Bliss and Fear

Every week, Healthyish editor Amanda Shapiro talks about what she's seeing, eating, watching, and reading in the wellness world and beyond. Pro tip: If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get the scoop before everyone else.

Healthyish friends,

I’ve felt a lot of ways in the last week, and every feeling—whether it’s sadness, fear, worry, gratitude, or love—has been intense. I’ve had anxiety so high that my throat constricts (not a helpful feeling during a respiratory pandemic). I’ve felt complete, irrational joy at the sight of blossoms on a tree. I’ve laughed uncontrollably at photos of my friend’s cat. I don’t even like cats.

I was talking about this with a friend who is a parent, and she compared it to having a newborn. “You’re living on the knife’s edge of bliss and fear,” she said, and I can’t get that phrase out of my head.

These days, my mornings start whenever my eyes bolt open, usually around 6 a.m., and I take my temperature while looking at my phone. I’m not saying this is a good morning routine, but it’s the way things are right now. I put on “The Daily,” then I listen to this new podcast from The Atlantic, which makes me feel informed, terrified, or both, depending on the day.

Recently the hosts of that podcast talked about how it’s okay to acknowledge that terrible things and beautiful things are happening at the same time. “People are dying and TV is good,” as one of the hosts put it. I can watch the infection rates rise, and I can dance alone in my apartment to Robyn. I can know that my governor is using prison labor to make hand sanitizer, and I can be calmed by his daily press briefings. I can let the internet swallow me with bad news, and I can be held up by strangers I’ve connected with there. All of these things can be true.

Here is a poem that made me cry in a good way.

Here is a silly three-minute workout I did today.

Here are some healthyish cookies that keep for weeks.

Here is an incredibly soothing list of Good Food Things. (Tag yourself: I’m “the tightest coils of curly fries.”)

Here is an app that’s helping me, and a lot of other people, find calm.

Here’s a way to keep your butt clean that doesn’t involve hoarding TP.

And here is a list of pasta shapes to match your emotional state. Wishing I were Reginette (Translation: little queens) but feeling more Fregula (Translation: little fragments) these days.

Until next week,

Amanda Shapiro
Healthyish editor