Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
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Hello wonderseekers!
The newsletter is late today, as it’s midday, and I still am not quite sure what to say. I’m still processing the election news. As a researcher and data nerd who trusts people smarter than myself about topics I am unschooled in, I trust when a multitude of experts say that the incoming President is a dangerous choice. But, in my very ‘the world is not black and white but shades of grey’ sort of way, I also know that 71 million people voted for him, and that is how democracy works. It is a blessing to be honoured and protected.
Meanwhile, personally, I have had some really happy news about the sale of our home and some unexpected business boons are making decisions ahead of me just that much easier. On the flip side of that, my aunt passed away earlier this week. She was simply one of my favourite people, and the world is less vibrant and quirky and beautiful without her. Further compounding our family’s mourning, my sister-in-law’s aunt and uncle were both killed in a painful and shocking attack last night, as well.
I know my sister-in-law’s grief is made more raw by the fact that she is so far away from her family, and I am pained for her. I know this because, of course, I am also so far away from mine. But I am grateful to have made the bold decision to leave the US and find a culture that better suits me. And because I am in London, I was able to spend the most nourishing interlude with my niece, who is studying here for the semester. We baked apple cider muffins and drank tea and gossipped. It was succour for the soul.
I guess I am sharing this because I feel that this last week has been a lesson in contrasts for me. It’s a bit of a whiplash, if I’m to be honest. A reminder that the world is always constructed of wins and losses, life and death, yin and yang, ebb and flow, black and white. And each of those moments taken in isolation embodies a pungency of emotion experienced from opposite poles — elation or despondency, peace or anxiety, love or fear. But when taken in their totality, we find a bumpy balance, a tenuous equilibrium, a poignant watercolour of living that blurs black and white into a mottled palette of soothing greys.
I don’t have definitive answers about what comes next. For me, my family or the world. But I do the thing that, for me, softens the spikey extremities of life — I lean into wonder. Rather than rage, I question. Rather than despair, I explore. Rather than succumb to the pain of loss, I express gratitude and bathe in the balm of nostalgia.
I accept that it’s not always easy to subscribe to the nuance-burdened philosophy of wonder, especially in a modern world that benefits from our polarisation. Sometimes it is less taxing to be a Pollyanna and insist the sun’ll come out tomorrow. Sometimes it is less painful to wallow and recriminate. It is a brave, radical act to be a wonderseeker in a reductive world of this or that, us or them.
Below, a bit about my aunt and how she nurtured my deep, abiding, wonderfilled curiosity. I’m depending on that very curiosity to grant me (and you) the resilience to tackle whatever comes next.
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
We need raw awe: In this tech-vexed age, screens prevent us from experiencing the mysteries and transformative wonder of life.
Kakuzo Okakura: The Book of Tea
A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes: “Not giving a shit takes the wind out of an asshole’s sails.”
With wonder,
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