It's been a while...

a brief hello and a thought about growth

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

It’s been 5 months since my last letter. Over and over again I’ve thought of this space and wondered what to write. In fact, half of this letter I wrote back in January.

I’ve been spending less time reading on Substack. My inbox is full of unread letters. When I look them, I feel a bit paralyzed. It’s too much. Where do I begin? How do I ever catch up? Should I?

I'm tempted to take a cue from Louisa from

Writing Around the Edges

and set a creative fire. Start all over again. Instead, I did some pruning via unsubscribes. If I’ve unsubscribed from you, I’m sorry. It‘s not that I don’t enjoy your writing, its just too much. I hope someday I will have more capacity to find my way back to you.

Back to the writing, or my lack thereof truly. It’s not that I have nothing to say. In fact, I’m full of words. I’m just not sure how to get them on paper right now. And I haven’t wanted to. And many are a lot different than what I used to want to say. I’ve thought about pushing myself. But should I?

I still think belonging to ourselves is important. Maybe right now what is most important is belonging to each other? I don’t know.

I’ve found myself leaning away from writing and fallen deep into reading. I also notice that what I’m reading has shifted.

I want to stay informed of what’s happening in my country. I want to explore my part in resistance. I want to understand how we got here and what that means for how we mend. I want to deepen the faith that I’m seeing hijacked and sullied. I want to find belonging with others who feel the same. I want to find pockets for escape and joy and connection with those most important to me.

My heart is broken, yet clinging desperately to hope. I watch the spring unfolding on my walks every day and find myself captured by how nature continues its cycles even as fear and uncertainly shower around us.

It still feels important to know our values and stand firm in them. To find others we can stand with. To know who we will stand for. Yet I’m not sure what to write in this space.

Today, I’ll leave you with a musing that occurred to me while listening to an episode of The Gravity Commons Podcast. (I wish I remembered which episode!)

Growth is what happens in a nurturing environment

If you think of a garden, the plants are not striving for growth the way humans do. They are simply following their nature. Whether the tomatoes grow into the best expression of themselves is not so much up to the tomato as it is to the environment. If that environment is tended well, giving the tomato its best conditions, that tomato will thrive.

Are we any different? As a parent I strive to create an environment where my kids are able to grow into their best selves. How do I also create that environment for myself?

How do I push to create that environment for others? How do I stand for creating a nurturing environment in my community? My country? It is feeling like the opposite of the kind of environment the current administration is trying to create.

That’s all I’ve got today. I can’t promise ill will write again soon. Time will tell whether I can wrangle all the words within me into something I want to share.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear from you. Where is your heart? What’s keeping hope alive for you? Where are you focusing your energy in these times?