When it comes to writing from or about lived experience, I learned from one of my writing teachers, Anna Joy Springer, to look for plot points in the menagerie of my own past. What were the pivotal junctures or crises that form its narrative arc? Those moments aren’t the only ingredients for a story or an essay, and rarely does plot form the scaffold for anything I write, but I still appreciate the sparseness that lens yields. It is refreshing to find a constellation inside the yarn ball of actual life, because the empty space of a constellation can be easier to work with—an opening to write into.
I’ve been thinking of that because as I type this, I’m also skipping (or at least postponing) an annual ritual: going through the previous twelve months’ journals, reflecting on what happened (or didn’t happen), and setting goals for the year ahead.
It’s not that I don’t value the process of reflecting and planning. But somehow today and this week I’ve felt that labor to be its own kind of clutter right now, and I’m interested to other ways of orienting myself to the past and future. I already know what significant plot points of 2024 I’d identify, at least for now. One significant strand of this year’s story involves work and vocation: my unexpected, abrupt medical leave from a job that was making me sick starting in February; eventually resigning from that job; my protracted job hunt; taking a business planning course; finding my way back to teaching through two new part-time jobs—including a very exciting teaching job I’ve just found out I’ll be starting in January with the Evergreen Prison Education Program(!).
I feel visceral relief to be (at least I hope) on the downhill side of this particular arc—or series of waves or spirals or whatever shape they make. But I guess the thing about rendering the year through these punctuation points—disruption, then resolution—is that the ambiguity and slow or plodding pace of the spaces between them was actually also as characteristic of this year as anything else. There was a pleasant layer of this slowness. For example, while I was on medical leave, I slept in, read, talked to friends on the phone, went on walks, did a lot of therapy; my physical limitations forced me to focus on taking care of myself in a way I hadn’t been able to prioritize in a long time (if ever). There was also a really uncomfortable layer to the ambiguity inside and following that period of recuperation. I knew I needed to figure out how to sustainably meet my financial needs, but wasn’t at all sure what that would look like (and I’m still not totally sure!). In hopes of getting there, I poured massive amounts of effort and/or time into job applications and business projects, the latter especially creeping along at a turtle’s pace. It felt like swimming around in a self-generated pool of information and messy to-do lists. This metaphorical pool would be filled with something sticky and viscous instead of water.
With the tiniest streak of hindsight I’m afforded right now, I can see that a lot of that effort was more impactful than it felt at the time. I can also see the blessing in things not panning out as expected, because that absence left space for unexpected opportunities. As one example, I’ve been dragging my feet on the business plan I wrote this summer; this felt like a problem to fix, but now I’m — A) grateful that I was available to jump on the role with the Evergreen Prison Education Program (a dream job, albeit a part-time one); and B) aware that I still have some life infrastructure and personal resources to build up against before I fully getting moving with that original plan. My lack of action is a clue to listen to, not a missed beat.
What I’m finding is that the more space I leave open in my life, the more room I have to be creative. I mean this literally, like how I’m writing in the mornings again after a period of intense focus on job applications (and house projects—which is a whole other story) that left no energy for that more immediately fulfilling habit.
But I guess I’m also thinking of this on a subtler level, too, which is why I started writing about this in relation to annual planning. I do want to make sense of the moment I’m in and what’s recently happened in my life, but I feel more excited about leaving the year ahead, as much as possible, as an opening to head into. I’m inclined to translate that into an intention to simplify my daily life and physical space (which are things I’m thinking about), but I don’t think the openness I’m looking for can be channeled into a proactive plan or something I can achieve. I think it’s more about trusting myself to respond appropriately to the moment I’m in, based on an evolving sense of the art, life, and community I hope to (co-)create. It feels like a relationship with creativity that’s rooted in a sense of object permanence—like, when I get other things out of the way, I know it’ll show up.
That might sometimes mean finishing/cleaning up stuff that’s in the way—like how tackling my job situation and a few crucial house repairs has opened up energy and focus. But it also might sometimes just mean not doing things and then seeing what happens instead.
Take care til next time—and happy new year!
Yours,
Siloh
An incomplete list of recent reading & watching
It’s finally my turn to check out All Fours by Miranda July from the Timberland Regional Library. Will I finish the book before it’s due? That is the perennial question. But for some accountability, let me just state here that I do intend to try; if you’ve read it, I’ll be curious to know your thoughts.
About two decades late here, but All About Love by bell hooks is also on my bedside table. Every chapter I’ve read has felt insightful and helpful on intellectual and also very practical levels.
Also late to the party here—currently watching Ted Lasso with Ethan, and appreciating its kind-hearted absurdism.
While I was in Minnesota visiting family a couple weeks ago, a dear friend shared this conversation about Palestine and Israel between Orna Guralnik of the show Couples Therapy and a former participant of the show named Christine. I found it to model respectful, loving, nuanced dialogue that also doesn’t use respect and love (by name) as reasons to ignore/bypass violence and injustice. I keep rewriting a sentence that explains why this spoke to me so much—about how, as an American Jew who doesn’t identify with Zionism, I’ve wanted to write something about Israel, but I haven’t known how to thread the needle of my critique of Israel without triggering the intense defensiveness I have frequently encountered in the Jewish community I grew up in. These are people who are generally progressive and not into settlements or right-wing Jewish nationalism, but yet still experience left-leaning critique of Israel as discounting their own need for safety. This defensiveness is, confusingly, at times wildly disproportionate and/or misdirected, but I also see how writing it off further inflames, shuts people down. (Though I never bonded with the concept of Israel and have never gone there, I also have even felt that at times myself.) So what does a radical commitment to justice and honesty look like where there’s room for everyone’s humanity and the jagged complexities they invite? This conversation felt like one possible model.
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So glad you were able to give yourself much-needed care this year, and super glad too for your work with the Evergreen program. And I love the notion of moving into the new year in such an openhearted way. I am in a liminal space in my work life as well, so this is especially helpful and timely!