Slow & Steady
Going against the frenzied speed of the Holidays—embracing your soft body and a slower pace. Plus books and other media to help you get extra cozy.
Beginning in 2026! Reading The Body, a book club that will focus on the body through disability, mental illness, chronic illness, disability justice, and more, since the body can never be contained. We will explore genres from memoir to poetry, fiction, and beyond.
I always feel overwhelmed this time of year. This year in particular has me feeling even more engulfed by the swirling of the world around me. It’s as though time is running out, x number of days until Christmas, and family meet-ups. End-of-year lists have been coming out since December 1st, and I haven’t even begun to collect my thoughts into a meaningful post yet…does it even matter when I do, or if I do? December 31st feels like this looming day when everything you started or thought about all your goals and hopes you had in 2025, somehow must be accomplished and brought to fruition, or else they may never happen. As the clock rolls from 11:59 to midnight, time keeps moving forward—you keep moving forward.
We are on no schedule but our own.
This year has been marked by slowness and a deep desire to move in opposition to the speed around me. Embrace quiet, calm, and gentle living. I’ve been feeling less of a desire to open myself and my wounds up to the world as I have in the past. I’m protective of my soft body in a way I have never quite felt before, and I’m choosing to embrace it.
My 2025 has been bookended by twin chrysalises. Both took form on the same plant in the yard, in nearly the same exact spot, ten months apart. The first was towards the end of winter, coming out of a two-month-long pain flare and depression, which coincided with adjusting to medication, which was its own kind of metamorphosis, each day visiting the silent cocoon. The second appeared when winter began to find its way through the golden foliage, and again when my dog’s health was in a precarious position, I’d gently carry him outside to see his chrysalis. At the same time, I was undergoing and continue to go through my own new health problems, living in an unknown once again.
My motto this year became “May all your transitions be joyful.” Even through the pain, stress, fears, and unknowns of where those transitions may lead, go into them with hope and joy that life still allows you to experience them.
I catch myself at work alphabetizing and shelving books, singing my ABC’s silently in my head, and I realize how content this simple act of work and labor makes me. In these small moments, I feel fulfilled to merely hold another world in my hands. Maybe you also want a small, quiet piece of the world in your hands. Below are a few softer media recommendations, primarily books, and a reality tv show creative competition.
Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett is a book I have read twice, both times during December, and am contemplating a third read. It’s one of those books that gets better with each read of its rich, lovely sentences and the inner thoughts of an unnamed narrator. An internet favorite for a reason.
Checkout 19, also by Claire-Louise Bennett, will have you lost in the magic and wildness of Bennett’s mind and her masterful handling of how literature, stories, and physical books have influenced the narrator’s entire life. Examining the value placed on written and unwritten stories.
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri follows our narrator in an unnamed city over the span of a year. We follow her from place to place in coffee shops, museums, piazzas, and her apartment as she navigates and questions her place in the world. Our narrator never fully allows herself to occupy any space outside her apartment. Keeping a distance from others, living outside others’ lives and spaces. This novel feels subtle, like the shifting of light on a warm wood floor.
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa follows our narrator, a mother of four children who is enthralled by an Irish poem from the 18th century that she first read as a child. It’s about the connection between two women across time, who never meet but form a deeper connection through words and the oral tradition of storytelling.
On The Calculation of Volume I-III by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara Haveland (I, II), Sophia Hersi Smith, and Jennifer Russell (III, IV). I will never stop hyping this series! Tara Selter is a character I could spend countless November 18ths with, and each book has effortlessly propelled her story forward in interesting ways. Something about this series feels perfect for the winter and those in between Christmas and New Year’s days, where you feel a bit adrift.
Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose is an essential essay collection from a writer who thinks a lot. The writing is sincere and playful, a writer in love with life’s small moments. Full of detailed language that you can’t help but underline and etch onto your heart. Perfect for when you are feeling too much during a busy season and want to feel human.
Little Weirds by Jenny Slate, if you are losing it this time of year, feeling dizzy with the frenzy and bright lights, I recommend comedian Jenny Slate’s equally amusing and wild essay collection. Funny and heartfelt, it might strike the perfect balance!
A Horse at Night by Amina Cain is a slim collection of meditations on writers and their work. Incorporating questions about female friendship, landscape painting, ecological and societal collapse, and the books that can sustain us. You will be adding even more books to your TBR.
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Illustrations by John Burgoyne, is short and makes a great gift — it’s a book you could read during family time at the holidays and pass around for everyone to read. Teaching reciprocity and abundance through what we already have and the community around us. It’s one I am adding to my list for this season.
Lastly, a reality tv show we can’t get enough of! The Great Pottery Throw Down is my go-to when I’m feeling soft, like clay in the hands of each contestant, through challenges in which they triumph and learn or falter and still learn. Through hand-building and throwing on the wheel, building bird baths, porcelain chandeliers, and Greek amphoras, all while constantly being rooted on by their fellow contestants and one man, Keith Brymer Jones, who is single-handedly getting me through with his deep emotional well and beautiful tears. A man who sees a contestant struggling and gently tells them, “It’s just clay, step away, make a cup of tea, and come back.” In every episode, I turn to my husband and say, “We must protect this man.” Both judges and host Siobhán McSweeney, who is well known from the TV show Derry Girls, are hilarious and genuinely adore the potters.
That’s all for now! Please let us know in the comments what some of your favorite cozy recommendations are. Also, I will be posting an end-of-the-year reading wrap-up/favorites sometime soon, but I’m not in a rush.
Last thing for real! What are some things you would like to see in this space for 2026? I’m brainstorming ideas and would love to know what you might enjoy!