Spring Cleaning

For over three years, apart from my intentional summer break last year, I’ve posted an essay every Monday. It’s a practice I’ve loved and loathed and cherished and resented. Consistency and commitment, two parts of adulthood I desperately wanted to know I could handle.

Can I set a goal and achieve it?

Turns out.

Yes.

I can.

Tuesday mid-morning found me realizing, “oh my god, I completely forgot to post a Substack yesterday.” A three year habit wiped from my brain like dry erase marker off a white board.

Dad and I had just returned from a life-changing weekend in Montana. A retreat, “Writing is a Spiritual Practice” hosted by David James Duncan. Three days spent in a little cabin by a rushing creek with eight other humans we’d never met. Warmth, generosity, strength, kindness, safety shared amongst strangers willing to become friends and confidantes in such a short time, to say it was profound is to say the least.

It’s left me in a state of wonder and curiosity.

I hold my sense of humor in the highest esteem. Laughter and a perception that life is absurd connect me deeper to what I consider truth than anything else.

And yet, I find myself in a constant battle with seriousness. My writing often takes a tone that activates my inner critic. Why so serious??? Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Enough metaphors, enough waxing, can’t you just be funny??

It’s weird and leaves me exasperated.

Back in December when I had a family trip, a work trip and a reel go viral on Instagram in the same week, I realized that in order to stay sane, I’d only be allowed to think 15 minutes ahead of my present.

“I’m sitting on a plane, in 15 minutes I will still be sitting on a plane.”

Once landed.

“I’m sitting on a plane. In 15 minutes I will be peeing in the restroom and then finding baggage claim.”

And so on and so on.

It’s carried over to now.

“I’m sitting on my couch writing. In 15 minutes I will still be writing.”

After years of future casting and dream, dream, dreaming, it’s been nice to revel in the mysterious present.

I have no idea what I want to be and no desire to figure it out.

Throw me in that rushing Montana creek, let me float along to wherever it wants to take me.

When I’m feeling frustrated and stuck, I clean out a closet. Due to my diligent late winter deep clean this February, I have no drawers or closets left so I’ve moved onto my habits and energy.

Since missing my post last week, I’ve been evaluating my weekly practice. What’s the point in forcing myself to share when I don’t feel inspired to say anything? What do I want to say?

And then, why so serious??

It’s an annoying conversation I’ve frankly had enough of for the moment.

So. I’m rearranging. Taking off the leash of Memoir Monday and hanging it up. It’s served me VERY well and now it’s time to be free and see what happens. I feel like an indoor cat stepping outside for the first time… there’s a whole wide world…

Meow?

I want to be surprised. Write with vigor and devotion not because I need something to share but to see what comes out. Try on new outfits, form a fresh identity. Float fifteen minutes then check to see where I am. Maybe post every other Tuesday, maybe Mondays return.

I don’t know and I feel flooded with excitement over it.

Recipes, podcasts, one single paragraph, fully crafted essays, a picture, a painting, an ode to my bed?

Cheers to the unknown!! I’ll be back soon.

P.S. Here’s the last piece I wrote in my journal before we left Montana:

Alicia told me that I used to be the earth and the wind.

An interchangeable lifetime observing humanity.

Marie Antoinette, a caveman, Da Vinci, a love so deep she both cried and laughed and I did the same, listening through headphones to my virtual energy healing.

“There’s a churning in your back body, a knot of something that feels like doubt. It’s like you took a body wanting so desperately to be human and then you landed in one and thought, ‘for fuck’s sake, what have I done?’”

I’ve always both loved and felt immensely irritated by life.

With my eyes closed every morning- for twenty minutes- it’s simple…but then it’s also not. So many meditations spent in argument with myself- can you shut the fuck up- let this moment wash over you- save the narration, you’re not writing right now.

Oh what a beautiful, hilarious luxury these stupid thoughts.

To be a watchful rock or the joyful wind carrying a bird.

Infinite love zapped all at once into this soft body with moving parts and mushy organs and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and choices-

Endless choices.

How wondrous to choose love with the option not to.

P.P.S. Please, I beg of you, pick up Sun House by David James Duncan and read words that bring clarity to feelings you thought you’d never be able to express.

Writing is a spiritual practice, I’m forever grateful to DJD for showing me that truth and to my dad for taking me to Montana.

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