Once a year — and only once a year — I run a sale on Culture Study: 20% off all annual subscriptions. This isn't the Gap. It isn't the online mattress company constantly in your inbox with a new discount. And it definitely isn't The Bon Marche (real ones know). It's just for the next week and it extends to all subscription types: newsletter-only, podcast-only, and the ELITE combo tier.
In the weeks to come, we'll be doing more subscriber-only episodes of the podcast, including one on starting your own podcast....I'll also be writing subscriber-only posts about what I've learned about growing a newsletter (six years in), a reboot of the how-I-bought-a-house thread, the glorious return of Advice Time, another local friend matchmaking post (you can connect with so many local CS-related groups!), and an Oscars-night subscriber CHAT. Plus all the other good subscription stuff (like all the links & recs below!!)
To get your discount, just click the button below and enter 5750F in the little box that says
"DISCOUNT CODE" at checkout.
Also: Lummi Island Dahlias (the micro-farm experiment I run two friends here on the island) is at last open — I know some of you got your orders in yesterday, but there's so many good tubers left (I'm also happy to play dahlia concierge if you DM me). We'll likely sell out by the end of this week so order before they're gone — they ship in April!
The place where I live doesn't always smell like the sea, although sometimes it does. Mostly, at least this time of year, it smells like organic rot. I mean that in a good way: we're not talking about food rotting in the garbage, we're talking about sodden leaves decaying, seaweed drying on the beach, old ferns erasing themselves. But right around now, it also starts to smell like moss, and the first lawn-mows of the season, and the bloom of the daphne odora.
Do you know what a daphne odora smells like? Do you know what it looks like? I didn't, until I moved to Seattle after college, and the house I shared with four friends had a massive one blooming right next to the door. It's like if the best-smelling rose you've ever smelled was actually just a cluster of pinhead flowers that somehow managed to scent the entire block. When I first moved to this island, I "inherited" (aka, bought a house) with a garden filled with dozens of rhodies, azaleas, viburnum, and hydrangea. I've written about their glory. But there were no daphne — and I knew, if I was going to live in one of the places that daphnes, uh, adore, I was going to have a daphne to greet me.
I bought one in the late spring of 2022, and by then, its blooms had already passed. In 2023, it was still too small to do much of anything. In 2024 and 2025, it barely survived deep January freezes that decimated so many other young perennials in the garden. It survived, but it did not thrive — until this year.
I was interviewing someone in Portland last week, and at the end of our conversation, we were making small talk about the weather. It was an exquisite Spring day on the island: crisp skies, sun that made everything seem warmer than the low 50s, the whole world a vibrant, pulsing green. The peonies were pushing up. The daffodils were in bloom, so were the plums.
"I've been trying to reconcile my feelings of joy that 'Spring is coming' with my climate anxiety," they told me. Same, I said. Same.
Surviving in 2026 is trying to figure out this exact conundrum. Small joy against the backdrop of systemic fear. A daphne refusing to die — and throttling you with its glory every time you walk by. We live in terrible times. And we are also enveloped by daily beauty. I don't know how to reconcile these forces. But moving forward means refusing to forget either.
I spent a lot of time putting together this month's mega-collection of links and recs — which are their own odd combination of horror, loveliness, and utility. I hope you find something that strikes you, the way that the smell of the daphne strikes me, within them. ...
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