saying too much

a roundup from my summer of (mostly) reading, watching, listening, moving, eating, and loving.

In therapy, clients will often recount something to me and then wait. Waiting for me to have a set reaction. But often, they haven’t said what this something meant to them, how they experienced it, what they felt. Which leaves me responding, “Say more…”

This is the fourth edition of say more. A series where I explore what I consumed—TV, books, movies, food, movement, maybe the rogue purchase—and what it made me feel.

One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you. CW: Suicide. If you need emotional support, reach out to the national mental health hotline by texting or calling 988

As you’ll soon see this is a book heavy round up. That is what I’m feeling drawn to and regulated by. I inevitably go in cycles with this. Oscillating between my first two loves: books and television. Even though I have a new season of Tell Me Lies waiting for me, I’m grabbing a book over a remote nearly every time. Knowing the crinkle of a library book is waiting for me is hard to compete with right now. 

reading…

The Women by Kristin Hannah

One weekend night in late summer, I could feel my insides reaching their max capacity in output for the day and yet I had hours of parenting ahead of me. I let my husband in on this fading quickly quality I was noticing. I suspected reading on the hammock in our backyard for a bit could be everything I needed. 

I grabbed The Women from under my bed, where many of my unread books gather dust. A story about a nurse in the Vietnam War. I don’t know what kind of internal bias I have against this author, but it’s there. Each time I see the title or synopsis of one of her books, I think “Not for me.” And yet, every book I’ve read by Hannah has absolutely enveloped me (see The Four Winds). 

One moment I was settling in and the next I looked down to see I’d cleared 100 pages. I panicked a little, wondering where in the hell my family was. To have had that amount of time to read uninterrupted felt only suspicious.

I ran inside to do a quick proof of life check. To my delight and relief, everything was fine. They had consciously left me to my reading oasis. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I sprinted back outside to the hammock. 

I read outside until it was too dark to see the pages and the mosquitos were mosquitoing. 

I came back inside and finished the entire book—all 480 pages in one evening.

You know that question, “What is your idea of a perfect day?” Mine always has some variant of finishing an entire book in a hammock.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

Competing with The Women as my personal favorite read of the summer was The Paradise Problem.¹ A romance novel with a really compelling premise. Anna and Liam, strangers to one another get married on paper-only for a very unsexy reason and part ways. Years later, they have to reunite and keep this charade alive, despite not really knowing each other, over a weekend wedding in paradise. 

It was perfect in my eyes.² Make this a movie already.

I started and finished this one on a trip with some of the women in my family and I immediately lent it to my sister. Hearing her laugh across the living room made me sick with jealousy that she got to read it for the first time. Like with any solid romance, there was incredible sexual tension (and release) between the two leads. At one point while trying to herd the metaphorical cats for our next outing, I couldn’t put it down. I apologized to my family, acknowledged the steaminess of the book had sucked me in.

I won’t get into details, but there was some pearl clutching at my admission of being enraptured by this book. This made two things crystal clear to me: (1) I’ve come a long way from my conditioning—growing up Christian and the historical messaging for women that sex and desire are synonymous with shame—and (2) How important it is for these books to exist. 

It can be so easy to dismiss romance novels. Sometimes I even judge myself for liking them, but the truth is they normalize pleasure, desire, joy and play in a way that other mediums just don’t nail in the same way. Probably because, unlike TV and film, you’re often, almost always, inside your protagonist’s experience, not just witnessing it. They also often have men who actually seen to like women.

Aliza Sir

and

Aja Frost

from

Platonic Love

just had an interview around this issue. Particularly how valuable it is to be exposed to these novels at the middleish phase of life where we can get so busy we forget about our entire selves—which, for some of us, includes desire, arousal, and pleasure.