A Bit of Awe from Time to Time
Weekend Reads v. 13.12.2025
I’m writing to you from a car that is barrelling down the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Thanks to hotspots and a comfortable captain’s chair, I’ve created a bit of a traveling office. Weird how technology works. I can’t imagine the awe and amazement my great grandparents would have if they could see me now or see me order groceries with a small black disk covered in metal and glass pulled from my pocket. It’s easy to lose the awe in life, isn’t it?
Earlier this week, I met up with a friend for dinner in a quaint riverside town that was founded in 1749. Meeting a friend for dinner isn’t necessarily remarkable, but the idea that she’d traveled by plane from her hometown of Paris a day or so earlier is incredible when you stop to think about it.
How long did people wonder what was past the edge of the sea before they had an answer? And how many people waved goodbye as their beloved set sail from some crowded dock, never to see them again because the journey was far too taxing and expensive to replicate. The idea of sitting on a plane for a few hours before emerging on the other side of an ocean would have been an outrageous fantasy for millions upon millions of people in years past.
I suppose this time of year is a natural time for reflection and wonder. Sometimes that reflection leads you to wonder where they heck time went or what happened. But other times that reflection and wonder leads you to a place of quiet contentment, understanding you’ve encountered something miraculous like the gift of flight as everyone around you rushes about.
Maybe it’s the twinkle lights and holiday spirit that’s making me marvel at airplanes and smart phones – two things that can sometimes drive me absolutely mad. No matter, it’s a nice to experience a bit of awe from time to time.
This might be a busy week for you, packed with crushing deadlines and maybe one too many gatherings to attend. Or perhaps not. Regardless of what your to-do list is shouting at you, I hope you are given the gift of quiet reflection this weekend, if only for a few moments.
“A woman asks Picasso for her portrait. Minutes later, he hands her the sketch. She is elated, and she asks how much she owes him. ‘5000 Francs.’ The woman, outraged, says it only took him 5 minutes. Picasso replies, ‘No, Madam. For you, it took 5 minutes. For me, it took my whole life.’” (Source)
Pantone declared white to be the color of 2026, and people are not very happy about it!
Bon Appétit’s favorite cookbooks of the year.
Here is a beautiful essay by Rob Henderson on what it means to be a writer these days.
This beautiful essay about conservation stuck with me.
“It is so easy, here in our noisy neon world, to lose sight of what we are actually keeping, of what we are actually conserving. Amid the white papers, press releases, and committee hearings–all the grand efforts in Washington to steward our good green world–we must not forget the small places that generated our desire to keep:
The brook in the forest behind the house that swells in the spring.
The edge of the meadow where you buried your childhood dog.
The lake where your father taught you to swim.
The first green allegiance a person ever makes is rarely to an abstract sense of the environment, rarely to some distant concept of the climate. It is more likely to be to a creek where they waded, a pine where they climbed, a field in which they played.
A real, small, green place.
Conservation requires a deep fidelity, and fidelity is learned at the closest range. It is hyper-localized. Before a child can care about the world, that child has to fall in love with a specific patch of loam, with the sound of the waves, with the light in the branches of trees. The family is the first garden where that love on which all good stewardship depends takes root.” (Source)
What is a sugarplum, anyway? Turns out, not a plum.
A gift guide for the extremely analog.
“On internet surveillance and crying online.” See also: people really are quite mean at the moment.
The best Roman pasta might not be Cacio e Pepe. Or maybe it is. Or maybe I just would like a bit of both please, and stop trying to make me participate in an exercise that is asking to being forced to pick a favorite child.
Absolutely making these fried eggs with fresh herbs.
An ornament for you and your best friend.
So thrilled Uchi is coming to DC!
Take gentle care of yourself!