Tea & Cookies

I bought a pot of purple hyacinths the other day, I do so every year at this time.

I don’t actually like hyacinths—they’re a bit too fragrant for me, and while it’s nice to see any sort of flower this time of year, hyacinths are ungainly and oddly shaped to my eye. Becoming a gardener has given me strong opinions on flowers, apparently.

But I don’t buy them for myself, I buy them for my friend.

It was five years ago that I bought my first pot of purple hyacinths. My friend had become sick the autumn before and was stuck shuttling between home and hospital. She was too tired to have visitors—no one but family had seen her in months—but I wanted to do something.

To have someone dear to you fall ill is a maddening experience—you want to do something, anything. Really, you want to take the illness away from them, get rid of it somehow, but that is just not possible.

And so I bought hyacinths—one of the first flowers to appear in the spring.

They came in an ugly plastic planter but I replanted them in terra cotta—dividing them in two pots and tying one with a purple ribbon. This I drove over to my friend’s house, leaving it on the back porch with a brief note. I knew she probably wouldn’t be in and out herself, but I sent an email saying she should have someone to check the back door and that I loved her.

“Thank you for the flowers!” she wrote back later that afternoon. “They were the one bright spot in my day.”

That was the last message I received from her; she passed away not long after, shocking us all that such a lively spirit could be extinguished. It didn’t seem possible.

Of course, after she was gone, I wished I had brought her more flowers. All the flowers. Each and every day. I would have, had I known.

But here is what I think, what I’ve come to five years later:

We never truly know what other people are going through. The kind thing you do or say might be the one bright spot in another person’s day. It might be the thing that tips the scale away from despair and toward hope.

This is true of people we pass by casually in the world—a grocery clerk, or the women with the toddler who is having a meltdown in the parking lot (especially her). And it’s true of those we know well: that small note, the encouraging word. You just never know when your kindness might make a difference.

We never know how much time we have to make the people in our lives feel loved.

This year I bought a pot of hyacinths—purple, as always. They are still too fragrant, and this pot was extremely ungainly: within a day the flower heads started growing horizontally. But I love them now, because they remind me of my friend.

I kept the flowers for a day or two, then I left them on the doorstep of a woman who recently moved next door, with a note welcoming her to the neighborhood. She’s moved to a new city all by herself, following the loss of her husband a few years ago. Maybe she needs a bright spot to her day.

You never really know.

—Tara

I have some amazing friends. One of them, Lara, has a daughter who this month turned thirteen.

Thirteen is a very big age.

Lara sent me a message a few weeks ago saying that, for her daughter’s birthday, she was asking some of the women she knew to write a note of advice or encouragement—basically, what you would have liked to know at thirteen—as part of her daughter’s birthday present. She asked if I would be willing to participate.

Of course I said yes. How could I not? And also: how amazing.

It was harder than I expected—how much to tell, what not to say, how to be encouraging but also honest. I barely survived my early teen years, and I do not say that lightly (that upper photo, just left of center, is me, by the way). There is so much I wish people had told me.

This is what I came up with.

Dear Rory,

We’ve never met, but your mother lights up when she talks about you and I know you are deeply loved.

Here is what I wish someone had told me when I was thirteen.

It gets better.

If you’re having a hard time—or even just a hard day—it gets better. Some people seem to glide through the teenage years (some people are good at faking it), but most of us struggle in one way or another. Even the people who look like they are gliding can be struggling inside. This is natural.

This is the time of life when you start to step away from all that you were raised with and begin the process of figuring out what is true for you (a process that will last for the rest of your life, by the way). It’s a time of great excitement and new adventures.

It’s a little like growing wings.

But doing anything new is awkward and sometimes painful—especially growing a new appendage. And then you try to fly—and of course you fall down and bang yourself up because you’ve never used wings before (not just you—this is true of everyone). And the people who care about you will try to help—to show you how to do these new things—and it’s so tempting to push them away; you need to figure it out on your own, after all. They don’t know how you use wings, they only know what worked for them.

This is all natural, but it can be hard. It can also be hard on the people around you. I hope you can forgive yourself when you make mistakes, and forgive the people around you, too; they are just trying to help (in ways that are sometimes great and sometimes really freaking annoying).

Be who you are.

I spent my teen years (and most of my twenties, and some of my thirties) trying to fit in. I wanted to be normal (whatever that is), I wanted people to like me.

Again, this is a natural instinct. We humans evolved as tribes—our daily survival depended on being part of a group. This is how we found safety, food, acceptance, and affection—all our basic needs. If we didn’t fit into the group, we would die and be eaten by wild animals. We needed the group to survive from one day to the next, that’s pretty strong motivation.

But here is what I have learned about fitting in: most of the time it makes us tone down who we are. In my case, I pretended to like things that other girls liked so they would want to hang out with me; I pretended to like things that guys liked so they would think I was cool and want to date me.

You are a smart person, so I imagine you can already see the flaw in this logic.

The obvious part is that—if it works, and it usually doesn’t—people end up liking someone who is not really you, and you have to keep up the act so they don’t find out. That’s a full-time job.

The other thing, and it took me a long time to figure this out, is that the people who would like you—the ones who would truly get who you are and want to be in your life and maybe even love you—they can’t find you because you are busy trying to be something you aren’t.

I missed out on a lot of people who might have been great friends for me because I was trying to be someone else. I was really dumb about this for a long time.

I wish someone had told me that you have to be the biggest, boldest, bravest version of who you are, because that is how your people will find you. And they will find you.

Of course it can be scary to march to your own beat, to stick up for who you are and what you love, but that is how you show the world your true colors. And those colors are like a beacon—the right people and the right opportunities will find you. Maybe not at first, maybe not all at the same time. Everyone goes through lonely times, even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside (some of the most popular people in high school told me, years later, how lonely they were; I never would have guessed at the time).

But you will find your people, I promise, and being yourself is how they will recognize you. Be as bold and big and brave as you can on any given day, the right people will notice.

Do what makes your heart quicken.

Do you know that feeling in your chest when something really calls to you—like a thump or a flutter when you hear the right kind of music or someone talks about something you really wish you could do? And it could be anything—a painting class or hip-hop dancing or sailing a boat.

You might not have experienced it yet. It takes time to learn who we are.

When I was your age, and for many years after, I made lists of “Things I Like.”

The lists were silly: turtleneck sweaters, green grapes, reading books. But I made them because I was trying to figure out who I was—what made me happy, what were the things I should build my life around? Was I the sort of person who liked going to museums? Was I the sort of person who liked sports? Did I like cupcakes or donuts better? (turns out I like pie). Did I like going to the beach, or did I just go because other people around me liked it? I studied myself like a character in a play, trying to figure out what made me tick.

Over time I learned to recognize when something called to me—when the idea of a thing made me want to tap my toes and dance a little. I learned that it doesn’t matter how strange the thing is—calligraphy classes or snowshoeing or speaking Russian, or going to that weird music thing in the basement of that place across town. If it called to me, if the mere fact that it existed made me happy, I should pursue it.

Too many times I stopped myself. I didn’t strike up a conversation with the lady who made the really cool film because I worried she might find me stupid or think I was a groupie (it took us four years to meet otherwise and then we became really good friends). I wanted to learn to row in high school but people told me I was too short and I believed them so it took me nearly thirty years to finally try what has become my favorite sport. When I learned to follow my own heart, to not listen to those who told me I couldn’t, it lead me to the right people, to jobs, to connections, to experiences that I treasure.

These days, no matter what it is—no matter how strange—I give it my full attention (this does not include risky, crazy, or illegal things, of course, but you’re smart enough to know that).

Some things cannot be acted on immediately—I haven’t yet made it to Newfoundland or Portugal. But right now I’m learning how to paint. Every Thursday I take out my paints and play around with them. I have no idea what it will turn into, I’m not good at it and maybe I never will be, but that part doesn’t matter. The time I spend doing it makes me deeply happy, that is enough.

And that is what I wish for you—moments of deep happiness (but not all the time, because such things are not possible and we wouldn’t even appreciate it).

I sometimes think that life is made up of moments, like beads on a necklace, and our job is to try to string the most beautiful necklace we can. I hope you go after the beads that shine brightest to you.

I hope you find your people (you will, eventually, but I hope you find them sooner rather than later). I hope you find the things and places and habits that make you feel like the best version of yourself. Even if some of them are weird.

We should all have a little kooky in us; it makes life more interesting.

I hope you notice how people treat you—especially when you give them a little bit of your heart, or even just half of your sandwich. I hope you gravitate toward the ones who are kindest. Being surrounded by kind people makes the hard times of life easier to bear.

And I hope you come to appreciate the hard times—when we are sad or lonely or really struggling—because they are the times that teach us the most. Sometimes loneliness is a reminder to open our hearts; sometimes envy shows us the shape of our longing; sometimes losing a thing teaches us its true value, so that we will recognize it sooner the next time.

Everyone has hard times, but not everyone learns from them.

I don’t always do the best job of this myself, but when life turns sour, as it sometimes does, I try to ask: What is there here for me to learn? Because I know: the faster I learn my lesson, the faster I can get out of that particular hole.

And when I don’t learn the lesson, I just end up back there again. Life gives us repeated opportunities to figure out our messy bits. This is both wonderful and totally irritating.

And the funniest thing: looking back now I am so grateful for those hard times. They might have sucked at the time, and maybe I wouldn’t want to relive them, but those times showed me a new path, or taught me to take better care of myself, or made me realize just how wonderful my family and friends are, or how much something meant to me. So when things turn upside down, look for the lessons; they are hiding in there somewhere.

But most of all, dear girl. Perhaps the only thing that truly matters (the other stuff will work itself out one way or another), I hope you know how very much you are loved—by people who haven’t met you, even (I am one of them). I hope you feel it in your bones.

And I hope you know that you deserve that love. Learning to let yourself be loved is sometimes the hardest lesson of all, but it’s one of the most important.

Happiest of birthdays to you, Rory. May your day and year to come be full of wonder. May you know just how much you are loved.

Wishing you all the best, and even more.

—Tara

What would you tell yourself at thirteen? What do you wish you had known?

It’s a grey day in Seattle. It’s been a grey week, actually, peppered with rain, but it hasn’t dampened my mood. I’ve been deeply happy.

I’ve been thinking about my life. This is what happens when you go through a life transition—when you move someplace new or make other big changes. The dislocation period between what has been and what will be gives us the gift of perspective that is often hard to find when you’re busy with work and home and trying to get all the things done. Perhaps it’s always been true, but modern life feels especially busy.

But then something changes—a job ends, a relationship ends, or you move to a new city—and it allows you to see things from a different angle, a new perspective.

I’ve been trying to be deliberate about this—because I know soon the new will begin to feel normal and the time will fill up again and I want to be intentional. I’ve tried to look at the big picture and see what is going well, what I want to change, where I could be doing better.

My work, for the most part, is on track. My living situation could use some help (I decided to buy a sofa and am planning to hang some more art), but the place I’ve really been doing poorly are my relationships. In two years of working constantly I didn’t have enough time for all the people in my life—all the people I love.

I spent all the time I could with my nieces and nephew, of course, and saw what friends I could here in Seattle—the ones who didn’t mind if I showed up late or RSVP-ed very conditionally. But there are many more friends who think I have dropped off the face of the earth, because I kind of did. I’m trying to resurrect those.

But the relationship I have really been neglecting—long before the magazine + book took over my life—is my brother. I’ve been neglecting that for years.

My brother and I haven’t had an easy time of it—those of you who have read Orchard House may understand why. There’s an awkwardness between us, born of neediness and reluctance and a set of circumstances that never let us be just siblings or be carefree.

We have also made very different choices in life, which can feel additionally awkward. But beneath all that, I love my brother. More than that, I like him—he’s smart and funny and interesting and we have the same sense of humor and occasionally we finish each other’s sentences. That makes me happy.

But he works hard at this job and has a big family life, and though family events bring us together we rarely are ever together just the two of us. We might get in a lunch once or twice a year, but that’s it.

I decided I needed to do better.

Because here is the thing I’m learning about connections: they need consistency. There are those great friendships where you can not see each other for years and it’s as if no time has passed at all, but less perfect friendships need the gears greased in order to run smooth. When I don’t see my brother often it feels awkward when we do; he doesn’t know what is going on in my life and I don’t know anything about his and we just talk about the kids or the weather or sports instead.

I need to do better.

My brother doesn’t know this, but I decided we should do one thing a month, just the two of us. It will be a challenge, but I knew if I didn’t try nothing would change. Perhaps it is a function of getting older, but I’m thinking about priorities. What do I want in my life, where do I want to invest my time and energy?

Or you can phrase it in slightly morbid (but very effective) terms: If I were to die, what would I regret not having done?

I would regret not making more of an effort to know my brother.

So, one very grey day this week I walked around the lake to meet my brother for coffee. I’m not usually out of the house that early, but I did it for him. And he should have been working, but he did it for me. And we sat and talked about politics and Mexico and new restaurants opening in town and nothing of earthshaking importance, but it was all important to me. To me it was vital.

Because we are laying a foundation. The next time we’ll have things to ask about from this conversation; he’ll know more about what I am up to and I will know more about him. In the small back and forth about nothing much in particular we are greasing the wheels so they will run smooth, we are casting threads that will connect us, not just as siblings, but also as friends.

Because nothing changes without effort, though sometimes the effort can be quite small. Coffee, a card, a flower, an open hand can all make a difference. Simple actions can shift the dynamic.

And we get to decide how we want to spend our time—most of us have that privilege (and it is a privilege). We have work, we need our sleep, but in the small free hours that are ours, that can be chiseled out from other obligations, we get to chose how—and in whom—we want to invest it.

I choose my brother. And I walked home that day from the coffee shop, along the grey lake, with a smile on my face.

It had been the right choice. Absolutely.

Happy weekend,

—Tara