Rule of Three
This week I kept coming across, in various contexts, writing’s rule of three. This week also found me dipping into old journals. And, as they often do, the wires of my busy brain crossed to bring you yet more lists.
My top three personal strengths (according to a personality test)
Love
Humor
Honesty
Three things on my unofficial resume
Word puzzle champ
Superior lost item finder
Ruthless minimalist
Three words to sum up the last three years
Grief
Recalibration
Emergence
My life story in three sentences
My tender heart, bruised early and often, beat alongside my preternatural drive for survival.
I lost my way for decades and was convinced I didn’t even deserve a map.
One day I woke suddenly and started the long trek home.
Three things I’m most proud of
Summoning the courage to start over
The relationship I’ve forged with my daughter
Writing my book
Three of my greatest regrets
Staying for so long
Blindly adhering to my patriarchal indoctrination for so long
Being unable to change the estrangement from my son
Three things that gave me tons of food for thought this week
Reading Switzy
Finding a list of ten-year goals that I wrote in 2020
Watching You Can See Everything
Three reasons I keep posting weekly
To stave off sloth and cognitive decline
For the few people who have told me it helps them
Because it helps me: to have a routine, to process what I think, to remember what mattered to me
With that, on to our regular weekly program:
Ways I Found Joy This Week
Quieting several corners of my home
Attending matinees with the CWP like it’s my job
Haunting my favorite local Italian place: for a solo happy hour on a gorgeous evening and a family dinner on a rainy night
Returning to the foot spa with my partner in crime
Being joined by the CWP in my collage obsession
Savoring the first temperate (67 degree) morning since last winter
Spending an afternoon with the CWP running errands and refueling with a pizza slice
Things I Learned This Week
That Stalin allegedly plotted to kill John Wayne
A bit about Edmonia Lewis, the first sculptor of African American/Native American descent to achieve international renown (19th century)
Quotes That Resonated This Week
I am a lover with or without a lover. Love is who I am, not who I’m with.
Sylvia Plath
Sometimes the break in your heart is like the hole in the flute. Sometimes it’s the place where the music comes through.
Andrea Gibson
What I Watched This Week
Whalefall (Theaters). A young man sets out on an emotionally fraught scuba dive with one hour of air and quickly finds himself inside a whale. The incredible tension (my shoulders were up around my ears) was occasionally broken by a poignant backstory. Not a true story but scientifically accurate.
You Can See Everything (Theaters). Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invites Nathan Fielder to embed at her home before she leaves for prison. SO many things to unpack in this long documentary. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I’ll just agree with the consensus that a) it was at times jaw-dropping and b) it raised as many questions as it answered. A remarkably empathetic work of genius.
The Diplomat (Netflix). Season 4 of the political thriller is starting off with a bang. And there’s something soothing about imagining international relations as they were before our current embarrassment.
Rocky (Paramount Plus). A rewatch of the classic on its 50th (!) anniversary to introduce the CWP and prepare for the upcoming movie about Sylvester Stallone’s determination to star in the movie he wrote.
Primetime (Theaters). A look at the reality show To Catch a Predator and it’s host. Great rendering of the moral ambiguities involved.
What I Read This Week
The Calamity Club, by Kathryn Stockett. Another home run by the author of The Help. It’s an arm breaker at over 600 pages, and I loved every one of them. A detailed picture of Mississippi in 1933, characters I loved (or loved to hate), a great story arc, and a hilarious solution to a problem all made this unforgettable.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine, by Sue Monk Kidd. The author of The Secret Life of Bees details her awakening to the ways the patriarchy affected all areas of her life, especially her spiritual life, and her efforts to accept and then change all of it.
I’ve Got a New Complaint: Essays on Aging Disgracefully and Other Small Disasters, by Laurie Notaro. Thankfully, the neighborhood happy hour I brought this to was sparsely attended, because I was chuckling and snorting throughout. Very funny takes on her “middle-aged-plus” life.
Switzy, by Emma Cline. David is a 90-something in the early stages of dementia who is traveling to Switzerland to take matters into his own hands. Memories and questions all flow in a jumbled free association/stream of consciousness. Clever and moving.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, by Kathleen Rooney. On New Year’s Eve of 1984, Lillian Boxfish, a distinguished copywriter and poet born at the turn of the century, sets out on a walk across New York City. A singular character, a love letter to New York through the decades, and a historical remembrance. I loved Lillian and her story.
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Thanks for reading! Any “threes” you’d like to share?
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