Sweet Wonderful You, You Make Me Happy with the Things You Do

Well, here we are, my loyal friends, reconnecting for the 20th installment of my Substack: Duchess of Rock. I’m once again using a current musical fixation to reflect on an aspect of our shared human experience. Only this time, I’m doing it as a biweekly installment, now that I’m home from book tour (with just one more jaunt to Settle for LCC next week) and have my head down on my new novel, “Occupancy.”

I recently read an inspired essay by Joyce Carol Oates about the interplay between writing and running. It was wonderfully evocative — a bit witchy — capturing the ineffable aspects of these two miraculous pastimes to which I’ve been devoted. I started thinking about why I’d lapsed in a passion that had long helped me to keep writing and stay out of the weeds mentally, as well as my other habits — helpful and not — and the music accompanying them. For me, it was the concert album by a beloved ‘70s rock band that dropped at just the right moment last fall to propel me back into my sneakers and out onto the streets.   

Today’s pick: “You Make Loving Fun” by Fleetwood Mac, from their 2023 album, “Rumours Live”

Last September, when I saw there was a “new” Fleetwood Mac album, recorded live at L.A.'s Forum in 1977, I cued it up one morning as I galloped off on my morning run, which I had just gotten back to after mostly giving it up for several years. Emerging out of the dark tunnel of a difficult season, I was bursting with an excess of sparkly energy. I burned it off in a loop of my L.A. neighborhood, passing the yard with the abandoned prop phone booth, the neighbor who let me practice my childlike Spanish, the panoramic view of the city, the embankment of wild corn.  

I had started running when I was 23. I can’t remember exactly why, but it was probably to keep my weight down, which I had done in college with a diet of dry salad, Snackwell’s cookies, gin, coffee, and cigarettes (not necessarily in that order). There was a YMCA a few blocks from my house in Portland, Ore., and I ran the track there, listening to punk cassettes on my Walkman. I took to running, but I didn’t think too much about why. 

I moved to Boston for grad school, which meant a new life with very little money, very brutal deadlines, and a very long-distance relationship. My respite was my daily run. That’s when I came to understand that running was something that made me feel better, not just physically, but psychologically. It interrupted my anxiety about my ogre of a schedule and my big life decisions lurking after graduation, leaving me glittered with goodwill that could last for hours. 

During my seven years in Boston, I built a stable relationship with my dad for the first time. As a wannabe mystic and wellness tinkerer, who introduced me to isolation tanks and kombucha, he was then into biofeedback machines. He told me about one theory that running for 45 minutes would cause your brain to spontaneously enter a theta state — where it was easy to access creativity, memories, and the subconscious. I often experienced something like this, and even when I was struggling in other areas of my life, I consistently ran almost every day for nearly two decades. 

And then, I mostly stopped, for all the reasons we give up things we know are good for us. But I formed other habits, some of them also healthy. I got busy with my writing career. I grew a little heavy and sad, and then a little heavier and sadder. I kept saying I’d start again tomorrow. We’ve all been there — and isn’t it delicious when tomorrow finally comes?

Fortunately, difficult seasons don't last forever. Mine last year was about nine months, and then, and in its aftermath, running once again became a familiar throughline. When I finally did it enough to not feel like I was going to throw up, it was soothingly familiar and joyously new, like falling in love again for the first time. Enter the perfect running soundtrack: “Fleetwood Mac: Rumours Live.” It opens with the shriek of 20,000 fans getting off on the ecstasy of seeing the group peak musically. The entire album is an infectious, intimate, high-octane romp that is like hearing your favorite bar band lift a whole arena into the atmosphere. 

I took to skipping a few songs here and there in order to DJ my own perfect running playlist. So, coming down the backside of Mt. Washington, sated and excited to see what intrigues my day would bring, I always landed on “You Make Loving Fun.” It’s a Christine McVie song, built on her resonant, message-in-a-bottle vocals and soulful keyboard melodies, embellished with filigrees of guitar, driven by the taut rhythm section, which saunters, then bounds, then saunters again, making it an ideal cooldown. Hearing this legendary, passion-tossed wellspring of talent and sibling-like love — doing what they did best at their very best — made it feel possible to both keep going and to start again, much like the regenerative nature of every day’s new run.  

Please sing along to a song that has soundtracked a habit, good or bad. Love, the Duchess

In book news: 

My debut novel, “The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers,” is out now from Flatiron Books. The first leg of my tour is in the books — thanks to everyone who turned up in support! Next, come see me in Seattle and Nashville. (Book tour details here.)  

Do you, your mom, or your mom’s cat have a book club?! Please consider reading “The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers.” Leave me a comment here, and I’d be happy to send you some discussion questions or stop by / Zoom in for a conversation about ghostwriting, crime writing, and the book’s musical inspirations.

Many friends have asked what they can do to support me and my book, and here’s a big one: whether you purchased my novel through Amazon, please log on and leave it a rating (I’d recommend 5 stars, but you do you!) and even a one-line review. Without enough reviews, my book won’t come up as a recommended title when readers search for related books. Thank you!