I am now a month into this little art project, and I already know that a sticking point will be the inconsistency of it. I will need to fight through the feelings of perfection: that not every day will sound the same, or even that I might have to go back and make up time, and therefore, what I remember, what I capture will be different. But this is a very real part of Life, which is the point of this exercise. I certainly don’t feel the same every day.

Every month, I pep-talk myself into writing my stories for Serenity. This is not because I dislike the work or because I am ungrateful for the opportunity, just that the nature of these deadlines and hunting people down in the middle of a peak Mom Life is challenging. I endure the same crisis of perfectionism mentioned above. I state this here because I think it is very real to the experience of most women in 2023, and especially mothers.

On this day, I started off by interviewing my brother for Serenity Magazine, which required less pep-talking for reasons that are exactly what ended up happening: we talked his band for a few minutes, he was a great interview, and then I just got to spend the morning at Bivouac* hanging out with my little brother. You’d be surprised how rarely this happens. I like knowing him as a grown-up now because he was still a child when I left the house, and you find yourself wondering sometimes, as a sibling, what you share with your brothers and sisters besides DNA.

It was a great late-summer morning: hot sun, cool breeze. After coffee with Josh, I came home and mostly spent the morning on the phone. I caught up with my mom on life and also philosophy for awhile, and I passed messages back-and-forth with Suzy using Voxer, a very, very 2023 thing because she is a friend I have had (in writing and in life) for upwards of 15 years and we have never met in person.

Trevor traveled for work all weekend, and the girls had big sleepover plans. After dropping them off later that afternoon, I popped into the store for a few Alone Time essentials: some fettuccine, some ice cream, and the first issues of autumn home magazines. Which! Did you know that print copies of, say, Country Living, now cost $12 at the grocery store? I guess TV killed the radio star, and Insta-inspo killed the design mag.

*I have decided to start including links to places and people and projects again because I think that is the modern sense of community. If people get creepy again, I’ll have to stop.