Hi. Hello.
I do not have a plan today.
Here are the ideas listed in my notes app this week:
what does it mean to feel like yourself? why does it seem like “I don’t feel like myself” is a euphemism for “my body is bigger…or older…or not as close to an imposed ideal as it was before.” Can you feel like yourself and look different than you used to?
“losing ourselves in an all-absorbing action, we become ourselves”
Pursue complexity, not mastery. The more time we spend with a practice, the more nuance arises.
When you are honest about what you want (to be a writer, to have another baby), you have to accept possible disappoint. That’s the problem with desire.
Being a mom is such hard work (melting face).
I have no time to write today.
But, I’m leaning into it: the devotion to making and sharing something. Even just this:
I have two books sitting beside me. One of them is a short story collection called Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins. I just read a story from it and WOAH. The artistry. The intricacy. The stunning symbolism! I have been writing here - on Substack - for about six months and the more I write the more I want to read, read, read. And the more I read and write side-by-side, the more I approach reading from a writer’s vantage point. And also, I am made aware just how good writing can be. Gorgeous, complex, transporting, expansive. If you haven’t experienced art lately, if you haven’t been moved my a painting or a poem or song, may you find some space to seek it out. May you feel the feeling of witnessing an expression, toiled over by another person, that touches on something in you that you couldn’t access yourself. And may you make something too, a doodle even (or a measly paragraph like this one!), and see a glimmer of your interior world externalized. And in seeing just that glimmer, may you recognize the vast well from which it came.
With love,
Stephanie
P.S. If you like my writing please share, comment, and/or like the post. You are even encouraged to text it to a friend! I really love to write, and I really love for my writing to read. Thank you for being a reader! Truly.
Here are some quotes from past pieces! I would be honored if you shared! You can take me @stephaniefromcrea on Instagram and link to my substack.
...."if you haven’t been moved my a painting or a poem or song, may you find some space to seek it out. May you feel the feeling of witnessing an expression, toiled over by another person, that touches on something in you that you couldn’t access yourself. And may you make something too, a doodle even (or a measly paragraph like this one!), and see a glimmer of your interior world externalized. And in seeing just that glimmer, may you recognize the vast well from which it came."
-Thank you!