...now I have to clean? (a gift💫post)
an anti-productivity productivity book, a no-recipe recipe + a diary exercise that's not about you
hey-hey,
What is it with these people? The clocks leap forward and suddenly I’m expected to scrub and organize, to jettison stuff—the aspirational pants, the ignored kitchen tool (hello/goodbye sous vide), the ancient unopened quince vinegar. I’m told to dust my ceiling fan, wash the saucers beneath my plants, toss the freezer-burned peas, attack my linen closet. (NYTs advises 2-4 sheet sets per bed? I already don’t own that many, so ✅, one thing done!)
And, yes, I will fully own that I love a clean house, to the point I may have driven my kids a bit mad when they lived at home. What can I say, a made bed starts the day in the right direction. I enjoy a ten second tidy.
When I was little, I devoured all the (extremely problematic) Little House books. I taught myself to make rag rugs from old socks and dish towels, in sunny California I put syrup in our freezer to hack the maple snow candy Pa made for Laura in winter. I carried around a swaddled onion, pretending it was my doll just like Laura did in the Big Woods. I loved when Ma and Laura and Mary dragged their ticking mattresses out into the sun, then swept the dirt floor as clean as they could.
The sunshine came streaming through the windows into the house, and everything was so neat and pretty. The table was covered with a red cloth, and the cookstove was polished shining black.
~ Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods
Neat and pretty!
I guess I’m drawn to the ritual of spring cleaning mostly for the notion that anyone can exert control over an environment. Control is something we don’t get much of, right? Plus, cleaning out our homes at the same time everyone else is cleaning is a sort of community? We belong because we all buy into de-cluttering and de-greasing at this moment in time. Part of me does see the appeal, neighbors beating rugs in the backyard! Laughing over the back fence. It sounds like a charming old-timey Italian village.
But, Swedish Death Cleaning, the #cleanwithme hashtag on TikTok in which attractive, Lulu Lemon wearing young women clean under their beds, even in-box zero—just now it all feels like a big ask. Doesn’t everyone know that with the current world, the current ‘administration’… I can’t be worried about dust bunnies?
Here is what I can do, and maybe you can do it as well, I’m going to arrange a meeting with myself. I’m going to do a little bit of cleaning out my internal linen closet and figure out what I really want to spend my time on. Maybe I want to understand global economics, or take up bouldering, organize a protest, finally figure out the recycling rules in my city, or master Moroccan cooking. Maybe I do want to Swedish Death Clean. But I’m going to choose rather than be bullied into it by media, or cleaning product advertisements, or by an extra hour of daylight.
There is more about meeting with yourself down below in the read section. Plus some ideas for where to focus your attention in the write section. In eat, I've got a versatile lentil salad just waiting for your protein-of-choice, as well as calls to action, and a creature!
…
I am just home from a month in Santa Cruz and while I was at my mother’s my fingers itched to purge her house of its many accumulations…newspaper clippings, only the lid to a ceramic casserole which cracked years ago, a beanie baby. I wish she would Swedish Death Clean. If you’re struggling with trying to care for a resistant aging elder, or just want to cry/laugh and despair with me, read about my mother’s stubborn hostility in my diary, The Right to Folly. I welcome your company! In fact, I crave your company. Knowing someone is reading and commiserating makes me feel a little less lonely. Here’s the latest post, Changing Her Name.
…
If you embark upon a big spring clean, tell me what’s the one thing that brings the most satisfaction?
Thank you paid subscribers!
If you’re a free subscriber maybe you’re looking for a way to say merci for this spot-of-sunshine in your inbox, it’s easy, become a paid subscriber. I’d love that for both of us! Right now I’m offering a special offer because we all need a mood boost.
read:
I just finished listening to the audio book, FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS: TIME MANAGEMENT FOR MORTALS, by Oliver Burkeman.
I loved it. So much good information delivered in a charming British accent. I know the book has been around for some time, a bestseller even. I’m not certain why it took me ages to get around to it, but I’m glad I did. Basically, the book is about essentialism. Since we’re guaranteed to miss out on nearly every experience the world has to offer, we’d best get used to it! Discover and NAME what is most important to you and let everything else fall away. Obviously there are necessary time sucks we cannot jettison, like keeping our day jobs and unloading the dishwasher, but we can be more selective with many actions. For example, on the topic of email Burkeman says:
Every time you reply to an email, there’s a good chance of provoking a reply to that email, which itself may require another reply, and so on and so on, until the heat death of the universe.
The cure? Don’t answer, at least not right away, most likely the person will find what they need on their own. In other words we can do less and do better. Neglect the right things. Be more purposeful with how we spend our time.
Consider this wisdom, summarized here by me, which Burkeman attributes to Warren Buffett:
Write down a list of 25 things you would really like to accomplish in your lifetime. Consider it well, then rank everything in order of priority. Next, tear off and throw away the bottom 20. The idea is that anything listed below the top five, like learning celestial navigation or how to train Corgis, is just attractive enough to divert your precious and limited time from the five the most important items, like relocating your life to a place where you can grow a lemon tree, becoming conversationally fluent in French, completing a book of essays, nurturing your found-family relationships.
I love the duality and freedom here: discover what’s import to you and then be bold enough to jettison the nearly important things. By the end, Burkeman felt like a great pal with whom to grab a drink.
Want more community in 2025? We have zoom r.w.e. book group! Our April selection is MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES, by Rufi Thorpe, which is a delightful page turner with some teeth.
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!
Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!
Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter.
write:
Last week I extolled the virtues of diary keeping. This week I want to give you an idea to keep you writing in your diary.
Recently I took a class from the terrific writer/teacher/social media mavin & critic
. If you have a chance to take a class with Leigh, jump on it! At the close of our weeks together Leigh gave a presentation on Pleasure. Very abbreviated here:Humans have evolved to be wildly attracted to stories that include 6 pleasure buttons.
Beauty
Sex/Touch
Danger
Power/Status dynamics
Money/Wealth
Competition
I ask you to truly consider these buttons in the books you read and the shows you consume. Romance novels hit all the buttons! Anyone watching THE WHITE LOTUS? It’s all there, no? Which button do you most enjoy getting tangled up with in your reading and/or viewing?
In your own writing, which buttons do you lean heavily upon? I believe I land on beauty, sex/touch, power/status dynamics, and maybe competition. Leigh asked us to consider how we can incorporate more of the pleasure buttons into our story lines, our settings, characters’ desires, etc…?
As an exercise, please consider for the next week writing in your diary each day 3 moments of beauty that you see in the world. It could be a kind interaction between strangers, a tulip poking up through mud, the way the light slants across the upside down wineglasses hanging above the bar in the wine shop down the street. Be open to the surprise of found beauty. (Remember the famous plastic bag in AMERICAN BEAUTY?) And this meme!
The value add of this diary exercise is that you’ll be on the lookout for beauty and hence see more of it. Remember the Anaïs Nin quote: “We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.”
💫💫💫If you enjoy r.w.e. will you kindly pause to hit the ❤️ at the top left or bottom of this post? It sure does help in the substack scheme of things and gives me a lift! xoNatalie 💫💫💫
eat:
Another no-recipe recipe!
The other night I sliced open a yam to discover the inside was black. That left me in a jam. No time to run to the market. Staying in an Airbnb without a deep pantry. Here’s what I made.
Lentil Salad w/Roasted Vegetables
Cover 1 cup of French lentils with water in a small saucepan. (If you stick your finger in the pan, just to the top of the lentils, the water should hit the second knuckle.) Add salt and up heat to a boil, then lower to a slow simmer. Cook for 12 or so minutes until just tender, then drain. Be vigilant. Taste test frequently. There is almost nothing worse than soggy lentils
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and chop 1 yam (least I think it was a yam. It could have been a sweet potato. The inside was a gorgeous orange.). The pieces should be uniform, cut to roughly 1” cubes. Dice sweet onion, or shallot to taste. Mince 2 cloves of garlic. I used 1/2 an onion and one med shallot. Peel 2 small carrots and dice. Also dice a fennel bulb. Toss all the vegetables in a large bowl with several glugs of olive oil, a generous sprinkle of salt, a few grinds of pepper, and some spice mix that you love. (I adore this POIVRE A LA MODE CITRUS PEPPER a gift from my cousin). Spread the veggies on a sheet pan and bake for about 35 minutes. Check for doneness at the 20 minute mark. Meanwhile rough chop about 1 cup walnuts. Put them in a cast iron pan and stick in the oven for about 8 minutes or until fragrant. Remove and let cool. Here is my stroke of genius! You know those cocktail mixes they sell in the groovy olive bar at some markets? They’re a blend of pitted sexy olives and cubes of feta. When the veggies are nearly done, add about 1.5 cups of that blend, along with the marinade to the sheet pan. Toss and stick it back in the oven.
Finally, place the cooked lentils, all the veggies, rough chopped flat-leaf parsley in a large bowl. Toss well. If it looks dry you can add a squeeze of lemon and a dash of oil. Serve the salad with grilled salmon, roasted tofu, some grilled shrimp, perhaps some leftover roasted chicken or nothing! I promise you, this salad will land in your weeknight rotation, and yet, it is special enough to serve to guests.
You are welcome!
calls to action (+ a public service announcement):
In case you missed it, RFK, in light of the measles outbreak in West Texas, is touting Vitamin A and Cod Liver Oil as viable treatments for the disease. If you’d like to be a little more secure in your resistance to measles and you were born between 1959 and 1968, please ask your GP to run a blood test checking for immunity. We tailend-boomers were given an attenuated vaccine and may need boosters.
- has a terrific newsletter, CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER, in which she brings us both news and actions.
Use the 5 Calls app to contact your representatives on various issues, they include sample scripts to use when you leave messages.
Directly call your reps through the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
Indivisible consistently offers opportunities to speak up, mobilize, and get involved, locally and nationally.
I quit Amazon and I feel great. I recognize that for some people Amazon makes medication delivery easy, you get a free pass. If you can, get your money out of Bezos’s pocket. Think of all the silly things you won’t buy because you only think you need them. Like these cheese bags:
On our drive back to Oregon, we met a gang of wild turkeys. Here’s a turkey bachelor, strutting his stuff, just trying to find a date.
If you'd like to buy my books, you can do so here and here. To support the newsletter, please comment, hit the LIKE button, upgrade to paid, or share my work with your funny and fun friends! Use the button right here.
Tell your people you love them, et prenez soin de vous!