What's Feeding Me 🐛 vol. 9
a monthly buffet of creative fodder
The Webs We Weave is a place for meaning-makers, featuring essays that weave lived experience with fascinations and sharp-toothed questions as I tangle with what kind of woman I want to be.
Each month between essays, I share a little buffet of things that have been keeping me fed and fascinated: intellectually, creatively, and emotionally. These threads also have a way of making it into my longer pieces of writing.
I invite you to share in the comments what's been feeding you, too! Both with me, and with each other.
📔 Great Writing
📜 The Gift of No by Nicole Peattie
I have the honor of writing alongside some super talented friends each week in my Monday writing group, including —and I haven’t stopped thinking about this piece since she published it. The opening scene made me genuinely emotional, and the entire piece is both potent and beautiful. I dare you not to be moved.
•
📜 The Art of Finding by Linda Gregg
We read this piece by Linda Gregg during a generative writing session I attended in December, about unforgettable images. It’s widely understood that successful poems are fueled by powerful images—but the more I learn, the more I believe the same is true for essays. (At least, the type of essays I’m interested in writing these days.)
As someone who’s working on honing her noticing muscle and still learning how to see without looking, I keep coming back to this passage about building a ‘seeing’ practice (emphasis mine):
“I am astonished in my teaching to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world. They have ideas, memories, and feelings, but when they write their poems they often see them as similes. To break this habit, I have my students keep a journal in which they must write, very briefly, six things they have seen each day—not beautiful or remarkable things, just things. This seemingly simple task usually is hard for them. At the beginning, they typically "see" things in one of three ways: artistically, deliberately, or not at all. Those who see artistically instantly decorate their descriptions, turning them into something poetic: the winter trees immediately become "old men with snow on their shoulders," or the lake looks like a "giant eye." The ones who see deliberately go on and on describing a brass lamp by the bed with painful exactness. And the ones who see only what is forced on their attention: the grandmother in a bikini riding on a skateboard, or a bloody car wreck. But with practice, they begin to see carelessly and learn a kind of active passivity until after a month nearly all of them have learned to be available to seeing—and the physical world pours in. Their journals fill up with lovely things like, "the mirror with nothing reflected in it."
Writer friends! Do you keep any sort of ‘daily observations’ practice like this? How has it impacted your writing?
•
📰 The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century
I feel like we need a better word for those of us who are obsessive about great television the way cinephiles are obsessive about great film. I love my TV favorites with a fervor that makes me, at best, effusive in conversation and, at worst, insufferable at parties. This obsession may or may not be making its way into an essay I’m working on…
Suffice it to say, I was thrilled to see so many of my favorites are well represented in this Variety piece that highlights The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century—with some of my all-time faves clocking in at spots 15, 9 (!!), 8, and 1.
Fellow TV enthusiasts! How did your favorites fare on this list? What would you add/change?
•
🪶 Shoulders by Naomi Shihab Nye
I’m so grateful to Brad Aaron Modlin for sharing this timely, beautiful poem about caring for each other in a workshop last month—and now, I’ll share it with you. 🤍
〰️〰️
Great Listens and Watches
🎙️ Wild Card: Ada Limón doesn't want all the answers
My podcast feed has been feeling somewhat stale lately, but I recently stumbled onto the show Wild Card with Rachel Martin and it’s SO fun! Rachel gamifies the typical interview format by asking her celebrity guests to randomly select cards that feature deep questions, which leads to candid and revealing conversations.
I’m slowly making my way through the archives, but when I saw Ada Limón’s name in an episode title, I knew I had to listen. Ada was the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States and has a voice I could listen to all day—not to mention, I just find her wisdom incredibly soothing.
•
🎬 A Real Pain
Leading up to the Oscars, my husband and I always try to watch at least a few of the nominated films together. We streamed A Real Pain a few weekends ago and wow, it’s something special. The movie has a quiet confidence, and tells the story of two cousins with very different personalities who take a trip to Poland together to explore their family history in the wake of their grandmother’s death. The performances are beautiful, the story is beautiful, and visually the movie is stunning. Highly recommend.
•
📺 Severance (streaming on Apple TV+)
My husband and I, much like the rest of the internet, are fully obsessed with the show, Severance, currently in its second season. If you’re not familiar, the show follows a group of workers at the fictional company Lumon, who have each opted to undergo a neurosurgical procedure called ‘severance’ that ensures they retain no memories of the outside world while at work, and no memories from work once they leave.
It’s dark! It’s thinky! It has some very funny moments! It’s taking all of my brain power to keep up with the minutiae and connect all the dots as season two unfolds, but it’s fully worth the mental effort.
If you’re not already watching, check out the official Season 1 trailer below.
•
🎙️ Song Exploder: Severance (Main Title Theme)
Speaking of Severance! I’m such a fan of the Song Exploder podcast in general, but it’s always extra exciting when a new episode features a song I have some emotional connection to. Listening to Theodore Shapiro break down his process for creating the (FANTASTIC) main theme for Severance was fascinating.
One little detail I just love: apparently the song features two different pianos, a subtle nod to the duality that’s inherent to the show (OMG). Definitely worth a listen.
〰️〰️
🙇🏼♀️ Current Project or Micro Obsession
One Little Word
After several past attempts at this project where I started with the best of intentions and quickly petered out, 2025 appears to be the year I am committed to (and sticking with!) Ali Edwards’ annual project, One Little Word.
One Little Word is a year-long workshop Ali has been running since 2011 that involves choosing a word for the year, and engaging with it each month. Participants receive a new prompt each month that invites us to document our experience with our word in some way. I’m keeping it really simple this time, and that seems to be working for me.
If you’re curious, here’s a video Ali shared of her completed project from 2024. In it she talks a little bit about the project, and shows a visual flip-through of her completed album to give you a sense.
Fellow word-of-the-year choosers! How do you stay connected to your word throughout the year?
〰️〰️
🤭 An Internet Giggle, Just Because.
〰️〰️
Your turn!
What’s feeding you lately?
If you’re game, share something that’s been feeding you lately in the comments. A podcast, a book, a habit, a new favorite thing, a project that’s lighting you up, a thing that made you laugh… anything! Let’s crowdsource some good creative fodder. 👇
Until next time,
Michelle
Loved this. Every single item. Truly. Currently regenerating so not sure what it is I have to share but you've got me thinking. Thanks!!!
Friend!!!! Thank you for the mention!