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March 10, 2023
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Hope you like super obvious visual metaphors!
Here's my shadow capturing my path through the dunes in Death Valley, 2016.
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Allow me some vain sincerity this week: It's the 10-year anniversary of this newsletter, and I have a poem for you. It's Antonio Machado's Caminante, No Hay Camino, which I think is even more beautiful in Spanish, but here it is in translation:
Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ships’s wake on the sea.
This newsletter is one way I've made my road. It's kept me focused on the next step rather than a perceived destination in the distance. Showing up to write this for 505 weeks (I skipped a few in the early days, but not a single one since 2016) has allowed me to embrace imperfection. It's provided both pressure and release. It's helped me accept that I often say the wrong thing, I say too much, I don’t say enough. It's reassured me that there’s always next week. To try again. To do it better.
In other words, it's a practice.
A decade ago, this is how most people thought of newsletters—a practice you had on the side. As they have crept to the center of media, they have become a product. Newsletters are now, strangely, one of the only ways for emerging writers to publish and a lucrative way for already-established writers to earn a living. A way of getting in and a way of cashing out. The biggest venture capital firms in the country have placed bets on wringing as much money as possible from them.
You could argue that my newsletter is a product, too. I sell memberships. I sell ads. But I see these things as ways to keep my practice sustainable. I need resources, sure, but I can also choose to resist growth for growth's sake. I can choose to redistribute some of those resources, too. (I'm announcing the 2023 writing fellows next week!) I'm as proud of these money-related choices as I am of anything in my considerable archive.
"You were such an early adopter!" people have said to me. But I don't think this newsletter is successful because I started early. It's good because I kept doing it. I keep doing it. Media, and arguably most of culture, is oriented around the new. (Dad-voice: "That's why it's called 'the news!'") The VC dollars swirl like dust devils. Social media platforms rise and fall. Magazines are founded and folded. While I, the wizened crone of the newsletter world, remain happily focused on my next step.
I will hit send today, then show up again next Friday.
God, it's rewarding! When I look over my shoulder at all this practice, I can see that I have been leaving easter eggs for myself. I was astonished in December to realize that our annual end-of-year collective reflection is essentially my adulthood book in miniature. I rely on strangers (you!) to share their experience with me, then sift through those experiences, then do my best to write something that both honors the specifics and collapses them into more universal themes. I'm practicing this yet again with a little rumination on your own decade-long practices, below.
I'm so grateful to be here, 10 years later. Thank you for making the path with me.
-AF
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Matthew Desmond on the persistence of poverty in the U.S.: "The question that should serve as a looping incantation [...] is simply: Who benefits? Not: Why don’t you find a better job? Or: Why don’t you move? Or: Why don’t you stop taking out payday loans? But: Who is feeding off this?"
Anti-trans laws aren’t symbolic, writes Jules Gill-Peterson in a look at what legislation like this is really intended to accomplish.
Katherine Demby on what Sojourner Truth actually said in her speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Ohio: "I am a woman's rights."
Rest in power, Judy Heumann. Lucy Webster on her legacy.
Breaking: Autumn Fourkiller does not like seltzer.
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The Lean In Pie
Archival from 2013, originally published in The Hairpin (RIP).
This was the first pie chart to ever appear in my newsletter, and no it's not about Sheryl Sandberg but it does feel very of its time. I would never lean into an internet brouhaha in 2023! Dear god.
This week, I'm pulling down the pie-wall to celebrate my anniversary. If you're not a member, please consider underwriting my practice! It's just $15 per year.
BECOME A MEMBER
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Lately I've been making an effort to listen to full albums rather than playlists. This feels extremely retro, I'm sad to report, but I am enjoying it!
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This is your semi-regular reminder to find out whether anti-trans bills are moving through the legislature in your state and, if they are, send a letter to your representatives demanding they stop these bills from advancing.
If you're not in one of these states, consider a donation to a grassroots group that's directly supporting transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people. The Trans Justice Funding Project has a list.
This week, 100% of my ad revenue is going to the Transcend Campaign, which distributes funds to programs that support trans, nonbinary, and queer people in the upper Midwest.
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Can’t decide what to watch next? You’re not alone! Cozy Ripples is a free weekly newsletter featuring recommendations by women, for women, of TV shows and movies they love. Each week brings you something different, so you’ll never get bored. Subscribe now to start watching something fabulous!
Roses are red, Violets is here! A weekly adventure through texture, colour, and the senses—brought to you by modern poetry. (Beginner friendly.)
Dealing with money doesn’t have to feel terrible! If you are a business owner, freelancer, or creative with fluctuating income and want support to help you create a secure and joyful financial reality in your personal life, come check out the Verdi Money Club, starting on May 1.
Want to be more creatively fulfilled, physically active, and emotionally steady? This newsletter asks all the right questions — and even answers some. Subscribe to Think & Move
These ads support my practice! Click here for rates and info.
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| OUR DECADE-LONG PRACTICES |
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Let's start with the expected practices: Praying, journaling, meditating. Letting go of things we'd otherwise drag around. Reading fiction in bed every night. Picking out our clothes the night before to save some precious A.M. brain juice. Making our bed every morning because we immediately feel better when we do it. Taking a walk first thing, because nothing beats a summer morning with the birds waking up and the flowers opening, especially if we catch the neighborhood owl on its way to bed!
Coffee, two cups. Water, two glasses. Black tea with honey and cream, from a shared pot with our partner.
Every relationship is a practice. We are working on being married. On loving our husband, even though he died last year. On living in a cohousing community. On remembering to text our long-distance best friend. On making short, frequent catch-up phone calls that somehow make it easier to talk about the hard stuff than infrequent long ones.
We practice swimming, and our body sings under water. Yoga, so we remember to breathe. Running, which gives us so much joy in moving our body and being outside. Hey, it's 45 minutes a day when we can't look at our phone. Ten years in, we realize that we have gotten pretty strong. We are now motivated by self-love, not self-loathing.
We knit, which might be the ultimate meta-practice because it means working on something little by little, and eventually ending up with something unique in this world. Every eight weeks, we spend 10 hours putting our hair in Senegalese twists, caring for ourselves. We keep a Google doc of every book we read, which, even though it's only titles and authors, now is an archive of our life. We travel from icy Minnesota to the alien-warm desert every January to spend a weekend basking in the sun. We sing along to “The Lusty Month Of May” as soon as we wake up every single May 1st, even though some of those Mays have been lustier than others.
We keep going to therapy, even when things are good and it feels kind of silly. We've been working on being resilient in a society that harms trans people, because it isn't enough to just survive. We love the gifts we share with the world, so we keep going. We have to practice our authentic selves.
Thanks to everyone who shared your practice! Here's the full sheet of replies.
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For my very first newsletter, I solicited testimonials from friends who generously complied even though they hadn't read it yet. All these years later, I'd like to return the favor:
Jon Mooallem, whose latest feature I wrote about a few weeks ago, remains one of my favorite writers. His latest book, the delightful essay collection Serious Face, will be out in paperback in a few months.
Wendy MacNaughton now has a newsletter herself! It's called Draw Together, and it's a shot of creative energy. Subscribe for artistic activities (and pep talks!) for both kids and adults.
Plus, a few more:
Laura Bertocci and Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan have helped me handle ads and memberships, which allows me to focus on the parts of the practice that I love.
Jacque Boltik, through years of tech support and innovation, has given me the tools I need to keep up this practice. Damn, she's good at creating her own path rather than searching for one that's pre-made.
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| This newsletter is still here, baby! |
| Forward it to someone who supports your practice. |
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