Quick publication update:
My first work of fiction! “Picnic on a Plane” was published this weekend in The Bluebird Word. This is a flash fiction piece (aka very short story) I wrote last year for my application to the Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship for New Parents. It received honorable mention, so I’m reapplying this year with another story I’ve almost finished. I have no idea how to write fiction, so it’s been fun to challenge myself. Thanks to The Bluebird Word for publishing my work!
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Over the past few months, one of the recurring themes in my essay-writing has been my friendships with men. It devastates me that friendship is treated as inferior to romance in our culture. So much is lost. There, you’ve read half my essays.
In early 2020, as I took stock of my human relationships, I wrote a series of letters to friends. What those friends all had in common: a capacity for play.
I know few people who embody play—and playfulness—more than my friend Christopher.* I first met Chris in Chicago when I was 15. What I remember from that day is that he’d started a tradition called Turquoise Trouser Tuesdays (or maybe it was Thursdays).
Four years later in San Francisco, I spotted him eating a shawarma across the street from Range, the restaurant where I worked. Months later, I’d see him on the bus across the city, we’d both transfer at the same stop, I’d ask where he lived. Lapidge Street was (still is) one block long and we both lived there.
Soon Chris and his household became the center of my community in the city. I started dating Mike, one of his roommates. My friends became their friends (and vice versa) and their home became an extension of my own. That era remains cloaked in nostalgia—my college years without much college.
Over the years, Chris has consistently embodied enthusiastic curiosity and creativity. He opened a collective art gallery with friends, made bold proclamations like, “I’ve decided to eliminate inconvenience from my life,” started a wooden tie business. Currently, his company, Wood Thumb, encourages adults in the tech-heavy Bay Area to get into a wood shop and make something with their hands. My daughter refers to him, still, as Mystery Sock Guy because almost four years ago he and his wife (who was also my roommate on Lapidge Street) came to visit and he brought a sock filled with goodies which functioned as a grab bag. It appeared at intervals throughout their visit.
I haven’t lived near Christopher in 13 years, but he continues to be a touchstone of expansive thinking. Twice in my depressed years, it was conversations with him that brought back flickers of possibility. In one, we talked about the book Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Another was centered around David Whyte’s What to Remember When Waking. Both were pivotal reminders that the edges weren’t where I’d thought they were. They poked at dormant creativity, ultimately led me into writing.
When I sent the letters to friends three years ago, I didn’t recognize the through line of play. I knew I was telling people they mattered, but I was just beginning to tiptoe back to myself. Looking back, I now think I was rediscovering play and trying to share that with a bunch of people I loved through the mail.
(Optional) Assignment:
Pick someone in your life who represents play and send them mail. It can be a postcard with a single cryptic sentence or a full care package complete with 10-page letter. Maybe channel them a little. Whatever sounds fun—and manageable. Celebrate your friends.
*if you are newish to the newsletter (welcome!), you can read about what I mean by play in this earlier post. If you don’t feel like it, just know you don’t have to be playful to play.
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One more note, about Notes:
Today, Substack (the platform I use to write this newsletter) launched Notes, which functions like Twitter or Instagram: a continual feed of shared photos, quick thoughts, etc. I have no idea what it will become, and I’m not ready to hop on just yet, but it’s worth mentioning because they’re trying something new. Substack—and Notes—doesn’t run on ads. The company is also not owned (as far as I can tell) by profit-hungry buffoons. Instead, it appears to be an attempt to expand, and normalize, the notion that subscription models are the future of “content.” Instead of a handful of people becoming billionaires, writers can make a respectable living and their readers won’t become products in the attention economy. One of the aforementioned buffoons, Elon Musk, was apparently so threatened by this rollout last week he was blocking links to Substack on Twitter. I think it’s all worth paying attention to.
One thing I love about your newsletters is that you bring in the work of many others whose ideas are tangential, supportive, interesting to consider in light of play, and otherwise. So, you introduce me to books and more that I am interested in learning about. It kind of reminds me of the author in your previous piece, Jenny O’Dell, lots of research but with your own refreshing angle. I am really excited to send a cryptic postcard!
I think San Francisco helps cultivate Play in people, because when you think about it, it truly is a city that celebrates Play in every single way. I miss those years so much!