Hi friends! This dispatch is a week late as away for a work trip to NYC which happened in a sandwich between family visiting me and me visiting family. What a life! Things have been chaotic, but in this moment I can absolutely feel how lucky I am. I’m sitting in the both/and-ness that the holiday season can sometimes bring.
Wishing my fellow Scandis, Happy Lucia Day…may it be filled with light. This time of year can beautiful and/or incredibly challenging. Sending big hugs through the internet ether to each and every one of you.
To close out the year, I’ll be donating the income from this newsletter for the month of December to my pals over at Sonder Recovery who do the incredible work of bringing free, peer-support-based recovery resources to queer folks and allies. Important always, but especially during the holiday season. If you’re looking to subscribe for an additional monthly dispatch and access to the archive of past subscriber dispatches, just hit the button below.
pocket rocks
As I wait to board the plane, I reach into my pocket for the cool, smooth weight of the rock. It is spherical, this one, found along a river on a perfect early Spring hike when the earth seems to be welcoming you back and the forest smells damp with life. In the sterile light of the airport terminal, it calms me immediately. I am nervous, but in the dark privacy of my packet, I am holding something ancient. This rock that I picked up on a whim is likely more than a billion years old, as most rocks are. And yet it is being held so tightly by my comparatively temporary palm. Its vastness reminds me of the smallness of this moment, of the ways that nervousness and second-guessing tend to step away over time if you give them long enough.
Work trips among new people bring out the child in me, all insecure and frightened. Years of sobriety and pandemic-induced isolation mean that I have mostly been free of the nerves of meeting other people. And in that space of freedom, I have become something unobserved and more myself. I have become something less convenient but more true. It is difficult to put untested parts of yourself on display again.
I am very unsure of things in a way that my rock is not. In a way that nature is not. Nature holds a playful certainty, steady but flexible that I want to claim for myself. Claim is a strong and dangerous word, but I guess I just want to feel a part of the natural order of things. I want to find my way back to the rhythms that are bigger than me, to right size my anxiety however I can.
When I was a child my mother dressed me up in a frilly Easter dress, only to find me minutes later behind the front shrubbery, filthy and shoving rocks into my mouth. I don’t remember this, my memory exists only in her retelling of it, but I still understand the impulse. When you are in a strange place and surrounded by people you don’t know well, you can do with a bit of grounding. Rocks do that.
Later, I kept carefully separated boxes of rocks hidden in my room. It did not matter whether they were shiny or jagged or strangely shaped. I could find something beautiful in each of these secret treasures. I stopped collecting them at some point, calling it childish. But at some point I started again, craving the wonder of holding something so old, and knowing that awe is always ageless.
And so I am bringing this small bit of where I am from with me into the city that never sleeps in an act of binding. It is in my hand in the cab when we make the turn onto a one-way street, so lit up at 6 pm that it looks like noon. I hold it tighter still when we swerve around the millionth intent pedestrian trying to get to where they’re going with as little attention to the journey as possible. When I was in my 20s, I wanted to fit in here. To show all of the ways that I could thrive in this impossible place and feel tough and worthy in return. I wanted to meet the steel of this place with a steel of my own, but it always took more than it gave. This place is magical, all lit up with Christmas, but it is not my kind of magic. Mine is a different kind of bright. Mine is quiet and slow.
Weeks like this are anything but. They fly by before I know it and I somehow find myself grateful that they have. Grateful for this swift passing of days of my life. It all becomes morbid if I think about it too much. By my return flight I am well acquainted with the rock’s smooth roundness and the way that it slowly warms in my palm. I know the weight of it. We have become friends in the ways that we have cared for each other on this journey.
Assorted, rad thing(s):
A section of this newsletter where I share what I have been reading, watching, or otherwise consuming lately.
The Queer Witches of Appalachia by Emma Cieslik (article): I don’t remember where I came across this article but it has been open in my tabs for over a month as I read it over and over because I love it so much. A beautiful celebration of queerness, magic, and Appalachian ritual practice it is a must read if any of these topics appeal to you.
Activate Your Soul course: I have learned so much from Amickoleh through her podcast and in conversation, so I was so thrilled to see that she is launching her course. It’s a seven week course for conscious creatives and I hope that you will check it out if that framing appeals to you!
I recently gifted myself a paid subscription to Katherine May’s wonderful Substack The Clearing, which I have posted here multiple times. Being off of social media, getting long-reads from some of my favorite writers to my mailbox has been a way to unwind without stealing my attention, my time, or putting me into a comparison spiral. This has brought me a whole lot of joy and learning. So here’s your reminder to find some joy for your inbox this holiday season as we get inundated with junk emails shouting at us to buy products!
That’s all for the first December dispatch! I hope that wherever this finds you, you’re warm and cozy.
with love,
lisa
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