Dearly Beloved,
(pause for laughter)
When I started this project in January, I framed it as weekly meditations.
Now, three months after stopping, I’m coming back to share some general updates on my life.
Updates
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Domestic
My writing here first became distracted by the wonderful event of my dear friend Brittany Mascara moving in with me.
When I moved back to Chicago at the end of September 2020, I decided to live alone. None of my friends were looking for new places or roommates at the time, and, moreover, I was still recovering from back surgery—the idea of living with a stranger at a time when I was so emotionally and physically drained felt too exhausting to even consider.
Luckily, I found an incredible deal—a three-bedroom apartment that was less expensive than the previous one-bedroom I had been renting before my surgeries in June.
When Brittany and I caught up last November and she told me of her plans to return to Chicago, we both decided it would be a good idea for her to move into my place. We had lived together before in 2018, and we’d both loved the experience. So she moved in at the beginning of March, and it’s been delightful to have the company of such a thoughtful and gregarious personality.
Feline
I was lucky enough to finish my own COVID-19 vaccination in early March, so in late March, I decided to fly home to surprise my dad on his 60th birthday. Being with family for the first time in six months was extremely refreshing.
While I was visiting, Stephanie (my older sister) told me that her family was considering finding a new home for their cat. I’ve been missing the cat I used to live with for a few years now, but my allergies to cats have grown in the meantime. But my sister’s cat is hypoallergenic (a Russian Blue mix), so I immediately offered to take him in.
They decided to take me up on the offer, so I did a bunch of research on flying with cats, bought a carrier, and took him with me on the plane ride home. It was a traumatic experience for us both, but well worth it. He’s adjusted quickly, and he’s even started jumping up in my lap every now and again when I’m working at my desk.
When he first arrived, Brittany and I decided to name him Max (short for Pontifex Maximus)
Botanical
One of my only contributions to Wikipedia has been this image of a bonsai garden in China’s Xianju county, part of Zhejiang province. After stumbling into it during a 2015 backpacking adventure, I finally began to understand why my friend Len (who first introduced me to the art) loved it so much, and I determined that someday I would start cultivating bonsai of my own.
When I got back to Chicago last September, I finally acquired my first bonsai material—a beautiful ficus macrocarpa. I had so much fun trimming and styling it, that I started spending most of my discretionary income on collecting more plants, and especially bonsai material. In the three months since I last wrote, I’ve inherited a number of beautiful plants through friends, and I’ve made lots of progress on various bonsai material.
So here are some updates on my most recent inheritences, plants I’ve been growing from seed, and bonsai I’ve been cultivating
Most recent inheretances:
These three I acquired through my friend Nick, who was looking for homes for his friend’s grandpa’s old plants.
I got this giant viny plant from my good friends Jordan and Kensy who are (sadly) moving to California:
From seed:
The last three months have been especially productive for my baobab seedling (which will someday, hopefully, become a bonsai), my avocado tree, and my polka dot plants.
Bonsai:
I won’t bore you with pictures of all of my bonsai, but here are two I’m especially excited about lately.
Corporeal
Overall, I’d say I’ve been in less physical pain in the last three months than I had been in the preceding two, but it’s still very back and forth, and it’s not always clear to me what causes a flare-up. Exercise helps to prevent them, but it’s just too inconsistent for me to determine when they’ll happen.
I recently had a new MRI and consulted with a surgeon. Apparently, my L4-L5 vertebrae have so little disc material left between them that the bones are rubbing against each other, which causes shifts in my pelvis and episodes of inflammation and pain. The surgeon recommended a fusion surgery. But he said that since there’s so little disc material left, it’s nearly impossible for it to herniate again, though the discs above could very well herniate.
I honestly haven’t been thinking all that much about what I want to do. The prospect of a fifth surgery is too overwhelming to consider right now, so I just avoid thinking about it. My pain is more manageable than it was a few months ago, but still not ideal. I think for now I’ll take a “wait and see” approach.
Literary
I’ve been reading a lot more the last few months than I had been. In March, I worked on writing a (still-unfinished) review of Rebecca Makkai’s novel The Great Believers. I still intend to finish that review, and I’ll share it once I’m done.
In March, I also read Sherry Turkle’s recent memoir, The Empathy Diaries, which inspired many of the themes in a remote conference talk I gave in April about my work on the vaccine rollout.
Most recently, I’ve been reading Stefano Mancuso’s The Nation of Plants and Matthew Restall’s When Montezuma Met Cortes, both of which have inspired many thoughts I hope to explore in future posts.
When I started the project of this newsletter-blog-thing, I envisioned writing weekly. I just can’t keep up with that pace, unfortunately. But I’m still working on things to share! I don’t intend on giving up altogether.
Professional
My job has consumed my life in the last three months. It’s felt very satisfying to work on something as meaningful as the vaccine rollout, but also incredibly frustrating at times. I plan to write a future post with more in-depth reflections about the rollout, but I’m trying to take some space from thinking about it for the time being. If you’re interested, you can check out my conference talk to hear more about it.
Musical
I’ve recently rewritten the lyrics to my favorite childhood hymn, The Spirit of God. My new version, The Brilliance of Life, tries to express the same emotions as the original but using lyrics that emerge from all that I’ve learned since leaving Mormonism. It’s the first installment of what I hope to become an ongoing project to produce a “Post-Mormon Hymn Book” full of songs that are true to the emotions underlying the originals and that express an entirely different worldview that doesn’t mock the originals. Reach out to me if you’d be interested in hearing a recording!
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Until next time,
Josh