With Gratitude

This time last year I would’ve been scrounging up a list of the best Black Friday and Cyber Week sales actually worth shopping, but for obvious reasons that have everything to do with of suspiciously timed, four-day truce, I encourage you to pause if you can. (Or, be mindful. Support small brands as much as you can.) I just have this list, written with and full of gratitude, instead:

• Finding comfort and confidence in just being
• Joy in the little things, like opening a vintage book of Picasso’s sketches to find an inscription in blue ink, dated just four years before my birthday
• Rediscovering self in solitude, in both space and singledom
• FaceTime, for giving my parents peace of mind but also letting me be a child again in the virtual presence of my family
• Connecting with some of the most incredible noses in the fragrance industry. The fact that they share their time, artistry, and expertise with me?!
• TikTok, for sharing the news and stories suppressed in traditional media
• This younger generation’s fearlessness, curiosity, and relentlessness in questioning—which can and will dismantle systemic injustices
• My mother, for opening my world with books
• My dad, for instilling an optimism so deeply rooted I have no choice but to believe
• Every sacrifice my parents made so I have the privilege to imagine—and live—life on my own terms

“Don’t let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be.”

— Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard

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xx