#4: The Monthly Return (March 2026)

Bon Iver

The recording of Bon Iver playing an acoustic version of Heavenly Father at the Sydney Opera House got me through – and I don’t say this lightly – the worst time of my life.

A time when I was so low I had some scary-ass thoughts on a daily basis. In times like these, of which I’ve had a couple (though never as bad as December 2021), I’ve managed to find small life rafts onto which I could cling… Much like Kate to the door she pushed Leo off at the end of Titanic (brutal).

Listening to this recording was one of them. It’s hard to explain what it did for me. It opened up something that I would now call devotional? hopeful? spiritual? It made me remember that being alive is beautiful, even when it feels ugly.

And so I would listen to that recording after swimming in the ocean every morning come rain, hail or shine. Those two things (and discovering writing) were the wet wooden doors that kept my sanity and wholeness afloat… just.

So when Spotify recently notified me that I could pre-save Bon Iver’s next album, of course I went right ahead and did that. Then I noticed there was one track available ahead of release: Heavenly Father.

It’s not the same recording, but it’s also lovely. I’d give it an 8/10 whereas I’d give the Opera House acoustic a solid 11.

Listen to both. Let me know what you think.

Was I just super depressed, or is that recording something magical?

Directed by Chloe Zhao starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal

Not breaking any records recommending this film. It’s been out for a hot minute and Jessie Buckley has already won Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her stunning performance.

I went to see this film about Shakespeare’s young son, Hamnet, dying while NINE months pregnant with my second son and my 14-month-old son at home. My husband and I wept in the front row of the cinema, clutching each other’s hands, occasionally looking at each other in horror at what I had elected for us to watch 1 week before giving birth. Thankfully the woman next to me wasn’t holding anything back and drowned out our muffled sobs.

I also have a mild case of Paul Mescal-fever, which I believe is quite a common illness for women of my demographic. Many things in life can be disappointing, but I rarely find Paul Mescal to be one of them.

NB: I tried and tried to read the historical fiction novel on which this film was based, but I think my attention span couldn’t hack it. Maggie O’Farrell is an incredible writer. I Am, I Am, I Am is an all-time favourite memoir where she tells the story of her life through seventeen vignettes of near-death experiences. Some of which are truly batshit crazy true stories. But better even than the stories is the telling of them. She’s a master.

But alas, I couldn’t get into Hamnet, the novel.

Anyway, here is an adorable reel of the cast of Hamnet dancing to a Rhianna song (which obviously has nothing to do with the film but is cute AF!!)

Remotely by Lucy Williams (Substack)

Most of you know I am three weeks postpartum. Anyone who has spent any amount of time postpartum will know that daydreaming about future vacations is an essential coping mechanism during this time.

My fantasies have taken me to planning a trip to Greece in my head.

Lucy Williams is an OG style influencer who has a huge following on Substack. I am a devoted, paying subscriber myself (I NEED to know what recent sweater I can’t afford has been on her mind!!! I simply have to see below the pay wall!!!). You know when someone cannot put a foot wrong when it comes to taste? It’s almost annoying how good she is at it because it reminds me what a style peasant I am.

She’s a complete philhellene (lover of Greece and Greek things) and has compiled an ultimate guide to the Greek islands. It’s so delicious that I’ve been drinking from it regularly just to keep my delusions alive.

Folegandros and Sifnos, watch out.

I have a soft spot for Sifnos, as it was the island my husband and I went to the day after we got engaged off the coast of Milos, to meet with one of my best and oldest friends who also just got engaged. It was the cutest. Both the island and the experience.

Esquire Magazine

It feels appropriate to include an article about new parenthood. Even though I’m a second-time mum, I still feel so new to the game, particularly given the fact that my kids are basically Irish Twins at 14 months apart.

Raven Smith and his husband had a baby by surrogate in my adopted home, Mexico City. He includes a bit of info about the surrogacy process in the US and Mexico City, which of course is interesting, but this article is really a meditation on the inexplicable contradictions of new parenthood.

Whether you’re in a same-sex relationship having your first child by surrogacy in a foreign city, or you’re in a totally heteronormative situation in your home-town, I will hazard a guess that his perspective will feel universal to you.

Here are some of my favourite excerpts from Raven’s article:

“You can vaguely envisage a future lifetime of packed Lunchables, but the only thing you know for certain is that your child will be physically smaller than you. You also know their presence will be ginormous, beyond comprehension, but again it’s obtuse. Everything else is just noise.

“But even when she was in my arms, my mother’s and my mother’s-mother’s face looking back at me, it wasn’t as overwhelming as I expected. The baby was born. My baby was born. My baby was perfect. She’s happy hour, she’s Christmas Eve, she’s a toasted Good Friday hot cross bun after giving up sugar for Lent. Objectively it’s a striking new reality: hardcore and brutal, euphoric and daunting, but there’s no real feeling beyond hello, beyond being there, beyond this is how it was always meant to be.

“I always thought nurture was something you benevolently, un-begrudgingly doled out, no return on investment until the baby can at least support its own neck. I didn’t realise quite how much you get back.”

He writes parenthood in a way that makes the ordinary transcendent without glorifying the mundanity of it all. This is one of the trickiest parts of writing about something in which every human has taken part (either by virtue of being born or giving birth). It’s so utterly ordinary and yet it shifts the very axes on which you exist. The only other writer I’ve read who does the experience justice is Rachel Kusk in A Life’s Work (you can read a lovely review of that book here).

Sylvia Plath

I fell in love with this poem as a teenager upon discovering – and believing I was the first to ever discover – Sylvia Plath (as all highly emotional teenage girls are wont to do). Even her poems about motherhood, at the tender feral age of fifteen, connected with me.

But now as a mother, of course I read them with a deeper knowing. Morning Song hits the same ineffable sweet spot as Raven’s article: writing about new parenthood without cliché or trope.

To me, this poem captures what it means to love in a way that requires a kind of sacrifice you’re wholly willing to give, even though it’s brutal.

My friend Rosie scribbled this poem in a book that was given to me by my mum and friends a few days before my wedding. It made me weep. It still does!

I read it now thinking about my two little bambinos and new meaning seems to fold itself into each line.

And on that note, here is a pic of my little family a few weeks before Ravi’s arrival.

That’s all folks. See you next week x