Hi! Welcome to I've Got a Feeling, a weekly newsletter from me, Molly Wizenberg. There will be a new installment every Tuesday, starting on February 1, 2022.
In the last days of 2021, a year composed almost entirely of what felt like Last Days, I forced myself to sit down and make a list of things to look forward to in 2022. It was difficult to lasso my thoughts and point them into the distance, past uncertainties and anxieties about COVID, mounting losses, and garbagey headlines, but it got easier as I went. Soon I found I was gaining momentum, even. I could almost watch my daydreams crystallize and sharpen, like when you turn the focusing dial on a pair of binoculars. After a while, I had a decent list, and I actually felt a little better. Then I thought, well, damn, I should do this more often. And then I thought, Like once a week. But not in list form, per se — each weekly installment could be more like an essay! An essay loosely shaped around a thing I look forward to!
Each installment will be like taking a meandering walk, so to speak, with an idea, person, place, book, meal, or other thing that makes me feel hopeful. I hope it’ll make you feel hopeful, too — or at least better than you did before you read it. A friend recently referred to it as “a chronicle of enthusiasms,” and I liked that very much — enthusiasm being, I think, evidence of hope, of a will to engage and find pleasure.
I call it I’ve Got a Feeling for how that phrase points forward, into some unseeable future — and also because ever since we watched The Beatles: Get Back, I CANNOT get that song1 OUT of my head, and because John Lennon singing the line “Everybody had a hard year” at minute 2:06 is an uncannily good summation of life in the 2020s.
Sign up now, so you don’t miss the first issue! And thank you.
Oh, and if you would, please help spread the word:
If you clicked on the “that song” link above: god, I mean, how foxy is circa-1969 George Harrison on the Let It Be album cover?!!! Stay tuned for more of this hott content in a future newsletter installment.
George has always been my favorite! 🦊
I love “a chronicle of enthusiasms”! So good to see you and thanks for coming back.