I really love reading year-end lists. Of all sorts, whether that’s your Spotify Wrapped screenshots or Barack Obama’s favorite reads. So, I’m sharing a few of my own.
It was a much lighter year for me in terms of reading… mostly thanks to Rhys being pretty young for the first chunk of the year. I also didn’t get to as much fiction as I would’ve liked. But writers like Austin Channing Brown and Kiley Reid helped me be better mindful of the antiracist work to be done, and writers like Lori Gottlieb and Deray McKesson made me very grateful for life.
Each year, I typically include a list of most memorable meals, and this year it definitely reflects the kinda-funny, kinda-sad fact that I didn’t do much traveling or eating out. But it’s a very tough time to be in the restaurant world, so I decided against omitting it.
I made a music-listening goal to add more international, non-English music into my playlists, and I reaped the reward of that. Lido Pimienta (Colombia), Hamaki (Egypt), KOKOKO (DR Congo), and Tomás del Real (Chile) were some of my favorites. It was also a really appropriate year for melancholic indie songwriters, which might explain all the plays Soccer Mommy, Phoebe Bridgers, and Waxahatchee got from me.