104. Midlife ennui

Baring my soul

What I’m up to

We have today and tomorrow off for Moon Festival. We celebrated by having dinner with our friends the Ts and continuing our tradition of having the kids retell the Moon Festival legend of Chang’e. We then split all of our moon cakes into eight tiny pieces so we could try everything, the best way to eat moon cakes IMO. (Best moon cake: custard. Worst: truffle mushroom.)

Before that, we had our annual staff retreat, this time featuring an epic football game in an actual storm (I spectated and stayed mostly dry).

Before that… I don’t even remember. It’s been a whirlwind of a school year so far, marked with immediate busyness and a lot of soul-searching. More on this below.

What I’m reading

Way too much. (Seriously. There is such a thing as too much reading.) I just finished reading 13 YA books over the span of two weeks for a grad class, and it was brutal.

My favorites from the list:

Scythe by Neal Shusterman - dystopian world in which death is conquered, but a group called Scythes must then perform population-control “gleanings.” Hunger Games-esque in that the world is developed well, and it’s pretty immediately gripping.

The Talk by Darrin Bell - this is a graphic novel about the “talk” parents of Black Americans must give their children. It’s a brutal but important (and beautiful) work.

What I’m thinking about

I think I’ve been in the throes of a bonafide midlife crisis over the past year. I’ve had so many moments thinking, “This is my life. This is it. Is this what I really want?”

One thing that has helped me not spiral is the knowledge that midlife crises are real; many people go through them, and they’re not necessarily indicative of anything being terribly wrong.

It’s a reminder to me how important it is to share our journeys with each other.

That’s what reading is for, too - to help us feel seen, but also to widen our understanding of humanity. See this essay I wrote earlier in the year, which may be too personal to share widely, but this is not the time to be a hypocrite.

Incidentally, my Contemporary Lit class started what was meant to be a two-day unit on poetry a couple weeks ago… and we just stayed there. We read and discussed Mary Oliver’s “Clam,” Wendell Berry’s “The Real Work” and “Like the Water,” and Naomi Shihab Nye’s “So Much Happiness.” (If have you have a few minutes, read them all. Together they encapsulate the pain and joy of being alive.)

A couple of lines for you:

“The impeded stream is the one that sings.” - Berry

“love is always too much” - Berry

“…happiness floats. It doesn’t need you to hold it down.” - Nye

What I’m learning

In my current grad class, we’re discussing things like “What’s the balance between reading quality and fluff? How do we get kids to read beyond Dog Man?” I have endless thoughts on this that I won’t share, but one thing the discussion made me realize is that maybe an underrated Adulting skill is the ability to balance doing things for enrichment and pleasure.

I love watching complex and thought-provoking shows like Shogun* but there are times curling up to 10 Things I Hate About You is about all I can handle. My favorite genre is literary fiction, but sometimes depictions of pain, societal ills, and midlife ennui just gets tiring, and I just want to get lost in a fantasy featuring dragons.

The other day, a student of mine asked me for a book recommendation. Give me something challenging, he said. Something like Gatsby. And I realized that he got it — he knows the pleasure of investing in something difficult. It’s a different kind of pleasure from reading fluff, but it’s a pleasure nonetheless.

*which just freaking won the most awards in Emmy history. AMAZING and well-deserved.

What I’m digging

Friends with whom you can talk about nothing until the wee hours.

Pulp Fiction, which I finally watched. Despite everything I’ve heard about it over the years, it still surprised me by how absolutely unhinged it is.

Civil War. I’ve read Alex Garland novels but haven’t seen any of his films. This one is RIGHT up my alley. Thanks to my bro for the rec.

Finding out one of your best friends is taking the same online class, and responding to each other’s discussion board posts like we don’t know each other. Lol.

This cup (I have the green one), which goes with me everywhere. It’s filled with either iced coffee, bubble coffee (1/2 cold brew, 1/2 sparkling water — don’t knock it until you try it), water, or margarita mix. Depending on the hour.

Until next time,

Kate

PS. An exchange with my former student and now friend M. this morning. She happened to be with two of my other students, thus the “we”:

M: We were saying how your life seems to be so full! So we are so happy for you.
Me: Thank you! Full for sure. Sometimes full of doubt, but still full haha.
M: Doubt = mystery = knowing you will figure it out eventually = the thrill of the journey.

I love that so much. Thanks, M.