The Lesson I'm Still Learning

and might be learning forever.

I’ve had a week. Maybe you have, too.

Friends have reported similar feelings. (Astrology folks, care to weigh in?) Yet everywhere I look, there is evidence of somebody’s excellent summer. Summer travel. Summer upgrades. Summer love. Summer working-but-look-how-successful-it’s-making-me. Summer thriving.

I have not joined Threads—its very name feels like a mockery of the fact that many of us feel like we’re hanging on by one. And yet. The noise.

Even more than usual, it seems like Algie (how I characterize the algorithms that exploit our psyches for personal gain—face like a muppet, mind like a Musk) is serving up extremes—those on holiday or hustling, without much evidence of life in-between. I guess that doesn’t make for compelling content.

“Now, to make Larry feel like shit so he’ll order new sneakers.”

I had another topic planned for today, but Algie has spoken. So instead, I’m sharing what might be my favorite issue, pulled from the second-ever installment of this newsletter. If you’ve been reading since the beginning (I LOVE YOU) you may notice I’ve made some updates, as my inner editor couldn’t resist. This week’s card is all-new.

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On a chair in my bedroom, there sits a big blue book called The Secret Language of Birthdays. If it sounds familiar, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered it before—it’s always kicking around.

The book is offensive. The cheetah is faux.

I do not like this book. I don’t remember how it came into my possession. Yet for some unknown reason, I’ve hauled my copy from dwelling to dwelling since I was in high school. The dust jacket left the building two apartments ago, after an unfortunate incident involving dog vomit (the canine isn’t a fan, either). At this rate, I’ll probably keep it forever.

Officially, I take issue with its reductive descriptions and cryptic warnings. (“If you take the wrong turn, you may find yourself shut out and unappreciated, on a downward spiral,” warns the entry for my birthday, which is helpful how?) But I suspect my distaste has more to do with how the book describes my personality:

“…in your admiration of others, you may fail to fully develop the potential latent in yourself.”

This is one of the more insulting things you can say to a person while describing what makes them individual.

It is also entirely true.

When it comes to rampant admiration, I am guilty as charged. There is a very long catalog of humans I’ve wanted to be, or at least be like: My kindergarten classmate with the sparkly purple sneakers. Daria Morgendorffer. Multiple characters from Sex and the City, at different times, for different reasons. Nora Ephron. Issa Rae. Dr. Orna Guralnik from Couples Therapy. A parade of humans encountered on social media, for reasons that probably aren’t even true. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

“I don’t like to smile unless I have a reason.” — Daria Morgendorffer

This particular feeling is less about envy and more about escapism. It’s about wanting to discover how it might feel to slip into another’s experience, a different incarnation, if only for a day. (What is it like to be a surfer? Or win the National Book Award? Or wear white clothing without staining it within five minutes?) It’s also the chance to climb out of the boxes that confine us, whether they are of our own or someone else’s making. The smart one. The quiet one. The funny one. The athletic one… Like the universe subscribes to the Spice Girl model of identity.

A brief survey of my brain trust revealed I am not alone.

“I want to be Emma Thompson,” said one friend, without hesitation. “She’s so talented and seems like she has her shit together. And she’s aging gracefully.”

“Pretty much every professional musician,” offered another. “But it’s not about having what they have—if you handed me their careers, I’d still have stage fright. The fantasy is really about getting to be them, or at least more like them, on a fundamental level.”

“Rihanna, Oprah, Tracee Ellis Ross,” supplied a third friend. She paused before adding, “It probably says something that none of my would-be’s are people I actually know.”

I have a pretty weird job. It’s not as curious as, say, being a professional bridesmaid or mattress tester or the person who pens the names for nail polish colors. But over the last decade, the bulk of my work consisted of ghostwriting celebrity books.

Even with experience, it’s always a bit surreal to sit across from famous faces, to hear famous voices inquire after my outfit or address my dog. But over the course of the pandemic, this was thrown into stark(er) relief. While sheltering in place, without the company of friends and family, the only people I regularly spent time with were celebrities.

My famous “colleagues” FaceTimed me from their boats, their bright kitchens with marble countertops, their park-like yards, pools glistening in the background.

“What is my life?” I’d mutter, from the corner of my one-bedroom apartment, my boyfriend yell-talking at his monitor on the other side of the room.

It may seem like I’m headed in a certain direction here—that I did or didn’t want to be like them—but that’s not where this is going. (Though I’ll admit, the pools looked nice.) I’ve been fortunate to get to know household names as human beings, separate from the trappings of fame and success. And I can say, without hesitation, that everyone—including those at the top of their games—shares in the feeling of wanting to be like someone else.

A number of years back, I met a Very Important Executive for drinks. I spent days overthinking my outfit. By any measure, this was a person whose existence I might like to inhabit. From a distance, she seemed to have it all figured out.

She arrived looking every bit the part—shiny blowout, impeccably tailored clothing, adorable family photo as the background on her phone. And then we got to talking.

“Oh! To be single!” she said, clutching her heart like she was mortally wounded. Her diamond ring glinted in the light. “I am so jealous of your life.”

My dating life, at the time, involved sort-of-seeing a guy who was proud of the way the green mold had overtaken his shower. It looked like something out of Ghostbusters, an otherworldly creature hellbent on consuming us all.

That was the day I realized that whenever you have two people sitting across a table from one another, there is a more than decent chance that each of them wants, in some way, something the other person has.

This is the definition of comedy. It is also a mark of being human.

I’ve thought a lot—too much, perhaps—about this topic. I’ve wondered if anyone is content, if everyone is striving. I’ve pondered how the grass is invariably greener with a filter. Or greenest of all when it’s a mirage. I’ve read a lot about the concept of no-self, which teaches there is nothing about our human essence that is fixed or permanent—we are constantly changing.

By “we” I mean all of us. Even the people we want to be.

I’ve discovered that if you can manage to cut through all the noise, taking stock of your own personal roster of estimable folks is a worthwhile exercise. Not to provide some sort of roadmap. But to see what they have in common, on a deeper level.

We admire people who have taken chances and defied the odds. Who make us laugh and think and cry. Who share their gifts and leave their mark. Who leave the world a little bit better for having been here.

We admire those who embody the qualities we wish to cultivate in ourselves. In a way, this tells us everything we need to know. Not about them, but about us.

Under close inspection, my life is a museum filled with relics, not only of the people I’ve been, but the people I’ve wanted to be—the unintentional heroes of a story they’ve played no role in writing. I’ve learned something from them all, alchemizing their influence into my own way of being.

I can now confirm what I’d long suspected: The birthday book is wrong. My heroes haven’t prevented me from growing—if anything, they’ve helped me land a little closer to myself.

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Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring the UV Tarot, by Modest Mouse with art by Violet Aveline

One of the things I love most about tarot is its Rorschach-like ability to reveal something different to each of us. Symbols shift from moment to moment, uncovering something hidden, something personal, something new.

The Seven of Pentacles (sometimes called the Seven of Coins) can conjure themes around work—from making an effort, to taking a break, to reaping a harvest, to investing one’s resources in a long-term goal. Some say it hints at a mid-point of sorts. Where success is not yet visible, this card offers a most welcome sign to keep going.

But for today’s purposes, the message I’m getting is most aligned with this scene. A worker surveys the vastness of the landscape before them—the job they’ve done, the things they’ve created, the life they’ve built. We may not know if they’re satisfied. We may have no idea what their plans are, or where they are in their process. But we can see exactly what they see—the magnificence spread before them. And we can only hope they feel half as awed as we do.

Here’s a thought, straight from the card, at once simple and revolutionary:

Maybe you’ve done a good job.
Maybe you’re doing okay.
Maybe it—whatever ‘it’ brings up for you—is already enough.

It’s an interesting word, enough. Like so many terms, it arrives without scientific precision nor mathematical certainty. How much is enough? That will depend on who you’re talking to.

Society may find countless ways to insist there is always more, greater, newer, better. And if you look hard enough, so can you. But all of these words invite comparison. None of them can exist without context. And not one can actually describe the situation at hand.

This week, the Seven of Pentacles invites us to meditate on what we’ve done—and are currently doing—well. Do not dwell on what you wish you had, or wish you’d said, or wish you could do differently. This is a time to acknowledge the ways, no matter how small or routine, where you are showing up.

It also encourages us to consider our notion of enough.

In what ways do we have enough?
(Rumi once said: “Anything which is more than our necessity is poison.”)

In what ways do we give/do/contribute enough?
(In the words of Prentis Hemphill, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”)

In what ways are we already enough?
(Trick question. You are always, inherently enough.)

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If you’d like to hear me read this week’s issue aloud, the audio recording is available here.