Happy Friday and last day of January!
I was driving on the belt of highway surrounding Boston when I heard about Kobe Bryant’s death on the radio.
I was alone in the car at a rotary near a golf course an hour later when I talked to my dad out loud (he died four years ago) - not a thing I normally do.
I was still in the car when I realized I was unsure of whose death I was crying over.
What I’ve learned about personal grief is that there really is no map - memory can hijack your emotions whenever it wants. But when a celebrity dies, there’s a predictable cycle we go through together:
-Shock
-Tears
-Hagiography/more tears
-Don’t forget the bad stuff
-Attempts to balance the dimensions of humanity
-Looking in the mirror
-Moving on
Maybe there’s a similar cycle when we grieve people close to us, too - it just happens in private, and it repeats itself at unforseen moments (like when we’re unexpectedly grieving the death of a brilliant athlete). The public grief cycle for Kobe Bryant is largely complete five days later, but there’s a deeper, more private type of grief, maybe triggered by his and his daughter’s (and their fellow passengers) deaths that many people are still processing.
As in:
Stay with yourself through your grief - take care of it. And talk to your dead people - it’s comforting.
Yours in unexpected tears,
Leigh
CARE FOR: In this section, I highlight stuff that gets me thinking about the forms and functions of care and how we express it. Have something you want to share? Tell me!
OURSELVES: This is the vulva-focused content I’ve been waiting for. ;) Except streaming overload caused us to cancel Netflix so all I can do is read about it.
EACH OTHER: Thinking a lot about the American Dirt fallout, and questions like: who gets to tell stories; and more importantly, who gets to decide who gets to tell stories. I’ll think I’ll refer to this list of books about the border, instead.
THE PLANET: Eager to see Mark Ruffalo in Dark Waters, a story of how lawyer Rob Bilott took on Dupont for knowingly poisoning the water in West Viginia and Ohio. A horrifying story, and I have to ask: why does stuff like this keep happening?
WE ALL GOTTA EAT:
It’s true. Here’s one thing I’m cooking these days:
On Tuesdays the kids have a swim class that goes until 7pm. By the time they rinse off, pack up, and shoot a few hoops in the gym, it’s close to 8pm by the time we get home. We haven’t had dinner, and we’re dangerously close to having a collective meltdown. I make nachos on nights like this, because they take ten minutes and no one can argue with them.
Some tips:
-Make them in a baking dish that lets you build at least three layers. The best nachos are the ones at the bottom that soften from the beans and the heat but are still super cheesy, imo.
-Use more cheese than seems appropriate (this is the second time I’ve given this advice this week). Bake them on 375°F.
-Nachos are a perfect excuse to get rid of that slightly wan radish, the quarter bag of frozen corn, the old scallions in the crisper drawer.
-Serve the mashed avocado, plain Greek yogurt or sour cream, and salsa on the side.
-Send everyone to bed right afterward.