How did your mom celebrate your birthday? In your most treasured memories of turning a year older, what did she always make sure was on the table? Did she splurge on a big cake? A chocolate layer cake with sickly sweet white icing from the grocery store, maybe? Did she take you to the arcade and let you use three rolls of quarters? One year, it was probably the most money you’d held in your hands – which was cool as hell – and maybe you broke your ski ball record that day.
And where do you go when you feel like you need to be a little extra cared for?
I like to take myself to the movies. I buy a large popcorn with extra butter and a Coke-flavored Icee. I’m a big crier, so I usually cry myself through a film, tears collecting in the butter soaked bucket in my lap. I always leave feeling quite reflective. (A tear-filled viewing of Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” inspired me to break up with a boyfriend once – oops!)
It hit the other day – walking from my kitchen to my bedroom at 7:45pm holding a stainless steel mixing bowl of PopSecret Extra Butter in one hand and a stemless wine glass with a Scotch-pour’s worth of Coca-Cola in the other – that I was carrying a day at the movies in my hands. I was holding a generic variation of the ingredients for my perfect rainy afternoon alone.
And I thought, how special does this feel? How simple is it to recreate this feeling? How else am I neglecting to nurture these feelings in my life?
Without self-ritual, how are we to know self-love?
With coveted treats in hand, I headed into my room, where I had planned to call a friend to watch an episode of Survivor together. We live across the country and we’re both pretty cooped up, but for right now we’re connected by our screens. And it’s Saturday night, and even though I haven’t been to the movies alone in nearly two years, I feel the magic inside my 5th floor walkup.
I’m a person who can’t form a habit to save a life. I never grocery shop on time, I read six books in a week and don’t pick another up for six months, and I’ve alternated between being a morning person and a night person my whole life (who does that!?). But in taking a moment to recognize and investigate this feeling moving through my body – a feeling of being cared for, even without a theater in sight – it becomes obvious that the movies are not just the movies, they’re a ritual.
The secret of my solo movie magic wasn’t in the bigger screen and frostier drink, but it was in the ritual. Going to the movies is a ritual for me, and it’s through ritual that I feel dedicated to myself.
To show dedication is to show love. To show ourselves love we must show dedication. We need our own rituals for ourselves to feel taken care of. How can I rely on myself if even I can’t follow through on me?
To be clear, the phrase “self-care” has been commoditized to the moon and back, but that’s very much not what this is about.
For some, these rituals come in the form of religion – interchange ritual for spell, sacrament, or ceremony – and by nature a ritual can be recreated almost anywhere, using slightly varying ingredients, and you can still achieve the desired outcome if the intent is present. (I endured Catholic high school, so I’m very aware that in a dire situation I am spiritually authorized to baptize someone with bottled water moments before a tragic death if necessary.)
For others, like myself, rituals come in the form of salty snacks and Saoirse Ronan movies. And they also come in the form of post-work drinks with friends to exchange office gossip and laugh into whiskey gingers; they come in long drives to the coast to eat clams and watch the tides roll in each summer; they come in that one playlist that you swear helps you study better than any teaching method or smuggled classmate prescription; and they come in sickly sweet sheet cakes from Kroger that might still be your favorite treat even well into your 30s because it’s not about a cake – it’s the ritual of it all.
Much of the so-called best things for us (i.e. health, fitness, hobbies, learning) require dedication and ritual. That idea seems intimidating, even overwhelming, but what if the ritual was eating popcorn and drinking soda? Not too hard, right?
It’s the intentional act of recognizing seemingly mundane actions as rituals that alter their meaning. We mother ourselves a bit every day in the meals we make, the naps we take, and the cups of tea we brew before bedtime. It’s recognizing that my nightly cup of sleepy time tea is a ritual that makes it so special, and it’s the “I love yous” that I whisper into my mug before sipping that make it feel like magic.
Part of why holidays feel so magical is because we collectively perform rituals in an effort to make them feel that way. Silly lights strung on serious looking houses; giant snowmen filled with air living in front yards; listening to the same jingly music we’ve all been listening to for decades; visiting family and friends, some we only ever see during that time of the year. Christmas has always been my personal favorite holiday if you couldn’t tell, but each has its own special colors, foods, motifs, and rituals, and each creates an atmosphere that lends itself to the feeling of magic in the air.
In a lot of ways this newsletter is a ritual dedication to my own writing. I spent four years in journalism school reporting, writing, editing, publishing article after article, and yet when I stopped going to school I stopped writing almost entirely. (Granted the global pandemic had quite a bit to do with that…) This personal project to dedicate myself to writing something each week is an establishment of ritual, and I hope through that re-dedication to myself I can discover some pieces I may have dropped along the way.
I think in time most all dedication leads to the same place: ultimately a happier and more fulfilling life. In finding ritual in the things we already take time to do and allowing ourselves to hold even more space for dedication, we find it easier to save some space for self-love and compassion too.
Wow, Mac, this was so so good. I came in expecting a great piece, and I still walked away enamored with your writing and insights! I'm so excited for this newsletter!
Loved it 🥰