Reflections from the Driving Range

Hello everyone!! How we doing out there? I hope this finds you soaking up the spring sunshine. I'm planning to exist solely on my patio this weekend - I'm on book 2 of ACOTAR and hooked to say the least. I'm also dying to rewatch There's Something About Mary which I haven't seen in a million years. So it will be a fun content weekend!

Some other things on my radar from the past few weeks ...

• I splurged on a pair of silver Mary-Janes last weekend and I'm in love 

• Finally got to try From Lucie and it was SO worth the hype

• This article with new images of The Titanic wreck gave me chills??

• Did you guys read The Plaza?! Absolutely gripping from top to bottom ...

• A friend played this Parcels song in the car the other day and I can't stop listening to it

• Hannah gave me the best manicure of my LIFE on Monday. I wish I could keep it on my fingers forever!!

Today I'm sharing a little reflection from a recent golf lesson. If anyone's in NYC and wants to hit Chelsea Piers together - hit me up!

Reflections from the Driving Range

Last Wednesday, I squinted as I stared into the sunny expanse of the Hudson, watching my teacher Michelle demonstrate a swing with a pitching wedge. It was 6:00pm, the sun was high, and I’d taken my sweet time walking the short distance from my office in West Village to Chelsea Piers for a golf lesson. I had a seemingly bottomless backpack with me filled with all sorts of shit that had accumulated from the week, but not sunglasses — the one practical accessory I really could have used that night.

I didn’t mind, though. I stepped out onto the fake grass of the third floor of the driving range and I was in heaven.

Let me say upfront: I’m not a golfer, at least not in the traditional sense. I’ve never played a full round of golf in my life — the closest I ever got was being a pseudo caddy for an ex-boyfriend during a tournament he played in. I say pseudo because I was on my phone the whole time and couldn’t tell you the difference between a nine iron and a chipping wedge to save my life.

Now that you aren’t picturing a young prodigy, I can continue.

I may not be a "real" golfer, but I’ve always loved the driving range. I took a golf class my senior year of college to learn the basics — I was a business major and didn’t want to find myself excluded from any golf outings that might crop up in my early days post-grad. My first few years in Ad-Tech asked a lot of me, but sadly never to golf.

Nevertheless, I’d find myself going to Chelsea Piers to practice anyway, finding the activity a blissful mental release from the stress of the city. The driving range commanded every iota of my attention on my body so that I could will the ball where I wanted it to go — and I found that losing myself like that was a precious gift. And to add to an already great sensory experience — the satisfying crack of my rented club making contact with the abused golf balls of New York city’s elite was … what do the kids say? Chef’s kiss?

So over the years I’ve made it a tradition to go at least once or twice over the summer.

I’m not sure what exactly prompted me to book last week’s lesson — probably frustration with work that I needed to channel into something more productive than smoking weed on my patio. The lesson wasn’t cheap — $170 for an hour — but something inside me said, just book it. Do something different.

It was the best 60 minutes I’ve spent in a long time. In the years since I’ve been going to the driving range, plenty of men have enjoyed mansplaining to me the best way to grip the club, to keep the club face open, to pivot my back foot just so on the follow through. But none of their unsolicited advice has been particularly helpful to my technique, and more often than I’d like to admit I’d find my ball veering way off to the left. Simply hitting the ball is enough for me most of the time — but I booked my lesson hoping to improve my technique to get some more consistency with where the ball landed.

Aside from Michelle, I was the only woman on the third floor of the driving range at prime-time last Wednesday. It felt really empowering to spend 60 minutes fully present in my body, solely on the angle of my shoulders, my hips, my stance before launching the ball as far as I could down the expanse of the pier. Not every swing was a hit, but a lot of them were — and with each swing I felt more and more confident.

Within an hour, I’d made more progress than I expected to. What surprised me the most was how the simple adjustments we made to my grip, my stance, actually made my swing simultaneously less effortful and more effective — sending the ball impressive lengths at a time. I’d swing, hit, try to follow the ball into the bright sunlight of the spring evening — then turn around to Michelle and ask — did you see that?! She was as excited for me as I was for myself, and it was a high to see the progress made.

The things I’m working on in my life right now are slow burns, for better or for worse. Building my writing habit. Figuring out what's next in my career. And on, and on. I didn’t realize how much I’d benefit from 60 minutes of working on something that allowed me to tangibly improve by the end. The lesson reminded me that I already have a pretty strong foundation, and with just a few tweaks and a little focus … I can blow myself away.

Sending everyone love heading into the weekend.

This is absolutely, positively, the most off-limits do not let me buy this of Brightside history

(ask me how looking for a replacement for my threadbare J Crew denim jacket led me here...)