Nostalgia, Bios, New, Atmosphere, Carl

Friends,

I am writing this week’s newsletter from the snowy blusters of Mid-Coast of Maine. I opened my laptop thinking there wasn’t much I could offer this week, but the five words I’ve landed on are actually quite resourceful.

1️⃣ Nostalgia

Since the early days of 2020, a group of high school classmates and I have been in reunion planning mode. Once we realized how uncertain the 20th year of the 2000s would be, we pivoted. Instead of focusing on a 20th High School Reunion, we opted to wait until 2025 and make the 25th an all out bash.

Now that our group has secured our date and our venue, we’ve split up into sub-committees to focus on marketing, event design, and… NOSTALGIA.

The latter committee is a marketing sub-sub-committee of one — ME.

In my solo Nostalgia brainstorming meeting, I had this vision:

Senior year, I lobbied for “Time After Time” to be our prom theme song. I lost out then, but I will certainly put in a request with our reunion DJ to make this dream dance a reality.

I better start learning the choreography now…

In the meantime, as part of the Nostalgia/Marketing committee, we are introducing the full reunion committee in a forthcoming alumni newsletter. As far as the format and flow, we collectively agreed to use our high school yearbook photos to accompany a short bio of what we are up to now.

As an elder millennial, my High School yearbook is in print and the black and white photos were taken with a film camera. In order to get everyone’s yearbook photo, I stood over each yearbook page and took a photo with my old iPhone. I then Air Dropped the photos to my computer to crop each one and attach it to the corresponding bio. The photos are crookedly cropped and blurry but I think that makes them all the better and certainly all the more nostalgic.

2️⃣ Bios

Speaking of bios… I didn’t realize how difficult of an ask it was going to be to round up a three sentence description of self from each of my committee mates. I’m not trying to throw my fellow classmates under the bus. But there concern with what to write and how made me realize that writing bios has always come easy to me. And it’s always been fun.

I have quickly learned this is not the case for all… or most.

If you fall into the all or most category, I invite you to check out my good friend Katel LeDu’s bio writing workshop, tend.

In this workshop, you’ll get a step-by-step guidance for crafting a powerful, human-sounding bio, inspiration for creatively weaving together even the most widely-ranging skill set, and real-time feedback for polishing your bio. There is a new session of the workshop next week, it meets on Zoom, and cost is on a sliding scale.

If you need a new bio, this is the way to do it. Especially if you are in my reunion committee and still owe me one.

Joking… kind of… not really.

3️⃣ New

To continue my ongoing Class Pass adventure, I joined an F45 class in Portland, Maine. Not only was it my first time in that Portland studio, it was first time at an F45. I arrived 15 minutes early, checked in, told them I was visiting from Philadelphia and then waited a few minutes as others from the class trickled in.

As the time went on, I realized that this wasn’t a work out that I could figure out on my own. And due to a misunderstanding, the instructor thought I was only new to the studio, not the whole franchise. I learned this after I hopped back over to the desk and exclaimed, “I’M NEW… to all of this.”

In the past I never would have asserted myself like this. But I’m so glad I did. Not only did we clear up the misunderstanding, I was shown the ropes (literal and figurative), and everyone else in the class introduced themselves and cheered me on as I bear crawled with 50 lbs of weights across a carpeted track.

I going to take this “I’M NEW” declaration with me for future new experiences. It turns out it can be fun to exclaim that I have no clue what I am doing.

4️⃣ Atmosphere

In all of the forms that this newsletter has taken throughout the years (decade almost!) I’ve sung the praises of Jessica Snow, a meditation creator and teacher born and raised in Los Angeles. Jessica’s website, You Are Magic LA, is a treasure trove, including a monthly page of free meditations to get you through a global and/or spiritual theme.

March’s free page features one of my favorite meditations from Jessica’s library, Atmosphere. I used it on Monday in preparation for a job interview and it kept me grounded and contained with in a good energetic bubble for the duration of the interview and the rest of the day.

As a bonus, you can learn more about Jessica and her work by listening to her episode of my podcast.

5️⃣ Carl

I didn’t know much about Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s late husband, until reading this obituary, published shortly after his death. The fact that their relationship remained fully private and sacred is astounding and admirable. Here’s to you, Carl.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Cheers,

Hillary