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In this week’s issue:

• Essay: The history of the Poinsettia
• Recommended Reads: AMLO's popularity, writing goals and reflections, and 3 phases of life transitions
• Quotes & Musings: Hemingway on understanding over judging as a writer

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The History of the Poinsettia, or Poinsettismo

The poinsettia is a Christmas tradition with an origin story born alongside the beginning of US-Mexico diplomatic relations. It's passage through time and geography between Mexico and the US perhaps also says something about the history of their relationship.

The plant with its bright scarlet bracts blooms in a six-week period every November and December. It originated in Mexico and Central America and eventually found its way to the US through a circuitous historical route. Today its appearance is synonymous with Christmas to the tune of over $250 million in sales each year in the US alone.

Long before its connection to Christmas, the plant held significance for the Aztecs. They called it cuetlaxóchitl, which means wilting or weathered, a possible reference to its brief annual existence. They had many uses for the plant, including warrior rituals, medicinal purposes, and as dyes for fabrics. Montezuma had containers of it shipped to him at Teotihuacan, where the elevation was too high to grow.

After the conquest and during Spanish rule, the plant grew in importance for religious and festive reasons. The waves of red that appeared near Christmas caught the eye and imagination of the Spanish, who included it in their nativity scenes.

By the time of Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, the poinsettia, or flor de nochebuena, was already an established Christmas custom. This was also the time that the new Mexican nation was forming diplomatic relations with other countries. The British were the first to recognize the new Mexico and cozy up to its leadership. US President John Quincy Adams followed suit, in 1820, and appointed his first US Ambassador to Mexico - a named Joel Roberts Poinsett.

Poinsett was a prominent South Carolinian slaveholder carrying strong views about the threat of the British monarchy system and the need for US-style democracy. There was concern in the US about influence over the new government on its southern border. For Poinsett, who served under both Adams and his successor Andrew Jackson, there was an urgency to maneuver and curry favor.

Poinsett was qualified for the job, no matter his politics. Prior to his appointment in Mexico, he served as Consul General in Chile. He also traveled extensively in Argentina and Mexico, wrote a book about the latter, and spoke four languages.

In his free time, he was an avid botanist.

As Poinsett spent his first Christmas in Mexico, he was struck by the abundance of scarlet adorning the nativity scenes around the country. Fascinated by the plant, he sent cuttings back to his botanist friends in the US.

From there the plant quickly gained in popularity and took a familiar route to US commercial success. A German immigrant who settled and started a farm in California, thanks to the Plant Patent Act of 1920, secured several patents for the poinsettia and began marketing it as the ‘Christmas flower’ in the US. Eventually it was named for the ambassador who first brought it to the US, and grew into the business and tradition it is today.

But down south a different moniker was born: poinsettismo.

At a time, it was a joke that signified US meddling in Mexico. Because that's what Poinsett was doing. There was more than a passing interest in the British monarchy form among Mexican leadership, and so Poinsett worked hard to counter that influence. He went so far to support and grow a network of pro-US masonic lodges in the country. Eventually the Mexican president was angry enough he asked Andrew Jackson to replace the ambassador.

Two words behind a beautiful cultural tradition and visual. One represents the commercial and cultural power of the natural world. The other the beginning contours of a major geopolitical relationship.

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Recommended Reads

​Study something you love in depth! (Austin Kleon)

One of my favorite things learning about the objects, places, and people in Mexico City (and anywhere I live or visit) is what happens as a result of going deep on a singular subject or topic. Of course it's in one part about seeking and notating insights that I want to write about or share, but it's also the serendipity of getting pleasantly lost in the learning process. For instance, learning about the history of the poinsettia re-ignites my interest in learning more about post-independence Mexico and of course the US invasion. It's an interesting time period in both countries. For the US that time period tells us so much about the way the country is today, so of course I wonder how that might be true or false for Mexico. That's my own version of a rabbit hole. I sometimes think of history similar to an engineer might have thought once looking at a computer he was about to take apart. It's fun to disassemble the inputs and influences of history and how things came to be. It's one way of learning about myths. That's what spurred my interest in the above post by Austin Kleon. We should take something apart. Spend time and go deeper on a singular subject of interest. Follow our curiosity with a little less interruption.

​A Year of Notes (Nicole Chung)

Author Nicole Chung writes a regular advice column for The Atlantic on the craft of writing. In this week's end of year column she summarizes what she learned about herself as a writer and what she looks forward to next year. Here's a question Chung poses often to her own students: What is one thing you can change, one thing you can do, to benefit your writing life? Upon reflection, the one thing I did in 2022 was move to Mexico City. I did it so I could commit myself to writing and being a writer. It led to this newsletter, which has helped establish discipline, deepen connections with others, and help me be more comfortable sharing my writing and myself through writing. I also tracked my word count this year. It really helped to ground me in a practice that I now consider essential. In total I amassed over 430,000 words this year, with the last six months carrying the brunt of that volume. I've established a practice and momentum that I'm really proud of. All of this progress feels foundational to what might come next. My friend Naveen asked recently about writing goals for 2023. I'm still working on them, but broadly they entail continuing my daily practice and word count, writing this newsletter without interruption, and finishing a very shitty first draft of a flash-in-novella based on my great grandfather's WWI journal.

​The 3 Phases of Making a Major Life Change (HBR)

We rarely think our way into a new way of acting. Rather, we act our way into new ways of thinking — and being.

I've always felt that I can think and plan my way through a transition. And that's certainly an important part of it, but I'm not sure how valuable it is at the outset. In fact, it might be a liability early on. It's because we over-value thinking with just our brain. That if we just sit down and think it through it we can gain clarity and answers. But this article by an author who has spent decades researching how people approach career change, recommends a different approach. Disruptive events -- COVID, break-ups, layoffs, to name a few -- are difficult and sometimes traumatic, but they are always opportunities for something new. When we are in the midst of those changes and transitions it's often easy to pinpoint what we don't want (typically it's where we've been), but much harder to visualize where we want to go. That place of not knowing is uncomfortable. Sometimes we need to move out of it quickly for very practical financial reasons, but more often than not we think we need to move because we're uncomfortable being uncomfortable. It seems counter-intuitive to sit in that discomfort and understand it rather than judge it. To embrace a process of discovery. The author recommends a three-stage cycle of transition: separation, liminality, and reintegration. Moving to a new place can often be the catalyst for change and new habits. Ibarra calls it 'habit discontinuity'. We become more malleable to change when we separate from the people, places, and old identities that shaped how we saw the world. Second, when we're in between jobs, relationships, new homes we occupy a liminal time and space that can be a great petri dish for discovery and experimentation. It's the time to test new things and learn more deeply about yourself and your interests. There's a window for taking advantage of these circumstances though. For most of us, after habit disruption, we eventually revert back to some version of what we did before. The article cites a three month window that we have to discover and develop entirely new habits. I've been thinking a lot about transition not just because I was recently laid off. Truth be told, I started my own transition and discovery a year ago when I made the decision to 'separate' and move to Mexico City. To be clear, I was moving toward something rather than away. But it was still the step and the place I've needed to commit more to writing and to exploring and following my curiosity. I'm excited for this small window to experiment and create in limbo.

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Quotes & Musings

"As a writer, you should not judge. You should understand."

-- Ernest Hemingway

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Next Sunday

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