when one door closes, climb out of the window
on a summer of substack, reflection, and endings
[day 21 of a summer of substack! It’s been a full three weeks, and I think this is as good a time as any to set…]
…An end date: the 22nd of July. A month before my birthday. To measure change we have to observe, and quietly. So, from now, I will carry on writing just… not everyday.
I think this has been a very good exercise. And one that I’d recommend! It’s certainly helped to get the ball rolling. A lot of the time the only thing stopping me from writing is pure focus, and having allotted hours of the day to reach a goal was nice. The process of sitting down, putting my fingers to the keys and seeing what would be written? It’s a luxury I haven’t had much in my life before this. A kind of meditation, a self-reflection, a therapy. All the points I’ve made about writing in previous posts are true, and fundamental to me.
I’ve found my niche, also. I write about writing a lot. And music. Music rules my life. It’s good to provide a soundtrack to the everyday. People talk about romanticising their life and this is how I do it: I write and I listen.
There are some amazing things on this website, some fabulous writers. I know that I have read pieces that will change my outlook on life, and only five people have liked them. The way in which we can affect each other in that way is beautiful.
This also taught me discipline, I suppose. Unless you count those times I uploaded old diary entries but shhh. But it also taught me to pay attention to numbers, which is a mindset I want to avoid. The dashboard is addictive to look at, it is a social media after all, when you break it down. What’s the solution? Stop looking, right? But I will write.
I will keep writing! And I will be back periodically. Weekly. Perhaps more often than that, even. Who knows what I’ll write about?
There are so many things I could write about. I have reoccurring thoughts on friendship and reading and performance and music and meditation and how I’ve actually learned to love summer. Writing is a repetition of what we see so that others may see it. But I can’t know what I’ll write about. There’s no plan.
Until next time! Read some of my favourites from this series here:
strawberries
[day 5 of a summer of substack] Today, I buy strawberries from the little shop on the corner because Me From Two Weeks Ago set a goal to bake something with strawberries, and I’ll be damned if I let her down. As I find the recipe, I pop one in my mouth. Strawberries are a picnic staple, a summer fruit. I can taste the smoke of the barbecue now, citronell…
on editing, and pale fire
a kind of kinship It’s around six PM on a Friday. I know this because I went to the library following my after-school dance class, and have since been kicked out of the building. Not because I was throwing a rager, or anything. It’s closing time. I am sat on a bench by the Remembrance memorial, waiting for mum to pick me up on her way back from work. The…
love some littler things
a small CW: depression, self-destructive behaviour, dissociation. [day 13 of a summer of substack - just in time! it’s under-edited, so forgive me.] — for Lizzie hear it call to me, constantly The first time I listened to Puberty 2 is one I can’t quite recall. It was probably in 2019 (five years ago. How was that five years ago?) or thereabouts. It was when…
wendy house as dialogue
“It’s just sitting in the garden,” mum says. She is looking out of the glass door to the line up of objects in the back garden. The garden wall is fully covered, and the actual brick only occasionally peeks through, shyly poking around the red robin planted years ago, supporting the shed that looks like someone spray-painted an old air-raid shelter to m…
happy weekend,
— r <3
"Writing is a repetition of what we see so that others may see it." i love this so much!! currently on my own challenge of 14 days of consistent writing and feel so many of these sentiments - the draw of the dashboard, the serendipitous reads and how writing with a challenge feels largely freeing :)