Letting Writing Slide

For a millennial woman who opts to spend any length of time in New York City, a trip to Chinatown for an aura photo is, essentially, jury duty. A civic responsibility.

My summons arrived in the form of burnout. The burnout of working a full-time workload remotely. The burnout of squeezing in a Pilates teaching certification program and apprenticeship on top of my actual jobs. The burnout of said teaching taking a while to click. The burnout of relationship growing pains, of the divorce process, of having to use Google Maps to get absolutely anywhere. The burnout of wanting so desperately to get my writing and reading grooves back. The burnout of having absolutely no extra space in my days. The burnout of constantly reminding myself: you signed up for this, so stop complaining.

I needed a day off, which isn’t really a thing I do. This is not a quality I like about myself. I am horrible at setting my work down. I am also horrible at maintaining a one-in-one-out policy with responsibilities. I take on new roles and commitments without cutting the others back. “Maybe I can find a way to fit it all in,” I tell myself over and over.

So I slipped on my favorite jacket—as a lifelong Floridian, the ability to wear a jacket in June is still a novelty—and caught the train. I thought I could do the train transfer without having to use Google Maps, but then I missed my stop. Lately, I have had to ration my ADHD medication, which has been impossible to access here in the city, so more often than not, I miss my stop.

But I eventually found my way to the jewelry store. Inside, I elbowed past a gaggle of fellow millennials who appeared to have also received their aura summons that day.

A man named Chris sat me on a bench flanked by small metal boxes before an enormous camera. There was a sign below the camera lens that listed the pricing:

“Set your palms on the boxes,” Chris said, and I did. The boxes, I later learned, were sensing my vibrational frequencies, assigning color to them.

The aura photos I’ve seen through the years feature a plumage of rainbows. When the camera spit out my photo, Chris intercepted it before I could see, hiding it from view as it developed. “Just the photo?” he asked. “Or do you want the meaning?”

“I want the meaning,” I said. That’s what you should always say when someone asks you that question.

I asked Chris if I could record him while he explained the meaning. He laughed and rolled his eyes and said, “This is not a podcast.”

And you know what? He’s absolutely right. As much as I love to scavenge and harvest, I can do that without turning every little thing into a voice memo, because when do I ever listen back to them, anyways? I love people who make their boundaries crystal clear. It always feels like an invitation to do the same.

I followed Chris over to a jewelry case, where he set my developed aura photo face-up for me to finally see. And while I didn’t yet know the meaning of what I was looking at, the sight of it made me feel doomed.

There was my blurry head and torso, ensconced in a pool of glowing blood.

“Red,” Chris said, in a tone I couldn’t interpret.

“Red,” I repeated. So much for pretty rainbows.

“Do you usually sleep well?” Chris asked. ”When you sleep, do you dream?”

“I never remember my dreams,” I told him. Though later on, I realized this was a bit of a mistruth. The most recent dream I can remember was back in February. In it, I was dancing on a stage, singing a song that went like this:

wow wow wow wow wow
life is a ball
wow wow wow wow wow
yeah yeah yeah

I recorded myself singing this supremely stupid song right when I woke up that morning. And guess what! I have never listened to it once, and I can remember the song just fine.

“If you’re not remembering your dreams,” Chris told me, “you’re not really resting.”

He proceeded to point out how busy and exhausted I seem to be. “You want everything covered,” he said, “but it’s taking a lot out of you.” Strong thinker, big worrier, bad prioritizer. Terrible at setting things down. He urged me to find a daily block of time to rest. Really rest.

“I’m going through a big life transition,” I told him, “but I’m having a hard time making any decisions. Do you have any advice for me?”

He shook his head, as if to say, you’re missing the entire point. “You can’t decide,” he said, “until you rest.”

Prioritization and patience. Two skills that feel impossible to me. But according to my crimson aura, it’s time I finally learned them.

On occasion, I’ll record a voice note to my future self, and I did exactly that on the sidewalk outside of the jewelry store. I have—surprise!—never listened to any of these recordings. At least not until today. Today, I wanted to hear the shake in my own voice. The kind of shake that always comes from a confronting moment.

Here’s part of what I had to say to my future self on the day of my aura reading:

On his magnificent podcast, the actor Bill Nighy brought a Nick Lowe song to my attention, called Lately I’ve Let Things Slide. It’s become a sort of anthem for this season of constant priority weighing.

In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if the key to prioritizing is a matter of mastering the art of letting things slide.

I was supposed to teach a Pilates class on Zoom for my apprenticeship graduation and had even dropped an enthusiastic save the date! into the last newsletter. Maybe you saw it. But my mentor and I ended up using that time for more hands-on learning. I never got around to announcing the change. Instead, I let it slide.

I’d told my agent that I’d get a draft of a new novel to her by the summertime. The moment I started my divorce process, I let it slide.

Check-ins from friends await me like untouched books on my nightstand. But I am learning to save them for later, telling myself that the real friends will understand.

And then there are the writing classes I’d wanted to have planned by now. The Pilates flashcard study deck I’d wanted to make. Emptying the compost before the flies arrive. Like fistfuls of sand, I let them all slide out of my hands.

I’d wanted this newsletter to go out on Friday, but I let that slide, too.

It dawned on me recently that, for the first time in my life, I’m feeling overwhelmed purely because I’m trying to squeeze in so many things I want to do. But I can save things for later. And in the meantime, I can rest. Really rest.

That’s the one thing I don’t want to let slide: the pursuit of sustainable abundance.

Aura as an invitation, not a sentencing.

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