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.