june round-up

a first birthday, book/cook/open tabs, and a podcast update

A note for all subscribers: I will be taking July off to catch my breath. It has been a challenging year of grief and postpartum recovery while working full-time, and the warmer months have forced me to slow down. I am shifting focus to finalize book proposal chapters, and want to ensure the essays here do not come out haphazard. I will see you(r inbox) in August!

I’m never quite sure now what to say in the shuffle of June. It’s a web of complex feelings that unfold in layers with each passing day. After a few quieter weekends in May, June came swiftly with more family visits and big meals out, big meals in, big meals in cars, and big meals outside.

Yes, I know what that candle looks like. No, will not happen again.

In between, there were track meets and an ill-planned attempt to see Kendrick Lamar in Toronto (in which we underestimated how much security would be present, and how poorly they received my husband’s truck with all of its arborist equipment). Kendrick is nothing short of an incredible artist and performer, though I am a bit salty about how many diss tracks he played while on Drake’s turf (if I’m being honest).

There was not a lot of cooking, at least on my part, but a lot of running through my husband’s grand plans for celebrating the first birthday of our son on June 14th. I made a cake for Kylian (well, I made it for the adults, and then quickly purchased a cupcake he could destroy with his tiny, drool-covered fingers). We settled for a casual birthday approach, where everyone had paper plates and wooden forks, friends and family bought various salads, and everyone got to move freely around our main floor. Speakers connected both outside on the back deck and inside, so that we were all able to relax and not feel so stiff at a gathering of two families.

While we were at Kendrick, my daughter went with my sister-in-law to the circus, just around the corner from my old Mimico apartment. We met to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday during dinner at a pub I worked ever so briefly at during grad school. Its menu shifted but somehow, unsurprisingly, it felt entirely unchanged. It is those moments when I feel most sentimental. Looking over the lake and at the CN Tower from a path I ran so many times through such deep heartaches in my twenties. It was a balm to return surrounded by a new sense of family, and a real sense of love.

It’s that sort of love that propelled me through the rest of June, where, like clockwork, my agitations rose the closer it got to the second anniversary of my brother’s passing. I took the day off work, and cried a lot over donuts and shitty coffee. Since then, I’ve felt the need to be quiet. I suspect that is part grief, part wanting to be more in the moment. As for the reads, open tabs, and recipes of the month, you can find them below.