Hello friend,
It’s mud season in Iowa. Mud season is the depressing stretch after Christmas and before anything better, when the ground alternates between “snow-covered wonderland” and “impassible morass.”
Last week, we got six inches of snow. It melted over the weekend, and the whole town is mud — mud in yards where houses once stood, mud where sidewalks used to be before grass obliterated them, mud where the streets have turned from pavement to gravel. Mud coating the side of my Audi, reminding me that my car — like me — doesn’t entirely belong here.
[Side note: the Germans must have learned a thing or two about mud on the Western Front, because the Audi handles beautifully on gravel roads.]
Mud season is visceral, slathering everything in grime and sadness. My UPS driver, Chris, arrives almost daily with my endless deliveries, and his boots are caked in mud. This may be marginally better than dust season, when Chris is covered in dust and my deliveries are too — but mud season has its own uniquely depressing vibe.
There’s a quiet to this season, though, that is different from urban life. In the alternate universe where I’m still in San Francisco or Denver, this season has nothing to do with mud. It’s the chaotic, crazy-making mix of annual planning and performance evaluations (and, this year, the crushing anxiety of layoffs). It’s the rush to set and keep resolutions that will ensure that this year, finally, is better than last year.
Mud season has no goals.
Mud season is never better than last year.
Mud season’s very nature prevents you from thinking you can go very fast, or very far. It reminds you that sometimes, you should hunker down and wait for the ground to be ready. It is a period of renewal, and rest, and nurturing plans for spring.
I’m in a bit of my own mud season right now — somewhere between the off-ramp from my corporate life and the on-ramp to whatever comes next. I’m writing, slowly; cooking, slowly; remodeling, slowly; sleeping, a lot.
Mud season can be great if you go with it and let the renewal happen.
But spring is inevitable, and I’m nearly ready to bloom again.
This is my first newsletter, after saying months ago that I would start this, and apparently I’m going with “mud” as my first topic. I don’t think a marketer would recommend that. I don’t think a marketer would recommend most of what I’ll probably write about. C’est la vie.
But even though I’m pretending that I’m into the weather like I’m the Old Farmer’s Almanac, I feel a little imposter-y with this newsletter. I want to state that right from the beginning.
It feels impossible to explain this small town life in a way that is neither overly smug (from my snarky coastal elite side) nor overly sanitized (from my small town side that wants to show only the best of this place to outsiders). I feel like I’m trying to thread the needle between “redneck whisperer” and “tourism brochure,” somehow responsible both for explaining how this area has decayed to the point of collapse, while also not getting into messy areas like politics and economics.
But these people aren’t rednecks, this place’s fate isn’t set in stone, and I think there’s value in saying something, even if I won’t always get it right.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: my newsletter will be a specific, fragmentary slice of what life is in my small town. It’s entirely through the lens of someone who grew up here, spent over twenty years in San Francisco and other cities, and recently moved back. I’ll probably mostly share personal anecdotes over journalist-style reporting, and those anecdotes may be tweaked to protect individuals’ privacy — but I’ll be true to what I perceive around me.
So… we’ll see where this newsletter goes and how it evolves over time. I plan to write something weekly-ish for now. If you have a comment, or just want to shower me with some early encouragement, please get in touch!
I can’t wait to share this small town life with you — thanks for being here.
Kisses,
Sara
Your description of mud and its agendalessness has inspired me to introduce a little more grace and patience into this time of year. Thank you for painting this picture -- can't wait for your next installment!
Probably in part because I am in the midst of the yearly planning nonsense that you mentioned, I loved this line: “ Mud season has no goals. Mud season is never better than last year.” Love following along on insta and the cocktail recipes, as a fellow midwesterner who sometimes wonders what going home would look like too…very curious to follow along on small town life!!!