January 13, 2023
Happy Friday, travelers!
It is unlikely I’ll shut up about Cuba any time soon. Like a current, maybe even a siren, that island calls to me in echoes of my everyday life.
I flash back to a sweltering June Monday in Brooklyn, where Mom and I walked from Marcy Av to our favorite crêperie. Just a block from our destination, there was a small group of people, standing in a circle. In the distance, the only thing I could perceive was tension. Whatever was going on, it was serious.
A few more feet, and we saw them. Tiny white tiles, covered in one, two, three black dots. The crowd was exclusively elderly men, skin tanned from years in the sun. Shoulders hunched, salt-and-pepper chins perched into wrinkled hands, intent gazes drawn to the table smaller than a nightstand before them, the Cuban-American abuelitos played dominos.
To them, it was another Monday. To me, it was one of many charming New York moments to witness.
In reality, it was foreshadowing. I look back on my 2022 and see it was so obvious.
Memories like this one pop up often, reminding me that the Journey to 197 is everywhere. In the wind. On my bookshelf. On my dinner table. Here, with you.
Even if it isn’t on my mind, I am on its mind. Even if I wanted to escape, I couldn’t. It claimed me the moment I bought that plane ticket to San José without telling a soul.1
This week, I want to do something a smidge different. I don’t have any travel lined up until April, currently. Knowing me, something will probably pop up before then, but for now, I am serene and glad at the prospect of another girls’ trip with Val after the cherry blossoms make their appearance.
Instead of a typical reflection, I want to park ourselves in this time of year. Last week, I mentioned that this is the first new year in which I can remember feeling so optimistic. In my most recent therapy session, I expanded on that in an attempt to understand why exactly this is the case.
Before I wrote the very first word of From the Aisle Seat, long before I met most of you, I was one of those people who just couldn’t stop. Ever. I was a sensitive striver. In many ways, I still am. I care about my work and want to do the minute, incremental improvements it takes to go from good to great.
As I described in my 2022 reflection post on Instagram, 2022 was The Year of Less. By the time Summer Solstice rolled around, I was so exhausted that it was time for less or the choice would no longer be mine.
By the time confetti flew on December 31st, I felt better than I ever have before.
From walking away.
Imagine that—in a culture where we are conned into believing we will feel better with more, I just…couldn’t. I know I’m not saying anything revolutionary. Many have come before me to write similar things. I think what makes this different is that, in order to chase one massive dream, many, many others must lie in wait or evaporate into thin air.
Instead of contorting ourselves to fit into a space, situation, goal, etc. like a puzzle piece that looks like it fits but doesn’t quite lie flat, even when pressed, why don’t we just stop?
As the days grew shorter last fall, I signed with Big Writing Client. This is how I will continue to refer to them, because I can’t tell you their name. But Big Writing Client was the best thing to happen to my career. They are kind, our team is strong, and I look forward to working with them every day.
At the very beginning of February, I’ll have a call to discuss my 2023 goals. Objectively, this is wonderful. No one has ever wanted to talk with me about my career goals before, or at least no one outside the person who looks me back in the mirror every day.
But as I sat down to write them, these stellar goals, I realized I don’t have any.
I only want this year to be what it is, to present the adventure it has in store for me, for us, for all. I want to trim my commitments until I get tunnel vision, then expand to new things until the breadth is breathtaking.
I've already gotten started just today, when I had the confidence to walk away from an opportunity-turned-burden that was bitter and sour after months of lying to myself about how great it was.
And then, once the hard thing was over, I watched this sunset over the Atlantic. Breathed in tandem with the waves. Relaxed my jaw. Inhaled fresh air into my tight chest cavity. At a quarter til six, I found a balance that healed just one small part of me.
Wherever you are, whatever your hopes, however you want 2023 to look, I hope you know you’re capable of the hard things. And you deserve the softness that makes you and only you feel balance. A balance that heals.
What’s On My Tray Table
Louise Erdrich wrote sixteen novels, won a National Book Award, and came within an inch of the Pulitzer before she breathed out The Night Watchman.2 In it, she has not crafted a novel. It is something more than that, as if fiction weren’t extraordinary enough already.
From the first few pages, we’re introduced to Thomas Wazhashk. He’s the night watchman in question, an employee of the jewel bearing plant on the Turtle Mountain reservation in rural North Dakota.
One day, the fates of the reservation’s many Chippewa residents change forever when an insanely dull, ridiculously dense federal document calls them “emancipated.”
The real definition of emancipation was “no longer holding up our end of the treaty we made with your ancestors.”
Based on the life story of Erdrich’s grandfather, The Night Watchman is a work of American history. Its cast of characters will keep you guessing as to their individual and collective fates until the very last word.
I give it five beaming stars. You can find it here.
Be brave and stay that way,
Sarah
Or asking my mother, which is a different story for a different day…
Which did, in fact, win the Pulitzer.
I always love your wing pics. How do you get them from the aisle seat? I can't do the aisle. I'm a terrible flyer to start with and when my husband and I flew to LA this summer, I was on the aisle and had a panic attack. Congrats on what sounds like a truly wonderful career move!