank you for talking me through how to make Grandma Weezie’s beans and for sending me snail mail that included every single person’s birthday in the family. It’s hanging on my fridge next to my recipes! Aunt Kathy, thank you for buying me Harry Potter socks and walking to such beautiful places with me. Your house was the first home I ever knew, and there is no other place in the world more special to me than sitting at your kitchen table. Though it’s been nearly twenty-five years since all of my Aunts lived in the same place, I feel so lucky to have women in my life who continue to want to take walks, make meals, and gossip with me!

Ending Note:

This little newsletter means a lot to me, and the only way I can continue to do it is if I frame it as something I get to do instead of something I have to do. So far, it hasn’t felt like an obligation, and it means the world that y’all just roll with it coming out whenevertheheckisendit. There’s no routine to it, apart from the ritual of finding new things that bring me joy each week, and I love that I’m not forcing myself to have a recommendation for every category or churn it out in a certain number of days because THAT would really make this whole thing into a chore, and then honestly you’d probably never hear from me again, so... A tremendous thank you for your patience, and it honestly brightens my day when people ask when the next one is coming out! (Hopefully soon!) As always, let me know what you think and what you tried! XO, M