is this something?

trying to write a banger.

Every week, I start writing an essay for this here Substack in my head. (I used to have an editor who, when asked where his assignment was, would say, “It’s done, I just haven’t written it yet.”) On hikes or runs or walks to work, I think of the moral, the ending, the theme, and write backwards from that. Advice given to me once (referencing the dedication to writing/publishing an essay once a week) rang in my head this week, “Each one doesn’t have to be a banger.” But it feels like this one HAS to be a banger…

Last week, I almost doubled my Substack subscriptions, because of my NYT piece. (thank you!! from the bottom of my heart. people reading my writing is everything.) For a couple days, The Messayist was #57 on the Rising in Parenting Substack list. (🤷🏻‍♀️) I’m happy, yes, but I’m feeling the pressure.

You’re saying, “Dance, monkey dance!” And I’m trying to dance, but I want to come up with something good. What’s funny is that you’re not yelling anything at me. I’m the monkey who has told you how great I dance. I’m a dancing monkey who has been begging you to watch me dance. Like a little kid, “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom… watch this!” I’m a monkey telling you, “I’m great at dancing. Dancing is my thing. Come over here and watch me dance! Every Tuesday there’s a new dance!!” But now I’m standing in front of a mirror, trying out new dance moves and wondering, “Is this something?”

I bike out to sit by a stream and write in my journal to get inspiration. I wear Hokas my Aunt Judy gave me, because she didn’t like them for herself. I feel like they really complete a Princess Di Fall Sporty Look for me. I keep seeing styley women around Jackson wearing leggings, white sneakers, and tall white tube socks. This is me trying. But while I’m biking, I realize these Hokas are a half-size too big for me. They feel like a shoe you’re given to wear in a hospital or some kind of safe space facility. Like they’re on for my own protection. I feel like I have a weird flashback, but can’t figure out if it’s from either of my two extended hospital stays (both around my pregnancy with Marcelline) or some movie I watched once. Not knowing why they feel familiar, I wonder if they’re supposed to feel familiar right now. Maybe I need to be in a space where I wear big white shoes and rest from it all. Is this something?

I think about how gorgeous the Fall is: with the changing colors of bright orange and yellow against the blue skies. Once I biked into work at my office in Bozeman, Montana, in a buffalo plaid jacket, leggings, and boots, with my to-go coffee in my hand. A coworker saw me and said, “Oh, you love Fall.” And I guess I do. But I remember how on a panel discussion in Jackson last month we had to say our favorite season. Forever, growing up in Texas, it has been the Spring season that’s my favorite. My time in Seattle solidified that. I was the only one who said “Spring” and everyone recoiled. “You like mud season?? Really??” It made me sad that I live in a place that doesn’t celebrate Spring. The newness, the blooms, the sunshine showing up in earnest. Is “Spring” a bad word in Jackson, Wyoming? Is this something?

Of course the day I was bragging to my therapist is the day that I wasn’t too poorly affected by all the feedback from my latest New York Times essay is the day that I get a stress-induced canker sore. I end up crying to a coworker later that day because the NYT forwards me a novel of an email from a woman, telling me how much pressure I’m putting on Marcelline and how damaging I’m being. My lip throbs with pain. I get a canker sore like this every other year or so. It’s always with a sneaky kind of stress that they appear. And not to be dramatic, but they ruin my life. Yesterday, September 22nd, I reapply a numbing agent a hundred times to my swollen lip. The canker sore is on the inside of my mouth, but it’s so big and painful, you can tell my lip is swollen and can tell by my eyes that I’m hurting. I tend to my lip and do the math, realizing that 25 years ago from yesterday was my first kiss ever. I was 15. Justin B. drove me home in his Bronco II from our first date. He parked in the driveway and walked me to the crook of our small walkway, just short of the porch. In a fumble of awkwardness, under the flood light my dad had installed for what I can only imagine were moments like this, Justin put his arms around my waist, I put my arms around his shoulders, and he kissed me. There was tongue, which I did not expect, but I did not protest. We said our goodbyes, he said he’d call me. I walked inside the front door to find my mom sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Mom: How was your date??

Me: Good. He kissed me.

Mom: Your first kiss! How was it?

Me: Weird.

We laughed and I wondered if kissing would get any better. Any more fun. I worried it wouldn’t, but it did. A life with these lips has been a trip. And now with a canker sore the size of a small village on my lip from the stress of strangers reaching out to me with unsolicited (and weirdly shameful) advice from my third Modern Love piece, I think back to how simple and weird this mouth use to have it—25 years ago. Is this something?

Evan was working on our Volkswagen van the other day while I “hopped on the bike.” I am mildly obsessed with my Peloton bike. (Tunde is my fave.) I wonder sometimes how much of a basic bitch people perceive me as: a white woman in a mountain town who loves Pumpkin Spice Lattes, reality television, and her Peloton bike. I don’t care. That weird stationary bike saved me in early motherhood/the pandemic. With both Evan and I working on our stationary vehicles (that’s a sick-burn to VW van owners), Marcelline was left to her own devices. After about five minutes of her just staring at me on the bike and trying to watch the screen over my shoulder, she figured out she didn’t want to watch what I had going on. (it took her a while to figure it out, though. homegirl will watch basically any screen available.) She decided to get ready for a birthday party we were going to by putting on a neckerchief. I rode my bike and did my workout while looking at Marcie every so often to see her trying her hardest to tie a bandana around her neck. She couldn’t quite figure out the knot. She kept trying. It was so sweet and so cute, my styley daughter.

When I was nine years old, I was starting to get into being noticed. No one was noticing me, but I was starting to want to get noticed. I was really into the movie Grease at the time. I noticed how Sandy would wear her hair in a pony-tail with a bow in it. I was so into this look. (only the good-girl Sandy… not the bad-girl Sandy… she scared me.) My mom was going to take my sister and me to the pool and I wanted to do my hair like Sandy’s. I found a white eyelet ribbon that was actually a belt to a dress from when my sister and I were much younger. It was perfect. I didn’t realize that you have to put a rubberband in your hair to make a ponytail and THEN tie the bow around it. I thought you just put your hair up and tied a bow around it. I stood in front of the mirror for what must’ve been a half-hour, trying over and over to tie my hair in the perfect bow. It was just like Marcelline, trying to tie her neckerchief in a knot. Both trying our hardest to become the fashion icons we want to be.

I finally got my hair up in the way that I wanted. The whole drive to the pool, I tried not to move my head too suddenly, as to not mess up the bow. As soon as we got there, I strutted across a long line of pool chairs, full of families eating snacks or reapplying sunscreen. I dropped my things and did a perfect swan dive into the deep end—my proudest trick at the time. The bow immediately swooshed out of my hair, but the triumphant picture of me mid-air with that Sandy-esque white bow in my ponytail still stays with me. Is this something?

Yesterday, at my work, my coworker walked into my office with a package.

Him: This came for you.

Me: What is it?

Him: I don’t know. I was gonna ask you.

Me: *opens it up, finds this book* Oh, great. Someone sent me a book about drinking.

I think I’ve communicated how much I’ve been trying to be graceful about taking unsolicited advice about my drinking. I thought someone (maybe a donor or a colleague) sent this book without a note and I was about to get annoyed. Then I found the note. It was from Kristi Coulter—the author! I immediately was so touched.

This is something. The connection of writing. Of essayists. Of going sober. Of seeing people. Of putting your shit out there in hopes that others who have gone through some same shit can feel less alone. I had heard of this book and even remember listening to an interview Kristi did on KUOW whilst making dinner in Seattle one night. (likely with a hefty pour of wine on the counter.) As soon as I got home, I opened the book and didn’t close it until I had finished half of it. I love it. It is me. It’s for me. I had been interested in this book before, but I wasn’t ready for it. I was ready for it now. I am ready for it now. Is this something?

I’ve decided it’s all something. It’s not one thing. It’s not an essay that will knock your tube socks off. I won’t submit it to a world-class publication. It’s not that something, but it is something. Even the silly part about Hokas. All together, it’s something. It’s here, now, Fall 2025, online, out in the world, together, alone, pressure, release, forgiveness, belief, trust, fear, love, failure, triumph, motherhood, childhood, selfhood. Together, it’s something. I’m letting it be something.

---

Quick Hits:

• Jam Of The Week: Charlotte Gainsbourg – Blurry Moon.

  (this song and video are the beautiful art that you want to make to make everyone a little uncomfortable in the coziest way.)

• More Good Music.
  (from a dear friend. question for paid subscribers: would you rather a live set of two hours of music like this with me giving mic breaks and talking about the music? or a Spotify playlist? lemme know.)

• Invite Me To Your Wedding.
  (I’m a great dancer and I wanna wear this.)

• The Desire In Which I Want These Plates As My Everyday Plates.
  (when Marcelline was two, she would sometimes put a blanket over her and walk into a room and go, “there’s a ghost in heeeerrrrree!”)

• This Piece Of Music Writing Is Beautiful/Perfect.
  (thank you, Dusty. dammit, I wish I could see Oasis live.)

• Libra Taroscopes All About LOVE.
  (also, this lipstick advice by sign is hilarious to me. you’ll never get me to stop wearing my signature go-to.)

• HAHAHAHA.
  (how have I never read that before??)

Okay. I wrote something today! I gave links! I overcame my catatonic writer’s block! Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you and being a part of this silly, fun, writing community. It means a lot. I’m so happy you’re here. And thank you for fighting the good fight in your own little ways in your own community. I see you.

xxo,
Rachel.