Current Obsessions
March 7, 2025
After almost three weeks on the road, it felt great to fall asleep in my own bed this week. As soon as the Alabama college tour concluded, I hopped on a plane to Jacksonville and spent a few days at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club. Upon returning to Raleigh, I hosted my cousin Jason Plumb, whom I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. It was a wonderful reunion, and I look forward to many more. As he pulled out of the driveway, I frantically repacked my suitcase, switching out cover-ups for ski pants. My family and I then took the direct Delta flight to Salt Lake City (hallelujah, there aren’t a ton of directs out of RDU) and spent a few days skiing and snowboarding. And that brings me to the first thing I’m currently obsessed with…
Yoga as a gateway to cross country skiing
I admit to being a terrible downhill skier. I did not grown up skiing or doing any winter sports, and the by the time I tried snowboarding in the icy Troodos Mountains of Cyprus (a terrible place to learn, BTW), I knew I disliked heights, unchecked speed and landing on my bottom. I’ve taken some downhill lessons since, and while I am fine on a bunny hill, it’s just not my thing. Still, I had wanted to try cross-country skiing for ages, so this year seemed like my opportunity. I contacted the Nordic Center at the Solitude Resort and signed up for a two-hour, private lesson. While my family raced down the slopes of Snowbird, I caught the bus up to Solitude and rented my equipment and purchased a trail pass. My teacher, Anya was amazing— friendly, patient and relaxed, and once she learned I practiced yoga, she put her instructions to me in yoga terms, and I was able to pick up the basics of Classic Nordic more quickly than I expected. (There is also the Skate Skiing form of cross-country, but I’ll tackle that adventure on another trip!) After the lesson, I took a lunch break at the nearby Brighton Resort, then got back on my narrow skis and practiced around the Nordic track until it was time to head back to the hotel. Before I left, I signed up for another private lesson with Anya for the next day to begin working on hills and turns.
When learning a new skill, especially as an adult, a great teacher is essential. I can still hear the voice of a downhill instructor at the Canyons Resort in Park City years ago, screaming at me to “Point your skis down that mountain!” Even though I had begged him to teach me how to take the hill slowly. Anya, on the other hand, built up my confidence, which allowed me to push myself physically and mentally. I may not be ready for this amazing cross-country ski trip featured in New York Times this week, but I’m already looking forward to next winter.
Not only did Anya get me zipping around a frozen pond, but she also talked me into something I hadn’t done since I was 20-something: hitchhiking! Because the Utah Transit Authority ski bus is totally unreliable and takes forever, Anya and some of her colleagues hitchhike down the mountain at the end of the day. Not everyone stops to pick up a hitchhiker, but for the most part the ski community is laidback and generous. The trick is to get someone who hasn’t started their après ski celebrations too early; it’s a steep, winding road, and you wouldn’t want to be reckless. It didn’t take long for a guy to stop and offer both Anya and I a ride together. He turned out to be a very interesting long-haul truck driver from Washington state, who hates Seattle liberals but is also unimpressed by Trump and Vance. Our 20-minute conversation took as many twists as the road we were driving on. A great experience and a reminder that you’re never too old.
What does this woman have against aprons?
I have started watching the new Netflix series With Love, Meghan. I am not terribly interested in the royal family- or the former working royals- but like many of you, I was curious about the show in spite of being exhausted by the idea of more lifestyle voyeurism content. For me, the aspirational space is a double-edge sword. On the one hand, design/fashion/fitness/culinary influencer reels and series are dopamine for my brain. I simply stare at pretty images, often where a stylish woman is showing me how to do creative things, and my brain is flooded with pleasure and able to switch off for a few blissful minutes. This is, of course, if I am disciplined enough to keep it to a few minutes. For this reason, I advise caution when switching on With Love, Meghan. You don’t really need to know how to make microwave popcorn from dried corn cobs. And the time spent watching Meghan assemble a rainbow fruit platter for a children’s party could be better allotted helping said children with their homework. Still, the show, while heavy handed, is indeed beautifully shot, and who couldn’t benefit from seeing how Alice Waters dries her lettuce leaves? (Spoiler alert: no salad spinner is involved.)
The other piece of my dilemma is whether or not watching aspirational, lifestyle content is good for one’s self-esteem. Is it healthy to compare one’s looks, fitness and standard of living to those of others? Are we lazy, under-achievers if we don’t take our dried goods out of their original packaging and put them in label-free glass jars as soon as we return home from the (farmers) market? I realize that Meghan Sussex (don’t call her Markle, s’il vous plaît) is not new to the genre, as many have incorrectly suggested. She was sharing travel, food and beauty tips back in 2014 with her blog The Tig. However, I get the sense after watching several episodes of With Love, Meghan as well as the reels she’s recently posted to her Instagram, that she’s actually very similar to the rest of us. What’s more striking than her approach to hosting is that she desperately wants for us to know her and like her. In both Harry & Meghan, the 2022 Netflix documentary, and the (in)famous 2021 Oprah interview, it was all about the Sussexes finally telling their side of the story. Now it’s Meghan peppering recipes with tidbits about her personality, “I love feeding people. It is probably my love language.” She talks about growing up a latchkey kid who ate fast food. She tells actress Mindy Kaling she loves a “high-low mix” when it comes to clothes, pairing Zara with Loro Piana. I put the case: nothing says “I need you to like me” more than pairing Zara with Loro Piana. (And for the love of God, can she please protect that off-white, $1300 sweater with an apron?) Meghan claims over and over— whether assembling gift bags or icing a cake— that it’s not about “perfection,” but as one takes in the chic wardrobe, the exquisite kitchen (not hers, but a friend’s) and her sumptuous garden, it’s very difficult to believe her.
So enjoy With Love, Meghan and order her jams (once they are available), if it makes you happy. But know that she doesn’t have it all figured out. No one does. We are all in some way searching for approval, and moreover, we all have really great advice and expertise to offer.
Angelina Jolie as a fatalistic Callas
I watched Pablo Larraín’s Maria on the plane ride home from Salt Lake. Maria stars Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. It debuted at the Venice Film Festival last summer, began streaming on Netflix in January and earned Jolie a Golden Globe nomination. It’s the final story in Larraín’s trilogy— along with Jackie about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Spencer about Princess Diana— profiles of iconic women living in the “glass prison of incredible fame.” With the exception of its gorgeous cinematography (its only Oscar nomination), in my opinion, Maria is the weakest of the three films. Unfortunately, Larraín has boxed himself in— the opening shot is of a small group gathered around a corpse and the date, September 16, 1977. Then the words “one week earlier” flash on the screen, and we essentially know where this film is going and that it can’t go any further— the limit has already been set. In addition, while Jolie’s performance is very good, with some excellent one-liners, the story of an aging star who is addicted to pills and would prefer to die if she can’t be at the peak of her career feels very overdone and very Norma Desmond. Still, for opera fans, I think you’ll find the film worthwhile. If you do watch Maria, be sure to turn on closed captions so that you know exactly what arias Callas is performing. If you happen to know the basic plot of La Traviata or Tosca, all the better. (FWIW, the singing voice is Callas’s, and Jolie is lip syncing, with a few exceptions when Jolie’s voice was blended in with Callas’s in the present-day scenes.)
Mike Wallace is no match for La Callas
I didn’t know very much about Callas’s career and personal life, so naturally after watching Maria, I went down a rabbit hole to fill in some blanks. The New York Times led me to a fascinating 1974 episode of 60 Minutes in which Mike Wallace interviews Callas during her farewell tour. Wallace points out that 60 Minutes was not allowed to film Callas singing unless they paid her an “exorbitant amount” so the show resorted to playing recordings of past performances under still photos. As the interview goes on, Wallace comes across as obnoxious. He seems intent on wanting to shame Callas for her love life and to portray her as difficult (canceling performances due to illness). At one point he says accusingly, “You broke up with your husband.”
“Thank heavens I did,” Callas pushes back.
“And took up with Onassis.”
“What’s wrong with that?” She laughs.
Later Wallace tries to insist that her private life has not been as successful as her musical career. Callas is not having it, and I love her for it. She blames the break-up of her marriage at least partly on fame. “Well, why probably, I became a bit too famous for my own good. And maybe I put men on a pedestal.” She adds, “Fame goes to the head of the people near you.”
When Wallace tries to convince Callas that she must regret not marrying Onassis, she replies that they had a wonderful life together and that her only regret is that she stopped singing for several years. And then she delivers the coup de grâce to Wallace, who himself married four times.
“One marries once only. One makes that mistake only once.”
I now need another film about Callas (maybe 2017’s Maria by Callas?), one in which she is healthy, vibrant and cutting absolutely everyone down to size.
Xoxo, Emily