Time After Time

Post Mother's Day ruminations and my Weekly What

May 17, 2025

We’re deep in end-of-school-year events, a race to the finish line. With a freshman in high school and a first-year middle schooler, this year has felt both different and, somehow, more of the same.

The older my kids get, the more I experience time not as a straight line, but as a strange layering; moments from different years building bit-by-bit on top of one another. Past, present, and future equidistant and shifting depending on the day.

At 12 and 15 my kids are well on their way to becoming their own people. A natural, healthy process of growing independence. A good thing, I think? Time will tell. But I get disoriented thinking about where we’ve come from and where we’re heading.

This stage we’re in is something I can feel almost in real time. These kids who now ask me not to come to some school events, who dart out of the car before anyone can see them with their mom, are the same ones stopping to hug me in front of friends just last year, proudly asking me to chaperone field trips, crawling into my lap with a stack of books, needing me so completely they can’t tolerate the time it takes for a solo bathroom trip.

They’re still those kids, and at the same time, they’re becoming the people they’ll be. Their adulthood is beginning to peek over the horizon. I’m beginning to anticipate what that stage looks like, who they’ll become, who I’ll become; hoping they’ll still want to wish me a happy Mother’s Day, hoping they won’t cringe every time my name shows up on their caller ID, fearing I won’t find the right amount of space to inhabit, that delicate, forever evolving parenting dance of supportive, not overbearing or absent.

And I’m still all the versions of myself, too: the overwhelmed young mom healing from surprise abdominal surgery, the mom reading books on the bathroom floor to entertain a potty-training toddler with a baby in my lap, the mom crying the night before her first child started full-time school, knowing everything was about to change forever.

Now I’m also the mom helping with high school course planning, trying to wrap my mind around the short runway before takeoff into adulthood. And somehow, wasn't I just carrying that six-foot-tall human against my chest in a sling?

I’m also now the mom sitting in a middle school auditorium listening to my kid’s choir sing a medley of 2000s bops that defined my own adolescence. Wasn't I just 12 myself?

Who decided I was capable of raising the next generation?

Time is weird, motherhood is unaccountably complex, and that old adage really is true: the days are long, but the years are short.

Reading

My Documents by Kevin Nguyen. After a short series of terrorist attacks the U.S. government rounds up Vietnamese Americans into detention camps. This story follows two sets of young adult half siblings affected in different ways. This uncanny speculative fiction features prescient issues roiling in American soil today: surveillance, oppression, racism, and the complicated interplay of politics, but most interesting to me was the exploration of exploiting familial trauma for personal gain and the way society contributes to this practice.
Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone. Last year I read and, somewhat surprisingly loved Bastone’s Ready or Not. This story about a temporary nanny struggling with grief after the recent loss of her friend and her new charge’s uncle struggling to connect with his family uniting to help one another overcome their challenges wasn’t quite as good a reading experience for me, but it still offers the snappy dialog, character growth, and overall warmth that had me loving Ready or Not. I’ll definitely read more from this author in the future.
Midnight in Soap Lake by Matthew Sullivan. An offbeat mystery whodunit set alongside Soap Lake, a real life body of water in the desert of Washington state, one of the most unique lakes on the planet containing deep layers undisturbed for millennia inhabited by special microorganisms scientists believe might hold information about extraterrestrials among other things—the setting is fascinating! As one might expect, this fictionalized small town is inhabited by quirky characters and strange history, there’s also spooky mythology, and a murder-mystery. Though I’ve never watched Twin Peaks I think that’s probably a good comp to the vibe of this book based upon what I understand. This wasn’t a love for me but I found enough to like to enjoy the reading experience. The vibes are a feature here, for sure.

Listening

The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood by Sarah Hoover. Everyone wants a dark memoir of new motherhood for Mother’s Day week, right?! This is a raw and honest account of one woman’s experience with pregnancy, birth, and motherhood that doesn’t conform to the Hallmark myth painted by society. I don’t even need to look at reviews to know some readers will be very turned off by the privilege of Hoover’s experience; for me, that’s central to what this memoir captures. Despite the privilege and luxury afforded, Hoover experiences trauma, alienation, and a slow diagnosed postpartum mood disorder. Her privilege and access didn’t insolate her from an incredibly common experience.
Plain English with Derek Thompson: Is Pop Culture Worse Than Ever? Stagnation, cynicism, isolation, and brain rot and the decline of modern media scrolling before our eyes.

Watching

Madmen, Season 1 (DVD!) Just started our 4th(?) rewatch of this show. We started watching this show on Netflix DVDs at a time when that was still a thing. We caught up and were able to watch the final season, maybe the final two seasons as they aired? This would have been 10 plus years ago (how?!) so forgive my spotty memory. Annnyway, we now own the DVDs and seem to revisit this series every couple years for a rewatch—it never disappoints!

Eating & Drinking

Mother’s Day brought breakfast in bed (the avenue to my heart is paved with food delivery in bed) and dinner out.
Mustard Salmon (baked topped with equal parts grainy mustard, dijon, lemon juice, plus a sprinkle of dill, salt, and pepper) with roasted potatoes and garlic green beans (simmer green beans in an inch of water, covered, to desired doneness, this is usually 5-6 minutes for us, drain water, push green beans to sides of pan, melt 1T butter plus a drizzle of EVOO, to this add 1T chopped garlic and sauté until fragrant, toss green beans in garlic butter, season to taste with salt and pepper. This is such a quick, simple side and we eat it frequently!)
Another go around of these Copycat Costco Chicken Street Tacos from last week. I had Cilantro Lime Crema leftover and it kept well. I ate mine topped with shredded cabbage, crema, pickled onions, and a sprinkle of feta.
Crispy Pickle-Brined Chicken Sandwiches in the air fryer with Sweet Potato “Fries” and the first watermelon of the season!

Links + Loves

Loved this dissection of the oft referenced sparkling prose (The Eclectic Reader)
I am horrifically and endlessly fascinated by the way algorithms flatten art and culture and the current interplay of capitalism, technology, and artists. Sara of Fiction Matters discusses how algorithmic thinking can negatively impact our reading lives while The Atlantic asks Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture? In a recent interview Fredrik Backman talks candidly (USA TODAY) about the intense marketing and personal branding now expected of authors (this is not only limited to authors, it impacts all artists) and why he may step back from publishing due to the pressure. (Bonus further reading: Filterword: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka)
Something weird is forever happening on BookTok (ScreenRant) To me this appears likely some sort of pen name situation, but also a marketing tactic working as designed.
I first discovered Taylor Jenkins Reid in early 2016 via After I Do, which was backlist as I read it in the run up to the publishing of her third novel One True Loves. In the span of 4 months I read the entirety of TJR’s catalog at the time (Forever, Interrupted being the other backlist title), mostly in single sittings, and this cemented TJR as a forever favorite and one of my only auto-buy authors. I just love her breezy and captivating writing style. It has been a delight watching her rise to prominence and find so many readers with subsequent releases. I enjoyed this TIME piece on TJR and her rise to being a publishing powerhouse.

That Bookish Life {Stacked}

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