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.
A work in progress
I'm finishing a book called The Yin of It All. Sign up to get early excerpts before it is published.
The Archive
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.
Issue. No 20
Did I miss the one perfect day when I was exactly the right age? Old enough to seem credible but young enough to seem exciting? And, more to the point, did I spend that day answering emails and wondering if I looked tired?
Issue No. 19
I fell into an internet rabbit hole and ended up staring at my life translated into 2,895 weeks. It clarifies the shape of things, in the way only a brisk machine that has never had to process its own mortality can.
Issue No. 18
Sam and I fell down a photo rabbit hole looking for a picture from 2014. Everyone looked so happy. Which made me wonder if I see the past through rose-coloured glasses. But not in the usual way people mean it.