Surrendering to the Messy Middle
“I’m writing my first book using a pen name. I needed a new look for my new public persona, and Alissa proved phenomenal.” That is what Andrea Adleman, career journalist, said about her headshot experience to help her begin a new phase of an old career.
“To reach the future I envision, I have to navigate through the messy middle replete with feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and self-criticism. Looking back helps me push through.
This year – 2025 – is the fortieth anniversary of my first newspaper story. I profiled a TV actress who was appearing at a local arts festival. I was fifteen years old. The whole process, from arranging the interview to getting the story published, was entirely my initiative. I was decisively on a career track to become a newspaper reporter. I was in the prerequisite journalism class for the student newspaper staff. On a Friday afternoon after school had closed, I learned about the festival and spontaneously decided I’d write about the actress for the school newspaper. I wasn’t yet on the newspaper staff. That detail didn’t stop my ambition. Somehow, I found the right phone number and talked to the actress’ handler. They agreed to my request and the interview was scheduled for the next day. It was after hours, so I couldn’t reach the journalism teacher to get approval but I proceeded to execute my mission.
It was thrilling to interview the actress! She was a beloved celebrity to teenage girls like me, a star of the ’80s show The Facts of Life.
At school on Monday, I told the journalism teacher what I had done. He turned down my story idea. It wasn’t going to be published in the school newspaper. Undeterred, I decided to approach the local community newspaper. First, I had to find a ride to the newsroom since I wasn’t old enough to drive. I remember standing at the desk of the features editor and getting a positive response. Yes, she’d publish my story! It was September 1985. The newspaper not only ran my story about the actress but also profiled me as a teenage journalist who was “pleased with her first interview,” to quote the story headline.
This turn of events set the precedent for the way I’ve operated my entire life.
In my teens and twenties, I routinely accomplished the extraordinary operating above my pay grade doing impactful work in public policy. You can read about it in the newspaper! I had fiery, feverish ambition and a crystal clear sense of direction. Then life went sideways.
I’m in the messy middle. I choose to surrender to it because the alternative is self-defeating. Giving in to anxiety, fear, and negativity drains energy. It’s not as though a fairy godmother is going to take pity on me, wave a magic wand, and manifest my dreams.
I read a lot of nonfiction and find comfort in analyses that speak to my situation. One such book is Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different by branding experts Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger. The authors define a rare breed as one who is rebellious, audacious, obsessed, hot-blooded, weird, hypnotic, and emotional. To a greater or lesser extent, I identify with all of those traits. By definition, a rare breed isn’t a mainstream bird. A rare breed flies solo. In Walt Whitman’s words, ‘I celebrate myself and sing myself.’
My own book is a rare breed. I’m writing a cultural history of cupcakes as popularized by Sex and the City. I’ve long been curious about the symbolic power of cupcakes to trigger emotion and provoke impassionate debate. I’m the only professional journalist to sustain a critical inquiry into cupcakes. I see patterns no one else is looking for. My book makes a feminist statement about intellectualizing women’s leadership in the cupcake industry. I'm affirming the seriousness, viability, and empowerment embedded in a product widely dismissed as feminine frivolity. My book is based on “The psychology of cupcakes,” my Washington Post story that won the 2013 Association of Food Journalists award for Best Newspaper Food Feature.
My book will be published under my pen name, Rose Leman. Rose is my middle name. I like its association with red things — heart, passion, fire, blood. I like that roses have thorns and they sting, an apt representation of my liminal place in the messy middle. I surrender. I trust my intuitive inner compass to pull me in the right direction.
Alissa captured an essential nuance that’s hard to translate to words. She detected nearly imperceptible variations and converted intangibles into a picture. Thanks to Alissa’s skill, I can visualize my future in the present photograph.”