-Transcendence, et al.

Friends, hi!  Good Sunday to you.

We’ve gently entered the fourth month of the year and ok maybe it was a frenzied mess trying to wrap up March’s tasks but what’s done is done and what’s not done will find it’s time and place.  Let’s all just carry on like we knew this month was coming and we expected time to fly the way it does.

I won’t pass a blooming magnolia tree without stopping to smell its flowers.  The honeysuckle smell is so tender and soft. It amazes me every time.  I can provide a map of the best magnolia trees around Memorial Park if you need to find the same solace.

News this week has left me heartsick as we again must mourn with families in Nashville and for servicemen in Fort Campbell Kentucky.  I don’t know how to make it make sense so this week’s links are a break from the news cycle.  Please, as always, take what you need:

•  The most beautiful read of this week is Samuel Ligon’s essay on time and fiction and alarm clocks and family:  The Transcendence of the Clock (Literary Hub)

•  If you’re like me, this next one is really going to stress you out and I’m sorry in advance: Stressed Plants “Cry’ and Some Animals Can Probably Hear Them. Yes, I watered my stag leaf fern immediately after reading.   (Scientific American)

•  A love letter of sorts: To All the Manhattan Bathrooms I’ve Loved Before (Substack)

•  You had me at “return-to-the-sea barbarism”: Ganjang Gejang is not for the timid (Grub Street)

•  This vibey half an hour of beauty and decay oddly soothed my brain this week:  Manchester Orchestra The Valley of Vision.  Highly recommend you put this on in the background today and just let it wash over. (YouTube)

•  Currently listening and very into the feels of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus: Boygenius.

•  Recently hooked on Celebrity Memoir Book Club. Start with “Prince Harry is Spare” episode!  (Apple Podcasts)

•  I loved listening to Jerrelle Guy of “Black Girl Baking” on Radio Cherry Bombe on burn out and finding joy.  You can follow her on Instagram here! (Cherry Bombe and Instagram)

•  With Easter a week away, it’s officially Carrot Cake season but also…. when is it not carrot cake season?  This  Browned Butter Carrot Cake Loaf  is also an easy entry point if a whole layer cake feels daunting.  (Joy the Baker)

•  Girlfriends should be making each other Easter baskets, don’t you think? Easter Basket Roundup (Oh Joy)

•  Stop, drop, and order your friends the spring collection of French Broad Chocolates. This Asheville chocolate shop is, hands down, my favorite in the country.  (French Broad)

My love to you, friends!

Take good care.

xo Joy