My Fragrance Gathering Era

fragrance, , , ,

Last year, I officially entered my fragrance era. I decided to start paying closer attention to fragrance in my life and now I’m pretty much preoccupied. I went to my local Sephora to sample some scents, found one that I loved and from there I have amassed a small collection which has, among many other things, taught me something about the notes I’m generally drawn to, the ones I’ve begun to love that I never thought I would and what role they play in my every day life outside of smelling nice and or getting compliments which is obviously a huge draw in the fragrance community.

  • Collecting fragrance makes me feel very feminine in a late blooming way. I look at my collection which I recently purchased a tray for (now I know what those are for! LOL!!) and they just look so pretty and elegant and tell the story of my personal journey with fragrance so far.
  • I like the fragrances I like because of the way they make me feel. When I smell fragrance notes I like, I can feel parts of my body light up in ways that sometimes feels peaceful, soothed, transcendent, stimulated and or narcotic. Fragrance, I’ve read, cuts through the consciousness and goes straight to our most primal senses below. My favorite feelings that fragrances I love evoke are feelings of coziness, centering, grounding, nostalgia, warmth, sensuality, mystery, femininity, intimacy and dreaminess, not all in that order or at the same time. I’m a big fan of vanilla but have discovered unexpectedly that I also really like muskiness and woodiness in scents which I would had previously scoffed at and attributed strictly to what I believed to be unimaginative formulations of masculine scents.
  • My process for scent discovery has developed intuitively but I have also begun to create a discipline around this process to make it more intentional.
  • 1. I make a list of fragrances I want to sample.
  • 2. As I smell each sample, I observe my feelings and how my body reacts. I know when something repulses me. I know when there are notes I love so much that I want to explore them further. I now write the name of the scent on the test strip while I’m in the field, ie Ulta, Sephora etc., so that I can remember what it is hours later.
  • 3. I smell the fragrances I’ve selected at random intervals throughout the day to see how and if they change or evolve, how long the projection strength lasts and how my own feelings and reactions to them are sustained, heightened, diminished or transformed. I do this over a matter of hours, days, weeks to see what changes and or evolves in my relationship to the scents. My breathing them in is akin to a deep silent listening and the exchange is intimate, curious and exploratory.
Pages: 1 2

Netflix Heartstopper’s Cuddly Cringefest

diversity, Feminine, television,

You read it right. I’ve returned for a hot second on my long abandoned WordPress blog to write about a Netflix series I’ve been binging since last year at a time when we were all beginning to emerge from the Covid Pandemic haze. In fact, it was one of a few streaming television series that cheered me up immensely during that time.

Based on the graphic novel by Alice Oseman, which I have yet to read, Heartstopper is a Queer love story about two young boys Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring and how they navigate the discovery of their love for one another, how Nick discovers his bisexuality and the wonderful stories of their friends, family and even school teachers along the way. It is so filled with positivity, caring, kindness, love, support and evolving maturity and healthy boundary building that I just find myself filled with smiles and joy whenever I watch it. I love seeing young men embrace their vulnerability and treat one another in ways that counter what could easily descend into the usual toxic, violent masculine tropes seen in film and television. It’s not to say that these negative elements are not a part of the story. Harry, the high school homophobe, is that guy we all knew in high school whose ignorance and prejudice he wields like a blunt weapon whenever he shoots off his mouth to say something inflammatory and insulting to Charlie or his friends. But his attitude is so deftly, maturely and directly called out and dealt with by Charlie’s friend group that it creates a sense of ease and safety with being oneself or at least feeling somewhat comfortable finding oneself as in the case of Isaac, the book lover of Charlie’s friend group played by Tory Donavan who is just beginning to discover his own asexual identity. I very much relate to the way he uses reading as both a shield, an escape and as way of learning new things about himself and the world.

Nick Nelson played by Kit Connor, aka voted most likely to be a raging hetero, (he’s bisexual actually) turns out to be a total dream of a human being in ways that just melt the heart on repeat. The intimacy between Nick and Charlie is so palpable and authentic it almost feels like a character in the show. Charlie is already openly gay, (someone accidentally overheard his bestie Tao talking about it) and has experienced a terrible period of bullying and physical assault both by homophobic school peers and by his “down low” boyfriend and schoolmate Ben with whom he carried on a secret relationship in season one. His expectations of finding a love that does not include sneaking around and filling himself with self hatred are already low so when he meet’s Nick for the first time, his heart is so open, it’s almost unbearable; love at first sight, or what the kids would call cringe. I live for that type of cringe. I live for the long embraces, the short greetings of hi whenever they run into one another that contain an overflow of unutterable, inexplicably abundant affection and a desire to be close. It’s not just about sexuality or falling in love, but the courage it takes to connect through true intimacy

Pages: 1 2

Brace for landing…

Uncategorized, , , , ,

The start of my 2023 was quite rough to say the least. Emotional, transitional, unexpected and a juggling act.

Covid was up in the house for the first time ever just before Christmas, brought to us by husband, brought to him by teaching in a public school where he masks adamantly among a majority of the population that just does not.

Shit ain’t cute but we survived.

Near the tale end of November I was introduced to the art work of digital artist, academic, cultural critic and STEAM fields advocate, Nettie Gaskins on Instagram. Her work introduced me to ai generative art through Midjourney and I fell into a rabbit hole for over a month generating images on the discord server and having my mind blown over and over again. I watched videos, read articles, made more images, printed a few, put together and published a book of a few images just to see what they would look like. I attended a webinar Gaskins gave on AI Generative art hosted by Berkeley Center for New Media last week and really enjoyed that.

Oh that’s right, in the midst of all this I started a new position I didn’t even apply for at the same job I’ve been working at for over a decade in December. More responsibility, more money, more adjustments, more adulting. No snow yet though.

…..shhhh….i miss snow….

But I made up for it by generating a bunch of snow themed images on Midjourney in December.

I made a video on my youtube channel about my sheer drop into the Midjourney rabbit hole because it literally just took over for a bit. I was up late at night just prompting and prompting and curating and organizing. I need a new external HD yesterday. I’ve since begun climbing out of the hole though. After a few hundreds of images inspired by artists I love, I began to focus more on cultivating more “original” prompts. That slowed me down considerably because discernment, intention and purposefulness requires planning and thought. In addition, starting this new position requires my focus and attention and a new set of skills I had not previously used in my previous position.

Needless to say, I’ve had a few nervous breakdowns because I’m very hard on myself, very scared of making mistakes and not great at feeling like I don’t know everything I need to.

Whew…

I finished a really great book by one of my fave writers, Haruki Murakimi, “Novelist as Vocation” and am now reading “Emergent Strategy” by Adrienne Maree Brown, my first read of the new year.

I’m writing this on a Saturday, trying my best to snatch whatever time I can to relax and be still because the weekends have been flying lately and there’s always so much to do. Shopping, cleaning organizing, planning. I swear, if I can spend an hour with my mom or my husband away from my cell phone, I feel victorious. I’m not gonna sit up here and trash social media because I think it’s a tool that needs to be used purposefully and is not all bad but you have to really know yourself and your tendencies to kind of gravitate towards social media without even knowing why you’re there. I have those so I have to be vigilant. It took me a month to get on here and write this but thankfully I still journal just about every morning in the hour before my work day gets started.

That’s all I got for now. If I blogged more I wouldn’t have to do so much to play catch up but life be lifin hardcore and I’m still in flight, still juggling, still trying to prepare and plan as much as I can to make my landing as smooth as possible because January shot me out of a cannon.

I have a new favorite Podcast!

Uncategorized

Let me first just preface this entry by saying, very few podcasts enter my inner circle of favorite podcasts. I’m a lover not a junkie. LOL! I subscribe to some podcasts that I rarely listen to but I’m a faithful listener to my favorites. And I’m never out here looking for my next fave because I feel lucky enough just listening to the few that I do love.

I found The Fckry through Conan O’Brien’s podcast because I was bored, prolly couldn’t find a new episode on one of my faves and saw that Leslie Jones was a guest on one of the “Conan Needs a friend” episodes.

I love Leslie Jones with a love that has grown over time. Her energy reminds me so much of my dear friend Khalilah who passed in 2018 and I really feel like I’ve been needing that energy in my life right now for many reasons. And of course, I love to laugh so I tend to have a special place in my heart for comedian podcasters. But I mean hardcore stand up comics, preferably seasoned, because…I’m…seasoned. I could write a whole separate entry about how much I love, respect and am inspired by truly funny women.

*note to self write a whole separate entry about how much I love, respect and am inspired by truly funny women*

Anyway, Leslie was funny asf on Conan’s podcast and it was there I learned about her own podcast, The Fckry with Lenny Marcus, and I flipped out. How did I not know this! I immediately found it, subscribed and was busting a gut in minutes. But I’ve also, deeply enjoyed learning more about Leslie, how she got her start, all the things she went through as a broke struggling comedian and much more. She’s the type of person who gives it to you raw and real in a way I have really come to crave and trust. She’s not for everybody and I’m very familiar with that. I didn’t think she was for me either the first time I saw her on the SNL Weekly Update News sketch along with millions of other Americans. But I’ve come to realize that Leslie is at her best when she’s working in a stand up format or in a context where she can truly be herself in collaboration with others who are not afraid of her strength. And I’m familiar with that too. SNL was not it. The Fckry is it.

I didn’t know anything about Lenny Marcus before listening to her podcast but I know that Leslie would never create something this intimate with someone she didn’t trust. And it’s clear to me from listening to the few episodes I’ve greedily binged so far that their relationship as comedians is rooted in the love of building each other up by challenging and sharpening one another constantly. If we’re only looking at things from the outside, which, lets face it, most of us do, it would seem to be an unlikely pairing. But in the realm of comedy, which ranges broadly in it’s collection of uniquely talented, dark, freakish, outcasts, black sheep, oddballs, junkies, loners, creeps and outsiders, the connection between comics is often singular, complex and varied but rarely superficial.

I also introduced my husband to The Fckry last week and this morning as we sat in the car waiting for my commuter bus he told me he loves it! I can’t describe how huge that is for me. We do listen to several of the same podcasts together on our morning commute but I wasn’t absolutely certain he would like this one. I just had to tell him about it because I love it so much. So it makes me happy that we can listen to this together as well.

YAY!

Are We All Just Holding it Together?

Uncategorized

I was in Sephora today, (which used to be my happy place pre-Covid) and ran into the woman who works in perfumes. When I used to go in there with my dear friend and work colleague who will code name Regine, we made really good friends with this lady. Regine is very bubbly and out going and has made friends with people in every store we would frequent during lunch pre-Covid. So I was back there in the scents section spritzing some happy on when she walked up. We chatted for a bit the way we normally do when I see her. She asked about Regine. I told her. I asked her how she was doing and she was like “You know, hanging in there…”

Do you know how may times we’ve concluded conversations this way? And I mean hey, I get it. I’ve been “hanging in there” for longer than I care to say. But today, after I left Sephora excited with a fistful of perfume samples she was nice enough to present to me, I wondered to myself. is everyone just hanging in there right now? And I mean on multiple levels. Emotionally, mentally, physically…

Are we all just walking around the land mines of our unsustainable issues and challenges? My husband, a public school teacher recently told me that his lower back has been hurting for weeks and the only thing he takes to treat is muscle relaxers which made me concerned. No one has cured anything in ages! We’re just walking around treating shit and holding ourselves together with prayers and gauze.

And I mean, I’m no exception. I’ve been walking around (sometimes limping around) with a torn meniscus in my right knee for several years now and nothing but KT tape to help support it. I suffered a random bout of frozen shoulder in my left shoulder during the pandemic shut down and even after months of PT I’m still not able to fully lift my arm up above my head. I need to reschedule a dental cleaning and get a crown for a root canal I had months ago but don’t seem to be in any hurry to get that going. I could go on.

But I won’t.

I’m just too worn out by other more immediate seeming shit. Although what could be more immediate than your body screaming:

BITCH TAKE CARE OF ME BEFRE IT’S TOO LATE!!!!!

…well, clearly we’ve found reasons to neglect ourselves for some time.

Where does it end?

Real Life is Lifing…

Books, bookworm, Corona Virus, family, health, life, music, nature, Pandemic, podcasts, reality, self love

As the kids would say…

And I’m officially living a life that’s more real than anything I’ve encountered so far. I’m journaling more than usual, remembering my dreams less but still listening to music all the time. I finished a book (The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry) I didn’t expect to read a few days ago, a book I would never have read if not for my childhood TV fave, Claire Danes. It’s strange how one can escape the pain and confusion of present day in the pain and confusion of a bygone era. It’s safer I guess. The book is written. Based on the Apple TV series I already knew pretty much where the story was headed and what it was really about.

My husband and I closed on our first home the beginning of 2022. My mom moved in with us a few weeks ago and is settling in nicely. I find myself in a new position of caretaker and personal shopper, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it or even if it’s important how I feel. I just do. Because I have to. It does feel very satisfying when I can find things from my mom that she wants and needs. I’ve mostly gotten over that feeling of panic I get when I feel like I’m going to disappoint. Because I never want to disappoint anyone I love or even like. But I’m the hardest on myself when I “fail” myself. My husband is just the greatest with me. He really is. And for him, because he is patient and tolerant and endlessly helpful with me, I try harder not to be an a-hole. I try to temper my dripping sarcasm which is just compensation for being lousy with uncertainty and fear of facing the unknown.

I still have a weird hybrid work schedule that allows for some flexibility I really am grateful for. The world is in a tailspin of denial about Covid and it’s variants, the cost of which will not show up in concrete numbers until the Winter. And generally the country/world is up against the threat of an urgent climate emergency, unprocessed collective trauma, mass shootings, and an effort to back pedal into the dark ages to name just a fraction of our collective challenges.

Unmasked white men ask if they can “squeeze in” between me and others during daily commutes and I feel assaulted in a way unsolicited requests to smile from street strangers never have.

I made a list of things yesterday that ground me. Things I didn’t have to think about but which I know I enlist to immediately bring me to some center, peace and a sense of stability.

Music – It’s magic still works on me the same as it has since I was a girl. And there’s always more to discover. I will never hear it all and that fact baths me in relief and soothing, excitement and inspiration. Music is the free thing that contains an endless multitude of worlds and universes to access and they can lead you to places within that cannot be discovered any other way.

Skincare -In the morning but more so at night when I’m unwinding, my skincare routine continues to be the thing I do no matter what is happening in my head. It is the constant daily ritual I never skip. I’m usually playing music while I go through my steps. It’s probably the only time in my day when I’m fully conscious that I’m caring for myself and myself is grateful for it. An excuse to touch, wash, cleanse, exfoliate, rinse, massage, slather and apply to my skin lovingly, gently.

Reading -I used to be an avid bookworm. Reading was my first love, my first teacher outside of my parental instruction. Much like music, it helped me to escape, to discover, to understand, to broaden my understanding of differences, to travel and explore, to connect. I haven’t been reading in print anywhere near as much as I used to but while reading “The Essex Serpent,” I was surprised to remember how easy it is for me to disappear and forget the world outside while entering a strange, raw, muddy, foggy, tough but beautiful coastal landscape in the Victorian age. To be able to disappear into a book. I haven’t done it in a while, let alone in a book by a writer outside of my small cannon of favorite writers. And I needed it like a shapeshifter forced to remain in one version of itself for too long.

WTF with Marc Maron-I love listening to podcasts, and there are several that I love but none that I’ve listened to as long as WTF. Maron is raw. Maron is funny. He’s got problems and knows it and doesn’t pretend to something he’s not. He lays it all out and I continue to appreciate that. I root for his happiness even though he’s not good at being happy. He shares so much personally with his audience that it’s hard not to feel like we know him intimately. He’s taken care of cats most of his life and the two that remain with him play such a defining role in his life that they spill over into his show merchandise and comedy tour branding. Sometimes I’ll just listen to his opening monologue if I’m not interested in the person he’s interviewing because I just like hearing his take on things, even if I don’t agree. I’ve been listening to him ceaselessly for over a decade as my love of other podcasts come and go. I don’t like to think about what life will be like when he’s gone.

Water– Being in it, walking beside it, listening to it, seeing it. Seeing bodies of water is always a blessing to me. Water is a great rejuvenator for me. A powerful element of yielding, submerging and force. Hypnotic, mysterious, awe inspiring and sensual. My dream home includes a deep old copper or porcelain tub in a wet room with a skylight or a high landscape window letting in natural light. It also includes an outdoor path leading to a wide lake or beach. Water instantly takes me to peace. I don’t need to try to find it. It’s just there.

Cats- My cat can make me smile through just about anything. Me and my husband rarely fight or argue but when we have, it’s the cat that we lay down our disagreements for. The cat doesn’t give a shit what we’re arguing about. Watching my cat watch the world, clean himself, eat, drink from the tub faucet, meow at me, stretch, sleep, make biscuits, sit in my lap and a million other little things does wonders for my blood pressure. If he’s okay, I feel better about myself, about life in general. Brushing him. petting him, sparring with him, talking to him, brings me back to center, to purpose. He has his own inner world, motivations, irritations and things that sooth him which I will never understand. Cats are charming weirdos and I enjoy the routine and stability he has provided in our lives and the way my husband and I share time with him.

Nature– The difference between being depressed and looking at the view of the side of another building across the way vs. sky high pine trees in the yard is huge to me. Huge. walking through Isham Park every week during the Covid shut down saved me from total despair and engulfed me with hope and regeneration I needed to get through the pain of isolation and languishing.

I made this list of things I engage with often, if not daily as a way to keep things in perspective and also to remind myself that there’s so much to be grateful for as I navigate a path that for me is still unstable and unknown. Home ownership, aging, caretaking, budget managing, “adulting” and more is some real ass shit. Something always get’s missed, dropped, forgotten. God bless people who do this with children.

Where do Grown Ass Women Shop for Clothes?

Uncategorized

Rumors of a nation returning to “normal” have forced me to do something I have long avoided while working from home the last two years:

shop for work clothes.

Pre-pandemic, I used to share stories and posts on my IG of myself trying on clothes in midtown Manhattan fitting rooms constantly. It was fun. I actually liked to shop. Post-pan, I won’t step foot into a fitting room and am loathe to stand in a line at most any clothing store waiting to purchase anything. I tried a few days ago. I made a return yesterday.

As one of millions of people who worked from home the last couple of years I’ve gotten more used to ordering clothes on line than I ever imagined.

But since we’re trickling back into our beloved normalized dysfunction, I’ve had to deal with the fact that I need new work clothes. It’s not that I don’t still have the work dresses of pre pandemic fame hanging in my new home closet still. It’s just that that I don’t have any desire to go back to wearing any of them. Even when I was going into the office once a week at the beginning of this year, it was such a ghost town that I was wearing sweatpants and sneakers each time.

Oh the glorious comfort!

But as MGMT would say, it’s time to pretend…again. That’s part of what it means for America to go back to normal. Always has been.

Though there are some things I realize I never want to go back to.

1: padded bras.

I swore off bras during most of the height of the pandemic because they are for the most part, uncomfortable, oppressive straight jackets for breasts and I was fortunate that I could just go without them for a while. And I’m well endowed so It’s not like I don’t understand the need for support but my god, when I put on a bra for the first time to go to some dr’s appointment or physical therapy, it felt so wrong and awful. I found like 3-4 bras with no padding or underwire that liked and just wore those when I had to.

2: heels

I have a meniscus tear in my right knee so even pre-pandemic, I was playing myself wearing heels but post-pan, after I found my first pair of comfortable ass Sorel sneakers, honey, I don’t even look at heels. And I never understood, as a working woman why every time I went to a shoe store, I would often see the kind of shoes only Carrie Bradshaw would lust after displayed prominently.

Like, no shade to heels to the working women who wear them but f*k, can I get some comfort with these style trends that I can’t relate to anymore? I already have a list of comfy flat sandals for this Summer on my pinterest board. Check it out for when you’re done with your red bottom stiletto’s. And don’t judge me for odd heel or two you might find on there. I can dream can’t I?

Sadly, shopping for new work clothes is another matter altogether more complicated and challenging than footwear and padded bras. Yesterday I went from Zara to H&M to American Eagle to….sigh Forever 21. Zero finds.

My haul: two set of cute plastic rings from H&M and some nude colored hair bands for my wigs.

BTW, why have so many women’s clothes been ribbed for the past 6 years? Anyone?

WHERE THE HELL DO GROWN ASS WOMEN SHOP FOR CLOTHES?

The fact is, although I continue to be a fan of fashion, I have pretty much aged out of fashion trends myself. I see cute stuff and all l think is, it’s only gonna be good for a season or for two washes or both and it’s not worth the investment. It’s frightening how practical I’ve become in my old age. I make up for that in wig and makeup purchases.

But seriously, I went home and after these failed attempts at “in person” shopping, and did what I always do, buy stuff online from Old Navy. And what’s funny is that although I never could find one thing other than jeans that I liked whenever I would shop in person at Old Navy, everything I’ve ordered from them online has been perfect. I ordered three pairs of loose drop crotch sweatpants from ON last year. Oh my God…and they have pockets!!!!!!??? Lived in them.

I would love to find comfortable stylish clothing I like at a Zara’s or and H&M but it’s just not happening. I’m not in that target market any longer and while having less luck at mainstream clothing retailers does save me some $$$, it leaves me with not many options to wear to the office. I’m often left wondering if there is some secret one stop shopping place that grown ass women in their 40s shop at that I don’t know about.

I’m starting get the feeling that that place is online. Drop the links in comments if I’m missing out on something amazing. LOL!

Surreal in The City

Uncategorized

My husband dropped me off in the city this very early morning so that I could do my in person hours at the office for the first time in two weeks. The city is still sleeping when we roll in and so am I, even with eyes open. It feels very strange, especially since we don’t live in the city anymore.

It was still completely dark when we left. For a while, I feel hollow and edgeless sitting in the passenger side. I say nothing. Am I even alive?

We put on one of our favorite interview podcasts but it takes a while before anything said sticks. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I want to crawl back into bed.

My husband parks across from the school he teaches at in Hell’s Kitchen and walks me to the nearest Starbucks, which just happens to be next to what was once a 5 dollar movie theater that I frequented quite frequently with a friend of mine when we were in high school, literally entire lives ago. I order something although I never eat anything this early in the morning, find a table and kiss my husband goodbye. He’s picking me up after work so we can drive back to our new home together which might as well be in another dimension.

Pages: 1 2

Life is happening…

Uncategorized, , ,

(written on December 18th 2021)

My cat is sitting on top of the laundry bag. It’s 11:30am and I’m still in bed. Haven’t eaten anything yet. My period began yesterday on the Full Moon in Gemini.

My husband’s cousin passed away suddenly and instantly on Monday. My most beloved instagram accounts were hacked on Friday. The Omicron variant has sent numbers soaring in NYC again, causing people to flood the street testing sites and overwhelm resources to the point of shut down.

Life is happening…

We’re moving out the city this month. After several years of searching, we found a new home. It’s been the only thing I’ve been able to stay hopeful for. And sometimes, even that has been hard…staying hopeful. These brand new beginnings come with new responsibilities. And ready or half ready or a quarter of the way ready or not, here we come…or go.

Same difference.

We’ve been blessed even in the midst of tragedy. My in laws have been amazing. My husband is so beloved by his family and their friends that they have showered us with blessings, support and wisdom.

Also, my cat is a creature I can never really be mad at because he keeps me on my toes, keeps me playful and curious and I mean, we have to take care of him no matter what. The part pets play in the role of human health is vastly underestimated but those who know…know. They help the heart. They help you to smile when you feel like shit. Taking care of him distracts me from my own innate and destructive selfishness. And cat energy is always soothing and mysterious to me which I love and crave for whatever reason. I’m a cat person.

But that’s pretty much it for me right now. I’m too exhausted on so many levels to attempt to express, explain or describe much more about what’s been happening in my life. We’re about to embark on a journey and I’m excited about it in spite of everything fucked up thats happening. And I hope to share more about that when we’ve settled safely on the other side.

see you there…

Rock A Bye Marriage

Feminine, Film, marriage, Relationships

In the third episode of Scenes from a Marriage, Jonathan reads his therapy assigned morning pages, written in the third person to his ex-wife Mira in the characteristically calm, low and soothing pace he uses to sing to their 5-year-old daughter before bedtime in the third act. He reads to her about discovering the source of his inability to be truly present in their marriage. When he describes Mira as one of the first people whom he feels truly sees him, it works on her like a dysfunctional aphrodisiac. She is then moved to initiate physical intimacy with him on the carpet of the living room in the house they once shared. In an overhead shot where Mira rolls over on top of him, we see Jonathan’s eyes open, revealing his internal emotional struggle as they writhe together on the floor, overcome by this reignited passion. It’s consensual for a brief nail biting few seconds. And then Jonathan tells her they need to stop, that this is not good for him.

For Jonathan, formerly a strict orthodox Jew for whom the better part of his formative years as a young man were spent being separated from women and who appears to take ritual, commitment, and parental responsibility very seriously, the sustainability of his marriage to Mira and the thing that held it together never seemed to just be about sex and physical passion. But this is just my read from having only watched the 3 episodes available. It’s hard for me not to adore and want to cuddle every bit of Oscar Isaac’s screen performance. He never rises to anger without reason. He’s giving. He’s responsible almost to a fault. And are we supposed to not notice that Jonathan is hot dad central? I mean that man is settled as fuck! He’s not going anywhere! LOL! But maybe this is part of why Mira felt like she couldn’t take another second with him. Perhaps his steadfastness and emotional repression, shed too bright a light on her selfish, unstable and self centered behavior.

All I kept thinking about was how she said she wasn’t attracted to Jonathan anymore in Ep2 just before storming out to spend 3 months in Israel with her lover, Poli. And now here they are rolling around on the floor together and she tells him she never stopped loving or wanting him. Sooooo…try as I might I really can’t find a shred of empathy for homegirl. She’s messy af. And if Mira is written to be a deeply frustrating character then Jessica Chastain is doing a hell of a job.

Levi Hagai is not a director I’m familiar with but I do like the way he takes the viewer through a series of shifting and intense emotions in such a short amount of time. Whenever it feels as if Mira and Jonathan have made a solid and intimate connection somewhere, everything crumbles again under the weight of tremendous, unresolved pain.

In the scene near the end of this episode we see Jonathan singing to their daughter who wakes up in the night while he and Mira are arguing. We watch him walk her back to her bed while asking Mira to hold on until he comes back. He’s really asking her to hold on to the hope that they can salvage their life together. All I can think while watching him sing, is how present he sounds, how fully present he is for his daughter, while his relationship with her mother balances on a precipice.

And for Mira…I feel nothing.

Not yet anyway.