Three Good Things

a sprinkling of gratitude for your inbox

I am good at focusing on the negative. If you asked me to make a list of all the negative things about myself, I could fill notebooks. Too negative would be on there. Being positive and grateful takes a concerted effort, one I am desperate to strive for, because who wants to be thought of as a complainer? Years of standup taught me to hone in on the negatives because standup is basically formulaic complaints. Good things — finding love, being attractive, having lots of money — are generally not funny to the average audience. But I want to be a largely positive person, I want to fill fewer notebooks with negativity. So, I’m starting a new (recurring, I hope?) section to my newsletter to help me focus on all the good. It’s called Three Good Things, and this is the first installment.

Why three? It’s a good number. Two is too few and four too many. The number three could honestly be my first good thing of the three good things but feels like a bit of a waste, no? Also, another newsletter I follow Dinner: A Love Story has a recurring “three things” thing which I am enamored with and therefore copying. I’ve put good in so as not to blatantly plagiarize. That newsletter could be another good thing on my list, but again, it’s not. This list already has five good things. More will probably sneak in.

1.     Pickled Red Onions

I pickled some red onions to have in the fridge recently, and man, what a treat. They are bright purple, tangy, crunchy, good on so much! It’s just one of those things in the kitchen that’s so easy to do and makes you feel like a damn hero. It’s so simple. Water, vinegar sugar, salt, a tightly lidded jar. I’m eyeing all the foods in my kitchen now thinking — can I pickle that? Dare I? Every time I open my fridge and see that gleaming magenta jar, I am dazzled. I’m not kidding!

I am more easily dazzled these days. It’s my son, a ball of delight. He feels so ferociously, everything is everything. Anyone who has parented a toddler, or even just seen one at the grocery store, knows this. Joy is a whole-bodied screech. Frustration a full-throated grunt. Of course, it’s good that we humans mellow with time, that not everybody is wailing and writhing when they are denied of some small want. It would be a chaotic world if we didn’t learn emotional regulation, if tears poured out of our faces at the drop of a hat. But I am a person who wears my emotions plainly, prone to bouts of crying that make me look like a cartoon character. I always wished I could tamper things down a bit quicker, that I had more control when I felt the initial bubbling. I’ve felt that I was born without a layer of skin. But I’m glad, too, that I can easily access this part of myself. It’s given me lots of patience for my son, for his wild feral emotion, the intensity with which he feels, because I get it. I feel it all, too, I have just learned to respect the limits society has placed on these things. One thing I’ve forgotten to afford myself more of is unbridled joy — watching him is a good reminder. The squeal of joy that peals out of him when he sees the cat he likes in the Popup Peekaboo Pumpkin book, the screech of being playfully chased. While I don’t quite let out a delighted shriek when I see the pickled red onions, I do let it rip through me internally.

look at that color!

2. The Suburban Supermarket

My husband and I moved out of the city nine months ago (!) now and the transition has been largely good but still hard. It’s a massive change. We love the space, the leisurely neighborhood walks without feeling like you are in somebody’s way, the nosy peering into people’s houses, and the looking up of how much they bought it for on Zillow. But there’s a lot to be missed about the city — cool outfits, art exhibits, dimly-lit restaurants with food that is rarely disappointing. When my husband and I were on our search for the right suburban town, we were desperate to find somewhere that felt cool. There was one suburb we considered that had felt sort of bohemian and interesting, but in the end, it was inconveniently located for seeing family, which was pretty much the whole reason we moved back.

The suburbs are not cool, but that’s ok. That’s what the city is for. You cannot hold the suburbs to a city standard, they are diametrically opposed. Even still, there are a million other good things — the bike-able tree-lined streets, the running children, the acceptance of athleisure in most situations, the abundance of diners, the Metro-north stop, the good schools, the seemingly intense drama of those good schools’ PTA’s. We’ve started finding our spots and our rhythms—  our pizza spot, our ramen spot, the locally owned movie theater, the reliable babysitter to watch our son so we can eat popcorn, sit in a dark room, watch Dune, and then complain afterward about how tired we are.

One thing that Suburbia has over the city is the supermarkets. In your life, you may value culture over supermarkets, but I’m at the point in my life where the procuring of groceries is kind of a big part of my day-to-day. In our town, we have a local chain supermarket within walking distance of our house. It’s sort of fancy with a good butcher and it sells bougie little snacks but also all the normal stuff like Cheerios and Ruffles. It’s amazing. It has a bar upstairs, where I like to imagine some of the saddest men in the world are escaping to have a beer and watch a game. There are even little shopping carts for kids, with Customers in Training flags. I love unnecessary, often inconvenient, but delightful children-forward infrastructure such as this.

There’s a Trader Joe’s, a ShopRite, a Stop and Shop. A little further — a Wegmans and a Whole Foods. This weekend, we went to Stew Leonards, a fever dream (or nightmare, depending on your perception of animatronics) of a grocery store. If you live in the NYC Metro Area and have not been to Stew Leonard’s, your life up until this point has been a waste. Sorry!

The stores are abundant, and the aisles are wide. Right now, it’s still a lot of schlepping, but one day I’ll get to come home with a trunk full of groceries and my kids will run out in whatever shoes they can find quickly or brave the gravel driveway to bring them in for me, which will be its own good thing.

3. Spring

Spring is nipping at our ankles here in New York, there are buds in my yard! Buds! We haven’t lived here in the spring yet, but I remember seeing tulips. I hope we’re rolling in tulips. Chicago never had a real spring, you were always being dumped on by buckets of snow well into April, so I forgot how much I loved this season. The East Coast spring is divine, and now it’s almost here, and I’m buzzing. I really want to start a garden, plant seeds into the soil and watch the life cycle we learned about in elementary school science happen before my eyes. I went to the garden center in search of seeds, and the lady there told me I should start from seedlings, and she sort of took the wind out of my sails. Everyone on the gardening subreddit also says to start from seedlings, as does my sister.  It seems like I’m a little early for seedlings, that you can’t really plant those for a couple of months. I tried to shirk people’s advice, and I stared at the wall of seeds for a long time, but was frozen in indecision, and left the garden center with nothing. It was still nice to get out of the house, and be in a garden center, and just walk lazily around and imagine myself gardening. Even if I don’t get to it this year. It’s like volunteering — just the consideration of doing it can make you feel like a better person.

Technically, you’re not supposed to garden when you’re pregnant because of some toxin that lives in some soil that is very bad for fetuses. All these invisible dangers you weren’t aware of arise when you’re pregnant, making you wonder if you are just dodging them in your daily non-pregnant life. Cat litter! Deli meats! Soil! Beware! But my midwife told me if I wore gloves and washed my hands I’d probably be fine. I hoped she’d give me the same admission with deli meats, because all I want in the world is a turkey club with lots of mayo from the diner, but she gave me no such leeway. She said I could heat the deli meats until steaming — this is not what I want. I want cold cuts, and fixings, laid out before me like I’m at a kid’s birthday party or a funeral.

I’m going to start with some herbs in my kitchen window, in colorful pots, that feel like spring.

One Complaint

Maybe this should be called three good things + one complaint. On the topic of spring —  I want to dress my son in an adorable outfit for easter. This is what is on offer at Target.

The girls’ section is bursting with dresses, floral patterns, and insanely cute easter options. This is what the boys get. Do you think I want to dress my son like Kurt from Glee? Or a closeted youth pastor? Or an Amish farm boy in his Sunday best? Give me cute, bright colors! Give me rabbits and Easter eggs!!

OK! Have a good week, notice three good things, and email them to me! You can send me a complaint too — a fun bonus.