A weekly collection of things I read, watched, listened to, noticed, wondered about, and occasionally became completely obsessed with.
This week felt like a return to the version of myself who can disappear into something simply because I’m interested in it.
I devoured a book in a single day. I found myself thinking about the people who influence our choices while convincing us they’re acting in our best interest. I spent more time with tarot, followed Appalachian folklore surprisingly close to my own family history, and watched a show for no reason other than the fact that I enjoy it.
It has been a bit of a whirlwind, but the good kind—the kind that happens when I start following my intellectual hobbies again and remember how much I like learning things simply because I want to know more.
01 — Reading: The Midnight Library
This week I read The Midnight Library for our Books in Conversation book club, and I absolutely devoured it. As in: finished it in one day, cried at the end, immediately gave it five stars, and added it to the list of books I know I’ll keep thinking about. I related to Nora Seed far more than I expected to.
There is something painfully familiar about being so afraid of living, the uncertainty, the wrong decisions, the possibility of regret, that you can accidentally begin opting out of your own life. You become so focused on everything that could go wrong that you stop noticing how many possibilities you never allow yourself to experience at all.
That landed. Our current Books in Conversation pairing is about The Life You Actually Have, and after reading Four Thousand Weeks, this felt like such an interesting fictional companion to that conversation. One asks what we do with our limited time. The other asks whether we’re actually willing to live it.
Full review coming soon, because apparently I have feelings.
02 — Listening: Subject to Interpretation — “Cordell’s Story: Beware of Agents of Chaos”
I listened to an episode of Subject to Interpretation this week called “Cordell’s Story: Beware of Agents of Chaos.” The phrase agents of chaos ended up meaning something slightly different to me than it did within the story itself, but I still heavily related to the larger point.
Sometimes people interfere in your life while insisting they’re doing it for you. For your protection. For your benefit. Because they know better. And sometimes, when you look a little closer, their actions have far more to do with what they want, what makes them comfortable, or what outcome they prefer. That distinction feels worth paying attention to.
Not everyone trying to steer you is malicious. Sometimes people genuinely believe they know what is best. But good intentions don’t automatically make someone else the authority on your life.
There’s a lesson in learning to ask: Is this actually for me—or is it for them?
03 — Learning: The Hermit
Last week we pulled the first card in our Curiosity series on learning tarot: The Hermit. And honestly, it felt like an almost suspiciously appropriate place to begin.
The image that stuck with me most was the lantern. The Hermit isn’t standing beneath a floodlight illuminating the entire road ahead. He’s carrying one small light—enough to see what’s immediately in front of him. A few steps. Maybe that’s enough.
I’m learning tarot slowly, one card at a time, and I think that pace is part of what I’m enjoying most. I’m not trying to memorize seventy-eight definitions or become an expert overnight. I want to notice what each card brings up for me before I rush to decide what it is supposed to mean.
The Hermit became a reminder that sometimes clarity doesn’t mean seeing the whole path. Sometimes it means having enough light for the next step.
I’m excited to see where the next card takes us.
04 — Exploring: Western Pennsylvania Appalachian Folklore
Our first Rabbit Hole is officially underway, and western Pennsylvania Appalachia is already proving to be much closer to home than I realized. Literally.
While researching folklore around the Monongahela Valley, I discovered that the Witch of the Monongahela lived only about twenty miles from my grandmother’s hometown. Which was enough to make this entire project suddenly feel less like researching folklore and more like tracing the stories surrounding my own family landscape.
Then I realized I had unknowingly visited a supposedly haunted Quaker church near where members of my grandmother’s family are buried. Apparently I have been wandering through my own rabbit hole before I even knew it was a rabbit hole.
That’s becoming one of my favorite parts of this project.
When people talk about Appalachian folklore online, the conversation often centers on the broader mythology of the region; the haunted woods, witches, strange creatures, warnings passed down through generations.
I’m interested in narrowing the lens. What stories belonged to this particular corner of western Pennsylvania? What did families there believe? What places carried stories people simply grew up knowing? And how many of those stories have been sitting quietly around my own family history this entire time?
05 — Watching: Anne with an E
I’ve also been watching Anne with an E on Netflix. There is no research project attached to this one. No essay forming in the background. No intellectual justification whatsoever. I just like it.
It’s sweet, beautifully made, and apparently I’ve discovered that historical shows are very much my thing. Downton Abbey was another favorite, and I think part of what I enjoy is simply spending time inside a world that feels visually and culturally removed from my own.
Different clothes. Different routines. Different social rules. Different ways of structuring ordinary life.
But mostly, Anne with an E is currently occupying the very important category of: something I watch because it makes me happy. Which feels like a perfectly good reason.
What Has My Attention
This week reminded me how much I missed having intellectual hobbies. Not hobbies that need to become productive. Not research that has to turn into expertise. Not interests that eventually need to justify the time I spent on them. Just things I want to know more about.
A novel that makes me rethink the ways fear can shrink a life. A podcast that leaves me questioning whose interests are actually being served. A tarot card that asks me to trust the amount of path I can currently see. Folklore that unexpectedly leads me back toward my own family history. A television show that exists purely for enjoyment.
None of it needs to become anything bigger. But I’m starting to think this might be what returning to curiosity looks like. You follow one interesting thing. And then another. And eventually, you realize you’ve found your way back to yourself.
