Friday Lunch Special | Oz, To Be Read, Relaxation and a Piano
A little bit of everything!
Welcome to another addition of Friday Lunch Special. Once upon a time I was a girl who wrote long, winding, heartfelt captions on Instagram. Now I’m a girl who has Instagram blocked on my phone for most of the day, and I use it primarily for IRL connection and sharing this newsletter. As you may know, I try to write every day. Most of the time, what I’m writing isn’t in any state to see your inbox, but some of the time there are tidbits that I like. Those bits and bobs will live here, along with some recommendations and links. Friday Lunch Special is a little bit of everything. I hope you enjoy.
P.S. here’s a quick link if you want to check out last week’s issue!
Oz
Dorothy Gale is the patron saint of young women who run away from their mothers and find themselves in a big city somewhere else. Last Fall, while on a visit to my mom in Florida, we turned on TBS right as the tornado was just about to blow sweet Dorothy away. I think everyone relates to her– the way she gets swept up in an idea of running away from something, the way she finds herself in a new place far away from everything familiar (and in technicolor no less!) and the way she finds herself making a coterie of friends, all flawed, along the way.
As I sat between my mother and aunt in their newly adopted home of Florida I realized that none of us can go home anymore, not really. The home they grew up in Flint, Michigan is long gone. The homes I grew up in are all gone too, one demolished and two with new owners. None of that really matters anyway, though, does it? Once you leave you can never really go back. You’ll make your home in apartments and shared spaces, before finally realizing the only real home is the one you make for yourself. It’s a lesson we learn with adulthood, but I think Dorothy Gale wasn’t quite ready to learn it when her time came. I think the tragedy of the Wizard of Oz is that once she leaves, she also leaves the home of her childhood behind. She returns, yes, but she’ll never be able to see her home in Kansas through the same eyes.
Now that she’s nestled back into the loving embrace of Auntie Em, does she miss them? Does she miss her flawed sidekicks? Did she ever really care that the lion was a coward or that the tin man didn’t have a heart? Clearly he loved, so if not to love then what’s the point of a heart? Is there really no place like home? And when Dorothy dozed off in the poppy field, were her opium laced dreams of Kansas or of Oz?
To Be Read
Relaxation
I went back through my drafts today and I found one in particular called “How to Relax”. Reading through it just felt like watching myself detail how stressed out I am. The draft was 700 words on every reason under the sun I was experiencing the stress I was experiencing in February:
The last year of my life was spent working two jobs, figuring out what I’d like to be doing, renovating a house, and healing from an intense bout of burnout. 2023 ended with me getting a nasty strain of COVID a few weeks after a tornado hit very close to our home. I also spent the year grieving the loss of a dear loved one and the loss of an old friend, in addition to processing the grief that comes with knowing that getting older means losing people you love. If I’m being honest, it has felt like too much for the better part of six months.
I go on and on about it, and then at the point in the piece where I should be talking about relaxation I just stop typing, mid sentence. It’s like it dawned on me suddenly that I shouldn’t be writing a piece on how to relax because I don’t really know how and I haven’t known how for some time. I still don’t know, but if I figure it out I will let you in on it.
Piano
I’m in a group chat full of people I love. Recently, one friend had a piano that he needed to get rid of. It was a beloved thing, he just doesn’t have space for it since he downsized from a studio and an apartment to just his apartment. Two friends who are engaged said they’d take it if they could have a little more time, and once those arrangements were made, the owner of the piano (for now) told the story of how it was the piano he learned to play on, and how glad he was it was going to stay with someone he loves. Then he offered the future children of the soon to be married couple, and the new owners of the piano, lessons for life. Everyone in the group chat cried.
Miscellany
Chappell Roan’s Tiny Desk Concert in coquettish clown makeup is a joy.
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