Friday greetings, friends -
I’m writing on the fumes of a long week of solo parenting, during which time one of my sons (the booger-ridden, sneezy, coughing one) curled up in bed with me every night. One night he sneezed directly in my face and today, whatever germs were in that spray are blooming in my head and throat.
So I’m just checking in to tell you some of the questions that have been rattling around in my head for this newsletter that I plan to write about soon.
I’m wondering how to best help my sons build an understanding of boyhood and masculinity that is layered and inclusive, one that de-centers the archetypes and role models they see all around them, in books and movies and television and sporting events and advertising and politics and...Hit me up with any thoughts or resources.
Clean water has been on my mind ever since DJT stripped pollution controls on streams and wetlands. Even more so since reading about “forever chemicals” (the kind in nonstick cookware and some waterproof clothes) showing up in people’s drinking water, and the president’s threat to veto a measure to regulate them that passed in Congress last year. I’m curious about whose access to clean water will be most curtailed under this administration, especially if the nightmare of 45 continues.
Hi, my name is Leigh and I own three pairs of pants. I just did a massive purge of my wardrobe and got rid of everything that no longer fit, all the beloved old t-shirts with holes in the armpits, all of the sweaters with stains and pills and - well, you get the idea. Very little remains. How are women building wardrobes for changing bodies, with an eye toward slow fashion (online consignment is my personal jam) and good fit? I need a guru.
It’s a poetry kind of week:
What Kinds of Times Are These, by Adrienne Rich
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
You know when you have some ideas swirling around in your head and then you read something that articulates them better than you ever could have? For me this week it was this great piece on the anti-woman bias in coverage of all things goop.
I’m very excited to curl my under-the-weather self onto the couch and crack open Fleishman is in Trouble, by one of my favorite writers.
May your weekends be restful and germ-free.
XO
Leigh