Welcome to the Eras Tour

An update from the summer of crying.

Let me tell you what always happens: a bit of language goes viral, grows popular so fast and so furiously that suddenly everyone is saying it everywhere. Annoyed by its ubiquity, I steadfastly avoid using the phrase, but over time, I feel compelled by its utility. I may surrender (like I have with “vibe,” truly nothing else gets the job done quite like it) or I may hold fast to my disdain of it (“hashtag goalssssssss”), but the language burrows a home in my brain either way, influencing how I think if not how I speak.

This exact point in the journey is where I am with the “eras” framework. I am not talking about Taylor Swift—in fact, I am not touching her or her powerful, glittering fandom—but rather the enthusiastic cultural embrace of one’s individual phases. “I’m in my______era,” women announce proudly. Some of these eras are nothing more than universal seasonal behaviors—girl, you are not “entering your sweater era”; you spotted some turning leaves and the temperature finally dropped below 60. Some serve as the contemporary structure for heralding change: “Welcome to my soccer mom era,” casually posts a woman grappling with the incomprehensible speed of time at her kid’s first soccer practice. But most have something to say about a behavior or hobby they’re embracing or an ideal they’re emulating.

The logical visual evolution of thinking about life in eras is the “aesthetic” moment that has been big on TikTok lately: tomato girl summer, old money, quiet luxury, clean girl. The aesthetic is how you signal which era you’re in (quite literally, if you’re going to a T. Swift concert) or more abstractly as an embodiment of a mood. Whether you call it an era or an aesthetic, the effort is an attempt to get your hands around the slippery fact of who you are right now and who you want to be.

What Taylor Swift did with the Eras tour is give language and attention to what has always been a pretty ordinary fact of growing older: people change, a lot, and any individual life can be divided into distinct periods of interests, passion, expression. Swift’s career begins at in mid-adolescence and rockets into her thirties, a fertile time for change anyway. Of course she is a different person than she was at age 16 with tears on her guitar and corkscrew ringlets in her hair. In fact, she has been many, many different people. Branding and marketing genius that she is, Swift repackages all of those diverse phases of her life as her Eras—never mind that “era” has traditionally been understood as a major period of time, a long and distinct stretch of history. In fact, she does this in what critic Jason Farago describes as our:

“…culture of an eternal present: a digitally informed sense of placelessness and atemporality that has left so many of us disoriented from our earlier cultural signposts….Outside of time there can be no progress, only the perpetual trying-on of styles and forms. Here years become vibes — or “eras,” as Taylor Swift likes to call them.” — Jason Farago

But in our internet-warped understanding of time, an era can be as fleeting as a summer, a month, maybe even a persistent mood. As Swift celebrates her multitude of chart-topping eras across the country, leaving a wake of glitter, friendship bracelets, and massive economic stimulus behind, she invites others to consider and celebrate their own. The diversity of musical styles and self-expression that make up Swift’s career could leave a lesser artist vulnerable to critiques of selling out or being inauthentic. Instead, Swift builds a compelling argument that change and complexity are both normal and necessary to her success.

Permission to be many things is the real power of the Eras tour. Even though a steady parade of passing shifts in interests and expression is a normal part of adult life, this degree of change is rarely acknowledged and or celebrated. We champion the long commitment, the hard-won milestones, the consistent employee, the heirloom recipe. Consider the expression “it’s just a phase” or “she’s in a phase”: if your mind summoned a child obsessed with superheroes or a teenager decked out like a baby goth, it’s because we associate phases with development—but forget that developing doesn’t end when we reach adulthood.

At the beginning of summer, I joked about trying on possible themes for the months ahead: summer of hot sauce, summer of beer, summer of who cares, summer of crying. I wasn’t serious, exactly, but I might as well have announced: entering my who cares era. Season changes often come to me as a crossroads, a forced stop that requires looking at the landscape and deciding how to continue. Branding my summer in advance was an experiment with the eras framework: what would happen if I gave words to the shifts I was already sensing? Would I cry more often if I created a clearing for it? Would I change if I did?

I did cry a little more this summer, although not often enough to deem it my era of crying. But the rest of the declarations became self-fulfilling prophecies in a self-aware sort of way: I cracked open beers on the porch while painting my nails and doused my breakfasts in various hot sauces and said yes to every impromptu pool trip my kids wanted. I did it all with an awareness that the pleasure coursing through these summer moments came from their impermanence. It was as delightful to experiment with enjoying beer as it was to know I could do so without “beer connoisseur” fixing itself as a permanent part of my identity.

I didn’t need Taylor Swift to teach me about eras; I’ve lived plenty of them, embracing my momentary interests, taking them seriously, treating them as a chapter in the story. Everyone’s life unfolds in eras and always has. It’s only new that now everyone is naming them. We are welcoming our cozy girl eras. Our rich mom summers. Our sourdough queen aesthetic. And yet — the question demands to be asked: who cares if we’re super into Yves Klein blue, or athleisure sets, or the poetry of Richard Brautigan, or racquet sports right now? Surely at some point self-analysis and even self-expression become self-absorption.

Sure. We live in a narcissistic time. But knowing yourself is not narcissism. Understanding that life unspools in seasons—and not just the ones governed by the earth’s rotation or life achievements, but also what writer Katy Waldman calls “circuits of sensing and thinking, the inner seasons”—is strangely liberating. Sometimes, the shifts in inconsequential desires or interests signal deeper internal shifts; like the long call of a distant train, they can help us understand that change is coming. “Seasons, our oldest metaphors, are also moods, structures of feeling,” writes Waldman. Sometimes, they are nothing more than passing pleasures, prompts to engage fully with life as it is right now.

Seasons change. This is the best argument for paying attention to the phases of one’s life—their transience offers a truer picture of the long haul. Life isn’t a straight line. We are often challenged, encouraged, and even instructed to persist with consistency and faithfulness toward our long-term goals, particularly if you are a Christian and have spent any of your formative years in the church. What’s less common is to be given a vision for how change—normal, natural, healthy change—might be part of that, might even fuel your progress in consistency!

Once you reach cruising altitude, adult life can feel long and monotonous and hard. Of course you need faithfulness. You also need permission to change, to tap into the electricity of something new, the joy of learning, the thrill of a challenge, the delight of obsession, no matter how small. Phases—seasons—yes, eras—remind us that life is not static and that we don’t have to be either.

current status

loving :: French press coffee // Hardly newsworthy—in fact, this recommendation feels like an artifact from 2011—but a recent French press was a revelatory experience. We made it by a campfire on our first ever camping trip with our kids, and the flavor of the coffee came out so deep and rich. Before kids, the French press was our default coffee brewing method every morning (such luxuries of time!) and then for a while, it became a weekend treat before winking out forgotten in little kid life. Before the fall leaves fade, I invite you to treat yourself at least once to coffee the slower way.

reading :: Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill (The New York Times) // Long, but super interesting exploration of how cultural ideas about art have evolved. If this quote intrigues you, read the whole thing: “It wouldn’t be so bad if we could just own our static position; who cares if it’s novel as long as it’s beautiful, or meaningful? But that pesky modernist conviction remains in us: A work of art demonstrates its value through its freshness. So we have shifted our expectations from new forms to new subject matter — new stories, told in the same old languages as before. In the 20th century we were taught that cleaving “style” from “content” was a fallacy, but in the 21st century content (that word!) has had its ultimate vengeance, as the sole component of culture that our machines can fully understand, transmit and monetize. What cannot be categorized cannot be streamed; to pass through the pipes art must become information.”

listening :: Revisionist History: Guns // Whatever you may think about Malcom Gladwell or guns or America’s relationship with guns, this six-episode podcast series is worth your time. Gladwell’s gift is finding forgotten pieces of history or unexpected voices as a lens to consider an issue. The approach works well with this particular issue, pushing past the usual talking points where both sides get mired and introducing some powerful new perspectives.

Open Window, Carl Holsøe, 1890.

drinking :: Uni by Stolpman Vineyards // Weeks have passed since I drank this wine, and I’m still thinking about it. A blend of Rousanne and Chardonnay, the white wine was silky, rich, and round, but somehow tempered by a crisp salinity—like a whisper of an ocean breeze.

loving :: Sylvia Plath’s food diary // In this enchanting Twitter feed, writer Rachel Brill collects every mention of food, cooking, and eating from poet and author Sylvia Plath’s letters, diaries, and published works. Hearing Plath describe eating and cooking with such visceral pleasure skews the one-dimensional, ethereal sad girl trope so often attached to Plath. There’s also a specificity in the way Plath sees the world that feels kin to my own, an attunement to detail and ability to be moved by it that comforts me with its familiarity.

reading :: How to Stay Married (Harrison Scott Key) // Well, I haven’t participated in this much hot discussion about a book in a long time! It’s hard to hand out a resounding across-the-board recommendation, because the subject matter (marriage, affairs, betrayal, faith) is so raw that depending on your personal experience, it could be too rocky of a read. Disclaimer out of the way, I cried laughing at many (irreverent) parts. It made me grateful for my husband and grateful for what the church can be and grateful for an unflinching look at the dark realities of marriage. No one ever imagines they will be this couple, but that is exactly the point — we are all so close to being them.

Hollyhocks, Isle of Shoals, John Singer Sargent, 1886.

listening :: I spent the summer embracing my Cuban heritage and leaning hard into Latin r&b / Latin dreampop, but summer is long long gone so my current fixations include: Along for the Ride, my 2023 fall playlist — tender songs for feeling it all. / Head down in a writing project? I’m half-listening to Youth Lagoon’s weird, whispery new album Heaven Is A Junkyard. / College throwbacks like Bittersweet Symphony, Coldplay, Anberlin, and Augustana (does this mean I’m old??) have been really hitting. / Finally, my husband texted me this song, saying “Can’t explain it, but this song is the color of an October blue sky,” and he was exactly right.

cooking :: Kale Apple Salad with Crispy Shallots // Very into apple salads of all kinds lately, and this one was particularly good. I skipped the cheese, made my own vinaigrette, subbed a bag of cabbage slaw for shaved brussels and candied almonds for cashews because that’s real life. The end result was so crunchy, savory, and delicious. Absolutely do not skip the crispy shallots.

loving :: Breyer’s Double Cookie Crumble // Gotta serve up this very basic rec solely because of how much I’ve enjoyed it. In fact, I regret to admit that I’ve treated myself to a bowl of it every single night since I bought it on a whim three days ago. I’m biased toward Breyer’s in general, but this particular flavor delivers the perfect ratio of cookie to vanilla ice cream. Not only that, the cookie content is equally balanced in the bigger crunchy pieces and pleasing cookie…gravel (???) swirled through. Add it to your grocery order.

goodbye

Without explanation, I present you to my entire moodboard for fall 2023. Thanks for reading, see you later!

Until next time — drive fast to a slow song, make some chili and watch some football, say yes to happy hour, wear your boots, baby—it’s time.