Bloom at Your Pace

In DC we have the cherry blossoms and the countdown to peak bloom. One of my coworkers was saying she had never been to see the ones downtown. I have. And it's not that they are old hat now (another saying) or not worth seeing. But there are blooming trees all over the city. I walked over to an event this weekend and passed three different kinds of blooming trees. Some were at peak bloom. Some were already shedding petals. Some were not quite there yet. 

And the thing is, they were all gorgeous.

There's a tendency to assign value to peak bloom when it's a phase of the process. Kind of like full moons. Other moons are not lesser moons. They are just different parts of the process. If you see the trees and there are flowers, then yay. 

Projects, writing or otherwise can be like that to. There are iterative parts. Places we all have to get to or through. But the places we mark along the way are often not random, but no more or less important than the steps before and after them. It's just the part we decided to note. 

And because this time of year I constantly quote Hannah Carmona, let's also reference her note about cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms only bloom once a year. They don't expect more of themselves than this. They plan all their stuff around one bit of blooming and then they cycle into the next phase. 

Your project may not allow for that pace. But if you've been trying to be a rosebush or an azalea, and it isn't working. Maybe you're a cherry blossom. 

Knowing What You Want

Early in my cat life I bought her a catnip carrot. The carrot was fabric, stuffed with stuffing and catnip, with a few green faux feathers acting as the carrot top. It was an immediate hit. Cat people know cat toys are a lot of hit and miss. I brought home other catnip vegetables. They often got sniffed, occasionally even licked, but nothing was as successful as the carrot. 

So I just bought a catnip carrot every month when I stocked up on food. Until one day there was no catnip carrot at the store. I found some online, but they were from a different company. I ordered them anyway, but my cat deemed them uninteresting and ignored them. I set up a basket with all the ignored catnip toys in the hopes that one day one would be found acceptable. 

The catnip carrot came back, but they must have changed something because it no longer sparked joy for my cat. 

Well, yesterday I heard something. And looked over, and my cat had dragged the catnip banana out of the basket and was doing the full wrestle it and bunny kick it thing. (For non cat people basically the cat grips it in their front paws while laying on their side and kicks at the toy with their back paws.) 

So now I guess I need to stock up on some catnip bananas.

The Reason Rest is Resistance

I read a post that was, to sum up a more nuanced thing, about how rest is not resistance, it's a privilege not afforded equally in capitalism. Now I am not linking, because this is not intended as a dunk. But having read Tricia Hersey's Rest is Resistance, that was kind of the point. Capitalism makes rest hard, (again summing up an entire book here, go read the book). So finding rest, demanding rest, became resistance. 

I am quite sure there are plenty of people who are posting self care pics, with a #RestIsResistance, which is not quite the same. Obviously social media is not an accurate measure of anyone's life. But if anyone has taken away from the tagline rest is resistance the idea that their pedicure is social justice, then yes, that is wrong. I don't think anyone really thinks that. I know I've joked about stimulating the economy by buying things. But I am well aware that my individual purchases, while important, have limited reach. And also that if the economy is good, but I am in debt, no one is coming to fix my debt for me. 

But, on this week that contains a holiday for USians, some people will still have to work. And since I have the privilege of a day off of work, part of my plans involve rest. Because rest is important. 

Wherever you are, I wish you rest and yummy food in whatever measure you can get it. 

The Butt Rule

I was once doing a group exercise where we all passed around papers, there was one for each person in the group, and everyone had to write on each one and then pass it on. So sometimes one would take a little longer, or the person you were passing to would clearly be busy and the person passing to you already had another ready for you. 

We discovered one had gotten stuck along the way and everyone looked, and nope. The person passing to me told me they had given it to me. And I was sure I had passed everything but shifted to look again, and discovered I had tucked the paper under me. So it was found and all was well. 

One person told me, they called it the Look Under Your Butt Rule. That it had started when they had kids in carseats who would call out that something was lost. And often once the car was stopped the search would find it underneath the kid.

These days, I often find in my squishy couch that I have lost track of, and often standing up and looking at where I was sitting helps. Though I can't swear I haven't been sitting on a park bench and suddenly realized I misplaced something I had just a second ago. 

We could get very profound about how things you need are often just right there.  But also we are keeping track of so so much these days.  Juggling all the things.  Sometimes, a thing or two slips underneath your butt.

The Things You Get Used To

I've had glasses for a while now. It was distance where it showed up first. The first glasses I bought fit tightly on my nose. I mostly wore them when driving, at sports, plays, things like that. 

I remembered when I realized that there were a group of people who knee me through my sports attendance who only saw me in glasses. And how weird it was that those people thought of me as a glasses person.

This happens in other ways too. I was in one group, where someone once asked me, after I did some new member interviews, if that was the most I had ever talked in a single day. (A friend of mine died laughing when I recounted this.) 

We all contain multitudes, and nit everyone gets to see every facet of us. So it can be weird when things collide or shift. 

Last year, I got progressives. I had started to find my eyes at the end of the day were having issues. And realized that I was working harder to see some smaller print, and maybe I needed to give my eyes some additional support. 

It took months to get used to them. I was in the very lucky position that a lot of my middle distance vision is still very good, so the contrast between the things that are blurry when wearing progressives versus not, was an adjustment. 

But now I'm used to them. (Okay, I may have typed some of this without them, but still, I reach for the glasses every day. Plan how many pairs to bring on trips.)

And recently I looked at my face and felt it looked different, and realized, it was because I wasn't wearing glasses. I have grown used to my face with glasses now. 

Pushing Back Against Cynicism

One of the things that happens, if you have researched bad sports environments, or lived through enough bad managers, or even done too deep a dive into certain advice columns is that you forget how hard the mundane terrible stuff can be. 

Sure, the stories about coworkers who show up at your house to proselytize are clearly very bad. But coworkers who just smirk and say, "I know you have a lot going on at home," can be soul draining. Even though when you try to describe it people will say, oh, she's just trying to be empathetic. 

I thought this as I read the WaPo article about Kim Mulkey, who was so upset that someone wanted to write about her she held a press conference about it. And the article says she's exacting, and unforgiving, and that she was probably meaner to some players, providing punishment unequally. And yet, the article does not seem that bad. Well, you know, unless you had to play for someone who was a my way or the highway perfectionist. Unless you, at a critical point in your physical and emotional growth, were playing for someone who would make fun of your hair, or your love life, in front of all your teammates. 

See, when I say it doesn't seem that bad, I mean, when you include coaches who have strangled their players, sexually abused them, drugged them, and starved them. Coaches who encouraged a gravely injured athlete to keep going, even though it was clear that further movement would likely cause lasting injury. So, when I say not that bad, to be clear, I do not mean this is good. 

It becomes easy to be like well, coaches are often like that. When the correct thing to say, is why do we let coaches be like that? Why are we constantly letting supposed geniuses harm others because sometimes they do great things - be it science, tech, or sports. And it isn't progress that we sometimes let white women be terrible. It's bad. 

I have the sense that this story is probably going to peel off another layer or two in the coming weeks. But even if it does not. People can win sports without making fun of you. People can win sports without being jerks. And if they can't, then they were never really good at sports anyway. 

Peaks, Valleys, Blooms, and In Between

Author Hannah Carmona once talked about how cherry blossom trees reminded her that incredible things sometimes require a lot of prep. Cherry blossom trees may bloom earlier than they used to with climate change, but they bloom once and then they move on to other phases. Because not every season is meant to be bloom season. 

Similarly I saw someone on social media talking about how you cannot build your productivity plan around your best day. 

It's funny, because I think in capitalism we've all seen this. How hiring freezes and other measures that show up in times of economic uncertainty become our normal staffing, and three years later everybody is tired and burnt out and you suddenly remember, oh yeah, there used to be more of us to do this. That's why we're tired.

And yet, I will call myself lazy for not writing every day, or finishing a draft and wishing to read for a few weeks. 

And look, I know for some people a break from writing longer than an hour is too much for them. 

And to be clear, there is still writing work happening. My first drafts are often written in a giant long string with a quick indent for new scenes, and so the first thing I do with a draft is break it into scenes and figure out what I have and take a big picture look at the pacing. And a lot of that is hard to quantify. The draft looks less like a giant brain dump and more like a draft. 

But pondering pacing and other things, well, that kind of looks like me playing games on my phone. 

Everyone has different processes, and many many people wish their process was some variation of better, faster, cooler, or let's face it, easier.

But if the social pressure of NaNo helped you be productive and now you are less productive, that isn't you backsliding. If you finished your draft (at least for now) you have earned that rest. Your brain often needs time to process, so you can look the draft with fresh eyes.

If you did not finish your draft, you have a few options here. You may need to rest. I know all these people have been telling you you can build a habit of writing just by writing, but your process may need more than that. If it benefits from social pressure, finding drafting or writing groups that continue on might help you.

It may also be that the NaNo pace is not sustainable for you for more than 30 days. Even marathoners don't run a whole marathon every day. So maybe work on finding a good pace for now. 

And you may also just need a rest. December may not be a good month for you. But the good news if you did write for 30 days straight, you can do it again. But maybe not now. 

Kind if like that old video with Stephen Covey talking about planning for family and vacations first. Make space for your writing, certainly. But also make space for you to not write, so that when you go back to it, you've had time to gather up the energy and excitement to go at it again. 

Credit Where Credit is Due

I once spoke to someone who started the interaction with something to the effect of, the last person I spoke to about this obviously didn't know what they were talking about. It's always a weird spot to start. 

And so I looked into this person's stuff, saw the very detailed comment left by the prior person, and related that info. 

They were pleased. And wondered aloud why the last person couldn't have told them that. 

I told them the last person had left clear info, and that was how I was able to give them such a quick and clear answer. 

I thought of this, as I had several calls with a place I was doing business with. And when one call led to my needing to call back, I decided to just go in as if the time between was for them to fix everything for me. And they did. 

We all hear these stories about how frequently we share bad customer stories instead of good ones. And I think sometimes its easy to be like oh no, this one not great call means everything is doomed. But sometimes, it just means, oh, let us work on this. And then all will be resolved. 

Rainy Days

I spent the second weekend in a row factoring a tropical storm into my plans. Now of course, I was never in the direct line, so it is easy for me to be a little flip about the weather. There was rain, there was wind, I stayed inside. 

I played games, I cooked food. Last weekend I hung out with family.

As much as I complain about rain and wind, sometimes it is quite nice to have a good reason to stay indoors and cook delicious food. To catch up with people, to read. 

Here in the DC area, we also could really use the rain, though all at once comes with its own concerns. 

So, here's to rainy days. 

Playing the Game

We played card games with family old and new this weekend, and it was fun. Seeing who just plays, who tries to plan a perfect win, who apologizes or often fauxpologizes for a move that creates in issue for another player. Who talks trash, who plays quietly, until they win. Who quits after a successful or unsuccessful round. Who tells tales about how the game did or did not go. 

I grew up in a family that did not believe in letting kids or newbies win, so had to accept either learning to lose gracefully or learning to at better or both. This is not to say I have never walked out on a game. I have. In my defense, the rules were getting bent in only one direction and I was like, okay, then please carry on without me. I was probably less graceful than that sounds. This last weekend I never once won, but I also hoped I played well. Like a lot of things in life, there are more losers than winners in most card games, so you have to enjoy the process. Otherwise, why do it at all. 

Adventures in Baking

My toaster oven died. I discovered this as I tossed what was going to be my dessert in and came back 30 minutes later to discover I still had batter. 

I did some online research, discovered my model is online only these days, but I could buy a somewhat fancier one at the store in walking distance. There was of course a much fancier one, but with the intention of being frugal, I went for just a bit more fancy 

Decided to be bold and just bring a large shopping bag and not a cart. I got to store, they were out of the model the site said they had, but they had a slightly fancier model. (Still cheaper than much fancy, but close enough that I pondered going to the other store.) 

Bought it. Carried it home. Two people along the way asked me if I was okay. (Very kind. It wasn't too heavy, but the humidity was high, so hard to carry a rectangle with sweaty hands.)

Got inside and scraped myself on my own chair. (The betrayal!)

Fancier also means larger, so had to find a different spot to set it up. 

But now. Now. I have dessert. 

Freezing Summer

A friend of mine once talked about freezing cubes of pesto so that in the winter she could have the taste of summer. I confess I buy tons of berries in summer, when they are plentiful and often on sale, and freeze them. 

And last week I made a lemon coconut butter mochi that turned out perfectly, and I'm freezing some of that too. 

I like to have some soup or cooked beans in the freezer. To stock up for moments when you just cannot face cooking. 

And I usually have some frozen dumplings in there too. As a mostly vegetarian, it has recently become much easier to find delightful dumpling recipes that have more interesting fillings than fake meat. (I am not against fake meat. But I am much more interested in a variety of veggie fillings.) 

Last summer I froze some dumplings with a corn tomato filling. They were a delightful treat one winter day. 

Global production means we can certainly find many things out of season, but I find particular delight in getting things in season, and storing them up for a treat later. 

Fanning is a Collective Effort

So, things were hot out there over the last few days again. Sports stadiums often have less shade that one might want when there's a heat advisory afoot. Some people drank or ate cool things. And many many people had fans. 

Now you, like I have, may have heard the rumor that fanning yourself actually expends enough effort that you end up making yourself hotter. As far as I can find, this may not be true, or may be dependent on a large enough set of factors that it's hard to predict. 

But if a bunch of people sitting all together are all fanning, well then it helps. Somewhat like a massage chain. If many folks are fanning, then the collective breeze cools down many people, and so the efforts of the group benefit the group. 

Sure, choosing to fan myself is a thing I do for me. But if the people on either side of me are also fanning, I'm going to be cooler than what I could do alone. We all will.

And keeping cool is important in these toasty times. 

Endings

One of my dayjob coworkers told me Friday it was her last day on the contract and she had mixed feelings about the case she was handing off to me being the last, because she enjoyed working with me.

As writers we spend a lot of time trying to figure out an ending that addresses all the pertinent things, and doesn't seem to easy, and also feel like it fits. And we look for these things in life too. 

We look for signs that things are wrapping up or pivoting or leading us somewhere. Now of course part of this is because it would be very clear if a dude with a light saber showed up and said, "Follow me." Like I have questions, like what about my cat, but okay, dude with a light saber is a sign, right? You don't ignore that. 

But should I keep doing this, quit that, or try to seek out something else, or stay the course, and also dinner should be what? There is so much. 

Even books or movies that have unclear endings have to signal appropriately so that - hopefully - even if the audience is shocked in retrospect they go, ah yes. (I am still mad at one movie. Argh!) And we've all read or watched some thing we loved until they did that one fatal thing at the end. 

But with my coworker,  the important thing was that we got to chat at the end and wish each other well. 

Your Brain is Like an Algorithm

Once upon a time, there was a a site that if you told it things you like, would recommend other things to you. And it was wonderful. Some of the things it recommended I had already tried, so I spent time giving it more data. And it was great. Until eventually, it had so much data about me, it was no good. To me the recommendations seemed entirely off, or just plain terrible. Eventually it seemed to try to self correct, filtering down to only the last three things I like and working from there.

I read about a study once that said people who have just met people are better at picking gifts for folks than people who have known each other for years.

Being an informed aware person is a good thing. But your brain can only process so much data before the algorithm goes a bit haywire. Sometimes you need to take a break, let the well refill, let the data churn a bit before you add more. It can be easy to go all on or go all out. Learning to float a bit is a skill. And you can't float all the time, so sometimes you will have to switch.

But letting it process a bit isn't lazy, it's smart.

Sometimes What About is the Right Question?

I'm seeing this pop up in writer and fandom spaces again and I know nuance is hard and you can never truly define one thing so that it excludes all other things. But I do think people have latched onto the term whataboutism and are using it to shut down a lot of discussion.

If I show up at a breast cancer rally and start shouting, "Pancreatic cancer matters!" - I am absolutely engaging in whataboutism. Working to address breast cancer is a thing that needs done, and people working on that aren't saying there are no other cancers. 

However, if an organization that received a lot of negative press for treating an Asian American person badly and then that organization decides to provide a scholarship for Black Americans, people asking what their plans are to address harms done to Asian Americans are not engaging in whataboutism. 

Similarly, we see a lot of US authors resolve to not attend events in a state that passed some regressive and bigoted legislation, people asking have you checked the laws for every state you've already done events in is not whataboutism.

And some of the current conversation is about where to hold cons, and look, I know there's no perfect answer to this. But saying, I couldn't safely attend a con in this country is one thing. Saying that everyone saying well actually, here's a running list of atrocities committed by the government of the con you apparently happily attended is not whataboutism. And if you say, but I know how to call a lawyer there, I know what to do there, you actually aren't proving that country X is worse. You're just proving you know you have enough privilege in country Y to get out of jams. And look, this is a fair calculus. 

I went to school abroad but I did it when the idea that the entry laws might change while I was on the plane was unfathomable. I would have a very different conversation with anyone considering that now. 

Also, I know we are so so ready to people again, but you can skip a con. You really can. Or lobby for better virtual attendance options. These are all choices. 

Symbolic Messages

I got the news alert about the diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games and because it was the middle of a busy Monday, I took some time before I was able to click through to the whole article and I confess I was disappointed. I understand there are no perfect solutions here. And I also understand that athletes that wish to compete in a pandemic should maybe get to compete because Olympics are hard to come by. 

I talked before about my unease with holding an Olympics when approximately half the world is currently unvaccinated, when many athletes are travelling from countries that have had limited access to vaccines, and are being asked to arrive somewhere and operate in close quarters with athletes, coaches, judges, and press with limited protection.  

If anyone needs to hang onto their lung capacity it is definitely athletes.  (Also, as an asthmatic, I have to tell you lung capacity is a wonderful privilege that everyone should be able to enjoy.)  

Quick note: I am going to bring up a sexual assualt story.  As always, please feel free to bow out now, if this is not a good time for you to read that.  RAINN provides support to folks who have expereinced sexual assualt and resources for those who wish to better support the survivors in their life.  

 RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, accessible 24/7 by phone (800.656.HOPE) and online (online.rainn.org).

   

I am also aware of, and have been following the story of Peng Shuai, a tennis player and Olympian who seems to have possibly disappeared after indicating she had been sexually assaulted by a political figure.  

So, yes, I can think of several reasons for people to have concerns about an Olympics being held in China, not just in a pandemic.  

I know there is reason to believe that with making political change, things like athletic boycotts were more effective in situations like South Africa than many of the economic ones, since economic sanctions mostly affect the people without power.  

I am aware that symbolic gestures are sometimes better than nothing.  I even agree that in a pandemic, less people travelling to be at the thing in person is actually a very good idea.  

But I think this is also not quite enough.  I know no one wants to disappoint athletes, but I think not wanting to disappoint people in a pandemic is part of why this pandemic has continued longer than it needed to.  And so I wish we were ready for a stronger message than we will watch your Olympics from our couches.  But it is at least something.  

Some of Your Uncertainty is Wisdom

I was talking to a friend a bit ago and she was saying that she was stuck in the decision cycle and it annoyed her to still be noodling over some things, but also she couldn't figure out the best way forward.  And I said to her, well, some of your uncertainty is wisdom.  

I wasn't trying to be super profound, but the reality is, certainty comes from being able to predict reliably, and this last year plus has shown that many things are not going the way anyone expected them to.  

Uncertainty sucks, and of course, we like to try to think our way out of it.  But sometimes you can't.  I have predictions for what the fall will look like as offices and schools resume more in person gathering, but they are guesses.  I think my guesses on this are better than some other people's but - much like that article about sporting events in the UK, we are going to try a bunch of things and see how they go.  

Obviously people can't stay inside forever, not even the ones who've been privileged to have some say about that.  And everyone who stays inside is relying on those who aren't or can't to some extent.  

We are all weighing risks and making the best choices we can based on the data and our own predictions, but we do still have a limited sample set to work with.  And even when I say I have predictions, I have predictions about infection spread.  I don't know how offices and schools and other businesses will respond.  I don't know how the government - local or federal will respond if infections tick back up.  

We are all trying and this would be less worrisome if real people's lives weren't at stake.  I remember a co-worker saying once, well, we're not brain surgeons, no one's dying today.  Except that we were dealing with prescription files, so like I could pretty easily get to the part where someone's health was at risk.  And the pandemic has been like that.  I know some people have narrowed their focus to themselves because the larger responsibility is too much to think about.  

So uncertainty sucks, but sometimes it is not a failing for you to be uncertain.  

Stealing People's Stories

For those of you paying attention to the discourse out there, this both is and is not about the revelation that the short story "Cat Person" lifted some details from a real person's life. 

I had a conversation with a family friend who is an artist, who said when she paints people, she usually envisions someone she knows to start with, and kind of adds enough bits on top that it isn't really them, but she can always see who she used to start with underneath, and was writing like that.  

For me it both is and is not.  I always remember the bit in L. M. Montgomery's Emily series, where Emily gets published and various neighbors decide they are the such and such character and feel affronted about this bit. Because I think no matter what you do as an author, people who know you are going to decide you stole it from them.  

I have written stories based on real people, but also not.  Because I'm a pantser, if I know exactly what happened, I am bored, and no longer care.  But I did once write a story that combined a bunch of things my brain had been noodling on, and then when it was finished, realize one element of it bore enough similarity to something that had happened to a roommate of mine that there was no way she wasn't going to think it was inspired by that, even though I hadn't thought about them once when I was drafting.  That wasn't the only problem with that story, my main character changes personalities halfway through and that meant at least half of it needed to be re-written, probably more, and so I trunked it.  It wasn't just because it resembled a thing that had happened to someone, because let's face it there are a finite number of things that happen to people, especially when writing contemporary.  But once the similarity was clear to me, I couldn't see how I could fix the story and disentangle it enough from what had happened to my roommate to not seem like a trauma vampire and so trunked that story is.  

But yes, writers joke about plot bunnies, but for me, unless I'm doing a retelling, I'm taking a thing and throwing it into a blender and using it to power the story engine, not using it as the entire story template.  These differences may seem subtle but I do think it's important.  I want people to feel seen when they read a story I wrote because I got to some emotional truth of a thing.  Now, of course, I did use a viral date gone wrong story for Undercover Bridesmaid, but I felt to me like that was different because I was using a thing and the story wasn't really about that, that was just a way to move the beginning bit.  Could I have done it another way?  Yes.  

And certainly I am often inspired by stories that I read, both the viral date gone bad, and other news stories.  But mostly the thing I wonder is - what happens next?  Like sure, you go on a date and discover the guy has booked other dates, but what do you do next? 

And yes, I have overheard things in coffee shops, and thought hmm, and talked to people about funny things that happened to them and thought hmm, but writing a story about Bob in accounting is not appealing to me.  And while I can never guarantee I won't stumble onto a combination of things that happened to someone I know, I can of course try not to do it intentionally. And it feels like if anyone can say I think your whole story is based on me and Bob, then rather than there's a bit in chapter two that happened to me once, well, it feels like that's not fiction anymore.  

Setting Boundaries

I am at best a dabbler when it comes to paying attention to women's tennis. But I think whatever happens going forward with tennis, the current events with Naomi Osaka are worth talking about.

I want to say that while I'm about to share many, many thoughts and opinions, Osaka's choices are hers and hers alone. And the pro tennis circuit is of course balancing many competing priorities as well. 

So, for those who don't know, Naomi Osaka announced ahead of the upcoming tournament that post-game press was honestly not helpful to her mental health during a tournament and as such she had decided to pay the fine for not doing it.  Much hubbub ensued, including a now deleted tweet where the tournament itself implied she wasn't living up to her obligations.  And so now she has stated that hey, she was not trying to be a tournament distraction, and she was not trying to say all journalists suck, and she was not trying to trivialize mental health, and instead she was simply going to withdraw from the tournament. 

So, let's discuss. 

One could argue that press is just a natural part of the business of many things. I know that's an argument I have sometimes made myself. 

The thing is, it's honestly tiring. Not all of it of course. But I personally get bored of watching players who won demure over how lucky they were, players who lost try to explain that physics were not on their side, and so on. Sure, there are occasional moments of interest. But they are few and far between. And honestly this is why podcasts and other longform things that have the time and space to go deeper are often more interesting. 

So let's talk about another reality. These interviews are easier for men. They are easier for white men especially. And they are easier for folks with little to no mental health issues. And they are easier when it's not a pandemic, but that's true of almost anything. 

I'm not saying they are easy for anyone or even anyone male and white and without mental health issues. But any cursory look at sports press shows that male athletes get asked about technique and female athletes get asked about feelings. It's not the same. 

And if you are part of any group that is underrepresented in professional sports, you get asked about that too. And if you admit to mental health concerns, you get asked about that also. It's a lot. 

I haven't done the math on the fines to see if winning makes not doing press worth it. I suspect because the circuit requires a certain amount of tournament participation to maintain your ranking, it might be worth it if you have enough endorsements. 

And of course, I don't begrudge anyone who says it's worth it for my mental health. 

Osaka is coming into this choice with a lot of privilege. But I feel like some folks are focusing on that, and not on the idea that she, as a champion, is saying, hey here's a thing in place that makes this job exceedingly hard. Have we considered changing it? And honestly, that's what we want, right? For people to work their way up a ladder and say, okay, I have some thoughts on making things better. 

I hope the tennis circuit is able to really listen even if no press at all is not a stance they are willing to accept.

The world is changing. Athletes all have social media and are able to communicate with viewers and fans directly if they choose. Obviously that option is also not equally safe for everyone's mental health. But it exists. 

And I hope tennis and the press consider that. 

I think the best thing we can do when presented with a boundary someone is trying to set for their own welfare is consider how best it can be accommodated. I would rather watch Osaka play tennis than not. So I hope those aren't the only choices.