| | | Shakina Nayfack, an essay about toxic friendships, and more. | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | July 4, 2017 | Letter No. 93 | | | | | | | | | | | | Lennys,
There's an entire pop-music lineage of women picking the wrong men ("Me and Mr. Wrong get along so good"). There is musical language for women owning their man mistakes and crying anyway ("Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you … crazy for crying and crazy for trying") and for women knowing, with a sick shiver, the minute they lay eyes on the rough pair of Levi's that will eventually destroy them ("I knew you were trouble when you walked in").
But where, I've always wondered, were the songs about broken female friendship? About the slow gas-leak of disappointment that poisons months, if not years, of one's young life? Who has ever described the moment you see the girl you know will be your platonic love and ultimate downfall?
This week's gorgeous piece by Janelle Brown really got me thinking. Truthfully, it got me thinking too hard — about the friendships I have (largely loving, supportive, bordering on angelic) — but also about the ones I've lost.
Jenni and I have two offices (Lenny's and our production company's) filled entirely with women, women who adore each other, women who wept and shared burritos on the office floor the morning after Election Day even though we gave them the day off. We are more than just colleagues, and we've come to rely on each other's love and protection during challenging times, both personal and political. My first and only instinct is to trust women. My mother is one of three sisters. Her grandmother was one of seven. Sisterhood, both biological and adopted, was indoctrinated in me from a young age, almost like a religion. Which is why the loss of a female friendship is so specifically traumatic.
I remembered how I arrived in Oslo in the bitterness of winter on a mission to stare sadly at lights on the harbor. I had just gone through the most traumatic platonic breakup of my life. Her name — as familiar as my own — had disappeared from various inboxes weeks before. Every night I awoke around 3 a.m. in my hotel, panting for an explanation I could live with. Thinking of her was was like staring at a photo of your mother on the beach in the '70s, tan, hip-cocked. She was that mythical yet familiar to me, a figure of adulation and imposing importance. And I just plain missed her.
I realized then, during those sleepless European nights that even binge watching obscure Scandinavian game shows couldn't neutralize, that these breakups were the ones that have actually defined my sense of grief. I have never been traumatized by a romantic split: men felt somehow superfluous, and getting dumped was an excuse to burrow into bed with a best gal and some Hostess snacks and just hash it out. In that way, a terrible heartbreak felt almost thrilling because of the opening it provided with the women I love. But with a woman, a severing of ties was completely, brutally unexpected. It was a loss with no upside. It was hell.
My first obsessive friendship was with a girl we'll call Rose. She had lips like Angelina Jolie, a light Brooklyn accent, and the coolest boots in seventh grade. We ran through the halls of school like a teensy femme Bonnie and Clyde (Bonnie and Bonnie?), and our souls were twinning as much as our baby T's.
But as much as Rose and I adored each other, we could be wildly jealous, mean, and callous. One day, we found ourselves on the street outside Brooklyn's own Happy Days diner, screaming recriminations. "Have a nice life, bitch!" I wept all night on my top bunk, and then the next day we both came to school with apology bouquets and laughed. Because of course we had conceived of the same fix.
Time and circumstance separated me from Rose, but last month I found myself seated across from her at a vegan restaurant uptown. Though our lives were superficially different, it was shocking how many experiences we had shared across space and time. And I was mesmerized by how totally she was still herself: the same adorable accent, biting sense of humor, and soft, delicate hands I couldn't stop touching. We beamed like lovesick puppies, rehashing every aspect of our young lives. It was magical news to know you could re-meet and it could feel like this, that time had a way of improving rather than destroying. It made me hopeful for every woman I have loved and lost. It eased the ache and lit a fresh vigil candle.
Here's my philosophy: When it comes to sisters, hang on until you can't anymore. And if you can't, it's OK. But maybe, fifteen years later, you'll find yourself drinking smoothies and weaving your fingers together again.
Your honorary sister, if you'll have me,
Lena | | | | | | | | | | | | Shakina Nayfack on the Radical Act of Being a Trans Woman in Love | | | | By Olivia Clement | | |
I was first introduced to Shakina Nayfack two years ago. She was quickly garnering a reputation as a performer to watch, largely thanks to her powerful autobiographical One Woman Show at Joe's Pub.
The night I went to see Post-Op, her follow-up show at Joe's Pub about her journey to Thailand for gender-confirmation surgery, goes down in history as one of my favorite New York nights. There she was, bearing her soul. She expressed the love she had for her new vagina, the wonder of rediscovering her own body, and the pain of mutilating it in the hopes of achieving something greater. She was raw and transcendental. Her strength rippled off the stage and through the crowd, propelling us into the night.
Since, Shakina has toured her follow-up show, Manifest Pussy,throughout North Carolina in protest of HB2 (a.k.a. "the bathroom bill") and booked a leading role in the Hulu series Difficult People. She also continues to run the Musical Theatre Factory, the nonprofit arts organization she launched in 2014.
We sat down in her new office downtown, just across the street from where I first saw her perform, and chatted about advocacy, rocking a shaved head, and why being in a loving relationship is the most radical, subversive act there is. Our interview was an unexpected, instant connection. I was blown away by her graciousness and philosophy on life.
Olivia Clement: Let's talk about Lola, your character on Difficult People, why is she such an important character to have on TV right now?
Shakina Nayfack: I could be wrong, but I think that she's the first genuinely comedic trans character on television. Comedy is not created at her expense; she's actually generating jokes and laughs. I think that's pretty radical. Also, she calls out assumptions about transgender women and deflates them right then and there. I have a line in season two where I say, "Just because I'm trans, you think I'm a sex worker." Or: "I'm a trans woman, not a drag queen." And I'm not doing any of those things; I have adventures that are just fun and ridiculous, that aren't focused on my trans identity as a plot point. There's also the fact that I'm an unconventional body type, which is again disrupting assumptions about what trans women have to be like.
OC: I know a lot of people see you as a role model. Do you see yourself that way?
SN: I'm aware that I'm a role model, and I take it very seriously. It informs a lot of what I do because I feel a responsibility to my community.
OC: You do so much — you're an advocate, an actress, and you run your own theater company. What drives you?
SN: I have my own drive. I value discipline and process, and I value virtuosity. I aspire to it. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting a high bar for yourself. At the same time, I believe in rising tides lifting all boats — especially coming from a community that's been so heavily oppressed for so many years. I have a sense of who has helped me come up in the world, and I feel an obligation to share the wealth. I try to balance my own drive and motivation to succeed with my passion for advocacy and supporting other people. Happiness is only valuable when shared, and there are plenty of pieces of the pie. If you're in the business of manifesting miraculous things like I am, then poverty consciousness doesn't help. You need to be able to see beyond the illusion of limited opportunity in order to embrace limitless opportunity.
OC: Earlier, you said something about Lola breaking down the barriers of how a trans woman is supposed to look. You do that in real life too. Tell me about your shaved head.
SN: It's a combination of things. I began shaving my head when I was twenty, when I started doing Butoh dance, but I also started losing my hair really young and I was more comfortable having a shaved head than balding — so there was a bit of vanity. There was also the thought, Physical form is fleeting, and this is how I honor that. Those worked together.
When I got back from Thailand [after my gender-confirmation surgery], I needed a way to show people that things were different, that there was a fundamental difference in who I was and what my body was doing. So wearing a wig became really useful in order to be a little more passable. I was going through such a difficult recovery process, and I didn't need to be getting called out on the street or subway. Wearing hair helped me blend in and also gave me an opportunity to glam up in a different way. I was really invested in that for a bit, but at the end of the day, I would have to take off my wig. I'd look in the mirror, and I would see a man with a pussy. It was heartbreaking. I was feeling really bifurcated. It was my boyfriend who helped me come back to my own center, my own self, and to feel comfortable returning to my shaved-head look — a sense of myself as an integrated being with my new body parts.
OC: Let's talk about your boyfriend, Daniel. You have a photo album on Facebook of images of the two of you titled: The Radical Act of Being a Trans Woman in Love. Why did you name it that?
SN: It's one of the closing lines of my show, Manifest Pussy. Also, here's why: I had had such a terrible experience in my dating life up to the point of meeting him. The majority of my experiences were with dudes who were really into fucking me, especially when I still had a dick, but who would never want to be seen in public with me. Sometimes, there were moments where I thought, All right, this is fun! I'm a sexual object. I could enjoy being objectified like that, and there was a certain kind of reward to it because I had denied myself of my own intimacy for so long. It didn't matter that it was a commodity situation, because I was at least receiving something and feeling desired. But then I thought, It would be nice if we could go out for a coffee. That's how I met Daniel. I was on Tinder, and I said: "I want to go on a date. Like an out-in-public dinner date." When we think of representations of trans women, whether it's in entertainment media or social media, we're not afforded a lot of images of trans people in healthy, loving relationships. It's part of my mission to show other trans women that they are worthy of love and to show the rest of the world that loving a trans person is just as awesome as loving anybody else. When you're a trans woman who's out and about trying to live her life, to survive all of the things you're set against, and to come through it and learn how to love yourself and love someone else — to exchange that love is really radical.
OC: And the photos look just like any other couple who's in love.
SN: In a way, it's like assimilation, but it's also subversive. There are still power structures set in place in this country to prevent me, and people like me, from experiencing wholeness — from existing in our public and private lives with a complete and valued sense of self. Whatever you can do to challenge that is a radical act. Being in love and sharing love is fundamentally and universally the most radical thing you can do at any given time.
OC: You've also pointed out in the past that social change is about those who are privileged using their status to dismantle the kinds of power structures you mention.
SN: If you are a person who experiences privilege in one regard and you want to be involved in social change and social justice, you have to look at how your privilege may, at times, come at the expense of someone else's well-being or rights. If that's the case, then you need to offset your privilege footprint. Just like a carbon footprint. There are ways to use your platform for good. Cis people can end transphobia. Trans people can't do that.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Olivia Clement is a writer and playwright based in New York. | | | | | | | | | | | | "She Wasn't Elevating Me" | | | | By Janelle Brown | | |
I moved to Los Angeles when I was almost 30, chasing love. The love, fortunately, worked out; but for a long time Los Angeles didn't. I was lonely, bound in by concrete and car exhaust, unable to wrap my head around the city's optimistic sprawl, unsure where and how I would ever find any friends. They certainly didn't seem likely to emerge from the population that I surveyed every day at my neighborhood Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf: girls in Juicy Couture velour, headshots peering out of handbags, as nervous as wild colts as they assessed the competition over their nonfat Ice Blendeds.
So when an old friend hooked me up with a woman I'll call Jessica, a whip-smart, idiosyncratic artist who had also recently moved to town, I was elated. The two of us — along with another recent-transplant friend, let's call her Claire — soon became inseparable. My first years in LA were defined by our friendship: art openings, dim sum, hikes in Griffith Park, spontaneous dance parties in our backyard, long conversations over chilled rosé. I watched her career explode; she supported me through the publication of my first novel and the birth of my first child.
And then, after six intense years of friendship, Jessica ghosted. First she stopped returning Claire's calls and emails — "She wasn't elevating me," Jessica told me when I tried to play intermediary — and then, not long after, it was my turn. She just … vanished: My phone went silent; texts disappeared into the ether; an invitation to a dinner party got a strange, terse response: "Can't make it, have a blast." And then that was it. As if our entire history together had been erased, overnight.
It's shocking when a friendship dies that way: It feels impossible that you can experience total platonic love and devotion for another woman — BFFL all but tattooed on your heart — and then, abruptly, realize that you didn't know that person at all. That your friendship was not what you thought it was; that it was just a way-stop for the other person on their path to bigger, better things. Those of us left behind in Jessica's wake turned to each other, hurt and confused: Was it something we had done? Were we the failures here? Aren't your closest friends supposed to be the one thing in life you can rely on?
This particular self-doubt was, unfortunately, familiar to me: This wasn't the first time a close friend had dumped me. While I have had lovely, lifelong friendships with women, my history has also been peppered by a series of intense friendships that felt more like romantic relationships, both in their duration (years) and in their termination (abrupt, confusing, and ultimately devastating). In my experience, friendship is often something that burns hot and strong before dying without warning, like a lover jilting you at the altar.
Women don't talk as much about those kinds of toxic, temporary friendships. Instead, we like to romanticize the forever-friendship, idealize enduring sisterhood as the norm — Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff together, to hell with men, just them against the world.
We idealize this notion because that's what we want to believe.
But the truth is that many friendships have something festering under the surface — some resentment, some inequality, or just the inevitable annoyance that comes with spending insane amounts of time with another human being. Healthy friendships overlook these flaws or address them straight-on, but both parties have to be onboard.
Looking back at my years with Jessica, I can see how unhealthy our relationship was, how I overlooked the unsettling signs of imbalance in the name of friendship. I see now that I wasn't allowed to challenge her; she was a classic narcissist who needed me to be in thrall. And there were things in her history that should have rung alarm bells early on: the string of old friends she didn't talk to anymore, all of whom had been guilty of mysterious personal betrayals; a certain knack for reinvention that she had clearly mastered along the way. The way she seemed so keenly interested in people with power and money, of which I had neither, and also so condemning of our friends' weaknesses.
So while I was in it, for keeps, she had probably always had her eye out for the next big thing.
Maybe I should have seen it coming. After all, Jessica wasn't the first best friend who had ghosted me — in my late 20s, I'd had a nearly identical experience. "Danielle" was in my small circle of girlfriends in San Francisco. We were glued at the hip for several years: we traveled together to Mexico and rented a ski house together every winter; I watched her cat when she was out of town. When I went through a drawn-out, painful breakup with my long-term boyfriend, her shoulder was the one I cried on. Which why it was so confusing when, out of the blue, she one day announced that she no longer wanted to be my friend. "I find you annoying," she told me, an explanation that sent me spinning downward into a pit of self-recrimination. She'd found the most tender place within me, located my worst fear, and pressed it.
Within weeks, however, Danielle's real motivation for dumping me became clear: she had started dating my ex-boyfriend. She wanted him, ultimately, more than she wanted my friendship, which I could (barely) understand. And yet the wound that she opened all those years ago remains there even today, a whisper that always sits at the back of my mind: You are annoying. No one likes you. Not even your closest friends. When Jessica dumped me a decade later, I secretly believed that it once again all boiled down to my unlikability — even as it grew clear that this was Jessica's behavior pattern and not specifically about me.
Ironically, I spent so many years obsessing over what had happened, rehashing Jessica's behavior, analyzing her personality, that I eventually realized I had a fully formed character for my next book — the intoxicating narcissist who became the center of my new novel, Watch Me Disappear. After all, I'd become something of an expert on compelling women who disappear and the damage they leave behind.
And yet, despite all this retrospective clarity, the pain of these lost friends still lingers. That is the greatest danger of this kind of intense, toxic friendship: the damage they inflict feels so damn personal. Losing a friend feels like a failure, a more inexplicable failure in many ways than losing a lover. Women aren't supposed to "fall out of love" with each other so abruptly. They aren't supposed to dump each other so cruelly and inexplicably.So when they do, it's hard not to wonder whether it is somehow all your fault.
All these years on, though, I can't say I regret either of these friendships, no matter how painful and confusing the breakups were. I approach friendship now with a grain of understanding that this may all be temporary and that a forever friendship can't be assumed, no matter how close I may feel to my girlfriends. I am warier now, which is sad, but I'm also more prepared for loss if it comes.
I do still have close relationships with girlfriends, though, including some that have lasted decades and promise to last many more. These women are the anchors that keep me sane while juggling motherhood and marriage and career and the general anxiety of life. But the boundaries between their lives and mine feel clearer now than they once did: Maybe it's a function of growing older and having a more full life, but I don't feel the need to get lost in a friendship anymore. It's been hard enough to find myself.
Janelle Brown is the best-selling author of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and Watch Me Disappear (out July 11). | | | | | | | | | | | | Beauty and Fashion As a Weapon Against War in the Democratic Republic of Congo | | | | By Didem Tali | | |
Vanessa Jados, a 29-year-old entrepreneur from the war-ravaged city Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is a woman with rather unusual business ideas for her hometown, which has been the center of a decades-long, bloody civil war.
Jados developed a taste for fine baking when her parents sent her to Belgium to study when she was twelve. When she returned to her beloved hometown at the age of 23, she realized there were no mouthwatering pastries in Goma. In an attempt to solve this croissant crisis, she opened Goma's first boutique bakery, Au Bon Pain (no relation to the international franchise), in May 2014; she feels "Congolese people deserve good croissants too." She's currently working on her second business that one might not expect to see in a conflict zone: a spa and beauty center.
"It's absolutely stunning here. We have a beautiful lake, wonderful nature, and mountains. But all people talk about Goma is war," Jados said, sitting on a stylish bamboo chair in her bakery and sipping a cappuccino. Despite the occasional U.N. peacekeeping helicopters hovering in the sky and the aid delivery or army trucks passing in the street, inside, the chicly decorated café is a different world. The dark-orange walls contrast with brown furniture. Although Au Bon Pain isn't signposted, the unlikely smell of the freshly baked butter croissants gives away its location in Goma's city center easily.
"I want people to have good experiences about Goma, too," added Jados, who shines with joy and passion when talking about her hometown and country. "People might think it's a weird idea to open a spa and a beauty center, but I feel the opposite," she added. "We need it more than anyone. People, especially women here, have gone through a lot."
When Jados says her fellow residents have gone through a lot, she means it. The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast Central African country the size of Western Europe, has been in conflict since the early 1990s. Some have dubbed it World War III. The war has taken more than 5.4 million lives. Nearly 80 percent of the Congolese population live in extreme poverty, according to United Nations. The war and poverty also took their toll on women's rights, as the DRC consistently ranks as one of the worst places in the world to be a woman, with extremely high rates of maternal mortality and sexual violence.
Furthermore, since 2009, 3 million people in the DRC have been displaced, with at least 40 armed groups active in the eastern provinces of the country. Millions of people continue to live in camps for internally displaced people, where up to 80 percent of the population is women and children.
Jados is far from the only woman in the country who takes comfort in beauty and fashion to cope with the reality of living in a conflict zone, in an environment that can often be hostile toward women. The Democratic Republic of Congo might be one of the poorest nations in the world, but it has an apparel market worth $620 million, a figure that is growing fast. Although mainstream Western-style garments like jeans as well as high-end designer pieces are popular, many women still choose to wear the traditional one-piece Congolese dresses, epitomizing the sartorial creativity of the nation with bold colors and buoyant patterns. Traditionally made with the West African fabric pagne, these dresses are the centerpieces of millions of wardrobes.
Streets of Goma might have seen devastating fighting, rebels taking over the city, and military tanks, but especially on the weekends, they also see flamboyantly dressed and meticulously groomed Congolese people who wouldn't look out of place in a show celebrating African fashion. Women wearing stylish pagne dresses with fitting head ties are everywhere from churches to the fish market by the lake.
According to Seraphine Nyenyezi, a veteran fashion designer based in the capital city of Kinshasa, this growth of appetite for fashion and beauty has happened not despite the war and economic difficulties but because of them. When people go through hardships, they need to counterbalance it with some form of self-care — and in the case of many Congolese women, this is pretty clothes.
Nyenyezi gets passionate when asked why many Congolese women are so well-dressed.
"Here in the DRC, fashion and beauty are in our blood; it's our culture," she said, beaming and expressing clear pride for her heritage. "Yes, we have seen wars and poverty. But we are still human beings, you know?" she rhetorically asked, sitting on the veranda of her design and textile workshop in Kinshasa, where she employs more than 30 people to create customized dresses, many of which are made from pagne.
Nyenyezi thinks beauty is akin to a fundamental human right. In hard times, it's not just food and shelter one needs, but also some glamour to make them feel human again.
"Everyone needs beauty," she said. "You cannot control wars, but you can control how you look. You have to look respectful. Looking good doesn't actually have to cost a lot of money. But you cannot give up on yourself."
Back in Goma, Riziki Noawiheba, 42, who has been living in a camp for the internally displaced people since the 2000s, hasn't given up on herself. She has no idea if she'll be able to leave the camp and rebuild a new life somewhere else. Yet away from all the fashion hubs and living in a tent, Noawiheba gets up early every day to pick out something nice to wear and put on some makeup. When interviewed, she was wearing a salmon-pink top with a white-lace neck and an elegant long skirt. Her black head tie covered her hair but not her gold-plated earrings. In the mornings, she wears gray, smoky eye makeup and a dark-red lipstick.
As she's working as a secretary for the camp she's living in, she feels that it's her responsibility to appear good and respectable to her fellow residents, to keep the morale high.
When complimented on her beauty, Noawiheba put on a wry smile and said, "Actually, I used to be more beautiful, but this war stole my beauty."
Didem Tali traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo as an African Great Lakes fellow of the International Women's Media Foundation. | | | | | | | | | | | | The Sarah Ginsberg Emergency-Tampon Annex | | | | By Russell Brown | | | |
I am a 39-year-old man, and I just bought my first box of tampons. Sarah Ginsberg* told me to buy them. I am an acupuncturist in Los Angeles who owns a busy practice, and she has been my patient for close to ten years, long enough to also become a friend. About a year ago, on her way out the door, she casually dropped, "You know, you should really have tampons for your patients." I sort of pretended not to hear. She persisted: "No, for real. You really can't consider yourself a female-friendly health-care provider if you don't have tampons in the bathroom."
My gut reaction was one part "One more thing to buy" with a hint of "She's kidding, right?" This, of course, is unbecoming of a health-care worker and totally unbecoming of a progressive health-care worker invested in understanding and treating issues related to women's health. I am not one of those guys who are squeamish about periods. On the contrary, I can often be found talking to a total stranger about her polycystic ovary syndrome by the chocolate fountain at a wedding. I know more about most of my female patients' anatomy than their spouses. I was raised by two pre-Ellen lesbian moms, wrote a fifth-grade history report on the Seneca Falls Convention, and attended all three original Lilith Fairs (even doing a meet-and-greet with Sarah McLachlan). I am often the person very outraged about women's-rights news that everyone else seems just normal outraged about.
But to suddenly imagine myself strolling down the female-care aisle price-checking Diva Cups seemed, like, a lot. But I also knew Sarah Ginsberg was right. She came back a few months later. "Where are the tampons, Russell?" I panicked like an idiot on Two and a Half Men: "I wouldn't even know what kind or brand to get! I don't feel qualified to be making these purchases!" She suggested Tampax and then offered to bring me an empty basket to fill. I insisted that I didn't have any available shelves for a basket.
A couple of months passed, and Sarah Ginsberg was back. Now she was mad: "Seriously, where are the fucking tampons?" I was out of excuses. Why wasn't I buying the tampons? I had to consider that even though I knew better, I was still participating in the misogyny that says menstruation is a "hushed hygiene secret" that should be managed in the shadow of a woman's pocketbook. It's the sexism that dictates that a woman's body is her problem and there's a limit to how much men are responsible. It's what Republican representative John Shimkus of Illinois argued during a March debate on his party's health-care plan. He insisted that men shouldn't have to pay into medical-insurance policies that cover prenatal care, suggesting that prenatal care should only be paid for by women because pregnancy is a condition which only happens to women — and I was really pissed off when I read about him. It was so clearly a consequential version of the "I'm on a diet, so no one should have doughnuts" bullshit that would annoy the fuck out of me if it were directed at me, and yet here I was being like, "I don't have a shelf." I got it.
The female body is not a hygiene secret. Menstruation is a standard body function that comes with standard body needs. Offering tampons helps to normalize the female body and says they should be a part of "the kit" of bathroom goods that are comfortably, unexceptionally available without a second thought — Kleenex, Band-Aids, toilet paper, hand soap, tampons. It's basic operating requirements for the human body.
I bought tampons. The feminine-hygiene aisle was as daunting as I feared: I was dazzled and disoriented by the colors, and brands, and fonts. But ultimately I selected the brand I was most familiar and therefore "trusted," in the similarly undramatic fashion with which I select a brand of spaghetti. I presented my purchase to the woman at the register like a prized Christmas ham and attempted to bond with her over my outrage that "we" should have to pay sales tax on these medical necessities. She cracked her gum and looked away.
The Sarah Ginsberg Emergency-Tampon Annex is now open under the sink in my clinic. My female patients are pleased, and I think Sarah Ginsberg herself is tickled by it. She's a living legend in my office now and taught me a good lesson: if you're a man who presides over a public bathroom, put tampons in it, or think about why you're not and then explain it to a woman.
*Name changed to protect the menstruating.
Russell Brown is an acupuncturist and owner of POKE Acupuncture in Los Angeles who once attempted to host a Nicole Holofcener–themed birthday party. | | | | | | | | | | | | "What if you are exactly where you are supposed to be? Wouldn't that be weird?" | | | | By Melissa Broder | | |
CANCER
(June 21 to July 22)
If you don't already have a meditation practice, this is a good month to start. Any month is a good month to start, really, but consider it a birthday present to yourself to begin now. You don't have to pay any money, download any apps, enlist any gurus, join any cults, fly to Nepal, or be a joiner. Just start sitting with yourself for two minutes each morning before you do anything else.
LEO
(July 23 to August 22)
I'm not going to tell you to stop trying to control things beyond your control, though that would be a good move on your part. Rather, I'm simply going to suggest that you take stock — over the course of the next month, or even just for a day — of all the things you try to control. Have a look at what is really within your grasp and what is you just grabbing into the ether.
VIRGO
(August 23 to September 22)
Lenny Bruce said that the only time we ever reveal who we really are is if we drop a can of peaches on the floor and we are eating the peaches off the floor and someone catches us in the act. This month, allow yourself to do a few things that you feel will surely get you judged (and, God forbid, rejected) by the people you know but will feel really good while you're doing them.
LIBRA
(September 23 to October 22)
What if when all is said and done, you are just good and innocent? What if everyone you encounter, in spite of their flaws, is also good and innocent? I'm not saying we are all children of the universe or anything, because the truth is I don't really know. But how would you behave differently and feel differently about the world if that were the case?
SCORPIO
(October 23 to November 21)
Living in the moment is hard as fuck, and I'm no expert on how to do it, but one way I know to avoid it is to worry if something good is going to last. This month, assume that nothing is going to last — good or bad — and disregard the timetable in which future change will occur.
SAGITTARIUS
(November 22 to December 21)
If a friend or acquaintance talks shit about all of your other friends or acquaintances, then chances are they are talking shit about you too. I'm not saying don't gossip with this person, because, let's face it, gossip feels fucking good. But maybe ask yourself: If there were no gossip involved, would you enjoy spending time with this person at all?
CAPRICORN
(December 22 to January 19)
People make such a big deal about the moon now that it's almost as if the moon has been rebranded. Like, the super-moon was never that big of a thing until a few years ago. The moon's popularity makes me want to reject the moon, even though the moon doesn't really care what I think about it. Is there anything in your life you are rejecting out of pride, but you wish you could allow yourself? This month, get in there.
AQUARIUS
(January 20 to February 18)
For a long time I hated the idea of acceptance, because I thought it meant I had to feel good about situations I hated. But recently I've discovered that acceptance doesn't mean I have to like something. What it's really about, I think, is simply giving up the struggles that are making us more miserable. Is there anything in your life right now for which the fight is more painful than it's actually worth?
PISCES
(February 19 to March 20)
Celebrities are the modern-day gods and goddesses in our society. When we find out they are just people, it can feel kind of sad, because we all want to believe in some kind of divinity. But the truth is that there is something divine going on in the here and now, depending on what we choose to elevate. This month, try putting something new on that pedestal — not a person or anything finite, but perhaps a quality, a way of being in the world, something free.
ARIES
(March 21 to April 19)
What if you are exactly where you are supposed to be? Wouldn't that be weird? If you knew you were exactly where you're supposed to be, how would you behave differently? Would it make you sad to no longer be in the business of striving? Would it be a relief? This month, ask yourself these questions and see if you like your life better.
TAURUS
(April 20 to May 20)
This month, anytime you worry about something, write it down on a scrap of paper and stick it in a box: a tampon box, a shoebox, it doesn't matter. We can call this your "God box," or if you are an atheist, then we can call it your "God is dead box" or your "void box." Don't stop doing this the entire month — every worry, put it in. At the end of the month, see how many things that you feared would happen actually happened and how many did not.
GEMINI
(May 21 to June 20)
Sometimes it feels like we don't have a choice as to the people we spend time with, but the good and bad news is: it's always our choice. This is good news, because freedom! It's bad news, because we have to take responsibility for who is in our life (annoying) and we don't get to complain about it.
Melissa Broder is the author of four collections of poems, including Last Sext (Tin House 2016), as well as So Sad Today, a book of essays from Grand Central. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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