about being quiet

which I am not in this newsletter

Awhile ago, I told myself that I was going to write newsletters more frequently. At least once a month, maybe more depending on what nonsensical things I could squeeze out of my brain. I already had something planned for the 10th, which is my late grandma’s birthday.

But then the 10th rolled around and I realized that I didn’t feel like talking about her. And I don’t mean that in the way of disinterest—if you know me at all, you know I’m obsessed with Joyce (perhaps to an annoying degree, even). I stole her first name for my authorial last because I wanted everyone else to talk about her when they talk about me. I wrote a whole book inspired by a piece of her life, which I talked about in a newsletter here, on her birthday back in 2023.

So I don’t mean that at all in the way of disinterest. I mean it in the way of, I wanted to be quiet with her. I wanted to sit with her alone. And then the month marched on and I liked keeping to myself, so I lived in a bit of a bubble. I listened to a lot of music (“S PE Y S I D E” by Bon Iver and “Ribs” by Lorde have been on repeat, MAN I love feeling bittersweet about life lol). I went on a ton of walks by the water and took drives with my son. I missed my grandma the whole month, right next to her, just the two of us. I had very few witnesses to my life in the month of May and it was really nice, being small and insulated like that.

I think that time gave me the ability to start writing again. I was just in my own head and there was some space to breathe and not be anything to anyone, and also May was the month I started writing You, with a View back in 2021, all the way through Summer. I love a parallel moment!! I can’t say one single thing about this book yet except that it’s existing, in a Slow Burn kinda way. I don’t even want to say that much, but I’ll let this paragraph exist too despite the vaguely ill feeling it gives me.

(Please know I would also love to talk about it at length, because that’s just the kind of contrarian shit I do. But the superstitious part of me wins.)

Also, I’m not sure if everyone remembers the “party 4 u” trend that was going on last month (I think? I’m not good with time) where people were putting together soul-destroying edits of fictional people to that song. I would like to track down the person who made the Past Lives one, YOU OWE ME THERAPY MONEY.

Anyway, someone made me aware that there was a post on Threads about how that song would be playing at that wedding Eli and Georgia go to a year before the book starts, where she has to go alone and he brings a date and first of all, ouch? Second of all, I actually did start writing that scene from Eli’s point of view and it was so fucking depressing that I had to stop. Like, he was in the hotel room getting ready and literally threw up thinking about seeing her with another guy. My pathetic king :(

I’ll never finish it, so I’ll share this little bit here:

I pull up the playlist Adam sent me in the middle of the night last week called “sad bangers” with an accompanying text that said only, made this 4 u. The first song is a Charli xcx song with a similar title, which was probably the point; Adam loves a throughline.

The beat bounces off the marble countertop while I re-tuck my dress shirt into my pants, adjust my belt, push my hair off my forehead and straighten the gold chain hanging around my throat.

I try to drown out all my thoughts, but my anxiety loves to feed itself, so it pictures what I’ll be walking into once we get to the wedding instead: the hand Georgia will be holding. The way she’ll look. The strangeness of being next to another woman, even though it’s not real, and Georgia being next to another man, because that is. The fucking dance we’ll have to do as always—smiling politely at each other with stupid heys and hellos, like we never belonged to each other. Like I don’t belong to her now. Like I don’t immediately scroll to her name in my contacts list whenever I pick up my phone to call someone. Even four years after she left she’s still my first instinct.

It doesn’t matter, though. She’s moved on and in a handful of minutes I’m going to see it.

Thank god they are living happily ever after now, because that man was s u f f e r i n g.

Finally, I know I started out this newsletter talking about how I’ve been keeping to myself, but I will be getting back out into the world soon. On June 29th at 6pm I’ll be in Chicago at The Last Chapter Book Shop!

I am so excited to visit the store and chat about books. You can purchase a ticket here! Hope to see you there, go Cubs!

I’m also going to be hanging out with a few friends come late summer/fall—the events haven’t been announced yet, but I seriously can’t wait. I hope to get out a little bit more in 2026 as well, maybe? We’ll see what the vibe is. For now, your best bet to keep in touch is via my newsletter or the contact form on my website.

Okay, that’s all I got for the time being! Hope you are taking good care of yourselves, love you.

xoxo

jess