Shannan Martin

Indiana

Writer at The Soup

Author of Start with Hello & The Ministry of Ordinary Places. Find me on Threads!

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Articles

Five Years of Soup

1 week ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Earlier this spring, while the Indiana soil flexed its muscles and Midwesterners (humans?) everywhere inhaled a collective gasp of relief amid the existential dread, The Soup turned 5 years old. Guys, she’s out of pre-school! She’s a big kid!I remember sitting in my home office at the height of COVID and setting this up. IT IS STILL STUNNING TO ME THAT THIS HAPPENED. I have been an early adapter of *anything* exactly one time in my life - that time.
Life Lessons from the Thrift Store

2 weeks ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

I just returned from 3 glorious days with my uber-adored Emily P. Freeman, hunkered down in the feral winds of Northern Michigan, where May still feels wintry, but we didn’t mind. We call this annual meet-up Shamily, because we are two writers who have spent decades honing our craft. Our combined potential is limitless. For 72 hours, we shared all the stories we’d been saving for the occasion. We brainstormed about work and dreamed about life. We watched the sun set over the lake - twice.
"This is not the end for me."

3 weeks ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Lately I’ve been asking myself, “Is this what I want my life to feel like?” I’m not sure why I started, or when. But let me tell you, when that thought flits across my consciousness, I often put my phone down and walking outside.1My friend Sam has been riding a Greyhound bus for days on end this week. She’s been sending me play-by-plays about schedules, delays, and seatmates. I go to bed and she’s in Memphis. I wake up and she’s made it to Chicago.
How to Survive the Storm

4 weeks ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Every Spring, I am reacquainted with the depths of my capacity to hibernate. I panic. I haven’t seen my neighbors in a meaningful way for months. I haven’t invited friends over in ages. This annual moment of clarity always makes me feel like a fraud. As someone who has built a career on community and togetherness, who do I actually think I am? Yes, I fall into the same rut every winter, but it’s so cozy and warm.
Redbud

1 month ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Outside my childhood living room window there was a squatty, gnarled Eastern Redbud tree - my favorite variety, lavender shot through with sky-fire, the color of nostalgia. Now, as they blanket Goshen, I am nine again, watching oxygen fill the capillaries of another long winter. I am nine, scrambling up into the branches of perfume and wonder, crushing buds between my fingertips and rubbing them on my neck. I am incapable of foreseeing a future where I am left untethered in a wobbling world.
Love Bleeds Past the End

1 month ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Driving south on US31, the world is faded, half-alive. The try-hard sky shines weary, barely blue. The trees are all the dullest brown, scraped of seasons. Just sticks. We are all doing our best. Behind me, Silas and Ruby stare out the window and at their phones. I still feel the ache of a dream I had two nights ago of Silas, age six and wearing blue feetie-pajamas, explaining that he didn’t need me to drive him to school anymore. He drives himself. They are always every age at once.
Perfect Love in the Age of Rage

1 month ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Last week I sat in bed and, on a whim, pieced together an 8 second IG Reel using a photo I’d taken while mopping the floors at work. It was a close-up of the table next to the dishwashing window, where lunch guests deposit their trays. For the six years I’ve worked there, the table’s front leg has been braced by a plastic fork, industriously taped into position. It’s hard to imagine a flimsy plastic fork effectively keeping a hard-working table in business, yet the table stands.
7 Lessons from Senator Cory Booker’s Legendary Senate Floor Speech

2 months ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

I went to bed just before midnight on March 31 after reading about Senator Cory Booker taking to the Senate floor for a form of “filibuster.” When I woke up eight hours later, with the winds of a good night’s sleep in my sails, I was amazed to see him standing at the podium. It was a new day. A new month. I was rested. And I was impressed. A full workday has passed and Senator Booker is still behind the podium. His voice is not faltering, though it is breaking, now and then, with pure emotion.
The Limits of Honesty

2 months ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

I was at work and one of my favorite lunch regulars (there are *many*) was struggling. After knowing him for ten years, I can reliably assess his state from across the room. I see it in his gait. I see it in what he is literally carrying. By the time he’s close enough to chat, I know what to expect. One item on the list: I expect my heart to break. There’s a new crisis management line in town. You call it when mental health professionals are needed, as an alternative to calling the police.
We Will Feast

2 months ago | shannanmartin.substack.com | Shannan Martin

Seven weeks ago, my friend Chelsea Long1 made a massive paper chain with a link representing each week for the next four years. She uses it as a countdown, tearing one link off at the end of each week, and writing down the news headline from that week that stood out to her the most. I think her idea is clever and practical. I like the specificity of it and the tangible nature and I especially like that it forces the focus onto just one grievance. One.