Week 1 (2025)
talking less & living into quiet, the scouring of the Shire & capping eternal youth, Advent babies & creativity in housing
Click title to open in browser. You can reply directly to this email if received in your inbox.
to read: books
Darkness Is My Only Companion — Kathryn Greene-McCreight — Thoughts. (Adding it to this handful of equally helpful books.)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
Christmas Hope And The Scouring Of The Shire —
, In Particular — “This is a heartbreaking disappointment and would be crushing if the only hope of their mission had been to once return to the Shire. But the hope of the Hobbits was not a simple return but a reordered world in which the threat of darkness had been silenced once and for all. Much of what they loved in this earth had been lost to such darkness. So, for us- the darkness of the current powers of this world has destroyed marriages, youthful innocence, parent-child relationships. It has made many of our churches simply places where finite goods are given seemingly infinite attention, instead of the places where our finite desires are exchanged for infinite ones. It has corrupted our desires and made us a hollowed-out people who long for a peaceful Christmas more than a reconfigured one.”Do You Know A Quiet Person? — Jan Wiezorek, Clay Jar Review —
“And the woman thinks this man never wanted
to hear them. Some sobs are going on.
The man brings the woman a cup of tea,
& they hug like acceptance.”
- , Blind Mule Blog — “We learned that being friends was just as fun as being lovers, and often a lot more useful. We learned that we could depend on each other in challenges which seem to come up frequently in real life, and which modern dating often fails to adequately portray… And I figure if we made a dam together, surely we can make a home too.”
Just Do It — Brian Castner, Commonweal — “Show, don’t tell. That old writer’s saw. Except, you know, in real life.”
Welcoming A Baby In Advent — Sarah Reardon, Front Porch Republic — “In the days and weeks leading up to my due date, all the lasts–last day of work, last dinner out, last trip before the baby–and the rapid changes looming in the half-known near future caused me to feel as though an end was coming, the end of a journey or an era or even a life.”
Putting A Cap On Eternal Youth —
, Fare Forward — “Life’s second half is not an entropic spiral into uselessness, but an opportunity to make use of different parts of yourself that were, up to now, dormant.”(related: The Offerings Of Age from , shared previously)
Housing and land use policies which contribute to our current housing crisis are a family-formation-and-flourishing issue. Also, this episode of New Polity pairs well.
Mass. Exodus — Joseph Lawler, The New Atlantis — “Since sometime in the 1970s, localities in Massachusetts have made housing scarce through land use restrictions, and for decades now demand has outstripped supply. Boston and all the towns in the state find themselves in a sort of collective action problem: If any one locality significantly eased land use rules, it would be rapidly transformed because of the soaring demand. Fearing such abrupt change, localities resist even marginal upzoning.”
How Minimum Lot Size Requirements Maximize The Housing Crisis — Ben Abramson, Strong Towns — “A large percentage of North American cities embraced restrictive zoning rules in the mid-to-late 20th century. Many of these rules came at a time when suburbs were burgeoning and, unfortunately, they caused cities to forfeit many of the advantages of traditional city development.”
Where Should New Multifamily Housing Go? — Amy Dain, Commonwealth Beacon — “If we write off as unchangeable all residential neighborhoods adjacent to these great hubs, then we make it harder to achieve the combined goals of an abundance of housing and sustainable, equitable settlement patterns. There is much demand in Greater Boston for “missing middle” housing that fits between single family-houses-with-yards and bigger apartment/condo complexes. For development of smaller scale multifamily housing to serve many people and make a difference in the market, it has to be allowed in more places.”
(h/t for sharing that one along with his brief thoughts — related: Arbitrary Lines, Escaping the Housing Trap, plus too many archived articles to list, shared previously)
to watch, listen to
Continuing On:
The Natural Womanhood Podcast with
& Cassondra Moriarty — Season 2, Episode 4 — FAM for Single Women — “We don’t need to have a ring on our finger to know what’s going on in our bodies!”“…when I came back after my endometriosis surgery I was like LISTEN, I was diagnosed with this, I got actual help for it, I didn’t have to take any birth control, and if I had known about this more clearly and you guys were more educated about it yourselves… you might have been able to help me with some sort of plan… so could you at least keep some sort of pamphlets for fertility awareness?”
“Frankly a lot of doctors just don’t know, and they do have that bias… and part of it is that they don’t learn about it in medical school, so it just seems like this woo woo weird religious thing… but the fact of the matter is [hormonal contraceptives] are not good treatments for those issues… it’s a bandaid as we’ve said numerous times.”
“In college, most of my best friends were guys… so I would show them my charts and I would sit them down and we’d all be drinking and I’d be like this means this, this mean this… now those guys know all about it, two of them are married, and their wives have made comments about how good their husbands are when they’re dealing with different parts of their cycles.” lolll
Woven Well Podcast with
— Episodes 26-28 — Miscarriage 101: Common Causes Of Miscarriage, What To Expect Before & During Miscarriage, When Your Body Feels Broken — Losing a baby is at once physical and logistical, affecting the emotions and soul like the whole people we are. These are helpful and short, so pass ‘em on.
(more resources on female embodiment in the Big Ol' Compilation)
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake — My husband enthusiastically led the charge on this after showing him the recipe. Will make again.
This Book Holder — I don’t care if this is the most simple creation ever. Got it for my husband with his name engraved, and it’s the perfect little nightstand companion. Wood book holders of various kinds may become my new wholesome obsession.
This Simple And Totally Unofficial Substack Hack from
— Have needed some quiet, and not having to open this website to a glorified Twitter feed has been a welcome change.
I just open Substack posts directly from e-mail. That works, too! I only go to Notes if I'm going deliberately, because I want to read Notes.
Where do you find the art that you post?!