Can regret be useful?

Travels with Charley, December 2023

a yellowing ginkgo on a blue day in Portland

Hi readers,

Thanks for subscribing to Travels with Charley. I send these dispatches every month or two, writing on four different fronts: where I’m living, what I’m reading (lines I’m adding to my commonplace book), what I’m wondering, and what I’m writing. If you feel moved to write back, the questions are genuine! I’d love to hear from you.

Where I’m living

It’s firmly winter in Portland, where I can hear rain landing on the skylights at all hours. On one hand, very cozy! On the other, don’t ask how often I’m going outside.

What I’m reading

Kiese Laymon’s writing carries such a heartbeat, you can feel the rhythm (Heavy):

When I got to her house late Saturday night, Grandmama, Aunt Sue, Aunt Linda, and you were sitting around the TV watching “The Color Purple” in silence. Every time y‘all watched it, it seemed like the first time. Y’all didn’t cry. Y’all didn’t move. Y’all just breathed deeply and made sure part of your body was touching the body of the woman next to you.

Turning back these days to “Meditations in an Emergency” by Cameron Awkward-Rich (Dispatch):

Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the
institution of daydreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand
on my stupid heart.

Mary Karr on my sacrament, memorizing lines that strike you (if you haven’t read her, start with The Liars’ Club):

Memory poetry and short prose hunks. This makes language eucharistic: You eat it. You take somebody else’s passion and suffering into your body, and it transforms you. Every bank line lets you rifle your beauty file. It rewires your head and keep you in company with gods.

What I’m wondering

What’s your relationship with regret and envy? Do you ever find those feelings useful? How do you move through regret? What do you do when you feel envious?

And why do you think those emotions can seem taboo?

What I’m writing

Space is getting crowded at a bonkers rate: In 2023, humans have launched more objects into space than in the first 20 years of space exploration combined. Over the past six months, I went deep on space stuff for this story for The New York Times Magazine about what, exactly, is orbiting above us. (Kind of a cover story!)

If I’ve talked to you in the past three years, I’ve probably told you about the meaningful friendships I formed with elders through reporting for the “70 Over 70” podcast. Becoming friends with people outside your stage of life can seem tricky, but in my experience, it’s a singular cure for taking yourself and your preoccupations too seriously. So I wrote about how to find and sustain intergenerational friendships for Vox.

One last thing I hope you’ll read: I work with an organization called Empowerment Avenue to help writers who are incarcerated get published and paid for their work. Ricardo Ferrell, a writer who I edit, just published a thoughtful article in Waging Nonviolence about the necessity of programs that enable incarcerated people to counsel at-risk teenagers. This article was published just before Thanksgiving — which Ricardo, who was paroled last week, celebrated alongside his family for the first time in 42 years. 42 years!

yours,

Charley