The Newsletter Thingy
The Sybarite Newsletter: The Power of Fragrance and How I Fell Apart
Sorry for the delay, I was chain smoking and drinking and eating something called a “brookie.”
Hello, I’m back.
It’s been more than two weeks since I wrote a Sybarite newsletter. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything. I’m supposedly writing a book, and I even missed a meeting with my writing coach Amy Shearn, who happens to be the best ever.
But I just forgot. And this is because I’m not doing so hot. Or, in the immortal words of Dorinda Medley, when asked how she was, I am “not well, bitch!”
Here’s what happened: my parents’ assisted living facility made an accounting error, and so I spent hours doing math and arguing with the with them, but nothing got resolved. I’m also having trouble renting out my parents’ house for August, which is how I pay for their assisted living facility. (Anyone want to move to Los Angeles? There is a gorgeous new kitchen).
The combination of these two things pushed me into another place. Or a vibe. Or a vortex. Or something. I started to spiral. Downward, not upward.
All I know is that one day I was walking Fish every day and editing Sybarite and sort of doing the Kondo Method for my tiny house, and the next minute I was drinking and chain smoking in my tiny backyard, religiously watching reality television (Season 4 of Love is Blind, anyone?), and eating something I discovered at Trader Joe’s called a “brookie,” which is half brownie, half cookie. I watched my double chin grow to bullfrog proportions.
I knew I should sit down and write a newsletter, and respond to all the people who submitted to Sybarite, but I just couldn’t.
I’ve been here before, so I know the drill. You kinda have to just muddle through it, until something tiny pulls you out. But all the people who submitted to Sybarite over the last two weeks didn’t know that I was stumbling through a haze of cigarette smoke and spiced rum, and so I apologize: I should have communicated better about the fact that I was too fucked up to sit in front of a computer screen.
But now I am sitting in front of a computer screen.
The tiny thing that started to pull me out of the muck was a bird’s nest in my backyard with baby birds in it. I can’t see them, because Mom and Dad built their nest in bougainvillea that grows like a ceiling over my tiny backyard (in a fit of genius a few years ago, I strung up wires to make this happen). But I can see the bottom of the nest and hear them, and the amount of joy I feel because they chose my backyard is probably wildly excessive.
I check on them every morning, to make sure I can hear them. I put out little dishes of water. I can hear them now as I type this, even though I am also still eating a brookie and I can feel the puffiness in my face from too much booze and not enough water.
It’s a tenuous existence, because on Friday something almost pulled me back into the muck. A tenant at my parents’ house texted to tell me that two baby birds had fallen out of their nest, and she had no idea what to do. We decided she should call the wildlife hotline, and the automated message told her to pick up the bird and put it in a bush. Simple enough.
But then there was a flurry of texts which kicked off with my writing, “great, let’s do that, put the baby bird in a bush” and she responded that she was scared of birds. I rolled my eyes and had to write a series of cheerleading texts like “I know you can do this,” and “they are just cute little things with feathers,” and the cringy “you got this, girl!” I thought about driving over there and handling it myself, but it was 7 p.m. I was already in a knee-length t-shirt, getting ready to turn into a bed creature.
I was annoyed, and became increasingly annoyed. I was annoyed that somehow a 23-year-old was not embarrassed to write that she was afraid of baby birds. I hid my annoyance and continued with the supportive texts, reminding her that all baby animals are cute AF. But then she wrote back that one time a bird swooped her and her dog, nipping at her dog’s tail and now she was deathly afraid of birds. She even wrote “my dog didn’t even do anything to the bird!”
It was at this point that my Gen-X contempt for younger generations hit the point of no return. It was all I could do not to write “ONE BAD EXPERIENCE WITH AN ASSHOLE BIRD DOES NOT MEAN THAT ALL BIRDS ARE ASSHOLES HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?” I started to think that this whole exchange was a snapshot into why all the fucked things in the world are currently fucked. I started to wonder if we are all just weak now. I got depressed again.
Worse, it occurred to me that there was no solution to the baby bird problem across town, while the baby birds in my backyard were chirping away. By this point the tenant reported that the mama bird was flying around, trying to figure out what to do. And there was nothing to do, because the nest was high up on the roof. Even if the tenant wasn’t afraid of baby birds (Jesus Fucking Christ) she still couldn’t reach the nest. And the mama bird couldn’t just pick up the baby bird by the scruff of her neck and fly away.
This sucked me back into the quicksand. There are just some problems that don’t have solutions. And this is darkly upsetting. But since it’s one of those truths that we all have to live with, it’s not really an excuse to fall apart.
Worse, falling apart is more of a problem when you have responsibilities. And I have a responsibility to Sybarite, and all the writers who who have contributed and want to contribute. So again, to the people who have sent in submissions: I see you. I really am sorry. I am sorry that an accounting error and the tragedy of some baby birds sent me into a dark hole.
But I’m climbing out. I’m going to read all the submissions and provide thoughtful feedback. This morning I need to take Fish across town to my parents’ backyard to get his zoomies out, and to check on those baby birds. And then I’m going to drive home in Los Angeles traffic and commit myself to Sybarite again.
After all, it’s kind of an amazing place, if I do say so myself. It’s growing in a beautiful way, and people are latching on to its mission: to write and read about real things, tangible things. And this is why I’m so proud of the newest article in Sybarite, a piece by my friend Danielle at Raven's Call Botanicals about aromatherapy and its power to heal.
I’ve been friends with Danielle for years, and have always been in awe of her ability to teach herself anything she wanted to learn. She wanted to learn how to become a pin up photographer, so she did. Then she wanted to learn how to garden, and she did. She wanted to become an outdoors(wo)man, and so she did. And then she wanted to become an aromatherapist, and so she did.
To be frank, I’m jealous. There’s a lot of things I want to know how to do — like take the rust off old horseshoes — but after I buy all the supplies I somehow decide I won’t be able to learn it or do it and so I just give up. I’ve told her that her next story for Sybarite should be how to teach yourself anything, and if I remember our conversation correctly, I think she agreed. Please join me in pressuring her to do that.
In the meantime, here’s to crawling out of the muck, fellow Sybarites.
Until next week,
— Adeline, cranky GenXer and Sybarite-in-Chief.
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