How to Keep it All Afloat

When an old you meets an other you

You know when you read an apology for why someone hasn’t been here or there or wherever they have committed somehow to be and you feel a little sorry for them or are mad at them because you see that they are disappointed in themselves and they suspect you are too? I’ve seen so many of these apologies.

Well, life gets lifey sometimes and not all of us are the committed journalists we’ve taken ourselves to be nor do we have all the answers as neatly stored inside ourselves or have everything it takes to become more of a service rather than to just express ourselves and make a gift each day or week or month, you know? Everyone needs rest sometimes I hear.

Here at this year’s end, I am reflecting on past posts never shared, put aside so that I might find myself in my work, rather than doing this work alongside the work I've been hoping will sweep me up and take me in. I’ve worked in silence some of this year and out loud for other parts. May became June, June became July, July August, August September etc. And here we are on precisely December 29th, 2024.

Below is a post never posted from February and it’s actually so wonderful to see what I was afraid to post.

And as a pre-post addendum, this year I did learn to rest. I learned about presence and I think I may have gotten my sense of humor back. I think I have softened a bit in my thinking of others and myself. And all of it was very hard. I mean, I had a few very hard months. I think I was looking for answers, as we all are maybe, and to unlearn so much of what I thought it was to be whatever I felt tasked to be. I needed some time in private to process so many many many things. I wasn’t born into this constant show of a world—it came later. It’s not the kind of pressure I think is healthy in the life of, well, anyone. I don’t know if I want my life to be a show, I just want to share something that feels like just the right thing, that feels like you might need it as much as I do? What do you want?

Thank you for bearing with me and understanding or not understanding. Thank you for your support and your belief that whatever we have to share with each other doesn’t always come easy. That whatever we have for each other will be a gift. I’m thankful for you. AndI’m very much looking forward to writing and sharing my thoughts and art and pictures here again in the new year.

oh and this…

TOMORROW, Monday Dec 30th at 11am EST I’m doing my yearly zoom —a free session where we make a bridge from the old year into the new, write intentions and respond to prompts I’ll share with you that I give to myself to see where I’ve been, who I thought I was supposed to be and lean into more of who I am and what I can make happen in the new year with the magic of my two hands and this one little brain. I invite you to join me:

Monday, December 30th, 11am EST
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86505950060?pwd=hFZgKZWqZMnfm0Qrxby4ha00Ym2WCh.1

And now for…AFLOAT

Here I am now, measuring how I have forced rest on myself in inches (which is not very restful) and how much time it has taken to wrap my body and head around this concept, since December something. All the while, what a luxury of being able to rest/not rest, the privilege.

Last year I was asked to submit my Pinocchio work to a dream publisher but they wanted a more structured manuscript and they wanted it in less than ten days. I am good with pushing tight up against a deadline but this was tighter than tight because it was my dream publisher and also it was my dream publisher and what did they really want? It seems like the kind of thing you can ask, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I asked.

But I did find myself thinking that I had to try to make the more stuctured thing very very quickly. I found myself mouthing the words:” MORE. STRUCTURED. MANUSCRIPT around the house. I found myself contacting friends with questions like: What is a more structured manuscript? What are words? Can I do six months worth of work in 2 weeks or less since what is the end of the month? The last day? The last three days? The first of the next month? How do you even write at all? Why can’t my eyes see? AM I PINOCCHIO?

I call S. and asked her if the world needed another Pinocchio. She responded the way someone who is kind would respond: “Yes. The world needs your Pinocchio Deb.” I tried to write down what she said and it looked like my dog, who is the mental age of a four year old child, wrote letters

I found myself walking up the dirt road from our house to the co-op every other of those ten days and buying strawberry ice cream. I found myself lying on the floor staring at the ceiling circling the lit up words MORE. STRUCTURED. MANUSCRIPT.

I called my friend C. and asked her how not to avoid the thing you want the most. She made us a google doc to put all the ways we avoid into it. We each kept a list and we each made each other laugh and maybe cry a little because thats what goes into avoidance. It was high summer then. Oh summer. Here is an excerpt for this one of the installments:

List of How to Practice Avoiding The Thing You Want But Your Body Won’t Give Up The Ghost For It:

7-23-23

1. Make this list  

2. Figure out how google docs works even though you actually know how google docs works but have never made two columns on google docs.

3. Make an ice cream concoction that tastes like a delicious insect and name it Strawberry Cricket. Advertise this widely.

4. Fret about the format of this list.

5. Text C.  and urge her to avoid what she’s doing by looking at this new list I made.

7-24-23

6. Start writing at 4:30am and unfortunately check emails and attempt to buy dresses for 30% off.

7. Hope C. knows how to fix this document and hold back from looking up how to fix this document and get back to work.

8. Make tea instead of getting back to work

9. I worked!

10. For an hour

5:48am

11. Wake up and do the morning things like petting the dog, opening all the doors, hoping it will be a cooler day today, learning it won't be a cooler day today, open head gate to water, tell myself to remember water is on, delight in how cool it is, make tea, wish it was coffee, remember as I do every day that coffee is a bad idea for me, wonder if I’ve lost weight overnight, wonder if I should go back to bed, go back to bed.

12. Open computer and get right to work except I glance at my email and it’s all over.

13. Read C's entries from yesterday and guffaw tea all over my computer. 

14. Laugh so hard at 1-16 that I wonder if “missing humor class” should be the name of this document and then wonder if wanting to name anything at all is a form of control.

15. Put dog on bed

16. Get to this document like its the work itself which it could very well be.

17. Consider changing the font from comfortaa to LOBSTER.

18. Change font. MY “E” DOESN’T WORK AND THIS FONT IS RIDICULOUS.

19. Maybe Cambria

20. Wonder how C. will avoid work their work today. 

21. Realize that i don't think i got this

22. Realize i need to write an epic and maybe that’s more than i can chew

23. Think about chewing

24. Wish i had the energy to capitalize my “i’s”

25. Think about eating oysters with C. like we didn't in Provincetown.

26. Wish time would stand still so i can finish this and that it will always be 5:50 in the morning mountain time.

27. autocorrect all my mistakes and then google “how to write an adaptation”

28. And “what is humor?”

29. And “these high summer sales are killing me”

30. Remember the water is on and head out to close the gate.

31. stare at the blue sky.

32. walk in the door.

33. Get to work

34. But then consider changing my name as I type my name but what would my new name be and isn't that a form of control?

35. Wonder why im so fucking out of control.

36. Ok now really get to work. Ok. 

37. Ok.

Things I have loved this February:

Katherine May’s How I Start A Book (just pure relief and permission)

Zadie Smith’s review of Henry Taylor’s paintings in The New Yorker.

Re-finding one of the most brilliant blogs I’ve ever known from my own days of blog-yore, by Stephanie Madewell (who is also the editor at Broccoli mag and the best books ever)).

Margaux Kent’s substack because not only is it stop me in my tracks- can’t wait to open it wonderful, she is also a dear friend and her brain rumbles in just the way I love. And also she made this journal for me for my Pinocchio work through her company Peg and Awl. It’s based on a drawing I did, silhouettes of the Cat and The Fox and little P. made last year for Folktale Week of which we are both hosts and how we became friends. She gifted me the journal above with my very own drawing etched onto the front. I put all my Pinocchio thoughts into it—a treasure.