This definitely took me for a ride! Thank you for writing and weaving a layered story about selfcare. It is a buzz word that gets reduced to "doing" for ourselves in terms of consumption that happens separate from others. As I read your piece it brought to mind a conversation I had with a friend who was talking about how she engaged with alcohol-"never alone and always as an amplifier, not a coping mechanism". There are layers to how we engage and our internal relationship determines how we choose to selfcare, experience happiness, or any other aspect of life. When our personal relationship with self is uncomfortable and underdeveloped, we may not know how to love it deeply separate from "doing". A sense of self love built in relationship, time spent, respect and understanding offers up a different type of self care based on "Being". This allows us to engage in relationship with others and other activities not as coping that masks a lack of self but in a way that amplifies and offers additional dimensions to healing, happiness, fulfillment, self exploration, and contentment. I love that your piece is about you understanding yourself, where you are, and your deeper needs which adds a deeper dimension of care and happiness in your life! Thank you for this thoughtful experience.
This was beautiful, and I love that everyone probably had a different answer to that question.
I think that arriving at a more sustainable happiness was important for me after depression. At first it was only in quick spurts, as you mentioned, but then they were more consistent, and now I really do have a lasting happiness, and I feel happiness everyday. I think it feels like an emotion when it’s fleeting, but then it feels like a way of being when it’s keeping. To me it became something more than just interest, but joy.
But I think that’s why Miley’s song feels so differently on each of us. Because we each have a different thing we want it to mean. To me it is full of symbolism. There is a lot of commentary online about what each thing means--the house she’s in, the dress she wore, the tuxedo she puts on--the chorus is a line by line response to Bruno Mars’ “I should have bought you flowers, and held your hand....” Though we can’t know what happened between her and her ex, to me the song is not about money or even about not needing people, it’s just a response to not being coupled with one person, who maybe is associated with all of those things.
And I think that’s the point of art, we’re all looking at it from our own perspective, and responding to it based on what we need to receive from it. And we’re all having our own experience of life that that art contributes to in a way. Just like your art makes me contemplate all of these things.
Anyway, thank you. Beautiful and thought provoking as always!
This ties in so well with your other essays about interdependence and the false promises of independence/confidence/being alone at the top. Also thanks for introducing me to Gertie Huddleston!
I'm so glad you love her art -- it really touched me too!
Also yes, yes and yes. One big learning I've had since beginning this writing project is that it's ok to write about the same things over and over <3 Each time I write an essay I'm trying to take another slice at this big knot I'm obsessed with.
Really poignant and beautiful writing, Michelle. We don’t know each other but I’ve come to enjoy seeing your writing in my inbox. (Also, rhetorician by training, so I see/get/appreciate your Comp Lit/cultural studies wing-nuttiness)
Thank you Jonathan! Sometimes I think the bonds formed through reading and writing have their own intimacy. If you read my writing it seems like you'll get to know me real quick.
Also, wild! I took one rhetoric class in college and loved it. Wish it were still as essential to our education as it was in classical times.
Great essay as always, but it didn't prepare me for how weird that music video was. The aspect ratio, pilates gyrations (?) by the pool, off-camera helicopter (why?). If I'd been tasked with predicting the last 30 seconds, I would've guessed a new date, back-up dancer choreography, or a night out with friends. Nope, just alone in a midcentury L.A. mansion with...a helicopter.
I took a lot of solace from thjs. I am going through the exact same thing. When i thought ive processed my heartbreak to a logical conclusion. After i converted anger and hurt with compassion and understanding for my ex and myself. I thought i made it. The director qeued up the self-care sports montage. But here i am months later with a cross fit membership, meditation practice and a therapist and im wondering why do i still go back to the sadness ive already processed. How is it still processing.
The sadness doesn’t fully disappear. It sits there like an object pulling me with gravity. Ill catch myself fixating, ruminating, staring blankly at it. Its been a matter of focus and attention for me. Being there for others, practicing my craft, curiosity and engagement with everything else have been the only times i feel free from its pull.
Im glad im not the only one and that the conclusion isn’t to be frustrated at what feels like retrograde regression - but rather a motivation to engage with everything else more fully.
This definitely took me for a ride! Thank you for writing and weaving a layered story about selfcare. It is a buzz word that gets reduced to "doing" for ourselves in terms of consumption that happens separate from others. As I read your piece it brought to mind a conversation I had with a friend who was talking about how she engaged with alcohol-"never alone and always as an amplifier, not a coping mechanism". There are layers to how we engage and our internal relationship determines how we choose to selfcare, experience happiness, or any other aspect of life. When our personal relationship with self is uncomfortable and underdeveloped, we may not know how to love it deeply separate from "doing". A sense of self love built in relationship, time spent, respect and understanding offers up a different type of self care based on "Being". This allows us to engage in relationship with others and other activities not as coping that masks a lack of self but in a way that amplifies and offers additional dimensions to healing, happiness, fulfillment, self exploration, and contentment. I love that your piece is about you understanding yourself, where you are, and your deeper needs which adds a deeper dimension of care and happiness in your life! Thank you for this thoughtful experience.
This was beautiful, and I love that everyone probably had a different answer to that question.
I think that arriving at a more sustainable happiness was important for me after depression. At first it was only in quick spurts, as you mentioned, but then they were more consistent, and now I really do have a lasting happiness, and I feel happiness everyday. I think it feels like an emotion when it’s fleeting, but then it feels like a way of being when it’s keeping. To me it became something more than just interest, but joy.
But I think that’s why Miley’s song feels so differently on each of us. Because we each have a different thing we want it to mean. To me it is full of symbolism. There is a lot of commentary online about what each thing means--the house she’s in, the dress she wore, the tuxedo she puts on--the chorus is a line by line response to Bruno Mars’ “I should have bought you flowers, and held your hand....” Though we can’t know what happened between her and her ex, to me the song is not about money or even about not needing people, it’s just a response to not being coupled with one person, who maybe is associated with all of those things.
And I think that’s the point of art, we’re all looking at it from our own perspective, and responding to it based on what we need to receive from it. And we’re all having our own experience of life that that art contributes to in a way. Just like your art makes me contemplate all of these things.
Anyway, thank you. Beautiful and thought provoking as always!
This is lovely. Bookmarked.
love this, very much needed, thank you for writing this ❤️
This ties in so well with your other essays about interdependence and the false promises of independence/confidence/being alone at the top. Also thanks for introducing me to Gertie Huddleston!
I'm so glad you love her art -- it really touched me too!
Also yes, yes and yes. One big learning I've had since beginning this writing project is that it's ok to write about the same things over and over <3 Each time I write an essay I'm trying to take another slice at this big knot I'm obsessed with.
Love After Love, Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Really poignant and beautiful writing, Michelle. We don’t know each other but I’ve come to enjoy seeing your writing in my inbox. (Also, rhetorician by training, so I see/get/appreciate your Comp Lit/cultural studies wing-nuttiness)
Thank you Jonathan! Sometimes I think the bonds formed through reading and writing have their own intimacy. If you read my writing it seems like you'll get to know me real quick.
Also, wild! I took one rhetoric class in college and loved it. Wish it were still as essential to our education as it was in classical times.
Spicy title! Will read in a bit :)
I look forward to hearing your thoughts! :-)
Great essay as always, but it didn't prepare me for how weird that music video was. The aspect ratio, pilates gyrations (?) by the pool, off-camera helicopter (why?). If I'd been tasked with predicting the last 30 seconds, I would've guessed a new date, back-up dancer choreography, or a night out with friends. Nope, just alone in a midcentury L.A. mansion with...a helicopter.
HAHA! I know. The video was extremely dystopian for a post-breakup self-love anthem 😵💫 Makes me wonder what folks are resonating with.
I took a lot of solace from thjs. I am going through the exact same thing. When i thought ive processed my heartbreak to a logical conclusion. After i converted anger and hurt with compassion and understanding for my ex and myself. I thought i made it. The director qeued up the self-care sports montage. But here i am months later with a cross fit membership, meditation practice and a therapist and im wondering why do i still go back to the sadness ive already processed. How is it still processing.
The sadness doesn’t fully disappear. It sits there like an object pulling me with gravity. Ill catch myself fixating, ruminating, staring blankly at it. Its been a matter of focus and attention for me. Being there for others, practicing my craft, curiosity and engagement with everything else have been the only times i feel free from its pull.
Im glad im not the only one and that the conclusion isn’t to be frustrated at what feels like retrograde regression - but rather a motivation to engage with everything else more fully.
An uncommonly good essay. Though I think for you this level of quality is actually common.