Monocycle

The above is a recording of the below essay. Chasing time I had a tantrum last Friday morning. I’d just returned home from getting my kids to school and before my baby was going to wake up, I wanted to do 30 minutes of something . But I was in the delirium new moms face when they’re met with a rare, sparkling moment of freedom and don’t quite know what to do with it: open the boxes that are in the...

This is a public post from the Dispatches franchise. To read the last of its kind, click here . 6/28/21: The path I’ve been running the same 1.58-mile loop in the mornings for the past few weeks. Today, I went out at 6:15 a.m. to beat the forthcoming heat. It was the right idea — when I got to the path, there was a breeze in the air. I am not actually sure if I felt the breeze, or if it was the ch...

Welcome to Dispatch #052821, another series of thoughts written over the course of the last ten days. If you have arrived here by accident but want to stay, you can subscribe with this button: 5/18: Dear f*****g life Do you ever get the feeling when you’re scrolling through your phone and your heart is racing and your head literally feels like it is a raisin that you have finally, actually, reache...

Last Sunday featured one of those gorgeously damp spring mornings when the sky is dull and just light enough to cast a breathtaking clarity in the air. It’s easy to miss when you’re looking at clouds.  I took a walk in Central Park that morning and didn’t listen to anything. Not music, not a podcast. I realized recently that a sort of juvenile thrill -- this sensation that makes me feel like a kid...

Have you ever had the feeling that you’re like, wrapped in an invisible soundproof silo? It’s a tall glass case that looks kind of like the one Austin Powers was preserved in but no one can see it so they don’t know that you’re in there — that you can’t hear them and they can’t hear you. You can see them, though, and they see you too, so it’s easy to like, mimic what’s happening around you. Someon...

OK: I have 31 minutes before my kids’ nap time is over, do you think I can get to the bottom of how to balance wearing something dressy while also looking super chill? I don’t mean chill like, “I didn’t try hard.” I mean it more like, “Hello, how are you? I am good, but also bad, happy but also sad, which is totally normal because I am a multi-layered individual with multi-layered feelings that pr...

Do you ever have those weeks where it starts to feel like you’re filling up your brain with so much new stuff that if you don’t let some of it out, your head might explode? The connotation is usually positive. When bad stuff clogs the passageways, I tend to feel like an overripe tulip that is starting to sag, petals falling to the surface on which the vase stands while it watches itself die.   Not...

Hello! The above recording calls this dispatch #031821 but it is actually #031721, as evidenced by the current day of the week. As always, you can reply to this e-mail by simply tapping, “Reply.” You can also subscribe to this newsletter if you are not yet a subscriber by punching the button below. Punch punch. I was walking up Lexington Avenue on a recent Saturday morning when I encountered two g...

Do you ever wonder why particular character quirks possessed by the people you love most bug you more than other quirks do? Madeline does this thing where she’ll dip one toe into her sneaker and at the earliest onset of difficultly, begin kicking her leg thus ejecting the shoe from within her proximity, cry-shouting, “I can’t do it!”  I used to get so mad about it. I’d yell back, “Yes you can!” wi...

Do these subject titles read like order confirmation numbers or is it just me? Today is Monday, March 1st, and this a Dispatch from In Here with an audio recording of the text below, above. You can reply to these emails at any time by literally just tapping, “reply.” Dear Madeline and Laura, On the day before your 1st birthday, I wrote a note to myself in an iPhone while sitting in the backseat of...