The top image of Friday’s newsletter, like many of my images, came straight from my diary:
I forgot to link to this blog post from earlier in the year, “Fire and Focus.”
Almost stopping
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about almost stopping.
Spring diary walkthrough
In last week’s newsletter, I filmed a 15-minute walkthrough of my spring diary.
Intentionally spiraling out
spiral (verb) 1. to move in the shape of a spiral 2. to continuously become worse, more, or less
I began the month joking that I was just “trying not to spiral out,” and I’m winding down the month by intentionally spiraling out with a new little exercise for my morning pages in my diary.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Set aside 10 minutes and start with a fresh page in your notebook. Follow Lynda Barry’s instructions for drawing a spiral: Start in the very center of the page, and make the tightest spiral you can manage, trying to get the lines as close as you can without touching. (More in her wonderful book, Syllabus, and check out another version over at Wendy MacNaughton’s Draw Together.) You’ll know when you’re done.
2. Once you have your spiral, start annotating it with your feelings and thoughts, everything weighing on you or bothering you. (Wendy calls this “inside weather.”) Catalog what’s on the surface, towards the outside of the spiral, and what’s deep, on the inside.
3. Go about your day.
I can’t claim that it’s solved anything for me, but it has helped me feel a little less anxious, a little more calm.
(See also: “Spin art.”)
Show your children who you are
“Your kids… They don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
—Jim Henson
My grandma died on Monday night. I wrote these pages in my diary yesterday morning, and reflexively, almost without thinking, posted them on my Instagram. Since then, I have been awash in kind condolences in the comments.
I was surprised by how many people mentioned how well I knew grandma. One sentiment seemed to be something like, “How nice to be known like this!”
I was blessed with grandmas who had things they liked to do and things they liked to do with me. I always took it for granted that they shared who they were with me.
This is not a given thing, having adults in our lives who love us and are willing to let us really see them.
Yesterday I re-read an interview with one of my favorite songwriters, Bill Callahan, and he spoke about his relationship with his mother:
“I never understood her,” he admits. “And I didn’t ever feel like she was being honest or expressing her feelings my whole life. As she was getting older, I begged her: Show your children who you are, because we want to know before you die. She couldn’t do it. So now she’s still just an unfinished person for me.” He rubs his eyes and his spirit seems to lighten, as if suddenly struck with a pleasant memory. “We only have this time, each of us, 70 or 80 years, if we’re lucky. What’s the point of hiding?”
“Show your children who you are.” Or: Love what you do in front of the kids in your life.
It is a great gift to them, and the best way to be remembered.