Life
I had everything set. I would fly to Mexico City on Wednesday for work. Then Iris was to fly in on Friday evening to celebrate our birthday weekend with friends and family in San Miguel de Allende, where we first met over 13 years ago. Instead: the airline canceled her flight without offering alternatives, our dog-sitter bailed, and a recently hired colleague of Iris’ quit without notice. Weeks of planning down the drain.
We were disappointed. And determined to still have fun. So I flew back early and we drove up to Mendocino County, where we have spent three of our past four birthday weekends. Back in 2019, we had seen an exhibit at SFMOMA about the coastal community of Sea Ranch, “where an emerging environmental movement collided with Modernist design” and it had been on our list to visit ever since. A few months after the museum exhibit opened, Sea Ranch’s lodge was sold to Fillmore Capital Partners, an investment advisory firm. And then they spent the next three years renovating it until it re-opened late last year.
Three different firms worked on the renovation — architects, interior designers, and landscape architects — and the result is impressive. We could have stayed there all afternoon. I fell into conversation with a Spanish-speaking employee, who told me she first started working at the lodge 15 years ago but was left unemployed during the renovation. She still has yet to meet the new owners. “In fact, I don’t even know who they are,” she sighed with a shrug.
Why is it so rare, I wondered, to have both good design and strong community?
Reading & Listening
There’s a pretty good body of research showing that generational stereotypes don’t hold up. But why would I let good research stop me from stereotyping?
The Zoomers — now graduating from college and entering the workplace — give me hope. Sure, maybe some social skills atrophied during the pandemic, but largely they strike me as self-aware and chill. Millennials (and I’ll include myself) walk around with a chip on our shoulders waiting for any excuse to indulge in a grudge or grievance. In my experience, Gen Z looks at our performative theatrics with a kinda bemused empathy like, uh, everything okay?
I thought about the Gen Z mindset when reading Joe Klein’s review of Francis Fukuyama’s new book, Liberalism and its Discontents, which advocates that we recover a “sense of moderation.”
Fukuyama settles on a plea for moderation, which is “not a bad political principle in general and especially for a liberal order that was meant to calm political passions from the start. … Recovering a sense of moderation, both individual and communal, is therefore the key to the revival — indeed, to the survival — of liberalism itself.”
That paragraph stayed with me when I tried to make sense of why support for access to abortion isn’t going up as religiosity goes down. And it stayed with me when I listened to Stephen Dubner’s podcast interview with Kevin Kelly. I have read and admired Kevin Kelly for over 20 years, so when Iris pointed me to the interview and said it was like listening to an older version of me, I took it as a great compliment.
A useful tool
Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This is one of those annoying recommendations for people who exercise too much. A recent study from Sweden confirms what all endurance athletes inevitably discover: exercising too much can be just as counter-productive as exercising too little. Heart Rate Variability is a great way to monitor when your cardio system is run down and needs a rest. Just about every fitness band tracks HRV, including Fitbit, Garmin, Whoop, and Apple Watch. I use a simple app called AutoSleep to display my HRV readings from my Apple Watch each morning. In fact, it’s one of the first things I see when I unlock my iPhone and if it’s 25% below normal, then I call it a rest day (like today!). Whoop just published “the Ultimate Guide to HRV” with tips on how to monitor and improve yours.
Kudos
Congrats to Ghanian writer Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah whose first book, The Sex Lives of African Women, was featured in a long New York Times profile two weeks ago. (The kindle version is just $3 — a steal!) Nana and I first met in Uganda in 2014 at a Creative Nonfiction Writers Workshop for young African women. (As you can see in the photo from the workshop, I sorta stood out.)
I was working at Gates Foundation at the time and she was directing communications for the African Women’s Development Fund. We both dreamed of giving up our jobs to pursue creative nonfiction full time. I’m thrilled for Nana that she made the dream come true. Last November, I was able to purchase her book and catch up with her in Accra. (As I read her book in Accra’s hipster coffee shops, I admittedly kept the cover concealed to not come off as too sketchy.)
A song
My buddy Engin, who was recently at Sónar — Barcelona’s version of SXSW — introduced me to Susso, “a collaborative project between the Suso and Kuyateh families of Gambia, in particular, Yusupha and Ansumana Suso, Jabou Kuyateh and UK producer bassist Huw Bennett.” Keira is a great album and Ansumana is the standout track.
Let me know what you think. And if you have any questions about monitoring your HRV, I’m happy to share my experience.
Hugs,
D