Over the past four months, I had a baby. We bought a house. We undertook significant renovations on said house. Packed up one home, moved, unpacked1 another. (Enormous gifts, all of these, but still—highly do not recommend closing on your first home when your second child is a week fresh.) Shifted and re-formed routines in a new neighborhood. Re-tooled childcare for both girls. Grieved with several close friends through their own losses. Navigated the usual stressors of work, illness, a random injury, lack of sleep, toddler chaos, etc.
I am grateful. I am tired.
For the first few months postpartum, my mind felt wiped clean of any thought that wasn’t related to concrete, immediate needs: feeding myself and the baby, deciding where to place electrical outlets, helping the toddler dress and undress and dress again in a *different* outfit. Sometimes it bothered me, as someone who constantly composes words in her head, that I couldn’t reflect on or make meaning from the seismic shifts of birth and postpartum. But the benefit of having had one baby already is that I knew, eventually, my creative capacity would come crawling back. (“I have gone to pieces before and I have seen the pieces come back together, sometimes in surprisingly fertile ways.”2)
I’ll start a regular rhythm of posting here again this month. But in the meantime, here are a few good things that I managed to absorb in the chaotic fever-dream of this summer:
Summer’s input was mostly sensory. The past four months tasted like Alison Roman’s potato salad, salmon with tropical pico, pesto on everything, peach crisp and lemon bars, cold cubes of watermelon, G&Ts and Aperol spritzes. It felt like a permanent knot in my right shoulder from breastfeeding and the baby’s head tucked under my chin, both of us hot and damp as I wore her on neighborhood walks.
As far as books go, I surprised myself by dipping my toes into the world of romance. (Very much late to the party, I know.) My gateway drug was novels about romantic relationships, minus a Happily Ever After. I read Nick Hornby and Dolly Alderton and Claire Daverley, then moved on from sharply-observant British writers to the rom-coms of Emily Henry and Jasmine Guillory and Ali Hazelwood. (Delightful!) And from there, well. Let’s just say I may or may not have torn through a certain sexy fairies series (iykyk). These are the kinds of books I would have, in a previous life, dismissed. But you know what? They are FUN. During the months that my brain could only ingest information in crude chunks, their plot-driven, banter-infused, predictable pages were exactly what I needed. They lack subtlety, which is not a critique—sometimes I don’t want subtlety. Reading romance novels reminded me of the full-bodied pleasure of being transported by a book, falling headfirst into a world and only reluctantly dragging myself from the page, the way I did as a child lying on the brown carpet of my bedroom. Very immersive. Very entertaining. (I also found it fascinating to hear smart women talk about the internalized shame many people feel about reading romance.) ANYWAY!
I love a good profile, and this profile of Suleika Jaouad by the brilliant Jennifer Season is exactly that. (Of Jaouad and her husband Jon Batiste, Senior writes: “They made for a captivating pair, though the weather systems surrounding them couldn’t have been more different: She was enveloping and collected people; he was shy and abstracted, as if involved in a long, vigorous conversation with himself.”)
Ezra Klein interviewed Marilynne Robinson3 about the book of Genesis’s strangeness and beauty. I particularly liked listening to Robinson talk about the literary choices made by the Bible’s writers. “I think that the writers and sustainers of this tradition were not only brilliant, but also devoted. They were faithful to the text. And the impulse to change it, the impulse to edit uncomfortable things out of it, they were too devout, really, I think, to fall into that temptation.”
Poet
just published a collection of poems titled Broken Waters, about the crucible and conversion of pregnancy and birth. I devoured it.I’ve been waiting years (!) for The Book of Belonging, since backing it as a Kickstarter. And now it’s here! Bible stories for kids that emphasize God’s diverse family and our belonging within that family.
is so, so beautiful—I get weepy reading it to my girls (and myself, tbh). A million congrats and thank-yous, Mariko and Rachel, for writing and illustrating this treasure.
Recent work:
“We’re just consistently invisible.” For The Christian Century, I reported on the essential role that Latino churches play in the social safety net—and why their contributions often go overlooked. Very grateful to learn from these pastors and church members in the process of writing this piece, particularly those at Iglesia Misionera Cristo Vive, who have welcomed me into their South Texas church several times over the years. Here’s a peek at the print version. (The online story is paywalled, but I’d be happy to send you a PDF version of the print.)
“With stewardship of around 177,000,000 acres, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the world’s biggest landowners. If even a fraction of these churches converted land to native habitats, the decision could have a ripple effect of restoring biodiversity and building climate resilience.” For Sojourners, I wrote about the Catholics planting native gardens as a way to embody their faith and respond to the climate crisis. (Also paywalled, also happy to share the PDF if you’re interested in reading about Mary and radical gardeners and the regenerative power of native plants.)
That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more regular missives! What did you read/eat/watch/enjoy over the summer?
xx Annie
This unpacking is ongoing, and probably will continue for six more months.
The character John Ames in Robinson’s novel Gilead was the inspiration behind our daughter’s name: Ames Marie.
I can relate too well to your wild summer. I am just now unpacking the last boxes from our move. I hope you’ll settle in at just the right pace.
So much good stuff here, Annie. Love to you.