Reflections on This Space
I'm back! But I'm not putting pressure on things.
Well, hi!
A stranger recently wrote me and asked if I fell off the face of the earth. What a coincidence: Sometimes I ask myself that, too! I knew they were asking because an edition of Second Breakfast hasn’t reached your inboxes in two months. The thing is, even when I don’t send one, I’m always writing it in my head. Any given day, there are lots of ideas floating around that I wish I made more time to type out and edit.
One idea that’s recently been floating around is: “For the Love of God, Stop Asking Me When I’m Going to Get Married and Have a Kid.” People ask me those questions like they ask about the weather, with seemingly no regard to how personal those subjects are. I usually give people the benefit of the doubt—especially when I know it comes from a place of love and excitement—but it does make me wonder whether you think my biggest value in this life is being a wife and mother.
I’d love for you to ask me about my job that I adore, or what I like to read, or what my hopes and dreams are, or where I want to travel, or what I think about such-and-such situation. There’s another idea: “35 Questions You Can Ask Me That Are Not About My Marital Status or Whether I’m Going to Have Kids.” What I do want to dig into, when I eventually write about this subject, is what we're communicating to women (or anyone for that matter!) when we ask them questions about marriage and kids more than any other topic.
Many of the other ideas I have are off limits for various reasons. I haven’t quite figured out how to write about hard things here. Or other people. (Have you ever heard some tongue-in-cheek variation of: “I’m a writer. Anything you say or do may show up in my writing.”) Gosh, the material I have! Maybe I’ll venture there at some point.
When I started Second Breakfast in January of this year, I made a promise to myself that, no matter what, this would be a space to write for enjoyment. It would be a place where I would attempt to make sense of the world in a way that’s unique only to me and the body I inhabit. A place to ponder, to notice, to reflect. A place where I could practice using my own voice when the world often makes it difficult to do so. A place where I do not have all the answers—or even pretend to. I do a lot of work to relinquish myself of the expectation that my thinking or writing needs to be perfect, or that I need to please the people who read it.
As Rick Rubin says in his fantastic book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being:
“The reason we create art isn’t with the intention of making something useful for someone else. We create to express who we are. Who we are and where we are on our journey.”
So, I never wanted to put any pressure on this space. At least not right now. Our society has a great habit of convincing us that we need to monetize our art and our hobbies, turning them into chores or hustles that ladder up to some larger purpose beyond why we started doing them in the first place: enjoyment.
So, yes, sometimes there will be weeks—or months!—in which I don’t write here. Sometimes I will write every week. The likelihood is that my writing, much like it did this year, will taper off in the summer, so I can be outside and away from a screen that I already spend too many hours per week looking at for work. But I do want to be here more, in part because I love it, and in part because y’all are a lovely little community. I don’t take for granted that you’re interested in what I have to say.
Anyway, I hope the month starts off wonderfully for you. It’s such a special and cozy time of year. And of course, it’s perfect weather for curling up with a hot drink and a good read. So for the second official Second Breakfast Sunday Reads, I’ve assembled a cornucopia of articles for you to peruse. I hope you find something interesting here, and as always, I’d love to hear what you’re reading.
The Return of the Marriage Plot - A thought-provoking take from Rebecca Traister on why “everyone is suddenly so eager for men and women to get hitched.”
The Pandemic Skip - “By now, many of us have fully resumed our post-COVID lives. But what about all the years we missed?”
TikTok Roman Empire Trend Shows How Pervasive Misogyny Informs Historical Record
The 36 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023 - Some gooooood-looking books in here!
Big Farms and Flawless Fries are Gulping Water in the Land of 10,000 Lakes
Rebecca Traister's commentary was excellent!
Wow Elizabeth this is very powerful this morning. So many things to ponder and I look forward to your list of reads. I always know I will learn something from you. The picture is gorgeous and at first I thought it might be from your trip East. How wonderful that it is from our own hood.