After a decade of building a writing career by slabbing the bricks of social media one atop the other, it seems I woke up one day and my prefrontal cortex just went “ya know what? nah.” For the life of me I can’t muster up a speck of interest in airing a hot take on the political issue du jour or teasing you into reading one of my books. I do not give a rat’s ass what content is currently going viral or what particular alchemy it takes to create a reel these days. I truly cannot will my thumbs to type a godforsaken caption.
I JUST DON’T CARE.
Obviously I don’t mean that I don’t care about matters of injustice or the importance of spiritual wholeness, two things I once posted a lot about. I still care deeply about those things. And I don’t mean I don’t care about YOU, my readers; many of you feel like true friends to me and I would hang out IRL with you in a heartbeat. I simply don’t care to spend my life on a screen anymore. As gratifying as it has been for me in the past, I no longer care to engage in online discourse about, well, anything. I do still believe there’s a place for education and activism via social media — public forum’s gotta public forum — but it’s never been so easy to see that it’s not for me.
I know lots of us go back and forth on this, especially those of us who are writers and feel eternally bound to the ol’ world wide web lest we fall into oblivion and lose publishing opportunities. (Don’t I get it! I am still writing this post, after all. I will continue to heckle you with unedited meandering thoughts until further notice.) So how do we know what we are “called” to, so to speak? How do we make decisions about this from year to year?
The Jesuits teach that God leads us through our desire. While there obviously has to be checks and balances with that kind of wide berth, I really think it’s true. There have been seasons of my life when engaging with my community on social media energized me, and when making reels or taking photos felt like creative practice. It was easy to see where my desire pointed: toward something that I was not only good at doing, but that allowed me to contribute to social conversations. At other times (I’m thinking particularly of the past two or so years) desire has been more coy and elusive, waiting in a quiet corner as I dealt with the more pressing matters at hand.
But right now my desire is not quiet, nor subtle.
I really, really, really desire to putz around my backyard for hours a day. I really, really, really desire to relax in the living room with my kids. I really, really, really desire to take hot baths and put nice fabrics on my body and read books in bed with the cat but not before spritzing my pillows with perfume first. I desire not to travel but to love home; to enjoy being near the ones I like best, having interesting coversations and laughing my ass off. I desire deep, satisfying pleasure in the present.
For most of my adult life I worked too hard to make an impact in this world. I was a missionary; an adoptive mom; a Catholic Worker; a writer. I needed to feel big, meaningful, active, as though I was negotiating my right to be on this earth. And now, post-divorce, post life-upheaval, post hardest-thing-I’ve-ever-done, I finally feel permission to rest. To let a small existence be enough. I really like it here. I hope you find that too, if you want it.
b/c I would love some face-to-face time with you!
The Rewilding Motherhood Retreat in La Grange Park, IL on July 17-19
Entering the Divine Feminine (one-day retreat) in Wheatland, IA on July 25
I had a poem included in Motherlore magazine’s new “Make:Shift” homemade zines, and if there were a way to make this fact my entire personality, I would. If you enjoy supporting women in the arts, or feel the weight of the social debt you owe to mothers, or have been looking for a way to honor the unseen and unpaid domestic and reproductive labor that the economy as we know it was built upon…. well it’s your lucky day!
(I get no cut from sales, it’s just that THIS WOMAN BOUND THESE THINGS BY HAND WITH HER CHILDREN “HELPING” AT HER SIDE omg)
Sending love to each and every one of you. Thanks for sticking around these parts.
Shannon
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