The only one

Dear friend,

Do you remember when this was essentially a walk report? I became inspired to start Take Your Time during my obsessive walking days of the pandemic. When everything else was stripped away, like many I re-discovered the simple comfort of going for a walk. Pretty soon, it became the balm my days desperately needed and in that space of letting my mind wander, new ideas began to come to me. Ideas for art, something I thought my brain had finally lost. I didn’t know how to share what just going for a walk was doing for me so I thought I’d share the walk itself. Then I saw that someone else - a writer who already had some success and a growing audience - had also launched a newsletter centered on walking, almost at the same time as me. I couldn’t stomach being the other, much smaller one doing the same thing.

A few nights ago I sat down with a friend for a drink before our dinner reservation and we got onto the topic of her own creative work. This is one of my favorite things: talking to someone about the dreams they think are unrealistic. Besides writing alone, I think I’m most myself when I accompany someone through their ideas, asking them the questions that will bring them to the  answers they need, answers they’ve known all along. Most of the time during these conversations I inevitably find myself talking about how just because someone else has already done something - perhaps even more successfully than you have reason to believe is possible for you - it doesn’t mean that your place in the world gets erased. Although my friend is a smart, funny, insightful person whose takes on pop culture would be a joy to read, she’s standing at the same closed door where a lot of us find ourselves: someone much bigger is already doing this pretty well. In other words: what’s the point of me trying?

And, I don’t know the best answer to that. I just know that the further I zoom out from the hyper-comparison of social media, where it feels like everybody is just continuously replicating something until songs, words even people seem to lose all meaning, the more I want to zoom in on actual people. I don’t want to consume the replication of some influencer (sorry, content creator) who churns out content based on algorithms and growth strategies centered on grabbing and then selling my attention. There was a time when that stuff was at least entertaining. But these days it feels like I’ve lifted the veil too far and now I can’t ignore the green screen.

But I think the idea of replication perhaps gets too tangled up in what we experience on social media far too often. Last week I watched all of One Day (Netflix) in one day. I went into it having read the book and watched the movie (yes, it’s been done twice before) so I assumed it would be just a casual something to have on the screen while my best friend and I catch up. Pretty soon we were both rapt and then we were both crying. Although it has already been done before, this iteration was more tender, more relatable and therefore more heartbreaking for me than even the source material. I think that’s down to many things, including the actors who brought something beautiful and believable to the story, and myself who is now much older and more tender about life. Whatever the reason, I am so glad that whoever had the idea to recreate this story didn’t ask themselves what’s the point of me trying?

My friend, as usual this is as much a letter to myself as it is to you, so I don’t have a bow with which to neatly tie this all up. I’m still just working through these questions myself. But I do have some thoughts that I hope you’ll consider: what if you didn’t have to be the best or the youngest or the only one to do something? What if, instead of algorithms you pleased the person inside of you who has been shoved away for fear of being seen trying and failing? What if you just tried?

Something to read

Months after I’ve read it, I sstill find myself breathlessly asking friends if they have or will they (please) read The Bee Sting. Among my many joys this week was sitting down to coffee with my darling Sheryll (whose newsletter you should definitely be reading) while we talked for nearly three hours about this book. The Bee Sting asks us how much a person can be known, and it warns us against the dangers of not living our truest life. We meet the Barnes family in a small Irish town as their fortune is on a sharp decline. Macro and micro economic disasters have struck, but more importantly each individual member of this family is being undone in ways that are specific to their own lonely and tender core. It’s often hard to witness their stories and nearly 700 pages later you will find yourself unable to let them go. In other words, just read it. And then please come and talk to me about it.

---

I hope you’re well out there, and thank you for being here.

Unrelated to anything here but still very important: here is an extremely cold petite martini and perfectly salted butter swimming in olive oil. Find both at Little Sparrow in Atlanta.