Welcoming the summer solstice
"starting over" in your 30s, touching grass in the city, what's blooming today...
Welcome to the first edition of “la vie en rose,” my new lil space for sharing the beautiful things happening around us.
A lot of you are here from the she and reverie mailing list, and I’m so excited to share this new chapter with you!
“starting over” in your 30s
At the beginning of 2022, at 33 years old, I decided I wanted to learn to tattoo.
(More on that later.)
I didn’t really see this new chapter in my life as “starting over.” I think there’s this youthful myth that you figure out what you want from your life, and then you live that way, and then… you die, I guess?
But in my experience, life is constantly evolving around us, in big and little ways. I think shutting down my clothing line looked like a big change—Many people in my life were more upset about it than I was, a testament to how we assign sweetly romantic identities to our loved ones—And although it was exhausting on many levels, it felt pretty natural.
After all, I’ve “started over” so many times before. I moved to New York City with one suitcase and a blow up mattress. I quit freelancing in the garment district to start a clothing line. I started waitressing to pay my rent while I built up my business. I quit waitressing to be a freelance writer. I quit writing because I started hating it, floundering around for a year or two on my existing contract gigs and customer service work for random retailers1.
Is this an abnormal way to live your life? I don’t really know. My boyfriend has worked at the same organization for nearly a decade, but he’s “started over” in many other ways. I bet you have, too.
Admittedly, this new journey I’m on has been a lot harder, both logistically and emotionally, than previous ones. Sure, I started a whole ass clothing line at 23, but the tattoo industry has its… quirks, to say the least. And it’s much more stressful to pivot your career when you have a home you love, a retirement fund you’d like to contribute to, and creatures that rely on you.
But I think everyone knows how emotionally, physically, and spiritually difficult it is to do work that doesn’t serve you.
I just want to pay my bills, spend time with the people I love, and show everyone how beautiful the world is.
So that’s what I’m doing.
And the learning, the changing, the evolution? That’s all part of it, for all of us.
what’s blooming today
“It’s so beautiful that you get to have a relationship with this space,” a friend recently told me as we strolled through the Brooklyn Botanic rose garden, smelling the heirloom blossoms in the June heat. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it’s true, and feels like the ultimate blessing.
My boyfriend and I moved in together at the peak of the NYC pandemic exodus, when rents were deliciously cheap and New Yorkers were giving up their rent stabilized apartments left and right. So by some act of NYC real estate magic, I now live awfully close to the BBG.
Touching grass (literally) so often has reminded me how important nature is to me. I always knew that “lack of greenery” was my least favorite part of living in NYC, but this garden/human relationship has been a soul-stirring reminder of how much I love the natural world. So I’m really excited to share some little updates in every newsletter about what’s happening in the garden right now.
Here’s what bloomed on this year’s summer solstice:
Vibrant purple petals,
Bushes wafting with heady scents from puffy bunches of flowers,
Single flowers on tall stems, as if they’ve shed their leaves in preparation for the summer heat,
The always-beautiful Shakespeare Garden, whose literary references I honestly think are just an excuse to include perfectly overgrown wildflower beds in this curated space.
And that’s it for this week! I promise there will be lots of pretty things to come.
I hope you’ll continue on this little journey with me. 💘
Good writing skills + Midwest nice = everyone’s ~ideal CS associate~, unfortunately. What a horrid job. Be nice to customer service workers!!!