At my Politics and Prose event last month, my interlocutor Chesley selected three passages from Small Wonders that had resonated with her and asked me to read them aloud. I wasn’t surprised by the first two — “Everyday Architecture” (p53) and “Synonyms” (p198-199) — but the third caught me off guard: she wanted me to recite “Reteaching a Thing Its Loveliness” (p158). Up on the dais, I read the first two, and then decided I didn’t want to read the third. I’m not sure why; maybe I felt I’d gone on too long already with my recitations. But Chesley prodded me — “what about the third?” — and I found myself almost unable to get through it, my voice unexpectedly clouded over with the threat of tears, especially at the lines: “In the most painful days, I found myself clinging to a handful of generous things friends and siblings had told me about myself. Together, they formed the click train that helped me echolocate myself when I was lost.”
I had forgotten how hard-earned these words were, how the prose reads, to me, like scar tissue. Almost like the memory of pain. When I looked up, three different Magpies were crying in the audience. I know that one of them was grappling with the transitions and dislocations of postpartum motherhood — the way it can sometimes lead us to look at our bodies and lives in jarred disbelief. I’d not been thinking of that particular phase when writing this, but I saw its easy application there. I thought also of women in recovery, in grief, in some other moment of self-versioning or chrysalis, forced to re-draw our own outlines. Tough. But you are tougher.
Resharing the original version of that piece here (the book contains an abridged and edited variation), in case you also need to hear it as you rediscover your own loveliness.
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“Sometimes it is necessary / to reteach a thing its loveliness / to put a hand on its brow / of the flower / and retell it in words and in touch / it is lovely / until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing”
-Galway Kinnell
I read those words and thought of my unraveling a few years ago. It was a strenuous time in a difficult relationship in which I forgot myself, or rather, trusted the warped image of myself created by another and handed back to me. I was looking in the funhouse mirror; it was me, wasn’t it? Rough where I thought I was soft, with my heart shrunken to a lead button. It took a long time to come back. To look in the right kinds of windows and mirrors. No one tells you how long this takes, actually. It’s years; it’s forever. It’s an ongoing practice of saying, “No, that’s not me; no, that’s not for me,” and of tottering around on fawn legs as you re-learn how to see the good inside. Embarrassing, maybe, but in those early days, I found myself clinging to two memories as though a storm-tossed sailor wrapped around a cracked mast: the first, in my sister’s tiny 81st street apartment, sitting on the floor. I was maybe twenty-six, and she was saying to my future brother-in-law: “Oh Jen could never do that – she’s a good person.” And another, via email, from my sister-in-law: “Jen, you are a good person. Read that back to yourself.” Together, the click train that helped me echolocate myself when I was lost.
Which is to say, “sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” No one ever suffered from an extra word of encouragement, a bonus “look at you; you’re lovely.”
A woman commented on my “10 I Love Yous” post: “You could also say “I love you.” So many times people do all of those things but that.” I can’t stop thinking of this. Yes, you can wring “I love yous” from deed and gesture, but sometimes you need to hear the words, too.
Stop for a minute, Jen: run downstairs to tell Landon just how good and smart and kind he is. How I saw the way he spoke to his aunt’s boyfriend at the funeral: tender, earnest. “Hang in there, buddy.” Take the children into your arms when they return from school, clothing stained with paint and peanut butter, dirt under their nails: “You are every good thing. You are exactly what this family needs. You are loved just as you are.”
Winners of the Small Wonders Giveaway!
The winners of the Small Wonders giveaway (I numbered all the comments and used a random number generator to select these): Anne (from Raleigh) and Meri! l’ll email you both and will get a package out to you soon. Thanks for all the lovely comments on this post. Made it feel like an extended celebration!
ALSO! I just wrapped up my first few orders for signed copies of Small Wonders and included a bookmark and keepsake print of “10 I Love Yous,” too. I’ll continue to throw in these bonuses until I run out! You can order here. These come straight from our Magpie headquarters and are lovingly packed by Landon, with my occasional meddling.
Post-Scripts.
+Things I know for certain. (Turns out, not a lot.)
Shopping Break.
+If you loved my terry short set (which sold out in most sizes basically overnight), she just restocked in a fabulous tomato red (sweatshirt, shorts). Use code JEN-15 — I swear I have lived in the terry sweatshirt since opening it. I love to layer it over my favorite whipped tee and track pants. The combo is divine.
+These pull-on embroidered jeans are on my radar for summer. Also love this embroidered bandana situation (under $40) and this fun knit top (under $60).
+Gorgeous colors in this striped popover. Imagine with white jeans.
+This gingham dress is perfect. Use code MAGPIE10. I have been really into layering gingham and stripes beneath my big sailboat cardigan. Linked a few looks for less here (this one is super similar but about half the price, and I love the cropped silhouette on this fire engine red version), but can’t rec the new J. Crew lobster cardi more as a way to scratch the itch for under $170.
+One of my mom friends was wearing the most perfect red tee to our daughters’ soccer game last weekend, and she said it was this one from Agolde. The vibrant color, the cut of the sleeve, the thickness of the cotton! Obsessed.
+Nano-trend: basket charms! Spotted at Asha and Hart (use code JEN10 at the latter)!
+Installed the Hamptons hand soap and lotion at our powder room sink over the weekend — it felt like a tiny “soft launch” of summer! The smell is everything you want from summer — tomato vine, herbs, farmstand goodness, sunshine.
+Love this new, more body-skimming silhouette from HHH. The plaid is so good, too!
+Restock of the iconic Legend jeans. I discovered these via Julia Amory herself and the fit is insanely good. (While you’re there, treat yourself to the gorgeous face-framing and nearly-sold-out Tate before it becomes unavailable. It’s a magical shirt, truly. The oxford material has that lived-in, super-soft handfeel to it — almost like an oxford you’ve had in your closet for decades. It’s sort of like a “downtown chic” older sister to the RL classic.)
+A lot of you snagged these cooling pillows over the weekend. They’re still 20% off!
+My favorite everyday ballet flat in a perfect butter yellow.
+MMLaFleur’s seasonal sale is still ongoing. This poplin dress is insanely chic for your summer work wardrobe. (Not on sale, but Magpies have been loving this fetchingly titled “aperitivo” white eyelet number.)
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