What This Week #16

Enormous peonies, tiny rainbows, other things

What this week?

Survival.

The final weeks of the penultimate school term are an assault course. Our knees and palms are bloody and muddy. On my sweat-soaked back a rucksack filled with all the things I need to do, want to do, am trying to ‘fit in’ before the holiday and, for much of the week, my daughter herself, who will only make it over the finish line if I carry her too. I’ve been in this game long enough to know this is how it feels—and that I’m not alone. Some friends have gone quieter this week (head down, push through), others are sharing their flailing about (“is it just me or has this week been a shitshow?”)—we’re never alone.

Over the line, we lie on our backs and catch our breath, shielding our eyes from the sun.

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What this week?

A post-it marked ‘FREEDOM’.

When the parenting mode ramps up to ‘assault course’ intensity, the words don’t come. I’ve been in this game long enough to know this is how it feels—but not long enough to let a solution come easily.

I’ve been part way through a deep-dive newsletter on Vermeer for a few weeks, but I know that I want to write that from a better place, to fully share the utter joy I felt watching the ‘Exhibition on Screen’ and disappearing off down a Delftish rabbit hole. It was magical and I want my writing to capture that, not feel like I’m squeezing dregs of toothpaste from the tube with increasing desperation.

So I press pause on Vermeer. He can wait for the magic to return. (I think he’d fully appreciate the gesture.)

But What This Week—that’s ‘easy’ to write. Isn’t it?! I’m just sharing my thoughts on books and films and TV. I have a format. I have a plan to follow. Writing by numbers. Surely I can rustle up a What This Week and feel a little ‘box-ticked’ glow of productivity.

This week, my depleted and contrary mind digs in heels, says no. No, I don’t want to write the same thing again. You can’t make me.

I don’t have much I want to share. I finished two books and didn’t really enjoy either. I’m very slowly meandering through a third. I fell asleep during two documentaries and can’t really tell you about them without rewatching the middle of both. I’m not interested enough to do that.

I verbally throw my hands up in the air on a phone call with a brilliant friend:

“What do I do? Maybe just not bother? Maybe I’m done with Substack?”

“How do you want writing to feel?” she says, flexing her annoyingly helpful laser-sharp insight.

“Free,” I reply without thinking. “Writing is freedom.”

“Will you please go and write that on a post-it note, stick it on your wall, and write whatever the hell you want this week!”

Ta da.

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What this week?

Halston (Netflix)

And just when you thought I was going completely rogue, I do have one brilliant show that I adored and want to share.

I’m late to Halston’s party (I think he’d fully appreciate the gesture). The five-part drama about the life of the infamous American fashion designer first aired in 2021, and I feel like it’s a bit of a hidden gem. Ewan McGregor is outstanding as the flamboyant Halston. He looks like he’s having the time of his life and was rightly rewarded with an Emmy for his performance.

We follow Halston’s rise and demise through the fashion world—starting off in the sixties he breaks out as the milliner who designed Jackie Kennedy’s pill box hats, and his star explodes from there. It’s a wild ride. And I will warn that there’s a LOT of sex and drugs along the way. The Studio 54 episodes are visually stunning and the storylines so jaw-dropping they can only be true.

Halston had an incredibly close friendship with Liza Minnelli (played with beautiful fragility and warmth by Krysta Rodriguez), which is just joyful to watch blossom and withstand the ups and downs. I absolutely loved spotting two formidable teen TV matriarchs—Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore) from Gilmore Girls and Mary Beth Peil (Grams) from Dawson’s Creek both make an appearance!

Halston is vivid, extravagant, compelling—just like the creative genius himself.

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What this week?

These socks.

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So happy Sunday one and all.

Happy school holidays to all those who celebrate.

Happy alarm-free Monday for many of us in the UK tomorrow.

I wish you all the chance to lie on your backs and catch your breath, shielding your eyes from the sun.

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