My Medium Good May

Decisions from this month (the good, the bad, and the medium)

Every month I (or a special guest!) will be sharing a round-up of recent choices I made, along with my reflections on said choices. Grouped on a spectrum from medium-good to medium-bad, because even the most questionable decisions have nuance.

Medium Good Decisions

Visited an exhibit of Victor Hugo’s drawings during a trip to London

This month, I spent a week in London, where, among other joys, I saw Les Misérables on the West End. I saw that the Royal Academy of Arts also happened to have a special exhibit of Victor Hugo’s drawings, the author of Les Misérables. I was with my friend and almost skipped out on the exhibit, but I ended up carving out a few solo hours and was so moved by his art. It probably deserves its own, full post. As a writer, it felt energizing to see how a writer I admire so much expressed his ideas in other mediums. I learned that Hugo was an early death penalty abolitionist—the drawing above is called Ecce Lex, which Hugo made after he unsuccessfully tried to get John Charles Tapner’s death sentence convicted. In one home, he hung the painting in his bedroom, and when he moved, he put it in his study.

I think often about how much change I can affect as a writer and artist, especially in comparison to the work I did as an investigator. And this exhibit reminded me to treat what I create as a tool for advocacy just as much as my prior career.

Would I make this choice again? Yes! Make time for the serendipitous thing, always. Going to the exhibit also made me reflect on how I make choices around the media I take in, and in the past I’ve tried a kind of collegiate approach—when I got obsessed with the show Dickinson on Apple TV, I started reading an Emily Dickinson poem every morning and a biography of her at night. Full immersion! Or what some may call hyperfixation. In conjunction with seeing the musical and then this exhibit, I’m excited to continue my Victor Hugo deep dive. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is on my nightstand, and I’m seeking recommendations for the best translation of Les Misérables.

Organized my spices in a little pull-out drawer

An expansive spice collection is one of life’s most delightful luxuries for me, and it turns out that being able to see all my spices without taking them out and knocking them down and trying to remember where in the cabinet I last stashed the paprika is even more luxurious. It makes cooking easier, and makes me feel like a Food Network goddess every time I open the cabinet.

Would I make this choice again? Yes, but with one adjustment. I just learned there’s a kitchen supply store in my neighborhood, and it was a reminder to check for what’s available around me before making the instant online purchase. Especially in New York, where if you can think of it, it exists.

Read Beautyland

A novel by Marie-Helene Bertino, about Adina, who is born to an Italian-American mother in northeast Philadelphia but was sent by aliens to take this curly-haired human form and report back on life on Earth, via fax machine. I was skeptical at first, not because of the premise but because it’s written in present tense and I often have a more difficult time connecting with present prose. But after thirty or so pages I was converted, and laughed out loud, and cried out loud. It was one of those books that makes it difficult to read something new, because I miss this one.

Would I make this choice again? I’m typically not a big re-reader, but when I love a book I often open to any place and read a few pages, or just a few sentences. Like I’m visiting. It only takes that toe-dip for me to re-experience the sensation of a book, and the feeling of Beautyland is certainly one I’ll want to enter again and again.

Medium Decisions

Launched my Substack

I’m thrilled about being here! But like everything else, it takes 2.5x the time and effort you expect, even as I tried to build in a buffer. I decided to launch a Substack newsletter to have a space where I can explore ideas that I typically don’t in my published work, and to have a more direct way of being in conversation with readers. Like any new medium, I find it hard to strike the balance between creating my own work and reading and learning from others on Substack. It’s been an adjustment to managing my work time, and I’m still figuring it out. But I’ve already loved coming across writers like

Caoilainn Lander

,

Mennlay

,

Henrik Karlsson

,

Carly Valancy

,

Rob Horning

…so many talents.

Would I make this choice again? Generally, yes. I happened to launch this the same month that I’m deep in book edits, though, and if I could change anything I’d pick better timing—but sometimes everything happens at once and a couple weeks of late work nights ensue. A medium great decision for you, dear reader, would be to share Surface Level with someone curious!