creating pathways to rest
a restful musing
First of all, would you consider getting my friend
new book? :) Here is a post on her wonderful book
September 12, 2021 was a special day for me. For many years I had doubted myself as a writer, and although I had tried to crawl towards facing my own inner critic a few times, I always managed to back down. Who would even read the things that I wrote? Who would be interested? On September 12, 2021, I pushed everything aside and created this virtual space. I wanted it to be a place that I could divest from “making content” or judging myself against others. I wanted to write for my own pleasure first and foremost. I didn’t expect anyone really to actually look at my writings, but, I wanted to have a place that housed my thoughts. I did want to write in such a way that if people came to view my words they could leave feeling rested and refreshed.
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison
I’ve been thinking over the origin stories of this substack as I’ve read recent posts by
and In different posts they’ve reflected on why they write/how they got started here. The truth is that I started to write publicly out of my need for rest and my love for humanity. I was burned out. Going to school full-time to get a graduate degree. Working at a toxic job that demanded I work 40-50 hours a week. That job cracked my mental and physical health and weekly I did everything possible to get recharged enough to go back to work. My body ACHED. I was living in burnout but what could I do? I felt I didn’t have a Plan B. Nobody I could go live with who would support me. Nobody who could understand…so I worked to be as resilient as possible with the life that was before me. (I do have to note that no amount of candle burning, massages, or baths can make up for being worked to the bone and being in physical/mental pain.)Here is one of my first posts:
Three things kept me during that time: podcasts, my Bible, and the words of Black authors/theologians/poets. I would cry myself to sleep at night and sit with the poems of Lucille Clifton in the morning. As time went on, I desired to write things that would give people just a moment to take a breath. I needed it and figured that people did also. Maybe they weren’t Black, chronically ill, and lonely like me…but maybe they had their own situations that caused them to feel broken down and lonely.
“Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.”
― Toni Morrison
I write to help people rest. I write to liberate myself and those I love. This is my focus. This is my aim. All feelings of competition or comparison fall by the wayside as I write to help people engage their humanity. Thank you for joining me in this journey. I’ve met so many great and inspiring people through writing here that my nerdy and shy self could never have even imagined. There are so many things I think about every day that range from scholarly analysis to nerdy fantasy/fiction. I hope in the range of things I share in this space that everyone finds something to hold on to.
I’m tired these days too. Not burned out per se but not quite living in the life that I know that I deserve. Even still, I no longer work a toxic job that I hate and that hates me back. I have more space to lay down when my body screams that it is depleted. I’m still writing though. Creating places to dream and lie down. I leave you with a portion of a book that I treasure. Black Imagination is a book curated by Natasha Marin, and in it she asks Black people to imagine a world where they feel safe, valued, and loved.
“When I wake up there is someone there who loves me. When I leave my home the people living on my street know my name, know my parents’ names, name and claim me as their own, drop by with soup when I am sick and small gifts during holidays. And I do the same for them. We break bread together. We laugh and dance and work and build together.”
-Reagan Jackson-
Thank you for sharing this! & quoting Mama Toni. I have read this twice. I pray I get to the point where I will no longer be at a job I hate or one that hates me. We have to write our stories, just as she said. There are people waiting for the stories that have not yet been written.
This is the goal - “I write to liberate myself and those I love. This is my focus. This is my aim.”