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Hi, friends! Happy weekend, and happy May!

How are you? I hope everyone’s well, and has had a good start to the month.

I’m doing something a bit different today, in recording an audio version of an essay posted at my other, beauty and lifestyle Substack, The Midlife Life Beauty Edit.

I’m super-aware that subscribers to one Substack won’t necessarily find the other relevant or of interest, which is why I keep the two separate. But, sometimes, there will be an obvious crossover, and this feels like one of those times.

SO much more to say, but for now, I hope you’ll enjoy this “crossover experiment”. Lastly, if you enjoy listening to and reading Life Stories, by hitting the ❤️ Like button below this post, Substack is more likely to spread the word through its Explore and Search functions. Thank you so much!

Sending much love, and especially thinking of friends Stateside for Mother’s Day on Sunday. Jen XX

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This week’s header comes with apologies to food writer , whose wonderful Tortellini at Midnight is on our kitchen bookshelf.

(And more about Emiko, and reading cookbooks like memoirs, in a moment).

But back to tiramisu.

“The name says it all. Tirami-su means “pick me up”. It means that if you’re feeling down, listless … this dessert will lighten your spirits.”

—Sophia Loren, Recipes and Memories.

And so it was that, on Friday night, I found myself standing in front of our open fridge, eating tiramisu at midnight. Straight from the box.

As I explained in my last post, we’ve had a sad, hard few weeks here — and thank you for all your kind thoughts, prayers and messages, we’ve felt them all! But, in true “both/and” tradition, there have been some beautifully timed joys, too - our eldest returning home after years away at university, and a milestone-y wedding anniversary for Will and I.

So, shop-bought tiramisu and New York cheesecake were the order of the weekend, when no one had the energy to bake but the urge to celebrate and be thankful for the good things, too.

Sophia Loren dedicates Recipes and Memories (long out of print, but you can still track down copies) to her Nonna Luisa, “not only for the many things I’ve learned from her, but for her ability to transform even the most ordinary food into something delectable.” Her take on tiramisu, though, came via Sophia’s Italian-American secretary.

Nevertheless, a tray of factory-made tiramisu, with its perfectly uniform peaks, will always remind me of one of the first summers we took our youngest to visit my birth papa and the family in Italy. One evening, papa, with full Tour Guide Mode activated (it always was), insisted on taking us to a friend’s restaurant a few miles along the Ligurian coast from our small town.

On our arrival, the centre seemed pretty quiet (maybe it was a Sunday or public holiday - I don’t remember). Crossing the cobbled street, it was clear that the restaurant, its shutters pulled down, was closed.

Not to be deterred (he never was), papa buzzed the intercom, announced our arrival and got his friend, the owner, to open just for us.

All I remember about the meal was the joy and pride on papa’s face as he watched the granddaughter he adored power through her first tiramusu, which she picked out from the dessert selection in the restaurant’s tall freezer. The original pick-me-up pudding remains her favourite, and she makes a mean one herself.

I can’t get enough of the kind of cookbooks that read like memoirs, illustrated by family stories and photos that transport you to the location that inspired them. Homes with billowing curtains and kitchens with porcelain sinks and bottles of washing up liquid jostling for position next to the extra virgin olive oil.

So I couldn’t be more excited that two of my favourite writers, Tessa Kiros and Emiko Davies have new books coming out this month (links go to their instagrams, because, well, also obsessed).

More about Tessa’s Now and Then: A Collection of Recipes for Always and Emiko’s Gohan: Everyday Japanese Cooking: Memories and stories from my family's kitchen — soon.

Thinking of all things Italy, have you seen the new Blue Zones series on Netflix?

I’ve been following writer and researcher Dan Buettner on Insta for some time now, so was all in to watch his deep-dive into the habits, diets and notably longer lives of those living in the so-called Blue Zones around the world.

What’s striking is how much seems to come down to community, face-to-face connection and faith. I’m just one episode in — we watched the one about Sardinia and also Okinawa, Japan, at the weekend — and I’m hooked. (There’s a cheat sheet here).

If you’re a fan of all things Med-living and Blue Zones, I think you might love on Substack, by Alki Gerassimou - just reading about her gorgeously photographed travels, feels like a mini-break. Go, soak up some end-of-summer sun!

Finally, all of that talk of tiramisu reminded me of something I posted to Insta a couple of summers back, of Bar Italia in Soho — a London landmark where I spent a disproportionate amount of time in my twenties — when my daughter and I got TIRAMISU IN A COFFEE CUP.

Sending much love as you sink a spoon into the new week,

Jen XOXO

All pics taken in my family’s hometown in Liguria, northern Italy.

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Something a bit different this week—this is a recording of an essay I wrote a couple of years ago. It feels super-timely if the conversations I’ve had with mothers preparing to ‘launch’ their children into next stages—college, uni, a new job or life chapter of some kind—are anything to go by.

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Inspired by the words of Madeleine L'Engle, I’m hoping it might bring some comfort to those who mother in all the many, miraculous shapes and forms that takes.

Also? I’m 100% reminding myself here, too. I might still be waking up around, oh I don’t know, say 3.12 am since we passed some big milestones here this month.

When I wrote about it on Instagram yesterday, one comment summed it up: “dreading it!!! But you must have been bursting 🥰”.

That’s just it: it’s both, all at once.

Finally, as an aside, can I suggest giving the first Mamma Mia a miss for the foreseeable, unless you need the full-throttled, cathartic, wailing release that Slipping Through My Fingers always guarantees?

My daughter and I went with friends to see the stage version last week. Her bestie’s mum and I were BRACING for the moment when the dressing table was wheeled onstage and Donna reached for the hairbrush.

HIDEOUS.

WHAT WERE WE EVEN THINKING??

OK, I think that’s it for today.

Much love for the weekend! BIG hug!

Jen XXX

ps: if you’re interested, the Madeleine L'Engle book is Walking On water: Reflections on Faith and Art.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennilisahoward.substack.com

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This week, I’m summarising a few posts I wrote on Instagram. While life has been busy over here (almost certainly with you, too?), I’ve been writing in the gaps there.

I’ve recorded them, too, to make this an audio newsletter/pod. Many friends, I know, like to have this option (so do I, and I wish more of my favourite newsletter writers would do it because I’d LOVE to hear them read them!). Also, I’m having a BIG audiobook thing right now—I especially love listening to memoir on Audible. More about that soon.

The photo above was taken a few years ago on holiday in France, when Will humoured me by setting out to find the same stretch of beach in Brittany which I visited as a child.

Please marvel at the plastic beach Pétanque set—those pastels!
I remember that waffle fabric swimsuit feeling heavy when it got wet with seawater, and how the scooped back sometimes left my shoulders sore after an afternoon spent rock-pooling with my brother—despite the suncream dispensed by my mother from a sandy-nozzled tube of Ambre Solaire (I can still smell it).
Decades later, clambering over the mossy rocks with my own children, I found myself yelling out “Watch your step!' and 'Not so fast! Slow down!", as I'm sure my mother did.
Do you remember returning to a magical spot, maybe decades later, in the hopes that, in making a new memory, you might relive the old one again, just a little?
To somehow find the past in the present, and wonder at it all?
Rocks, tides and time.

Carrying each other

This month I will … continue to wonder at all the ways we that we get to carry each other, and how we take it in turns to do so.

Never more so than during those times which are hard in a way Will describes as “shifting our tectonic plates” a little, on a deep, deep level. The ones that leave us feeling aftershocks for a while.
In recent months-maybe you, too?-I’ve been so grateful for the way others have carried us (including this gorgeous, now grown-up girl in the pink mac).
Also? I’m rubbish at giving piggybacks, so never ask me. I’ll drop you in approximately 3.5 seconds and you’ll need a soft landing.

And finally, for Mother’s Day in the US this weekend.

My beautiful mothers.

Both have loved me bravely and fiercely, through the hardest of circumstances: the first, heartbreak and loss, the second through longing and waiting and loving me just as if I’d been born of her body.

Now, as her memory fragments, she forgets that I wasn’t. All she knows is that I am her daughter, and she is my mother.
It has come to that, and that is everything.
And I’ve never loved them both more, with the deepest, fiercest daughter love.

Much love for your weekend,

Jen XXX

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I’ve started and stopped writing this to you so many times, but if I let it slide into February, I feel like I won’t be able to say “Happy New Year!”

(If we’re still in January—just—can we do that? I know, we’re pushing it.)

How are you, after a Christmas and holiday season which, again, looked different for so many? I’ve loved seeing all those posts on Instagram of postponed family gatherings, Christmas trees left up a little longer, crackers pulled and crowns worn long after the New Year’s corks had popped.

Late entries, of sorts. Yet all the more precious for it.

(Sidenote: are Christmas crackers just a British thing? If so, consider yourself spared another tradition: the comically tight paper crown that slowly slips and rips before the truly awful joke has been read out. We love it, really.)

I’d love to hear how these first few weeks of the year have been for you, and if your holiday get togethers spilled into this month.

If they couldn’t happen at all—or things have been unbelievably hard—I’m so sorry.

When it matters not

When I wrote, in my last newsletter, that I just wanted to finish last year “with love”, I could never have envisaged how that would look. My mother ended up in hospital after a fall on Christmas Day, needing surgery and we couldn’t be with her (or my dad), as we all went down with The Bug. 😩

Thank you so much to those who've left lovely and kind messages, here, by email and on Instagram. She is healing well, for which we’re so grateful, it’s been super- hard and my heart goes out to all those who have experienced similar trials and continue to.

I want to share one comment on a post I wrote, the first time I made it to the hospital to visit my mum.

I’d tapped it on my phone, while waiting in a corridor.

Sunday best. As in, truly the best and only place I would want to be in this moment, visiting my dear mum in hospital for the first time since she fell on Christmas Day.
Everyone here, from the healthcare assistants and nurses to the kindest lady on reception, have been wonderful.
And I’ve never been happier to be wearing such a last minute, throw-it-on-and-run outfit combo - even if I slightly feel like I should be doing someone’s foil highlights.

In replying, writer Crystal Hammon made the following observation:

“You know you’re in important space when what you have on your body matters not.”

Oof.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Flimsy plastic apron and blue gloves aside, I was just so happy to be at bed 8, overlooking the harbour, and seeing her eyes light up (literally). I have a ridiculous selfie of us on my phone of that moment that I will treasure always.

Back to class

After a couple of false starts, I made it back to my weekly Pilates class last week and I’m so glad I did.

I’m not great at it, but I always feel better afterwards. I head home over the bridge feeling energised, walking taller and breathing more deeply than when I rushed (late) to class over it, an hour earlier.

I’ve come a long way. You know the expression, “Dance like no one’s watching?”. For me, it’s “Dance like Miss Meacock from modern dance and ballet isn’t watching”.

Miss Meacock was my childhood ballet teacher at the Richmond School Of Dancing. Old school in every sense (and beloved for it). She was iconic and her reputation preceded her.

Every Saturday, I’d turn up to class in a vivid purple leotard, matching tights and black ballet shoes for modern dance; or white with pink tights and shoes, plus a baby blue, wrap-over ballet cardigan, knitted by my mother.

The big, mirrored studio smelled of dusty, soft leather ballet shoes. I’d always hide at the back, desperately trying to avoid Miss Meacock’s beady eye as she sat, bolt upright at the piano, and called out instructions. The only one I remember? “Mouth closed at the back, Jenni!”

I made it to one end of year performance, at Wimbledon Theatre, in which I mostly swayed a lot in a red satin skater dress and earmuffs, while the other girls danced around me to Winter Wonderland.

Over the years, any exercise class situation with mirrors has always got my inner ten year old rising. Yet doing Pilates mat-to-mat with my friend Becky at our local studio is a highlight of my week, and not just because she cracks me up with her cries of “Hideous!” and “Impossible!” throughout.

It’s the showing up, with a group of women of all ages and fitness levels, united in the same goal: to get fitter and stronger, together, in body and mind.

Our teacher gives the gentlest of guidance, and kindest correction—even when you collapse in an uncoordinated heap mid-“threading the needle”. 😳

Another friend, who has been though an incredibly hard time since Christmas, told me this week that she decided to take a ballet class for the first time since childhood. Her teacher was in the same mould as mine, and would use a cane to tap out the rhythm of the music on the studio floor.

She was in at the deep end, but she loved it.

Just earlier today, I came across Pilates instructor Nicole Field, who focuses on the mind/body connection in her work and the role of movement in recovering from trauma. I’d love to learn more about her approach (I might ask her onto the podcast. More about that soon!).

I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to draw up our mats alongside each other.

To dance, live and love like everyone’s watching.

And to know that it “matters not”.

Last but not least

As much as possible, I’m embedding pics and pasting captions from social media when I mention them, so you don’t need to click onto social if you don’t want to, don’t use it or are taking a break. More about this soon, but on that note, I 100% recommend listening to this episode of A Drink With A Friend, and following the ongoing conversation between Seth Haines and Tsh Oxenreider.

I’ve also been enjoying the new season of Joy Clarkson’s podcast, Speaking With Joy—especially the launch episode, in which she makes a defence, of sorts, for being “Aggressively Happy”, the title of her upcoming book.

Coincidentally, I’m reading Joy’s sister, Sarah Clarkson’s book This beautiful truth, on the recommendation of a friend who said I’d love it, and she was right. Have you come across it yet?

In a similar vein to Joy’s defence of “aggressive” happiness, Kelly Corrigan’s latest pod interview with science journalist Catherine Price, about The Power of Fun, left me wanting to take singing classes.

If not ballet.

I’ve linked here before to Florence-based tour guide Denya Pandolfi’s Instagram page, which I love for the way she captures the city, its light, colours and everyday buzz.

On Thursday this week, she posted these beautiful photos from Venice to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Finally, these words, by St Gianna Beretta Molla, helped me to take a deep breath at the end of a long week of feeling in limbo with an ongoing situation, in which we want to honour and care for family and it’s difficult. I’m sharing them, in case they might speak to you, too.

“As to the past, let us entrust it to God’s mercy, the future to divine providence. Our task is to live holy the present moment.’

—St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Much love, and more soon. I’ve so missed being in touch, and I’d love to hear from you.

Jen XXX

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It makes me so happy to welcome writer Maeve Gerboth to the show this week.

Graciously, she agreed to share her words—a powerful and personal reflection on motherhood.

The Story So Far is all about the stories that connect us and the ones that hold us together. Stories about family, faith, home, and all it means to belong.

I know Maeve’s will resonate deeply with many, and be a blessing.

As we head into Season 4, you’ll notice the show name change to The Story So Far. Since it now accompanies the weekly newsletter here on Substack, it kind of keeps things simple—I hope you agree?

I’m all for that! 😅

If you’re new here, a) WELCOME!! 🏡

and

b) you can play each new episode—with guest readings, sneak book peeks, interviews and more—on Wednesdays, and get the newsletter on Fridays, with one sign-up!

Links for this episode of The Story So Far:

Maeve’s Instagram.

A lovely 🎁 from Maeve, completely FREE: A prayer and a practice for reflection.

Also, here’s that beautiful post, which inspired this episode:

Listen + subscribe in your fave podcast app (it’s easy!)

Come say hi and talk things all things The Story So Far with me on Instagram!

Don’t miss this Friday’s newsletter—it’s got a heads-up about next week’s show.

Clue: 🎄

With love, Jen XX

Music for this episode of About Home courtesy of the fabulous Purple Planet.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennilisahoward.substack.com