Summer is almost upon us. When I was in middle school, this time of year meant a return to my summer job: bean-walking. I always found “bean-walking” to be a deceptively friendly term. For those who don’t know, bean-walking means pulling weeds from fields of beans and/or corn at organic farms, which can’t use pesticides. Sure, you’re walking, but you’re also bending down every two seconds to pull weeds, or else you’re crawling on your hands and knees when your back gets too tired to bend. It wasn’t glamorous work. You inevitably ended up hot, sweaty, and exhausted. Early in the season, your body hurt from stooping to pull out…

We’re all familiar with the conventional wisdom regarding toxic people, right? According to society, the healthiest thing to do is to cut out toxic people as quickly and cleanly as possible. After all, the person is destroying your joy and peace of heart. You have given her plenty of chances and she has messed up again and again. The chances are slim that she’s ever going to change. Why would you continue to allow her to affect your life? She’s no longer benefitting you in any way. I have to say, this attitude never sat well with me. It always seemed unpleasantly transactional, another symptom of our throwaway culture and…

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I love this story in all its iterations. Luckily for me, there are a lot of iterations. The “artistic” version of Beauty and the Beast is Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et la Bête”, a black-and-white French film that follows Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s original story more closely than any other adaptation I’ve seen. Cocteau focuses on unique aspects of this tale, which I’m going to unpack here. I’m not going to bother avoiding spoilers since we all know the story, but to get the most out of this review, consider watching the film first. First of all, the cinematography is gorgeous. The…

It’s a heavy topic for a first “official” post, but it needs to be discussed. The past few months have been difficult for everyone; not just difficult, but unprecedented. None of us have lived through an epidemic of this scale. Even my former-nurse grandmother told me that she hasn’t seen anything like it. Some of us have gotten sick; some have lost livelihoods or, Heaven forbid, a loved one. If we haven’t been touched personally in this way, we are living with the fear that we will be soon. We’re worried about our friends and family, whether we’ll be able to pay rent this summer, and the long-term repercussions on…

Welcome to Harvesting Stardust! I’m so happy to have you with me in this new endeavor. This blog is a place to let your mind pleasantly wander. I’ll be posting content that I believe will enrich your life, whether it be thoughts on literature and the arts, my take on current events, or simply ideas for how to pass a summer’s afternoon. I encourage you to brew a cup of tea, find a comfy nook to burrow down in, and enjoy perusing this Internet world-in-miniature. I hope that my world can bring some measure of light and joy to yours.