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Hello my girls,
I an on a bit of a break from social media through Labor Day. (Though I am still logging on occasionally to check my messages and monitor comments, I’m committed to not posting and to scrolling as little as humanly possible.) I have also (mostly) had my phone off (in airplane mode with the wifi turned off, to be more specific) for about 18 hours a day. My goal is to rewrite something I’ve been writing for a long time and to reset a little bit. But it has been so nice to live without the constant communication. There is nothing anyone could need to say to me that they cannot say to me in a few hours time. If you can, I highly recommend unplugging, even for a weekend!
On a writing note- often many of you ask how to become a better writer. First of all, I am beyond honored that you would ask me that question because asking me implies that you think I am an at least above average writer and that is the second greatest compliment I can imagine, truly. Second, to answer the question: to become a better writer you have to write, you have to write almost every- if not every-day. For at least an hour or two. Since I started writing this newsletter, even, my writing has improved. Write every day and when you are not writing, read. All great writers are voracious readers. The job of writing is a job of experiencing things, reading, and then recording (even if you write fiction, you’re writing to tell a truth better than facts can tell it, right?) It’s a bit trite but: you can fix a bad page, you cannot fix a blank page. There’s no shame in bad writing, writing is a practice. Even Serena Williams had a few bad matches. Just open the laptop, notebook, whatever and write.
And now, a little something I wrote this week.
xx
hannah
…
Sometimes, I imagine that there are hundreds or thousands of parallel universes where every choice I did not make in this life, I made instead. I, of course, did not invent the concept of parallel universes. But perhaps there is a Hannah somewhere in the vastness who went to a sensible, affordable college in Texas and then moved to Dallas where she works as a buyer for Neiman Marcus. (Though- all Hannahs I can imagine are still me and I am not a particularly sensible person. That Hannah likely does not exist in any realm.) Perhaps there is a Hannah who went to law school, barely lasted eighteen or twenty-four months in Big Law before marrying a tastefully older partner and settling in on the Upper West Side or in Park Slope. Four kids and sensible shoes.
A Hannah who worked magazine internships in college and then worked in fashion, in earnest, who is now an Editor for some Conde Nast imprint. Well manicured, struggling financially. A Hannah who had the courage to address problems in her marriage early enough to fix it, instead of letting it degrade until it felt unsalvageable. A Hannah who quit the internet and lives peacefully on a boat or in South Africa, unbothered by the noise of constantly seeking attention, approval.
Perhaps there is a Hannah who had a little more social sense in 7th grade, who was not bullied so badly that she needed to transfer schools. A Hannah who learned when to cut her losses early! A Hannah who learned discipline in her teens instead of her thirties. A Hannah who nourished her talents as a teenager. A Hannah who has already written and sold a book, whose success is in black and white on bestseller lists. A Hannah who does not care what she wears or how she looks, who finds value in only her personality and doesn’t worry about the physical parts. There is almost certainly not a Hannah who lives in Greenwich but there might be one in Houston or on 68th and Madison.
Maybe there is a Hannah who made all of the “right” choices when this Hannah was making wrong one after wrong one. A Hannah who was able to stick to the conventional path and make things easy on herself. Maybe that Hannah is as happy as this one! Or, perhaps, she is sitting by her window, gazing at the street and wondering how someone with such an objectively beautiful life can feel so hallow and sad all the time. I do not imagine Hannahs who have fallen victim to real tragedy, addiction or the like. This isn’t that sort of practice. I imagine slightly different mes, just a shade or two of variation from the original. A Hannah who still dyes her hair strawberry blonde. One who lives in Idaho full time.
None of those worlds, none of those girls are real, of course. There is very likely only this universe, only this Hannah. The Hannah with body dysmorphic disorder who goes out on weeknights (always overdressed) and on long walks every morning and who sits at her dining table and writes without air conditioning, sipping Diet Coke after Diet Coke, and posts her silly thoughts on the internet. But it’s a nice thought. There are many happy lives.
I love you, I mean it.
Hannah Dale Thompson Stella
This is very possibly my favorite one so far.