This Is What Freedom Actually Looks Like

Summer tables, sacred Saturdays, and why a well-placed "no" might be the most radical thing you do this year.

What does freedom actually look like in a woman’s life? How does it sound? How is it arranged around a long dinner table? What are its irresistible smells? How does it feel in our lungs, in our step? How is it proved by the way we organize any given Saturday? I mean, look, we (me) can talk about it ad nauseam. We philosophize and wax poetic. We can verbally tear down walls we forget to dismantle in real life. Frankly, we go on and on. It is easy to sound evolved.

There is a time to ruminate on new information, but also like Richard Rohr says, “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” In no particular order, here are my personal signs of life marked by pleasure for pleasure’s sake, an allergy to drama, gutsy gusty delights, and an obsession with flourishing:

Let’s start with my table. As we steer into bright, vibrant summer, you will find my table full, just like I like it. You’ll see tomatoes a thousand ways, basil, burrata, toasted sourdough. I will go through a gallon of balsamic. Confit garlic has entered the chat, and may it never leave. My besties 100 feet up the street hand over a bag of banana peppers and radishes and jalapenos from their garden once a week which I turn immediately into salsa loaded with cilantro and lime. I have ice cold Sauv Blanc and Rose always, always on hand, and I haven’t made a dressing, sauce, or marinade without lemons in a month.

My table is currently studded with tiny, heirloom pink roses and candles, candles, candles. Music is on around the clock: Kacey Musgraves, Trisha, old school Vince Gill, the Chicks, vintage Norah and Civil Wars. I bought six cheap lamps and turn them on at the first hint of dusk. My favorite candle is always lit (lavender and eucalyptus) and I have a dedicated drawer for backups so I will never run out.

My favorite people gather at that table, and it is my life’s joy to feed them, spoil them - my best friends, my kids, my kids’ friends, my sibs, my family and their families. Carafes of Pinot Noir and cucumber water, beautiful dishware because why else do we have them, dinner table questions I can never quit: What are you most proud of this year? What is your secret dream? What was your worst date ever? What are you obsessed with right now? Little boys and babies running amok, so much laughter, retiring to the porch, everyone staying past bedtimes because the light is lasting longer and the company is too good.

I cannot get enough of any of it.

Let’s move on to some small refusals that have quietly built a freer life.

I don’t work on the weekends anymore. And when I travel for work on a weekend, I take Monday off. That might not sound like much, but when your job is literally never done, I could (and have) work seven days a week for yeeeeeeeears. Friday nights are ALWAYS Homemade Pizza Night with the friend group at the Hefferan’s (I make the marinara every week); this tradition is so special, it needs its own post. But rest assured it involves specialty pizzas, perfected dough made lovingly by Jordan every week, kids, new babies (they keep coming), porches, golf cart rides, music, new friends, brick oven calzones, and pure love.

Saturdays and Sundays find me sleeping in (!!!!!), making the perfect coffee (HEB Texas Pecan + Coconut Cream creamer idc leave me alone), watching food shows on Saturday and CBS Sunday Mornings on Sundays, and eventually making myself an over the top breakfast. Then I putter. I water my plants. I read on the porch swing. I meal prep for the week. I chase down some binge-worthy show or, like right now, watch the Softball Women’s College World Series and group text my OG family the entire time, because we are all obsessed.

Another small refusal involves a much more judicious use of my yeses. I, like most of you, am asked for a great deal of favors. I have whatever amount of influence, and it is useful to folks. In my younger years, I felt compelled to say yes to every ask, every endorsement, every lunch meeting to “pick my brain”, every event, every collab, every donation of my platform. How could I not?? It seemed an appropriate fee to pay in service of good things and in gratitude for my social capital.

This position almost sent me to the grave. Unable to bear the guilt of a decline or anyone’s disappointment, I ran myself utterly ragged. Every spare second: spoken for. Every day off: booked. Every single request: approved. Yes to strangers. Yes to a friend of a friend of a friend. Yes to all the publishers. Yes to the “extra requests” on top of what I agreed to.

These days, my circle is so small. I give - and no one will tell you differently - joyous, wholehearted yeses to my beloveds. If you are my friend, you know it. If I have said yes to you recently, I wanted to. But I built a big two-person life with a spouse that I now have to manage alone, so my best yeses are required at home. It finally dawned on me that limitations are real: time, energy, influence, and loyalty are my primary assets, more than anything else I steward. Try these kind responses if you’re in need of less:

• I am so flattered you asked. Thank you, but my plate is as full as I’d like right now. Cheering for you!

• What a worthy event/cause/goal! I appreciate the ask, but any additional yes I give right now is a no to my family. Proud of your work! Keep going!

• I love that you want to include me, but I don’t have the bandwidth to take on any more responsibilities right now. Hope it is a huge success!

• Hey, I really wish I could, but I am already overcommitted. I have to say no. Thanks for understanding.

A few other practices to make freedom sustainable instead of theatrical:

Know when to triage a text, email, or call. You are not on the hook for someone else’s timeframe. They might have fired off a text, but you are either in the middle of something else or don’t have the emotional capacity to engage that very minute. THIS IS FINE AND NORMAL. This has always been normal until our phones made us accessible 24/7 and everyone felt entitled to our immediate attention. (I hate this so much. Ask anyone who knows me: I almost never have my phone out, and if you ever catch me texting while I’m talking to a living person, I’ll give you $5000. The rudeness of this blows my mind.)

Swap out a chunk of screen time for a book every day. I’m so serious. These screens are rewiring our brains, and ChatGPT is replacing them altogether. I know it. You know it. We all know it. Every one of us needs less, less, less, less, less. Less phones, TVs, and socials. Less mindless scrolling (oops there went an hour and a half). Reading is nourishing mind food and a natural antidote to the anxiety our screens create. Here are a few books worth your time:

• Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

• The Storyteller’s Secret by Sejal Badani

• The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett (reading in our July Book Club and YOU SHOULD READ WITH US!)

• We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

• Go As a River by Shelley Read

• The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

• Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris

• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (sorry, my fave of all time and I guess you’ll have to hear about it for infinity)

What if you tried a Slow Summer? In place of “slow,” you could also add: less, quieter, simpler, lighter, brighter, calmer. Let freedom smell like ripe tomatoes and sound like friends laughing in your driveway in camp chairs. Let it feel like the relief of a polite decline. Treat rest and peace like the building blocks of a good life. Look down to see a book in your hands more than your phone. Have cut off times, cut off dates, protected days, weekends, or whole entire weeks. Fiercely protect your little life and watch it flourish.

And whatever you do, go heavy on the basil and lemons.

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