The personal blog of Craig Atallah Frost
I think that I finally need to reset this space. It helped to bring me somewhere, but it’s no longer the place I’m excited to show up to every day. I have a daily practice that’s pretty different and that I’ll share more about soon, but writing here daily, in the same format I have been, isn’t working for me any more. In the next few days I’ll archive the posts and start fresh.
How fucking great is paper, or something like it? I love typing and thinking through writing, but holding a pencil and making whatever mark you need to is unparalleled. I’m convinced that there are thoughts you simply wouldn’t have if you couldn’t think visually; spatially. I’m convinced that there’s something lost when you type a prompt for some tool to make a visual mark for you. Making the…
I’m at a point again where I’m trying to figure out what I want to write here. Part of me wants to archive everything and start fresh. I’m feeling a pull again towards morning pages. I think that I want to publish some more substantial things publicly. An essay I’m proud of. A deep dive on something.
I totally didn’t come back the next day, huh. I just got pulled into the other project I wanted to work on, which feels like a totally great reason. My only rule is to make something every day and share it. I did that. I do that. I rarely don’t do that at all. I do love writing though, and I love writing here. Anyway, enough of the meta. The meta is boring, right?
It’s pretty obvious from the past few weeks that I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing here every day. I’m trying to decide whether I should be trying to bring it back. I have another daily practice right now, but not one that makes much sense to write down here. I used to juggle multiple daily practices, but it never felt great—as if I was cheating on one with the other.
I’m lay on the couch, and Cacio has her head flopped in my lap. Aneesah is on the other end of the couch having a nap. The setting sun is blinding me a little—it’s at that angle where it just goes straight into your eyeballs. There’s the sound of the BART, and then a firework, and then barking dogs. I’m ordering a pizza because… well… I want pizza. It’s Indian pizza though, which is a thing. It’s…
Feeling kind of flat today. Didn’t get enough sleep, probably. Rarely do. What is enough? I’m not sure I’ve ever felt truly rested, but I guess I wouldn’t know. Maybe the best I’ve felt is as good as it gets. I had a conversation that ended up giving me a bunch of energy though, and I always find it so wonderful and insane how the right conversation can do that. You could do that for someone else.…
I’ve been trying to get up a little earlier to spend the beginning of my day in the garden, in the daylight. Yesterday it was gloriously sunny, but this morning was overcast and on the cooler side. Still, I wandered out there with my coffee and a blueberry muffin because I had a plan to keep.
If I don’t do something every day, I struggle to do it at all. I haven’t written here in a few days because I haven’t written here in a few days. I’ve also been thinking about what it is I want to write here. I had a bunch of ideas, which I’ll spare you, but landed right back on something like a journal—but maybe with a small change: write them to someone, like a letter.
Compulsively picking at my lips today, as I’ve done most days since I was a teenager. I don’t remember exactly when or why it started, but I know that it hasn’t stopped yet. I’m hoping it will one day. Maybe I’ll live with it my whole life, but I’ll try not to. I’ll try harder than I’ve tried so far, which is not very hard.