A very 90s Alien. Art on the Fens. A wrestler and his diary.
It's Saturday, people.
And just like that … tomorrow is JUNE OF 2025.
That’s the half way point for this year.
Let’s not panic about all of the things we wanted to have accomplished “by June 1,” and instead exhale with gratitude that we are alive and (in my case) clutching a piping hot cup of coffee on this Saturday morning.
In fact, not only am I grateful for this cup of coffee, I am loving the very loud finch chirping outside my window. Why? Because I can almost guarantee he isn’t chirping about his goals for 2025. He’s just living.
So … whattya say we focus on the little bits of goodness scattered all around us this morning?
Here are my little bits of goodness from May:
Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino. This beautiful, quiet novel is about a girl named Adina born to a single mother in mid-1970s Philly. Except Adina is not actually a girl. She’s an alien on a mission to study humans and report back to her superiors via fax machine. The novel follows Adina through her life as she diligently faxes her observations, each one exquisite in its strange specificity. Her teen struggles and only-child-of-a-single-mom otherness were both piercing and deeply familiar. Here’s an example of one of Adina’s observations:
Human beings, Adina faxes, did not think their lives were challenging enough so they invented roller coasters. A roller coaster is a series of problems on a steel track. Upon encountering real problems, human beings compare their lives to riding a roller coaster, even though they invented roller coasters to be fun things to do on their days off.
Perfection.
Vietnam: The War That Changed America on Apple TV War documentaries aren’t my first choice for Friday night viewing, but my best friend Aaron recommended it saying, “These are not the stories we’ve heard before.” He was right. These stories were shocking, harrowing, heartbreaking, and heartening. I couldn’t help but hear echoes of our 20+ years in Afghanistan and wondered if perhaps this documentary should be required viewing for all Americans—or at least the Americans in charge of deciding on our involvement in war.
The Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston. In a recent post, I mentioned that my daughter and I had visited this museum, but I need to go a bit deeper here because HOW HAVE I NEVER BEEN TO THE ISABELLA GARDNER MUSEUM?! Gardner was an heiress who used her fortune to collect art. And by “art” I mean paintings from the likes of Botticelli, Titian, Vermeer, and Rembrandt, but also sketches and furniture and lovely bits of lace and ceramic trinkets and stained glass vignettes and altars from Spain and painted panels from Japan and … and … and … and!!! But Gardner didn’t just hoard these treasures for herself and her familiars. She built a magnificent museum that was (and continues to be) open to the public, leaving it with an endowment to carry on after her death in 1919. Walking the museum is like being guided by an eccentric, fabulous, intergalactically wealthy friend as she shows what she’s into. If you are ever in Boston, don’t miss this place.
The courtyard at the Gardner Museum. How a Professional Wrestler Uses His Journal. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know I love journaling. I love paper. Pens. Weekly journals. Daily journals. I’m here for all of it. And it turns out The Quiet Storm shares my love of this medium. He tends to capture his “favorite moves” and wrestling goals. Just like me! LOL
That’s all from my corner of the Universe.
What lit you up this month?
Shine on. We need your light.
B
