Edit 44: Ten Things—May
A gratitude list for an extraordinary, tender, unforgettable month.
May arrived in a whirlwind and left having given everything. Graduations and ceremonies, florals and champagne, anticipatory mornings and very full evenings. The month that held the almost becoming the after. Before June sweeps in, here are ten things I don't want to forget.
This month felt like standing in a doorway for much of the time. Graduation. Final concerts. Awards ceremonies. Lasts layered on top of lasts. Watching Jackson walk across that stage in his red cap and gown, hearing his name called, seeing him receive the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award—a national award tied so deeply to the city and culture that shaped me—felt almost impossible to put into words. Somewhere between New Orleans and Charlotte, between jazz halls and marching band fields, between little-boy years and adulthood, time kept moving. And I got to witness it. What a gift that is.
And then there was the week before—a mother/son dinner with the boys of his friend group, all of them jubilant and almost done, dressed up and laughing and entirely themselves. I sat across from him that evening and thought: I will remember this version of us for a very long time.
And Madeline too—grown and fully becoming herself in all her creativity and softness and independence. There's something surreal about looking at your children and realizing they now carry entire lives, communities, stories, and identities outside of you. I don't take that for granted. Not for a second.
Coffee in the mornings. Waiting in the car. Family dinners. Group texts. Last-minute errands. Sitting in a house that suddenly feels different because a season has ended inside of it. This month reminded me that life is rarely changed by one giant cinematic moment. More often, it's altered by accumulation—the small rituals and tiny ordinary moments we don't realize we'll ache for later.
A photograph of Jackson in his shark hat from the Tokyo years made its way onto Instagram this month and stopped me completely. Every version of him existing at once. Filed carefully.
I think I've become deeply grateful for paying attention—for noticing—for slowing down enough to let life actually register while it's happening instead of only understanding it in hindsight.
Some of the responses to my recent Edits genuinely moved me this month. Not because of metrics or algorithms or "growth," but because people met me in the middle of honest moments. The in-between seasons. Discomfort. Emotional discernment. Boundaries. Grief and joy existing at the same table.
There's something incredibly humbling about writing earnestly and passionately into the void and having another human being say: yes, me too. I don't think I'll ever stop being grateful for that kind of connection. Especially online, where so much can feel performative or rushed. Somehow, sincerity still finds people.
This month held so many reminders of how meaningful community can be when it's rooted in warmth and shared purpose. Wrapping up a successful recruitment season after stepping into something completely out of my comfort zone—and discovering I was more capable than I gave myself credit for—reminded me just how much I have to be grateful for in the women around me and the work we get to do together. And to do all of this during the Junior League of Charlotte's centennial season made it feel that much more significant.
The final General Membership Meeting of the year deserves its own mention—a room full of women in their finest florals, the theme A Year in Bloom, chandelier light and celebration and a centennial video I was honored to be part of. The energy in that room was something I won't soon forget. The joy, the laughter, the pride in what we had accomplished together and the excitement for everything still to come... I made a small flower arrangement to take home and carried it out like a well-earned trophy.
The garden party at the Duke Mansion especially stays with me—the magnolias, the spring air, the history of it all, generations of women gathering together under one shared legacy. One hundred years of service, leadership, friendship, and showing up for this city. There was something beautiful about standing there and realizing we are all temporary stewards of something much larger than ourselves.
Even amid spreadsheets, emails, logistics, deadlines, and all the moving pieces, there's so much heart underneath it. And I'm grateful for that.
Friends checking in. Thoughtful comments. The women I work alongside. The band directors who poured years of care into these students. The people who make room for softness in a world that often rewards hardness.
I notice tenderness more now. Not grand gestures necessarily—but consistency. Gentle people. People who try. People who choose kindness in small ways over and over again. Those people feel increasingly precious to me.
Photography. Writing. Editing. What I don't often mention is that creativity has always lived in me—I was a performer once, opera and musicals, the stage my first home for expression. That love evolved over the years, found new forms, new mediums. But the impulse has always been the same: to make something meaningful, to hold onto something fleeting long enough to examine it in the light.
This month a door opened—an invitation to a private event at Anne Neilson Fine Art, hosted by Queen City Lifestyle magazine for their May Women's Issue. A room full of successful, creative women—artists, photographers, writers, CPAs, travel agents, designers—all doing meaningful work in Charlotte. I left feeling seen in a way I hadn't expected, and hopeful about what might be possible. Some doors just open, and you walk through and see what's there.
Life, Edited continues to surprise me because it's become less about "content" and more about attention. About asking: what deserves to be remembered here? What deserves to be felt fully before we move on?
That Louis Armstrong award hit me somewhere generational. Deep. Beyond pride. Beyond accomplishment.
For a New Orleans family, jazz is never just music. It's memory. Lineage. Atmosphere. History. It's woven into the emotional architecture of who we are. Watching my son receive an award carrying Louis Armstrong's name felt like watching two parts of my life briefly touch hands across time—the city that raised me and the young man I raised. I don't know that I'll ever fully recover from that moment in the best possible way.
This month reinforced something I've quietly hoped for a long time: people are hungry for sincerity. For softness. For thoughtful conversation. For honesty that isn't performative.
So much of the internet rewards outrage, speed, certainty, and noise. But over and over again, I keep encountering people who simply want to feel less alone in being human. That feels incredibly hopeful to me.
I overthink. I reflect constantly. I analyze interactions, words, emotions, tensions, silences. Sometimes to my own detriment. But this month reminded me that I'd rather be someone who feels deeply and keeps trying than someone who stops caring altogether.
I'm grateful that even in moments where I fall short—where I'm tired or reactive or overwhelmed—I still want repair. I still want understanding. I still want to grow. And I think that wanting, even when it's imperfect and exhausting and ongoing, is enough.
Magnolias blooming outside the Duke Mansion. Champagne glasses catching light. Sakura memories drifting through spring in Charlotte. Music echoing through auditoriums. Florals and pearls and chandelier light and beautifully plated dinners and handwritten words and photographs that preserve a feeling for half a second longer... A shark hat in Tokyo autumn light. His grandfather's Rolex on his wrist at graduation—an inherited heirloom, passed down to mark the moment.
I think beauty has become less of an aesthetic preference for me and more of a survival instinct. A way of saying: yes, life is hard sometimes. But look at this! Look how luminous it still manages to be.
As this extraordinary month comes to a close, what are you holding onto from May? What deserves to be remembered?
