Video Diaries, 01 | A Trip to the Ocean

Dear Life Lives community,

This week, I’m sending you a video diary.¹ A snippet of time and thoughts from July 20th. As I watch it back, I’m resisting the urge to edit.² No filter. No overthinking.

A Reason for Going to the Beach

There really wasn’t a reason for going to the beach
other than that I wanted to hear the sound. 

To me, the beach has always been
about this sound. 

About the deep breathing of the ocean. 

About the sounds of life layered on top of it. 

The laughing. The talking. 
Kids yelling, playing in the sand,

making up games that feel impossible to understand
as someone who is no longer young. 

The reason to return to the beach is always the sound. 

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The Writing Report

Scrivener is definitely glitching here. (I didn’t delete 877 words from my working document.) Still, I didn’t write as much as I would have liked this past week. I’ve been distracted by Substack, the news, work, etc. I’m trying a new writing schedule this week and will report back.

2 Things I Read and Loved This Week

1. This profile of trad wife Hannah Neeleman, aka “Ballerina Farm,” written by Megan Agnew for The Times. (The irony is that you can’t really profile a woman who has eight children and a husband vying for her attention.)

2. This cute piece in The Cut, in which Katja Vujić asked Rockaways beachgoers what they were reading. I may have to borrow that idea for a future Life Lives.

Thank you, as always, for reading (and watching).

---

Reading: How the Dead Dream, Lydia Millet; God of the Woods, Liz Moore

Watching: Simone Biles: Rising (Netflix)

Eating: Carrot cake

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1. The song in this video is “Down to the River to Pray” by The Children Of Music Project Choir. I recognize it from somewhere but can’t quite put my finger on it. Don’t you love it, though?

2. For example, I know that I’m still very young. But in comparison to the little girl I saw pretending, unabashedly, to be a dolphin, I feel like I’m no longer young.