Hi ! Welcome back. I can smell Spring! This week I am thinking and writing about focus, nostalgic TV, proposals, book recommendations, a personal story that still gripes me and impossible missions- Eve D.❣️

Week in review…

🌴 I did nothing significant this week! I focussed on work, writing and reading (see below) and that was about it. I blame it on the last of winter, and I’m not complaining: I feel good, and am pleased with my work. Some weeks are intense, some weeks are more fun. As long as there is a balance, I’m all for it. Also…spring is in the air for sure.

🦒 Caught up with G post his hike, for a delightful weekend. Riveted by stories of his adventure. Fun fact I learnt: crocodiles only eat once a year. (Still not a good excuse to swim in crocodile-infested waters, ahem, but that’s his story to tell not mine…)

👩‍🍳 I also cooked dinner for G, or to be more accurate I assembled dinner. Most of it was pre-cooked, but honestly I think there is some skill in coming up with a menu, putting the correct combo of food together, making sure the ingredients are top-notch and then also just getting it done. It worked out great, except that when I look at the photo of the meal it looks bland and boring, so I’m not sharing it with you. (G contributed the wine, which might have been the highlight of the meal, actually). G then also made me (a huge!) breakfast the next morning, and I can share that photo with glee.

🫤 Watched the rugby with friends at their house, and made a new friend. He’s big. Very big.

Food for thought:

To focus…

❤️ There is an app that is quietly taking over the world (or at least the app store charts), and it’s called “Focus Friend”. The premise is quite brilliant: a gamified focus system, that’s also cute.

You download app to your phone (find it on your app store), put your phone in “focus mode” and while you avoid the online world, your bean “knits socks”. The longer you stay off your phone, the more socks your bean will knit. Then, you use those socks as currency to buy goods to decorate your little in-app house. The more you focus, the more socks are knitted, and the more stuff you can buy.

…or not to focus? 

Tired of focussing? I’ve got you with this next little tool. Now… I am going to ask you right from the start…please do not email me to tell me that you’ve just wasted three hours of your time because of what I am about to share.

MyRetroTVs.com is a website that is designed old-school, to act like a TV set from the 1980s and 1990s, and it is preloaded with hundreds and hundreds of your favourite movies and shows from that era. Choose your decade, choose your genre, press “play” on the TV, and then….channel surf through your favourite nostalgic shows.

I cannot overhype this! The categories include “news”, “commercials”, “talk shows” etc. True story: I chose “News” and watched a segment about how the new "Internet” would make our lives simpler and allow us to work less ( 🤣 🤣 , but also….does this sound familiar? #AI). I chose “comedy” and watched South Park and when I chose “movies” I got Toy Story. The best part is you have access to the remote, so as you channel surf you get new content, just like the old days.

Try it (on your computer, not your phone) and have some fun!

Wedding Bells:

Did you hear? Taylor Swift got engaged 🤣 💘 

As you probably know, I love her music, and I have deep admiration for her but I am always taken by surprise by the power that this woman wields. I mean…the world went quite mad with joy at the announcement. Even Zac informed Micole and me about it (a day late 🤣 ). There are now articles suggesting the entire wedding industry / marriage culture is going to get a boost because of her. Nuts.

But my favourite part was how brands got onto the bandwagon real quick:

Shower Thoughts: 

🚿 I was today years old when I found out how the backspace key works on a keyboard. One press deletes one letter, alt+delete deletes the whole word, cmd+press deletes the whole line!! On Windows, use the control key for similar effect. (!!!)

🚿Another thing I learnt today: the reason that the US does not have maternity leave is because the baby formula companies lobbied against it! No moms at home means more formula sold. Always follow the money.

What I’ve been reading…

A reader of my newsletter emailed me last Saturday and recommended I read Educated, by Tara Westover.

Let’s start with the obvious: how awesome is it that a person I have never met in real life feels comfortable to email me a one-sentence recommendation for a book? I have to assume that this person feels as if they know what I would enjoy based on what I write in the newsletter, and I can tell you right now: that warms my heart. Also: this person was 100% spot on. I started reading the book the day it was recommended, and finished it by Tuesday. I was gripped, shaken and enthralled. I loved it. 

Let’s chat logistics. As soon as I finished reading the book, I read its Wikipedia entry: “Educated spent more than two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list and is being translated into 45 languages… As of December 2020, the book had sold more than 8 million copies.” As you can see, I’m not the only one who enjoyed it. 

The book is a memoir. The book’s author grew up in a Mormon family, youngest of seven children. Homeschooled, religious, fanatical. Kids didn’t have birth certificates, were forbidden from seeing doctors, and had no outside friends. The father was crazy - or at least bipolar - and the mother submissive. Tara paints a vivid tapestry of a cruel and violent life, that in moments made me throw my kindle down in despair and horror. It’s one thing to read a fiction book, it’s another to read a memoir and know that these things happened to a real person, who is now brave enough to tell her story. The book has a definite arc of resilience (Tara goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University), but it left me shook.

The timing of this recommendation was perfect. I have made it into that corner of Substack that is filled with memoirs, and their authors, and I’m intrigued. I've never really read a memoir before, can you believe it? I've read books where the authors talks a lot about themselves (On Writing, Stephen King) and I’ve read biographies (especially by Walter Isaccson…) but I've never really read a non-famous person’s account of their very personal lives.

I spend too much time thinking how anyone could write an honest account of their life. I know I could never do it. It would require too much honesty, transparency and introspection. I can't imagine writing a genuine account of my relationship with other people without worrying about the effect the honesty would have on them. Example: any story of my life would need me to go deep-in on my relationships. But how unfair is that to the other person? It would undoubtedly hurt them, possibly embarrass them, anger them…while not giving any power of defence or response. And, in any case, that level of rawness is not something I'd be comfortable sharing with the world. I barely acknowledge it to myself.  

But I’m glad Tara wrote her story. It had a profound effect on me, and is re-shaping how I look and evaluate my past. I've always considered my family life to have been deeply dysfunctional. And it was! No use denying it. But one thing I have realised over the years, as my friends and I move further away from our childhoods and it has become easier to discuss our early years frankly and dispassionately … most people consider their childhood to have been dysfunctional. And maybe it was! It's almost refreshing to realise my experience wasn't unique, isolated. Our parents didn't have the vocabulary or the understanding to meet our emotional needs. (In turn, we might be giving too much now to our kids, and creating the opposite problem). The one thing that I have always grappled with - and another reason I could never write a memoir - is understanding how I can accept the dysfunction of my childhood while at the same time acknowledging the deep love my parents had for me. Those two realities seem difficult to reconcile. This book brings that conundrum to a head. 

Tara's life WAS dysfunctional, far more so than mine. It was abusive (emotional, physical) and harrowing. Even if her account was biased and inaccurate (its accuracy has been denied by her family) I trust her experience of it.  But through all the abuse, there is an undeniable thread of love. They're not mutually exclusive concepts. It's frightening to realise this, although we've probably known it all along: It's possible to abuse and love at the same time. Which means it is possible to be abused and to be loved at the same time. We need to realise this, and we need to draw our boundaries. And we need to teach our kids, especially our daughters, this too. Love is rare, but not so rare that it should be tolerated in the presence of abuse. Tara learnt this lesson, and she taught it to me too. 

I'm still processing this book, and am still grappling with the personal waves of emotions it awoke.

Let me tell you a story…

I’m not a fan of the "I was triggered” narrative, but this week while browsing some social network I WAS triggered. A friend posted a photo of her and two other women, having a fun lunch. I know all three people in the photograph, individually, but they probably don't realise that they have me in common. Anyway, here's a story ...

Back in COVID, one of these women (S) set up a WhatsApp group of about 50 people so we could chat about the shit going down. It was great. Really, really helped me cope during that time. S and I had known each other for years, had worked in the same industry, I had deep respect for her work and I appreciated the group.

Unfortunately, one of the group’s members was unhinged. I don't say that lightly. One day she lost her shit at somebody on the group because that somebody said some Chinese people eat dogs. This woman (M) went MAD. She accused the person of being a racist pig. In true form, I chimed in. I said that saying that "some Chinese eat dogs" is not racist, it's fact (I Googled it. In deep China, this happens). Hating and discriminating against all Chinese because some eat dogs might be racist, but that wasn't the issue in the group discussion. I remember using the analogy that people from India probably walk around saying "Westerners eat cows!" Or Jewish people say "Christians eat pigs!". None of those are racist statements. They may be judgments, but they are not racist or discriminatory. (Right???).

Anyway, M became more and more unhinged and eventually to preserve my own sanity I left the group. I was devastated to have to do so, and somewhat resentful of S for not protecting the narrative, but such is life.

A month or so later some people from the group messaged me privately with good news: M had left the group (or been kicked off). I should come back! They miss me! I asked them to ask S to re-add me and.....S refused… saying - and I quote - she “will not be adding racists to her group”.

I was stunned. Speechless. Somehow, S conflated events, and thinks she kicked me off the group for being racist. I still cannot stomach this, to this day. Another thing: S said this publicly on the group, after which about 7-8 people from the group wrote to me privately saying how sorry they are, they cannot believe S is taking this stance, they know it’s inaccurate etc etc. But you know what?? To the best of my knowledge, not one of them stood up to S to defend me. I think about this too.

Anyway, that photo triggered all these feelings, and I needed to share. Maybe I should go talk to a therapist about it. It's clearly still bugging me!

I’ve been watching…

If you read last week’s newsletter you’ll know that due to en error I watched three Mission Impossible movies in one week. That is a feat. I’m not going to say much about the movies except that they are exactly what you’d expect them to be. As in: in one of the movies the world is saved from nuclear annihilation in the last 0.1 second. But, hats off to Cruise. He’s able to pull off incredible stunts and keep an entertaining franchise going. Like him or hate him, you cannot deny the success that man has had in Hollywood. True star.

It’s my turn to choose a movie for next week, and I feel it has to be something mellow, gentle, funny. I have no idea what yet. Please send ideas!

Looking ahead…

I intend to enjoy spring next week. Plus, G and I are going on a big hike (big for me, not for him 🤣 ) so I am excited. It will tell me exactly how prepared or not prepared I am for the Camino. I hope you have a great weekend and week!

Thanks for reading!

Want more? You can find past editions here.

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P.S.