Since these are works I have actually listened to, watched, or read, I’m sure I’ve missed some worthy stuff. So if you have your own recommendations to share, I’ll add them to the stack of books and movies I hope to catch up on over the holidays!

Favorite Books of 2021:

• Matrix — Lauren Groff

• How the Word Is Passed — Clint Smith

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev — Dawnie Walton

• The Lincoln Highway — Amor Towles

• Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City — Andrea Elliott

• Harlem Shuffle — Colson Whitehead

• Cloud Cuckoo Land — Anthony Doerr

• These Precious Days — Ann Patchett

• Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner

• Aftershocks — Nadia Owusu

• Crossroads — Jonathan Franzen

• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

• Beautiful Country — Qian Julie Wang

And here’s a reminder of books I recommended earlier this year:

• At Night All Blood Is Black — David Diop

• Land of Big Numbers — Te-Ping Chen

• Empire of Pain — Patrick Radden Keefe

• Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir

• When We Cease to Understand the World — Benjamín Labatut

• Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future — Elizabeth Kolbert

• Things We Lost to the Water — Eric Nguyen

• Leave The World Behind — Rumaan Alam

• Klara and the Sun — Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Sweetness of Water — Nathan Harris

• Intimacies — Katie Kitamura

Favorite Movies of 2021:

• Drive My Car

• Summer of Soul

• West Side Story

• The Power of the Dog

• Pig

• Passing

• The Card Counter

• Judas and the Black Messiah

• The Worst Person in the World

• Old Henry

• The Last Duel

• The Tragedy of Macbeth

• C’mon C’mon

• Quo Vadis, Aida?

Favorite Music of 2021:​​

• The Only Heartbreaker — Mitski

• I Don’t Live Here Anymore — The War On Drugs ft. Lucius

• Tala Tannam — Mdou Moctar

• Magnolia Blues — Adia Victoria

• Witchoo — Durand Jones & The Indications & Aaron Frazer

• Formwela 10 — Esperanza Spalding

• Gold Chains — Genesis Owusu

• Broken Horses — Brandi Carlile

• Woman — Little Simz ft. Cleo Sol

• Pepas — Farruko

• Go Down Deh — Spice ft. Sean Paul & Shaggy

• Freedom — Jon Batiste

• It’s Way with Me — Wye Oak

• Nobody- Nas ft. Ms. Lauryn Hill

• Nightflyer — Allison Russell

• Montero (Call Me By Your Name) — Lil Nas X

• Patria y Vida — Yotuel, Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, el Funky

• Notice — Tammy Lakkis

• Armash — Teddy Afro

• Write a List of Things To Look Forward To -Courtney Barnett

• Volví — Aventura & Bad Bunny

• Headshots (4r Da Locals) — Isaiah Rashad

• Boomerang — Yebba

• In My Blood — MO3 & Morray

• Ya — YEИDRY

• Rumors — Lizzo ft. Cardi B

• Walking at a Downtown Pace — Parquet Courts

And here’s a reminder of the songs I had on my summer playlist:

https://scottcdunn.medium.com/?source=post_page-----85498e3e5b25-----------------------------------

ScottCDunn

https://medium.com/creators-hub/id-like-to-be-free-of-it-now-85498e3e5b25?source=post_page-----85498e3e5b25-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·5 min read

Photo: Matthieu Spohn/Getty Images

This story is behind Medium’s membership paywall, which means the writer earns through our Partner Program. To become a Medium member, click here.

Addictions are usually addictions to consumption. I’m no stranger to addiction. I’ve tried pot, booze, people, sex, food, caffeine, histrionics, TV, and…

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

I’m sure you’ve experienced those strange moments when you feel like your heart is pulled in opposite directions. There are so many experiences with this double-sided quality, where we feel two emotions at once.

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----88ec444b6835-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/the-best-books-i-read-in-2021-are-all-about-weirdos-88ec444b6835?source=post_page-----88ec444b6835-----------------------------------

Dec 10, 2021·6 min read

I might be a professional writer or whatever, but for many years, I have felt deep shame over the fact that I don’t read enough books. It’s not that I hate books or anything. They’re fantastic! It’s just that in this terrible modern world, being able to focus on a book isn’t…

https://kategreentripp.medium.com/?source=post_page-----3a340c067550-----------------------------------

Kate Green Tripp

https://forge.medium.com/when-life-is-slow-go-even-slower-3a340c067550?source=post_page-----3a340c067550-----------------------------------

Dec 13, 2021·3 min read

Photo: Artur Łuczka / Unsplash

Last week, my car needed service.

I typically manage such days of privileged inconvenience by dropping my car at the dealer and grabbing a ride home with a friend or taking advantage of Toyota’s free shuttle service. But in these unusual times, when policies and hours of operation change as county health…

Story by Bella Coronado

Esperanza Coronado didn’t cook because she had to, or because it was a hobby; cooking was her love language, how she communicated joy.

On the rare occasion when my Abuela’s four sons, three daughter-in-laws and 12 grandchildren gathered together, we came around her food. She valued the way food brings people together, because it brought warmth that could be felt in every room; it was felt through conversations between family members around the table.

Her cooking left an impression. From birthdays to family gatherings, if anyone came through my Abuela’s front door, they would instantly know they were about to be fed well.

My Abuela was more than just the food she made, you could tell because she put her whole heart into making sure everyone enjoyed a good meal. It is one thing to make food, but cooking a meal to be shared between your family is a way of expressing love in the most sincere way.

Folded tamales rest on a plate before being cooked in a giant steaming pot. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Growing up, I remember the package of tamales that would magically appear on our doorstep during the holidays. Traveling 976 miles from Yucaipa, California, the tamales would last for months in our freezer. Their flavor was rich and spicy, wrapped up in chewy masa and corn husk envelopes.

My Abuelos immigrated to southern California in the 1960s. My Abuelo worked in the Coachella and San Joaquin Valley. He later became the foreman of two egg poultry farms. My Abuela often stayed home cooking and caring for their four sons and occasionally helping on the farm.

I grew up visiting my family in Yucaipa during summers and sometimes around the holidays. All of my fondest memories with my family involve food.

I have many memories of eating in my Abuela’s tiny kitchen, my Aubuelo somewhere out back tending to his goats, the black and white desert scenes of an old Western film playing on the TV.

When I was 15 she showed me how to make tamales.

My Abuela was known for her tamale recipe. My dad told me that it wasn’t Christmas unless she made them.

She would marinate the pork and chicken, patting together masa and assembling each individual tamale by hand. They would cook for hours, the smell of smoky peppers and sweet masa filling the entire house. The enduring process of watching them come together and steam in the big, metal pot was always worth the wait.

Tamale-making is an art. Originating back to 8,000 B.C., tamales have been an important part of Mexican culinary cuisine and national identity. Passed on from each generation, traditional Mexican recipes hold a beautiful meaning and connection to a vibrant culture.

Bella fills tamales in her kitchen in Bellingham, Wash. on October 24, 2021. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals connect me to the culture that I have grown so distant from.

“Having those traditional kinds of meals plays an important role in our lives because it helps us remember the past,” my dad said as we reminisced about Abuela’s cooking and how much we miss her. “Those things that come and go, and meals, especially traditional meals, can help us remember those moments.”

There was always something cooking on the stove. You could peek around the kitchen counter and see Abuela’s petite figure, dark hair and delicate hands creating something that was bound to be delicious.

However, she never wrote any of her recipes down. The occasional scribble on the back of a receipt could be found around the house, but after her passing, no complete recipes were uncovered.

Meredith E. Abarca’s book, “Voices in the Kitchen,” mentions a cultural norm for Mexican women to not keep record of their recipes. She describes it as a sensory way of knowing the right taste and flavors of a recipe; a Sazón. Cooking without measurements or written instructions is common in a Mexican kitchen.

It could be because traditional recipes live through people. They are taught and remade year after year, generation after generation.

For me, remaking my Abuela’s tamale recipe is complex; all I know is based on foggy memories, taste and smell.

It is more than just adding the right ingredients.

I can try my best to replicate her food, but I would do anything to just enjoy the taste of a meal made by her again.

Bella’s tamale notes written out by memory. After talking to family members, she was able to piece together a recipe tasting close to her Abuela’s. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals hold special meaning in my life, especially during the holidays. They hold even more meaning now that my grandparents have passed. Though they are gone, my Abuelos leave a beautiful legacy within their children and grandchildren. Not only is our existence in their favor, but the heart of our culture and family ties connect us to one another.

My last visit in July was a very different experience. There was no wafting smell of beans and rice as I walked through the door. There was no hum of the frying pan, no heat of the stove and no plate of food waiting for me on the table. Instead of waking up to a breakfast of huevos rancheros or chilaquiles, my dad and I stopped by the local Del Taco.

The memories outlive even the tastiest homemade tamale. Gathering around the table brings us together.

“It gives us a place to be a family,” my dad said. “That’s important not only to me but in our heritage as well.” He told me that in Mexican culture, food reflects the connection between people, especially between those who are family.

I remember arriving to Yucaipa late one night during the Holidays, my dad and I exhausted from travel. My Abuela stayed up for us. She answered the door and greeted us by saying, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

Essential prep for the beginning and end of the new year

https://medium.com/@amberthealchemist?source=post_page-----e55199ddf7b4-----------------------------------

Amber the Alchemist

https://zora.medium.com/how-to-ground-your-mind-body-spirit-and-emotions-e55199ddf7b4?source=post_page-----e55199ddf7b4-----------------------------------

Dec 17, 2021·8 min read

Some folks use notebooks to review the old year and plan for the new year. Do you? Image: Getty

You don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that the past two years have been a whirlwind, to say the least. No matter how hard some people have tried to separate themselves from the Collective, the pandemic — along with political…

Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay

There’s a bucket in my classroom.

It’s bright yellow plastic with a sturdy black lid. It’s large. It looks like any one of the industrial sorts of buckets you might find in the aisles of Home Depot or in the dusty disarray of a construction site. It lives under my desk, just between a box of printer paper and a crate of student portfolios, and it has been there since 2013. It goes mostly unnoticed from day to day. It’s just a bucket, after all.

In my 16-year career as a high school teacher, I have been through more lockdowns than I can count. Neighborhood shootings, nearby police activity, external threats, and rumor-driven caution have all been past prompters for lockdowns to be enacted. The lockdown alarm at my school is awful — which is fitting. It’s a wall-jarring screech that sends students cowering from its racket even before they have a chance to process its meaning. The students crouch down, away from the floor-to-ceiling windows, and all of their fear and their questions collect in a dense cloud above, pressing down on us with invisible force, rendering us wide-eyed and breathless. It feels like choking.

It’s exhausting.

In the past two weeks, there have been multiple incidents of firearms discovered on my school’s campus. None have been brandished or used. We’ve been lucky.

Sometimes (many times) I think about how I would protect my students if there was an active shooter at our school. I think about the fire extinguisher hanging next to the door and how it might be sprayed or heaved at an armed attacker. I think about the weight of the chairs and desks in my room and wonder how quickly we could push and stack to create a barricade from the snarl of metal and plastic. I think of the fact that most students don’t get cell service in my classroom, which would make it difficult for them to make phone calls or send text messages to their loved ones. I think about what I would do in that razor-thin edge of a moment if I found that I was only thing standing between my students and unimaginable harm.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Today *could *be the day. Today our luck *could *run out.” I found myself wondering whether this would this be the last thing I ever wear. I found myself wondering — did any of the students or teachers at Oxford High School look in the mirror before heading to school or work and think these very same thoughts?”

Logical folks will tell me that I’m far more likely to die in a car accident or from cancer. They’re right. I know this because I *am “*logical folks” most of the time. But the logical part of my brain is also the part responsible for telling me to wear a seatbelt and obey traffic laws, and to exercise and eat well. The logical part of my brain is the part that wants to plan for the worst because the logical part of my brain knows that unlikely doesn’t mean *impossible. *This fear isn’t consuming me from the inside out; it’s not keeping me from living my life. Still, every time there’s coverage of another shooting, it’s impossible not to wonder if my students will be the next to say, “We never thought it could happen to us.”

The high school where I teach is a loud and cavernous place. Our students are vibrant and resilient and energetic. The hallways echo with student laughter, door slams, rail taps, thundering footfalls, and the occasional curse word. Every so often, a student will think it’s funny to pound heavily on classroom doors as they skitter by on a bathroom break, and entire classes will seize and jerk with a collective gasp, like any and all composure has been sucked from the room. They’re more than just startled. It takes several moments for them to recover from that split-second surge of belief that *it *could be happening to them.

Those yellow buckets appeared in our classrooms in January of 2013. That was eight years ago. That was the month after Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

We were tired then.

That yellow bucket opens. The flat lid flips on black plastic hinges, revealing what looks like a donut-shaped seat. Inside the bucket is an assortment of survival necessities that seem more appropriate to the debris-strewn wake of a natural disaster than a brightly lit public school classroom: a tarp, rope, plastic bags, first aid supplies, dehydrated food items, water, and a variety of other worse-case-scenario items. The bucket, one realizes upon further examination, is meant to double as a toilet in an emergency situation. The words LOCKDOWN KIT scream in glossy capital letters across the curved plastic. It’s a clever concept in its multifunctionality, but it seems oddly incongruous in a classroom setting. It’s unsettling.

Then again, this is the USA.

Most of the time I can forget these fears. They rest in the back of my mind, in a listless state of dormancy, and they go unnoticed for extended periods of time. I don’t constantly fret or worry. I do frequently lose myself in the joyous chaos of the typical day, and those sleeping fears allow my thoughts to linger decadently on Shakespeare or Steinbeck or Cisneros or Baldwin.

But every so often as I’m returning to my desk to check an email or edit a student’s grade, I see that yellow bucket.

Then I’m tired all over again.

https://medium.com/@lindacastrilli?source=post_page-----942da44c924-----------------------------------

Linda Castrilli

https://index.medium.com/i-took-an-extended-break-from-the-rat-race-here-are-lessons-learned-that-i-never-want-to-lose-942da44c924?source=post_page-----942da44c924-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·6 min read

Photo: GettyImages

In the spring of 2021, I left the corporate job I had been in for the prior seventeen years.

It was the first time since graduating college — and we’re talking early 1990s here — that I had been unemployed. Back then, OJ Simpson wasn’t yet on trial for murder and Prince…

Photo by Barry Zhou on Unsplash

I lost two students last month.

Not students who are currently enrolled in my class, although I have experienced that particular sort of devastation. No, these students were in my class several years ago. My kids. Any teacher will tell you that this is how it works.

When a student comes into my classroom, I tell them they have a lifetime warranty on their experience as my student. Struggling in college? Call. Need a reference? Email. Want to meet up for an in-person pep-talk? Text.

Many do.

I’ve attended college graduations and weddings and baby showers and birthday parties to celebrate them. I’ve held their brand new babies. I’ve let toddlers waddle across the colored tiles in my classroom as their parents fill me in on their adult lives. I’ve met them for brunches, lunches, dinners, and coffees. I’ve scheduled their appointments with therapists and talked them through post-college crises.

I tell them to call. Many do.

The ones who don’t are the ones who linger in my mind. They’re the ones I wonder about on some random cloudy afternoon as I drive down Interstate 5, my mind wandering to the crystal-clear centers of otherwise foggy memories: the stickers they carefully arranged on their water bottle or the playfully doodled notes they left on their assignments or the tears they shed as they sat in my classroom and cried over a break-up.

In sixteen years of teaching, I have yet to be able to convey the depth of the care I feel for my students. Every day they sit in front of me, vulnerable in their roles as learners, trusting me to guide them in a manner that will make them feel valued and capable. It’s the greatest responsibility of my life.

I just wish they knew.

I wish they knew that I root for them as I grade their essays.

I wish they knew that I see their pain on a bad day, the pain they try to hide behind a hoodie, and I cross my fingers, hoping that the next time I see them, the hood will be down and the smile will be back.

I wish they knew that I see them vying for acceptance every day, earnestness sparking quietly in their eyes, even as they work so heartbreakingly hard to make it seem like they don’t care what anyone else thinks.

I wish they knew how often they make me laugh — even when I have to hide it.

I wish they knew just how much they’re capable of accomplishing — especially when they have resigned themselves to the fate of being “bad” in school.

I wish they knew how much I love the notes they leave for me — on assignments, on the whiteboard, and on post-its. The crooked smiley faces and the silly jokes are fuel for another day.

I wish they knew that I carry their successes and failures with me long after the final bell of the day.

I wish they knew that I cross my fingers and toes for them on graduation day. That I hope post-high school life is everything they hope it will be and more. That if I could pave the road they’re about to travel to glass-like smoothness, I would. But I can’t and I know it’s for the best.

I wish my students knew how much I think about them after they leave me. I wish they knew how proud I am when they become mothers, fathers, teachers, nurses, lawyers, mechanics, firefighters, baristas, artists, welders, problem-solvers, soul-searchers, world-travelers, or whatever it is that fills them with a sense of their own tremendous worth.

I try to tell them these things— explicitly first — and then through my actions. I talk to them every single day. I try to cultivate silly little inside jokes with them. I tell them I’m glad they’ve come to class — even when they’re 30 minutes late. I invite them to stay after school if they need help — or just a quiet place to work. I encourage them to join the clubs I advise, and I tell them I miss them on the days that they’re gone.

I lost two students last month. Gone forever. Two truncated sentences in what should have been two full-length stories of vivacity and accomplishment.

I can’t help but wonder if they knew the richness they added to *my *life.

I hope they did.

https://irmamcclaurin.medium.com/?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Irma McClaurin

https://zora.medium.com/ode-to-bell-hooks-6275c7ddb3d0?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·2 min read

Images from bell hooks INSTITUTE, Berea College, bellhooksinstitute.com

sista bell hooks,

to you,

we owe

an enormous debt

that can never really

be repaid

in full.

You fed our minds,

gave us concepts

like Black Feminism

Photo by Mike Meyers on Unsplash

I’m no self-help guru but call your friends

https://johndevore.medium.com/?source=post_page-----4f244cbfa03a-----------------------------------

John DeVore

https://medium.com/humungus/my-favorite-podcast-is-talking-to-you-on-the-phone-for-hours-4f244cbfa03a?source=post_page-----4f244cbfa03a-----------------------------------

Dec 16·5 min read

The internet is a horn of cornucopia overflowing with mostly harmless self-help advice from aspiring gurus. Drink water. Yup, sure, can’t hurt. Go for walks. I get my 10,000 steps in every day. Try to get eight hours of sleep every night. It’s hard because I do love scrolling in bed at…

“Granite erratic, Dudmaston” by Richard Webb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with the planet.

“Granite erratic, Dudmaston” by Richard Webb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with the planet.

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/how-people-who-kept-their-new-years-resolutions-did-it-763e1678591b?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Dec 17·7 min read

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Time is kinda fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate, a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew. For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you…

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/how-people-who-kept-their-new-years-resolutions-did-it-763e1678591b?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Dec 17·7 min read

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Time is kinda fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate, a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew. For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you…

https://irmamcclaurin.medium.com/?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Irma McClaurin

https://zora.medium.com/ode-to-bell-hooks-6275c7ddb3d0?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Dec 16·2 min read

Images from bell hooks INSTITUTE, Berea College, bellhooksinstitute.com

sista bell hooks,

to you,

we owe

an enormous debt

that can never really

be repaid

in full.

You fed our minds,

gave us concepts

like Black Feminism

https://irmamcclaurin.medium.com/?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Irma McClaurin

https://zora.medium.com/ode-to-bell-hooks-6275c7ddb3d0?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Dec 16·2 min read

Images from bell hooks INSTITUTE, Berea College, bellhooksinstitute.com

sista bell hooks,

to you,

we owe

an enormous debt

that can never really

be repaid

in full.

You fed our minds,

gave us concepts

like Black Feminism

“Granite erratic, Dudmaston” by Richard Webb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with the planet.

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/how-people-who-kept-their-new-years-resolutions-did-it-763e1678591b?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Dec 17·7 min read

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Time is kinda fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate, a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew. For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you…