Neither a Star Nor Its Remnant
Finding myself in a familiar orbit.
What I keep doing is writing full drafts of essays for this newsletter and hesitating at the cliff of the publish button. Some would say the answer is to vault over the objections of my inner critic and send anyway; I think a better answer is to write an essay I feel happy to publish. 🙃 In the meantime, I am sharing an old piece of writing (six years old!) made relevant because, once again, I have rediscovered the song I wrote about rediscovering.
When I imagined motherhood, I pictured reading to my children, pushing them on swings, cooking them dinner, building bubble castles on their heads in the bath. I had no vision for the helium joy of introducing them to music, to bands I loved that I know they will also love. Such is parenthood: abundant gifts, all in places you weren’t looking. Picture: the post-dinner chaos of three little boys trying to help with dishes and clean-up while Paramore rips through our kitchen speaker. Picture: wild air-guitars and one tiny drummer and happy-flushed cheeks on all of us as we dance ourselves silly to that’s what you get when you let your heart win.
Mid-whirl through Paramore’s greatest hits, I spotted Hate to See Your Heart Break on Paramore’s 2015 self-titled album. Abruptly, I switched over to play it for the first time in a long long while, struck again by its same raw appeal to some raw part of me. I am six years older, wiser, and stupider since the last time I contemplated this song. We return to what we know when seeking comfort: familiar music, places, people, foods, routines. Music, in particular, holds time like a lake holds water. The song remains the same, but the person we see in its reflection never is.
Enough preamble. Here’s what I had to say in 2018.
The first time I watched the video, I was a little fixated on her crop top. Not her voice. Not their voices in harmony. But her lace-edged top, a little expanse of navel visible as she swayed and sang. Perhaps I should back up. I was very pregnant with my first child. It was late August 2015 and hard to tell if the constant weight on me was the relentless South Carolina heat or the ever-present question of when this baby would come out.
I knew Joy Williams was a mother, as I was about to become, and there she was wearing a crop top. A crop top. Her stomach showing. Now, I feel nothing but kindness toward this past version of myself. I have always latched on to small, possibly meaningless things in the face of great change as a way of feeling my way through it. And I think when a 8.8 lb. baby is rounding your belly, pulling your skin taut, and shoving other organs out of the way, feeling curious about what the aftermath might look like is only natural.
It was the last hour of the work day and I rocked on my birth ball, listening in my headphones, again and again. Joy Williams and Hayley Williams (of Paramore) had collaborated on an original song. Shot in black and white, the video documents their time in the studio recording this song: cheap saint devotional candles flickering, topknots, earnest swaying, collapsing in fits of laughter. The vibe was so definitively female and strong. I learned later that Joy had been a mentor of sorts to Hayley, and this made sense: the clear current of sisterhood hums through the video—and I, almost but not yet initiated into another kind of sisterhood, listened to this song and felt emboldened.
+++++++++++++
I'm sure I was driving a respectable, responsible speed, but what I remember is hurtling through the night in my Honda, listening to Joy Williams and Hayley Williams sing about heartbreak again. It's late September 2016. There's a carseat in the back, but it's empty. I am escaping. It has been a strained, sleepless summer that required me to keep moving full steam ahead, despite the presence of some significant, subterranean hurts. And because I am a woman, I did. I carried on, meeting the needs of my husband, my baby, my coworkers, my family. In August, I turn 27 and work all day; nothing changes. By September, I am coming unglued. Fraying at the edges. Worn thin. All those clichés for a cracking under a burden too great. This time, the lyrics hit me first:
there is not a single word in the whole world / that could describe the hurt / the dullest knife just sawing back and forth / ripping through the softest skin there ever was / how were you to know / oh how were you to know
It reads dramatic. But it feels knowing and empathetic, the shoulder-bracing hug from a woman who knows you deeply and nods affirmingly, murmuring yes, yes, this sucks so much — which is all I needed after a summer of self-imposed silence and inner retreat. The female energy of that song washed over me, and I turned it up loud, letting Joy and Hayley assure me:
for all the air that's in your lungs / for all the joy that is to come/ for all the things that you're alive to feel / just let the pain remind you hearts can heal
++++++++++++++++++
When I stumble upon the song again, in early 2018, I am hearing it muffled through the past. The headphones of 2015. The heart-squeezing of 2016. I am under the water of all those feelings from before and I cannot get my head above it to hear it afresh, as it really is.
Which delivers me to this moment, to this realization, to this song's third, roundabout gift to me: I am underwater in the right now of my life. Not in a can't-swim, can't-breathe way—more like a good God I'll be tired when I haul myself out. Is there a nap as idyllic as falling asleep in strong sun after a long swim? Water drying on the back, evaporating out of swimsuits, the good kind of physical fatigue tucking eyelids in. I dream of naps in the sun.
I dream of naps, period. Life has cycled around again, bringing my second child and the sleepless nights that come with an infant. Jury's out on if I would wear Joy Williams’ crop top. The aftermath of pregnancy and childbirth is not a mystery to me any longer; my belly has emerged the same, but a little stretched. Familiar, but stretched—it's exactly how I felt as a person after my first child. But this time around, my inner self often feels strange and new, caught in some contortion of in-between. Am I shedding or holding on for dear life? Honestly, both. Honestly, I don't know.
My heart is not breaking. This process—growing into a mother just as my two babies grow into boys—is not a bad one, far from it. It's just that as Joy and Hayley's song orbits me around, past those earlier years, earlier me, I'm forced to see that I've changed, I'm changing. Orbit is the right word because it's a circle, a cycle, and see, I'm right back where I started before the first baby was even born: knowing that I will change, but not yet knowing how.
current status
reading :: Thirteen Observations on Ritual (Ted Gioia) // Like all of us, I sometimes find myself adrift in the attention-destroying current of digital life—what Gioia calls “dopamine culture, or post-entertainment society.” Gioia’s insights on ritual as antidote to toxic digital/tech culture are helpful and compelling. (They also offer a partial explanation for the growing shift toward liturgy in Christian culture and the over-the-top celebrations of minor occasions in secular culture.)
cooking :: Mushroom Scallion Noodles // My kids are not mushroom lovers, so although I tried to sell these umami-packed ramen noodles as “party noodles,” I never succeeded. Fine by me, because this is the perfect meal to enjoy after they’re in bed—out of a bowl on the couch with my husband, in front of a really good tv show (lottttta prepositions right there to give you a full picture of this dish’s optimal consumption set-up).
listening :: Lately, I’ve needed mental space in a way that’s had me turning music off more often than not. But when I have listened, I’ve been into: Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves — can’t say the lyrics are particularly eloquent or deep (looking at you, “gravity bong”), but something about this pretty melody is reminiscent of a brook. / Anberlin’s 2005 album Never Take Friendship Personal — for running hard enough to stop thinking. / This album from Patrick Droney, who reminds me of John Mayer in some ways and not at all in others. / Brother by mAsis — for lying flat on the floor in a dim room. / Nashville by David Mead — a melancholy standby since college with its poignant, poetic lyrics.
reading :: Jars with Well-Fitting Lids (The Yale Review) // TYR describes their recurring column as an invitation for “a writer to meditate on an everyday item that haunts them,” but this brief essay has ending up haunting me with its entirely too relatable perspective on grief, control, and what absence reveals about love.
listening :: Is Måneskin the Last Rock Band? (The New York Times) // I have never listened to Måneskin, the Gen Z global rock sensation, but I thoroughly enjoyed writer Dan Brooks’ examination of the genre of rock—what it is and what it was and what has unfolded in between. “…All these forces have converged to make rock, for the first time in its history, merely a way of writing songs instead of a way of life,” he says. Although rock maintains its cultural signifiers, it has lost its power—there’s no need to rebel and nothing to defy, because in this cultural moment, it’s all cool.
drinking :: nimbu pani // I ordered this classic Indian soda for lunch at Chai Pani in Asheville (honk if u love okra fries), and its tangy, salty, fizzy bite was the perfect balance to all the little plates of high-flavor food crowding our table. Although the ingredient list is short, I haven’t found the right recipe yet, so I’m on a mission to master my own version before summer heat arrives.
reading :: Phase One (Dilruba Ahmed) // The first time I read this poem, I thought the speaker was talking to her partner. Harsh, but relatable, I thought. A year later, I listened to it being read, this time immediately understanding the speaker is talking to herself. And that is how I found myself crying in car line.
loving :: Cosrx Hydra Power Essence + Acure Rose Argan Oil // Lemme cosplay as skincare influencer for a sec to tell you about my low-maintenance dream team for keeping skin hydrated. I love this inexpensive hyaluronic acid essence year-round, but it’s especially helpful when your skin (and your emotional equilibrium) can’t take any more cold, harsh mornings. The face oil is light and somehow delicate, soaking in quickly without leaving that faintly greasy residue.
reading :: So You Wanna Debog Yourself // I am pretty resistant to a certain flavor of tech bro / Twitter-optimized self-help content, but Mastroianni’s examination of why we get stuck and how to get unstuck is illuminating and practical. It is also funny. He says: “…unsticking myself always seems to be a matter of finding a name for the thing happening to me,” and as someone who a) copes through information and b) is guilty of multiple bogs described in this article (gutterballing, try harder fallacy, infinite effort illusion, etc. etc.), I agree!
loving :: Mezetta Sweet Cherry Peppers // Absently reading labels is a lifelong habit, but it paid off while chopping jarred cherry peppers to tuck inside stromboli last weekend. Fill the hollow of a pepper with goat cheese and enjoy, the jar instructed, so I obeyed. Ultimately, the stromboli received fewer cherry peppers and goat cheese crumbles than originally planned because I could not stop eating this enchanting snack. I recommend doing the same next time you need a creamy, tangy bite to pair with a glass of white wine.
the real feel
Remember being a kid on a trampoline when someone jumping too close would “steal your bounce?” What you intended as an effortless spring or a floaty glide gets short-circuited into a jerky, stupid-feeling shudder that barely lifts you off the surface. When someone interrupts you with a dismissive “Oh, you already told me this,” it leaves you feeling as flat and stupid as a stolen bounce. Of course, there are moments for gently letting someone know they’re repeating themselves—but it’s my firm belief that those moments should be much rarer than they are.
Extend particular grace for repeated stories to older people, little kids, and new moms barely keeping their heads above sleep deprivation. Honestly, extend grace to all of us out here trying our best with the moth-eaten attention spans of our digital age. Spare your friend the conversational stumble and listen again to the anecdote, the complaint, the newsy update as a kindness. Simone Weil wrote: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” and one way to lavish this attention on someone you love is to listen, again.
lifesavers lately
jalapeño chomps / the irrepressible cheer of daffodils, especially the ones with ruffly saffron centers / white legal pads for furious scribbling and shredding / lemon ricotta blueberry pancakes when I needed them most / long phone calls with mom / booking travel / painting my nails as a ritual / rescue body armor / return of birdsong on morning runs / mama teav’s hot garlic / well-timed good morning kisses / abundant sunshine (never ever take sun in February for granted) / grilling a ton of chicken at once / T. Pain’s collaboration with Spicewalla / talking it all out / Sunday paninis
a note about my day job
kathryndave.com // Self-promotion of any kind makes me squirm, but it is an unavoidable part of the path forward for writers these days. I just completed a portfolio update that showcases some of the other writing I do—a mix of brand strategy and copywriting, as well as journalism focused on food & spirits, travel, art, and culture. Feel free to look around if you feel so inclined, or reach out if you need help with brand voice/copywriting.
Until next time — look for the light at the bookends of the day, kiss the babies in your life, crank up the heat on your normal Thai takeout order.