Winter Splashings
Notes from my reading, writing, and living lately
We’ve almost made it through winter, so here’s a hang-in-there wave to you, with extra compassion for those who have lost loved ones, and also for those who, like me, tend to feel emotionally battered by the political goings-on these days. However your river feels right now, may you find a rock of equanimity.
This is the first installment of my new series of quarterly check-in posts about things I’ve been reading, writing, learning, and experiencing—including funny lines from my kids. (I decided to incorporate my old “kid moments” posts into this series, rather than having separate posts for those.)
Kid Moments
In the bathroom a few weeks ago:
Me to my 3-year-old: “Maybe, after you go potty, you can take a little bath.”
Her: “Maybe I’ll take a big shower.”
As we watched the presidential inauguration:
Me: “Those are the Supreme Court justices. They’re the highest-level judges in our country, so they have a lot of powers.”
Eight-year-old (twin 1): “Like magic powers?”
The twins, talking about some new toys they got:
Twin 1: “[Little sister] is going to love these. But are we going to let her play with them?”
Twin 2: “I have no idea.”
Books I’m currently reading
I’m listening for at least the fourth time to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky, which has become my all-time favorite book. There’s just nothing else like it. I talk about it in this post (imported to Substack from my old blog).
I’m also slowly working my way through Yudkowsky’s collection of essays called Rationality A-Z: From AI to Zombies.
I’m nearly finished reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. It has opened my eyes to new levels of liberation in my mindset about writing. As an example, here’s one quote:
“No longer struggling to be brilliant, I aimed, instead, at being attentive. I listened for the thread of what it was I was hearing—or writing. I listened and wrote down what I heard.”
I’ve recently begun reading a book called Raising Securely Attached Kids by Eli Harwood. So far, I think it’s fantastic, and I wish it had existed for me to read before I had the twins. But better late than never, as Eli says (with a much kindlier tone).
I’m listening to the audiobook Dirty Laundry: Why Adults with ADHD Are So Ashamed and What We Can Do to Help by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery. I’ve been following their @adhd_love account on Instagram, where they post insightful and compassionate videos about ADHD, and I’m loving their book as well.
Last night I just finished reading a beautiful short story by Barbara Kingsolver called “Islands on the Moon.” (I read it in an Everyman’s Pocket Classics anthology called Stories of Motherhood, which I bought years ago at Taylor Books, a famed fixture of Charleston, WV.) In my experience, short stories often leave me feeling confused and underwhelmed, except for the rare ones that leave me feeling moved, awestruck, and bettered. This story was one of the latter kind. In fact, this story made me want to try again with writing short stories.
What I’ve been writing
The novel that is my current main project—a middle-grade fantasy novel about kids who start a revolution on an island ruled by a totalitarian religion.
“Morning pages”: in The Right to Write (see above), Julia Cameron convinced me of the value of having a regular, established practice of un-self-censored free writing. She calls her practice “morning pages.” Though I can’t so far do it in her exact recommended way (three handwritten pages of literally anything, as soon as possible upon waking in the morning), I’ve been following this practice in my own way—namely, whenever I can and for however long (or short) I want. It’s not much different from journaling, except that my motivation is usually not “let me go write about this thing I’m thinking/feeling” (as it always was for journaling) but “I have some minutes now to do this practice I’ve chosen”—and that feels like a very important difference. (See my recent blog post about the power of practice.)
Substack posts, of course!
And songs—writing new ones, finishing half-written ones, and trying to find moments to record them.
Music I’ve been listening to
Along with my usual playlists and favorites, I’ve been listening to the album Restoration by RORY, who is the same person as Roxanne Emery, whom I mentioned above as half of the “@adhd_love” duo. I haven’t yet gone to listen to her earlier albums yet, but I think her music on this album is strikingly beautiful and uniquely raw with honesty, emotion, and self-awareness.
One thing I’ve been learning
In addition to the big stuff I shared in my last post, “Learning to Uphold Myself” (really, almost everything I’ve been learning seems to go back to those concepts in some way), a big lightbulb moment happened for me recently when I saw an unsourced quote on Instagram to the effect of this:
“People-pleasing is regulating other people’s nervous systems in order to calm your own.”
That resonated deeply with me and broke loose a lot of habits I’d been stuck in without fully realizing it, by helping me understand what was actually happening when I was people-pleasing and showing me what I want instead. People-pleasing may look noble, friendly, kind, and mature, but it’s actually none of those things. It’s just an ingrained belief that safety comes from keeping other people calm, at the expense of one’s own needs.
I want to learn to regulate my own nervous system first, and only then attempt to help others. (My kids, for example, aren’t going to truly calm down when they’re upset if I myself am barely keeping a lid on my own upset feelings. I’m learning to zip my lips—except to breathe!—and only respond when I’m calmer.) I’m trying to teach myself that safety does not come from keeping other people happy or from anything else external to me. Safety comes from loyally tending to my own needs as best I can—and not abandoning myself.
One thing I’ve been struggling with
My twins’ chronic sleep issues have reached a new apex. I’ve been trying a variety of strategies, with the help of their pediatrician, various books and resources, and as much creative and attentive thoughtfulness as I can muster, but so far we haven’t found something that consistently works. But I will keep trying. This is just the nature of our river right now.
One thing I’m wanting to learn more about
I’m aiming to find out what organizations exist in West Virginia that are working to help children in need of homes, to see how I might best be able to help, because our state is having a severe foster care crisis. I don’t think my family is currently equipped to foster children, but this situation breaks my heart, and I would really like to help in some way. If any of you in West Virginia have recommendations of organizations for me to check out, please let me know.
One encouraging quote
This is from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (see above) chapter 63. Harry is thinking about the horror that is Azkaban, the prison where people are tortured by terrible creatures called Dementors. Harry had recently witnessed Fawkes, a phoenix, screeching for the wizard Dumbledore to do something to rescue the people in Azkaban, and Dumbledore had walked away.
Harry wondered, for a moment, if it must be a sad thing to be a phoenix, and call and cry and scream without being heeded.
But Fawkes would never give up, as many times as he died he would always be reborn, for Fawkes was a being of light and fire, and despairing over Azkaban belonged to the darkness just as much as did Azkaban itself.
May we too keep fighting for the light rather than despairing over the darkness.