This month, I am surfing old pieces housed in the wrinkly pages of my journals. I have not seen some of them for years. There is an alarming amount of blotted ink and crusty food stains. At the time, I imagine it was a heinous scene of emotional eating and cry-writing during various seasons of grief. But I like to remember that these were also times of great indulgence and creative generation. When the Wild Woman is (re)born, she is rarely tidy.
Much of my work now is identifying what is worth further investigation. Journal entries, poems, letters, etc. — what is the thread here? what has changed since then? It’s tough being my own archivist, but at this stage everything feels much too precious to let someone else help. So I sit at the kitchen table, swapping tea with crowds of myself that I’ve lugged around for decades.
Below is a poem I wrote in 2017. It surfaces every six months or so, and each time I find something new in it. That year was full of creative expansion, travel, and deepening friendships. It was a good year for my business and my own personal development in mindfulness and self-compassion practices. But I was also quite lonely in my long-term relationship and in deep denial of that fact. So I often wrote about small external things that brought me joy or about the “corrections” I was making to my inner world. Frequently I wrote about the allure of being in the background of my own life. At the time I thought what a blessing it is to surrender to my surroundings and now looking back I think how painful it must have been to prefer to disappear.
Anyway, I wanted to share a small slice of where I was that summer with you. And I am curious — what work have you reflected back on with a new perspective? I’d love to see it and know how it has changed for you over time.
the train to oslo
The sun blinks behind the trees.
I like to imagine it sending me a message.
*dot dot dash dot dash*
My reflection in the window is faded,
housing bits and pieces of what we pass outside.Little red cabins contrast the green and gold fields.
The peppered giggling of teenage girls
plowing through their burgers,
huddled around a phone, reminds me
of young friendship and
the simplicity of sisterhood.The sky is blue and grey, swirly
with white cotton balls pinned to the canvas.I don’t know where I am, but I feel safe.
Perhaps, it is the familiarity of it all.
The solitude. The trading of places.
The humming of distant voices
I do not understand.
Let me know what simple thing has inspired you this week. (This song is it for me.) What is bringing you back to your creative flow? Let’s chat about it in the comments.
I love the visual of you sitting with a cup of tea, surrounded by a crowd of past selves. It makes me want to crack open old journals, which I hardly ever do.
One thing that is inspiring me this week is a change of scenery! I just landed in Myrtle Beach to visit my mom for a week...this is my third year in a row visiting her in the spring and all I could think about on the flight was about the changes that have happened between each of those years. Slow and steady, but steady nonetheless. This trip us become a marker of sorts - a place to see it all from an aerial point of view. It’s stirring things for me today in a really good way ❤️ thanks for asking!