Fall in love with yourself again: Rediscovering childhood joy
Celebrating 1 year of this newsletter with a new Foster The People song, 4 book recaps, fall baking recipes, and recommendations for main character energy this October
This email marks one year of monthly recaps. It’s been such a joy compiling these posts, reflecting on the month — and sharing books, recipes, songs, silly little links. If you’re new, welcome, it’s so good to have you! If you’ve been here from the start or for awhile, thank you! I hope you’ve picked up a good book, enjoyed a memorable meal, or felt the comfort of similarity in some of the feelings I’ve shared.
I’ve made tiny tweaks as I learned more about Substack and worked to find my voice. I’ve talked a lot about friendship and seasonality. As the months passed I showed up more vulnerably, channeling my creative energy. For that I credit The Artist’s Way. Yes, here we go again. I’m still talking about it. During the 12-week course, through reading and exercises, you often revisit childhood and early conditioning when many times our creativity is stifled:
“…children are urged into thinking of the arts as hobbies, creative fluff around the edges of real life.”
Here are just a few of the of the tasks aimed at rediscovering your power as an artist (and a few of my examples):
Describe five traits you liked in yourself as a child. (Love of reading.)
List five childhood accomplishments. (Organizing backyard performances with the neighbors.)
List five favorite childhood foods. (Vienna sausages. I know.)
Describe your childhood room. (Handmade #1 Gloria Estefan fan sign on the door.)
Remember yourself at eight. What did you like to do What were your favorite things? Write a letter from you at eight to your current age.
Completing these tasks allowed me to reconnect with some of the things and experiences that brought me joy at early age: art supplies, Skip-It, notebooks filled with stories — and consider how I can bring more of that type of joy to my current life. A few months after completing The Artist’s Way and I’ve picked up my watercolors, created a daily after work hula hoop ritual, and continued drafting my fiction project.
Recently, I was going though a box of childhood mementos — you may know the kind, a mystery box twinged with a musty smell that comes from your parent’s basement. Alongside elementary school yearbooks, 4-H projects, and my orthodontic headgear, were old writing assignments — stories and poems. It was incredible to have these physical artifacts of my love of writing and reading from a young age. One poem especially jumped out, for its descriptions of me as a maybe fifth or sixth grader:
I laughed at how true this is today. You won’t find me jogging anytime soon, but I can see the roots of my values here.
For me, The Artist’s Way was a path to creative recovery, one that I was already on, but the course ultimately returned the freedom to explore creativity. In my morning pages, I’m often reminding myself of this promise from the course, “I’m willing to experience my creative energy.”
With that, I’m excited for some changes to come in this space. You’ll start to hear from me more often, starting next week! I don’t want to spoil anything, but it will be in the same spirit of finding answers, but with a slight twist.
This month I hope you can reflect and find a way to rediscover some joy from your childhood. And maybe you don’t need to go through a 12-week creative course or musty box, maybe it’s just tapping into old memories, looking at photos, buying a box of cereal, or watching a favorite movie.
As you do, listen to this song from Foster The People that I’ve had on repeat. A song the band describes as, “about returning to innocence and feeling joy again.”
On to the recaps…
Answers in the pages:
Sandwich, Catherine Newman
"And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same.”
I did not want this book to end. I wanted to hang out with these characters, swim together, sit on the beach, eat sandwiches. Catherine Newman writes about familial relationships beautifully and it’s the kind of family dynamics that seem ideal: supportive, loving, open. But still, in any family there are secrets, withholdings in the name of protection — for the self, for the family. Maybe it’s the Tolstoy each unhappy family thing. Taking place over the course of an annual summer vacation, you’ll feel like you’re on the beach next to the main character as she experiences the ups and downs being a part of the sandwich generation and reflecting on the past. All with Newman’s masterful wit and emotionality. While I’d like to recommend this book to everyone, there are content warnings worth considering around grief, miscarriage, abortion, and pregnancy.
The French Ingredient, Jane Bertch
“I recognized how the things I had always thought were so important, weren't. I was already feeling that I was not where I should be with this precious little life that I had. Now that feeling grew and began to permeate everything."
This one was part memoir of an American expat. Layers of self-discovery, entrepreneurship, and perseverance as the author finds herself transitioning from a banking career to opening a cooking school. Another part is lessons in the Parisian way of life. It’s a guidebook in understanding the customs and how they approach everything from work to dinner parties, to voting and protesting. If the summer Olympics lit a torch of Francophile fire in you, this is a good read and a good story to remind us we can change paths.
Against the Loveless World, Susan Abulhawa
“Everything I worry about feels impossibly small and unimportant when I’m confronted with a sky like this.”
This historical fiction read was a moving, informative entryway to learn more about Palestinian history, culture, and the long fight for freedom. The story follows the main character, Nahr as she reflects on her life story from her cell as a political prisoner. Her story is gripping — you’ll feel her anger, joy and sadness in her experiences with family, displacement, resistance, love, and more. The book takes the reader through her childhood, growing up in Kuwait, to when the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee during early adulthood, at a time when she’s struggling to support her family and makes difficult decisions in order to do so. From there she flees with family to Jordan before finding home, in many ways, in Palestine. While there is trauma and the book feels bleak at times, it’s also full of hope and endurance.
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
“I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story.”
Is Ann Patchett working for the Michigan board of tourism? This book made me want to flip the calendar back to June and take a drive to the cherry trees of my northern neighbor. This story drips in Michigan ambiance and takes the reader back to the early days of the pandemic, when many families were trapped together, distractions were sorely needed, and time moved slower. The main character tells her grown daughters the story of her brush with fame as a young actress, including a relationship with an actor who goes on to become huge star. It’s a slow-burn story of coming-of-age, young love, familial love, and womanhood.
The family reminded me of the siblings in It’s Complicated. Meryl Streep narrates the audiobook, so despite not being a huge fiction audio fan, I wished I would have tried with this one. Oh, and I feel like I should mention Our Town plays a huge part, so if that’s going to give you high school English PTSD, this one is not for you.
Answers in the kitchen: 4 sweet treats for fall
September was a month of remaking summer favorites while tomatoes were still at the farmers market, so I welcomed fall with some delicious treats:
These satisfied my “I’m ready for fall but it’s 90 degrees” pumpkin cravings.
The recipe name doesn’t lie, this cobbler was magical.
True to its name as well, apple cider donut bread will now be an annual recipe.
I bake a lot (obviously), and these pumpkin chip chocolate cookies are my personal favorite cookie in my repertoire (I skip the glaze).
Answers elsewhere: Inspiration for main character energy this October
Soundtrack: Put this song on while you get ready in the morning and picture yourself in a fall movie montage.
Costumes: I adore Rachel Antonoff’s designs (this!) and hope one day to splurge or score something on TheRealReal, those dreams were fueled further by her NYFW show with Susan Alexandra. The Best in Show theme had it all: Rescue dogs! Alison Roman, Chris Fleming, and Atsuko Okatsuka.
