The Road to Belonging Is Paved With Taste (and T-shirts)

A path out of isolation and shame.

Welcome to Mia’s Queue, a newsletter devoted to conscious culture — how curation leads to connection and personal change. Usually, I interview undercover tastemakers about what lights them up, where they find inspiration, and what they think we should all be enjoying right now. Today’s edition is part of a more personal series. It was powered by the Flow State podcast.

Collage made in March 2023

I came of age in an era when taste cascaded down from gatekeepers in ivory towers. Magazine editors, MTV veejays, and museum curators were the kinds of people I’d look to to tell me what was worthy of my attention.

At home, one person’s taste prevailed...and it wasn’t mine. Lots of upside came with this! I was exposed to neat stuff I wouldn’t have discovered as a gothy brooder: jazz and Brazilian music, bohemian clothing, David Attenborough and NOVA, and couscous with more adornments than a fruit cake.

But this person became despotic, touchy, and almost insulted when their taste didn’t find its immediate adherents. It was as if it was a personal affront not to share the same tastes. 

That can be a shaky environment for a teen trying on identities for size, and it’s the kind of thing that festers without a lot of awareness and inner work. When it feels like your taste in virtually every aspect of your life isn’t encouraged or accepted for what it is, you might stop listening to or trusting yourself. You might start to feel shame around your tastes. 

Wanting to belong is one heckuva strong human urge, so it makes sense that conforming, ignoring, or hiding one’s taste is a safe move when feeling threatened. However, in reality, I’ve found that the psychic toll of denying one’s taste — one’s truth! — is far greater than any temporary feeling of shelter. 

Unlearning the embedded shame that surrounds my truth remains an ongoing process. I still occasionally experience surges of shame about my taste. When the first comment upon seeing me is always a critique of my hair. When my interest in (truly harmless) art is deemed inappropriate for my children to see. When it’s hinted that I eat out too much or my diet is wrong. 

To the people who have taste and own it with nonchalant assuredness: You are my heroes! I think of the growth hotshot who turned to a more spiritual life. The designer-curator with red tattoos and a cabin fetish. The green lady of Brooklyn. I don’t care how your taste is defined, as long as you have a POV with joy at its center. These are the kinds of people I want to know and celebrate in this newsletter.

Taste is a vector for belonging — a path out of isolation and shame. Sharing what you’re reading, watching, and listening to brings the moths to the flame. It turns out the T-shirt is a very popular billboard for this. 

My husband offered the sweetest advice to a teen who was finding it tough to spark new friendships in their big school. He suggested they get T-shirts of their favorite bands and start wearing them to see who comes out of the woodwork. 

A liberal friend in Trump country told me she’s been having a hard time making new connections. So, to her husband’s disbelief, she puts on her Kamala T-shirt, sits in a cafe, and sees who approaches her. 

I think tenderly of all the times my dad would program his T-shirts according to whoever was visiting. Right now I’m looking at a picture from my 21st birthday, and he’s wearing a Penn T-shirt (my alma mater). Not one for many words or emotions, this was his way of connecting with me.

These days, my dad is in a tougher place. I evoke only the faintest glimmer of recognition in his eye. Still, I can count on the fact that whenever I visit him in his memory care home, he’ll be wearing a T-shirt from the corners of our overlapping interests. The staff there puts it on him, but it warms my heart to know that they’re honoring his factory settings, the taste he entered the facility with. 

Our taste is a gateway to meaningful connections and greater community, inviting a chosen family that just might be a lot more fun and supportive than the one you were born with. You will find people who vibe with your taste and, when you do, it feels marvelous. That’s something I wish I could remind the 16-year-old me…heck, even present-day me! You don’t like my taste? OK…you’re probably wearing a Taylor Swift or Phish T-shirt. They’re not my thing but that doesn’t mean I can’t respect you anyway.

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What’s filling me up ⛽️:

📚 Digging underneath the cocktail-party version

I’ve read 20 books so far this year, and eight of them have been memoirs. One of my favorites was “Splinters” by Leslie Jamison. Her writing is so exquisite that it started to change how I see the world. Descriptions like this helped me see mundane details as worthy of the page, and I began to see my daily life as creative fodder.  

I listened to descriptions of the detention centers while I washed dishes, pulled ant traps away from the chubby fingers of the crawling baby, filled the garbage with strawberries wearing little gray hats of mold, and cucumbers squishy as water balloons. What a gift it was, this home.

Another passage that the writers here will love:

In class, I spoke to my students about breaking open the anecdotal stories we all tell ourselves and others about our own lives. You have to dislodge the cocktail-party version of the story, I said, in order to get at the more complicated version lurking beneath the anecdote: the anger under the nostalgia, the fear under the ambition. I didn’t want their breakups summarized, I wanted specifics—wanted them stress-eating cookies as big as their palms, their fingers smelling like iron after leaning against an ex’s rusty fire escape.

In breathy monologues, with aching breasts, I told my students I believed in the empty pilsner cans and bunched-up masturbation tissues of this life; the Clorox tang of semen in the back of the throat; the tenderness of a mother making apple crisp in foil packets over an open fire. Digging underneath the cocktail-party version of a story was like turning over a smooth stone to get at the moss and dirt below.

What’s underneath the cocktail version of your story? The books and writing I love always go there.

👩🏼‍🎨 Trying something out of my comfort zone 

I am working with the designer of my dreams on a new look and a more coherent identity for Mia’s Queue. This person, whom I will introduce soon, is setting me up with a cool, flexible system that empowers me to be creative and self-sufficient while bringing consistency and personality to my brand. So far, I’ve had as much fun playing designer as writing this newsletter. Little did I know that was part of his plan. TBC…

🎶 New music discoveries

I love music, especially live music, especially with my kiddos. Outside Lands has become our family’s Christmas. This year, I saw Postal Service, Jungle, Slowdive, Mindchatter, Channel Tres, The Blessed Madonna, Chappell Roan, TV Girl, and many more. Two (new to me) and extremely enjoyable acts that I would like to recommend to you are:

The Last Dinner Party
“...exists somewhere between Bowie, Kate Bush and a post jilted lovers Fleetwood Mac.” — PAPER

Amyl & the Sniffers
“...like listening to Poly Styrene fronting Motörhead.” — Guardian

Mother and son en route to the dance stage.

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Mia’s Queue is a free newsletter at the intersection of curation, connection, and personal change. Each edition is full of links hand-picked by authentic people who savor the hunt for the Good Stuff, always strive to be their best, and know that sharing is caring. Thanks for being here!