Rediscovering connection through Taylor Swift's Eras Tour
Discover how Taylor Swift's music fosters emotional connection and self-discovery. Learn how her songs can help you connect more deeply with yourself and build meaningful relationships with others.
Ever found yourself caught in the whirlwind of Taylor Swift's universe, endlessly scouring for concert updates, dissecting lyrics, and soaking in every moment of her performances?
If you're seeking ways to connect more deeply with yourself and others, you're not alone in turning to Swift. Let's delve into how the pop superstar’s music has become more than just entertainment; it’s now our collective way to both self-discovery and meaningful connection.
The power of collective effervescence and emotional connection
In his studies on awe, psychologist Dacher Keltner explores the concept of 'collective effervescence,' where shared experiences create a sense of unity and awe. Taylor Swift's music acts as a catalyst for this phenomenon, bringing people together from all walks of life.
In a world plagued by loneliness, her concerts become sanctuaries of togetherness, where we find solace in shared emotions and experiences. For those seeking an emotional connection, Swift's music offers a powerful way to bridge the gaps between our fragmented lives.
Embracing emotional freedom through music
Swift's songs serve as emotional landscapes, inviting us to feel deeply and authentically. In a society that often encourages emotional suppression, her music gives us permission to embrace our vulnerabilities, to cry, to laugh, to rage, and to love without restraint.
Through her narratives, we confront our own emotional narratives, challenging beliefs that hinder our connection with ourselves and others.
For anyone looking to connect more with their feelings, Taylor Swift's music provides a safe space to explore and express emotions.
Writing our own stories and building connections
As we immerse ourselves in Taylor Swift's music, we not only find connection but also inspiration to rewrite our own stories. Her openness about the messy, imperfect parts of life reminds us that it's okay to not have it all figured out.
We're encouraged to embrace the complexities of our existence, to acknowledge our struggles, and to find beauty in our imperfections.
For those wanting to connect more with who they believe themselves to be and how they are really living their lives, Swift's music is a guide for how to do this with courage and vulnerability (the two often go together).
Embracing our own eras
As the Eras tour unfolds, it's more than just a musical spectacle; it's a phenomenon centered on being seen and feeling connected.
Through Taylor Swift's music, we find camaraderie, emotional release, and a renewed sense of self.
So, let's lean into the melodies, the lyrics, and the shared experiences, knowing that in each chord and verse, we find echoes of our own stories, our own struggles, and our own triumphs.
For anyone looking to connect more with themselves and others, Taylor Swift's music offers a heartfelt path forward.
Ready to deepen your connection with yourself and others? Subscribe to our newsletter for more insights on emotional wellness and join our community of like-minded individuals on this ever-meandering journey of self-discovery.
Plus, get exclusive updates on how music and other forms of art can enrich your life (see our Culture Therapy series for more).
Click here to subscribe now and start connecting with yourself, each other, and the world around you in new and creative ways.
The Good Life Experience
Is it too soon to start planning for a different year? The Good Life Experience is one festival that might get you back to enjoying everything that life has to offer.
What is it: Billed as a festival like no other, The Good Life Experience takes place over a long autumn weekend on a castle estate in North Wales and has all the things that you’d hope to have in your regular life — great music, creative expression, inspirational books, time in the great outdoors, incredible food — to give you a taster of The Good Life. Founded by Cerys Matthews, Steve Abbot, and Charlie and Caroline Gladstone in 2014 to be ‘more than just’, from its starting point of “powerful, memorable and — most importantly — FUN experiences.”, it has since expanded to include Summer Camps, a dog-diving competition, and a range of activities for our grown-up inner children like fairground rides, ax throwing, and blacksmithing!
Why you’ll love it: Sometimes we think of The Good Life like our guide made in festival format: it has all the components that we try to weave together in the way that we approach the world: connection, nature, wellness, untethering, purpose, meaning, awe, creativity and doing good. All that is needed for our wellbeing.
Or see it like a favorite lifestyle magazine that makes all the things recommended and talked about happen in the real world rather than just on the page, so there’s the latest authors talking about their writings, top chefs cooking their recipes with us, sustainably produced fashion and small independent makers to shop, and travel spreads on glamping that you get to inhabit for a few nights. It's all there for real-world engagement.
Or consider it like how kids feel when they get to a theme park and want to do all the things and they have that squeaky voice and excitement inside, but here it’s us grown-ups (though many of us with our kids) wanting to do all the things too. On our list are floristry and weaving, dancing to new bands then star gazing, faery card reading, and campfire cooking sessions.
In short, The Good Life Experience is a playground of the thoughtfully curated and frankly just fun for the curious and the seekers among us.
What you need to know: Are we allowed to plan ahead yet? If so, booking a slot at The Good Life Experience is high on our list of things to do for making 2021 nothing like 2020. (Tickets are already available for next year’s festival taking place from 29 April to 2 May and the waitlist for them has already started — which we’re now also on, sigh).
How to bring this into your life: The Good Life Experience is not just a festival anymore, it’s becoming a way of life to access year-round. And when lockdown happened (and is happening again) the team behind it got active: see a community shop in a pub, new podcasts and daily posters, Some Good Ideas, and a whole array of Good Life Experiences to do at home. At the time of writing, you can participate in the new project Lockdown Radio and an All Day Communion, a partnership with writer Mark Shayler. Out of festival hours, there are also weekend camps at sister project Glen Dye in Scotland and open through all the times their farm shop on Hawarden Estates.
Why we think it’s different: There was a moment not that long ago when making anything other than toast for breakfast was seen as the norm and self-care extended to a long bath. Maybe we learned knitting from our nans, or we tried Jamie Oliver when we needed to cook, or we got into the National Trust to go outdoors. But then something shifted, hugely. With the constant demands of our working and online lives, a planet on a horribly destructive path, and daily life that’s getting harder on our minds and souls, many of us are now seeking out the different and the good and the life-affirming. We’re looking for ways to connect with something slower, more meaningful, and dare we say it more human.
Such pastimes as wild swimming, crafting, and poetry, have become newly popular and widely sought out. Just think about those sourdough starters and new crocheted wall pieces that you started in Lockdown. We turn to other things when the world turns inside out, and often these are simple pleasures, the people around us, and the natural world.
Where once The Good Life Experience was a singular way of being, now more of us are open to experiences that help us find new ways of navigating our lives and having better, more joyful, and sustainable days as we do so. If The Good Life Experience becomes just an interruption in the year from all the things that make modern life what it is than that’s great, but taking new discoveries beyond the weekend has the capacity to help year-round.
In their own words: “At its core, this movement can best be defined, perhaps, as The Search for The Good Life; a life that’s fulfilled and considered, yes, but is also fun and values the things that matter... family, friends, a real connection with The Great Outdoors, proper food and drink, discovery, music that comes from the soul, great books, craft. All the things that don’t cost a great deal but that make life richer, more rewarding, and better fun.”
To find out more: Website / Instagram / Twitter / Facebook
Additionally try: The Big Retreat
Soul Circus Festival
Too soon to think about what your well-being looks like next summer? Not according to this Cotswold based glitterball of a holistic festival.
What is it: A summer festival that puts wellness at the center but keeps the fun going, set in the beautiful Cotswold countryside.
Why you’ll love it: If Downward Facing Dog in the company of hundreds and an openness to all things wellness is your thing, then this is the Summer weekender for you. Who needs wellies and stumbling drunk into tents when you can have tipis full of meditation, breathwork sessions from GOOP superheroes, and yoga to Beyonce (as in played not present). Don’t worry there’s still cocktails to be had, comedy for life-affirming belly-laughs, and serious dancing in the evening (Goldie and Norman Jay MBE have attended previous years).
What you need to know: Is it too early to think about summer festivals and spending long summer days outside (as we start to huddle indoors in 12 layers)? Seems not. Tickets are already on sale for 2021. Who knows where the world will be by then but this year Soul Circus managed to pull off a COVID secure festival with 46,000 attendees spread over 59 days of programs in Cheltenham’s Montpellier Gardens.
What they offer – from here and there: When our worlds closed down earlier this year, Soul Circus brought its festival to our homes with their on-demand platform. Still going strong you can recreate some of the magic in your living rooms, with videos that offer the same range of classes and events, with yoga, dance, pilates, HIIT, cooking classes, DJ sets, and coaching sessions. There are even Gong baths online.
Why we think it's different: This is one festival that gets that wellness isn’t just white lycra and the splits against beautiful sunsets. The 2020 event had a community mental health clinic in one of its tents to meet new needs after months of pandemic induced stresses. We are all struggling in our own ways and there are like a thousand ways (not an exact number) to respond to those needs. Soul Circus isn’t about how stretchy your body is, but about finding a way that works for you to recalibrate your life. Then you can take whatever it is you have discovered with you when you return to your everyday world.
In their own words: “Because at the end of the day, we’re here to expand your curiosities, provide you a safe place to explore your unknowns, and sprinkle just a bit of glitter into your every day.”
To find out more: Website / Instagram / Facebook
If you’ve visited the Soul Circus Festival or you love other wellness-based festivals let us know about it. Things change all the time and we want to make sure we’re bringing you the most up to date information and the latest places to go to find that mind/body connection.
Isolation Inspiration: 5 Times The Internet Really Pulled Through This Week
Comedians are performing, children’s authors are reading their books, musicians are putting on concerts in their living rooms (!!) people are CONNECTING in any way that they can, all in the name of banding together to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities. (I know it’s the internet, and social media at that, but there is a real beauty here and I hope it is not lost on us.)
Ok, we know that this pandemic has been terrifying and overwhelming and inconvenient. Even under the best of conditions, we’ve been thrown from our regularly scheduled lives into some no-mans-land where no one knows what day it is or what is important or how they should be spending their time. I’m personally sticking with a 25-25-50 breakdown, toggling between (1) eating (2) trying to teach my kids literally anything and (3) re-watching every late-90s romantic movie I can remember. (While everyone else in the world is flipping out over Tiger King, I’m just over here like: Armageddon, Con Air, Titanic. Repeat). So yes, things are a bit wacky in our worlds, BUT, through all of this madness, something magical is happening, as well….
EVERYONE ELSE IS STUCK AT HOME, TOO!!
Yes, nearly everyone in the US and UK is sheltering in place at this point. Which, from one angle, might seem like a pretty bleak prospect…but with the existence of the internet, can actually be quite exciting. That’s because the people we love, the people we depend on for escape, the artists and writers and musicians, who so often feel so distant from us, now feel closer than ever. (The playing field has been leveled. All of us live in sweatpants now.)
Maybe you’ve noticed that every time you head to instagram you’re hit with a zillion notifications that people you are following are “going live”. (It is possible that I am technologically inept and need to adjust my settings, but I digress.) Under normal conditions, I wouldn’t really be apt to click on these live videos, assuming there might be some produced/commercial feel to whatever they were doing. This week, however, I started seeing new names pop up, creatives I admire, authors I live for, bands I’d never noticed on instagram…all suddenly “going live”. Hm. My interest was piqued. So I started clicking when they popped up…and you guys…hold onto your hats. (Or, your phones? Or whatever the modern day equivalent to that sentiment might be.) These people are putting on workshops and holding live readings and playing fucking concerts in their living rooms!!!
Please stop what you’re doing (YES STOP READING THIS) and go follow everyone you love on instagram! Comedians are performing, children’s authors are reading their books, people are CONNECTING in any way that they can—all in the name of banding together to protect the most vulnerable among us. (I know it’s the internet, and social media at that, but there is a real beauty here, and I hope it is not lost on us.)
I am sure you have all sorts of strange obsessions and specific tastes, but this is what we’ve loved this week, and we think you’d love it, too. (Also, we REALLY want to know how you pulled through this week and what helped you to get there? Was it a movie or a podcast or a book or a friend? Tell us about it!)
Here are a few of the things that made our life bearable this week.
5 Times The Internet Really Pulled Through
This acoustic set from Yoke Lore was like the coziest, sweetest performance ever. He was just sitting on the floor of his living room with all of his plants behind him. (We’re probably best friends now.) If you don’t know who this is, please go watch the video for his song “Beige” and fall in love. In his live performance he explains that the song is about finding a way to tell someone how you feel about them in a very specific way. (example: Let me go under your skin // Let me find the demon that drives those heavenly limbs). I’d tell you more but I’m sobbing just thinking about it. His next set will be in support of MusicCares (which provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need), so stay tuned!
We also loved Distraction Tactics with Dan Smith, lead singer of the band Bastille (who, interesting fact, would almost-definitely be my boyfriend if I weren’t married.) This new series is like a book club, but for films. (Wait, is a film club a thing?) Either way, here we come together to talk about movies from around the world. This week, we started in the UK with cult-classic Shaun of the Dead, complete with a pre-recorded interview with Simon Pegg (amazing) and a new jingle, written by Dan (equally as amazing). It was a bit like watching your best friend pull of a really great presentation at school. There’s something so sweet about the home-made authenticity in instagram live posts. (I say we get into it before the influencer destroy it.) Stay tuned for next week’s episode where we’ll head to a new country and breakdown another film! What film will it be? I can’t remember!
Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach had an argument about “popcorn chewing volume” and cabinet doors remaining open for too long, in real time. (It was a very validating and cathartic experience for anyone who was able to catch a glimpse, I’m sure.) Glennon also stepped up as interim kindergarten teacher and read books to my six year old daughter while I lazed nearby. (This was via Instagram live…I don’t usually hang out with Glennon. I’m very busy.) She also prompted kids to ask dinnertime questions like: “How do you get your ickies out?” which is phrased so adorably that I’m maybe crying again. (She is officially raising my child now.)
**We also received our copies of Glennon’s new book Untamed! Who else is reading it?!
Lumineers singer Wesley Shultz performed a collection of original and cover songs from what looked like his kitchen? (But rich people have huge houses with tons of unnecessary rooms so it’s hard to say definitively.) In the performance he pleads with us to all take this virus seriously and do what we can to slow its spread. He also admits that some of his best lyrics were actually taken from things his wife has said to him over the years. So, you know, just typical stuff. #whoRunTheWorld?
BJ Novak read his hilarious children’s book, The Book With No Pictures and it was, again, like, do we even have to do anything? Can the internet just teach our kids?? (I, of course, am only joking. I am a homeschool mom and wrote allllll about our riveting days earlier this week.) If you watched this live reading we hope hearing BJ say “Boo Boo Butt” was the salve you needed to soothe whatever aches and pains this isolation may have conjured.
**And, as a bonus, we just wanted to mention #togetherAtHome, a virtual concert series and campaign of Global Citizen (a movement of engaged citizens who are using their collective voice to end extreme poverty) created in conjunction with the WHO. If you’ve got some time (and lets be real, you’ve got some time) scroll through the hashtag and see what’s coming up. This week, we’re excited to check out Jimmy Eat World and probably other people but we don’t know how to search upcoming events so we are simply welcoming whatever is meant to come to us, which might seem like something a highly enlightened person would say…or at least someone who possesses more crystals than we do…but for our purposes just means spending extra time on the internet, maniacally clicking on everything that pops up. 🤗
We know this time is full of so much uncertainty, but we hope you’re finding creative ways to move through and come together. Even in isolation, connection is possible. We want to hear how you’re connecting, or where you’re struggling. If you feel so inclined, please reach out.
And, if you are struggling, please consider heading to our guide to find more resources. Everyday, we’re adding and editing in the hopes that we’ll all come through this time with our mental well-being intact. To learn more about the mission of If Lost, Start Here and to stay connected, please sign up for our newsletter!
The Saviors We Never Knew We Needed
But the beauty in this moment, if there is any to be found, is that we’re beginning to accept that mental health isn’t just something to be addressed within the stark walls of our therapist’s office. We’re beginning to look to more than the typical health care provider to carry us through. We’re beginning to see that, maybe, there is healing to be found elsewhere? Maybe there are solutions and connections and answers in our everyday lives? Maybe music is here to save us, after all.
The sun is setting in San Francisco and I’m roaming the streets barefoot (again).
It’s the summer of 2004 and I’ve just lost my shoes for the fourth time. Seeing as I’ve spent the last hour fighting to stay alive amidst a sea of people, rioting and screaming, it feels like a relatively small casualty.
You might be imagining that I’d just witnessed a burgeoning political movement take shape, that I was standing (shoeless) at the precipice of some groundbreaking revolution (and, now that I think of it, maybe I was...but I certainly didn’t realize it at the time). You may *also* be thinking I was very drunk, tripping my way down the crowded streets of the Tenderloin (which is certainly a strong possibility, but I honestly can’t recall the details.) In reality, I was simply ambling back to my car after a night at The Fillmore...manically happy (albeit a bit bruised)...feeling more alive than I’d ever felt.
I often think back to this time, the early 2000s, coming of age just as the California music scene was coming alive with a new wave of emotionally-charged sounds. (Emo, Screamo, Pop-Punk, Hardcore ... whatever the distinction, there were lots of feelings, and everyone was yelling.)
While I’ve never fully fleshed out the true impact, this much, I know, is true: Packing into a small, hot venue, with all the focus and intensity funneling in one direction is a powerful, communal experience and arguably more cathartic than most other experiences we’re afforded as adults. (Truly, if you have never been allowed to push someone really hard and then sob next to that *same person* whilst swaying, let me tell you, friends: It does NOT disappoint!)
For someone lacking any sort of formal religion, rock shows became my church.
If you were to create a Venn-diagram outlining the commonalities between the two, there probably is a pretty sizable overlap.
(you should draw this)
It makes sense, then, that, in moments of struggle, we look to these idols for direction and guidance, that we take their words as gospel and apply them to our lives; that we pour over their lyrics in search of answers; that we try to align our experiences with their teachings; that we seek connection with other believers; that we stand and chant, screaming their words back to them hoping, this time, that we’ll finally hear them.
Because the truth of the matter is, the reason that we love music is that it offers us a safe place to process and feel—a necessity we’ve, historically, been completely starved for.
We’re a nation of young people being ravaged by mental health issues. Suicide rates and depression and anxiety are all on a steady rise.* But the beauty in this moment, if there is any to be found, is that we’re beginning to accept that mental health isn’t just something to be addressed within the stark walls of our therapist’s office. We’re beginning to look to more than the typical health care provider to carry us through. We’re beginning to see that, maybe, there is healing to be found elsewhere? Maybe there are solutions and connections and answers in our everyday lives? Maybe music is here to save us, after all.
For teens, specifically, there is a power in seeing the people we idolize, respect and trust bringing a vulnerability and openness around these difficult conversations.
Emerging at the same time as this early 2000s emo and punk scenes, To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) was established to reach this demographic of young people.
“TWLOHA is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”
Traveling with The Warped Tour, TWLOHA brought mental health awareness to a massive audience and served as a springboard for other similarly impactful initiatives. “Wanting to support existing professional help organizations rather than replace them, TWLOHA has invested directly into causes such as Hopeline, InTheRooms.com, S.A.F.E. Alternatives, Minding Your Mind, and (in Australia) Kids Helpline."
The incredible thing about TWLOHA was seeing how it affected not just the fans, but the bands as well. It became clear that fame and success were no more protective against mental illness than anything else. The truth that we all struggle was brought fully, and literally, to center stage.
Working in the music industry over the last few years, I’ve noticed an uptick, not just in the vulnerability bands bring to their live shows, but in the intentional messaging that is expressed, both through their lyrics and through their on-stage admissions. There is a real drive to reach out and let listeners know that they are not alone.
This year alone:
We saw Lovely The Band frontman Mitchy Collins open up about losing friends to suicide , encouraging listeners to reach out, find help, and check in on one another.
We watched K.Flay release an entire album full of deeply personal stories from her childhood with topics ranging from her ever-present mental health struggles to her strained relationship with her father.
Blue October frontman Justin Furstenfeld’s Open Book tour exposed us to his addiction, how he found hope, accepted help and eventually saved himself.
Rainbow Kitten Surprise floored us with their groundbreaking video for “Hide” (please go watch it immediately) and their resolve to secure equal rights and protections for LGBTQ community members by donating a portion of ticket sales directly to Equality NC.
Billie Eilish took the world by storm by bringing an entirely new sound to the world of alternative and pop music, but she also brought stories of living with Tourette’s syndrome, normalizing the condition for sufferers across the world.
Whether they realize it or not, these bands are shifting the way we orient ourselves to mental health.
I remember the early days of attending shows, being lost in a sea of people, hoping, simply, to hold on to my shoes. I remember the days when “HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS?!” was the requisite level of interest a band was expected to pay you. I remember how, sometimes, I’d find myself being crushed against the barriers in front of the stage, how the band would stop playing to say something about loving and protecting each other before launching back in to their set. I remember, in that moment, however brief, after fighting for space and gasping for breath, the palpable feeling of relief.
Today’s bands are doing more than offering brief moments of reprieve from the pain... they’re creating a space where the pain can sit and live as we breathe our way through, creating a space where we can come together in recognition of our brokenness and in awe of our strength, creating a space where, yes, we might lose some shoes...but one where we might find some hope, as well.
* In the United States, the suicide rate has jumped 24 percent since 1999, to 13 per 100,000 people, with the steepest growth in the years since 2006, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Culture Therapy | Part 1 Connection
We’re kicking off a new series on ‘Culture Therapy’ — the books, podcasts, music, magazines, and other media that we turn to when in need. First up how to get more connection into your life without leaving your house.
“In reality, every reader, while he is reading, is the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument, which he offers to the reader to permit him to discern what, without the book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. The reader’s recognition in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its truth.”
“Art is a social practice that helps people to locate their truth.”
We’re kicking off a new series on ‘Culture Therapy’ — the books, podcasts, music, magazines, and other media that we turn to when in need. Recently we realized that we’re the kind of people that often turn inward as much as outward when we need help (points for knowing ourselves!). We look to all kinds of things that we can do alone to shift our moods and our perspectives.
Here’s where that piece of being ‘a travel guide but for people who don’t want to actually go anywhere’ sits. There’s no pressure to get out of the house, there’s no pressure to Instagram a perfect life or enviable days, there’s no pressure to fill schedules instead of your heart and mind.
We’ll arrange our Culture Therapy posts according to the same categories of approach you’ve seen with our places, so there’s always somewhere to go — either physically or in the imaginary, whenever and wherever you need it.
We’re starting with the idea of connection, of the importance to our mental wellbeing of being around other people, which we know is kind of ironic. Yes, there are ways of pursuing connection in real time and space, in the actual world of humans; but then there’s ways of connecting through the shared experience of someone else’s life, exploring someone else’s point of view, of being consumed by the narrative of others for a while.
Writer Elizabeth Day believes in connection so much that she has ‘Only Connect’ tattooed on her wrist, because for her “that’s the whole essence of life, you need to connect.” So here goes, a Prescription for Everyday Life around the idea of connection:
Repeatedly on Best of Lists for 2018 (just see this list over on Amazon), Tara Westover’s memoir has stunned people with its true tale of a seventeen-year-old Westover entering a classroom for the first time after growing up in a Survivalist family in the mountains of Idaho. Though a deeply personal and moving account of one’s person’s struggle to navigate the reality of their own life, the universals of family, home and courage speak to all of us.
“Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.”
THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING
This book blew us away. It’s courageous and open and raw and brave. It unsettles, and challenges, and moves, and awakens. Morgan Jenkins gives voice to her experiences of being a black woman growing up and living in today’s America. She talks openly in a series of essays about her experiences in contexts such as cheerleading, Ivy League college, and international travel, her take on figures such as Michelle Obama and Beyonce, the politics of black women’s hair, and how to have and sustain relationships, within ideas of identity politics and personal beliefs.
“We cannot come together if we do not recognize our differences first. These differences are best articulated when women of color occupy the center of the discourse while white women remain silent, actively listen, and do not try to reinforce supremacy by inserting themselves in the middle of the discussion.”
OK, Caitlin’s Moran’s book isn’t a memoir, but we fell in love with it and it has all the insight of one. Follow 19 year old music journalist Dolly Wilde as she deals with unrequited love for an actual pop star, the enmity of the all-male staff of a leading music magazine, and dealing with fame, London, and very, very bad sex.
“Think about how brave it is, to do this: to queue up, and meet your hero. There’s something incredibly intimate about reading, or listening, or looking at someone else’s art. When it truly moves you—when you whoop when Prince whoops in Purple Rain; or cry when Bastian cries in The NeverEnding Story, it is as if you have been them, for a while. You traveled inside them, in their shoes, breathing their breath. Moving with their pulse. A faint ghost of them imprinted, inside you, forever—it responds when you meet them, as if it recognizes its own reflection.”
CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS
Sally Rooney’s stunning debut novel feels like its keeping itself in check while trying not to fall into the intimacy abyss of female friendship and love relationships. Frances, a millennial beholden only to herself, but who is really in thrall to the self-possessed Bobbi and confusingly charming Nick, works at figuring it all out with a cool detachment that she certainly doesn’t feel. People, yup, they are complicated. It will make you question why you think what you think about people, and how your ego sometimes needs to slide right out of the way.
“Things and people moved around me, taking positions in obscure hierarchies, participating in systems I didn’t know about and never would. A complex network of objects and concepts. You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.”
Russian Doll
Really? Connection? The Netflix comedy-drama created by Natasha Lyonne (who also stars), Amy Poehler, and Lesyle Headland, is about many things. We’ll allow you to debate that endlessly. But we think this twisted Groundhog Day-style series — where Nadia keeps reliving the day that she heads to an NYC party to celebrate her 36th birthday and dies, in various ways, again and again — is about figuring out that people bit. At its heart, its about learning that not being alone in life is maybe enough to solve even the most mysterious of problems.
“In the ‘60s, you would see people dropping like flies at 27 and you felt, ‘Oh that must be a drug thing. But as you move into modern times, we’re realizing that it’s very adult and very accomplished people who find that life is simply too much to bear. That’s a very real thing that we need to remove a cloak of shame around. I think we need to be discussing freely and openly the underlying brokenness of the human experience.”
How to Human has become one of our default listens with its raw, open questioning, as much of host Sam Lamott as his guests. Sam is not afraid to face his past, and his present struggles, publicly and sincerely, and he’ll admit to feeling kind of afraid or crap or lost as he does so. That’s unusual in the highly polished storytelling of most of today’s podcasts. It’s an approach that has drawn in guests as wide-ranging as sometimes controversial lawyer Gloria Allred and wise person in the world Bryron Katie.
“If you believe what you see, you believe we look like our cherry-picked profile pictures we curate, that our life is the polished story we present. But our truth, our quirky, messy, actual human experience, is captivating and magnetic, because we see our true self in the story.”
We want to tell you that everything we learned about people we learned from listening to Terry Gross interview everybody of note, ever. But we didn’t. Though we did feel smarter and more understanding after listening to her conversations. Gross somehow doesn’t push her guests to reveal too much, but she does somehow sensitively and expertly allow for their vulnerability and for them as real people to show up, whether that’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge or Zadie Smith.
“I also often ask my guests about what they consider to be their invisible weaknesses and shortcomings. I do this because these are the characteristics that define us no less than our strengths. What we feel sets us apart from other people is often the thing that shapes us as individuals. This may be especially true of writers and actors, many of whom first started to develop their observational skills as a result of being sidelined from typical childhood or adolescent activities because of an infirmity or a feeling of not fitting in. Or so I’ve come to believe from talking to so many writers and actors over the years.”
We don’t believe in must-reads (who has the time) only loved-reads, and we’d add the literary magazine American Chordata into that pile. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art and photography approached with a beautiful design sensibility and brave emotional tenor. Make this your company for a while and it will be interesting company at that. This is a magazine that captures the ‘plurality of human experience.’
“We want to be a really good literary and arts magazine that celebrates sophisticated design and earnest expression on the same page… What interests us most is work that’s new but not smug, that’s brave enough to give us emotional detail and skilful enough to do it without melodrama.”
LOST IN TRANSLATION
We still go back to this movie, which to us defines a certain innocence of its stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, and of our times, when just hanging out in Tokyo and finding oneself and someone else to brush against seemed enough. Because what really happens here? Two people hang out, slight confused but content to be seen for a while as they are, maybe falling in love, maybe just holding each other for a while in time and space outside of their regular lives. Plus that karaoke scene?
“More than this, you know there’s nothing. More than this, just tell me one thing.”
Susan O’Malley was a SF-based artist who used the materials of our human connectedness to create meaningful works that engaged and inspired. This book centers on a single question — ‘What advice would your 80-year old self give to you?’ — that O’Malley asked people aged 7 to 88. Turns out you should listen to that voice. There are wise words to be heard from your future self if you listen.
“In every conversation I’ve had for this project, I’m reminded how we all are looking for similar things in our lives: meaning, security, happiness, community, and love. Your heart has reasons your head does not know; love is everywhere, look for it; do the things that matter to your heart. The words of others often express what I’m thinking but haven’t yet found words for. It’s these moments of hearing what I recognize that makes me feel alive, connected and understood. Yes, we are all in this together.’”
Amanda’s playlist for connection over on spotify. Listen to this if you don’t want to see people, or want to be inspired to be around them again! Either works.
Let us know what we’re missing, what you’d add and what you turn to when in need of more connection in your life. One note, this is not a list of everything ever written on the subject. Its our take, from what we’ve been consuming over the last few months. Its our prescription for your life for where we are, and you might be, right now. Enjoy!
The Sheppey
The Sheppey rewards those who seek it out with character in abundance, and music to pay attention to, thoughtful rooms to suit your different moods and barrels of cider on the bar to blurry away your day.
“Five minutes from Glastonbury and ten minutes from Wells, England’s smallest city, The Sheppey is a pub out in a world of its own, amongst the peat beds and murmurating starlings of the Somerset Levels. We offer brilliant modern European food, a constantly changing roster of beers and ales, and a bar covered in casks of local ciders that’ll knock your socks off.”
Sometimes when it feels like there is nothing there, we stumble on something. Driving down narrow single lanes across the Somerset Levels, the feeling is very much of absence – of being lost on the flatness of it all, of peet moors and dairy farms and not much more. But then you arrive, at an unassuming white fronted building and you are here, in someplace. Which here means a location of eccentricity and bustle, and a pub called The Sheppey.
We’re huge believers in the good ole English pub to hold us as people, but it takes a special kind of pub to hold us beyond the pint. The Sheppey rewards those who seek it out with character in abundance, and music to pay attention to, thoughtful rooms to suit your different moods and barrels of cider on the bar to blurry away your day.
There’s whimsey to be found here: the fish wallpaper, signs declaring LOVE, the plastic horror dolls (or is that just our reading of those things!), the vintage finds, retro furniture and Hockney prints. You get to self-select where you want to be: cute cubbies for lounging, a more traditional pub bar, an outside courtyard to soak in the hoped for sun and a more grown-up light filled indoor space conducive to conversation. And let’s get back to that music which is built into the tongue-in-cheek DNA of this place: the DJ sets, the different music for different decades (yes, that includes an 80s dance party where you get to dress up in that rara skirt you’ve been holding onto) and an eclectic line up of live bands ranging from folk, soul, jazz funk and, err, poaching music.
Bought by Mark Hey and Liz Chamberlain in 2010, The Sheppey has been lauded for a while as one of the best of the west, its pull equivalent, maybe, to that famous site of pilgrimage, The Glastonbury Tor, that sits within its sights. Ok, maybe that’s going too far, but this is a place that has draw. We came with kids and cousins, and probably wrongly used the flea market toys on display to distract them while we munched on our ale battered fish and chips on the sun-filled balcony beside a round shiny ball that said appropriately ‘Globe’. For an afternoon, seated beside a river, with food and family, that was our whole world. That was enough.
By pouring their commitment and personality into this space, Hey and Chamberlain have created a context where magic of a different kind can happen too. Yes, they have manifested a situation of welcome and hospitality, a context that invites joy and relationships, an environment that is cosy in its crammed arrangements. But when this all gets out of the way, when you are seated or dancing or eating amongst its glory, there’s that other spark that can happen, the one where we come together as people and help make The Sheppey sing too.
To find out more: Website www.thesheppey.co.uk / Facebook @sheppey
[Oh and if you need more of this and want to stay longer, there are three bedrooms on site and two cottages close by.]
Sunday Assembly
What makes Sunday Assembly distinct, and widely compelling, is the basic belief system of ‘Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More’. Who could not find themselves getting behind that?
“Celebrating life together. Inspiring events and caring communities in 70+ cities worldwide.”
A Sunday Assembly. What are your associations with this? You probably already have some. Maybe your mind goes to Church. Maybe it goes to Religion. Maybe it’s just thrown back to some gathering, or school, or choir thing you had to attend when you were a kid. But does it go to singing Snow Patrol (‘Light Up, light up / As if you have a choice / Even if you cannot hear my voice / I’ll be right beside your dear’), or eating donuts and drinking coffee, or hearing someone’s story of how they couldn’t quite get their life to do what it needed to do that week?
Since it was launched in 2013 by two comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, as the punch-line that didn’t have a joke, Sunday Assembly has morphed into 70 chapters in 8 countries. The most recent chapter opened in Plymouth, England in the past month. We’ve attended the monthly meet-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are others, many others, in places like Cape Town, Sydney, Amsterdam, Paris, Detroit and Las Vegas. If there isn’t one near you, you get to start one with 9 of your friends, following this pathway. There’s a reason it’s the fastest growing secular community in the world.
What makes Sunday Assembly distinct, and widely compelling, is the basic belief system of ‘Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More’. Who could not find themselves getting behind that? Each Chapter is built around a Manifesto that includes things like ‘Is 100% a celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.’ And ‘Is radically inclusive. Everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs—this is a place of love that is open and accepting.’ And ‘We won’t tell you how to live but will try to help you do it as well as you can.’ (There are 10 points that make lots of sense, read them all here)
But this is making it all sound horribly serious. The Assemblies themselves are open and playful, and delightfully human. They speak to our needs as people – the simple ones of laughter, storytelling, friendship, singing, music, sharing food and spending time together. Things happen at them, some expected like the inspirational speakers saying wise words on themes like human aging, or happiness, or body positivity, but some things that may take you out of your comfort zone (or not, depending on how you are inclined) like err dance breaks. Bands play, spoken word artists perform, poets take the podium. Each Assembly is different though the foundation of the mission permeates even the most unique among them.
Maybe because they all speak to our more complex needs, those of wanting to be heard and needing to listen, of getting beyond ourselves and into a wider purpose, of realizing that our emotional lives can have a place in the days of our weeks, that there’s a graspable value system within our reach. Maybe the most important thing here is around belonging – at a time when we’re more and more disconnected, more lost, more lonely, Sunday Assembly opens its doors and says just ‘hi, come in.’
That’s the beautiful simplicity of the whole thing. When you walk into one of the congregations, you can feel it. That openness, that sense of welcome, that feeling of being ok. As you sing along, as you reflect, as you boogie just a little, even as you catch the eye of the person next to you in the fab recognition of it all, you get to be a person in the world, and that can feel good, even if you are out of tune or a stranger or slightly befuddled by it all. This is your chance to revel in the feeling of truly belonging, even if it’s just for a little while.
To find out more: Website www.sundayassembly.com / Instagram @sundayassemblylondon
On Cycle Class
I appreciate so many things about cycle class—the exercise, of course, but also the mental equanimity it brings. I have one of those brains that speeds, and when it’s not speeding it’s caught in a loop.
She wasn’t my first. There were others before, and there’ve been others since.
But she was my favorite. I suspect she always will be.
Circumstances kept us apart most of the time, but for a few hours a week, I was entirely hers. And when we were together, an hour went by like an instant.
She was funny, but she could also be tough. Very tough. I worked so hard, trying to make her happy. When her lips would curve into a smile of approval, it made my day.
Sometimes she would invite others to come watch us, to get new ideas.
Our song was “Sandstorm” by Darude. She could even make the song shrink or lengthen, depending on her mood. She was tiny in stature, but she was that powerful. I still think about her often, and fondly. Even though I no longer remember her name.
She was the group exercise manager at the 24 Hour Fitness at El Camino and Hwy 92, and when she led a cycle class, you could count me present and accounted for, ma’am. She often climbed off her bike and prowled around the room, never making eye contact with any one individual but letting us know she was watching, always watching, as she barked orders. “Sprint!” “Jumps!” “Hill climb!” The aforementioned others who came to watch were her fellow cycle instructors; she insisted they sample one another’s classes to keep everyone at the top of their game.
I’ve been attending cycle classes for almost twenty years now, and I’ve encountered dozens of instructors. The worst are the throwback dudes who play Aerosmith and Guns ’n’ Roses—two bands I love dearly, thank you very much—but then expect the music (not them) to lead the class, and we all plod, plod, plod away at the same BPM for an hour. Actually, no, I stand corrected, the worst is when they command us to pump away at some other BPM than the music. Would a Zumba teacher ever tell you to dance faster or slower than the music? No!
I appreciate so many things about cycle class—the exercise, of course, but also the mental equanimity it brings. I have one of those brains that speeds, and when it’s not speeding it’s caught in a loop. Cycle makes the needle jump its groove and gives me some relief. I’m not overly sporty, and I’m about as adept with choreography as I am with, say, brain surgery, but I can do jumps on fours and eights like nobody’s business. I’m competition-averse, but eagerly imagine that I’m racing the guy next to me. And likely winning, considering how easy he seems to be taking things today, the slacker.
For an hour in cycle I get to think deep thoughts about the structure of music. Even pop music has a lot of structure, and a really skilled instructor will leverage it to make us work hard and make the time streak by. I also get to muse on personality types. In the old, less trusting days, the gyms would keep the bike seats in a padlocked locker between classes, and there was that one guy who never took a seat so he’d have to stand for the whole class. Hmm.
I became a freelancer so I’d never have to attend a meeting I didn’t myself schedule, but two or possibly three thousand times over the last twenty years I’ve gotten up at the crack of dawn, or snuck out of work early, or otherwise dragged my sorry ass to the gym for cycle class at some weird hour someone else decided on. And even when Mr. Guns ’n’ Roses is at the helm, it’s always felt like time utterly well spent mentally, not just physically. I’m sure others, sweating alongside me in the dark, trouncing me in their own imaginary races, think the same.
———
And for another take on cycle class, Jimmy Fallon (thanks Lindsey for the suggestion)!