I’ve gone back into my “I’m Gracie” day so many times, I can picture it all like it was yesterday. It was, and is, still so real. It wasn’t a dream, nor was it just my imagination. My mind took me where it needed me to go, to get me to where I needed to be.

To early humans all over the world, volcanos must have appeared as manifestations of both the spiritual and the terrestrial. More practically, as with Etna, the volcanic process regularly endows the surrounding soil with the richest nutrients and minerals, essential to humanity’s progress from hunter-gathering to agriculture. And in some places, like Iceland, subterranean volcanic activity fuels cutting-edge clean, affordable geothermal energy. 

Should is the killer of many a morning. “I should go for a run,” may only be detoured from running its course around my brain by a rival unbidden thought: “I should drink less coffee.” “I should drink more water.” “I shouldn’t have had so much wine last night.” “I shouldn’t have ordered all those things on Amazon while drinking wine last night.”

Should isn’t wrong. That’s the secret to its allowed perseverance. It makes many a good point, in none of the right ways.

Howard Wood was a sailor, an attorney, a humanitarian, a conservationist, an adventurer, and my grandfather, not necessarily in that order. He devoted most of his long life to the Eastern Shore, particularly Queen Anne’s County. From the family farm on the Chester River, and his office six miles away on the corner of Lawyer’s Row in Centreville, he was a champion and steward of the natural beauty and abundance of the land and water, and an advocate, helper, and friend to the communities and people who live here.

As I rework this piece, my smart and articulate editor wonders why I have mental dissonance about being a sex worker and a mother. They tell me that there are plenty of strippers and escorts who are open with their children about their work. I want to find these humans. I want to know where they live. Where is the supportive community that allows this conversation? Can I move there?

There were a few moments when I felt like my family joined the food mainstream. I remember my dad and I seeing a plane skywriting “Drink Pepsi;” we immediately went out and got one for the sheer novelty. One summer Cheetos came out with a paw shaped product and for which the whole family, my mother included, went gaga. I couldn’t believe that both my parents would reliably buy bag after bag of paw-shaped, neon-flavored deliciousness, but just as normalcy was about to set in someone at Frito-Lay axed the paw shaped puffs, and the potential for social progress in the lunchroom was likewise discontinued.

Meeting on Facebook as a cultural concept in the 2020s hits differently than either of the two previous decades of its existence. And I find myself, reflexively, needing to state for the record it’s not that I love Facebook, really it isn’t. I don’t hate it. Hate I save for Twitter. But I definitely don’t love Facebook. Love, I could at once point say with completely a straight face, was how I felt about Instagram.

But I have quite a few things to thank Facebook for.

My husband, for one.

Though I conceived of this episode weeks ago, life got in the way. Therefore I find myself having written, recorded, and released the entirety of this episode today, namely December 24th. I hope, therefore, you’re not surprised or shocked that I’ve written some thoughts about family Christmases, all while largely being away from my family for the whole of Christmas Eve, abandoning my children to a marathon of The Nutcracker, The Snowman, Home Alone 2, and now, I think, episodes of Pink Panther on YouTube. You’ll forgive me, also, I hope, for the cacophony of church bells, firecrackers, and over-sugared children in the background as I recorded. However imperfect or hasty the episode is, it is just as it should be, which is to say my best and shared with you in a hopes that its honesty may resonate.

I believe in revisiting materials while they’re in development. But when you’re done let yourself be done. Hit submit, turn off your monitor, and treat yoself. Personally, I got a triple chocolate gelato in a fresh waffle cone from Dolomitti, the Italian gelatieri a few minutes from my house. And then I came back to my computer and wrote this episode for you.

However, different Puebla and Cholula are in their histories and urban DNA, the Spanish block system they share has proved to be a surprisingly difficult spacial language for me to learn. You see New England, with all of its graveyards and stone walls and trees, should by all rights be more complicated to navigate than the sensibility of marking all streets with a number and cardinal direction in relation to a central square, as the Spanish do. And yet, having grown up learning to navigate by built and natural markers rather than logic, I’ve struggled driving around here! To me, everywhere I go, in any direction, is merely a series of four-way intersections after another.

I figured out a long time ago that the real reward of parenting is explaining the world to my kids. I can almost get past all of the body maintenance of feeding them, cleaning them, dressing them, and schlepping them places if I focus on the delight I feel when my kids ask me a juicy “But why?”

I’m not talking about the “but why?” they sling at me when I say they can’t watch TV at 8 am or eat sticky candy that’s already brought us to the dentist too many times. I’m talking about the questions that arise when a kid realizes they’re joining the world and need an orientation about another aspect of how it all works.

I notice that as I write this essay I’m smiling. Often when I write my mouth is kind of scrunched up, an inadvertent expression of self-criticism. I enjoy writing complex personal narratives without undue heed to a central character or chronological order to a simple theme.

But sometimes a personal narrative doesn’t need the form to be fancy, because it’s not about the form and it’s not about fancy. It’s about appreciation and love, and enjoying finally getting it down on paper because you’ve been meaning to all these years how much you admire and value someone.

I’m a few weeks away from the anniversary of receiving that letter. This year I’m twice as old as I was when I received it. And in the last 18 years, I’ve gotten stronger, less awkward, more confident….and also indignant. Thanks to Hannah Gadsby. And Mindy Kaling too–her voice for Riley’s emotion Disgust in Inside Out is the voice in my head when I ask you: Why did he have to waste my time?

In our conversation Amanda shares pieces from the book, dives deep into the writing process, and shares what it feels like to share such intimate writing with the world. 

I knew early this week what I wanted to do for today’s show. I noticed every time I thought about it my lower face would snarl a bit. I’m serious, I’m doing it now. You can’t see it but I am. It’s not a great look. But that’s how I knew I had to do it. You see, the idea of writing–and worse still: sharing writing–makes so many of us snarl. And if you had started to get the impression that I was baring my soul like it was NBD you might not know that I know what a BD it is. Such a B-friggin-D. Especially if you don’t wanna. And I don’t wanna. So I’m gonna.

How I wish I could take you there, to the Apple Tree Farm of my summer vacations and Christmas breaks. Together we would eat cherry tomatoes off the vine until we made our mouths sore, and then eat bread fresh from the oven with Kate’s salted butter, or corn from the farm stand, fragrant from the steamer and likewise smothered in Kate’s. The eggs we would eat for breakfast every morning would have yokes as bright as a school bus and shells as sturdy as ceramic. If we were lucky we’d be up early enough to catch a glimpse of a moose mother and calf drinking from the pond.

The wisdom, creativity, self-reflection, and bravery exhibited by each of these students, in our conversations and in their writing, brought me tremendous joy and hope. At the end of our week together, I invited the class to share their pieces here on WRENCast, and today we will feature four of their pieces.

Why say no to another cup of coffee when you can get more with a mere press of a button? Why accept a blank screen when another screenful of content is on offer with just the flex of a thumb? Why not expend minimal effort and money to go through the drive-through and get a bag of hot, salty fries and cool, sweet ice cream? Why tell your phone not to continue listening to the news or watching Netflix?

Earlier this week I typed the sentence: “I don’t like writing when I don’t like what I’m writing.”

Above that sentence was three quarters of an OK essay I’d written. You may have thought it was fine, but I didn’t like it.

I pounded on the Return key four or five or six times to separate myself from the tepid writing above and I typed the only sentence I was proud of on the document: “I don’t like writing when I don’t like what I’m writing.”