For You, My November Recommendations✨

Two slim + brilliant reads, one soothing podcast, two movies, Mrs. Prada's V-neck sweater, and the search for the perfect accent chair...for that SPOT.

Last night my partner was feeling under the weather, so we decided to do the unthinkable and go to bed early and watch a movie. I don’t know about you, but the urge/desire to watch a movie these days always seems to be coupled with a sort of modern dread…not the movie part but the navigating of the many billions of apps/logins/bundling/“Leaving This Month!” hysteria part, which makes me want to retreat back to childhood when having 32 channels felt positively absurd.

The good (and merciful) part, though, was that I knew what I wanted to watch: ”Nyad,” the new biopic about Olympic swimmer Diana Nyad played by Annette Bening. I’d read the profile about Bening in the recent issue of T Magazine’s “The Greats,” and after learning a little bit about how she began swimming and training with Nyad herself in open waters a year before filming even began, I was captivated. Bening is 65 and despite spending long days in a wet suit in the cold ocean temperatures, she personifies Nyad who, at 60, embarked on a goal she’d attempted and failed at when she was just 28—being the first person to swim the Straits of Florida from Cuba to the Keys.

There were the years of 8, 9, and 14-hour daily open-water swims to train, the frequent threat of numerous breeds of sharks and encounters with the deadliest jelly fish, and also Nyad’s enduring friendship with her best friend and coach Bonnie, played so beautifully by Jodie Foster. It was really, really nice for a change to see two women rooting for each other, believing in each other, sharing in each other’s wins and fears and also crushing disappointment. True soul mates. There are so many reasons I loved this movie and why I’m leading my recommendations with it this month, but I loved it also because it’s about FAITH…not just having it but sustaining it. It tells the story of a woman who tries something unimaginable at 60 years old. Something physically punishing, something societally unbelievable…a 60-year-old woman coming out of retirement to do something no one in the world has ever done…and she does it.

I cheered and I wept. And I can’t wait to watch it again…here, the first words Nyad spoke when she emerged from the waters after her epic journey…

“One, we should never, ever give up. Two, we’re never too old to chase our dreams. Three, it looks like a solitary sport but it takes a team.”

Please, please, please watch it. Bening is a marvel and this film reminded me not to be so fearful of doing something really fucking hard again. That there is a continuous reward in believing in yourself…not just getting to the goal but betting on yourself no matter how harsh the circumstances…and the critics❤️.

Okay, on with all the other things I’ve discovered/fallen in love with recently that are proving to be exceptional, and I hope you love them, too…