Dear Amy, another post that is so densely and wondrously written that I can’t get my head around it. Just as I absorb one metaphor, another comes crashing along. Sometimes it takes me all week to absorb your words.
I, too, think I could not live easily if I did not write weekly for others. And I mourn all those old posts that will never be read now, so precious when I wrote them. But we go on and strive more.
I stopped obsessing about lighthouses many years ago. And here they are again.
Thank you, Fran. I’m sorry that there’s such chaos in the words. I know, and yet I’m embracing it these days. Sorry, too, about the lighthouses, if you had put them behind you. I think of them with great poignance. I’ve enjoyed seeing your photos pop up in notes as well as in your posts.
Kintsugi. This is what immediately came to mind when I started your post today. For anyone not familiar, kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. What an appropriate symbol for your writing, taking adversity and turning into something beautiful and resilient. I also see sashiko and boro (the art of visible mending) here. Is the writing a meditative approach to repair, to strengthening, to sustainability?
What book did I add to my hold list this week? Mend! A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto, by Kate Sekules.
Thank you, Laura. I love all of these connections you’ve made. They each come into play in how I think of this and the visible art of piecing, mending, and repair. Thank you for a beautiful comment. I share the exercise goal with you. That is one thing that has really slipped. I have been doing ten of this or that every time I get up and pace around the room or wait for coffee or take a break. It’s not much, but it’s something.
I meant to say earlier, related to the idea of wallowing. Firstly, I would never even think to judge a person's way of grieving. If I were to look back on your Sunday letters, I wouldn't see any wallowing, however, even if there were, you have the right to grieve in any way you see fit, without worrying about what anyone else thinks.
Hi Amy! I have really come to look forward to your Sunday posts. I cannot believe how loud Substack has gotten. I am coming to realize that there are only a few accounts (outside of who I’m following for news / content / expertise) that I actually *read. Usually I find myself barely glancing at the text as I scroll. And I know some would say that’s a sign of my own fried brain - the way none of us can be slow about anything any longer. But I beg to differ! I think good writing - ie, crafted writing, not just saying something for the sake of saying it - forces a reader to slow down. It doesn’t allow me to scroll past it because it sucks me in immediately. So thank you for being my Sunday bright spot! ☕️ 🥣 🌅
Francesca - thank you so much for this supportive comment. It means a lot, and I’m really glad to be part of your Sunday lineup. I agree about the noise. It suddenly seems that there is just so much as I wander Notes….and so much is good, and yet we can only take so much in, right? I’m grateful that I found you in Notes last fall! It is how we discover people, and so the search always matters. I hope things are well!
Definitely funny how things like that happen. And sometimes it takes something really hitting you in the head to pay attention and notice the symbols that have been lining up. It’s something I have to stop and remind myself of now and then. Thanks, Lea!
"The posts are a timeline." Indeed, they are. Great post, Amy. It's something to look back and make a note of the memorable moments. I appreciate what you've brought to my Substack life. Thanks for your honesty and ideas, too. Honesty can be creativity in its gentlest and most powerful form.
Thank you, Mary. I really appreciate your comment and this beautiful perspective on honesty, too. I know you understand about the posts and our art creating a timeline…. But we often are so caught up in moving forward that we lose the sense of it. Looking back can be helpful — and slows us down just a bit. Have a good week ahead!
I am so taken by your words, Amy, that I am at a loss as to what I should say. A soothing swim, a comforting cup of cacao, a head massage — your writing gives me pause, a space to linger. I appreciate your carrying on, for being the lighthouse, and for showing up for yourself so we may benefit from your wisdom. You’re like this old sage (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) who has so much to give … and some of us who have found this hidden haven are very willing to receive.
Thank you, Mansi. I so appreciate your words, and I love the idea of an old sage. As someone (you) whose mission is the spreading of kindness and appreciation, I am glad to hear there is something here for you to receive, that something resonates now and then or even brings a moment of calm. Thank you for reading. I hope you have a peaceful and mindful month as you focus on recentering.
"It’s a vulnerable thing we do, those of us who write this way. It has its rewards, and it has its fears and doubts, hurts and sorrows."
That's only one of the many things you said in your post this week that are reverberating deeply for me. I can't tell you how many times I have written a full post and then scuttled it because of the fear and doubts about being too vulnerable or too "deep" or too ... too .... And how many times I have revised, watered down, softened, and then wonder if I've done so much snipping and rearranging that only in my own head will the connections be clear and to everyone else they will be a mishmash of unintelligible flyby thoughts. Arrgghh. Thank you for being you!
I am away and distracted this week. As Fran alludes above, the density of your posts is better served through careful reading and re-reading, and I'm unlikely to find that just now. But I still want to remark on the strength of purpose you exude here, Amy. You have had every reason to abandon your creative commitments in the last year. That you have not is a testament to their place in your hard wiring. "Deep down, I believe this thread is infinite." Yes, I think so, too.
I appreciate your themes, the way you come back to them more than once, the way your metaphors dance their way through your words, the way you ask questions and carry on with or without clarity. I appreciate your vulnerability and your admissions of fear and disappointment. I appreciate that you lead without trying.
And what a wonderful catalog you created for 2024. I hope, if nothing else, you feel the joy of accomplishment when you review that. It really is something.
I hope your awayness is a good thing, Elizabeth. I appreciate that you found time to read and comment even when busy. Thank you. And thank you for the kindness behind your words. I am grateful for your presence here and through your own substack during the last year.
These writers above have said the things I want to say in a much more brilliantly and succinctly way than I could! Thank you so much for your writing. It’s truly inspirational, it’s deep and thought-provoking, and it’s never “too much” of anything. I love that the lighthouses fell into your line of vision. I thought immediately of Sidewalk Oracles and wondered if you felt that guitar-string-plucked connection to someone or something. They are beautiful. 😍 I hope you find moments of peace and happiness this week.
Thank you for your kind words and for reading. I think often of our reading of Sidewalk Oracles. I definitely carry some things from it with me, and I agree, those lighthouse panels falling out felt like one in a string of odd lighthouse moments …. As if I had not been paying attention, I think. I hope your February is off to a good start.
I have been amazed at how you've continued without ever missing a week through all that you've been through - especially in the light of what I'm currently going through with my Dad. I have even more respect for you ❤️❤️❤️ I look forward to your writing every week 🌻🌻🌻
Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate that. I am really glad that your father is showing improvement. I can imagine how hard it has been on all of you — it’s been a long time now. I hope things continue to go well as he regains his strength. And thank you for reading and for the joy you bring to all of your posts.
I’m with Laura Babcock: Kintsugi and other mending traditions — absolutely! Only you, Amy, could find the rush of words to make those rituals immediate and indelible and exquisitely personal. Infinite, yes, and also ephemeral. Tactile, even in the abstract.
I had a wood-block postcard over my desk for years (a palimpsest from a pre-meme era): “Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist …”
And yet . . . .
One of the first Barbara Kingsolver books I read — I think it was Animal Dreams, though it’s so buried in the way-back machine that I’m sure the dog-ear fell from the (im)perfect binding decades ago — lamented the inaccuracy of common metaphors for the heart, offering instead a vision of sodden tissues that disintegrate in our hands (under our needles?), layer after layer, leaving nothing to bind together.
You showed up. I didn’t. At least not with words that you ever saw. I wanted to send you my notes to the back catalogue, but I thought “Too late, always too late.” I thought you wouldn’t look back with me.
I found refuge in your weekly narratives of dissolution. And I need to think of your stitching and unstitching as infinite. (Here I would footnote something about Penelope, and Homeric translations, but that will have to wait for another — unwritten? — note).
Something I learned from you: Margins may be the domain of the outcast, but their superior vantage generates superpowers of vision and connection.
Something I know: The kaleidoscope is not a toy relegated to surfaces; it is an x-ray tube that reveals the shared core elements of seemingly dissimilar patterns. The things that bind us as we dissolve.
p.s.
Here’s to the continuation of footnotes gloriously deployed. #3 is comic genius.
Thank you for reading and sharing your words over the year. Of course I would have looked back. There must be a Greek heroine somewhere who spends all of her time looking back, although Penelope and the unweaving will always be an important layer. My Greek mythology is far rustier than yours, but now I realize that I need to do some reading about Mnemosyne. Of course, I do. And of Lethe. Yes, someday. The dissolution. Has it been? Maybe. maybe it still is. And is that an end point? That would seem to be implicit in the word, and yet I hope there is something left or still to be. It is interesting to hear the year characterized that way. I may just be stirring the ooze that remains. Your heart examples highlight the ways in which everything shifts, in which opposites arise, things we want to or must believe in at the same time. The Kingsolver is visceral, indeed. Seeing that, I went scrambling to figure out what happened to the extended heart discussion…. I thought I might have held it, in the end, because next week is Heart Failure Awareness Week. Everything is connected. But there it was (is), in a footnote. Sort of ironic, really. I am glad you laughed at #3. That was the net/net of deciding that the extended explanation didn’t need to be here. lol. I appreciate your kaleidoscope redefinition and your claiming of margins. I appreciate you taking time to comment on this post, a post that runs the risk of being far too over-the-top.
Dear Amy, another post that is so densely and wondrously written that I can’t get my head around it. Just as I absorb one metaphor, another comes crashing along. Sometimes it takes me all week to absorb your words.
I, too, think I could not live easily if I did not write weekly for others. And I mourn all those old posts that will never be read now, so precious when I wrote them. But we go on and strive more.
I stopped obsessing about lighthouses many years ago. And here they are again.
Thank you, Fran. I’m sorry that there’s such chaos in the words. I know, and yet I’m embracing it these days. Sorry, too, about the lighthouses, if you had put them behind you. I think of them with great poignance. I’ve enjoyed seeing your photos pop up in notes as well as in your posts.
Kintsugi. This is what immediately came to mind when I started your post today. For anyone not familiar, kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. What an appropriate symbol for your writing, taking adversity and turning into something beautiful and resilient. I also see sashiko and boro (the art of visible mending) here. Is the writing a meditative approach to repair, to strengthening, to sustainability?
What book did I add to my hold list this week? Mend! A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto, by Kate Sekules.
My goal for this month is to get more exercise.
Thank you, Laura. I love all of these connections you’ve made. They each come into play in how I think of this and the visible art of piecing, mending, and repair. Thank you for a beautiful comment. I share the exercise goal with you. That is one thing that has really slipped. I have been doing ten of this or that every time I get up and pace around the room or wait for coffee or take a break. It’s not much, but it’s something.
I meant to say earlier, related to the idea of wallowing. Firstly, I would never even think to judge a person's way of grieving. If I were to look back on your Sunday letters, I wouldn't see any wallowing, however, even if there were, you have the right to grieve in any way you see fit, without worrying about what anyone else thinks.
Hi Amy! I have really come to look forward to your Sunday posts. I cannot believe how loud Substack has gotten. I am coming to realize that there are only a few accounts (outside of who I’m following for news / content / expertise) that I actually *read. Usually I find myself barely glancing at the text as I scroll. And I know some would say that’s a sign of my own fried brain - the way none of us can be slow about anything any longer. But I beg to differ! I think good writing - ie, crafted writing, not just saying something for the sake of saying it - forces a reader to slow down. It doesn’t allow me to scroll past it because it sucks me in immediately. So thank you for being my Sunday bright spot! ☕️ 🥣 🌅
Francesca - thank you so much for this supportive comment. It means a lot, and I’m really glad to be part of your Sunday lineup. I agree about the noise. It suddenly seems that there is just so much as I wander Notes….and so much is good, and yet we can only take so much in, right? I’m grateful that I found you in Notes last fall! It is how we discover people, and so the search always matters. I hope things are well!
💚💚💚
Congrats on two years. I love the serendipitous moment of finding the lighthouse stitches. I love little moments like that.
Definitely funny how things like that happen. And sometimes it takes something really hitting you in the head to pay attention and notice the symbols that have been lining up. It’s something I have to stop and remind myself of now and then. Thanks, Lea!
"The posts are a timeline." Indeed, they are. Great post, Amy. It's something to look back and make a note of the memorable moments. I appreciate what you've brought to my Substack life. Thanks for your honesty and ideas, too. Honesty can be creativity in its gentlest and most powerful form.
Thank you, Mary. I really appreciate your comment and this beautiful perspective on honesty, too. I know you understand about the posts and our art creating a timeline…. But we often are so caught up in moving forward that we lose the sense of it. Looking back can be helpful — and slows us down just a bit. Have a good week ahead!
❤️
I am so taken by your words, Amy, that I am at a loss as to what I should say. A soothing swim, a comforting cup of cacao, a head massage — your writing gives me pause, a space to linger. I appreciate your carrying on, for being the lighthouse, and for showing up for yourself so we may benefit from your wisdom. You’re like this old sage (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) who has so much to give … and some of us who have found this hidden haven are very willing to receive.
My goal for this month is to re-center.
Thank you, Mansi. I so appreciate your words, and I love the idea of an old sage. As someone (you) whose mission is the spreading of kindness and appreciation, I am glad to hear there is something here for you to receive, that something resonates now and then or even brings a moment of calm. Thank you for reading. I hope you have a peaceful and mindful month as you focus on recentering.
"It’s a vulnerable thing we do, those of us who write this way. It has its rewards, and it has its fears and doubts, hurts and sorrows."
That's only one of the many things you said in your post this week that are reverberating deeply for me. I can't tell you how many times I have written a full post and then scuttled it because of the fear and doubts about being too vulnerable or too "deep" or too ... too .... And how many times I have revised, watered down, softened, and then wonder if I've done so much snipping and rearranging that only in my own head will the connections be clear and to everyone else they will be a mishmash of unintelligible flyby thoughts. Arrgghh. Thank you for being you!
Thank you, Kate. That process you described is exactly it. Putting ourselves on the page can be both the easiest and the most difficult thing.
I am away and distracted this week. As Fran alludes above, the density of your posts is better served through careful reading and re-reading, and I'm unlikely to find that just now. But I still want to remark on the strength of purpose you exude here, Amy. You have had every reason to abandon your creative commitments in the last year. That you have not is a testament to their place in your hard wiring. "Deep down, I believe this thread is infinite." Yes, I think so, too.
I appreciate your themes, the way you come back to them more than once, the way your metaphors dance their way through your words, the way you ask questions and carry on with or without clarity. I appreciate your vulnerability and your admissions of fear and disappointment. I appreciate that you lead without trying.
And what a wonderful catalog you created for 2024. I hope, if nothing else, you feel the joy of accomplishment when you review that. It really is something.
I hope your awayness is a good thing, Elizabeth. I appreciate that you found time to read and comment even when busy. Thank you. And thank you for the kindness behind your words. I am grateful for your presence here and through your own substack during the last year.
These writers above have said the things I want to say in a much more brilliantly and succinctly way than I could! Thank you so much for your writing. It’s truly inspirational, it’s deep and thought-provoking, and it’s never “too much” of anything. I love that the lighthouses fell into your line of vision. I thought immediately of Sidewalk Oracles and wondered if you felt that guitar-string-plucked connection to someone or something. They are beautiful. 😍 I hope you find moments of peace and happiness this week.
Thank you for your kind words and for reading. I think often of our reading of Sidewalk Oracles. I definitely carry some things from it with me, and I agree, those lighthouse panels falling out felt like one in a string of odd lighthouse moments …. As if I had not been paying attention, I think. I hope your February is off to a good start.
I have been amazed at how you've continued without ever missing a week through all that you've been through - especially in the light of what I'm currently going through with my Dad. I have even more respect for you ❤️❤️❤️ I look forward to your writing every week 🌻🌻🌻
Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate that. I am really glad that your father is showing improvement. I can imagine how hard it has been on all of you — it’s been a long time now. I hope things continue to go well as he regains his strength. And thank you for reading and for the joy you bring to all of your posts.
I’m with Laura Babcock: Kintsugi and other mending traditions — absolutely! Only you, Amy, could find the rush of words to make those rituals immediate and indelible and exquisitely personal. Infinite, yes, and also ephemeral. Tactile, even in the abstract.
I had a wood-block postcard over my desk for years (a palimpsest from a pre-meme era): “Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist …”
And yet . . . .
One of the first Barbara Kingsolver books I read — I think it was Animal Dreams, though it’s so buried in the way-back machine that I’m sure the dog-ear fell from the (im)perfect binding decades ago — lamented the inaccuracy of common metaphors for the heart, offering instead a vision of sodden tissues that disintegrate in our hands (under our needles?), layer after layer, leaving nothing to bind together.
You showed up. I didn’t. At least not with words that you ever saw. I wanted to send you my notes to the back catalogue, but I thought “Too late, always too late.” I thought you wouldn’t look back with me.
I found refuge in your weekly narratives of dissolution. And I need to think of your stitching and unstitching as infinite. (Here I would footnote something about Penelope, and Homeric translations, but that will have to wait for another — unwritten? — note).
Something I learned from you: Margins may be the domain of the outcast, but their superior vantage generates superpowers of vision and connection.
Something I know: The kaleidoscope is not a toy relegated to surfaces; it is an x-ray tube that reveals the shared core elements of seemingly dissimilar patterns. The things that bind us as we dissolve.
p.s.
Here’s to the continuation of footnotes gloriously deployed. #3 is comic genius.
Thank you for reading and sharing your words over the year. Of course I would have looked back. There must be a Greek heroine somewhere who spends all of her time looking back, although Penelope and the unweaving will always be an important layer. My Greek mythology is far rustier than yours, but now I realize that I need to do some reading about Mnemosyne. Of course, I do. And of Lethe. Yes, someday. The dissolution. Has it been? Maybe. maybe it still is. And is that an end point? That would seem to be implicit in the word, and yet I hope there is something left or still to be. It is interesting to hear the year characterized that way. I may just be stirring the ooze that remains. Your heart examples highlight the ways in which everything shifts, in which opposites arise, things we want to or must believe in at the same time. The Kingsolver is visceral, indeed. Seeing that, I went scrambling to figure out what happened to the extended heart discussion…. I thought I might have held it, in the end, because next week is Heart Failure Awareness Week. Everything is connected. But there it was (is), in a footnote. Sort of ironic, really. I am glad you laughed at #3. That was the net/net of deciding that the extended explanation didn’t need to be here. lol. I appreciate your kaleidoscope redefinition and your claiming of margins. I appreciate you taking time to comment on this post, a post that runs the risk of being far too over-the-top.
Congratulations on two years of showing up here and sharing your writing. And thank you. I always enjoy it and look forward to it.