This Seeming Chaos

Sarah Avenir

Creative Commons NonCommercial 4.0

This Seeming Chaos

Sarah Avenir

Journal excerpts 2020–2021.

These journals were not written with the intent to publish. I added nothing and only made words more specific when the subject was implied in my head but not specified for a reader. I cut out anything too repetitive, TMI, or not relevant to my purposes.

If I were the children of Charles Darwin revising and publishing his autobiography posthumously, this might be considered a “bowdlerized” version but luckily I am not and it’s just helpful editing.

—Sarah Avenir

February 2020

The 16th.

“Be prepared for strangeness and for new ways, my bears.” —The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

I had a moment last night (or was it early this morning?) when I felt like I needed to start investing in things that make my soul come alive. It was such an intense feeling, like I have been slipping into a black and white world of strategy and productivity and appearances and my soul is dying for some color. I almost ordered Care of the Soul and Romancing the Ordinary last night because those are the books I think of when that subject comes up for me.

I think all of this is coming up because I am starting to feel the pressure cooker of owning/running a business heat up. I get afraid that I can’t handle it, that I’m going to sacrifice the last scraps of my sanity for this thing. And all I want to do is something with my hands. Something where I can surround myself with beauty. Something I can succeed at, that’s slightly less Sisyphean.

I won’t escape into that fantasy, but I do need to stop and make sure the foundations that make life worth living are strong. And let my feelings flow through me. Every one of them, especially the ones I don’t want to feel.

The 17th.

“Many progressive management gurus ask that the person’s soul life be included fully in their work but imagine that the vast, hidden, Dionysian underworld of the soul erupting into everyday work life can only be positive. The darker side of human energy is very often sanitized and explained away as the product of bad work environments. Change the environment, they say, and all good things will fall into place, but this displays an untested middle-class faith in the innate goodness of humanity that is only partially true, one doomed to fail when faced with the terrifying necessity of the soul to break, if necessary, every taboo and wend its vital way onward, irrespective of family, corporation, deadline, or career.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

All of this is so good for me this morning. The truth is, the cost of happiness is accepting the things we fear will make us unhappy. We can’t pursue a fantasy where we’ve removed all unpleasantness or risk of unpleasantness. To do so is impossible, but not only that, we are attempting to sanitize the fertilizer of the soul. We are trying to rid ourselves of the very things our souls require.

It’s especially interesting when I think about this in the context of what I’ve been trying to do at &yet. My first priority has been to keep us safe. But maybe my first priority should be to keep our souls alive. Maybe I need to allow for the risks we are taking and not explain them as the most strategic thing we could do.

The 24th.

“We cannot neglect our interior fire without damaging ourselves in the process. A certain vitality shoulders inside us irrespective of whether it has an outlet or not. When it remains unlit, the body fills with dense smoke…the toxic components of the smoke are resentment, blame, complaint, self-justification, and martyrdom.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

I’m so grateful for this perspective. I can see it in every pattern of my work/creative life and &yet’s. We kindle the fire, we get scared, we fall back on safer, cooler things. But does that work either? We lose creative progress to give ourselves respite from the fears that accompany it. Or at least we try to. The respite isn’t really real; it is only our hope that is dampened.

March 2020

The 4th.

“To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

My energy is so finite. I wish I spent more time thinking about projects I want to do for myself. But my life is full. Everything is geared toward the pragmatic. Even my self-care is pragmatic because it is for prolonging my energy. And I barely do enough of that.

Oh well. That is the season of my life. At some point I will be in a season when investing in my creativity makes sense. Right now it would just feel like pouring water into an overflowing cup. Now it is the season of investing in my career and financial health and investing in my children. Prior to that it was the season of investing in a new relationship. Prior to that it was the season of wrestling with my previous relationship and leaving it and trying to mitigate the damage. Prior to that was the season of investing in recovering my career and financial stability. Prior to that it was the season of joining a team, and then leaving it. Prior to that it was the season of moving and moving and moving. Prior to that it was the season of homeschooling and team-building. Prior to that it was the season of babies and starting Internet businesses. Prior to that was the season of interminable school attempts and tedious jobs. Prior to that it was the season of leaving my parents and getting married and loneliness. Prior to that it was the season of social anxiety and juvenile delinquency. Prior to that it was the season of moving to the big city. Prior to that it was the season of idyllic smalltown life. Prior to that it was the season of moving and living with grandparents. Prior to that it was the season of West Washington Street terror. Prior to that I was born.

That is my whole life. It has been mostly stressful. But also I have discovered my strength and resilience. And I continue to move closer and closer to what is true.

I still have a long way to go, but I guess that’s what’s great about life. There is always something else around the corner. Which I guess is why it’s good to practice being okay with whatever situation you find yourself in, and not to be afraid of it. Because if you’re afraid of the bad, hard stuff, you’re afraid of your whole life.

I don’t know why I have this driving need for my life to feel almost impossible. I think it’s because I love to learn and grow and I will always stretch myself as far as I can to do that.

The 10th.

This COVID-19 thing is getting pretty scary. It’s impossible to know the impact on health, safety, and the economy. There’s not a whole lot we can do, and yet it’s hard to think about anything else.

The 15th.

It is so strange to be waiting for this pandemic to reach the Tri-Cities. If everyone is staying home it seems like it will have little chance of spreading viciously. But I imagine not everyone is staying home. I imagine we are in the minority, even though schools and churches have closed.

The 16th.

“…for they are but men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

I deleted social media from my phone. It only took a few days for me to be zombied out by it. It’s hard not to look though. I want to know how it’s spreading in the U.S. and where the tide of public opinion is moving. But Adam will know those things. I don’t need to proactively seek it out.

I definitely feel an underlying anxiety about the uncertainty of everything. I know I need to focus on my mental health and doing things that are nourishing.

The 18th.

“Consciousness seems to be nature’s ingenious mode of self-torture.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Man, it’s almost 11:30 and I have done nothing today. Except cry and try to open up dialogue with the team on our role during this crisis. I’ve thought about what we could do as far as opening up dialogue with our community. I feel both like we should do something to help, and also like…what are the needs? How can we listen? Maybe I should give my book away? Maybe we could open up applications to the class we’re running? What is helpful?

And then there is this whole reluctance that I feel toward participating in this very public conversation. When everyone’s talking about something or participating in something, I shrink away from it. I don’t know what that’s about; I think it’s that I’m protecting myself from getting overwhelmed by the needs of so many.

I feel totally jostled today though. I knew what we were doing and where we were going, and that vision feels completely irrelevant to the context we’re in right now. That is the biggest thing. How do we respond? And the answer is I just don’t know. Everything has been flipped on its head.

I feel really helpless. It feels so horrible to just move forward with business as usual while people are afraid.

The 19th.

What a bizarre turn of events. Who would have known we would be experiencing this right now? We have so little control.

I need to get out of the mindless phone trap I’ve been in. It doesn’t feel great. As hard as it is to sit with my feelings, I think I need to actually process them and not numb out.

The 20th.

”For change is not merely a force of destruction. Every form is really a pattern of movement, and every living thing is like the river, which, if it did not flow out, would never have been able to flow in.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity*

I finally was able to order some groceries. Who knows how much of what I ordered will actually be available. And fresh food is so hard to get right now, especially meat. Staples like rice and beans are getting difficult to find, too.

My weekly planning is all out the window. It’s almost time to plan for another week and I’ve barely done anything on this week’s list.

I did write an email announcement about the Gather the Courage audio series I spontaneously made. I don’t know how good it was, but it was sincere. I really don’t have many words right now.

We have so little control over what tomorrow will bring. Might as well just be ourselves and let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully our services will be in demand as people more toward doing everything online, but who knows? No one does.

I’m starting to feel tired and achey. I hope I’m not coming down with COVID. Man, there are so many things to freak out about.

The 21st.

Well, now I have some sort of cough thing. But no fever. Hopefully it stays that way. I can’t imagine getting sick on top of everything else.

What a giant mess all this is. I have such an urge to jump in and do something. I mean, Adam and I spontaneously started a podcast today. That’s something.

As uncomfortable as it is, I probably just need to sit with the discomfort of my own thoughts. My brain is full speed ahead, and at the same time, it’s so difficult to focus on anything. I haven’t even been reading because I can’t keep my mind still. Every little thing distracts my thoughts in some other direction.

Usually I’m so intentional about how I spend my time, but intentionality is very hard right now. Considering anything carefully and with awareness feels like it costs more than I have to give.

That’s why habits are beneficial, even though I’m so bad at continuing to do something by rote. Habits let you do a thing without the friction of being intentional about it, and then you have that time and willpower to spend on things that are worth being intentional about. Autopilot can be a great thing if you’re steered in the direction you want to go.

Too bad I didn’t already have many habits in place before all this happened. Now’s definitely not the time to build them.

The 22nd.

I don’t know how we’re going to close our revenue gap this month. It requires us to grow, and right now the whole world is treading water. I don’t feel great about the potential. I think we need to find ways to cut costs, as hard as that might be. Maybe a furlough, ugh. I need to ask Eric for some numbers.

The 26th.

“We have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives out of all proportion to ‘instinctual wisdom,’ which we are allowing to slump into atrophy. As a consequence, we are at war within ourselves—the brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow; the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot understand.” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

I’ve been totally incapacitated emotionally this week. Tuesday I was in meetings all day communicating to the team about our new modified work week. Wednesday I was a total mess. Today I feel it all in my body, but I’m doing better. I did the decision-making around the stimulus package stuff, and I’m grateful we have another full paycheck at least.

I’m not going outside enough or taking enough walks. My body really needs to get out, but I have no desire to do anything other than play Animal Crossing.

The 29th.

We had such a great weekend with the kids. We mostly played Animal Crossing and ate good food. Now it’s quiet again. We are back in the world that seems to be falling apart and coming together at the same time. I don’t know if my brain works in this world yet. But we will see.

A big part of me is sad that we had so much momentum that was effectively halted by all of this. Another part of me knows that we will come out of it even stronger. It’s just so hard to experience this kind of worldwide pain. People say we will all appreciate our families more and our neighbors and our gatherings, but probably people find an equilibrium in every situation. However, massively traumatic events do have lasting impact. We just can’t know what it will be.

In any case, the whole world has gone mad in the past month and we are doing our best. I could have all the wisdom in the world and still be unable to execute any of it, and that’s okay.

The 30th.

My stress levels are so high. I need to bring them down if I’m ever going to have another strategic or creative thought again. There are a million things I could be doing, but all in all, I have so little creative energy that it would be spluttering fumes if I did.

I read today that the best medicine for anxiety is to take some action, however small. The action I need to take though is a big one—figuring out our direction. We have these objectives that feel so ancient. I don’t even know where to start. We have one month left in the quarter. I need to make a decision. Do we consider this quarter to be a wash? Do we try to re-assess our goals for the end of the month? Do we just get a head start on goals for next quarter? It all feels out of our hands, but also like we need to do something.

The 31st.

Adam and I published another podcast episode. About salmon?

April 2020

The 1st.

“Filling the well involves the active pursuit of images to refresh our artistic reservoirs…In order to function in the language of art, we must learn to live in it comfortably. The language of art is image, symbol. It is a wordless language even when our very art is to chase it with words.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

Reading this was so powerful for me. The image that came up for me was this little house in a field full of orange and red poppies. In this house, I can be fully myself, reading books and writing and gardening and making delicious food. It’s an image that’s stuck with me through the years, but I had never thought about it in terms of life direction. For me, it represents the things that make me uniquely me, outside of what anyone else wants or expects.

I want to move to that house. I want to become a permanent resident. How do I do that?

Bryan Zavestoski published a podcast interview we did today. It was a good conversation, but not sure if I’ll listen to it.

The 2nd.

Moving into that house in the poppy field requires me to live under a different kind of leadership: a leadership of the soul. That is going to take getting my sea legs. It is difficult to know what to do because the soul is all about being.

It feels irresponsible, not making productivity my main goal. It makes me anxious even thinking about detaching from that. All the more reason to go through with it, I think. It will require me to dig deep into the messiness of where I get my identity and value. And what exactly am I so afraid of?

The 4th.

Quiet time feels good. It’s really hard for me to have the constant noise of 7 people in one house. It builds up in me to the point where I shut down socially. And then I feel bad because my littlest just wants to be next to me on my chair or cuddle or hold my hand or sit closer at the table and my emotional capacity for connection is so low.

It doesn’t help that my stress levels are high. No matter how calm I make my immediate environment, the bigger picture of this pandemic amps up my anxiety baseline. Self-care is one of the most important things I can do right now. And my expectations for my energy and productivity levels should be low, as frustrating as that is. I want to be able to do so much more, but it’s just not likely right now.

The 5th.

“How long have the planets been circling the sun? Are they getting anywhere, and do they go faster and faster in order to arrive? How often has the spring returned to the earth? Does it come faster and fancier every year, to be sure to be better than last spring, and to hurry on its way to the spring that shall out-spring all springs?” —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Planning has become so meaningless. Every week is practically the same. I don’t have anything to add really.

Yesterday I had the thought that I just wanted a simple job—something that is 100% helping; something that is plainly a contribution. Something that does not require a sales page. Maybe a priestess or a social worker.

Right now being CEO of a software company feels like so much fluff in a world where the actual needs are great. I know it’s all in how you frame it. The needs of the people on my team to remain employed and insured are great. &yet is a service to them as much as they are in service of its goals. Maybe more so.

This is my garden. This is my monastery. I do not know what is needed. I can only hold my hands open and wait for the rain right now. I just wish I could know. I wish I had a vision that meant something to people…that meant something to me. But I don’t right now.

The thing is, everyone in the world has their own ideas, their own plans for what they are building. They don’t need or want anyone else’s plan…they just want to see their own succeed. They want to feel validated, they want to feel seen. They want to know that it matters. I look at that and just see the pointlessness of any one endeavor. I see all the people everywhere being noisy, trying to get their needs met. It’s like a busy public market, all the sellers with all their wares. Pay attention! Give me your attention! I have what you want! Will that get your attention?

I think that might be the point of my whole framework with Gather the People. But it’s difficult because it requires deep humility to create out loud—to be interested in other people enough to find out where they want to go and to help them get there. To do it with grace; to articulate it honestly and well. To be patient. To be direct but not obnoxious. To let go of your self-consciousness. To just be you, in public, over and over again. To build your own platform, but more importantly, to build others’. It is so hard.

I don’t know how to advise anyone right now. I hear people saying “OMG everyone’s making all these free things.” It is a terrible time to try to get someone else’s time and attention. And yet, we do. We want to help. We want to be a part of the conversation. We don’t want to be left behind.

It is no wonder I’m having such a hard time making anything right now. One thing all of this is teaching me is I have a deep need to believe in what I’m doing. When I don’t believe it, it’s excruciating. It hurts to write, it hurts to make. It hurts to share. I need everything I do to stem from a place of contribution.

The thing is, I don’t have any way of making connection my contribution without creating some kind of group. But what would the structure of that group be? What would it be for? Just so I can know that I am at least reaching this small group of people in a relational way? That seems a bit absurd.

The 7th.

“But who wants reality, she thinks. I want the stars.” —All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

I’m outside! It feels so good to be out. I need sunshine so badly. I love that we live close to the river, even though there are so many people out that we need to stay away from. Adam keeps saying it’s like that scene in 1970s Batman where he’s trying to find a place to put this lit bomb and keeps running into people everywhere he goes. I feel pretty safe here perched on this bench. And also strangely connected to all the people who pass by.

Wow, there are so many people on the trail today. People with their pets or lovers or families. People with their shirts tied up or taken off to let more of the sun in. Probably people who don’t get outside much these days.

It’s pretty amazing the families on their bikes…the energy it takes to put that together and make it happen. The old people who are trying their best to stay healthy, balancing the need to stay home with the need for sunshine and exercise. There are so many people. And on a Wednesday morning. It’s truly surreal.

Oh my gosh this couple who are both wearing earbuds while the dude is un ironically singing “the next time that he cheats, you know it won’t be on me” completely off-key. She’s just walking along like this isn’t happening.

The 8th.

I don’t know what to do with myself. It definitely feels like every day is Friday. There’s just not much momentum or motivation. I’ve been living in limbo for weeks. I get little spurts of energy, but nothing long-lasting.

Are any of us going to be productive again? There is some part of anything I do right now that feels completely pointless. I know we create our own meaning. And we have to, to keep our sanity. But this particular context makes that a little harder if you’re not helping provide for people’s basic needs.

The 10th.

“Sentences may alter the weather, and poems might tear down walls. Stories may change the world.” —The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

It’s weird how beliefs work. Change the beliefs and everything else changes. But it can’t happen on the surface. It has to click somewhere deeper. I don’t really know how that happens.

It happened with me a few weeks ago with &yet’s revenue gap. I had believed and believed and believed we could close it. Gradually but swiftly, changes started happening in the world. One day those changes clicked into my beliefs on another level, and I didn’t believe we could close that gap anymore. Immediately, I knew what we had to do, and I reduced our workweek and our paychecks.

Working with our underlying beliefs is a lifelong process, but sometimes circumstances do the work for us.

On another note, I’m feeling a project budding out of this image of the house in the poppy field. I don’t know what it is, but I know that I really really want to create this feeling and freedom for myself and other people. It’s weird, and I can’t put it into words yet, but it’s thrumming deep inside of me. I want to do this. I really really do. Something in me needs it even.

But I’m not going to get ahead of myself. It is going to become my Special Project. The one I do on nights and weekends or whenever plans change. I’m so excited about it. I haven’t had something so alive in me in a really, really long time.

I think these are the projects I’m meant to do…these first-person player story adventures that help you become freer in some area of your life. I love it so much it makes me want to quit everything and just do crazy things like this. It feels like coming home.

I used to make these things all the time, but at some point in my career I decided that these weird experiences I was creating were too childish, too amateur. I was embarrassed of my execution of them. But man, it is so who I am. I need to shed my ego and my grown-upness and just go back to that person who made these strange worlds to inhabit.

But I’m not going to quit anything to do it. I have my job at &yet, and I love it. But I am going to be me, completely free, on the other side of that. And because I have the solid foundation of my job and my service, I can let myself be free and just give in to everything my soul wants to make possible.

I had felt like new ideas had left me because of the situation the world is in and because I was afraid of what those ideas would take. But I know now they were just waiting for me to open myself up to them all along. This is what happens when I let myself be driven by the soul; by giving it what it really wants.

The things my soul wants are all about integration. And the things I need to integrate back into my life are not the confidence and the “thought leadership” of my former days. They are the creative projects that used story, image, and metaphor to express a profound truth and take people on a journey. That is what is next for me; allowing that back into my work.

Learning, story, magic, beauty, connection, truth—all of these things need to be my highest goal in anything I decide to do.

The 11th.

“Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.” —The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

I beat Animal Crossing. I got K.K. slider to come to my island. This feels like a significant accomplishment compared to how hard everything is right now.

I wonder how our world is going to change because of this pandemic. I haven’t written about that for a while. It’s honestly gotten pretty easy to put it out of my mind. We have our little house and our little company and our little deliveries every so often. It’s just everything is both unfathomable and unknowable. I have to return to some semblance of internal order, at least. Even though on the one hand I want things to stay jostled, what I mean by that is I don’t want to go back to “this is the way things have to be.” Now is a time where change is allowed, expected even. That is so freeing to me, and I don’t want to lose that. Though of course, I don’t need to lose that. That is a feeling I can cultivate in myself no matter how solid or shaky things may seem.

The 12th.

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.” —The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

I’m so excited about this Special Project, even though I have no idea what it is. I’ve been thinking about delivering a literal package that says “open this in week 1,” etc. That would allow me to deliver things all at once, so timing wouldn’t be an issue. But I love the idea of having things to unwrap each week. You’d have literally everything you needed, right there in front of you. And you’d have a much deeper connection than something that’s fully online. I just love that.

The thing I’m not sure of is what is the purpose of this? Also, none of the names I’ve tried for it feel right. But if there’s anything I’ve learned about naming things, no concerted brainstorming effort is likely to get to something that feels true. But also this might just be too early. I don’t really know what this even is right now. What exactly am I walking people through?

There’s the question of curriculum. I have a curriculum in Gather the People, but this is more of a personal journey. It’s more open-ended, but it’s also dealing with the situation you’re currently in. It’s self-discovery but also assumes you know some things about yourself.

What would we do? Well, first there is some sort of self-assessment or validation of where you’re at, what you’ve tried to accomplish.

Maybe it’s an online retreat for self-differentiated leadership.

I like the idea of self-differentiation being a part of this. And “retreat” is exactly what I’ve wanted to create. Maybe it’s just one week, and the boxes to open are days 1-5. We are very with each other for a week, and then we go back to our regular lives.

I need to let this sit for a little bit. Oh man, maybe the website evolves every day, too, kind of like Animal Crossing. You have a more fully fleshed out experience each day.

I’m sending my inner productivity censor going “Hey now, this is too many things! You need to focus!” But I’ve been focused for too long. I need to be driven by something I deeply believe in.

The 14th.

I’m so grateful to our CFO for the work he did in getting us that stimulus money. We need to make a plan for how we’re going to use it. I’m going to let our COO lead that.

Man, I wish I had clarity on our vision though. Everything I come up with feels fear-based. We could shift our messaging to try and position ourselves for this big project opportunity that we have, but that feels weak and pandering. It’s a clear market we could be serving and we could really pivot to be all about that. But if it’s just temporary, it feels like something that would project confusion to anyone watching, as well as a lack of confidence in our previously stated vision. Its short-term benefits (that aren’t even guaranteed) do not outweigh the cost. So hard to think long-term though when we really can’t see a foot in front of our faces.

I just can’t believe how things are right now. Still. But it feels more normal with each passing day.

The 15th.

Iterative growth is such a compelling concept for me, but it’s so hard for me to allow it in my life—to just build something and make it better. To think very small, but to intuit on a larger scale. My fear is that I will do small things and then get tired or frustrated with them before they have a chance to grow into my vision for them. It is so difficult.

But I think that is something I need to learn to do…to lean into the discomfort of starting things and maybe not seeing them through. Maybe they won’t work for me. Maybe they won’t work for others. But I need to try. I need to at least give myself permission to do that.

I want to ease up a bit and trust that it’s okay. Some ideas will thrive, others will need to be pruned. I don’t want to create in fear. It’s all okay; I just need to keep showing up at the page, to rest, to dream, to try. It is enough. It truly is.

The 21st.

“Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.” —The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

It’s difficult to identify the tyranny that is my own self. True freedom has to take that into account, I think. Otherwise I’m a slave to my own impulses, rather than living out the life I truly want to live. There is a mix of zooming in and zooming out that’s involved. Paying attention to the moment and trusting myself, but also being able to interpret what that self is really saying. Sometimes I will not want to work on something, but what that reluctance is really saying is that I’m scared. Sometimes I will feel too tired or lazy to read that book or take that class, but what that laziness might be saying is I need to take care of my body.

That is really the core of it: not balancing two opposing sets of needs and desires, but listening closely for the truth.

The 22nd.

I’m kind of jealous of people like Maria Popova and Tina Roth Eisenberg who have so effortlessly taken what they like to do and share and turned it into pretty incredible resources for people.

I want to do that..to take what’s on the inside and put it on the outside. And really, I want to do that through &yet, not my personal site, because I want to invest the time and energy and collaboration to make it excellent. I just need to figure out what that whole thing is.

Honestly, I think that is the purpose of all this exploring. I’m trying to find a framework for doing this that makes sense. But my ideas are such a tangled mess right now. And that’s okay. It’s going to eventually come together, I just need to allow myself to explore and rest. And keep nudging myself toward dreaming about what is possible.

The 26th.

I’m starting to use a new tool. Oh no. It sucks because I don’t want to do things digitally, but Roam is like the answer to all my learning and research prayers. I will keep using paper to write, but I want to make sure everything is ultimately digital. Maybe not planning and productivity, but information.

It is the thing bullet journaling is designed for, but I can never actually stick to on paper. I’m much too verbose, and I want to be able to re-arrange my thoughts if I’m making an outline. Which I can’t do on paper. And there’s the whole cataloging older information thing. It’s overwhelming to do that with a paper system. I can see the “migration” benefit so you’re only focusing on what is still relevant and not spending your time organizing useless information. But overall, it’s challenging. Especially for keeping track of book notes and things like that.

Anyway, I’m still the tiniest bit hesitant. I know what new systems are for me—a distraction, even if they do relieve my anxiety for a time with their promises of The Perfect System. Moving to a new system basically ensures I will never have a system that includes more of my life than the chunks I give it when I switch. I mean, maybe that’s okay. But it’s a shame when I look at the big picture.

May 2020

The 6th.

Am I delusional to think this is all building up to something? A system for a really amazing life, interconnected with others in a way that feels nourishing to me? I don’t know. I think it could as long as I keep building, and I build slow so I don’t have to tear it all down.

I’m choosing to be optimistic. I’m choosing to believe that real change and recovery is taking place. It sure feels like it.

The 11th.

Slow and steady. I get so frustrated that that’s my pace now. But it is my pace…it’s how I operate best, both short and long-term. It’s habits-based, rather than achievement-based. And I trust it, I do. Mostly. But the hare part of me wants to be let loose sometimes. Especially when I get anxious. Especially when I compare myself to other people. Especially when I look at how much work there is to do and how small I am. How. Small.

I need to celebrate the wins that this way of living gives me, because sometimes it can be difficult to see them. I mean, one big win is I enjoy my life. Maybe I will never achieve anything, but I’m happy.

I do think healthy achievement is possible though. I am building the foundations for that anyway. I’d like to mark my progress somehow. How do you do that with an emergent strategy? It’s so hard to define what a victory is because you’re just living it.

I want so much. I have so many ideals, and nothing reaches them. But I keep working at it. I keep trying to bring reality into alignment with what’s in my head, without losing what is beautiful now.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a cage of my own making. I do not let things flow out of me. I stop them up. I make them difficult. I do not trust that I am enough. I wait until there is something better, perfect, astounding. It is so rare that something is astounding.

The 13th.

“If you are too good and too quiet for too long, it will cost you. It will always cost you, in the end.” —The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Sometimes I think we hide behind our kindness, our self-effacing goodness. Because then we don’t have to do the work of being seen. We don’t have to try, and maybe fail. We don’t have to risk rejection in all its forms.

Sometimes I think &yet’s “people-first” mantra allows me to avoid telling myself the whole truth. It is the rallying cry of the timid parts of me, not the fiercely protective parts. It is a narrative that explains why I don’t go after what I believe is possible. It is protection from failure, from rejection. It holds up my ego and puts a balm on my creative wounds.

Ouch. It’s hard to say, but it’s the truth. Grappling with this is scary because it is what we have always stood for. How can I question it?

The thing is, I don’t question what it could be. What it should be. I question how I’ve used it and why it’s been valuable to me. It has been a panacea for everything that’s terrifying, while at the same time it has been an idyllic beacon, guiding my hands and heart.

What do I do with this questioning? I don’t know.

The 17th.

Bookstore owner Sarah McNally said something interesting…she doesn’t have to do the uncomfortable work of selling/emailing/networking. She is a buyer, so everyone always wants to talk to her.

Being in that position is so powerful. And she’s able to do that because her product is in creating an environment that compels people inside. That’s what I want to create. I may never be a buyer, but I love creating that kind of environment for people. It’s genius, and so fulfilling. Hard to do online, but I’ve done it before. It is definitely possible.

She also mentioned selling pens and paper and things like that…things everyone uses. That’s interesting to me. Of course, those extras are a big part of why bookstores are so appealing. Not the pens, but the “writerly/readerly” objects. The curation of not only books, but things readers like.

What would that be for my Special Project? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting thing to think about.

The 18th.

“If being an artist seems too good to be true to you, you will devise a price tag for it that strikes you as unpayable.” —Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

I am a shadow artist. After reading Week 8 of The Artist’s Way, I think I’m finally ready to admit it. But what does that mean? How do I shift to inhabiting my artist self?

I don’t know. I want to write, I know that is true. I am writing for my job, as well as myself, and I do get pleasure from that. But when I think about the life I would want to live…when I imagine that it might possibly be better to follow the deepest desires of our hearts rather than constantly compromising, I think, “I really want to a be novelist.” Or a memoirist, like Maira Kalman. Or something that’s just…beyond category. I want to be published. I want to be written about in The Paris Review. I want to get a distinguished literary award.

And then the voice inside says “no! This would not be better than what you are doing now! Novels are hard to sell. You have no pedigree. No one will see the value in your work. Who in the world is going to buy it? It will be so much work and just a waste of time. You wouldn’t really be happy doing that anyway. Just be artistic in the way you do your current work. That is the better path. That is far more valuable to people. And you get a lot of enjoyment out of it.”

But I don’t have to quit my job in order to take a small step toward my dream. I don’t have to abandon the career I’ve built for myself. I can let myself roam the fields. I can let myself play.

The 23rd.

I’m so close to finishing this final edition of Gather the People. Phenomenally close. I could finish it today, feasibly. I can’t wait to be able to say, “I did it!” and move on to the next thing. I’ve loved this book, but I’m also ready for it to be put to bed. The 2nd edition was my yearning for perfection. I regret putting so much energy into something completely impossible. But I’m glad to have learned some valuable truths, and now I get to move on from it.

The 24th.

Everyone’s asleep. That will probably soon be my fate, but I have that feeling of wanting to take advantage of this time to…what? Accomplish things? Catch up? I don’t even know anymore. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by what we’re trying to do and wonder if I have the stamina to see it through. Maybe I’m too old for this. Too content.

But I will keep trying for as long as I can. And I will especially try to just enjoy it, despite the anxiety.

It hasn’t been a good day. But we have clothing, shelter, plenty of food. We have our children and our health. And so much more besides. Curiosity, access to all the learning we could want. Good weather. A fine pen. Youth(ish). Beauty in every little thing. Books. A Sunday paper. Someone who does the yard work (yay condo associations). The postal service. Hammocks. Moisturizer. Soft, cheerful sheets. Plants instead of curtains. We are living like queens, we just barely notice.

The 26th.

I don’t want to do anything at all today. I keep getting spun up about the murder of George Floyd. I feel sad and helpless. I don’t really know what to do about any of it, but I will share Black voices talking about it. It’s just all so impossible-feeling. And I definitely don’t feel like sharing about my book today.

The 27th.

“Every life starts with the same beginning and ends with the same end. The rest is the story, even if you don’t understand it, even if you aren’t sure which parts are true and which parts are your brain trying to make sense out of smoke.” —The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

I watch movies like Persona and see people just living…picking mushrooms, sitting outside in the sun to think…talking, listening. Looking in the mirror. I’ve been in this headspace lately of how do people live? I’m genuinely curious. It’s less about their plans and systems and more about how they make their choices.

What is in their actual minds? How do they think about time? How do they spend their weekdays vs. weekends? Do they have a planning system? What do they think about scheduled events? How do they make decisions about how to spend their time, on a macro and micro level? What are their priorities right now? How do they wish they spent their time? What do they think about purpose and its relationship to their priorities? How much urgency do they experience on a regular basis? What does their personality have to do with how they spend their time? What do they spend a lot of time on that they wish they didn’t? What do they wish they spent more time on? What do they think is messed up about how our culture thinks about time/how we live? What do they wish would change? How do they feel about leisure? How do they define it? What is working for them right now? What isn’t?

The 28th.

I think I need to admit to myself that I’m living my perfect life already. I mean, circumstantially, everything is how I want it (at least in my personal life; we’re not talking about the state of the world here…ugh that is a garbage fire). Sure, there is pressure to keep &yet going strong. That would be nice not to have, but it’s also an exciting responsibility that could give me even more of what I want in the future. The trade-off of discomfort is worth it. That is a discomfort I can use to grow.

What would feel like creative liberation for me? I love that question. The truth is, being visible. I know I have so many gifts that I’m not sharing. I want to give them without self-consciousness or fear. It is going to be a long healing process, and I’m finally accepting that. I used to believe that a new system or plan would work. Now I know it’s just about planting seeds and nurturing the ones that take root. There is no perfect system or plan. There is just daily tending. And if I do that, I will grow something tall and strong and not easy to tear down.

The 31st.

It’s so hard not to get stuck in all the social media stuff around justice for George Floyd. None of my passive consumption of media is really doing anything, but it’s so easy to feel like it is (and hard to break away from it). I need to take some space to figure out what I can actually do, and do that.

June 2020

The 2nd.

“The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.” —The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

God, could the world be any shittier right now? Knock on wood. The world feels endlessly, terminally on fire. Layers and layers of violence, pain, death, uncertainty, and hopelessness. Everything is disheartening and exhausting and scary. Hopefully it will change things. I really think it will, at least in changing people’s awareness, which is another step in the right direction. I know it has definitely deepened my awareness of my own complicity.

The 8th.

“One of the most potent allies we humans have always had in our emotional healing, in this or any stage of life, is the natural world itself. Time spent alone in nature, in which we offer our attention outward to the complex, mysterious, always fascinating wild, puts our troubles in perspective and allows us to re-root our awareness in self- sustaining and inspiring rhythms and cycles.” —Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul

It’s a little chilly out here by the river this morning. The water glitters as if it’s no big deal. And I am hoping to catch a little of its power and enthusiasm as I begin my day, my week.

I feel such a lack of control and agency in my emotional and mental space right now. I’ll be in a rhythm and a flow and suddenly that flow is hijacked. Something happens in the world or in my world and it’s too much. Way too much. It’s difficult for me to move on from it. I shut down. I disconnect. It takes a lot for me to restart and reconnect. And when I do, I feel panicked. I feel scared that I must make up for lost time. I feel guilty that I squandered my time (when really it isn’t “squandered”; but I often have to unexpectedly recover my emotional and mental health). I feel behind. I feel discouraged. I don’t want to get started, for fear I will gain momentum and this will just happen again.

The 10th.

“Oh, the things we’ll do, the life we’ll lead! There’ll be trouble in it at times — you and I aren’t going to run without friction. But we’ve got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads to talk to each other. We sha’n’t hang up on any misunderstanding. Not us. And we’re going to fight that old world down there.” —Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells

Today is my love’s birthday and that is all that is important about today. I love him so much. <3

The 11th.

I just looked at my projects list and felt so discouraged. So many of those things were gently percolating, and now they’re not. My approach relies on gentle percolation, and if that’s interrupted, it takes a while to get it going again. It’s all learning. And it helps me realize where I need to firm up some boundaries. Because the cost to me is so great otherwise.

Ah well. Things can be messy. I’m allowed to need a lot of space to be at my best. I eventually will get back on track.

The 12th.

“I’m simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and puzzling. I thought one had only to take it by the throat. It hasn’t GOT a throat!” —Ann Veronica, H.G. Wells

I don’t know why I’m so aware of time right now. It’s not that I even care about “being productive.” I just want to have agency. I feel closed in, like I have so little choice.

My heart is fearful right now. I don’t know how to describe it or validate it. It feels like my anxiety tripwire has been tripped and I’m struggling to reset it. I want to be able to meet myself compassionately in it, but it’s very difficult. I don’t really want to write about it because I know it will be the anxiety speaking, and it won’t be productive.

But I need to write, in order to survive. I don’t know what I’d do without it. I think I would be mentally very ill. But sometimes it’s harder. Sometimes I don’t want to put my feelings on a piece of paper and make them tangible. It’s too much.

The 16th.

I want to write something for Juneteenth. What do I want to say? What feels genuine? How do we live out Black Lives Matter? What does an equal world look like, where white supremacy doesn’t exist? How do we work toward that? As a white person, how can I help change systems that I personally benefit from? If I believe Black Lives Matter, how does that change my behavior? What would a world in which Black Lives Matter look like?

Man, it is difficult to hold a vision for a company while all this is needed. I don’t even know how we do it with any amount of integrity. It’s so hard when people are grieving and afraid and the whole system is against them.

I believe it’s worth it to believe in the potential for change. Although I know many are rightly skeptical. And when the urgency passes, who knows how much of this “education” will stick. How can we build it into our ongoing approach?

It’s been more than three months now since we’ve had contact with anyone outside of our household. I don’t even know what to think or say about the future. This feels like it will never end.

The 17th.

One of our co-workers and dear friends had their mom pass away unexpectedly. She was amazing, and so young. I don’t know what we should do; there is so much grieving to be done.

The 18th.

I’m being interviewed for a podcast this afternoon, and I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to “be in a good place” for it. I need to let that go. I will be in some kind of place anyway.

This week has been heavier than the heavy that already was.

The 20th.

Our friend’s mom’s funeral service was incredible. She was an amazing woman, and it encourages me to think of how much impact one person can have. She was certainly an extrovert and found it effortless (and even deeply necessary for her well-being) to connect and care for others. That is not me, at all. At least not the connection part. But I do want to grow into my connection and care in my own way.

I’m still grappling with the question of how to show up. Jocelyn Glei did an excellent podcast on the feeling that we need to heal ourselves before we show up. It’s kind of a non-acceptance of where we’re currently at and who we currently are. We are saying that who we are is not enough for whatever it is we (eventually) want to be present with. This feels exactly like where I’ve been with social media. I have been waiting until I am whole. I have been waiting until I can be sure I will be accepted, and acceptable. (Also I am so indecisive about whether social media is something I want to use at all. Is it a valid choice to just…not? Would that be hiding from my own voice or is it just wiser to stay away?)

The 23rd.

“What a fool one makes of oneself, and knowing it all the while.” —The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

Sometimes you need a hard relapse to make you realize why the choices you’ve made are the choices you’ve made. Tonight felt like a landslide back into Internet zombie mode. Sometimes I wish I was more “connected” and then a night like this happens and I’m like “hell no.” The Internet is a shitty life. It’s good as a resource, but it’s shitty as a way to spend your time. Sure you can get used to it…you can get used to anything. But when you’re weaned from it and you allow it to take over, even for just a few hours, you realize how much better you feel when you don’t allow yourself to go there.

I’m glad it’s nighttime and tomorrow is a new day. I hate the Internet. Seriously. For all its gifts, it is one nasty master. Whenever I feel jealous of people who have an incredibly put together social media life, I will remember…to do that, they have to be on social media. Like, a lot. I don’t even like being on it for what? An hour and a half? Seriously I think that’s all it took for me to want to become a literal hermit for the rest of my days. Why do I even touch the stuff? It’s so bad for me.

The 25th.

Now that I’m almost through with launching the 2nd edition of Gather the People, I’m excited to have clarity on the next book I need to be working on, one that will establish &yet’s positioning.

People-First Growth. Is that the name??? Maybe it is. It feels like it is.

The 26th.

“All of these years of thinking ended up like this: in front of all this beauty, understanding nothing.” —Bruce Cockburn

This morning was beautiful, but all I remember of the rest of the day is staring at screens and wild children excited about Korean meatballs and cupcakes from the bakery down the street. Mine had sprinkles and teal frosting and a white chocolate shell in the shape of a spiral. It tasted terrible.

I’m always so disappointed when the day’s frenzy dies down and I have no energy left to enjoy the calm. But maybe I can learn to enjoy exhaustion. Maybe there is a quality of bone-tiredness that feels good.

The 30th.

“I am persuaded that fear brings one into more dangers, than the caution, that goes along with it, delivers one from.” —Pamela by Samuel Richardson

I feel myself slowly loosening my grip on all the things that have kept me feeling safe. Isn’t it strange that I would do that during one of the most uncertain times our world has experienced in my lifetime? But it also makes sense. My systems for feeling safe can’t keep up with this level of stress and uncertainty. I tried getting more systematic at first. It didn’t work. Now I need to try letting go, which is the much harder thing.

July 2020

The 6th.

I’ve been working with my framework for this next book. The challenge is I feel like I’m tied to it, but I don’t know how useful it is. I don’t know what this book is for. A framework for people-first growth, sure. But what exactly is the purpose? What am I trying to help people do?

I’m writing it for someone like me. Someone who is invested in the growth of their organization and who is also invested in its people. Someone whose high ideals often feel pitted against “how the world works.” Someone who is experiencing high stakes—jobs of people they care about, safety for their own family. Someone who is willing to take risks for ever-growing alignment between their organizations and their values. But who is also very aware of what they are risking; they have to take smart risks, and they need a net underneath.

It’s not a road to complete comfort, safety, and success. It’s a road to…more road. But at least a road you want to be walking on. A road where you get to be you, and you get to be in the company of others who are taking this path.

The 18th.

I published an essay today. It’s been a while. It’s called “This Is How We Grow,” and I’m putting parts of it here for posterity.

“Only a few achieve the colossal task of holding together, without being split asunder, the clarity of their vision alongside an ability to take their place in a materialistic world. They are the modern heroes… Artists at least have a form within which they can hold their own conflicting opposites together. But there are some who have no recognized artistic form to serve this purpose, they are artists of the living. To my mind these last are the supreme heroes in our soulless society.” —Irene Claremont de Castillejo, via David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

I’ve been grappling lately with the concept of soul and work. It isn’t always the case that we need to bring all of ourselves into what we’re doing. Sometimes we can just provide a service or make a product that fills a need and do our best to be a contribution. Our jobs do not define our identities or our worth.

But some of us (myself included) feel most of service when we bring our entire selves to whatever we’re doing. We are constantly on a path toward integrating what we do with who we are, and when we leave that path, we abandon a part of ourselves.

“Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.” —Isak Dinesen, Babette’s Feast

I worked for a long time to integrate myself into my work as a consultant. As long as that took me (maybe a decade?), it came much more naturally to do that as an individual creator than as a leader of a larger team. Now, as CEO of &yet, it’s been like starting all over again, learning to balance my own unique vision with the gifts and needs of the whole.

Ironically, what I’ve discovered is that it’s less about balance (even though I just used that word) than it is about permission. Permission for me to be fully me and you to be fully you. Figuring out how we can all bring the gifts we want to bring to the table and turn that into something more beautiful than what we could have made on our own. And the courage to do that in the face of all kinds of fears and discomforts. Particularly now, in the middle of this historic pandemic and national uprising.

“A life of our own, from which we can give to others and to our organizations in an unresentful and ultimately generous way, after all, must be one of the great tasks of work, of art, of literature—to live and work each according to the way we are individually made for this awkward and beautiful world.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

We all must do our own work around knowing our gifts and deciding which ones we want to bring to the table. But one thing this pandemic is teaching me is that there are no guarantees. I know who I am, and I want to lead fully from that place. I know who we are as the &yet team, and I want to make our unique gifts accessible to all who would benefit from them. I want to know who you are and what your gifts and needs are, so we can journey together to get where we want to go and enjoy the process.

❦

“…the price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears…”

“It is not the thing you fear that you must deal with, it is the mother of the thing you fear.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

When we commit to leading with the soul, we commit to dealing with the fears keeping us from its call.

I have written before about my history of social anxiety in the context of waking up in the morning (which I’ve since worked through). Though I pass as “normal” (whatever that means) and mostly even confident and outgoing, occasionally the evidence will slip through. I have had panic attacks in the midst of friends; I’ve hidden in the bathroom when it was happening in the midst of strangers.

But 99% of the time, it’s more subtle than that. It’s an underlying layer of apprehension that goes into every social situation. It’s an awareness that I need to take special care to get myself “in a good place” (a word I put in quotation marks because of how often I use it) when I’m about to go into a meeting or a prolonged social event. I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what I need and taking care of myself (and getting help from my partner). So good, in fact, most people would never know the work it often takes just to show up and be my curious, idealistic, enthusiastic self.

My friend Sara recently shared with me that she also struggles with social anxiety (she gave me permission to share) and that it’s been especially difficult during the pandemic. “I think being isolated has caused me to become more anxious, like how you feel when you haven’t called/emailed someone for so long that you feel anxious about the next interaction, and that anxiety compounds as you wait longer and longer without contact.”

I’m grateful to Sara for putting this feeling into words. For me, it’s especially true in how I’m feeling about social media, after having been mostly absent from it for several years.

It’s like “Are we okay? Are we still friends?” Except with everyone in the whole world.

❦

David Whyte compares our journey through fear with the mythical hero Beowulf’s defeat of the diabolical swamp creature Grendel. He defeats Grendel and celebrates his victory, only to discover the next day that Grendel’s mother, a far more terrible creature, has emerged from the swamp.

“It is not the thing you fear that you must deal with, it is the mother of the thing you fear.”

I have decided it is better to be myself, to be embarrassed about it, to possibly cry in public, to possibly make others uncomfortable, than it is to hide. It is better, even, to make the commitment to being myself and showing up, even though I will go through seasons where that is possible and a source of growth for me, and seasons where I need to retreat and recover.

“However well we arrange for our self-protection beforehand, our preparations are only muttered incantations to ward off the evil eye. The solution itself lies down in the water.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused

The thing is, this isn’t new. I have been doing it all along—showing up, retreating, alternating seasons of growth with seasons of recovery. What’s new is that I have words for it.

Examining our narratives gives us the power of bringing not only understanding to our experience, but acceptance. It also gives us the courage to “go down in the water” and deal with the mother of all that we fear.

“Winning does not tempt that one. This is how they grow: by being defeated, decisively by constantly greater beings.” —Rilke (edits mine, for gender-neutrality)

How brave we all are.

August 2020

The 17th.

“All speech is an exposure.” —The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

I think I might be ready to write again. To free-write, I mean. I have played with allowing myself to be freer with my journaling practice, using drawings and quotes rather than writing this way, but I have not loved it. It has felt wrong. Hollow.

My notebook has been my friend for such a long time. It has felt strange to give it up for even a short while. But I think it was useful. It’s helped me loosen my grip on things that give me a feeling of control and wholeness. I know those are only illusions. I don’t need any particular system or set of tools to thrive. And yet, they are useful to me when I can hold them loosely. Tender discipline, as Jocelyn Glei calls it. I think I’m beginning to experience what that feels like.

Now I’m back, and I don’t have words. Today has been a pretty wordless day anyway. I’ve been teaching a class on Gather the People, which has been fine. The season for Gather the People is coming to a close, like so many other things in my life. I’m excited for the next chapter, and I’m grateful for this life. It isn’t easy, but it’s good. I have many things I’m responsible for, and I am working hard at those while also just…trusting. It’s strange. I’m so used to being worried that sometimes I start to worry that I’m not worried enough. Then I remind myself that worrying does nothing except ruin the present moment. I am content, and I will continue watering and pruning this little life.

The 19th.

Morning pages! What a strange thing to not have written them for so long. And to do so intentionally, too. I’m noticing a bit of resistance to them now, honestly. I used to think I needed them in order to process, and now I know that’s not true. I do think they’re useful, but I feel myself getting impatient with them.

I know some of that is anxious energy around showing up in the world. I have been doing this public Roam project, and I don’t want it to lapse. I don’t want to lose momentum.

But I’m not going to lose momentum. I am learning to be okay with slow, steady progress. Learning to be okay with mediocrity at some level. I don’t need to be perfect or brilliant. I just need to establish a rhythm of showing up.

So I’m gently, tenderly prodding myself to follow through with the rituals that allow me to be grounded and present in my work. Like morning pages. Even if some part of me feels impatient to get started.

The other thing that is true is that I feel a bit guilty/avoidant that I’m not working on my book today. Since it’s the last day of the Gather the People class, I’m giving myself a pass on it. But the thing is, I really want to integrate this new book with this public Roam project. And I don’t know how I’m going to do that.

The 20th.

“Acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression or discouragement. Because we possess such fear, we also are potentially entitled to experience fearlessness. True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear, but going beyond fear.” —Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

As I begin to read about the Shambhala Warrior being without doubt, I started to really feel my own doubt and fear. I don’t know if it’s manufactured or if it’s because I haven’t let myself feel the fear. Because I haven’t. When I’ve felt afraid, I’ve generally tried to stay at the shallow end of that fear. There are so many things that have to fall in place for our team’s survival, much less thriving. And all I know how to do is walk the path we’re currently on. Nothing else I have ever done has worked.

Am I being foolish to be so wholeheartedly committed to this path? Is there something I’m not seeing? Am I being too proud? I don’t know. I just wish I had been able to move faster. I wish I’d had the courage to go all-in on my vision sooner. I wish I’d had the clarity that I now have sooner. But I didn’t. And now we don’t have much room for learning or making mistakes. It feels pretty scary, especially in the world we live in right now.

And it is scary, to have this big thing to maintain, and so many people’s livelihoods. But the only thing there is to fear really is embarrassment. And of course, fear itself. I know that we’ll help people to find other opportunities if we can’t make this work. It’s okay. Our employees will be okay. We will be okay.

I think the scariest thing is…am I doing enough? Am I? Am I just being stubborn about the things that don’t work/have never worked for me? I don’t know. But I can’t be different than who I am. It’s not possible. And it’s not worth it, even if it was.

There is still lots of time for miracles to happen though. There is always the possibility of our biggest client giving us more budget to work with. There is always the possibility of landing a new client that we didn’t even see coming.

Suddenly I feel a sense of peace. All is well, and all will be well. I’m going in the right direction, the only direction I can go and keep myself whole. It is going to be alright, whatever happens.

The 23rd.

“The turnings of life seldom show a sign-post; or rather, though the sign is always there, it is usually placed some distance back, like the notices that give warning of a bad hill or a level railway-crossing.” —The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

I get scared sometimes. I know it’s a useless feeling, and worse than useless. But I feel it. Sometimes I feel lucky to have this job that is so well-suited for me, and sometimes I feel the weight of the responsibility pressing down, down, down. And I wonder if I can do it, if my approach is what’s needed when there are so many urgent problems to solve. Well, mainly one. Our pipeline. It feels harder than it’s ever felt.

We are just beginning to have a clear, compelling message. We are just beginning to actively create offers that we’re gathering people around. We are just beginning to include the leadership of the whole team in this, and developing a common voice around it. Is there enough time?

It makes me feel nauseous, what I’m responsible for, and at the same time, one word from our biggest client, one new project opportunity, and we could be feeling safe again. Temporarily. “If nothing changes” is what our runway is based on, and yet change is all that is guaranteed to us.

And we are doing what we need to be doing. As adrienne maree brown says, no amount of freaking out is going to make this job any easier.

My job now is to do what I can do to manage my own anxiety so I can be a non-anxious presence for others—for Adam, for Eric, for Mark, for Lynn…for everyone. Whether I like it or not, I am the main regulator of this system. I need to manage my anxiety for me, but I also need to do it for others.

Today is supposed to be a “play” day for me. My impulse is to ignore that and continue my reading/note-taking from yesterday or to work on this &yet vision Roam project. But my wiser self knows that play is truly what I need. Even though I want to buckle down or else flop over in a sobbing heap, I’m going to play instead. I’m going to do what feels good, even if ironically, that doesn’t feel good. I’m going to sit with my fear. I’m going to let the tears come if they need to. I’m going to stay open to all of it.

And I’m not going to shut down from others. I will take the space I need, but I won’t close off. I will notice that tendency, and whatever irritation or impatience comes with that.

I want so much for our team. I want to succeed, yes, but also I want to succeed at something worthwhile. I want to make the world better. I want to do business better. I want to see this vision that has taken root in my heart to blossom.

I have been through so much heartache. Our team has been through so much heartache. I don’t want that for us anymore. I want us to have some victory moments. And I want it to feel so good because it’s right in the direction of our dreams.

Maybe working on this vision is play for me today. Maybe it’s the reminder I need that we’re going in a direction that is right, and true, and good.

We will see. I’m going to get started and see where it leads me.

September 2020

The 2nd.

I’ve turned on notifications in an attempt to stop checking my apps. It’s strange to rely on notifications to tell me when to check things. It seems so rare that there is actually something for me to check. I feel forgotten, almost. The loneliness of my relationship to most of the world is almost startling when I think about it. We put so much pressure on ourselves to “be productive” and to live these great lives, but nobody actually cares what we do. I’m glad I’ve prioritized right-in-front-of-me life over Internet life. It’s easy to mistake online interaction for real relationship.

The 12th.

It feels like this is the first time this week I’ve gotten to sit down and be intentional about how I want to spend my time. It has been a whirlwind of conversations and processing and anxiety and trying to get my work done. This morning we’ve been trying to solve the air problem in our house because the smoke from these wildfires is oppressive and making our lungs hurt.

The 13th.

“Everybody’s trying their very, very best, and it’s never very good.” —David Whyte

I wonder what today will bring. It was so good to attend David Whyte’s Half a Shade Braver seminar this morning. I have been so weary from the events of the week, and I haven’t had the energy to direct myself in my own learning. Sometimes we can borrow that energy from others, simply by convening together at an agreed-upon time. I think that needs to be an element of my learning more often. I appreciate digital content and asynchronous learning, but it does require significant energy that sometimes I do not have. I mistake my lack of capacity for a lack of interest, and that is never the case. My apathy sometimes confuses me, since I am such a curious person, and learning is the food that keeps me going. I’m so grateful for times when I can simply participate in something that is already happening, specifically when it is a large group that doesn’t require my physical presence or verbal participation. It is a good mix for me. I do not dread it.

The 17th.

Wow, today was super busy. This week was super busy. I had so many sales conversations. It felt good, but also like…what? How did this happen? We had nothing and then we had everything. I don’t understand it. Hopefully some of this will turn into revenue for our team.

I’m happy to be doing work that is important to others. And tomorrow I get to talk about it at All Hands, which is fun.

I haven’t gotten to spend a whole lot of time intentionally, but it’s hard to do that when I start my day with meetings. It’s also really okay. This is a season, and I’m doing my best.

The 18th.

Another weird day. Another not-very-intentional-but-quite-busy day. Trying to get back on track, but it’s hard to get in my own headspace with everyone else around. I don’t mind it really. But I also know that I need to connect with myself at some point or I’m going to regret it later.

I feel my lungs tickling when I breathe. This smoke is terrible. I can’t wait to go outside again and breathe big gulps of clean air without needing a mask to filter it.

The 20th.

Crying and napping and being afraid of having COVID and of people I love having COVID took up a good portion of my day today. Sigh.

Sometimes I do not have the energy to be intentional, and I wonder if the friction of intentionality is worth it. If I just move from thing to thing without really thinking about it, do I do more? Does it flow better? Every decision is heavy. But if it’s not a decision, if it’s more like a movement, would it be a lighter lift?

But that kind of “flow” often feels like a hostage situation to me. Like I am not driving, only going along with whatever is happening around me. I’m often not happy with the results. But is it truly that I’m not spending my time as I would wish, or it that pausing and being intentional my choice and narrating that choice to myself makes me feel calmer, more powerful? I don’t know. But narrating my own life and process is a sort of power. And I do think it’s a fine one, as long as I don’t take myself completely seriously. I shouldn’t believe too strongly in my own fictions.

The 21st.

An open and free start to the week. I’m excited to work on my book. And also scared. I haven’t touched it in a while. All the more reason to do that today, I guess.

Man, did I just start a week in which things are “normal” again? My life and work and the state of the world knocked me off balance for no less than two weeks. But I’m grateful that our work seems to be finally bearing some fruit. I hope it continues and continues and continues. I think it will.

The 25th.

I need to remember to put my own needs first, before the needs of my ambition, my ego, my personality, my job in the world. My work doesn’t take long and isn’t difficult when I take care of myself. It comes easily and gracefully. I don’t have to fret about it.

Fretting—that has been my theme lately. I’ve been holding that anxiety close, and alternately pushing that anxiety away. I haven’t just let it be what it is and enjoy the whole experience of my life.

The 27th.

All the true vows are secret vows, the ones we speak out loud are the ones we break.

There is only one life you can call your own and a thousand others you can call by any name you want —from “All the True Vows” by David Whyte

I’m thinking about the idea of “making contact”—it was the final piece of wisdom offered in David Whyte’s Half a Shade Braver lecture.

How do I make contact? I think in our performative, productivity-addicted culture, it is a difficult thing. It is hard to do something because it makes you come alive and then NOT RUIN IT by extracting the monetary and social value of doing that.

I feel anxiety around doing things “just for me.” I get excited thinking about how much other people might love it. I get less excited about how I might love it, and what it takes for me to love it.

It is difficult. Even now as I find myself getting close to something that feels like the truth, I want to publish it. This is why we can’t have nice things.

But of course, this isn’t new. Artists and writers and great thinkers—people who we think of as above peddling their wares—have been doing this for centuries. People have always invested their lives in their careers, in fame, in whatever social capital they might be searching for. We think they became famous because they were good, but that is only part of it. They became famous because they were invested in their fame. They advocated for it. They sought it out, even if they simultaneously tried to look disinterested in it. Fame without an enormous amount of effort into getting famous is rare. This includes public recognition of any kind.

And with the Internet, fame is in our reach in a way it never was before. Career and social success feels like something we can craft, if only we capture the pieces of our lives in a way that adds value to others.

But we know this. None of it is new. The question is—what do we lose when we extract the social and career capital from our lives—from every aspect of who we are, from every creative thought (or at least the best aspects of who are and our best creative thoughts)? I think what we lose is our capacity for “making contact”—of the uninhibited experience of doing something because it makes us come alive. Essentially, the most satisfying part of being human.

Now of course, this “contact” isn’t guaranteed to us just by breathing and having a life protected from the watchful eyes of the social cloud. But for those of us for whom creativity is a part of our identity…part of what makes us feel life is worthwhile…the constant extrapolation of that creativity for productive ends is enough to kill it eventually. (I’m thinking about that interview with that rapper Lauren sent to me here.) We call it burnout, but I wonder if it’s more like a scream within our soul—STOP EXPLOITING ME.

This is coming up for me, I’m realizing, after a few months of re-entry into being active on social media. I’ve noticed my tendency toward shutting down when it feels like any eyes are on me. Even if there aren’t many. I’m trying to sneak my creativity into the public eye, tricking my soul into being okay with this, by doing it in private at first. But I don’t think my soul is stupid. I think it’s on to me.

It makes me sad because I want to have more public awareness of my work, and I want to do it in a way that feels authentic. But sometimes it feels like that means taking what is deeply and profoundly true and trying to profit from it. Aggressive infomercials almost feel better than that.

At the same time, this is the cynic in me talking. We create our own reality, and what the cynic in me is needing is to have a rich interior life first. Something that is for me alone. And then share whatever feels relevant out of that.

I don’t think everything has to be ruined by being made public. But intent matters. Origins matter. And I absolutely know that what I must create needs to be for myself first, Or else I think one day my creative soul might abandon me completely.

The 30th.

I think aliveness is different than enjoyment. It it so enjoyable to sit in a cozy chair and have a cup of tea and read a good novel. But it doesn’t necessarily make me come alive. Often the things that make me come alive require some sort of effort. I may not want to practice yoga or be in community or put ingredients together to make a meal. I may not feel like going for a walk or immersing myself in an art experience. It may feel wasteful or like too much effort.

And that is the secret, I think. It is coming to an understanding of the things that make you come alive and placing them at the very root of your life.

October 2020

The 5th.

“Have you ever seen a chair move on its own? Have you witnessed the promenade of a table, or seen knives and forks dance with one another? A wheelbarrow wheel itself? Buttons leap to life? No, of course not. And yet we all know, we have all experienced, the disobedience of objects.” —The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey

The potatoes were the last straw today. Or maybe the first. They just weren’t working out, and I became overwhelmed by them. I should have used a different pan, a different potato. I should have dried them out more. I should have used a recipe. All these critical words that are designed to…what? I don’t know. Help me learn? Help me avoid making more dire mistakes that involve potatoes?

I need to work on my self-talk.

The 6th.

I feel hopeful and relieved. These past few weeks have been hard because it felt like we were entering a financial vortex that would create its own downward momentum, pulling us ever under without our consent or control. It felt like I really don’t know how to respond because anything we do is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of gap that we have every month for the foreseeable future.

But now I feel like some of the dots are connecting. We can do this. Or at least we can do something. And I see a path forward that allows us to tie this quarter in with next quarter, still moving in the direction we need to go long-term.

I’m excited to get our team moving this direction. It feels like a breakthrough for me, and a win altogether.

The 18th.

I’ve been avoiding writing here. I’m not sure why. It’s been difficult to check in with myself this week, most likely because I’ve been running on adrenaline.

There are so many things to do, to figure out. I have plenty to keep me going. The momentum makes it easier to get started, and to keep going. Some part of me is worried that if I stop to think about it, I will invite friction and avoidance. Those are usually the things I’m experiencing when I spend time with my journal.

There is another piece of it that makes me reluctant…emotional processing. There is a lot of fear under the surface, and I’m afraid to poke at it. It is abeyed, for now. If I write, I’m afraid of what will come up. I am afraid that will cause resistance, and worse. I am afraid it will fuzzy the waters and pull me under.

The 26th.

“I tell Ebbe that I’ll never leave him, and that I can’t stand it when life gets so complicated, like it’s been recently. He lifts my chin and kisses me. It could be, he says, that if you’re complicated, your life gets to be like that too.” —The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

It’s been a while since I checked in last. We got the huge client project we needed. This is big for us, but I notice that I didn’t really take the time to feel the relief. It was like I had dropped a heavy load I’d been carrying, and I felt kind of ecstatic but also like…what a waste to have carried that this far. It was an intense, momentary feeling. I was giddy, almost, and didn’t even let myself feel the joy of that. Instead I jumped right into the next thing to worry about. Maybe I’m more comfortable with stress feelings because they’re more familiar to me? I’m not sure.

I just read about this beautiful community for differently-abled people that made my heart leap at the possibility of connection and belonging and meaning. I want that. And I’m also afraid. Very afraid of people. I don’t enjoy them in large doses (or at all if I’m not feeling confident). But I do want that. It makes my heart hurt to think of how I have longed for and idealized that kind of community and never had anything even close, all my life.

And at the same time, who knows what’s in store for us at any point in our lives? Grief, surprise, new possibility…it’s all on the table. I can’t fathom it. I certainly couldn’t fathom this life with its griefs and joys. It’s broken and messy and…strong. Resilient. Something I did not know I needed. Something I wouldn’t have been brave enough to choose if I were in my right mind. (Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is also desperate.)

The 27th.

Today I have that “first day of the rest of my life” feeling. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m so grateful for it in this moment. We got another project, in addition to the big project we got recently. We’ve got an additional 3 months to stay alive.

Whew. Safety might be a basic need, but sometimes it feels like a fleeting gift.

The 28th.

“When we’re indecisive, yes, the wishes of others gain.” —The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

I’m feeling kind of ambivalent about all the strategies and structures I put in place to control my energy, even though some of that could be considered good self-care. It’s the intention behind it that makes me pause. It’s not taking care of myself, it’s controlling myself. And I’m just exhausted and I want to be left alone. I want to leave myself alone. I don’t want to be optimized. I just want to be enough.

Ugh, but the problem with not being intentional about my energy is it leaves me open to getting sucked into things. My attention gets hijacked by other people’s needs, by social media, by small trivial things that don’t matter at all to me. It’s hard for me to allow myself to just go with the flow, especially when I see my energy and attention getting hijacked. If I give myself space and freedom, something inevitably takes that space. How do I create gentle, loving boundaries so that doesn’t happen?

November 2020

The 1st.

Happy first day of November? I don’t know why, but I feel extremely optimistic about this new month. Against all reasonable reasons not to be, I feel a kind of homecoming, back to myself.

The 3rd.

Election day. What a strange year this has been/is/maybe will always be. I’m happy to be sitting by the fire in my armchair, writing. Cup of coffee in hand. I’ve withdrawn myself from public life a bit, of late. I think that’s healthy, from time to time. I needed to reset a bit. I feel like I’ve done that am ready to re-integrate it in my life in a more intentional way.

The 5th.

I’m happy to have some good/fulfilling projects to work on while all this election stuff is happening. I got so absorbed in that yesterday, but I’d rather spend my time and energy differently today.

The 6th.

Agh, this week has been really challenging for focusing. I’ve done it during a few times specifically set aside for work projects, but I’ve really struggled the rest of the time.

And that’s okay. This is a challenging week for everyone. And now I can sit by the fire and write and take a minute to feel everything. Not that what I’m feeling is all too enjoyable, having spent much of my day (and yesterday, and the day before) in catatonic scrolling. My eyes are heavy, I feel pre-illness vibes, my mind is darting all over, and all over. But letting myself feel all that discomfort is the beginning of turning it around. It does make me want to keep distracting myself though.

December 2020

The 9th.

“As time stomps on we do lose things: hair one day, teeth the next. Eyes wear out, ears cannot hear, legs need rest, joints do creak as if they were turning to wood; and inside, the engine begins to shake. Nothing to be done. Natural enough, they say, but still it hurts.” —The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey

I feel…scared a little. A money scaredness. But we’re doing everything we know how to do. If we fail, we fail. And I’m sorry. I’m doing my best, and I think we have a shot. Maybe not the surest of shots, but it’s something. I’m giving it all I’ve got.

When do I need to make hard decisions? End of March, I think. It’s mid-December. We have time. We’re doing things. More than likely, we’ll be fine. Maybe we won’t, but it will be an adventure. And I’m still me, and I know the truth—business is hard and full of risks and luck. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you overstretch. Sometimes you contract too much and you get left behind.

It’s weird. I don’t worry too much about my personal “brand” or whatever. Narratives are malleable. Almost everyone in my field is more well-known than I am at this point. But anyway, failure would be freeing in so many ways.

I miss my time and my freedom.

Maybe I need to let go of some things. Like my terror that we won’t survive. I’ve already been letting go of my need to be seen or recognized, literally anywhere, for anything. I’ve even started letting go of my idealism in some respects, and just focusing on being myself.

I’m also letting go of needing to be the CEO of Everything Extraordinaire. I’m focusing instead on creating clarity for the brilliant people I work with to do their jobs.

The 10th.

Sometimes I question all the reading and studying that I do. Does it really help me? Is it really teaching me as much as a relationship would, or an experience? or do I hide behind all the information?

And what about my notes and my system? Is that helping me learn? Does it make the information more valuable? Or am I investing even more time that I could/should be investing in relationships? Or in experiences?

Anyway, I enjoy reading and studying, and that’s enough reason to do it. I enjoy building a learning system for myself, and that’s also enough reason to do it. I just don’t know if that’s the thing that contributes significantly to my growth or not.

The 13th.

“If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that’s where it is.” —The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

I think that no matter what is going on, I’m going to experience fear feelings. I can’t avoid them. And I don’t know what to do about that.

I can keep working on accepting it, I guess. It’s not going to get easier, at least not externally. There is always a problem (and problems!) of the day. I am always on the brink of failure, in some way. I can’t make everyone happy, including myself.

So why do I try so hard? That is the question that is disturbing me this morning. Part of it is because I have an idealistic tendency. I can see what is possible, and some part of me believes life will be better when that possibility emerges.

Then another part of me says, “No, Sarah. Nothing is going to fix this. You have to clean up the inside. That’s all, literally all you can do.” And then I get sad because feelings are fleeting, and they’re usually not pleasant, at least at the point I become aware of them.

My experience of the world resides largely within my own body—if my body feels good, the world is good. If my body feels bad, the world is varying degrees of unbearable.

But at the same time, my body can’t feel good always. Even if it did, habituation exists. Pleasure is an unsustainable state.

Appreciating the weather, no matter the weather, is so important. That is really the work. Not to try to control it, but to learn to appreciate it. To tend to ourselves the best we can, to tend to others the best we can, but ultimately to accept that life is one big wintry mix. The only way to thrive within it is to learn how to love all of it somehow.

The 25th.

Merry Christmas! I’ve been thinking today about that line in Babette’s Feast that I love—“Through all the world, there exists one long cry in the heart of the artist—give me leave to do my utmost.” I don’t think it means “I’m going to work harder than I’m expected to to make this magical for you,” even though a surface-level interpretation of the message of the movie might take it that way. It’s more a posture of innocence, seeing things as if for the first time, and the possibility contained within them, and our creative power to embody that possibility.

We can be slow and do our utmost. We can let things emerge, and watch for the glittering moments that are a gift.

I think the thing that has me thinking of “environment” this time of year is that this is so much what makes Christmas feel like Christmas. And it is usually the labor of women that creates this magic. I read about Dickensian moments of Christmas cheer, the men enjoying the tastes and sights and smells when they finally stop to pay attention, as if it happened as it should, just for them. Taking them back to their childhoods when their mothers lived their entire lives just to make them happy. What a world.

That’s certainly a cynical view, but I find myself wanting to mother and be mothered like that. I don’t want to take up that mantle, though. It’s such a complex thing. I want the gifts of being able to see and have the heart to create that magic, but I don’t want what it costs, and what it has cost women for centuries. Instead I collaborate with my brood. Maybe less magical, but it works for us.

January 2021

The 1st.

“What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do.” —Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

I feel drawn to taking a writing class. There’s this thrumming that I feel in my heart when I read The Paris Review or listen to David Whyte read his poetry. I’m scared of that feeling. I could cry thinking about it; it’s so powerful. But I don’t know if it’s something I want. I feel pulled by so many things. But I think about that one short story I wrote and…it thrills me. It also terrifies me. I don’t know what to do with that.

I found that short story just now. It’s still there. I really disliked the edits I made after receiving other people’s feedback. It didn’t match what I wanted it to be. It made it weaker somehow.

But I don’t know about it. I get scared about doing things because I want to do them. I don’t have time for that. But then…what do I have time for? What IS time for?

I just want to live the only life I have to live in the way that only I can live it. I want to come alive, and to let that drive me.

The 5th.

Right before a sales meeting this morning, we got the news that our main contact at our biggest client is leaving. What could that mean for the budget? Probably nothing good. She was our biggest advocate within that organization. It’s so hard to make decisions around an unknown.

What is the most important to me is that the people on our team know the risk. I want them to be able to assess their own comfort level with that risk and make decisions based on that.

I think I can handle a lot of stress and pressure if I can run things that way. I just don’t like assuming other people’s risk for them. It’s not a fun way to live.

The 6th.

I can’t believe it’s already January 6th. A week of 2021 already. And already unexpectedness and the need to adapt.

I want to make sure I’m giving myself what I need as a leader, just as I’m trying to give the people on my team what they need. More transparency is good for both of those things, even if it requires the team to carry more of the burden of the knowledge of the risk we are all already taking.

The 7th.

Wow, an alt-right mob sieged the Capitol building yesterday. It was too much. I’m glad I waited until tomorrow to have our all-hands. There’s no way I could have done it yesterday or today.

The 11th.

I feel both excited and apprehensive today—I have two whole days + the crusts of today and Thursday to think deeply in an AirBnb that is a restored train car in the middle of Idaho. I’m excited because I’ve followed through on my commitment to myself to take some time each quarter to get outside of my usual context and think intentionally about what’s next. I’m apprehensive because I feel like I must make good on this investment of time and money. I feel guilty for deciding to do this when nobody is traveling due to COVID (even though this is a contactless trip, which is nearly as safe as staying at home).

I’m interested in thinking through a few things:

Company direction: How has my thinking evolved around “people-first growth” being central?

Business model: What kind of business do I ultimately want to run?

Alignment and clarity: How can I help the team be clear in their roles and priorities and aligned with the direction of the organization?

Revenue: How can we be more effective in generating revenue, both short- and long-term?

Culture: How can I help the team be taken care of, both personally and interconnected with others, so they can meet their goals and do their best work?

Leadership: How can I get what I need as a leader so that I can be a better leader and encourage the leadership in the people around me?

This are big questions. If I spend the whole time thinking about these things, I’ll be in a good place.

The 14th.

It’s interesting how my days turned out this week. I had some valuable insights, but I didn’t actually spend all the time I’d expected to spend on these big questions. I spent quite a bit of time traveling and one day less at the train car because we lost power. Then dealing with “transition feelings”—anxieties on arrival and a kind of existential sadness when it was over.

I’m thinking I might approach my next sequestering a bit differently. Maybe stay home but do some things to prep the space to make it feel magical.

The 18th.

“Live with your own ripening. Live with the long waveform of your life.” —David Whyte

Last night I listened to David Whyte’s Start Close In series. He has so much wisdom, but it can be difficult to put together, like shards of a stained glass window. He’s a poet, that’s certain. He can be a wonderful teacher (his books are incredibly legible and beautiful), but his editors must do a heck of a job putting together something that walks you through a coherent map of his wisdom.

One question he asks, again and again, is this idea of the question you don’t want to ask. Your fundamental “not wanting to be here.” The question maybe your dearest friends have the answer to. They may be able to see clearly where you cannot.

For me right now, I think it’s the question of re-entry. What is my place in this world now? I can tempt myself to want the same kind of success I had once, but it is a shallow kind of wanting. Wanting to be seen, recognized, validated. Wanting people to know who I am.

But I do not want that, not really. What I want is to participate in this world on my own true terms and not get ensnared by my ego, which finds its hidden ways to get me performing, puppet-like, again.

The way I can participate right now is, ironically, by retreating from it. I can hear my own voice and think my own thoughts then. I can rally myself around a rhythm that feels natural and right. But then, as I show up, I become trapped in whatever “gains” I become aware of, or in the possibility of gains. I lose my clarity and my truth to something else; something that does not serve me, but that serves my perceived lack.

The truth is, I lack nothing. I have everything I need when I can hold onto that clarity. Participation in the world is a practice—a practice of battling the traps it inevitably sets for me. I am like a fish, easily hooked. I must become wiser if I want to become larger than I am.

I spent three hours writing today of my own volition. It felt good—at least the writing part did. I got anxious when I thought about publishing it. I had both a compulsion to do it and an avoidance. So many voices. One tells me it’s navel-gazey and taking myself too seriously. Another tells me that I need to publish it now and that it will be the beginning of my triumphant return. It’s hilarious the stories my ego comes up with.

The 19th.

I published the essay, called “The Question We’re Afraid to Ask.” Putting it here for posterity:

During the pandemic, David Whyte (one of my favorite poets and thinkers) has been offering online seminars. I highly recommend them; they’ve been such a source of connection and belonging for me, even without a “community” component (maybe especially without a community component, for an introvert like me). His wisdom and poetry is good medicine for the heart.

Whyte’s most recent series is called “Start Close In,” after his poem by the same name.

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t

want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way to begin

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people’s questions,

don’t let them

smother something

simple.

To hear

another’s voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes an

intimate private ear

that can

really listen

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don’t follow

someone else’s

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don’t mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t

want to take.

A throughline of David Whyte’s lecture series’ has been this idea of starting a new, truer conversation with ourselves by asking ourselves a more beautiful question. And not only asking it, but discerning what that question might be by giving ourselves space, and often, silence. We may even need to stop the conversation we are currently having in order to begin a new one. This, he says, is the beginning of saying yes to the invitation life is making to us in this moment.

So how do we find that beautiful question? According to David Whyte, it’s often the one we’re scared to ask; the one we might not want to know the answer to. The first step required by that answer may be one we don’t want to take.

Discovering that question is difficult. Often, we’re unable to see it for ourselves. Our resistance (or our denial) is too great. It could even be something anyone who gets within shouting distance with us can see, but we’re oblivious to.

So of course, I’ve been thinking about my own beautiful question. I don’t know what it is yet. But it reminds me of the question I’ve been trying to answer since taking on the CEO role at &yet: How can I participate in the public conversation without being ensnared by it?

When I first wrote about my commitment to discovering how to do this for myself, I was mainly concerned about how re-entering the public sphere would impact me emotionally. I struggle with social anxiety, and in fact, in my early days on the web, the Internet was a safe haven for me. I loved being able to talk about what I cared about asynchronously with people who geeked out over the same things. But as social media took over and the Internet grew to include literally everyone on the planet (and as I simultaneously grew a business, and—consciously or unconsciously—a “personal brand” to go with it), it stopped feeling like a place where I could escape from the pressure and expectations of the world around me and be my weird self. Instead, the pressure and expectations online became even greater than the ones I perceived offline.

When I took on the CEO role at &yet a year and a half ago, it had been 3 years since I’d had any sort of regular digital presence, and I hadn’t missed it. At the same time, I felt like I was hiding from something and keeping a part of myself small. I felt like I had a responsibility in my new role to work on it. Whether that last part was true or not, I wanted to come out of hiding.

So for the past year and a half, that’s what I’ve done. Not perfectly, certainly. There was a global pandemic. Black people continued to be murdered, and there were uprisings. Our president in the U.S. proved, over and over, (and is proving still…one more day in office!) to be a dangerous egomaniac. White supremacy has become even more blatant and seems to be gaining power. In the middle of all of that, I was trying to figure out what kind of CEO I wanted to be, and how to do that job well.

But I did it (and am doing it). I worked on fleshing out a process that helped me to show up authentically in the places that mattered most to me, at least some of the time. It was (and is) a complicated process with many steps that probably could stand to be simplified, but it has worked for me. Maybe one day I’ll write about it.

So why am I still concerned about being “ensnared” by participating in this public conversation?

“Ensnared” might be a dramatic word to describe what often happens when I share my thinking publicly, but I think it’s the right one. When I’ve retreated from the public conversation, it is much easier for me to know my own thoughts and to see clearly that “small step I can call my own.” I don’t worry about how I’m perceived; I just continue learning and growing and writing about it for no one’s benefit but my own. (I have completely filled 7 notebooks in the past year; I have no trouble being prolific!)

But somehow, being online makes me prone to questioning that truth in pursuit of…I don’t know what. Relevance. Legibility. External proof of my own worth and value. It’s harder to write things because I’m fascinated by them and want to write them; that feels like a waste of my limited, so very precious time. Instead, I’m tempted to create a unifying message and to massage my writing into something that fits; something that is extrinsically pleasing, cohesive, and measurably valuable to others.

Even writing those words, the question raises itself—“What’s wrong with making something extrinsically pleasing, cohesive, and measurably valuable to others? Why else publish?” And of course there’s nothing wrong with it, not inherently. But as a writer, something in me rebels against having solely that kind of relationship with my writing. It’s why, even though I write so much, even though I’ve worked very hard to develop a system that allows me to share without a lot of friction, I still publish very little of my writing. Most of my words, I keep to myself.

I recently took a class from Clarinda Braun, a consultant focused on de-colonizing business through matriarchy. (I highly recommend learning from her. She has brilliant energy and her insight is incisive.) One principle she taught us is that the impulse of the white/colonial lens is to “extract, exploit, exotify, and simplify.” It makes me wonder: how much of the tension I experience is related to the colonizing mindset inherent in my ancestry and culture? Is some part of me trying to colonize my own self?

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way to begin

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people’s questions,

don’t let them

smother something

simple.

Even though I’ve slowly, steadily built a process that helps me publish my work without a lot of friction, social media is still difficult for me. I started with Instagram; it felt safer, less self-promotion-ey, but also not quite a fit for me as a writer; seems obvious now. Then I experimented with putting whatever I had to say on one or all of The Big Four (Twitter, Facebook, Insta, LinkedIn), tailoring the content to the platform. How exhausting. Currently I’m just on Twitter, sometimes.

The problem is, I am a fish, easily hooked. An ounce of praise, and I want more of it. An ounce of criticism, and I avoid a repeat performance. I either need to become wiser if I want to be larger than I am, or I need to sidestep the question altogether.

Even if my intentions are good, when I post regularly, I become subtly motivated to use these tools more than is healthy for me. (What’s healthy for me? Small doses, batched, spaced out, and closely monitored.) If I’m feeling like people are highly engaged, I don’t want to “lose” that engagement, so I start posting more frequently. If I’m feeling like they don’t care a wit (probably closer to the truth), I spend way too much time scrolling through my feed.

I just finished reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work, one of those books I assumed I knew all about before having read it simply because it’s in the water. (Reading it felt surprisingly fresh, even for being such a popular reference.)

Newport would say sidestepping the question of social media altogether is a valid option. To his mind, we’ve been seduced into thinking network tools are equivalent to the public conversation.

“These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers.”

Of course, Cal Newport comes from a place of extreme privilege to be able to ignore the consequences of disconnection. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and is now a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown. And he hasn’t exactly withdrawn from public life—he’s built a popular podcast and blog and has written six books, in addition to his scholarly papers. I do believe that staying off of Twitter and prioritizing what he calls “deep work” helped him focus on achieving those goals, but he also had plenty of resources and connections that most of us don’t have access to.

Speaking from personal experience, I credit the relationships I built on Twitter with a great many of the opportunities that got me to where I am now. I even met my now-husband and business partner through an introduction from a friend I met on Twitter. (In fact, I regretfully find much to agree with in Vankatesh Rao’s argument Against Waldenponding, even though it initially angered me because social media hasn’t been great for my mental health. And I personally love the idea of being a hermit.)

But despite the potential benefits of Twitter (benefits which, admittedly, take a lot of time and attention on Twitter in order to gain), are these tools good for me? Are they necessary in order to take a meaningful place in the public conversation? Or would I be better served by finding a different path?

Newport’s approach to figuring this out is to get clear on your goals, and then weigh the costs and the benefits toward achieving those goals. He’s no tech moralist. For him, the decision is pure pragmatism. The only bad decision is to make a choice to use a tool that has so many potential downsides to creative work based on the potential of maybe, possibly, receiving any benefit whatsoever.

I like Dante’s approach, personally. In David Whyte’s most recent lecture, he explained that he was inspired to write Start Close In by the opening lines in The Divine Comedy.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

ché la diritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the road of my life

I awoke in a dark wood,

where the true way was wholly lost.

Whyte went on to explain that what we now know as Italian was, then, merely a little known local dialect. It was Dante’s mother tongue.

If Dante had wanted his work to be seen and respected by educated people, he would have needed to write it in Latin. And yet, he didn’t. It was a radical choice, seemingly a foolish one. And it was exactly right. Dante started as close in as he could go.

To hear

another’s voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes an

intimate private ear

that can

really listen

to another.

There’s something people fail to mention in their attempts to help you “find your voice.” It’s that once you find it, you might not like it all that much. You may appreciate certain aspects of it, but you will also become very familiar with its annoyances. In this case, familiarity is almost certain to breed contempt.

This is an underlying consequence of participating in public life that I have to reconcile. Using my true voice, the one that is wholly unique to me, means that I will be annoying to my own self, out loud, all the time.

I want to develop a greater capacity to be okay with the grating of my own voice, okay with being just fine at something I value highly in others. Because if I show up authentically on any frequent basis, you will see what I see every day—there are moments of beauty here, but my contribution is often average. In a world where everyone is competing to be worthy of the rest of the world’s attention, this is a scary thing to admit—what is the point of contributing something “average” to the world?

But I’m learning that this may be the most valuable contribution of all—to refuse to fall prey to the possibility of success or failure, and instead to be committed to your own path, as honestly as you can, in public.

I’m inspired by writer Winnie Lim, who has written multiple essays on this topic. (This one, this one, and this one particularly resonated with me recently.) They give me courage that my beautiful question is not embarrassingly navel-gazey, but that it is central as more of our lives and our identities are being cultivated (or at least curated) publicly.

“I wanted to find a way of living that is true: in my own definition that means being able to appreciate life and what comes with it without resorting to making myself an attractive signboard. I wanted to become ordinary so that I will know what will stay when everything else fades.”

I’ve been fascinated lately by the Eastern Orthodox monks who have lived on Mount Athos for centuries. They believe that the path to oneness with God is through the heart, and that the path to the heart is through humility.

Humility, to them, is not about believing you are small; it is about noticing that we are all fish, easily hooked. We are attached to our own egos, and without even thinking, we make them our first priority. In this way, we cannot see clearly. We cannot love fully. We can only be concerned with upholding the ego that helps us feel safe, loved, and important.

Ironically, when we are able to let go of our egos, to see clearly and to love fully, it is only then that we can experience true safety, love, and belonging. Or at least that’s what the ancient sages, myths, stories, and wisdom traditions tell us.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don’t follow

someone else’s

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don’t mistake

that other

for your own.

So how do we develop this humility, this willingness to be deeply ordinary in our own truth? The monks do it through prayers and chanting “without ceasing” so that they become forever aware of their own need for help. “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

I suspect that similarly, this kind of ongoing willingness to be both ordinary and to listen to our own voice is a forever kind of practice. Of saying what is true, noticing when and where we get hooked by praise or criticism, taking time and space to feel it, finding ways to release it, then summoning up our courage to say again what is true.

We can also keep ourselves away from situations that we know are very likely to keep us hooked. We can create environments for ourselves that support our efforts to build that muscle rather than derail them. And we can let ourselves do all of this imperfectly, trusting in our own internal process rather than holding out for some external outcome.

But you know, I’m not sure. That’s what it looks like to me right now, in my attempt to come up with a strategy. Maybe I need to question that instinct, too.

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t

want to take.

January is, of course, a time for new beginnings, but I’m more into slow beginnings these days. At &yet, we take the month of January to think about what we want in the year ahead. Our forward motion doesn’t begin until February.

I’m taking the same approach with myself. Last year was a year of searching for a process, the True Way (as Dante refers to, mournfully, as the way he has lost). This is the way that would seem to take me straight to where I want to go. But as David Whyte quoted of poet Han Shan, “there is no path that goes all the way.”

This year, I’m giving up on that perfect path. I’m keeping the benefits of what I’ve learned, but it is ultimately the conversation I am ending, in order to find my more beautiful question.

Maybe my beautiful question is, at the heart of it, “Am I enough?” “Can I trust the pale ground beneath my feet?” “Can I trust this voice, this heart that is my own?” “Can I trust the ever-unfolding invitation of my life?” “And if I do, will I be safe, will I be loved, will I belong?”

But of course, that is a question I cannot know the answer to right now. It is only the beginning of a conversation that, afraid as I may be to enter into it, requires only that I take that first small step.

The 24th.

I’ve been writing a lot lately. It’s been really good for me. I recognize all the ways my recent writing is the version of myself that is true and on the horizon of this moment. And also how always, in the past, that has turned into something I hold tightly to and don’t want to lose, leading me very quickly into becoming an impersonation of myself.

I must give it up, all of it, continually, in order to love and live the conversation itself. It’s so hard for me to do. The siren call of praise and its promises of safety, love, and being seen—it’s so tempting. And it’s reverse is so frightening. When I feel I am on that right, harrowing path toward what I want, I want to stay on the path. I don’t want to lose it. But ironically that’s exactly when I lose myself and instead start pantomiming the self I believe will keep me on the path. Eventually I lose the path, too. And only in my discouragement can I let go enough to find myself again.

The 28th.

Liam’s hamster died tonight. On top of everything else.

Every week this year so far has brought one or more major pieces of information that has changed things significantly in my life, or threatened to. It is so much to have to process. Sometimes I wonder what my limits are.

It’s ironic that at one point today I was feeling so proud of myself for all that I’ve adapted to and still stayed prolific and healthy. I remember thinking “this is no big deal; I can keep doing this.” Now I feel how silly that was. I have been lucky that I haven’t reached my capacity yet. But I do feel myself on the brink of it. And there have definitely been some hard days. I need to be careful with myself. I need to make sure I’m checking in with myself and being honest about how I’m doing and what I need.

I’m just so tired and my heart feels numb.

The 29th.

“Where a great weight has to be moved, we require not so much selected instruments as abundant horsepower.” —Felix Holt, the Radical by George Eliot

Life is hard and that’s just the truth of it. Luckily, I have nothing filling me with mortal dread at the moment, and I’m grateful for that. I do need to book $48,000 in additional work in February (I think I’ve got $15,000 already, so that leaves $33,000 to go). It’s not terrible. It’s good muscle-building activity. We need to not be so dependent on one huge client.

The 30th.

“So our lives glide on: the river ends we don’t know where, and the sea begins, and there is no more jumping ashore.” —Felix Holt, the Radical by George Eliot

Well, the thing we’ve been scared of for almost a year has happened. Liam has COVID and I bet we all do or at least a good number of us do. It’s so ironic. We’ve been so careful. The board voting to go back to in-person school was a stupid idea.

Oh well. Now we have the real thing to deal with rather than “what if” scenarios. Reality is an easier thing to handle than fear in so many ways. Fear is just an emotion and you’re dealing with unknowns. At least with reality, the way is clear (unless your judgment is clouded by fear, in which fear is again the worst part of it).

The 31st.

Tests came back negative. We’ll go again tomorrow. Maybe the reason we were tired is that we just really needed some rest. Or maybe it’s too early to tell. I hope it’s the former.

This weekend I’ve done nearly nothing. I did read the New York Times today. I made Liam a get well soon sign. That’s about it.

February 2021

The 1st.

Today was a lot of team communication and sales communication. Which is the most important part of my job in many respects, so it’s fine. But it’s not what I feel called to do. And that’s okay. I just do need to find time for the stuff that makes me me, and I haven’t been doing much of that lately.

What do I need right now though? Part of me is stressed about how we make our revenue. I’m worried we don’t have enough hours to sell for the next few months, with one of our developers on vacation. I’m worried that we’re not getting enough high-value projects in the door.

None of those things I really have control over. But I can impact and influence them.

The 2nd.

Man. All I want to do is play solitaire lately and I legit don’t even care. It’s so strangely satisfying. And also hard. Spider solitaire is no joke.

The 3rd.

I can’t tell if solitaire is ruining my life. Ever since I started playing it, I’ve spent much less time reading, learning, and doing other immersive activities for myself. But also it’s been a stressful couple of weeks so I don’t know if I can connect the solitaire with that. Four out of our five kids have COVID now.

The 5th.

I really don’t feel good. And yet my COVID tests keep coming back negative. I’m going to proceed as if I’m fine.

It’s strange how anticipating something changes how you feel. I mean, I may be fighting a cold, but the overall listlessness could be stress/anticipation of having COVID. It’s just taking up a lot of headspace that I’d rather focus on my actual needs and priorities.

The 28th.

“Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.” —Silas Marner by George Eliot

This month has been a lot, and I’ve not wanted to do much. I want to recover my sense of hopefulness and expansiveness…of wanting to do things and go places and be engaged. I want to recover my sense of joy and anticipation and aliveness.

I’m in this long process of resetting the way I approach my life. It’s hard. I have been so hard-core “productivity” my whole life without even noticing it, maximizing my time and energy as much as I could in search of this elusive “freedom” where I get to choose.

It never really works out that way. At least when the chooser measures her life by how well she has chosen.

Anyway, I’m shifting. Things are changing within and without. It is slow. Sometimes I have to sit on my hands and not do the thing that is so natural for me to do in order to find a new way.

March 2021

The 3rd.

Deep breaths. Sometimes it feels like my life is running along ahead of me. But while I’m noticing a need to slow down and reflect, I actually think things are borderline good for me right now. I have some good routines in place, but my life is not moving so slowly that I’m wallowing in indecision. I’m not having to create a life out of nothing. There are needs that I’m responding to.

The 5th.

Man, I’m so tired. This week/two weeks/month has been intense. I’m ready for it to be over. I want to get back to my projects. I really enjoy thinking and reading and writing, and I haven’t been into it lately. Whenever I have time to myself, I only have the energy to play solitaire. I don’t even like it anymore and still, that’s what I do.

I think I need to give myself space to actually enjoy myself when I do have free time. I don’t know what that’s going to take though.

The 7th.

I’m starting to realize how much my decision-making is influenced by the desire to make other people happy with me. I really want their approval. But some decisions I need to make are completely opposed to that approval. I think I can maybe have both and then I realize I’ve been lying to myself.

The 9th.

“On the verge of a decision we all tremble: hope pauses with fluttering wings.” —Adam Bede by George Eliot

What if we get to a point where it no longer makes sense to push our company in this direction I’ve been leading? Part of that would be scary. But also it could be liberating. I have tried this path for a long time. I have learned a ton about leadership and about myself and about building emergent systems. I would be scary to try something new, but it would be exciting, and also a relief in some ways.

If that were to happen, what do I not want?

A model that depends on trading time for money.

A strategy that depends on me pushing and striving and being anything other than myself.

To position myself as an expert (while at the same time I love teaching and learning).

To be solely responsible for another person’s success/failure/revenue/etc.

What would be magical?

If I could just write.

If I could make things that delight me.

If I could make what is true for me and not have to worry about whether it’s true for anyone else.

If I could continue to hone my system and trust that it’s enough.

If I could work in cooperation and collaboration with others, rather than be the primary decision-maker all the time.

If I could work in a beautiful environment, doing things in a somatic, embodied way.

I don’t think it matters as much what I’m doing, but the way I’m doing it.

The 10th.

Things to think about when making decisions:

If everyone were to automatically rejoice with me in my decision, no matter what I chose, what would I choose?

Whose needs are the priority in this situation, from highest to lowest?

What are the desires of the highest priority individuals?

What are the needs of the highest priority individuals?

What do I want the outcome to be?

What do I think the best approach is?

What would make me really happy?

What are my needs and desires?

How can I meet my needs and desires as I make the right decision here?

The 13th.

Free time! Freedom doesn’t necessarily bring a sense of ease and comfort for me. It brings a set of complex feelings. On the one hand, it’s what I long for, and on the other hand, I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a good opportunity to pay attention to my heart, now that I am in a safe place to do that. But my heart doesn’t always have coherent, immediate answers. I don’t think it’s too concerned with what I do. There is an eagerness tinged with an anxiousness within me that is concerned with what I do though. Observing the interplay and the tension between them is interesting. It also takes courage and patience to sit in that discomfort. My capacity for that is not very high. I do not want to lose my good, free feelings.

And so I will look at my options and see if there is a particularly resonant one. One must do something after all, and not get lost in the mind’s labyrinths.

The 14th.

Today I am wondering if our business model is relevant to the modern world without force. I do believe we could force it. But that’s not something I’m willing to do any longer. As we implement our approach and continue to see few sales close (and none of significance) I am beginning to doubt that we can achieve our ideals within the constraints that we have.

Of course, we have 3 months left until we would officially need to consider a contingency plan. But I’m not sure I need that much time in order to give me the information I’ve been looking for to either validate or invalidate this model I’ve been leading us toward.

I do believe there is a fair amount of luck and chance involved, and luck gets more likely the more time you give it. But I am preparing myself, mentally and emotionally, for my own mind to change about what is both possible and doable within our resources.

What would I do if I could not fail? I would likely just focus on my own writing. I would work on my book, work on my essays, work on my newsletter. And I would look for opportunities to collaborate on existing projects. I would allow things to come to me, rather than try to force a particular thing.

In an ideal world, I would need time to decompress from the role I’ve held for so long. I would need space to figure out what I wanted to do. I would see how my relationship with the world would change, and what I see from that vantage point. I wouldn’t want to rush it.

I would have lots of exploratory conversations. I would take my time and allow for possibility. That would be difficult to do while worried about money, but it would be possible.

It would be the ultimate test of my emergent process.

I used to think companies were these magical places that had so much power and could allow you to increase your value—“grow with the company”—and that would be reflected in your title and position. Having been CEO of one and consultant to others much larger, I no longer believe that is true. There is no company, no position I would feel more validated by holding a particular role there. All companies are flawed because they are made up of flawed people. Their power exists in a way, and at the same time it is also a mirage.

I am grateful for my experiences on the organizational side for what they have truly given me—a new sense of value in and of my own self.

That doesn’t mean economic realities aren’t real or worrisome. But I am in a position where I can build on what I have gained, starting afresh but not without resources—the greatest resource of all being my orientation to myself and to the world.

The 29th.

“It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own.” —Adam Bede by George Eliot

I’m noticing a connection between yoga and work/creative life. When we’re doing yoga, we may notice a part of the body that feels sore or cranky or “caught.” When that happens, we know that part of the body needs attention.

This happen in our creative/work lives, too. Something we’re doing feels a little off. we may find ourselves wanting to avoid it or fix it…fight, flight, or freeze. But what that thing really needs is gentle, loving attention.

I have a couple of things that are coming up for me today. The essay I’m working on feels like it’s gotten big. Unwieldy. Lots of good juicy feedback to integrate but also…ack. It’s a lot. the part I’m at now feels stubborn. Or I feel stubborn. I know it needs work, but I don’t really want to do the work. I’m out of ideas for that particular section, even though it’s such a rich topic. I don’t know where I want to go with it yet.

And then there’s this collaboration opportunity. I feel a little lost with it. I’ve gone from one extreme to the other in where I take these types of proposals, and I know the middle path is what’s needed But it’s also so hard. I don’t know what it will look like and I’m afraid of entering into an engagement where the value we are offering isn’t clear. I feel very stuck.

Then I’m meeting with a bigwig today,and that feels intimidating. I don’t have a clear understanding of what would be valuable to him.

Ugh. Gentle, loving attention. Right.

April 2021

The 1st.

I published that essay today, on systems of practice. I wrote so much, and this is only a tiny piece of the whole. Maybe I should have saved it for a book. Or maybe it will become part of my book. Not sure.

The 10th.

My brother died. It feels shocking writing that, like maybe it’s not true. But it is.

It’s been a week now, and I feel as if I’ve processed the most raging part of my grief. But our hearts are such strangers—grief has taught me that much. We do not know ourselves. We only tell ourselves pretty stories.

It’s so strange seeing my writing up until last Friday. I had no idea what was about to happen. None at all. That’s always the way it is, I guess.

I do feel like something in me has changed forever. I still can’t imagine going back to work in the old way. It feels like so much performance and falsehood. Maybe I’m being too serious. But I can’t do it. I just want a quieter life, absent of any polish or shine. I want persuasion and striving to belong to someone else. I only want to learn, and be humble, and write, and help where I can. I want to trust that that’s enough, and all else will be provided.

We flew across the country as soon as we could to be with my mom. My dad is in Africa and he can’t get back. There could not be a worse time to be on another continent.

The hours pass so calmly here at my mom’s house. I don’t know what to do exactly, but it doesn’t seem consequential that I should know. I don’t have that same old anxious feeling that I must use each hour to the utmost. I’ve been reading Adam Bede and talking to my mom and to Adam and making food whenever I’m hungry. My projects include talking to my kids and taking a walk and thinking about something I might like to cook at some point. We’ve done a few things, like connect with the funeral director and get our COVID immunizations and charge the car, but that’s about it.

I’ve thought a little about starting my morning routine again, but not seriously. I don’t know where I would do yoga (and our walks provide sufficient exercise). I do not have anything to write to a public reader, only grief and the sweetness of family and how none of our striving really matters at all. I do not need to share updates with my team, or with anyone. There’s little point in it.

I’ve been in a fog of emotion, but I do feel myself slowly awakening again to the wider world. I don’t know what that will mean, but it could mean telling my friends how much I love them. I don’t really want to make plans though. I will know what I’m ready for when I’m ready for it.

It feels good to write, if a bit silly. I know my writing gets so old-fashioned when I’m reading the classics. It makes me laugh at myself. I’m really loving reading George Eliot though and learning about who she was and the life she lived. She was the same age as I am when she wrote her first novel. I wonder what made her do it? Sometimes I think that’s what I should do, but I’m scared to pursue fiction. I don’t know if I have anything like a good story in me, with interesting characters, that tells the truth better than any lecture or essay can. But I might. Too bad I left the notebook with the beginning of my novel in it at home.

If I live that different kind of life that I’m longing to live, I can see so much room for a novel in it. I could maybe think more about what I would want that novel to be while I’m here.

Surrender feels like the appropriate descriptor for where I’m at. I am ready to just be here and not have to make it into anything better.

The 11th.

I’m finding while I’m not “motivated” to do anything or to use my time in any particular way, the habits I’d been cultivating are still so sweet to me. If I do pick them up again in a systematic way, it will only be to protect that time from the needs of the day, rather than to encourage any particular habit. I feel deeply that those things are good for me, and I want to do them.

I just finished reading Adam Bede. It is so, so wonderful. I enjoyed it even more than Silas Marner. I kind of like reading an author chronologically, I think, even though I didn’t do that this time. Adam Bede is George Eliot’s first novel, and it’s interesting to see how she progresses with The Mill on the Floss.

I feel so strange about our company right now. We are certainly on the brink of a transition, and I can see now that my heart has been preparing for it. I feel very open to what’s next. But I’m also losing the clarity and strength of my vision, and I feel the loss. Now is a time for patience and receptivity and sensing what my heart is telling me. I’m excited and unsettled at the same time. It’s a good thing, and I’m determined to enjoy all of it and do whatever I can to shake my fear.

The 12th.

Today feels strange to me. Like I should be working, but also that there’s no work that truly needs doing. I’m just going to allow myself to be still and listen and see what comes up for me.

I just want to write without a purpose. Morning pages so quickly turn into “figure out what to do” pages. I want to return them to their original purpose, as a place to let my heart be free and see what it discovers.

Julia Cameron says to let the hand write freely, without thinking. And if you don’t know what to write, write that, over and over and over, until something else comes up. I’ve done this before and have found some solace in the routine—I certainly have no resistance to free-writing anymore. But I do use it as more of a work horse for figuring out whatever’s on my mind, rather than as a meditation or a place to let myself be, and be honest.

Honesty is hard for me in these pages, mostly because I’m so embarrassed by my feelings. Especially when I read them later. But right now I feel like clinging to my notebook. Possibly to help with the grief, so I can have a listening ear. But also to make space for me to listen to my own heart. I feel like this is the right approach for me to make decisions right now. Not to lay out all my plans and habits for self-improvement, but to be led by my heart, trusting in my inner guidance and prompting.

“How do people live?” This is one answer to that question. Letting each day unfold, enjoying how each moment is both new and unique and also dying away. Death really does have so much to teach me about how to live.

Grieving has been such an interesting process. It’s so healing, letting go. It hurts. So bad. But it leads you to a place of acceptance and even relish for what you do have.

I almost wish I could grieve everything before I lost it. Then I would both appreciate it deeply and not be afraid of losing things all the time. I cannot hold onto the things I love, the things that make me feel safe. The push-pull of clinging to these things and resisting their loss puts me in a tension and not really appreciating anything much at all. It is a different kind of pain than grief, but it is a constant one (and a futile one), rather than a working out of what has actually been lost. What if I could let go of that tension, and instead welcome grief in readiness, knowing its mysterious healing powers and its rich soil for new growth? I will not grieve everything ahead of its time—I don’t have the time or creativity for that—but I can set aside the clinging and avoidance, saving that energy for embracing grief when it comes, like a gift that comes at the dearest price. A price I would never choose to pay, but once paid, brings its own kind of recompense.

The 13th.

I may have something new to grieve. There is an opportunity for our company to be acquired. Adam and I talked a little about this potential transition and my role in it at breakfast this morning.

I think I’m ready to consider what that could look like. Or at least, I do need to consider it, or else it will be considered for me. At the same time, there are so many unknowns that it doesn’t make sense to rush into any kind of proposal.

It’s Tuesday already. We’ve been here for a week and a day. I feel so different than when I first came. I feel revived and refreshed. I am no longer overcome by my grief. I wonder if by the time of the funeral, I’ll have no tears left. That’s probably not likely, but it feels that way sometimes.

The 14th.

I don’t want to write today. One of our long-time teammates is taking another position, and I’m feeling so many feelings, I don’t even know what they are. And I doubt writing will get to the heart of it. I really just want to be alone and cry, but there’s nowhere to be alone.

I really am so exhausted. I also feel fidgety, maybe from the extra caffeine I had this morning. I feel a heaviness, too, and a resistance to this day; maybe even a dread. Part of it is knowing that our teammate will be announcing that they’re leaving soon, and I need to be ready to join a team call whenever that happens. I keep checking Slack to see if they’ve done it yet.

Everything feels so unstable in my world right now. Part of it is exciting, but there’s a huge part that’s terrifying. I think above all, I’m afraid I no longer have the will to advocate for my own vision (or even to really know what it is). I’m afraid I’m going to throw my hands up out of exhaustion and defeat, and still be in charge of this great beast of a donkey, only now it’s not a donkey I chose, it’s someone else’s.

In any case, I do not want to take on the role as CEO at this new company whose customer and needs I know little about. Of course I could learn, but in reality, I will defer to the people who do know the most, so what’s the point of me leading it? I see little value in me being a female figurehead. Not that that’s what they’re wanting me to be, but that seems like the only value. And I get why it could be good for the company in that light, but would it be good for me? I do not believe I could hold that vision for the team with integrity.

The 16th.

We’re going home! For a little while at least, until we can get the funeral scheduled, which will be at least two more weeks.

I’m so relieved. It’s been nice having nothing going on here and just relaxing and being with my mom, but I miss my kids so much. I’m ready to move on from this phase.

We’re traveling to Knoxville today at some point. That will be interesting. We’ll be meeting with Adam’s colleague to talk about a possible acqui-hire or long-term contract, which seems less likely to happen than it did a few days ago.

Our biggest client wants to spend a pretty big budget for Q2, so there’s no urgency on my part. I don’t think it changes the fact that we need to try something new, if for no reason than I just don’t have the heart for this vision anymore. But it does allow us to move deliberately. I do want to think about what I want for myself and for the team.

The 19th.

I’m so excited to be back home, in my own bed and at my own desk. So much change is happening right now. I don’t know what next month is going to look like, or next week, or even the next hour. I feel hopeful and open. Nothing needs to happen in a certain way. All I know is how I want to be in the world. That is really all that matters to me right now.

I’m so glad my mom is here. It’s wonderful to be around her. She brings such gentleness and acceptance and is always willing to listen. I love her so much, and I’m so happy we get to spend this time together.

George Eliot started writing novels when she was 38, which is how old I am now—isn’t that amazing? I’ve thought maybe that’s what I will do next, but then I get scared and change my mind. I don’t know. Ambition is so silly. There has to be a better reason for doing things than wanting to be a certain kind of person or to be well-known or to leave something behind when I’m gone. All of those reasons feel so empty. Pleasure can also be empty, and not always attainable. Contribution is rich, but art is so intangible. It can be truly powerful on a soul level, but only if it’s very good and true. To believe that my own art may be that for someone feels…well, hard to believe. And it puts a lot of pressure on it.

Adam talked to the team about the (now highly probable) potential of an acqui-hire today. It feels like a relief to make a clear division between what I am responsible for and what the other partners are taking the helm on.

The 20th.

I am 38 1/2 years old today. I always remember my half-birthday because it was my childhood best friend’s birthday. And then my birthday was her half-birthday. Or I guess it still is, though we never kept in touch.

It’s weird how the days are rushing by so fast, especially when I’m not doing much to hold onto the reins. I’ve taken a back seat at work, letting this possible acqui-hire unfold, letting the other partners handle this phase. There is not much value in me doing a whole lot right now or forcing anything.

What do I want after all of this? Not a lot honestly. I want to write. I want to know my contribution has value. I don’t want to sell things, at least not as the main priority. I want to tell the truth. I want to follow my enthusiasm. I want to learn and grow. I want deep relationships and meaningful interactions. I don’t want a lot of stuff on my calendar.

The 21st.

I spend a lot of time driving people back and forth these days. It used to bother me. But now…who cares? “Being productive” has stopped having a lot of meaning for me. What’s it all for? At least driving people places gives me the chance to be with them.

I wrote about my brother today. I will add it here for posterity:

My brother died two weeks ago. I keep looking at that sentence, thinking, “That’s a shocking thing to say; it feels sensationalist. Do I want to be sensationalist?” But it’s just true.

He didn’t die of what I thought he would die of—he had Type 1 diabetes that was hard to keep under control. Throughout my life I’ve often imagined his funeral to prepare myself, just in case. I especially imagined the photo reel of his life being shot onto one of those church projector screens with the nostalgic music playing and everyone crying. I knew him best when he was a sweet-cheeked little kid who never knew a stranger and often had his hands in peanut butter jars, so I picture that. I also picture me trying to keep his grubby three-year-old hands away from my brand new talking Mickey Mouse with those white, white gloves.

But diabetes didn’t end up being the culprit. Instead, he died of a brain aneurysm that no one could see, prepare for, or expect. He was 36 years old, two years younger than me, the same age my mother’s mother died when my mom was just a child. She died of Type 1 diabetes, so my brother was relieved and proud of himself for making it that far.

Grief is piercing and strange. I’ve experienced it in small ways, like most of us have, but never this kind. My brother and I weren’t close as adults—too much baggage from growing up. I don’t know if grief takes that into account when you lose someone in your family. Maybe it doesn’t, or maybe it makes it worse. I don’t have much to compare it to.

When I heard he wasn’t going to come out of the searing-headache-turned-seizure-turned-coma, I gasped and wailed and heaved like I’d lost my firstborn. After several days of on-and-off crying jags, followed by stretches of benumbed staring at the ceiling, I was able to fly back to Virginia to be with my mom. It has been so, so healing to grieve together. Having lost her mom at such a young age and having experienced many losses since, she is the wisest griever I know.

“You have to let it out,” she says. “Don’t hold anything in, not a thing. Feel all of it.” She tells me stories about him all day, about how he loved Iron Man and telling jokes and how he wanted to work with dialysis patients once he got his hoped-for kidney. He rarely left a place without telling everyone there that he loved them because he didn’t take his life for granted. I tell her about how we used to pretend our beanbag chairs were giant mustard and ketchup bottles that we’d drive around the living room. I tell her how we danced to the lime in the coconut song, how I remember him bare-skinned except for his diaper and cowboy hat, sugar free pudding smeared all over his face.

When I went to see him in the hospital one last time, she told me I could hold his hand, and she warned me against trying to keep my crying under control. “Let it out. Let it out. Let it out.” My husband encouraged me to talk to him, even if he didn’t have any brain activity left. “You can tell him anything, Sarah.” And when I couldn’t say anything except “I love you” over and over, he held my hand and prayed the rest.

It must be so hard to process grief alone. My dad went to Africa, and he hasn’t been able to get back yet because of lockdown. It’s very hard for him, being there alone, waiting to get the go-ahead to come home. I think of all the people who have lost loved ones to COVID and not-COVID this past year, and who have had to experience solitary grief. I don’t think we were designed for it. I wonder at how much is left unprocessed until we can share it with another, and it makes me want to fix that for the whole world.

But when we can process our grief, fully and collectively, it can be beautifully healing. It’s like our bodies know how to heal themselves, not just in knitting together broken bones, but also broken hearts. I wouldn’t have believed that in the beginning. But after spending this time with my mother, and watching the way she grieves, so fully and even joyfully, I’m starting to believe it now.

Which makes me wonder at all the things I do to avoid loss, to avoid grief. I worry what will happen if I fail at my job, what will happen if my partner and I grow apart, what will happen if I haven’t prepared my kids well enough for the world they find themselves in. I worry about people on the Internet and living up to my potential and whether I’ve been too ambitious in my grocery shopping and maybe things are starting to rot in the fridge. I build all kinds of little hedges around myself to protect me from anything I’m afraid of losing.

Fear is a lot of work. So is grief, but at least there is healing on the other side.

Grief is still surprising to me. Even now as I’m writing this, I’m thinking, “I’m okay now. I’m definitely okay.” I mean, I’m writing something I might even share, which I couldn’t have imagined a week ago. Tomorrow I might be sobbing again and thinking how am I going to do anything except for hug my family ever again. As much as I used to think I knew myself, grief has taught me this isn’t completely true. Our hearts are such strangers when something we love is taken away. We never know where the unalterable truth will hit us.

It might sound morbid, not to mention impossible and inadvisable, but I’ve been tempted to think it would be better to grieve everything in my life now, before it’s gone. I could grieve my relationships, my job, my identity even. I could let this go and that go…let everything go. Let the loss of it completely overtake me, hopefully without breaking me. And then when I’m done, let myself experience everything, not as if it were mine to hold onto, but as if it were a gift. I could walk back into the world as if I’d just been born, and owned nothing. Then maybe I could learn to appreciate all of it while it’s here.

But of course that’s not how it works. We can’t grieve things that aren’t gone. Fear of loss is its own thing; we don’t get to choose to preemptively grieve instead. And hope, as beautiful as it is, interrupts any grieving that might aid us in our healing. There is a push/pull to it that keeps us hanging on. Perhaps this is why, as Breai Mason-Campbell writes, “Situational grief is momentary. Systemic grief is not.” We can’t grieve what isn’t gone, or what keeps getting taken away.

The best I can do in this moment is to remember the temporary nature of all things, and to use that to appreciate that we get to be here, together, right now. Grief and gratitude strike me as the closest of siblings.

Goodbye, little brother. I miss you so much.

The 22nd.

I’m meeting about this potential acqui-hire today. As CEO, I’m ultimately the one negotiating on behalf of our team. I don’t know what to expect with that conversation. I’m going to do my best to be grounded. Of course I want to create new possibility for us as a team, but I only want it if it’s good for me and for everyone.

Other than that, I have such a long list of things I could be spending time on. I feel no desire to plow through it, to be productive, or even to optimize my own pleasure and enjoyment. Maybe it’s my brother dying, maybe it’s all I’ve been reading about capitalism and colonialization, probably it’s a combination. Whatever the case, I am suddenly supremely comfortable with “being” instead of “doing.” I don’t feel like I need to accomplish anything or position myself in any sort of way in order to reach some sort of potential. I’m clear on what my work is to do, and I’m content with doing it. I don’t need it to achieve anything for me. I don’t need recognition or pats on the back or visibility. Those things mean so little to me now, at least at a conscious level.

Maybe that’s what grieving does. And I am grieving both my brother and my vision and my role as CEO. I am not trying to hold onto any of those those things anymore. I’m sure there is still plenty more grieving to do, but where I’m at now is different than any place I’ve ever been. I have wrestled with my identity and my sense of purpose and my ambition and my burnout for years. Almost a decade. 7 or 8 years at least. It took me 7 or 8 years to run myself into the ground and 7 or 8 years to heal.

The 23rd.

I feel unsettled today. I’ve made the decision to start talking to the team about this acqui-hire as a real thing we need to be preparing for, but I don’t want another exhausting day of communication.

The 28th.

I feel good this morning, but I’m mentally so tired from all this conversation around this potential acqui-hire. And also everything else that has happened in my life. It feels so tangled and messy. I wish for clarity, above all.

I have a sales conversation this afternoon, which I’m really not looking forward to. It’s hard when we’re in the middle of a big transition to act as if nothing’s going on. But I’m going to approach it with curiosity and interest in what makes this founder excited to get up in the morning. And then see what we can do to help.

The 29th.

I’m so tired. Like…just exhausted. I want to do things that are nourishing to me, but nothing is coming to me. I could just sleep all the time, but technically I’m getting enough sleep. I’m getting enough exercise. I’m eating pretty well. But I’m still totally done with everything.

I know it makes sense. I lost my brother. I’m letting go of the vision I’ve had at our company and the role I’ve played in leading it. I’m trying to navigate our next steps and include people in the process. I’m parenting 5 kids, including several teenagers. We’re still dealing with COVID and it’s indignities. All of 2020 was terrible. Several core teammates have moved on to other positions. And this new possibility for our company.

I’m glad I at least know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be the CEO of this next organization. I don’t want to be the CEO of this one anymore either.

The 30th.

Our teammate’s last day is today. As hard as this acqui-hire decision has been, I know I’m doing the right thing. We’ve already lost two teamies this year, and I know another one is on the cusp. We’ve held onto this vision for so long. We’re surviving, but we’re not doing what we’ve really wanted to do. It’s time for a change. We can’t keep compromising like this. I know it might feel like stability, but stability at the cost of vision and growth eventually catches up with you.

May 2021

The 3rd.

I think it’s time for me to start mentally transitioning out of the “visionary” role. The role I’m playing at this point is getting everyone where they need to be, answering their questions, advocating for them during this transition. That’s it. I’m done with anything else I’m “supposed” to be doing. Any future I was trying to create is gone. I can let go of it, and the burden that came with it.

The 4th.

What a weird thing this transition is. I feel very unsettled, like I’m moving too fast and not fast enough. I’m so exhausted by it. Every day is a slew of conversations, and I feel like I’m walking a tightrope. I’ll be so glad when this is over. Especially glad not to have to be speaking for other people. It’s a lot. There are so many, many perspectives to consider.

Also my neck hurts. Atrociously. I know it’s because of all the desk work I’m doing. It’s not the most ergonomic situation. But all I can really do is stretch it out, and I think I can do that while doing other stuff?

Gah. Computers make me feel not-great. And also, I’m not sure how much of how I’m feeling is that and how much is other things. Sometimes I think I need to fix my life. Go against what I think I want and do the thing that is technically “better.” Like not letting myself dive deep into my work even when I’m very engaged in it. Instead force myself to do yoga and journal even though I’m having a hard time concentrating on it. Not let myself spend copious amounts of time alone with my thoughts. Instead do things with friends more. Not let myself skip laundry day and plant-watering day. Not letting myself trade making a healthy meal for ordering one.

I’m just…the most tired. My life is a series of unexpected changes. I’m handling it well on the outside, but I feel a little dead inside.

The 9th.

Mother’s Day is exhausting. So much pressure to make the mothers in your life feel loved added to the pressure of making the children in your life feel like they’ve done a good job of making you feel loved.

Luckily, today is my son’s birthday. That means I get a little break in all of the “yay let’s do mom things”.

I’m so overextended. Every system I’d been so intentional about building up has slowly but surely been torn down. The laundry is backed up. The food is backed up. My writing is backed up. My reading is backed up. I haven’t done yoga in a week.

Oh well. When things fall apart, it allows me to put them back together. And I’m grateful for that ebb and flow, in a way. Otherwise I would come to feel obligated by my rituals and rhythms rather than know how much they nourish me.

I feel like I’ve been wrung out like a dishrag this past year. I can’t do it anymore. I have energy, but no direction. I have confidence, but not in myself. Or at least, in my ability to Make Things Happen. I’m not a Make Things Happen person anymore. I’m more of a gentle gardener. I don’t know where that’s going to lead me.

The 12th.

Wow, I really clench my shoulders a lot. Maybe that’s where a lot of this neck pain is coming from. I’m trying to be more aware of how I’m holding my body, and it seems like my shoulders creep up around my ears if I’m not paying attention to them.

The 14th.

“When you come across a truly unbroken thing, it is a miracle, blessed, pure.” —The Byoglu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra by Kenna Orhan

How do I inhabit this new world I’m in? I now have a significant investment in a startup that is already close to profit level after less than three months. We don’t need a safety net, because the business model works and it has clear product-market fit. My job is straightforward. I have lots of creative energy left for whatever I want to do.

What a relief, in a way. But also it’s such a different situation for me to be in. I’m so free. I don’t even need my identity. I don’t need to be good at anything in particular. Everything I do right now is a game with rules I get to define.

So what is the game I want to be playing? I feel almost guilty that this is true for me. It’s like I got a “get out of jail free” card but almost everyone else I know is still in jail. How can I enjoy my freedom and bring other people along with me?

I need to detox from the system. That much I know is true. There’s going to be some time that I just don’t know what to do with myself, and I need to accept it and relax into it rather than freak out about it.

The 16th.

Detoxing from “doing” is really hard. I end up doing things that other people want because I don’t really have much going on myself.

But my theory is that if I let myself detox from “doing” (and protect that time) then eventually I will know what I want. And that will be so much more powerful than going through the motions. It’s the via negativa. It’s scary to not do anything. It feels lazy and like I’m wasting my time for myself. But I do believe detox is the first step to actually knowing what it is I want to do with my life. And I’m committed to taking it.

The 18th.

It’s funny. Detoxing from “doing” is starting to default into making lots of lists of things I might do later, when I actually want to do them. But I don’t want to do anything. Still.

The 19th.

“I enjoyed collecting the composer’s trash if only for the reprieve of tending to something precious, of being entrusted with the death of the beloved machinations of someone’s art. You look for small grandeurs in my line of work. A month here and you’d be singing odes to those rare crumbless toasters.” —The Byoglu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra by Kenna Orhan

Still detoxing. Last night I noticed feelings. Like, sad feelings. I don’t know if it was an inevitable thing after a while of just sitting there doing nothing, or if it’s a level of detox I’ve reached where you get past the distraction of busyness and you start poking around into what’s really there.

What I started poking around in is my “body of work,” my “genius hour” (as my son’s school calls the time they get to spend doing whatever project currently calling from their zone of genius). I feel a bit heartbroken about it. I tried to bring the fullness of myself to my role as CEO, but I never reached it. Now everything I’m interested in feels irrelevant to my new role; my work feels like a sidenote to the momentum that is happening there. My work was such a deeply integrated part of my life that it feels like my whole life is going on without me.

I know I have to “see” myself and the truth of my own work before I can change that tide. That’s what was happening last night. I was seeing myself and I was sad by what I saw. I keep trying to be what I think is needed and then be myself within that as much as I can. In doing that, I compromise it, trying to make my creative impulse fit the needs of the group.

But now the group doesn’t need my creative impulse at all. It needs my leadership, but it doesn’t need my unique vision and way of seeing the world. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that will force me to get clear on what my own work is, without the needs of the many clamoring for my attention.

I had this mental picture of this beautiful work of art rotting away in someone’s garage, not valued, irrelevant, allowed to languish along with the other junk. I don’t want that to be the fate of my creative impulses. Even if what I make next doesn’t end up changing the world, it deserves a frame, at least. I don’t need a fancy venue, but I need to at least put it in a place with good lighting and an atmosphere of invitation and appreciation.

This is what I need to cultivate. A space where I can show up as myself and be appreciated as myself. Where the ideas I see can turn into real possibilities in people’s lives. I need to tend my own garden and invite people into it.

This is non-negotiable for me. It’s a boundary I need to set. Not a “write every day” kind of boundary, but I at least need my own “genius hour.” It’s fine that I’m working on these collaborative projects, but my creative self needs to be seen, first and foremost by my own self.

The 23rd.

As much as I know deeply that I need to create this creative “frame” for my “genius hour” work, I find myself ambivalent about doing anything. I care so very little about the next project or book or class—things that used to make me feel alive. I have been patient with myself, but I do get antsy. Still, I think it’s worth it to continue stopping and listening to whatever’s there, despite how uncomfortable it is.

The 24th.

“My art is bolder than I. It sends messages of me out into the world.” —The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey

This experiment may end up making me completely useless to other people. But I want to see if I can reset my internal motivation. If I can do that, it will be worth it. Even if I’m never productive or consistent or prolific or recognized ever again.

I have anxiety around listening to my creative self and following where she leads. She’s so impulsive and never finishes anything she starts. I don’t know if that’s really true. But she is very aware of motivation. It’s important for her to be motivated by the right things. If she’s motivated by joy, she doesn’t mind committing, but right now those motivations are complicated.

I’m detoxing from doing what I think is going to give me the results I want. Instead, I’m focusing on the process. I’m trying to find/reset my inner compass. I’m trying to be lit by the lantern inside of me. That’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s worth it. I think. I hope. I’ve never had the courage to fully see it through.

It’s interesting noticing all the stuff going on inside me. I feel so much turbulence. One minute I really want to do new things and another, I don’t. I waffle between wanting to be public and stay private.

The question that keeps fearfully presenting itself in my mind is, what if I don’t want to do anything ever again? What if I can’t trust myself? This is why I’m worried about not being visibly productive. I’m scared that this approach is just…not enough. But do I really believe that? Of course not. When I’m lit from within, that is literally and absolutely the best contribution I can make.

The 25th.

I go slow. Which is weird because I’ve always thought of myself as a rocket ship. But I just…don’t anymore. Which actually is moving me into a faster (maybe?) growth pattern in the ways I actually want to grow.

I want to grow in joy. And peace. And belonging. I want to grow in what it means to be uniquely myself.

These things mean I have to put other things on the back burner. Like productivity. The expectations of others. Opportunities for fame and/or fortune. Becoming a better person, even.

It feels right, but it doesn’t necessarily feel good. I have a lot of fear around it. I’m afraid people are going to think I’m lazy or using my privilege in selfish ways. I’m afraid my contributions will be less measurable and less valued. I’m afraid of being labeled as inaccessible or flighty or undependable.

But I have to also remember what I stand to gain. A recovery of my intrinsic motivation. High levels of creativity and engagement. Flow. New projects in the world that would have never existed because only “Sarah” could have dreamed them up (or would have wanted to).

No regrets. If other things fail because of this new way of orienting myself, I will still be supported by me. I will not resent or be jealous of anyone else’s growth and flourishing and change because it will not have kept me from me own.

These things are precious to me. I’m excited to see how I grow in this direction rather than in the direction I think will be best for everyone else.

The 26th.

What do I want this morning? I feel flat, empty. Maybe coffee will kick in soon. I’ve been reading in Daniel Deronda all of these examples of how “doing what you want” is a terrible way to live, leading to discontent, ennui, and worse. Is that true? To some extent, a life without hardship seems like it could cause these things, but it also seems like life always has its challenges—I mean, discontent, ennui, etc. are challenges. There is no escaping hardship. We must have some puzzle to solve. Maybe that’s what gives our lives meaning.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it to do the hard work of listening to our hearts and examining our lives and trying to discern what it is we really want. It’s actually a harder path, not an easier one.

The 27th.

After all this detox from “doing”, I’m beginning to think that me wanting to do something in particular isn’t a reliable indicator of what will bring me joy. I think whenever I do feel compelled, I need to take that cue because it’s pretty much always right. But that part of me is often quiet.

I need to create space to listen to my heart, but not the expectation that my heart will always have something to say. When it doesn’t, I use my self-knowledge to direct my path. I do what I know/suspect will lead me to connection with my heart. And I keep listening.

The 28th.

I know that I feel best when I’m creating something, but getting myself to that place is difficult. I don’t have the heart to make anything. I want to want to, but I don’t want to.

My heart feels absolutely wrung out. I feel inspired to inhabit my creative self, but I also feel so tired. I do not know what to do.

The 29th.

“From the state in which I found the pages, I could tell the man was tortured by the impossibility of translating what swirled around his soul into a symphony that would render the same swirlings to the soul of a listener, and that was enough for me to know that his music was beautiful.” —The Byoglu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra by Kenna Orhan

I’ve been thinking about this “artist” question and why people who insist on distinctions of what is art and what is not are both insufferable and at least partially right.

“Art” isn’t just about the product or the outcome of what is made. It is also about the spirit of how it was made. It is in the nuance and the eye and the heart of the artist themselves, who regard their intent and their process and their vision just as highly as the outcome.

It’s not about snobbery. It is about valuing something that is easily neglected by the world at large—the element of the spiritual, the elevated, the intensity of feeling and that sensitivity of heart that it takes to make something that has that quality. It is the unexplainable and the indescribable and the transcendent. To paraphrase Penn Jillette (as my teammate often reminds me), it is spending so much more time, thought, imagination, and heart on something than any person would think it’s worth. That’s the secret of magic, and the secret of art itself.

That is really what I want my life to be oriented around—not an artifact, or the production of anything in particular, but about the state of the heart and the creative impulse that comes out of that. My own heart (since that’s the only one I have access to), as a unique and irreplaceable thing that needs protecting and prioritizing.

I want to live as an artist, not be focused on the output of an artist. I want the joy of that, of exploring my interests and letting it take its time.

Who knows if I will ever recover my ability to make things without fear? I don’t know if I ever had that fearlessness to begin with. It was often partially driven by some practical need. But I don’t care. I don’t care about the results, I mean. I just want to live joyfully, from the heart. That is my deepest intent and I know that the biggest part of that is following my own north star. Believing in it, not apologizing for it, pursuing it, celebrating it.

It feels like a new chapter is beginning, maybe the chapter I’ve been preparing for all my life. I thought my role as CEO of our company was it, and I did learn so much from that. But I now believe all of that was to provide contrast so I can see even more clearly what my heart is longing for. Because without the focus on communal leadership, my own heart and art would not feel as if it had faded away. And also as if I had never really trusted or believed in it at all.

But I do now. It’s scary, but I do. I just need to support this newfound clarity so that it continues to grow and bloom. I have not done so in the past, and other considerations and responsibilities and doubts have choked it out.

June 2021

The 1st.

“…In and through the personal rediscovery of the great, we find that we need not be the passive victims of what we deterministically call ‘circumstances.’ But that by linking ourselves with the great we can become freer—freer to be ourselves, to be what we most want and value.” —W.J. Bate, The Burden of the Past, quoted in Henry Thoreau by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

Sometimes I feel lucky to have interests that seem to bore other people. I’m reading a biography of Thoreau right now, and it’s so wonderful. I know people like to criticize him, but his thought process makes me feel seen, understood. Like I’ve finally connected all these dots about myself that used to cause me vague embarrassment mixed with secret pride. I feel a powerful sense of self-recognition in the way he sees things. He and Emerson and Margaret Fuller and Goethe…kindred spirits, all of them.

I resonate strongly with his belief that human nature has not changed, and that what made the ancients great is also inside each of us. And not just that, but how he tried to live out the things he was discovering. Maybe he did that imperfectly, maybe arrogantly, but he was trying.

The 2nd.

“We mortals have a strange spiritual chemistry going on within us, so that a lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkiness may be preparing one knows not what biting or explosive material.” Daniel Deronda by George Eliotr

My curiosity has led me down this strange rabbit trail of being curious about plants in literature, particularly in Daniel Deronda. I’ve found several trees so far. I bought a $60 e-book. I don’t know if any of it is relevant or will lead to anything, but I’m excited to see where it goes.

I feel very spoiled, orienting my life in this way.

The 4th.

“‘Always try to keep a piece of sky over your life, little boy,’ he would add, turning to me. “You have a lovely soul, of a rare quality, an artist’s nature, don’t ever let it go without what it needs.’” —Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

It is hard to hold space for my creative self when urgent obligations come up. I shifted into “be what you need me to be” mode for three days. But at least I’m noticing. That is a miracle in itself, to become aware.

I’m disappointed at how hard it is to prioritize art and my own heart in my life, but I’m not surprised. The challenging thing is to shift my belief around it. I need to deeply value my heart above all these other pressing (and ultimately unimportant) obligations. I must believe that it is rare and beautiful and real; that it is a distinct species that will become extinct when I am gone.

I read a beautiful line in a short story this morning—“It is not about reading only”. It was about books and how they are so much more than that. It made me think about art. It is not about the usefulness of art. It is not about perfunctory contribution. There is something more real, more true, more valuable in the heart of an artist than can ever be quantified. It has nothing to do with identity or vanity and everything to do with existence. “Beauty is embarrassing” as Wayne White says. And art is the most beautiful and embarrassing of all.

I feel compelled by that now, like I’ve never been before. My creative projects felt ornamental before. Taking that as my vocational path felt like a risk because I might fail to appreciate it just like any other “job”. It felt like dilettantism. Like I was just reaching for more ease and more “doing what I want”.

It no longer feels that way. I have recognized what is inside of me for what it is—an inevitability of who I am and how I was made. It is the grain of my heart, and I have been going against that grain, even as I was trying to have both safety and creativity. But now I realize that my heart cannot, cannot be compromised. It is unjustifiable in any other context than “I must.” Money is not bad, but it’s irrelevant. I will no longer try to turn the gifts of my heart into enough gold to bring me some safety. I will get that in another way.

I understand now that art is a wild thing, and must tell the truth or be silent.

The 5th.

Back in Virginia again. Today is my brother’s funeral, finally. We’re sitting here in leafy green country on the side of the road, not wanting to be early. I feel my social shields up. Who knows if they’ll hold, but at least I feel ready.

It is hard to come back here, months after going through the grief of losing Nathan. I generally like to close doors and keep them shut. But I know this is important, and it will be good to have closure.

This is a clear turning point in my life, and I don’t know what it points to. Everything is changing. It’s scary and it’s sad. I don’t know what’s next for me, but I do feel like I can’t live for anyone else any longer. The ways I’ve compromised make sense and are normal, but they were fearful. It’s time for me to be brave.

The 8th.

“Love your solitude and bear the pain it causes you with melody wrought with lament. For the people who are close to you, you tell me, are far away, and that shows that you are beginning to create a wider space around you. And if what is close is far, then the space around you is wide indeed and already among the stars; take pleasure in your growth, in which no one can accompany you, and be kind-hearted towards those you leave behind, and be assured and gentle with them and do not plague them with your doubts or frighten them with your confidence or your joyful mess, which they cannot understand.” —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I need to surround myself with people who think about art as the heart of their vocation—I need that so much. Whether it’s being with other artists physically or having conversations or reading/listening/experiencing art, that’s what I need. And I need to not be surprised or worried when other communities feel foreign to me, like they’re speaking another language and I don’t quite fit in.

I want to value that part of myself so highly that I don’t worry at all when it doesn’t make sense to other people. Even though it’s scary because I’m just a fledgling in my own artistic powers. That really is the hard part—the identity part. I’m really good at other things that give me social credibility. I’ve spent 20 years developing those things. As an artist, I’m new and untested. The things I’m thinking about only have clear value to myself. I can’t describe a vision that other people can really hold onto. It just sounds self-indulgent. But I know that’s the path I need to both blaze and follow right now.

The 13th.

“There is a definable sequence of activities which are at the heart of all acts of building, and it is possible to specify, precisely, under what conditions these activities will generate a building which is alive. All this can be made so explicit that anyone can do it.” —Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

The Timeless Way of Building is one of those life-changing books. I thought Thoreau was life-changing, but this is another level.

I want to create something that allows you to incorporate these ideas in the context of everyday life—they are relevant to so much more than architecture. It’s probably going to be difficult to put these ideas into my own words though. Christopher Alexander has said them so well. But I want to put them in a different context. It certainly isn’t about stating it better because that is impossible.

I feel like his Quality Without A Name is the new metric for my entire life. I just want to inhabit the world I am in with that quality and that’s enough.

Man, I have no idea where this path is leading me, but I feel like all the things that have held me back are falling away. I am exactly where I need to be.

The 18th.

“I want so badly to have a place where I can practice writing real poems. I’d like to have a room with four walls and a closed door. A room with a bed, a table and a chair, with a typewriter, or a pad of paper and a pencil, nothing more. Well, yes—a door I could lock.” —Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

It is so hard to stay on the track of my own art and what makes me come alive. I keep setting those things down. My job is interesting enough to me to make me feel like I’m following my own creative path. I get so interested and absorbed in the research. But it’s a path that leads me away from the creative pursuits that are more fundamental to who I am uniquely.

I’m not super worried about that (I still want to be engaged & effective in my job), but I do feel uncertain about whether I’m following old patterns of trying to be what everyone wants me to be. It is hard to listen to my own voice when others’ voices are so loud. “You should do this.” “You’re so good at this.” “We really need this.” But even though those things might be true, I need to practice listening to what is truer.

The 25th.

“The more we learn to use this method, the more we find that what it does is not so much to teach us processes we did not know before, but rather opens up a process in us, which was part of us already.” —Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

I just read The Timeless Way of Building, and I want to build a pattern language for everything now. I’m so impressed by Christopher Alexander’s thinking and his audacity in believing it might be possible to change entire cities based on these ideas. What a gift. And I can’t believe he wrote so much MORE than this. This isn’t even the work he’s most widely known for. I’m astonished.

The 26th.

“The most glorious fact in my experience is not any thing that I have done or may hope to do, but a transient thought, or vision, or dream. I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes for one true vision. But how can I communicate with the gods who am a pencil-maker on the earth, and not be insane?” —Henry David Thoreau, A Week, as quoted in Henry Thoreau by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

I’m so frustrated. Remember that day I woke up and was feeling like I was in an alternate creative universe? I was so blissfully playful, looking up plants in Daniel Deronda and buying books on plants in literature. So random, but it was so freeing to be doing something just because I was curious about it and for no other reason.

That was the last day I played like that, even though I’d felt so committed to making that kind of playful curiosity central to my days. Instead, I’ve set up a bunch of meetings at my peak creative times in order to be what other people want and need me to be. Even though I believed (and believe!) that me prioritizing that playfulness is the best thing for every project I’m involved in.

It was deceptive because I funneled all my creative energy into that, and I felt good. I have been more productive than ever. But I exploited my free, creative self in order to get that. And now she is nowhere to be found.

I’m also afraid of finding her again. I feel like if I do, I need to hide it from other people. I need to keep my performance at the forefront in order to protect that creativity. But that’s not me; I wear everything on my sleeve. And so I’m going to go through this cycle again and again and hope that I get better at defending and protecting that time.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve my free self. I just use her to make other people proud of me. I can’t be trusted. And what’s worse, I don’t know that it’s happening. Or I do, but I rationalize it. “No, this is me being free!” Yeah, sure. Because I abruptly turned from the playful direction I was in as soon as I was faced with someone else’s problem.

At least I documented this so I can see it now. But it makes me feel sick to my stomach because it happens so regularly. It took weeks to get to that space. It only lasted one morning until it was snuffed out. Now it’s taken me a month to realize it and start over again. My inside voices want to tell me that I will never be able to operate from a place of being true to my essential nature. If this is my pattern, I have so far to go. But hey, maybe a month is progress. It had been years before. Maybe the next time it will be weeks.

The 27th.

I’ve been doing some reflection for a class I’m taking on what I learned during the pandemic that I want to carry forward into the future. I don’t think “pandemic” is the right context for me. It’s really “before my brother died” and after.

What do I want to carry forward? The idea of slow, gradual, emergent change rather than reactive pivoting. My confidence in knowing what I know and being able to hold onto that with literally anyone. My sense of ownership and power. My discovery that titles don’t make you. It doesn’t suddenly make you feel worthier or more valuable. (The attention you get from other people is usually suspect. And often forced.) My lack of concern about my online presence. My discovery of my leadership style. My relinquishment of anything having to do with marketing or community.

What do I want to leave behind? I’m tired of centering other people’s needs and dreams in my own life. I’m tired of being practical; of trying to eke myself into the things I need to be doing. I’m tired of being driven by fear. I’m tired of carrying everyone else’s future. I want to center my own essential nature—yes, respond to the needs of others, but only on the sidelines of my life, not as the very thing I spend the majority of my energy doing.

I want to feel safe in my own self. That I can go anywhere, do anything and still be loved and supported and cherished. I want to lay down my lack of self-trust. I want to trust my body, trust my energy, trust my heart.

The 28th.

What is alive in me? Nothing. That’s the sad part. I gave it away so I could be useful. But there is the idea of something. Maybe that’s enough.

July 2021

The 2nd.

I still have only the tiniest bit of clarity on what I want to write next. That feels like the part of my system that isn’t working very well. I’m making progress on these various things, but they’re still so early and nebulous. Will they ever come together as I trust this more emergent approach? I have to believe that they will. And that the outcome will feel more alive than anything I could have forced into existence.

The 3rd.

Adam’s grandma is dying. There has been so much death for us these past two years. I would like the dying to stop, please.

The 5th.

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is about the opposite—getting something down. The directions are important here. If we are trying to think something up, we are straining to reach for something that’s just beyond our grasp, ‘up there, in the stratosphere, where art lives on high…’ When we get something down, there is no strain. We’re not doing; we’re getting. Someone or something else is doing the doing. Instead of reaching for inventions, we are engaged in listening.” —Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

I really want to practice Julia Cameron’s perspective on art—art is not dreaming something up, it’s putting something down. It’s listening and writing down what you hear.

I’m still putting so much pressure on myself to dream up some grand idea. What if I just made space for what wants to be heard instead? What if I got curious about what already exists but has not been seen? I can listen and collect that information rather than believe it is something I need to invent and be brilliant at. It’s still scary, but more excitement-scary.

There is so much simmering on the stove right now, and I’m afraid to actually cook something with it. But I don’t have to cook something. I can just use my senses and describe what I’m sensing.

I want to reveal to people the Quality Without a Name that exists in all things. I want to show them how the things in their lives that lack this quality do not have to be that way. I want to teach them how to observe the effect of this quality in themselves, and how to use that observation to externalize it.

I need to start bringing other sources into this idea so this project is not so “one note” as my pianist friend would say.

The 6th.

“For the fact is, that this seeming chaos which is in us is a rich, rolling, swelling, dying, lilting, singing, laughing, shouting, crying, sleeping order. If we will only let this order guide our acts of building, the buildings that we make, the towns we help to make, will be the forests and the meadows of the human heart.” —Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

Freedom is uncomfortable because you’re confronted with the fact that you’re choosing all of this. And how hard it is to choose the things you really want long-term because those things require a lot of work and delayed outcomes.

But I am so enormously grateful for the freedom I have right now. Even though it’s put me into a mode of existential angst, it is worth more to me than any title or prestige. I love not having to do things I don’t want to do. I love not having to feel pushed or hurried. I love not having to promote myself in any way. I love getting to read and think and write and have that be the main thing.

What would happen if we were all able to self-organize around what makes us come alive? What if we all had enough of what we needed to do that? It would take a lot of learning and maturing to be able to handle that level of freedom. But wouldn’t it be incredible?

The 12th.

I get frustrated with myself when I don’t want to do things that are “good” for me. Like…why don’t I want to do them? Isn’t that exactly when I would benefit the most from them? Why doesn’t my body want to feel good? It would rather lay in a hammock than do yoga. It would rather read a book than write anything of significance.

This makes me think about meaning for some reason. Victor Frankl says that’s what we’re all looking for. I’m reading a book now that says that we have this basic gratitude for the gift of our lives, and we want to use our gifts to continue the cycle of generosity.

I do feel like my gifts aren’t really being used. But also that it’s up to me to decide what those gifts are and how to use them. I don’t outsource that to anyone anymore.

I still have expectations of myself that are rooted in capitalism and productivity and celebrity culture. I’m trying to let go of those images, but also I’m afraid to. I don’t know what else is there.

I do feel drawn toward this idea of The Quality Without a Name and how that applies to our lives. But also, why don’t people just read The Timeless Way of Building? What am I really adding to the world with this? Christopher Alexander said it better than I’ll ever be able to; he just applied it to a specific context.

I’m wanting to abstract the principles out of an architectural context and show how it applies to all of life. But do I really need to do that? I don’t know. There is also the absence of this quality that is interesting. Where is the quality, and where is the negative space that reflects its absence, representing the potential for building something new?

I want to demonstrate how to build a life that has this quality of aliveness. How to build something that is whole in and of itself but then find the places of repair and use those to build new wholes, new possibility. How to recognize that our lives are made up of patterns of events that bring about this quality.

The thing is, our lives already exist. And “aliveness” can refer to both an internal subjective state and an external objective one. In the example of architecture, these things are very externalized. It is the stage on which our lives are performed, as well as the performance itself.

So what is it we’re “building” when we say we’re building our lives? Is it something internal? External? Is it individual? Collective? It’s all of it. All of it.

But also, can the internal/relational have this quality? It can certainly react to it. It can have that energy, which is influenced by all kinds of other things.

Ugh, this is still so abstract. I’m afraid no one is ever going to understand what I’m talking about.

The 13th.

I find myself rebelling against the extreme idealism of literally everyone right now. It is the whole “greater than” myth. This is better than that. My views are better than your views. I am better than you. The past is inferior to the present. Progress!

I just don’t believe any of those extremes are true. It’s just different. Different strengths, different trade-offs. Sure some things are literally bad and evil. But narrative is a craft. It is invented. What is really, fundamentally true is usually a lot more nuanced than anyone wants to admit.

The 17th.

Julia Cameron asks the question, “In a perfect world, what would you want to be?” It’s impossible to answer. In a way, I don’t care! There is no medium that I love more than all others. I love food and music and drawing and theater and dance and poetry and prose and architecture and nature. I love teaching and gathering people around an idea, and I very much love being alone. I love travel and adventure and also staying in one place, noticing one very small thing. I love cathedrals and libraries and secret gardens and menageries and classrooms and castles and hobbit holes.

One of my friends said that what I really love is beauty—beauty of thought and form and experience and connection. Words are accessible to me, so I use words. The Internet is accessible to me, so I use the Internet.

I think just loving everything is part of what my work is. It may feel like not choosing, but it’s really choosing to be borderless and letting all my loves be the same thing. I would like to be seen and respected, but I do not care enough about that to commit to an industry or a medium for its own sake. I get to inhabit all of it. I get to see how it’s all connected.

The 18th.

I think we’re going to Boise this week to hang out and work together before we start our month-long trip across the country. Sometimes I think going somewhere different will make me more productive and it ends up doing the opposite. Changes in environment are big for me because I’m processing all of this new input. Which can be very good. It can shake me up and help me look at things from a different angle. It can help me focus. It can help me prioritize and value my art.

The 19th.

I’ve been thinking this morning about the making of this Special Project, and the making of everything I’ve ever made. When I’ve gotten through the concept I get impatient, in a hurry to get it “out there,” to be done with it.

I want to change that. I want to approach this idea with a kind of lazy loving. Like I’m not worried if it even gets made at all. I’m not worried if it morphs into something else or whatever.

I do want to make a prototype—something I can look at on a screen. But I don’t want to rush that or put so much work into it that I feel attached to it.

The 20th.

Execution is so uncomfortable. Nothing looks like it should. In an ideal world, I’d like to pay someone to help me make this better, but I also don’t want to have to focus on charging for this and marketing it and making it into a big commercial thing just to cover the costs.

But how am I going to make this feel alive?

The 21st.

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” —bell hooks, All About Love

Two internet friends reached out to me this morning. It makes me realize how long it’s been since I’ve been sharing in public—quite some time. I don’t know how I feel about that. Part of me is just fine with never being public ever again. But another part of me (the truer part, or at least the more honest part) wants to be seen and create out loud and make it part of this emergent process I’ve been experimenting with. I know I have emotional work to do around belonging in community. Not sharing my work feels like avoidance.

But I still get frustrated with the compulsion to earn and keep everyone’s attention all the time. I don’t want to have to fall into that. And framing matters. I want the things I’m making for people to feel like a gift; to feel special and meaningful. “Showing up” in the normal way feels like a context that has become so de-valued. I don’t want my work to be experienced as another piece of content to wade through. It’s like we throw all of our work into a pile on a dirty old chair rather than putting it into a frame and giving it the respect of good lighting and space and an invitation to enjoy it.

The 22nd.

I had a revelation. I know what the frame is now. It’s Post Day. Like back in the good old days when people expected the mail carriage on a certain day. It was exciting. It was special. There were horses.

I will set a day for the first Post Day. And on that day, I will deliver the mail. The mail will be my art from the period before, whatever it is. It might also be art from other people. It might be useful, it might be beautiful, but whatever it is, it will feel alive.

The 24th.

We’re in Ashton, Idaho and it’s lovely. No air conditioning, but I don’t mind it.

The 29th.

“Now, open your eyes and focus on whatever you observed before—the plant or leaf or dandelion. Look it in the eye, until you feel it looking back at you. Feel that you are alone with it on Earth! That it is the most important thing in the universe, that it contains all the riddles of life and death. It does! You are no longer looking, you are SEEING…” —Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation

I can’t believe I haven’t had a moment to write in 5 days. And yet there have been so many moments of doing absolutely nothing. That’s how traveling is. Somehow it takes up all of your brain and all of your consciousness and all of your time, even if you’re doing nothing at all.

We are on a 3-week cross-country road trip with our kids and co-parents. It’s been fun, but the last few days have been tiring for some reason. Which is weird because they were pretty short driving days, in comparison to others we’ve had. Or maybe it was just today.

The national parks we’ve visited so far have been idyllic. We’ve spent five days traveling through Boise, Yellowstone, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and now Albuquerque. I don’t know why but Sedona felt claustrophobic. We spent six hours on the road and ordered pizza at obnoxiously high delivery prices. It was delicious, and worth it.

Is there a way I can get back to myself, even a little? Maybe wake up in the morning and drink a bunch of water and write rather than go on an immediate and ultimately unsatisfying hunt for coffee? We are so coffee-spoiled; no one around here seems to care about good coffee.

The 30th.

Wow. Just two more days of driving and we will be in Nashville.

I’m getting to the point where I’m tired of eating. I don’t care to eat out. I don’t want to eat the snacks in our backpacks. It’s so much, eating out all the time. It makes your stomach tired.

I have so few concerns right now. I could think about my projects, but I can’t even remember where I left off. I need to think about how I want to design itspostday.com. I need to work on what’s going to be in the first batch of mail. I have some work stuff to do, but nothing urgent.

I really do want my brain back. Also what I wouldn’t give to have a couple of hours alone. I might even give up my dinner.

August 2021

The 1st.

Once you have flown, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, there you long to return —Leonardo da Vinci

We’re finally in Nashville. Being in this AirBnb, just the two of us, is the most blissful feeling. Especially after a week on the road, trying to fit in what feels like every major site in the western United States. It’s been an incredible trip, but boy am I tired.

We have three whole days before we have to leave. Those days feel like the biggest gift and also entirely necessary to my sanity.

We were made for contrasts. We don’t really appreciate anything if it’s always the same same pace, the same key, the same tone. We need ups and downs. We need to migrate. We need to jostle ourselves out of the entropic stupor that sets in when everything stays exactly the same.

But I do like my comfort.

The 2nd.

“Va, va! be off, every one of you, and stay in purgatory till I pay to get you out, will you?” —Romola by George Eliot

I keep getting the advice that I have valuable things to share online, and I should be sharing them. But the thing is, I’ve lost any desire to do that. I want to share my work, sure, but I don’t want to tweet. I don’t want to instagram. At least not in this moment, and not in most (all?) of the previous moments in the last 4 months. It just seems like such a waste of a life.

I’m sure I’ll find a way back to it eventually. Or something like it.

“Egoless” is one facet of The Quality Without a Name. I’m looking for that quality when I do publish again. Maybe that sounds full of ego, ha. But an egoless approach wouldn’t care or even be aware of how it’s perceived. Like a tree standing in a forest. It just is a tree.

I want to be the tree that is Sarah.

I also want to be more accepting of the way I’m designed. Resting deeply, working deeply, playing deeply. Not worrying about resting while I’m working or worrying about working while I’m playing. Not worrying about splashing in the shallows when I really just enjoy the deeps.

The 13th.

It’s been 11 days since I’ve written anything. My time/brain has been unavailable for the most part. This is the vacation that never ends.

The 15th.

Our first morning home! It feels so good to be here. I kissed the ground of our condo.

I keep thinking of the Mary Ruefle poem on menopause. It’s incredible, and though I’m the young(ish) woman who understands nothing at this point in my life, there’s this one line that feels sweepingly true for me in this moment.

You haven’t even begun. You must pause first, the way one must always pause before a great endeavor, if only to take a good breath.

Happy old age is coming on bare feet, bringing with it grace and gentle words, and ways which grim youth have never known.

I feel like I’ve just finished a long pause. My brother died on April 3rd. It’s August 15th now. I know it has changed me. I’m not the same person anymore. I don’t know how it is changed me, I’m too close to it to see that. But I feel it, and I know I’ll look back on that event as one of the major thresholds of my life.

This return from this long adventure feels like a stepping off point. I was going to say “jumping” because that’s what you say, but it doesn’t feel like jumping. It’s more like one determined step, and then another.

The 16th.

“…a philosopher is the last sort of animal I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without spinning lies to account for life.” —Romola by George Eliot

This morning I was thinking about my resources and how I don’t need to be stuck in any one mode. I always put so much stock in “who I am” but the truth is, I’m malleable. “Who I am” in terms of the resources available to me is a response to the needs that I have. I have all sorts of resources, not just the narrative of personality type.

I remember reading about how adults lose some ridiculously high percentage of their options for moving their bodies by a certain age. Children move in a spectacular number of ways that are no longer available to adults for lack of use. I want to practice that kind of movement in my life—movement in my mental models, my narratives, my approaches to getting my needs met.

The 17th.

The next thing I need to write for It’s Post Day is the invitation. It will help me figure out how I want to do this. I want to be careful about how I write it. Behind the scenes stuff is cool, but I kind of want to make that separate. I’m past the point where I want details on someone’s personal process and experience unless I know them really well. The number of people who know me and my work really well is smaller than it’s ever been.

I want to get to know the people I invite to participate in this. I want to do that slowly. Maybe I start with 25 and put other people on a waitlist. 25 is what I think I can reasonably handle.

The 19th.

Good morning, shingles! Ugh. I am too young to have shingles. Strangely, I’ve heard stories of several young people getting it during these COVID times. Maybe our bodies are just too tired to fight it off. Or maybe something about COVID triggers the sleeping virus.

I’m so grateful for antiviral meds, and for a mother-in-law who can prescribe them when all the urgent care clinics are full to the brim with COVID patients. Not looking forward to whatever this is going to be though. I can say with certainty that I am itchy.

The 23rd.

“…vividness of perception is the essential factor of beauty; but, of course, vividness may be created by a whisper.” —Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells

Sometimes I wish I could be like Thoreau and never have to go to a meeting again. I value my mental and creative space so much. But if collaboration is a priority for me (and it is, at least for now) then I need to meet with people pretty regularly. At least two meeting days a week is something I can manage.

I have a fierce determination to do my creative work, the work that is solely mine to do. It’s strange because I haven’t felt that in a long, long time. Especially without feeling driven by a need to perform or manage my image or anything like that. It doesn’t even come from a place of fear that I’ll lose momentum.

It’s a new belief that my work matters. Not “in the world” or anything like that, though maybe it does. But it matters to me. I’m not an independently wealthy person who can just do whatever I want (though I’m working on that). But maybe that’s a good thing. Because the fact that I need to work on projects other than my creative work can teach me to value that creative time more highly. It’s a privilege to get paid well enough and to have a flexible enough schedule that I can also do the work that moves me. I’m not entitled to that. But I do love it and crave it.

I used to think working too much is what burned me out so long ago, and I’ve been afraid of overworking myself ever since. But I don’t think that’s what did it, not entirely. I think it was the constant pressure of pursuing more and not ever reaching an “enough” point. More money, more clients, more customers, more reach, more respect. Nothing was ever enough.

But I’m different now. I’m willing to pursue those practical things, up to a point. But not past that. When I’m tired or my kid needs me or it’s past 5:00 or I’ve done my tasks for the day or I feel myself hitting my limit even barely, then I am done. I don’t want to spend the majority of my time on the pursuit of those things, or even half of it. They’re valuable, but they cost a lot in their own way. They’re not worth any amount of over-exertion.

But creative work is different. It comes from a place of play and love. It’s about being me and prioritizing this one-of-a-kind creature that will never be seen again on this planet once I’m gone. I want to light myself up and see what’s possible when I do.

The Quality Without a Name (aliveness, if we’re doing our best to categorize it) is what we’re all here for. It’s north and it’s also everything.

The 25th.

Yesterday was so weird. I expected it to be amazing because I had no meetings and spent a lot of time on my creative project. But it wasn’t. I wasn’t happy with the result of what I was working on and I lost confidence in my ability to make anything that feels the way I want it to feel.

But that’s just noise. I just need to keep working on it, keep trying. I knew using something like Notion as a prototype would feel extremely rough, and it does. But it’s part of the process. And feeling bad about it is part of it, too. I’m in creative recovery. I am healing. Even though it feels like I’m 100%, I’m not. I will know I’m 100% when I’m making my work, in public, regularly. That’s the only true metric.

And I can learn to code again. I’ve done it before, and some of it’s like riding a bike, right?

The 28th.

Why do I need to feel like I’m being efficient with my time on this earth? I am a gloriously inefficient creature. Gloriously frustrating sometimes.

The 29th.

It’s weird how I can get into something and just do that thing for hours and days. I wanted to do a bunch of stuff, but then I got sucked into Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I mean, I’m not mad about it. It’s just funny. Sometimes I flit from thing to thing and other times I go deep into one thing.

I’m done with it though. I’m out of the fun parts and into the annoying parts (like finding an electric fish in this GIANT game…where would I possibly find that?)

Recovery is hard. So many ups and downs. And I have the gift/curse of nothing being urgent so I don’t get to distract myself from the fact that I have everything I wanted—freedom and not having to worry about money because my job provides enough. And it’s still hard to do my creative work.

It’s good for me. What I’m building right now is the “creation” side of my learning system. And also the “publishing” side. It’s extremely uncomfortable, but healthy and healing. I’m going to look at this discomfort and refuse to be impressed.

The 30th.

I’m taking a class right now that’s all about community, and there’s this idea that we shouldn’t try to make things with/for a community unless there is a clear need in that community.

I struggle with this because who needs art? Who needs inspiration and beauty and joy and philosophy? Only everyone. But it’s not tangible.

We pay too much attention to what the needs are. The world needs everything, and also nothing. Capitalism demands all of us. Nature goes right on without us. But beauty, relationship, joy, belonging, art…these are things that we really need, deep down.

So I am annoyed at this question. We are so very drilled into this question, all of our lives. It is not the question I need to be asking.

September 2021

The 5th.

First week of school is fun, but exhausting. We have new routines, new commitments, new unknowns. It’s going to take me a bit to settle into this. I might need to hole up for while.

The 6th.

I did a scary thing and invited a few more people into my project as I build it. Another round, another layer of fear. I’m proud of myself for sending those invitations.

The 7th.

I’m really grateful to get to focus and think and build today. I feel like I’m getting back into the currents of creative life. The ebbs and flows are becoming less surprising.

Yesterday I was experiencing enormous doubt as I shared it with a few folks. Today I’m back to feeling confident in my work no matter who participates. Funny how that works.

The 10th.

I feel a bit stuck in my environment right now. But I remember how much I needed to come home and be still and have things be the same just a few weeks ago. Travel disrupts our patterns. We need pattern disruption for insight. But we also need to synthesize and integrate.

I need some pattern disruption right now.

The 30th.

I haven’t written in my journal much for a couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to focus on “real” writing, whatever that is.

Why am I always so tired when it’s time to do anything creative? If creativity is so natural and central to what it means to be human, why do I feel too exhausted to do it? It’s so much easier to do literally anything else.

October 2021

The 4th.

Squirrels are chasing each other outside my window. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel get winded. Not once.

The 5th.

I write so much in my notebooks. What I’m still frustrated with is how little I actually end up publishing. But I’m slowly working on the right frame for my art. It’s a process, but the slow, steady approach allows me to keep just the stuff that sticks over all that time. It’s a slow evolution—anything that makes it through the process is surely strong and viable.

I want to remember a feeling I had yesterday of wanting to make things for myself. That got me excited because it doesn’t require me to put on a show for anyone. What would I make, for me? What do I wish existed, so that I could use it and enjoy it?

I would love for January 1st to be my first Post Day. I could center my art on what I want to bring into 2022. That reminds me of that one They Might Be Giants song.

The 7th.

It’s so difficult for me to prioritize tasks that don’t have an immediate or external payoff. Most of my current projects are that way, especially the ones that will have the greatest long-term impact on my life.

I get discouraged when I look at how long I’ve been building this emergent system and how little I still have to show for it externally. I keep feeling like I’m close to the payoff point, but maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe I’m literally not doing the work I need to do, and no amount of gentle systematizing is going to change that.

But it doesn’t matter. I can’t work in the “force it” mode anymore. I don’t have the capacity. If I’m doomed to a life of creative unproductivity, so be it. It’s better than the alternative.

The 8th.

“…my mind flounders if it’s not doing something complicated. The mind is like a set of teeth that has to be chewing all the time.” —The Luminous Novel by Mario Levrero

As I’m going back through my journals from the past two years, sometimes I wonder if writing so much in this way is enabling a kind of hyperinterventionist approach to my own life. If I didn’t constantly put these words on the page, maybe I would be able to stay zoomed out on my life a bit more. Navigating with just the path in front of you as information is a terrible way to get anywhere, at least on purpose.

This is another argument for mindfulness, I guess. It allows you to see how your brain (and maybe even your work!) ping pongs all over the place. That’s why it’s so uncomfortable reading the stuff I’ve written over the past couple of years. Do I really live my life like this? It feels less like constant growth and more like schizophrenic activity.

It’s also another point for slow, kaizen change. When you don’t make any sudden moves, you’re less likely to rebound and you can mitigate some of that monkey mind ping pong effect.

One good thing about it is that I’m more convinced than ever that productivity is meaningless. So much of what we do, we end up undoing later. Things that felt so important were, in fact, not. It makes me cringe to see how much pressure I put on myself and how much anxiety I felt over things that just…no longer exist. If they were so important, surely they would have persisted. I guess they had other impacts that I’m not accounting for that led me to where I am now, but the outcomes certainly weren’t direct and maybe, probably would have happened anyway.

This is discouraging, but also freeing. Relaxing into my life is not giving up. It’s wisdom.

The question is, what does this look like in practice? I mean, relaxing mostly looks like doing nothing. Maybe that’s it…just slow down and let go of the things I’m trying for. Focus on routines and habits that let me experience the hours of my day in a positive way. Value my relationships above anything else.

The 11th.

“Well then: it’s a pointless task, and that’s exactly why I need to do it. I’m sick of going after things that have points; for too long now I’ve been cut off from my own spirituality, hemmed in by the demands of this world, and only pointless things, only indifferent things, can give me the freedom I need in order to get back in touch with what I honestly believe is the essence of life, its ultimate meaning, its first and last reason for being.” —The Luminous Novel by Mario Devrero

I’m trying to take a bigger picture perspective as I write in my journals. I feel like they’re so often “nose pressed up against the glass” view of my life. I’m observing it, but way too close up. Which is fine except when I’m making all my decisions from that vantage point.

I’m constantly evaluating myself and trying to see if I’m “on track” for the person I’m becoming. Because of that, it feels like I place way too much importance on the trivial things that are right in front of my face like, “Am I being productive today?” “Am I being creative today?” “Have I created out loud lately?” Like I’m pushing myself constantly into this mold of what I should be.

But honestly, it doesn’t matter. How “much” I get “done” on this particular Monday in this particular October is absolutely meaningless a week or even a day from now. The patterns of events in my life matter. Who I do them with matters. How we relate to each other and how we’re experiencing the world matters. Basically, “Sarah, is this how you want to live?” That matters.

The systems, frameworks, etc. are so meaningless, except for making it easier for me to decide among the tyrannically infinite set of choices I have in any given moment.

The 12th.

“We tend to speak about our having a limited amount of time. But it might make more sense, from Heidegger’s strange perspective, to say that we are a limited amount of time. That’s how completely our limited time defines us.” —Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks

Four Thousand Weeks is the most honest book on time and how we use it than any I’ve read. It’s very Stoic in its philosophy, which seems like just the right tack to take when the main problem is that we distract ourselves in perpetuity so we don’t have to face our own mortality and limits.

One difficult truth I’m recognizing is how I try the “lots of projects” approach (which worked for that one amazingly prolific note-taking guy I read about: Niklas Luhmann). It isn’t resulting in much prolificacy for my own work. I think the writer in Four Thousand Weeks nails it—I use my projects to compete with each other for my attention. Whenever one gets boring or slow, I switch to another one. Which means that even though I’m making slow progress on a bunch of related things, I don’t face the difficulty that is needed for a breakthrough. And then I eventually talk myself out of the project or it turns into something else.

The 13th.

“You see, a life of leisure takes time to arrange. It doesn’t come about just like that, from one moment to the next, simply because you have nothing to do. At the moment my instinct is to fill every gap, devoting all my free time to stupid, pointless activities, because, almost without realising it, I have become like those people I always look down on: intensely afraid of my own selfhood, of being alone with nothing to do, of the ghosts in the basement pushing at the trapdoor, eager to poke their heads out and give me a fright.” —The Luminous Novel by Mario Levrero

It is torture to try to choose just one class/learning opportunity to focus on at a time. I finished Four Thousand Weeks and it feels like it broke my life. It made me accept my limits in a very real way that I’d refused to do before. And now I’m realizing just how uncomfortable that is.

I’ve learned that every project or learning choice I make is a commitment to a massive amount of time. Just pulling out the relevant bits of my journal for It’s Post Day is going to take me at least another month to compile an extremely rough draft. And now I have an idea for a book proposal that feels like a must. Plus I’ve got a half a dozen other enormous projects I’ve decided to do for It’s Post Day. PLUS actually including other people in that process. It is a gigantic project. I don’t know if I can release the first version by January.

By focusing on only one creative project at a time, I’m having to get honest with myself about what those projects actually require of me. No wonder I wasn’t seeing a lot of output before. Everything I’m doing is so big, and I was doing ten giant things at once.

It’s a relief once I’ve actually chosen. And the rule is, I can’t change my mind once I’ve begun. I either have to finish it or give it up. It doesn’t ever go on the backburner.

Being finite is the most uncomfortable thing there is. And yet, I think really getting that is the only way we ever truly enjoy anything. This time with my notebook is precious to me because it is one of the extremely few practices I’m committed to. I know that as wonderful as it feels to fill my life to the brim with good things, it quickly feels not-wonderful when they are all competing for my attention at once. It becomes a source of stress having to always choose between them, and it crowds out the things that are most meaningful—relationships with other people. Also time spent just being rather than pursuing. By limiting both my consumption and my production, I’m creating a spaciousness that I’ve always longed for, but is in reality highly uncomfortable. But I know this is my path. Even as I rebel inwardly.

I don’t love always choosing the things that make me uncomfortable and go against the grain. But ironically, those things often help me get into a flow with my life, rather than having all my various inclinations competing against each other in any given moment or on any given day. “Monkey mind” doesn’t just exist in our thoughts—if we’re not mindful, it bleeds out into how we live our entire lives. I don’t want to be disciplined for the sake of being “good” or “better” than I am. I want to be disciplined for greater clarity and acceptance of what is actually true.

The 19th.

“When you’re young and inexperienced, you look for dramatic plots in books, just as you do in films. With time, you come to see that the plot has no importance at all; and that the style, the way the story is told, is everything.” —The Luminous Novel by Mario Levrero

The book I’m choosing to read right now is called The Luminous Novel. It’s so perfectly prescient for the old journals that I’m transcribing for It’s Post Day. It’s giving me confidence that this is a worthwhile and interesting thing (or it will be, with some pruning…there is so much that is irrelevant, and some too deeply personal). It’s also making me look at my notebooks with a new appreciation. As uncomfortable as I am reading what seem like extremely trivial musings and obsessions that repeat themselves over and over again, it helps me learn about myself and it gives me something to hook my poor memory onto. These journals feel precious to me now in a way they didn’t before. I almost wish I hadn’t gotten rid of so many of them from my past.

It’s helping me to accept that some problems will always be problems. I will never be perfectly creative. I will never be perfectly consistent. I will never be able to do all the things my ideal life would require of me. I will never decide on one creative path. I will never resolve my tension with needing to spend time with people and wanting to be alone. I will never have the perfect system. So maybe I can stop trying and circling around myself, and actually enjoy the interestingness of what it’s like to be me.

The 20th.

“Sengai also wrote: ‘every stroke of my brush is the overflow of my inmost heart.’ And yet, I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.” —Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

I am 39 years old today. The last year I will ever have to be in my 30s. I’m so curious about the turn all my discoveries will take. But I’m also okay with just living those turns. As I get older, it matters less to me where I’m headed. I just want to be alive to what it feels like to be on the road.

This Seeming Chaos

1. This Seeming Chaos

1. Journal excerpts 2020–2021.

2. February 2020

1. The 16th.

2. The 17th.

3. The 24th.

3. March 2020

1. The 4th.

2. The 10th.

3. The 15th.

4. The 16th.

5. The 18th.

6. The 19th.

7. The 20th.

8. The 21st.

9. The 22nd.

10. The 26th.

11. The 29th.

12. The 30th.

13. The 31st.

4. April 2020

1. The 1st.

2. The 2nd.

3. The 4th.

4. The 5th.

5. The 7th.

6. The 8th.

7. The 10th.

8. The 11th.

9. The 12th.

10. The 14th.

11. The 15th.

12. The 21st.

13. The 22nd.

14. The 26th.

5. May 2020

1. The 6th.

2. The 11th.

3. The 13th.

4. The 17th.

5. The 18th.

6. The 23rd.

7. The 24th.

8. The 26th.

9. The 27th.

10. The 28th.

11. The 31st.

6. June 2020

1. The 2nd.

2. The 8th.

3. The 10th.

4. The 11th.

5. The 12th.

6. The 16th.

7. The 17th.

8. The 18th.

9. The 20th.

10. The 23rd.

11. The 25th.

12. The 26th.

13. The 30th.

7. July 2020

1. The 6th.

2. The 18th.

8. August 2020

1. The 17th.

2. The 19th.

3. The 20th.

4. The 23rd.

9. September 2020

1. The 2nd.

2. The 12th.

3. The 13th.

4. The 17th.

5. The 18th.

6. The 20th.

7. The 21st.

8. The 25th.

9. The 27th.

10. The 30th.

10. October 2020

1. The 5th.

2. The 6th.

3. The 18th.

4. The 26th.

5. The 27th.

6. The 28th.

11. November 2020

1. The 1st.

2. The 3rd.

3. The 5th.

4. The 6th.

12. December 2020

1. The 9th.

2. The 10th.

3. The 13th.

4. The 25th.

13. January 2021

1. The 1st.

2. The 5th.

3. The 6th.

4. The 7th.

5. The 11th.

6. The 14th.

7. The 18th.

8. The 19th.

9. The 24th.

10. The 28th.

11. The 29th.

12. The 30th.

13. The 31st.

14. February 2021

1. The 1st.

2. The 2nd.

3. The 3rd.

4. The 5th.

5. The 28th.

15. March 2021

1. The 3rd.

2. The 5th.

3. The 7th.

4. The 9th.

5. The 10th.

6. The 13th.

7. The 14th.

8. The 29th.

16. April 2021

1. The 1st.

2. The 10th.

3. The 11th.

4. The 12th.

5. The 13th.

6. The 14th.

7. The 16th.

8. The 19th.

9. The 20th.

10. The 21st.

11. The 22nd.

12. The 23rd.

13. The 28th.

14. The 29th.

15. The 30th.

17. May 2021

1. The 3rd.

2. The 4th.

3. The 9th.

4. The 12th.

5. The 14th.

6. The 16th.

7. The 18th.

8. The 19th.

9. The 23rd.

10. The 24th.

11. The 25th.

12. The 26th.

13. The 27th.

14. The 28th.

15. The 29th.

18. June 2021

1. The 1st.

2. The 2nd.

3. The 4th.

4. The 5th.

5. The 8th.

6. The 13th.

7. The 18th.

8. The 25th.

9. The 26th.

10. The 27th.

11. The 28th.

19. July 2021

1. The 2nd.

2. The 3rd.

3. The 5th.

4. The 6th.

5. The 12th.

6. The 13th.

7. The 17th.

8. The 18th.

9. The 19th.

10. The 20th.

11. The 21st.

12. The 22nd.

13. The 24th.

14. The 29th.

15. The 30th.

20. August 2021

1. The 1st.

2. The 2nd.

3. The 13th.

4. The 15th.

5. The 16th.

6. The 17th.

7. The 19th.

8. The 23rd.

9. The 25th.

10. The 28th.

11. The 29th.

12. The 30th.

21. September 2021

1. The 5th.

2. The 6th.

3. The 7th.

4. The 10th.

5. The 30th.

22. October 2021

1. The 4th.

2. The 5th.

3. The 7th.

4. The 8th.

5. The 11th.

6. The 12th.

7. The 13th.

8. The 19th.

9. The 20th.

1. Title Page

2. Cover