To your future self

The future! It’s more amorphous than ever, despite all of our tugging and prodding to force it into something recognizable. So I invite you to meet yourself there, wherever it may be, in one year’s time, with a letter to yourself that you write today. Would you? 

You can use an online tool like FutureMe, which will email you at a date of your choosing. Or, mail me your letter and I will return it to you in one year (unopened of course). Reply to this email if you’d like to take that route.

What will we find and hold? And grow and change? Write it down and send it out.

Reading

-How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher

Articles

-The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery, Charles M. Blow, NYT (I hope if you’re white and reading this, you’ll join me in donating to Ahmaud’s family ‘s Gofundme, follow the Georgia NAACP for updates and action items, and commit to spending time learning about white supremacy—here’s a good thread from Ally Henny on this).

-Twenty-four hours at the epicenter of the pandemic, The New Yorker

-Scrutiny of Social-Distance Policing as 35 of 40 Arrested Are Black, Ashley Southall, NYT

-Is It Safe to Come Out of Lockdown? Check the Sewer, Carl Zimmer, NYT

-Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over., Sabrina Orah Mark, Paris Review (a breathtaking essay on academia, work, worth, motherhood, now)

-'I wanted something 100% pornographic and 100% high art': the joy of writing about sex, Garth Greenwell, the Guardian

-Kenny’s Window: Maurice Sendak’s Forgotten Philosophical Children’s Book About Love, Loneliness, and Knowing What You Really Want, Maria Popova, Brainpickings

Listening

-What We Value, TED Radio Hour (thanks to Lesley for sharing this one)

-Seeing White, Scene on Radio (thanks to Ellen for the rec)

Writing

-For Wirecutter, I wrote an in-depth guide to freezing tips and gear. If you’re getting into freezing now, I hope it helps!

Cooking

-Baked Tofu With Peanut Sauce and Coconut-Lime Rice: A standby.

-Valerie’s French Chocolate Cake: For mother’s day, for when you want to mother yourself, for when you need chocolate. 

Some nice things

-Poetic inspiration from a prompt by Shira Ehrlichman

-Maybe this excerpt from the Sylvia Plath’s Food Diary account isn’t exactly “nice,” but it’s still kinda perfect.

A song to leave you with:

Until next time.