5 things for friday
a list of things i may need post-penny. plus: a book that revels in female pleasure, the new thriller i'm watching, and the perfect summer set under $50
happy friday, friends.
the next time i write one of these, i will be—for the first time in 17 years—a cat mom without a cat. barring any sort of miracle recovery, penny will cross the rainbow bridge on saturday afternoon right here at home. the place where she feels the safest, the place where she feels the most comfortable. i cannot prepare for what that moment will feel like, for what will happen after.
it is the thing i am most afraid of: the aftermath. the fact that penny will be here one moment, and gone the next. that i will have an apartment filled with cat things, but no cat to use them. i will have two litter boxes, and a scratching post, and a series of well-loved catnip toys. i will have food, and medication, and more food and more medication. my gut is that i will want these things banished from my sight while i grieve, but i do not know yet. i do not know anything yet. and that is what scares me—the not knowing. what will it be like? what will i feel like? i have no means of comparison, because i have never done this before.
earlier today, my friend bruce called to check in on me. he called via facetime, so that i could see his face, and he could see mine, and penny’s. bruce has experience with loss, more experience than i do. i asked him how a person goes on after this. how anyone does this.
“you just do,” he said. “you’ll be different afterwards. but not bad different. just different.”
my friends and family have been keeping me afloat for the last few weeks. they have been texting, and calling, and checking in. and, as is customary, the question i keep getting is: is there anything i can do?
can you rewind time? can you make penny immortal, or at the very least, make her live as long as i do? can you take the pain away, carve it out of my chest like a tumor and dispose of it? can you tell me how i’m meant to survive the next few weeks, the next few months, the next few forevers?
no one can do that. no one can do any of it. but i have been thinking, or at least, trying to wrap my head around more tangible things i might need, come saturday, or honestly, come sunday morning, when i wake up and realize i am really, truly alone in my home.
a list of things i may need:
permission. permission to grieve. permission to cry. permission to scream. permission to talk about penny endlessly, at least for a little bit, while i process the idea that she’s not here.
plans. while i know there’s a chance i’ll take to my bed like a victorian heroine, i think what’s more likely is that i’ll want to get out. to be distracted. so, if we’re friends in real life, can you invite me to dinner? or on a walk, or to drinks? or maybe you can come over and bring takeout? i can’t promise you i’ll say yes, but i can promise you that it’ll mean the world to me that you’ve asked.
fresh flowers. i think i might fill my home with fresh flowers. go to the farmer’s market and buy the place out, if only so that my eyes, while searching the periphery for penny’s bright green eyes and extra toes, will land upon something beautiful. something that reminds me that there is still pleasure to be found, still joy to be found.
fun. my drunken nights are mostly behind me, but i feel like there’s a chance i might need to blow off some steam in the form of margaritas, or too much wine, or a night of dancing. i have a feeling i’m going to need to indulge in a bit of escapism, whatever form it takes—something that takes me out of my brain for a bit.
salt water. next week’s forecast is hot as hell, and i intend, if i can muster up the strength, to take myself to the beach for the day. submerge myself in the salt water, let my tears mix with the ocean, eat a giant ice cream cone, and hopefully, come home reborn, or at least, slightly less in pain.
i know i can’t wish away the pain of this.
i know i can’t rush the grief, or the grieving. but i feel like if i can set myself up to still find the little pockets of joy, i will be able to get through it. because as bruce said, you just do.
i’ve been thinking that i’ll start my days with a moment of gratitude for penny. that i’ll make a list of the things i love about her, and add to it each day, as a way of keeping her spirit and memory alive in me. a way of speaking her being into existence, even if it’s no longer on earth.
earlier today, one of my instagram followers DM’d me a sweet note (one of a dozens i’ve gotten from my wonderful community over the past few weeks, something i am so grateful for). at the end, it said:
My Penny will greet her when she gets to heaven and they can bond over their shared adorable name! Sending all my love and healing to you.
what a beautiful thought, don’t you think? i love that idea that penny will get to heaven, and there another sweet penny will be, ready to show her the ropes.
over the years, i’ve made up hundreds of songs for penny. but the last few days, i’ve been singing her a new one that goes a little something like this (taylor swift i am not):
my penneluh is the best penneluh
the best penneluh is mine
my penneluh is the sweetest penneluh
the sweetest penneluh you could find
my penneluh is the best
she’s better than all the rest
and i know, wherever she goes…she’ll find home
and i know wherever she goes…she’ll never be alone
i don’t know that she can hear me. or that she understands the meaning of my words. but i hope that she feels, as deep down in her little soul as one could possibly feel something, that wherever she goes after this life, she’ll find home. and that no matter where she is, she’ll never be alone. because always—always—she’ll have me.
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you might be surprised to hear i’ve got recs this week.
but i’ve needed a distraction from my sadness, and so recs we shall have!
this one probably needs no introduction. but i’ll give you one anyway. dame julie andrews was the final guest on this season of julia louis-dreyfus’ wiser than me podcast, and my goodness, what a listen. my mommy loves rogers & hammerstein, and as a kid, we watched lots of their musicals on old vhs tapes*, sound of music being one of them. i think i know nearly every song by heart, and nothing makes me happier than randomly finding it on tv whilst flipping through the channels.
i loved listening to julie recount her starring role in mary poppins—how walt disney took a chance on her, reinvigorating her love for her career after she lost out on the film role of eliza doolittle she’d become known for on the theater stage. to think that she made both mary poppins and sound of music in the span of just two years is mind-boggling. and then you think of all the iconic roles the 88 year old actress has had over the years…it’s truly incredible. the episode is a delight, and i highly recommend a listen.
*don’t get me started on okkkkkklahoma! or the original cinderella. or carousel’s june is busting out all overrrr!) OR MAYBE DO, because musicals are joyful and i need a little joy right now.
(this song didn’t age particularly well, but god it’s so catchy)
i’m 3/4 of the way through this on audible, and i cannot get enough of it. it’s the story of a 46 year old writer who escaped to paris in august 2021 to—as she puts it—enjoy herself. as someone who also weathered the pandemic single, i remember just how isolating it felt. how much i longed for not just the company of others, but the touch of others. of all the things macnichol missed during her 16 months spent alone in her tiny manhattan apartment, it was this she missed the most. and so when an opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in paris arose, she jumped.
her weeks in paris are filled with friendship and food and sex—really good sex. there is good cheese (purchased at the grocery store for 3 euro, the joys of paris!). there is sweaty midnight dancing on the seine. and there is a plethora of handsome men. the book feels like a vacation, and also, a celebration of female pleasure. of owning what you enjoy, and not being afraid to ask for it. for celebrating your body for what it is, for allowing it to be celebrated by others. it is gorgeously written, and i cannot recommend it highly enough.
My body does not look like what it looked like at 25, but I am less concerned with it. I know what I enjoy. I know how to enjoy myself, which, at 25, I didn’t. - glynnis macnichol
ps: the author reads the audiobook, so if you’re an audio gal, i’d recco reading it that way.
pps: if you’re a big reader, follow me on goodreads! i try and rank/save every book i read (and i read about 50-60 a year!)
having finished a murder at the end of the world, i needed a new show. enter: eric. starring benedict cumberbatch, who looks so decidedly american here that one forgets he’s not, and gaby hoffman, who i have loved ever since she played my favorite character in now and then*, it’s a thriller that seeks to solve the mystery of a missing child in 1980s new york, who has set out to walk to school on his own, and vanished into thin air. the thing i love most, in both literature and television/film, is character development, and this show has it in droves. everyone has a backstory. everyone is hiding something. everyone is layered, and complicated. it is a mystery that is begging to be solved, but it’s also much more than that. i’m about 3 episodes in, and am savoring it. if you’ve started it too, i’d love to hear your thoughts!
*a fun fact i love: now and then’s writer, i. marlene king, was also the writer of pretty little liars, one of my favorite shows of the last decade.
i have been doing a great deal of stress baking over the past few weeks. my latest attempt? this smitten kitchen recipe for brown butter coconut cookies, which i’ve made time and time again and which never fails to delight in its perfect, caramel-y goodness. this time around, i added dried sour cherries to a few cookies, just to see what they might taste like offset by the tang of fruit. i often mess up the water ratio in these (you melt down the butter to brown it, then chill it, then add water, and i always manage to add too much or too little!), so some of my cookies are quite dense while others are ooey gooey like the ones pictured above. but i’ll tell you what: they’re ALL DELICIOUS. you cannot go wrong with this recipe, you really can’t.
how cute is this matching set? would you believe i got it from target?! i saw the skirt in store whilst in massachusetts a few weekends ago (the benefits of suburbia!), and promptly added it, along with the matching top, to my online cart. it arrived this week, along with the PERFECT beach bag (which i linked last week and am re-sharing below because it’s excellent!) and i could not love it more. it runs quite big, i got an L in the skirt and an XL in the top, and i think i’ll need to size down in both—but my gosh, what a perfect summer outfit. it feels like the perfect date night look—casual but still sort of sexy—as well as a look tailor-made for fourth of july (along with these sunnies, perhaps?).
not that i consider myself particularly patriotic, if anything, i err on the side of james baldwin, who famously said, “i love america more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
but the facts remain: this is a good outfit! and it’s under $50, all in.
as mentioned above, this tote arrived yesterday, and it’s just as great as i remember from my in-store sighting. it’s a nice mesh material that will repel sand and stay (mostly) waterproof, it can easily fit a towel, a book, a handful of water and sunscreen bottles. i can’t wait to take it to the beach!
and that, friends, is where i leave you. if you like this post, it would mean the world to me if you’d hit the little heart icon, as well as consider sharing it with your network—so that the grand weekly can be seen by more people.
A few years ago we had the opportunity to usher our favorite good boy, our dog Murhpy, to puppy dog heaven. It was the most selfless act/choice I have ever made. We knew he would hold on and on and on for us because he loved us as much as we love him. That's the funny thing about our pet children, they don't want to leave us either and will hold on for as long as they can. We were able to give Murph a beautiful goodbye by having someone, like you are, come to our house to usher him into his new life. He ate a huge chocolate muffin, laid on a soft blanket while he left us. It was the hardest but best choice I have ever made. I was not prepared to experience the pain I did. Tearing up now thinking about it. We had my SIL create a hand engraved box for him for his collar and toys and had a beautiful ETSY artist create a picture of him for our walls. He is always looking over us. I am here with you in your pain as are so many of us as we grieve with you. It's funny how animals become such fixtures in our lives without us even knowing it and their little voiceless personalities become our best friends and they don't even have to say anything. Sending you love and margaritas from TN. xo
Oh, Sarah, my heart aches for you! I said goodbye to my 16 ½ year old kitty in November and it is so hard. I cried just reading this post. But I'm glad you have so many resources set up and you're getting this really intentional time with her. Those first few days are the hardest, they feel so empty, and everything was a reminder of "oh, this is the first time I'm waking up without her" or the "oh, this is the first time I came home to an empty house" but over time the memories and photos will make you smile rather than cry. It might feel impossible now, but it will happen. It's so, so hard but Penny is lucky to have you and your life together <3