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Ann Friedman - Baby, you're a seafaring vessel!
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Ann Friedman Weekly
March 25, 2022
Martin Johnson Heade   
This week
I'm thinking about movement, stillness, endings, beginnings. For ages there's been a quote lurking in my notes app about the concept of "navigatio," a pilgrimage by boat with a circular itinerary of exodus and return. The aim of such a journey, writes Robert MacFarlane in The Old Ways, "was to undergo an apprenticeship to signs of strangeness with a view to becoming more attentive to the meanings of one's own time and place—geographical, spiritual, intellectual."

It feels apt to share this concept today, as another large ship has gotten stuck, as we in the northern hemisphere push toward spring, and as Nereya Otieno publishes the final installment in her series of essays about her immigration journey. Scroll down for an excerpt, or click through right now to read the whole thing. Think of it as a 16-minute navigatio: A way to become more attentive to the meanings of your own time.
I'm reading
Senate Democrats have, with a few exceptions, utterly failed to stand up for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—the most qualified nominee to the court in recent history—in the face of openly racist hostility and outrageous smears. "Jackson," writes Dahlia Lithwick, "deserved better than to simply be forced to 'persevere' almost entirely alone." This dynamic is not exclusive to Capitol Hill. And speaking of our collective failure to stand up for Black women, Brittney Griner remains detained in Russia.

Eli Saslow has a devastating account of how one family went from financial stability to poverty in the span of a generation—a not-uncommon story in modern-day America. 

"[T]he last couple of years have carried a reordering of life on every level, from the personal to the global. Individual bonds are changing in the midst of a pandemic. The faint promise of a nation you can trust has waned. There is no obvious immediate, or even distant, way back to the systems that governed us and the contracts that bound us before the pandemic. That world, on every level, is gone." -Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Not getting enough sleep, writes Jonathan White, is not a personal problem. It's a broad social injustice.

I have avoided linking to crypto explainers, but this one, by Kevin Roose, is not trying to convince you to invest. It's trying to convince you to pay attention.

Mattie Kahn on how balloons blew up, Michelle Santiago Cortés on the contradictions of anti-girlboss memes, and a really lovely short piece by Jonny Sun on the comforts of dumpling water.
Pie chart
Which of our personal ships have run aground? 25% EverOptimistic, 15% EverRelaxed, 25% EverRested, 25% EverMotivated, 10% EverChipper
The EverStuck Pie

A related confession: I have been singing to myself a revised version of (shudder) Katy Perry's Firework:

Do you ever feel like a cargo ship
Sitting in the mud
Wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel you just can't win
Like you've run aground
Not even going where you've been?

(Remember that time I wrote a sea shanty about shipworms? Somehow this feels related. Apologies/you're welcome.)

Paying members don't just enable me to circumnavigate the internet, they also support the fantastic work of my writing fellows. Become a paying member for just $15/year. That's per year, not per month.
I’m looking & listening
Or, more accurately, I'm speaking: Aminatou and I have been on a few different shows lately, talking about modern friendship. I was on Talk of Iowa about rekindling friendships, both of us were on WBUR's On Point about maintaining friendships through adulthood, and we both went on Chris Hayes' show to chat about the future of friendship.
A moment
a black woodcut-style animated snake in the shape of an infinity symbol is eating its own tail
What is a GIF but a beginning and an ending and a beginning again, a tiny digital navigatio?
I endorse
Trans Week of Visibility and Action starts today! Block out a little bit of time on your calendar to participate in a different action each day, each centered on a different state where trans people could use your active solidarity.
Anything to Declare? Vol. 12: Beginnings > Endings > Beginnings
This is the 12th and final essay in a series by Nereya Otieno exploring her experience with immigration. This also concludes her year as one of my inaugural writing fellows. If you're just now checking in, I invite you to go back and read all the essays in this series. They're great. -AF

By Nereya Otieno
 

Endings are never neat, barely tidy. They happen quickly, staccato. Or are long, laborious and languid — bordering on impossible before they’re suddenly all-at-once. I can’t craft an ending to my immigrant story because I didn’t want it to end. Not then in real life and not now in my retelling. Frankly, I’m not sure it’s over yet. Maybe we’re in the middle or even still in the beginning. I’m wary of resolutions that are strictly warm and bright, never showing the scars. So, that’s not the resolution I’m going to give you. I’ll write it as it comes.
 

Click here to read an ending/beginning in 18 vignettes. You won't regret it.

You can listen to Nereya read this essay. And finally, please subscribe to keep getting her words in your inbox! Strongly recommended.
Events
April 9, Los Angeles - I'm in conversation with Chloé Cooper Jones about her memoir, Easy Beauty, at Skylight Books.

The Classifieds
Do you love the moon? Learn to manifest your desires with the full and new moon! Skeptics welcome. Get a practical approach to align with the energies of the Universe and create the life you want with this free Guide to Manifesting with the Moon Cycles from Colette Baron-Reid.
Mental illness is no joke. But I'll try my best to make it one. Subscribe to Psychology Onions and let's laugh in the face of our mental illnesses.
Interested in fringe religions + metaphysics? Give This Is -isms podcast a listen! It’s weird in a good way.
Writers + artists, want to be told what to do? Want a loving but firm presence to give you direction in this unanswerable world? Join Homework Club and let author + arts consultant Beth Pickens break life down into manageable steps. Just $15/month for homework, workshops, and accountability pods.

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Testimonials
"Saying YES to @annfriedman's "surprise me" link in this week's newsletter" -Scott Burau. ICYM: Last week's surprise was a donation link for Stacey Abrams' campaign for Georgia governor. Still a good one to say yes to. 

This newsletter is ending—just until next Friday, when it will begin again.
Forward it to someone beginning an ending.


Ann Friedman
AF WEEKLY

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