Three Things and Three More is an every-other-month(ish) newsletter with three bitesized (probably unrelated) essays and three quick (also probably unrelated) things I want to share with you.
Three Things
Over and Over and Over Again
We fill water bottles and buy go-gurts and cheese sticks while thinking about what it might be like to raise a child in another part of the world. And we say things like You should have seen her eating her rice last night! and a minute later Did you hear the hospital was bombed? The bakery? We wipe tears and bottoms and countertops. We scroll and swipe and pray. We share videos of her singing I’m a Little Teapot and then footage of a wide-eyed child shellshocked and shaking. Pictures of a Starbucks cup, freshly painted nails, cities under siege, fleeing on foot. Giggles and horror. The everyday and the unbelievable. It’s a pendulum constantly swinging. A messy swirl of everything, too complicated to pick apart. And we remind ourselves how fragile it all is. The miracle of just being alive. How lucky we are. To wake up and see the sunrise. To be free. Safe. Unafraid. Over and over and over again.
Why I Plant Flowers in the Fall
Because they’re beautiful. Because my toddler saw the pots at the grocery store and whispered, “Amazing.” Because she chose the pink blooms and I chose the orange. Because I didn’t even know mums came in pink. Because when my husband went to the nursery earlier, the old man patted him on the back and said, “My son, you missed the season. Flowers are for the spring and summer.” Because they contrast the crunchy leaves, the bare branches, and the dry grass. Because it’s life when everything else is dying. Because I have the perfect spot for them on my balcony. Because they remind me of my favorite book as a child. Because Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum. Because I need to feel the dirt under my fingernails. Because I need something to tend to. Because I need something that puts down roots. Because they are superfluous, nonessentials. Because they are flushes of hope. Because they flourish even when the ground threatens to freeze.Because these are the good old days. Because real life is right here at our fingertips. Because the season for flowers has not passed. Because fall is for blooming, too.
Things I Don’t Want to Forget
How she thinks every black cat in town is named “Midnight”
How I catch him looking at her with such intensity, wonder, fierce protectiveness, and love, and, how in that small moment, all the heavy burdens seem to slide right off of him
How the eastern light forms a rainbow at the same time every morning, bouncing off the mirror and onto the bed
How the western light, warm and easy, dapples across the kitchen cabinets and casts leafy shadows on the refrigerator
The end-of-season tomatoes, fat, juicy, red and green, and gorgeous
Our walks to the corner grocery store. Should we go the short-cut way or the long way? (Always the long way)
How overjoyed she gets over a snail shell, a cat leaping over the weeds, a lone cloud in the sky, the moon
And Three More
One book I’m reading
I was coincidentallyin the middle of Salt Houses by Hala Alyan when the war erupted in early October. Salt Houses is a heartbreaking story of a Palestinian family displaced by the Seven Day War in 1967. It is told through multiple perspectives, spanning multiple decades as they endure war, loss, and displacement.
“What is a life? A series of yeses and noes, photographs you shove in a drawer somewhere, loves you think will save you but that cannot. Continuing to move, enduring, not stopping even when there is pain. That's all life is, he wants to tell her. It's continuing.” - Salt Houses
One meal I’m cooking
Fall baking is in full swing in our kitchen. We’ve recently moved cities, and baking has been a calming rhythm I’ve carried over to our new apartment. This apple scone recipe is perfect (and doesn’t call for applesauce–something not available here!). Just add salt and up the spices.
One thing I want you to know
I write a lot about “joy crumbs” and finding little glimmers of goodness in everyday life. But a question that sometimes gnaws at the back of my mind is Is it a privilege to be able to look for joy?Being married to someone who has been displaced as a refugee for the last decade, I often struggle to reconcile looking for the joy crumbs with the unspeakable horrors happening in the world.
about hoarding bits of magic even in the most terrible of circumstances. Maia’s words about her sister in Israel were heartbreaking and hopeful all at once.
thanks so much for sharing our magical postcards!
💫 thank you for sharing our notes.