Hello gentle-people,
I am writing you on this 3-day weekend, filled with joy…in part because I forgot I had Monday off from work and that simply realization lifted my spirit. I took more time to rest (even napped twice in one day!) and got into some creative mediums I haven’t touched in awhile.
Recently I was reminded that part of my vision for A Gentle Landing includes nurturing creative energy.1 I hope these “perching lines” continue to foster creative rest and reflection for you all!
Also, I am celebrating reaching 1K subscribers here. Your attention is a gift. One I do not take lightly. Thanking you lingering here.2
🐦⬛ perching lines
A “perch” is a light rest. Much needed in a world where many of us have to learn how to catch a break while standing up. In these short posts, I will offer poems, questions, and connections for those brief moments of reprieve. [Explore more in this series.]
it’s quieter now
There was once a time when the richness of self-reflection felt like a vain escape and a luxury. My moments of silence were constantly misinterpreted. It didn’t matter that my introvertedness demands it often—where I grew up, that part of me never excused me in public spaces. Gradually, over the years, I have resolved not to care (and work towards continually uncaring about) what people think my silence means. If they are unwilling to ask, What are you thinking?, or When can we check in?, then there’s something going on with them and I am neither the cause or effect.
It’s quieter now—and I am not talking about volume or the absence of speech, because for 6-8hrs a day I am in the city or schools where I work. For at least an hour a day, I like picking up my guitar and singing as loudly as possible…and I am just beginning to settle on the face that that quietness is shaped by the absence of certain expectations.
The quiet I speak of comes from living to honor my created nature, as much as possible, inspired by these perching lines from Parker Palmer:
From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode…[…]Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conventional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be driven by “oughts.” As noble as that may sound, we do not find our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral code. We find our callings by claiming authentic selfhood, by being who we are…The deepest vocational question is not “what ought I do with my life” It is the more elemental and demanding, “Who am I? What is my nature?”
—Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak3
tuning in
To this day, based on the gifts they see in me to interpret, there are those who feel they can tell me what kind of life I should live.4 These days it has become easier to say politely decline these invitations to fulfill those dreams and betray my own. In my mind, there is a gallery of failed ambitions and with them, a patronage of critics content to scrutinize all that went wrong…I don’t have the answers they want, and as often as I can, I tell myself to leave that gallery and go to the new one I started. The place where I am celebrated by the art (read: life) I create that attracts the highest praise from myself first.
It’s quieter now because I am finding it easier, as I practice, to tune into that one voice that is always on my side.
🐦⬛ Landing Tracks
What “abstract moral codes” emerge when you think about what you must do? Do they conflict with your created nature?
Do you have your own “gallery of failed ambitions”? What is hanging in there? How can you establish a new place to explore new ways of becoming with celebration at the center?
I think Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” in her declaration “what did i see to be except myself? i made it up.” How does survival/navigating oppression shape how we navigate questions of becoming?
Available now until June 27th: I am offering 20% off for one year for those who wish to enjoy A Gentle Landing “At Your Leisure:”
A place to perch, if you need a shift in perspective:
In case a deeper recline feels like the right move:
I was tagged here in a post by SLANT LETTER.
Here’s my Note on this milestone:
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It is as simple as hearing growing up that just because I am tall, I should play basketball. But to make a long story short: I couldn’t dribble well.
Whew, how you speak to me, and with me. Thank you!
When you start "shoulding all over yourself" that's your clue that you are living according to other people's expectations, not your own. There is no should, there is only what your gut tells you is right. Of course you need to pay bills, do your job, take care of your kids, etc, but there is no should in how.