Hello · It's Danielle
NOTES FROM THE MIDDLE
Age, Life, Everything
The Weekly Letter
A small, honest moment from each week. Delivered quietly on Sundays.
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The Archive
Issue No. 30
The House Next Door The neighbours from our old house came for dinner last night. Calling them “the neighbours” is technically accurate in the same...
Issue No. 29
There are hidden blessings to middle age, and I do not think we discuss them enough. This may be because we are too busy discussing...
Issue No. 28
Yesterday I went to the hairdresser for my quarterly cut and colour. It is, by now, a small ritual. I park in roughly the same...
Issue No. 27
For the last two months, I have been in the final push of finishing my latest textbook, which means I have been living in a...
Issue No. 26
We have quietly allowed software competence to masquerade as intelligence. A smart woman, a missing meeting link, and the small expected competencies that get mistaken for evidence of your worth.
Issue No. 25
Seven years ago, we moved into a house with a very established, very mature garden. The rhododendrons were, for many years, the bane of my existence. Then, this year, something changed.
Issue No. 24
My friend has been married 25 years. Every night after dinner, her husband makes them each a cup of tea. Then one day, after a disagreement in the car, he made only one. I have thought about this story more often than is reasonable.
Issue No. 23
I have been reading my old journals again. A bad conversation could take up six pages. A confusing boy could take up twelve. At the time, those things were big. The strange and quiet recalibration of getting older is that your scale changes.
Issue No. 22
My empty nest is filling again. Maybe for a week. Maybe for the summer. There are suddenly shoes by the door, cheese disappearing at an alarming rate, and someone else's laundry migrating through the house.
Issue No. 21
I used to think luxury meant the obvious things. A five-star hotel. A pool boy. A view. Somewhere along the way, without fanfare, luxury stopped meaning impressive and started meaning restorative.