bringing big floppy hat energy into the new year
on approaching uncharted territory with delight
Hello friends - I’ve been wanting to write so much lately, but I haven’t in so long, and as the new year breaks I realize it’s because I’ve been holding my ideas too tightly -
feeling pressure to create lofty goals and rigid structures and relatable themes and measurable success for this newsletter, to fit my ideas neatly inside -
but that’s not where the magic is. What do I actually want to write about? What is trying to come out, be formed into words, be shared? I can’t answer those questions by trying to organize the thoughts before they exist. I can only answer those questions by loosening the grip and following the spark, even if it’s not shining where I thought it would be.
So in the renewed interest of following my spark, finding the words, and sharing more often, here’s a series I call:
This one is about the floppy hat my favorite person bought on our vacation, and how it inspired and reminded me to lead with delight. Wishing you some big floppy hat energy in your new year.
xoxo Meredith
In November I got to travel to New Orleans with my partner Jasmine. It is a place with a lot of personal history to me - I moved there directly post-college and directly pre-Katrina, and spent a whirlwind 3 years teaching there. It was a time in my life that was hard, and fun, and heartbreaking, and gorgeous, and lonely, and EXTREMELY formative to a 22 year old me trying to figure out how to be an “adult.”
But that is a story for another day - this story is about how I finally visited again after almost 20 years, with Jasmine, who had never been to New Orleans before. And how they bought a big floppy hat in the French Quarter on our first morning there and proceeded to wear it everywhere we went for the entire trip. They wore it around town, in the coffee shop and the bakery, as we drove around searching for the places I’d lived, as we kayaked around a swamp looking at cypress trees and keeping our eyes peeled for alligators.
As I navigated my own storm of emotions and memories from an intense time in my life, the big floppy hat was a beacon of joy and delight, a reminder to see everything through new eyes. Jasmine is a beacon of joy and delight. They wanted to see alligators and eat beignets and listen to all of my swirling emotions and formative memories with calm curiosity. And I could not help but feel delight in the presence of the big floppy hat. A delight that balanced my grief, allowed me to feel and move through it, to cry and then eat a delicious pastry and marvel at the beauty around us.
As I enter this year more personally unmoored than I’ve been in a long time - swimming in the unknown with work and home and purpose in this devastating political moment - Jasmine in their big floppy hat reminds me to find delight in uncharted territory. Here they are with their hat at the airport, leading the way and brightening everyone’s travel day. How lucky am I for this tour guide?
