(Gas Station) Sunsets

Self-Care in an Apocalypse - FTS vol. 005

Smack-dab in the middle of summer…we’re back, baby!

(Gas Station) Sunsets - vol. 005

Forecast:

Flood Water grief + a micro heat reprieve.

Weights:

• Thinking about the flood victims in TX and NM daily.

• My own lack of surprise over the Diddy verdict and all it says about us.

• Prolonged political overwhelm.

• (This is tyranny, right?)

• I didn’t reach 49 just for the world to incessantly tell me I need to lift weights.

Counterweights:

• Silas is at his first ever youth group convention in North Carolina with the MC USA denomination. (Progressive Mennonites, with which his school and youth group are affiliated.) I cannot wait to hear all about it!

• Women are heroes! The end.

• Ruby is on her first-ever no parents weekend with her 3 besties. Thrilled for them!

• “I prefer being creative up here, with you guys.” - Cal, bringing his music production equipment up to the kitchen table.

• Finished an excellent novel (The Wedding People) and just started another, which is promising so far.

• Blueberry season.

---

Here’s how it happened.

I was sitting on the front porch of my childhood home in Ohio on Saturday evening, talking to Cory on the phone like it was 1998, lamenting the threat-level tension I feel on a near-constant basis these days, between staying informed about national and world events, and incinerating from the grief and rage.

(If you’ve been here for a long time, you’ll recall my old summertime M.O., in which I annually believed summer would be the Literal Best Ever only to discover that life was just regular life, but sweatier. Those were the good ol’ years.)

I know I’m repeating myself. I feel like I type a variation of the above words at least bi-monthly. I’m a broken record. I feel weird about it. At the same time, I know many of you feel the same way. This is a terrible time to look away. “Ignoring the news” is a privilege many people do not have - it is life or death. But also? Our hearts and minds and eyeballs and dreams are on fire.

All kudos to Mr. Martin, who listened patiently as though it was the first time he’d seen this film, so to speak, and who has learned to offer solidarity more than solutions. If I’m able to process long enough, I usually come up with some on my own.

I went to bed that night earlier than normal. I spent an hour reading a delicious novel, mentioned above. When I woke up on Sunday, I saw a horrifying headline in my email inbox and refused to allow myself to open it, even though it seemed extra terrible and terribly important and importantly urgent. (I have this feeling multiple times a day.) I puttered in my Dad’s garden. I cried to my mom. I drove home to Indiana.

The answer arrived in micro doses. Though there are people advocating for total media and social media fasts, at this time, I’m not the one. Instead, I’m making mostly-tiny shifts in my daily routine.

• I’m relying on a quick skim of the Daily Digest email from 1440 for the bulk of my news. No noise. No images. Just a clean list. (With some quirky/fun stuff at the bottom of the email.) I highly recommend it.

• Rather than beginning my day listening to a daily news podcast, instead, I’ve been listening to Lectio 365. (In full transparency, this backfired on Thursday when the opening Bible verse included a line that read something like, “God is the Lord of the flood waters,” which sent me into a theological spiral that appears to be infinite.)

• Rather than checking the news on my lunch break at work, I just…haven’t.

• Rather than timing out on Instagram then ignoring the time limit (mine is 45 min), I’ve called it quits and picked up a book.

Those are the tweaks. I accomplish them imperfectly, but when I do, I feel a discernible difference.

Here’s the biggest shift this week. Cory and I have taken a 2-3 mile walk each evening, after it cools off a bit. The best part - we both bring our earbuds and listen to whatever we want. In my case, I’m choosing things that bring me joy and peace. This might sound like a no-brainer, but I cannot underscore how much my nervous system craves drama and chaos.

This week, I ran straight into the arms of my reliable friends - Nathan and Nora from the Every Single Album - Taylor Swift podcast. Sorry/not sorry! They saved my catastrophic summer of ‘23 and they’ve still got it¹.

We ramble around and I grin so hard. I laugh out loud. I sing along. I hung out in the archives, I’ve deep-dived Speak Now and Red, along with multiple dramatic mail bags, all while walking across town with my forever bestie, not speaking to each other at all! I’m also a big fan of uttering loud, cleansing sighs. Yoga for the soul; apologies to the neighbors. My hips are mildly sore and I have 3 insanely itchy mosquito bites, but otherwise, the positive energy our walks have brought me is endless.

Most nights, we have chance encounters with friend, usually when we pass the Work Release center. One night, we walked past Jason and Courtney’s house and they invited us in for cold water and a quick gab.

By the time we cross the tracks, I feel brand new, like I’ve ascended from the deep.

But best of all, by the time we’re making our way back home, the sun is setting, and I don’t know many things more healing than sky drama. If you’d asked me back in May, I would have said I planned to watch X number of sunsets on Lake Michigan this summer. Well, my grand total so far is 1. But this week alone, I caught 4 stunners in their own right, in the wilds of Goshen - at the railroad tracks, over the courthouse, hugging the janky little gas station where we always look to see if our friend is sitting on the stoop.

Some sunsets were gasp-worthy.

Some were subtle.

No two sunsets alike.

I think I fell back in love with the world, just a little.

Finally, it’s only fair that I give you an update on the Ice Cream + Complaining venture I had planned with Holly and Sarah, only I will be honest - we call it Ice Cream + B*tching. (Sorry, mom!) This idea was born when I realized that when we meet for dinner, at least one of us ends up saying something like, “I’m such a drag,” or, “I feel like I brought down the mood,” or, “I’m no fun anymore!”

It was an actual epidemic.

Our reality is exponentially more stressful than ever. Let me qualify that - our reality as three white, middle class women is exponentially more stressful than ever. Facts are facts. My Black, Asian, Latin, Indigenous friends have expressed unique worries lately, along with reminders that none of this is new. For better or worse, many of us are just now really feeling it. In a weird and terrible way, it means we’re growing up, or waking up, or stepping up. It also totally sucks.

At Ice Cream + B*tching, the established expectations are foul moods and ranting. Bad vibes. Angry feelings. Delicious ice cream.

As you can imagine, it didn’t go entirely as planned.

Me: “Make a mad face!”

Sarah: (bends the rules, cracks us up)

Me: “Let’s try again.”

Sarah: (doubles down)

Holly: (entirely incapable of a mad face)

We have HOWLED over these pics all week. (There are more and they’re all unhinged.) (I am laughing AS WE SPEAK.)

This has gotten lengthy, so I’ll sum it up.

Can you find a few tiny tweaks?

Can you make some room for honesty? Joy? Nonsense? Beauty?

Consider this mandatory homework. Do report back.

XO

---

The Rest of the Story

Weekly Colorway:

(this email is arriving late bc I was busy devouring this)

Scents of the Week:

• Blueberries, warm from the sun

• Field corn surrounding my parents’ house

• My turn to scrub out the trash cans at work (barf)

• Peaches ripening on my counter as we speak

Flavors of the Week:

• This cereal randomly has me in a vise grip. (I haven’t eaten cereal with any seriousness in years. Not sure what’s happening?)

• Ranier cherries

• An iconic summertime meal from my childhood: chicken patty sandwiches (modern advancement - air fryer) on a no-frills bun with mustard and dill pickles.

• Bri McKoy’s coconut chicken bahn mi sandwiches AGAIN! Cal literally cheered.

• On last night’s walk, we wandered into Common Spirits and I had a jalapeno/cilantro/pineapple margarita (no rim). It was heavy on the pepper - more vegetal than spicy, but I wasn’t mad about it!

• Today is the official start of Goshen Brewing Company’s legendary bruschetta season!!!

• Ice cream: Black Cherry Flavor Burst, McD’s twist cone, Nutella, more/different Black Cherry

Tunes of the Week:

---

A Final Word:

"To fail to grieve is to shut down one's ability to connect, to be honest, to embody truth in one's relationship where that reality will always be a live backdrop. Grief opens the door to authenticity." Been in the Struggle by Regina Shands Stolzfuz and Tobin Miller Shearer

---

See you back here next week for vol. 006 of Fat Tomato Summer!

1. Cory has been listening to: Irish rap, Irish history podcasts, and podcasts about “scandalous stories about nobility throughout history.” (OPPOSITES ATTRACT)