I took a week off last week from the newsletter somewhat unexpectedly. I was in Milan for three days—a short luxury filled with wine, aperitivi, and friendship. I haven’t traveled anywhere new since the summer of 2018, but after the past two years of the pandemic, it felt even more special, a crystalline high. One highlight was standing outside in the crowd pictured above at the wine bar N’Ombra de Vin. The wine was overpriced—a comical 15€ for a .2 pour, essentially two sips—but the ambiance made up for the cost. You could sense that people were there to meet other people, to bump into each other in a way that feels older than the divisions of the pandemic, and in fact, we met some young Milanese that took us out to dinner. I spent the final afternoon alone at the Fondazione Prada, reconnecting with the value of making art simply for its own sake, and ended my mini vacation with cocktails and tiramisu in the museum cafe. It was an exquisite break from everyday life.
By the time I’d taken two subways and the commuter train to the airport, made it through security at the airport, and finally into my squashed little EasyJet seat, I couldn’t imagine rapid synthesizing my experience for the newsletter. One thing came to mind as a topic I was interested in exploring—the interjection of a terrible text in the midst of a glorious vacation—but it was too personal. A simple list of bars and restaurants felt facile. So instead, I spent the weekend thinking I’d get around to my post, typing random thoughts in a draft, and eventually figured no one would miss a week off.
What I didn’t anticipate was my realizing that I haven’t yet landed on a format or topics that feels quite right to me for the newsletter. When I started LMH in Your Inbox back in 2019, I didn’t have a plan for the content. I thought beginning would be enough, which is ironic, given that I regularly tell clients and others who ask for advice that nothing will get done without an editorial plan. This led to scant posting for nearly two years, until I began writing regularly last fall. As I said then, my goal was only to write honestly, even if that meant writing into the dark. Now, I’m not sure that this is the right space for that. I fear that writing about my life in one direction might enact a kind of vulnerability that isn’t boundaried in a tenable way for my mental health.
As it becomes harder to stay in touch with long distance friends, I feel the imbalance that they might feel that they know what is going on with me, even as I haven’t spoken one on one with them in months (in this sense, writing a newsletter creates a small-scale parasocial relationship). I’ve also discovered that while there are plenty of personal experiences that I want to write about, doing it piece meal isn’t the right format. For these topics—the dark and unruly, the sensitive and private—I need to write with the door closed, as Stephen King says in On Writing.
What this all means practically is that I’ve decided to take a step back while I make concrete plans for relaunching. I’m going to take my own advice—make an editorial calendar, stick to certain topics, and share less about my personal life. Where this will lead, how long this will take, I’m not sure. I will keep you posted.
Three Short Recommendations
Hooking your e-reader up to your library account. Wow. Why did it take me so long to make this happen? I normally like physical copies of books because I’m a fanatic annotator and like to revisit the books as I write. However, I could only bring a few books with me while I’m moving from temporary apartment to temporary apartment, so now I have 10 titles downloaded and ready to cruise through at my leisure.
Adding “The World Clock” to your Google Calendar. I work with four different time zones, which can make scheduling difficult. I discovered this widget, which you can turn on in settings. It allows you to see other times at a glance, and when you create an event, it automatically shows you the equivalent times in those places.
Hop Up by Orlando Weeks. I must have listened to this album start to finish 50 times while working this week. Textured, sonic joy for lovers of Hamilton Leithauser, Chad Valley, Bon Iver, etc.