august 1: best of luck

Hi there,

I’ve always been a little superstitious. Or, at least, habitual. I tend to put on my left sock and shoe before the right and I almost always step with my right foot first on a staircase. My superstitions show up in mostly harmless ways, and some are good, like the tradition that is this newsletter’s namesake. 

As the story goes, if you say “rabbit, rabbit” right when you wake up on the first day of the month, you’ll have good luck for the rest of that month. Maybe this practice is common knowledge, but I didn’t know about it until a few years ago, when my sister probably enlightened me. Of course it’s silly, but it’s a harmless and hopeful routine to grasp on to in an ~unpredictable world~. 

I like the idea of new beginnings, fresh starts, or simply getting back on track. In the winter months, for me, the “rabbit, rabbit” practice is a nice reminder that we’re moving forward/progressing toward warmer days. In the summer, when one sticky month seems to melt into the next, the first of the month often comes as a surprise. When I haven’t realized summer has really begun and then all of the sudden it’s the first of July, “rabbit, rabbit” jolts me into reality and reminds me to soak in the longer days before they’re gone.

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There will, of course, be lists in these newsletters. Here are some good things from my past month:

• Lucy Dacus’ latest album; Lucy Dacus’ Tiny Desk (home) concert; Lucy Dacus’ coming out story

• Running farther than I ever have before; running in familiar places; running in new places; running with new friends; running with old friends 

  

  from a run in an old familiar place

• This Perfume Genius newsletter that made me laugh and laugh and laugh

• My neighborhood’s Buy Nothing Facebook group, which is like Craigslist except everything’s free. The posts are sweet and bizarre and really run the gamut (this tweet isn’t an exaggeration). I love seeing that neighbors are making things like gardening tools communal, and plus, I got a new-to-me French press last week.

• My first proper trip to IKEA; IKEA’s veggie balls; IKEA’s hot dogs; IKEA’s soft serve; IKEA’s jelly candy

  

  ikea elation (turns out they have not just snacks, but furniture, too)

• This newsletter is actually just a Lucy Dacus fan forum because also check out this Q&A my real friend Marissa did with my aspirational friend Lucy 

• This essay that hit a little too close to home; this essay that hit a little too close to home as well

• Jumping on the Patagonia Baggies trend and not looking back

  

  baggies <3

• Watching a movie projected onto a sheet in a friend’s backyard, which felt like much more of an event than watching a movie from a couch

• Returning home after weeks away to see that crepe myrtle had bloomed in D.C.; having lived in a place long enough to know which corners will have the best flowers

  

  crepe myrtle on my block

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I’m mostly starting rabbit, rabbit because I want to be better about documenting my time, moments big and small. And, I want to get better at writing — it turns out, the way to actually do that is to write more (messed up, I know). I’m sure this send will make me cringe in a couple months or weeks or days or hours, but that’s growth, baby! So thanks for letting my ramblings crowd your inbox. I’m as exhausted by social media as I am by all the discourse around the inauthenticity of social media, but I do hope this will be a space for better connection, so please feel free to reply and share what’s new in your world.

See you next month, probably. Or sooner! Or later! It’s my newsletter! There are no rules!

Best of luck,
Elle

P.S. Hopefully this hit your inboxes before you had a chance to speak today, but if not, apparently you can say “tibbar, tibbar” tonight and your whole month won’t be a waste. (I promise my future newsletters won’t link to so many NPR pieces lol.)