Dear Wonderful Reader,

The money dwindles in my bank account. My grandma is dying. I have to sell my investment stocks and ETFs to pay for these flights. Hit by a “family emergency” when I have the least wiggle room. I gave up my Soho House membership, which in hindsight seems like an irresponsible and pretentious expense. Today is also my four-year anniversary since I quit my job in New York to pursue this creative life. I’ve spent 95% of my days since then extremely happy. No regrets. Yet two books published, workshops being taught, a feature in the New York Times, and a mention in Vogue isn’t much comfort when my client pipeline is dry.

This is a hard moment in my journey. Yet, I still have you, my lovely reader! Thank god you’re still here. We’re all still here, somehow. Today, I have something special for you. It is one of my favorite images. It is an image that sustains me in these difficult moments of life, and being a human on this planet. I wrote it when I returned to San Francisco from my friends’ betrothal. A former tech minion, I have seen the bridge many times. But something about that day was different.

Thank you for the opportunity to edit this and give this a little more love and polish. I will keep this in mind when I get on a plane tomorrow, and sit at my grandmother’s bedside. Things are hard, but this is keeping me going. This is a gift. This is my gift for you,

Love,

Tash

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The Golden Gate - Friday, October 3rd, 2025 🌁

On Sunday, I was sitting in a quiet, dimly lit cocktail bar with an old friend. She’s very rich now. She told me she’s going to have five children, but not give birth to any of them herself (surrogacy). Now, that’s money. She’s getting engaged to her equally wealthy partner. Together, for her engagement ring, they’ve found an extremely rare jewel that naturally changes color with the light. If it’s a yellow light, the jewel is dark green and brown. If it’s a normal light, it’s purple and pink.

I chuckled to myself as she told me this story. Living in Mexico City as a writer, I don’t have even close to that level of wealth. Yet I smiled to myself because I think I feel just as rich. Earlier that same day, I had gone to Crissy Field in San Francisco with the rest of the wedding troop. It was the final send-off before my friends’ honeymoon in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As I sat on some picnic blankets on the grassy sand, and munched on the last of the feta salad, and cookies, and ham, and chips, I looked out over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I had never taken a good look at her from that angle before. Of course, she’s a she. I found myself turning away from the bustling group of millennials and gazing at her. I looked at her long and hard.

If you’ve been to that part of the world before, you know how insanely windy it is through the Marin Headlands. But she stood there. Unwavering. So tall. So strong. So majestic. Her goldenness was a burnt umber, crimson, brick-colored. It is funny to realize that I always thought of her as golden herself, not thinking that it’s the place she inhabits. But the light there is golden too. It’s just enormous. The swell of the bay in green-blue-grey waters. The clouds dipping through her, spreading out into pools of sunshine over the grassy banks of land behind her. The smooth hills glowing. Her curved nature hanging perfectly still. Straight upright. Unflinching. There.

Looking at her, I felt myself expanding. I felt I saw myself in the somewhat distant future. I’ve made it. I am taller than I am now. I have grown beyond in ways that my current little human self cannot even imagine. In the future, I am taking up space. I am moving. I am powerful. I make an impact. This is all culminating in something. I’m going somewhere, even if I don’t know where yet. Even after a week of stress and dealing with the printers and fear and self-doubt and worry, despite the treachery of the waters surrounding her, and the giant freight-bearing boats that passed beneath her, and the roaring, unrelenting wind, she stood there. Graceful. Whole. She had stood there all these years. Made a small scratch in the greatest force of erosion of all: time.

That’s all to say, I laughed when I recounted this all to my friend. Here she was, chasing a rare stone around the world for her engagement ring, and I just sat on a beach and looked at a bridge for an hour. My riches were free. I was just as transformed, just as inspired, just as contented, just as driven, and moved. It was moving, that experience. Maybe I saw something of myself in her, that bridge. Maybe at times she might underestimate herself, whereas anyone looking at her could easily see her excellence, how exceptional she was. Or maybe she knows her worth. Through her very existence, she is strong. Her strength, in that sense, is never to be questioned. Her talents a given. Her energy, immense, radiating out from all aspects of her everywhere, as she let the giant waves and ships pass beneath her like it was nobody’s business. Choosing not to lower herself to small problems that were literally beneath her. And the space she took up. The space that was meant for her to inhabit. So anchored and grounded by nature. I felt grateful to just see her, to receive her energy.

I couldn’t look away.

💌 ✍️

Come back soon!

Listen to my grandmother’s story on the Misseducated Podcast:

More Stories about my Grandmother from Misseducated

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