Hi From a Taste Summer: Q2 Check-In on 2022 Goals
I’m writing this on the road south from San Sebastián. I’m wearing jeans that button all the way up, though right now the top button is undone, because in the hour before leaving this goodie bag of a city — small, cheap joys on every corner, wrapped up in a bright cerulean bay — I left no taste untasted.
That’s how it works in San Sebastián. You leave your hotel for breakfast, played in this production by runny, mushroom-y scrambled eggs (three cheers for no salmonella!) and tiny bitter coffees and chorizo cooked in cider, sweet and red-streaked, all buoyed by a half-slice of famous cheesecake so creamy it goes down like body butter.
And then you walk three blocks and decide you should probably eat again. You have rich pork-and-potato stew and cod in a bath of yellow sauce and then decide why not go for the oysters? Their tongues dashed with lemon, there on the half-shell? And what about the grilled prawns, curving towards each other on the plate? What about a glass of extra-aerated sparkly txakolí? It’s not all that great of a wine, I know now, having been told that by someone who both knows and cares more about wine than I do, and having decided I am a person willing to listen. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t perfect.
I have been thinking a lot about senses lately. About tasting. About listening (and hearing, and the difference). About touching. I’ve written an essay about it, one I really love. I’m not willing to publish it here now — I want a bigger debut for it.
In general, I realize that I want to hold the gems of this period of my life a little closer to my chest than I’m used to. I’m curious about that instinct, so I’m exploring it as I’m taking it to heart. Equal parts investigation and intuition: me, cooked down to my essence.
This is not a food essay. It’s also not an essay about essays, or my writing practice, though I will come back to mark myself to market on writing progress in a bit, and will — spoiler alert — give myself full credit on the writing and no credit on the publishing of.
It’s also not an essay about coming home again, though the road out of San Sebastián leads to my home. (Another goal.) We will keep driving this road until we get there.
We’ll pass more valleys shrouded with clouds and dotted with green trees like vanity bulbs, lined up and glowing, and clusters of pines, fluted mascara wands. We’ll drive through tunnels white-walled until halfway up, when the raw rock takes over, a track of blue-white built into the rough ceiling. They will deliver us, part manmade and part natural, from under the mountain and back into the light.
This goals update feels like that tunnel.
Before the tunnel began, a sign explained all it had on offer: emergency phones; exit routes; a designated breakdown area conveniently located exactly 400 meters in. In the tunnel, I feel safe, even though my body would prefer us to be out of it. And out of it we will be, soon — we get to keep going.
Another quarter in, and this mark-to-market isn’t just about eating or writing or feeling or traveling — miles of laps of Valencia completed alongside big slingshots in planes and trains and automobiles from here to Madrid, Malága, Barcelona, France. San Sebastián.
It is about all of those things, and about having gotten to keep going.
As always, I’m grateful for the chance to stop, pause in my half-tiled tunnel — my lights on — before continuing on and on and on.
Let’s see how this last quarter went.
Cherish and invest in community + intimacy.
- Find a long-term, in-person community again, and my own space within it. How? Move to Valencia, I hope, and plug into the scene there. Build a group of friends and have a home base from which to explore. Find an apartment and invest in making it feel like home. Host people often.
Still a very strong win. I did move to Valencia! I am building a home base here! I do have a home! (And a landlord I actually enjoy getting texts from so??) And I am building friendships that sustain and inspire me!
Really, truly, this is good. I have gotten to coat myself in how good it feels to be seen and held space for and held in general by someone you share in-person community with.
But there’s a new complication out this season, custom-designed for me. The TikTok ads of anxiety.
I keep feeling the weight of the pressure (put on me by me, to be clear) to have this full life here that’s absolutely jam-packed with the most meaningful relationships I’ve ever found.
You know the clove-studded oranges that medieval people used to carry around? (Let’s ignore the fact that pomanders were used to overpower the scent of unwashed flesh and, during the Black Death, the scent of actual death. All the image with none of the historical baggage: exactly how I like my metaphors.)
Those are how I visualize the life I expect for myself: dripping in juicy fullness on its own, and then enriched even further with precious additions.
And I do know that I will get there. But lately I’ve been feeling a little too heartbroken by every almost-friendship — every almost-connection — every gap between my most optimistic expectations and the reality that people are people and not all of them snap into you like Lego pieces. Some of them are Mega Bloks, and that’s okay.
- Show up for my loved ones and bring them together. How? Say yes to things. Be a good friend, and by good I mean honest, dependable, generous, and kind. Go to Katie’s wedding in August, and plan a US trip around it to see other loved ones. Plan an event for my birthday in August in Spain. Spend two weeks with Anna in Italy. Regularly attend and throw other events: dinner parties, game nights, art classes.
This feels like a win. August trip and birthday plans are on, and I’ve just gotten back from two weeks in the French countryside which isn’t Italy with Anna but which felt adjacent in a bunch of wonderful ways. (I can’t wait to make Italy happen, too, though. The pasta alone: I dream about it.)
Seán has come to visit, as has Anna, as has Marta; I got to see Brinley in Madrid and Laura in Malaga. Pinch me!
And I am attending and throwing events like it’s my job. (This is not great for my job. More later.)
A communist concert. A regular concert (and in fact, four of them in a row). (This is unfair because I did those last night and it’s technically already the third quarter because this update is technically late but do you know how I feel about those technicalities? Wanna guess?)
I have a whole list of other events and moments I want to seek out or create and I regularly talk to my loved ones about my lives and theirs.
This goal is on track and that feels good.
- Improve my Spanish and be able to make and maintain relationships in it. How? Above all, move to a Spanish-speaking space and live my daily life at least partially in that language. In addition, read at least five books in Spanish this year and build at least two all-Spanish friendships.
Okay. This is a maybe. My reading comprehension is getting better. And I do have several friends I speak with in Spanish.
But the level of relationships I can make in this language is palpably less intricate than the ones I can make in English, and so it feels like the actual value behind this goal is being failed. I don’t know that I care enough to reprioritize things, but I do recognize it.
- Keep up with my virtual creative communities and learn with them. How? Participate enthusiastically in English-language book club (LSBC) and writers’ group (The Light Brigade) and successfully manage Spanish-language book club (Las Que Leen) each month. Evaluate creating / joining an in-person creative group once I have my footing.
A win. LQL and TLB bring me a lot of joy. Both are evolving, too. LSBC is paused but ah well!
And I do now have an in-person creative space, though not at all in the way I imagined at the start of the year when I set these goals. Better.
I’m floored on the regular by what it all feels like.
- Be in love. How? Stay optimistic. Put myself out there. Be open and brave.
Give me a satisfied southern “mmm” when you read this “maybe.” That’s what it feels like: lips closed, mouth full, diaphragm humming. Jambalaya simmering on the stove, okra thickening the broth.
Take care of me.
- Move my body often. How? Be outside for at least an hour a day when weather permits. Hit an average of 10,000 steps/day or more. Be in the ocean every month. When I’m in one place, find classes—dance, Pilates, lifting, whatever—that I like and do them regularly.
Very recent history aside, this is a win. I had a conversation with a friend a few weeks back — on a walk, natch — about how irritatingly good it feels to move your body.
Running actually does clear my brain and give me new ideas and help me work through big feelings. What the fuck? Unfair. Square. Embarrassing, almost.
But catch me putting on my little bike shorts (but never actually biking because ow, it hurts) and lacing up my shoes (but actually just pulling them on over my heels because I’m impatient) and walking and running and dancing and lunging and lifting my way around town because I am alive and that’s wonderful.
- Enforce my boundaries. How? Don’t put myself in situations where I can’t take care of myself, or where I will be treated in ways that make me physically and emotionally uncomfortable. Prioritize relationships based on who respects them. Say “no” more often.
This is a maybe. There are some relationships in which I am getting really good at doing this, and others in which I am struggling. I can plot the arc of growth in this over the course of the year and the slope is real — but not without its dips.
- Eat things I love but in a balanced way. How? Cook for myself at least half the time. Don’t live in extremes of three weeks eating on the road and then a week of penance afterwards. Bring more balance into my day-to-day.
I think it’s interesting that this is a goal in and of itself. So much of what food means to me is about the people I’m making it for / eating it surrounded by / discussing it with — and the “have a kitchen” thing, which is what I can summarize the rest to be, is covered in the first goal about home.
Otherwise said, I don’t know that this will be a goal next year, but this year it’s certainly a win. On the back of Melissa Green Goddess salad, baby.
Enjoy current freedom and optimize for future freedom.
- Make enough money to live comfortably wherever I want, including some portion of the year in New York City, and to be saving to buy a place of my own in the future. How? Gross 200k in my business this year, successfully deal with the massive and massively complicated EU / US tax burdens to come with it, and save half or more of what’s left post-tax.
Like I said last quarter, I feel really far away from doubling down on a goal about buying a place anytime soon. That combination of responsibility and commitment and one-location-locked isn’t something I want right now.
I am doing an absolute shit job of saving money — I am in fact spending it like the world is on fire and a future is not guaranteed — but I am doing okay at making it. I haven’t spent as much time on my business as I’d like to, but I expect to reach my gross goal this year.
I’ll give this a maybe, because the most important thing is met (I can live quite comfortably here and probably could in New York, too).
- Better manage my money. How? Have enough net worth to justify and pay for a financial advisor by the end of the year who can help me with some of the bigger decisions. Clean up my money habits by going back to daily tracking of spending + bimonthly review of trends.
LOL hi to this massive fail. I have not tracked, I have not reviewed trends, and I have not watched my net worth climb (though that’s more market conditions than my own fault, it’s still true that I will probably not reach the arbitrary number I attached to this goal at the beginning of the year but did not publish because even though I’m all about transparency I still feel kind of icky publishing minute details about my own money and what’s THAT all about).
- Solidify my business. How? Exceed expectations on my current contracts and build a pipeline of 2-3 future ones. Experiment with passive income when possible and aligned with my values. Hone my product offering into the things I really like to do, and say no to opportunities that aren’t on that list.
I am giving myself a fail on this, as suggested above. I am really happy with the clients and the workload I have now but the systematic approach is…not a thing I have at all done this quarter.
- Take real time off. How? Take at least four weeks of pure vacation, no work being done. If that means disrupting my average weekly hours worked, fine, but have more stretches of time off.
Also a fail. I have taken time scaled-down but not off but in this very scarcity-minded way I do not love. I don’t want to spook my clients so I do some work even while traveling, which then means that I don’t really fully recharge, which means that neither I nor my clients get the full benefit of me having taken the time off in the first place. We hate to see it.
Appreciate and pursue creativity.
- Finish a big project in a way that builds towards my goal of producing something. How? I’ll give myself options here: I want to have completed a screenplay, published a long project in a reputable outlet, or drafted a book proposal.
This is still a fail on the merits of it, but it almost feels like a win on the vibes. Which count for almost everything, so…
I have yet to dig back into my screenplays but I now know what said book proposal might actually say, she writes with an open-mouthed silent exclamation and darting-around eyes that make everyone in the room feel a little titillated.
- Write regularly. How? Six new essays, written and published (and sent to subscribers!). At least one in an outlet I respect that’s not this blog.
Strong, strong win, I will allow myself, even though the publication thing hasn’t happened and I already told you I count that as a fail. (I did publish an op-ed though!) But I wanted to write a good essay every other month, and I’ve flipped that ratio this quarter.
And I’m pitching again. Who is she??
- Read widely and regularly. How? Let’s go for a minimum of 5 books/month.
Yessum — I’m hovering somewhere around 6 books/month. I’m really looking forward to doing my book reflection this year (here’s last year’s if you missed it).
And here are a few favorite passages from this quarter, as a bonus, don’t say I didn’t ever do anything for you:
We’re standing on the edge
And the view’s great and overwhelming and the air smells new and the soundtrack bangs.
Lucky for us.
See you in a few months, babes.
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