Get Back

Sharp elbows for the win; plus, Friendsgiving with Joan Didion, climbing every mountain, and tricky little mapmakers.

There comes a time in every person's life where, through no fault of their own, their body begins to betray them. My body began to betray me when I was pregnant with my first and only child (See? It's the kid's fault.). I distinctly remember trying to get out of bed one day and then throwing out my back, which I had never done before. So there I was, stuck in bed, with this little guppie swimming around in my stomach, occasionally kicking me here and there, just to see if I could handle a little more torture, which I could not, but I was stuck there and had no choice.

Some of us must suffer nobly, or whatever this was.

From there, throwing out my back became my new national past time. Reach for shampoo? Throw out my back. Get up from the couch too fast? Kiss that back goodbye. Play with your newborn on the floor? Yeah, sucker, you're going to be stuck on this floor until your husband gets home from work. And on and on and on. I've gotten steroid shots to help. They did not. I went to physical therapy. It sort of helped, but from time to time, my back would remind me "when you play me, you play yourself" (in a Beyonce voice) before bringing me to my knees. Sometimes I feel when this might be coming on and can stretch and do the exercises I need to do to prevent it. Other times, like earlier this week, it comes on swiftly and with sciatica pain too.

The Promised Child, who I've jokingly blamed for being the source of this woe, fortunately has incredibly bony elbows. So I cry out "You...come here with those elbows...and drive them with all of your might into these two points in my low back!" Agony is followed by temporary ecstasy, and then uncertainty about how – or if – I can even get up.

Two people I love dearly suggested that it may be time for me to get a cane. For the record, they're both dead now.

At any rate, I've spent the week gingerly moving from my desk to my reading chair and back again, using strategically arranged pillows to keep me as comfortable as possible. I will get back to full strength. When I haven't been interviewing people for stories (gotta keep on keeping on...), I've been reading Nicolas Boggs' Baldwin: A Love Story, which is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades. So far, it's just so good and I'm fascinated by how Boggs shows how Baldwin worked through some of the questions he had about his own identity and the world at large in his work. It's always interesting to me to learn about why writers pick the subjects they do, and how much of it is tied up in who they are, or wish they could be. Whether you're a reader, writer, or both, what draws you to a story? And has there ever been a time when you picked up a story that doesn't fit those requirements and been pleasantly surprised? Hit reply and let me know.

Here's hoping you've all had a wonderful – and pain-free – week. Thank you for being here!

Paige

Writing prompt: Write about something or someone you're rooting for right now. Who or what is it, and why are you pulling for them so hard?

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

-- Miles Davis

Endnotes

A Very Didion Thanksgiving

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and this week The New York Times had a great feature about Joan Didion's love of this celebration. "It has always seemed like such an awful holiday," one friend of hers wrote, "but you made it something quite wonderful." Drawing from her papers at the New York Public Library, the story looks at the guests she assembled (and who ate what), the menus she created (she was quite a cook), the schedules she wanted, and which plates to wash by hand, among other things. She put a lot of work into every last detail, so that when the guests showed up, it looked like everything came together effortlessly. From the sounds of it, Didion was doing "Friendsgiving" long before it was even a thing. You can read the story by clicking here. And if you're so inclined, hit reply and let me know what you'll be doing for the holiday and where you'll be doing it, what you're thankful for, plus your favorite dishes and rituals, if you have them.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

A couple of months ago, I spoke with mountaineer Nikol Kovalchuk about her quest to scale the highest peaks on each continent, and venture to the North and South Poles. She is one pole away from accomplishing this feat, and could be the first woman to do so.

If you're looking for a little inspiration, here is the whole story spread that appeared in this month's Aventura Magazine. You should be able to click the pictures to enlarge them. I hope you enjoy it!

To Catch a Copycat

I happen to be a bit of a dork (I could end this sentence right here...) about old maps. I have a midcentury agricultural map of the Loire River valley in my office, and a globe from about the same period that includes countries that no longer exist. Somewhere in a box I've yet to unpack (shame on me), I've even got a Paris subway map from the 1940s that my grandfather brought back from World War II. Yeah, I can gawk at some maps, my friends. So of course I was really fascinated by this story about how hard-working mapmakers used to make up fake towns to prevent plagiarists from copying their hard work and passing it off as their own. As the piece says, the key to doing this correctly is not by putting Paris on the North Pole, but by doing something a little smaller, and less harmless, say, like creating a nonexistent town called "Beatosu" (i.e. Beat Ohio State) in Michigan. For more on this delightfully nerdy mischief, please enjoy this LitHub piece, by clicking here. Or, if you prefer to something longer, check out Mrs. P's Journey: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Created the London A to Z Map. I couldn't find it on Bookshop.org, but you can find a copy on that billionaire site, or at a large national chain. It's a quirky little story about a divorcee who needed to support herself as a painter, but grew frustrated with the lousy maps London had at that time. Instead of complaining, she spent a year walking every street of London to create a more reliable map of the city, and then launched her own company to chart the rest of the country. Here's to Mrs. P, and to finding our way!

Please Consider Donating to...

...your local community food bank. Yes, SNAP is back in theory, but there are millions of Americans who could still lose those benefits due to new restrictions. If you can help in any way, please do, whether it's with money or canned food. Thank you.