‘Tis Monday yet again and I don’t know about where you are, but here in Georgia we are getting an early wink at Fall. It’s 75 degrees outside. I wore long sleeves today. I was burning up, sweating, it’s too soon but I did it y’all!
This week I planned on delivering to you a thoughtful essay about learning to trust my gut. I’ve been writing it in my head all week. When I meditated this morning, I had to overcome the dictation of it to find peace. I pictured sitting down to a complete flow state, words of wisdom tumbling out onto the page. Pfff. Lol. I’ve been muscling through what the hell it is I actually want to say for hours now. Five hours. Every noise is pissing me off. Distractions. I’m sitting outside (in short sleeves now) “enjoying” this gorgeous weather but my tiny flyaway hairs keep tickling my face and I’m incessantly swatting at mosquitos. What. The hell?
I’ve been re-listening to Big Magic this week. Elizabeth Gilbert has been a constant guide in my life even though I find her to be quite goobey and cringe. Maybe her unabashed love and joy for being alive embarrasses me. Maybe I wish I wasn’t embarrassed. Her story about poet Ruth Stone quite literally moved me to tears when I listened to it this morning. I had to stop putting on mascara because my eyes were watering.
"I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who's now in her 90s. She's been a poet her entire life. She told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. She said it was like a thunderous train of air, coming barreling down at her over the landscape, and she'd feel it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, 'run like hell.' And then she would run like hell to the house, chased by this poem; she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it, and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she'd be running and running but she wouldn't get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it. It would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it 'for another poet.'
My essay has been begging me to write it all week but I’ve been waiting to do it because Sunday is my writing day. Now the idea has moved on. I ignored it for too long, arrogantly thought I could just hold it in my head but no, it packed its bags and left, no words put to page and it had to go. Alright. Lesson learned. This coming week, I will write when I am called. Thank you, Liz.
In other news, I’ve been focusing on gratitude. (Geez, who am I to be calling Elizabeth Gilbert a goob with a sentence like that?) After I posted about my Health Anxiety and subsequently began identifying heavily as a hypochondriac, I contracted some sort of stomach bug. I was queasy for days. Anything I ate made me sick. I wasn’t interested in sweets which is a huge tell that somethings off. I didn’t know if my hormones were in distress, if I was pregnant, if I had mold poisoning. That I was so stressed out about it both mortified and depressed me. When I started feeling better three days ago, I accepted it was just a bug and felt a surge of grace that my body is healthy enough to heal itself. Gratitude for feeling good again has outweighed worries about feeling bad. I’m diligently working to retrain my brain to exist here more often. It’s made me want to take better care of myself. Meditating regularly again. Drinking bone broth in the morning and taking magnesium before bed. I’m enjoying practices that feel gentle and sustainable. Of course, my weekly post here is included in that routine.
Okay also. Is anyone planning on watching The Golden Bachelor? Um. Because. I am. I just wanted to tell you that. Here’s a list of things I enjoyed this week.
READING
Why Don’t You Know What You Want. This post by Laura Kennedy for her Substack, Peak Notions is what inspired my desire to write about trusting your gut. I’ve been thinking about this essay all week. What does trusting your gut actually mean? How do you know to trust it? More importantly to me, how do you learn to trust it?
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I judge myself for my basic-ness all the time. Loving Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic, makes me feel basic. It’s really my insecurities masking themselves as self-deprecation. So, I surrender. I love this book. I love Liz’s belief in creative magic. I love so many things she’s written, including this Thoughts On Writing essay from forever ago that was one of the first pieces of writing to ever deeply speak to me. I read it as a 23 year old temp in NYC and have thought about it ever since.
WATCHING
Painkiller on Netflix. Alan found this more disturbing than Dahmer. It’s as disgusting and upsetting as you think it’s gonna be.
Grey’s Anatomy. The episode where Kyle Chandler shows up as the bomb squad and becomes pink mist. Y’all. What a show.
LISTENING
I desperately need some new music. I scrolled through the first second of about 150 songs today trying to find something I wanted to listen to and couldn’t. I’m dying for a song or album I’m obsessed with.
This week, I hope you are feeling the excitement of a new season. When I speak to you next, it will officially be Fall. Alan and I are gearing up for my 40th birthday celebration in New York City, a trip that will mark many new beginnings for us. My new decade. Alan’s first flight.
One more Elizabeth Gilbert plug because I love it. She quotes poet Jack Gilbert (not related to her) in Big Magic…
“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.”
I hope you find gladness this week. I hope you risk delight. See you next Monday.
xoxo.