IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!
Whoa I’m 36!!
As I’m writing this, it’s thirty-six minutes until midnight (also my thirty-sixth birthday) in New York, where I am for the first time as an adult, which means I’m here for really the first time ever.* It was a long journey, delayed flights to cancelled flights that culminated in a Chicago-Phoenix-NYC red-eye and a super hard crash nap from 7am to noon as the billboards of Times Square lit up our windows.
More than anything else, I’m feeling gratefulness for Larry, whose birthday is ALSO IN JULY and who always plays not even second, but like sixth fiddle to mine, who suggested we go to Europe last year for my 35th and played a love song he wrote for me on the actual day on an oyster farm in rural France (I mean!!!), who dreamed up our first trip together to New York for my 36th, who said fuck it, let’s go for it when we were choosing Okay seats or Great seats for all our shows, who told friendly strangers in the airport all about his wife, a theater kid since the age of 12 who’s about to see her first Broadway show. Who let me sit and just stare at my phone at the gate while he arranged our new flights and re-checked our bags and made all the calls and got the confirmation numbers. Who charmed American Airlines customer service into giving us free drinks and extra legroom since it was my birthday trip. Who remembered to bring Q-Tips and wrinkle spray for our clothes and whose open suitcase is so beautifully organized I suspect he could run a motivational Instagram account.
*We have security cameras and extremely attentive neighbors, JSYK if you subscribed to this newsletter as a long con to someday rob our house
Some things I love besides Larry (mostly food-related as it turns out)
Cheddar cheese popcorn, ice-cold bubbly water, mushroom pizza!!, the way people drink beer on Terrace House, reading every single word on placards at art museums, writing in my five-year diary every night at bedtime and then staying up too late reading old entries, playing video games with Andrew, caesar salads!!!, how huge the flame gets on our new citronella lamp, the cats jockeying for the best morning sunbeam as we’re getting ready for work, watching beautiful TV on my phone on the plane, my new clay rainbow earrings handmade by Laura (as seen above!!), walking outside in the mornings and seeing new flowers on our new plants, watching like four episodes of Shark Tank in a row, going to the farmer’s market with Larry on Saturday mornings and getting the same two breakfast sandwiches and standing in the shade and eating them while people-watching and murmuring to each other, uhh idk observing my feelings enough to recognize my own patterns and nurturing myself like a kid and saying how I feel all the time???
HONESTLY doing this newsletter, thank you, thank you, thank you.
These mugs are available for pre-order now!!!
And 50% of the proceeds go to Planned Parenthood!! I bought mine already so no need to get me one as a gift, but you should get one for someone else in my honor, or for… their honor I guess if you want
To be shipped in late July (or perhaps later, it says “after July 22nd” which is some boundary-setting I deeply respect).
The deer is you and me and all of us
JULY FOREVER:
July is all things to me because I was born on July 1, 1983 and my brother died on July 4, 2016. Because it’s the height of summer and I still get summer-vacation feelings. It’s the month we leave town and stay up late. It’s most-loved and biggest grief. Strange and hot and exploding.
A meditation for my 36th year on earth
I got obsessed with learning about modern dance greats for a while and was reminded of this quote from Martha Graham that I thought I understood when I was 21 lolol:
I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be.
Martha said to me, very quietly: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent.”
I love you and I love my birthday,
Lindsey