February Newsletter

The power of sharing: Is it the feeling that matters, or how the feeling makes us relate to the people around us?

Feb 29, 2024

* Today’s newsletter comes a little later than usual, and will be a little longer than usual.

I am writing this introduction on February 29th, today, while the rest was written and edited days ago.

Yesterday, a friend I loved deeply and who changed the course of my life passed.

Her spirit is now in the bardo, the intermediate existence between death and rebirth, a time of confusion, opportunity, transformation, realization, in a way.

And I am hurting.

While Ben was in surgery early in 2023 (the first one of this round), she and I took each other on a long walk by the ocean, and then along the beautiful Adelaide Dr., in Santa Monica.

I can pinpoint the deepening of my spiritual awareness, my willingness to learn more, my yearning for change to that day, to that walk; I wasn’t present at times, because I feared something would happen in the operating room, so she constantly, patiently, lovingly took me back to the present moment.

We walked, we sat, we walked again, and then rested some more. We commented on how much we loved each other candid looks (she had been the inspiration behind mine), shared stories, looked at the waves.

Her arm in mine, as I walked her back to her apartment, right when the surgeon texted me:

“He is in the recovery room, Alice.”

It had all naturally worked out, the timing I was so much afraid of. We had walked, and then it was time to drive back to the hospital.

I didn’t understand I was gathering tools for what would come next, both in my life and hers.

When I think of her spirit now, I fear not remembering her voice. I fear my life picking up the rhythm again, getting caught into mundane envy, mundane disappointment, mundane greed.

When I think about her wandering spirit, now, I wonder whether I will feel her presence again.

“Where can I look for you?”

I keep asking. But that is making her death about me.

And that just doesn’t make any sense.

The newsletter that follows talks about the power of sharing. I pondered whether I should just postpone it; in the light of grief everything seems petty, superficial. But then I realized she is one of the reasons why some of what you will read has happened, the beginning of a deep change within. She is one of the reasons why I feel I have more tools to deal with the moment, this moment, the present of moment of suffering.

She is one of the reasons why I feel I have more tools to deal with the moment that will come, maybe one of excitement, joy, delight, pleasure.

Moments start, moments end. Birth, death, the biggest mystery there is, so simple, so breathtaking, so scary.

But as I keep writing, I can sense my fear slowly turning into trust, that I have the tools to be one with entirety of the experience: the beginning and the end. But this doesn’t make the moment less painful. And it’s okay to feel the pain.

The cover photo was supposed to be a gloomy freeway that inspired the topic of sharing, but I changed it to a beautiful winter sunset on the ocean, that she loved so much.

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

For the month of February I want to talk about sharing, about the power of participating, and how this can shape relationships, change the course of lives, and make us feel less alone.

A few weeks ago, as I drove along the freeway, a couple of days before my parents left Los Angeles, I cried. The river water was still high, after the heavy storms, the sky flat and grey, blasting a bright reflection against the asphalt, that’s why I had my sunglasses on.

I thought the car behind me could see me drying up my tears; I wondered whether they asked themselves what was going on with me. I do ask myself about people: I want to know why they are happy, why they are angry, why they become rude out of discomfort, embarrassment, or fear.

I was on my way to pick up Catherine from school, “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol played on the radio, and I just let the tears out, freely.

I cried because I felt a sense of guilt, of wrongness: thinking about my parents’ departure, in fact, I experienced at once a sense of sadness and relief, the latter driven by the prospect of finally having the house all for myself, after months of hosting, after months of Ben being sick, not working, always at home.

I looked forward to more calm, silence, some solitude, and aloneness in the kitchen.

So when I returned home I told them about those conflicting feelings.

“We feel the same, Alice” they both replied.

Their response came naturally, freely; I am not used to share so effortlessly with my parents.

And as soon as they shared their own mixed feelings about leaving — sadness, but also excitement for finally returning to their own house, and lives, after months of being away — the sense of wrongness and guilt disappeared and I felt okay with what was, with both the sadness and the excitement.

This episode made me think of how many times we believe we are alone in the way we feel or think, or that we are the only ones going through a particular situation, encountering a particular obstacle, in a virtual reality that increasingly force-feeds us glitter, perfection, and capsule collections of expensive monochromatic lounge sets made of 100% Italian cotton.

***

A few nights after this episode, on our last dinner together at home, my father unexpectedly shared a very private moment of his past with us. He had never done that, never to that extent, never so passionately, never so vulnerably.

I had never seen my father so human, so imperfect and beautifully broken.

Do you realize what an amazing father have you managed to become, despite all this?

I said before holding him in an embrace of gratitude, of understanding, of oneness; I had never seen us so human, so imperfect and beautifully broken.

***

Last week, after much work toward it, Gjusta Grocer, in Venice, purchased a first batch of my cookie mixes, in every flavor. Oh, the joy and pride I felt! I could barely hold the excitement.

The Italian Cookie at Gjusta Grocer in Venice

I called my mom, but she didn’t pick up. So I tried my best friends, but none of them was available.

I couldn’t share my joy with anyone, and the joy dimmed.

I had worked so hard on that project, I had baked and baked, changed the recipe, upgraded the labels and I had finally been successful at getting them to the prestigious shelves of Gjusta; I was so happy…and yet not being able to share the happiness toned it down.

So is it the feeling that matters, or how the feeling makes us relate to the people around us?

Is it the pain that hurts, or feeling alone in it? Is it the joy that makes us feel good, or is it sharing it?

I have been thinking a lot about the power I give my feelings, and how I tend to forget the even greater power of sharing them. And not for them to be fixed or validated, rather for their energy to be released, absorbed, re-purposed.

Share Culinary Self-Care by Alice Carbone Tench

Can we all become vulnerable again and show who we are? The world is not Instagram, where people carefully choose what to share about their life. Real life, real relationships, are those made of the whole deal, the entire recipe, not the 30-second ASMR reel of cracking eggs, scooping out cookie dough, or sounding out the crunchiness of a potato roti. I am done with that; it’s boring, and dangerous.

As I keep writing my new book, I think about the depth of my productivity during my Beachwood years (for those who are new here, I refer to Beachwood years as the few years I lived on Beachwood Dr. in the Hollywood Hills, by myself, recently sober, and where the blog that became this newsletter took off).

Those were the years of a Blackberry as a phone, no Instagram, a well of strong feelings, dreams that always seemed possible, courage of getting out of my comfort zone, and precious evening time to write all that had to say, after long hours of work during the day. Those were the years when I learned the power of purposeful and meaningful sharing.

Those were the years of less people knowing what I was up to, but those who did know, chose to be involved, to be part of pain and joy, and to let me in in theirs.

When Instagram came along, and we all bought into it, sharing became fast-fashion, disposable and short-lived, people felt entitled and free to look at your life through a lens, without real participation, sometimes without even following. I am guilty of that, too. For it made it easy for us to only take, selectively give, ultimately leaving us depleted and with a false sense of grandness, of influence, and power.

So these days I try not to pick up the phone every time I am bored, or angry, or sad: I stay in it, I feel it all, I look around, observe details, call a friend rather than liking a post.

It’s harder than I thought, but what I receive in return is real life, real sharing of it with those who want a seat the table for the entire meal, without matching plates and coastal couture placemats.

And I have always loved those kind of dinners.

Following the Breadcrumbs

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