Introducing The Unreliable Newsletter

Introduction

I have been thinking a lot about why I want to start a Substack/a subscription newsletter, who I would want to share it with and if I really can make such a commitment. The real answer is that I want to reconnect and engage with the world, I want to share it with anyone who might be remotely interested and I can tentatively say I would really like to commit, but unreliably. As many of you know and probably a lot of you don’t, I have been living with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) - with the most significant symptoms of which are chronic migraines, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, and brain fog. My limitations have become truly absurd and I don’t think I will ever not think so.

I think Elisabeth Tova Bailey truly captured the in between that I experience in her book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.

"There is a certain depth of illness that is piercing in its isolation; the only rule of existence is uncertainty, and the only movement is the passage of time. One cannot bear to live through another loss of function, and sometimes friends and family cannot bear to watch. An unspoken, unbridgeable divide may widen. Even if you are still who you are, you cannot actually fully be who you are. Sometimes the people you know well will withdraw, and then even the person you know as yourself begins to change" (Bailey, 2010). 

Since my dreams of becoming a librarian have been put on hold or possibly completely destroyed in the dumpster fire that is my health - I have been thinking about ways to connect and share the things I love with people from the controlled environment of my apartment. Over the past few years I have truly learned what it is to be forced to embody “slow living” in a way I never could have imagined five years ago. I have had the luxury of an abundance of time, once again I think Baily put it best, “It was perplexing how in losing health I had gained something so coveted but to so little purpose.” I wish I could gift my time to you all - but alas, that is not how time works. I promise that is the end of the depressing part of my newsletters.

I have noticed that a major loss in the lives of those of us in our 30s and beyond is the loss of discovery, which we somehow left behind in our 20s before partners, kids and jobs became all consuming. It seems to be the natural order of things in the 21st century. By “discovery” I mean that daily discovery you experience through high school, college and maybe through your early to late 20s. The discovery of a new/old band, an artist, a book or movie. One of the things that is so magical about our world is there are endless amounts of creativity to discover and I have had the luxury of time and with that the renewed ability to discover and I would love to share that with you.

So if you are remotely interested I would love it if you subscribe and share with anyone else who might be remotely interested in subscribing.

I will leave you with some things that I have really enjoyed over the past few weeks.

love,

Naomi

Some things I have enjoyed recently

Currently listening to St. Vincent’s MassEducation (piano version)

I rewatched the 2017 miniseries adaptation of E.M. Forster’s “Howard’s End,” which I just adore. The costumes and scenery are just fantastic. The story is based on the Bloomsbury Group, specifically Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell (who will probably come up a lot here, since I have a slight lifelong obsession with the group). It originally aired on Starz and is now part of Masterpiece Theater. You can watch it on Prime or get it from your local library on DVD. It stars pre-Succession Matthew MacFadyen as yet another capitalist, although not one nearly as pathetic, tragic, and hilarious as the character that is Tom Wambsgans. Now that I think about it MacFadyen has played a representation of capitalism in three different eras - you have Mr. Darcy¹ in Joe Wright’s adaptation of Pride & Prejudice (2005) in 1813, Henry Wilcox in Howard’s End in 1910 and of course Tom Wambsgans in Succession in 2018-2023.

I have also been trying to read some of the 2023 Booker shortlist, I read Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, which is a really gorgeous little book about grief and family dynamics. I have just started This Other Eden by Paul Harding and it is also very good so far. I CANNOT WAIT to read The Bee Sting by Paul Murray - I really enjoyed Skippy Dies.

I also just finished The Whalebone Theater by Joanna Quinn and I found it extremely entertaining and worth a trip to your local bookstore or library. I was a little put off because it was one of Jenna Bush Hager’s bookclub picks, I have an irrational snootiness when it comes to celebrity bookclubs, which I am trying very hard to get over. Did you know that Jenna Bush Hager and her sister are registered as Independents and could possibly be DEMOCRATS?! Sorry - that was a very random tangent.

In my search for inspiration for my own embroidery projects, I have come across some really gorgeous pieces. Below are “Intricate Flower Garden” (1909) in the Glasgow Style by Helen Adelaide Lamb (1893-1981) from the Victoria & Albert Museum and the 2nd one is a 17th century Italian pocketbook in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

vamuseum

A post shared by @vamuseum

If you have made it this far, I would like to leave you with my current favorite Instagram account, @greedy.peasant. This peasant is obsessed with Medieval America (yes, it is a satire) and tassels. He did do a fabulous celebration of “Cemtember” where he reviewed Medieval cemeteries across America - mostly on the East Coast.

greedy.peasant

A post shared by @greedy.peasant

1. Mr. Darcy had an income of £10,000 a year in the early 19th century (about £855,506.16 today), that is a lot of money. It is suggested that Pemberley was built with the profits of coal mines in Derbyshire or/and some kind of investment in the slave-trade and sugar. This argument is brought up by the author, Joanna Trollope and I think she makes a lot of sense. If you are looking for a rabbit hole - I think this is a pretty good one.