“You can hear her smile when she sings.”
I read this on an Instagram account devoted to Olivia Dean, recent winner of the Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, and immediately knew what they meant. I could hear it too.
To watch Olivia Dean perform is to watch someone simply over the moon with playful delight in what she’s doing. She is clearly having the best time, and you can’t help but see it, feel it, and hear it. She is no doubt super talented, with an extraordinary voice and the presence of a gifted performer. I admire and enjoy all of this. But what captivates me is her ability to do what that Instagram superfan called out — to somehow make her smile audible.
What is that? A kind of soft synesthesia? Sonic transparency? The way she presents — open, eager even, to communicate her humanity — is how she sounds and what she invites us, her audience, into. There is trust there, in a voice that smiles. It feels unarmored — a carrier of feeling rather than a performance of it.
That quality is something I find myself reaching for more and more. I go to live music and dance and create rhythms with other human beings as often as I can. I try to buy things directly from the people who made them, whether that’s a bunch of dino kale from a farmer or a dishcloth from Etsy. I’m not trying to be virtuous, and I don’t always manage it, but when I can, it feels different — infused and inhabited by the human who put something of themselves into it.
This is part of why Anne and I started Urban Pharm. Not to solve anything. To put our care, our curiosity, our small daily joys into glass bottles and offer them up with generosity.
We talk often about how to protect that as we grow — how to keep the business permeable to who we are. How to make sure the shrubs still feel like they came from a kitchen, not a boardroom.
We hope you feel — and taste, and maybe even hear — the care and joy we put into every shrub you sip.
Xoxo,
Jill