It’s the end of March? Posing this as a question rather than fact because it doesn’t feel right in my body. It can be a real drag when people complain about the speed at which time moves, but I think most of us feel quite bleary eyed when our bones start defrosting and we suddenly have daylight that lasts longer than our working days.
Here are seven things that I’ve loved reading, tasting, doing and thinking about this month.
This selection of poems shared by Kate Baer in response to being asked about Ozempic. Even though we know talk about these injections have just been a marketing ploy, it’s nice to remember that we exist to be in our bodies, rather than thinking about them.
An osteopath appointment with Payal Patel at Oseto Allies. I honestly just assumed the rest of my life would be lived with the feeling of stones under my skin but there’s not a single knot left in my back and neck. Magic!
This piece by Jessica Grose in The New York Times about how bad it is to need healthcare as a woman. These feelings are very close to the surface for me right now too, given I just spent two days in the hospital with an ovary-related condition and am nowhere close to answers. I will leave you with Grose’s words on this 2021 study for context:
In nearly three-quarters of the cases where a disease afflicts primarily one gender, the funding pattern favors males, in that either the disease affects more women and is underfunded (with respect to burden), or the disease affects more men and is overfunded. Moreover, the disparity between actual funding and that which is commensurate with burden is nearly twice as large for diseases that favor males versus those that favor females.
A Saturday Flow + Restore class at Yogarise in Peckham - a gorgeous, strength-focused flow. It really got the juices pumping for a wine-fuelled reunion - I now highly recommend yoga before catch ups if you want to feel present and positive.
A recent newsletter from Amy Odell’s Back Row, in which she asked whether fashion has actually ‘gone backwards’ with this seasons notable lack of body diversity or whether we are glorifying the ‘change’ of seasons before.
“24 percent of 278 shows had one or more model above a size four. The previous season, 36 percent 247 of shows had one or more models above a size four. So it was a small number last year and it’s an even smaller number this year, but hardly the cataclysmic decline in epic progress that one would assume based on many write-ups.”
Not to be dramatic but I think this FaceGym toner has changed my skin (doing what it says on the tin, I guess). Don’t want to jinx anything but it’s feeling the clearest it’s felt maybe ever, although I’m sure the awaiting stress of a house move will change that.
We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (as always, recommended by my best friend Anna Bonet who writes the Substack Well Read). It’s a book about Ash, a woman caring for her best friend Edi who is dying about cancer, but it’s warm and hilarious and everything you wouldn’t expect from a cancer-centric novel. I loved reading about the complexities of watching your friend’s body shut down while your own keeps on ageing and the language of long term friendship. I get a little lump in my throat even thinking about it.
I’m always looking to feast on new writing, so what reads have I missed this month?
Not yet subscribed to Gray’s Anatomy? Click here to sign up, or share with a friend who might enjoy this newsletter.
V excited about both the osteopathy and the book! You might like The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin, about young and old women in hospital who become friends in an art class and team up to mark their years in paint. I completely judged it by the cover initially and wrote it off as an 'inspiring' saccharine story, then it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable, thought-provoking and memorable books of my year. Loved it!