upon commencing...
(un)inspiring speeches, a fun and spacey book, writing the memoir your reader will receive as a gift, ++ Carpe Diem--the smoothie!
This post is paywall free because I hate paywalls as much as you do!
Hey Hi Yo!
Lucky us! Our neighbor invited us to attend his high school graduation. There’s something so tender and vibrant about a massive group of teenagers taking this giant next-step in their lives. I could feel the pride and excitement, the relief, exhaustion, and yes, surprise (👋🏼 parents, I see you trying to keep your kid on track), and mostly the tangible hopes for a happy, fulfilling life ahead.
The shining and energetic young people gave terrific speeches noting how covid shaped their early high school experiences, how hard it was to find community, but ultimately the class of 2025 felt incredibly connected by the trauma of isolation. They built a gazillion clubs, learned to eat lunch in a mask, were incredibly adaptable and extra kind to each other.
The adults (no offense teachers and administrators, I know you all have hard jobs and are dedicated) kind of phoned in their speeches or else they lifted them straight from chatgpt. There were bromides about learning, about resilience, about working hard, and the final wish/admonition/demand… “Go out and change the world.”
Sheesh… I don’t know about you, but that last bit landed hard with me. Change the world is a tall order, and isn’t that what we adults are supposed to be doing for our kids? I hope their young heads didn’t feel heavier when those words were dropped. These kids are graduating in an uncertain time… politics in our country are a mess, we’ve lost the thread of civility, AI threatens jobs, we face the existential threat of climate change, and harming the vulnerable is currently being institutionalized into our government.
I scanned the internet for some inspirational commencement addresses and here are some words that appealed to me:
About first jobs:
“…try to do something that people will ask you about for the rest of your life. What was it like to work on a fishing boat off of Maine? What was it like to teach at a nursery school for the children of Mexican farmworkers? You’re graduating into an uncertain time. You might as well get a master’s degree in handling uncertainty.” David Brooks, from The Atlantic
About regrets:
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly. Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet. It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.” George Saunders at Syracuse University in 2013
About self-love and acceptance:
“My mother thought I was not quite normal. She kept on saying things like, ‘What’s to become of Jennifer?’ or ‘Just be normal, Jennifer.’ I heard that so many times. And not being normal, that felt painful. And hearing about it in a Boston accent somehow made it worse. I stand before you, a weird person. Respect the need to be something very odd, not what is expected. Get to know yourself. Accept who you are, and love that person because this is the moment. You already are everything you need to be.” Jennifer Coolidge at Washington State University in 2024
About humanity in the time of AI:
“You have something that no computer can ever have. It’s a superpower, and every one of you has it in abundance. Your humanity… [your] human creativity and empathy… the lessons you communicate have a priceless authenticity, based on the simple fact that you are devoting your attention, intelligence, and consciousness to fellow homo sapiens. Can you say with me: I AM HUMAN.” Steven Levy at Temple University in 2025.
And, If you’ve never read, THIS IS WATER, by David Foster Wallace, his commencement address at Kenyon College, now you must. So inspiring!
…
I guess the thing I would want to say to young people facing the next thrilling phase of their lives in 2025…
Life, it turns out, is really hard. You will have accomplishments, laughs, deep friendships, exciting travels, if you’re lucky someone who loves you and whom you love deeply will bring you coffee in bed, and you’ll face challenges, experience setbacks and hardships, there will painful and disappointing loses.
As Ellen Bass says in her terrific and true poem Relax,
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car……Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory.
Please, please, as you move through your amazing life, know deeply and thoroughly that not every burden is yours to carry. Don’t let anyone tell you that you must bulk up to carry a weight that doesn’t belong to you. Be thoughtful and careful about which burdens you accept.
Maximize your joy! Prioritize your happiness!
Yes, life is beautiful and hard, and it’s also weirdly short! Highlight pleasure and light and raspberries. Again from Relax:
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
Now, get out there, eat a raspberry!
read:
I didn’t even know I was in the market for a book about ambitious women astronauts but apparently it’s exactly what I needed because I cannot stop listening! ATMOSPHERE, by Taylor Jenkins Reid is so compelling! (I downloaded the audiobook from Libro.fm which is terrific because the site is not Amazon 🙌🏻— and it supports independent booksellers.)
Reid’s entire oeuvre, which is full of women driven by naked ambition, is getting a lot of attention right now. I’ve only read DAISY JONES & THE SIX, which was a great listen on a long road trip, if you have opinions about her other novels, please do let me know.
Meanwhile if you’re looking for a sexy, edge-of-your-seat thrill, a women in STEM celebration, a night sky novel, and a love story, this maybe a perfect summer book to fall into. The novel begins with an unfolding disaster in space. Interspersed with the gripping urgency of getting astronauts back to earth safely, Reid unspools the backstory of Joan Goodwin and the other asscans (astronaut candidates). I can understand if a reader has a bit of eye rolling in relation to Joan. She’s a classically trained pianist, a marathoner, a historian, an amateur portraitist, a beloved aunt, and she’s super kind, all this in addition to being an astrophysicist! Oh, and we’re told she is beautiful with nice breasts! It is a bit much.
Also people are nearly constantly “suppressing a smile” and the novel does sag a bit as the astronauts fall in love, but it’s not a deal breaker! It’s summer… it’s the time of superheroes like Joan! (Marvel franchise anyone?) Why not roll with a lesbian uber achiever? I am so in!
Reid has said of her novels:
“Fun is not antithetical to substance.”
I’m not certain about the substance part yet, I’m only about halfway through the novel, but I can certainly vouch for the fun. It’s 2025… don’t we all deserve some fun?
…
Did you know we have zoom r.w.e. book group? Our June selection is HER FIRST AMERICAN, by Lore Segal, which I discovered as a recommendation from both Emma Straub and Ann Patchett. I’m excited to dive in. We meet on 22 June @ 9:30a PDT.
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you, we are a lively bunch!
Go ahead, claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!
I've made a read.write.eat. Bookshop where you will find many of the books I've recommended. Buying books from my shop is another way you can support my newsletter.
write:
I’ve shared with you that 2025 has been a creative dustbowl for me. Aside from this newsletter, and keeping a diary, The Right to Folly, about the fallout from my recalcitrant mother’s refusal to accept help, I’ve not been writing.
This month I’m lighting a bonfire beneath me! How? By listening to writing podcasts, particularly FIRST DRAFT – A Dialogue on Writing, with Mitzi Rapkin. She has quite a back catalogue of interviews. I recommend all the Charles Baxter conversations.
I’ve also signed up for a couple online talks from Lighthouse Writers. I attended Structure and the Art of Not-Knowing in the Creative Nonfiction Book, a talk by Claire Dederer, which was terrific.
Some takeaways for the memoir writer:
A memoir is an act of subtraction; you must select what to put in from your big life. Hence, don’t mistake chronology for story. Just because it happened in a certain order doesn’t mean every event belongs. You have to close some doors on your life and include what supports the story you are setting out to tell.
How do you decide what to include? The narrative arc of a memoir is about the transformation of the narrator from the person they were at the beginning of the book to the person they are at the close of the book. Thus, everything you include must support and reveal the transformation.
A writer builds structure out of their discomfort so others can take shelter there. What does this mean? Tell all the hard parts of our story. Don’t leave out what hurt—what we did to cause pain, and the pain we received. Telling your story gives others peace.
Structure of the memoir:
We’ve said it must have constraints; it cannot tell the story of a life, just a time in a life. It must be about the transformation of the narrator at the beginning (nA) and the narrator at the close (nB). How do you show that transformation? With scenes that directly relate. Scene = a character in a setting doing something!
3 Act structure:
Act 1: a problem, a quest, a question
Act 2: the narrator pursues answers and meets obstacles. There is a crisis. The narrator realizes her initial question is wrong, and she figures out the right question.
Act 3: Denouement/ nothing need be solved, the narrator just needs to recognize the question was wrong to begin with and now pursue the correct question.
Some takeaways on the importance of the everyday life memoir:
Write a book that someone else will receive as a gift. We must brave being labeled a narcissist by telling the details of our story, by keeping the focus tight upon us so we can show the transformation that occurs between the “me” at the start of our memoir and the “me” at the close. Showing the details, being concrete, staying with all our petty mistakes, and our naïveté… it will be received as a gift by our readers because we’re shining a light on what it means to be human and making our reader feel less alone.
There is radical value in a memoir of ordinary life. The reader is able to see their own experience in your story
…
Here’s a prompt to help define the about of your potential memoir. It comes from Claire Dederer w/minor adjustments by me.
You need a timer and something to write with.
Five minutes--I want to write a memoir (or essay) about ... (List a number of ideas.)
Five minutes--Of the above ideas, the one that attracts me most right now is ... list why? What questions does it potentially answer? What do you want to say that can be explored with this idea?
Five minutes--List ten events/scenes or ideas or themes, in no particular order, that I certainly would want to cover in this memoir. Scenes that support and reveal what happened.
Five minutes--Take the most interesting thing on this list and write for five minutes, expanding upon the event. Write in present tense. include sensory details. Pay attention to the setting, the action, add dialogue. Do this three times. (Or do all ten if you like.)
This prompt helps you discover what really interests you, what your concerns are and what you might like to explore in the long form of a memoir.
…
If you’re a little bit commitment-phobic and yet you enjoy hanging out with me every week, why not:
eat:
Commence your morning with this Carpe Diem Smoothie! It’s so quick to make. It ticks all the boxes (calcium, caffeine, protein and whatever chia and flax bring…) and it’s delicious.
3/4c milk of your choice, I use whole cow milk or oat, depending upon what is in my refrigerator
2-3 pitted dates, depending upon how sweet you like things
2T almond butter
2T whole milk plain yogurt
1/4 - 1/2c coffee
1 - 2t unsweetened cocoa
ice - lots
1 frozen banana
1T chia seeds
1T flax seeds
Dump it all in the blender and whirr until smooth.
Enjoy!
What would read.write.eat. be without little Stanley?
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Remember to tell your people you love them and take good care of your skin.
xN
7 husbands, Malibu Rising and Carrie Soto... loved all three!
I'm listening to Atmosphere on Librofm too! Loving it so far.