/now
Fall Equinox, 2025
Last time I wrote here I was in an energy slump but, as it usually does, my energy picked up in late August. I am working on more creative projects now and in general feel more energized. Times of high energy are always precious to me since I have had a number of Mysterious, Undiagnosed energy crashes in the past. Most of them last a couple of weeks, but at different points in the past five years I have been fatigued for a 5-month and 6-month period. The ability to do something that requires physical exertion, rest, and recover quickly to my baseline of energy is not something that I take for granted anymore.
/
Recently, we went on a hiking trip to Oak Openings Metropark outside of Toledo, Ohio. If you are within driving distance of it, I highly recommend it. It's not necessarily a great park for backpacking, but for car camping and day hikes it's perfect. I took no pictures on our hikes there, but Oak Openings has some landscapes that are geologically unique, not just regionally but globally. All of the hikes were beautiful. Forests growing out of sand dunes right beside swamps right beside prairies. My biggest criticism (aside from needing to label the trail system a little better) is that most of the bodies of water are man-made, so you have these awkward, duckweed-covered fishing ponds amongst landscape that they're otherwise trying very hard to restore to its natural condition. But Oak Openings is a gem that I wish I knew about sooner. I imagine we will be going back at least once a year from now on.
/
For several years now, I have had the desire to take a modern or contemporary dance class. First, a few things about me and dance: yes, I have shaken my ass at a fair number of house parties, but I have never formally learned to dance. I have no interest in partner dance or social dance. I don't even have interest in performance or dancing to music or a beat. But I have noticed that for the past several years, every time I have seen a modern or contemporary dance performance, a voice inside of me says, "I want to move like that." Not in the sense that I want to have the athleticism or stamina of professional dancers, but I want to be able to move my every part of body in different kinds of combinations, to find the limits of the motion that I can do. I want to dance for the internal experience of feeling my body move, rather than the external experience of performance.
I first seriously thought about taking a dance class in the months leading up to the pandemic, than that dream was put on hold for a while. I've literally never been to a dance studio before, though, so that thought of going has been intimidating enough to keep me from going. And yet the voice persists. I finally decided to just start with an app at home, work on that for a few months, and then sign up for a class this winter. I'm glad I took that route because, now that I'm working with an app, I can imagine that stepping into a class with no experience would have been pretty challenging. I am so new to dancing, but excited to learn and happy to be finally be keeping this promise to myself.
/
It feels strange but also somehow appropriate that I am doubling down on cultivating my creative life while so much around me is falling apart. It's like the old story of the abbot who said that he prayed the same amount of time every day, except on very busy days--when he prayed twice as long. Perhaps it's escapism, but I feel more drawn to make art and to strengthen my inner life the worse things get. I'm using new therapy modalities to clear out my old traumas and triggers--there's just not time for them anymore. I'm becoming less afraid of expressing myself and of trying out new things creatively. I'm cutting more of the distractions and time-wasters from my day.
I think part of this is driven by a get-it-while-you-can mentality, but mostly I think it's really important to understand and clarify my values as the stakes continue to get higher. The foundation of resisting authoritarianism is to have a strong sense of values and to act from a place of authenticity rather than fear.
I also think that turning 40 this year was a big milestone for me. I am All Grown Up; I can no longer hide behind fears and patterns that were instilled when I was young. I must take responsibility for myself and my behavior in this world and stop buying in to bullshit and delusion.
/
I'm listening to voices of other people who are helping me put this all together. I have been enjoying the podcast of Zac Foster, a quilt artist and charming human. I especially love his talks about his Southern White Amnesia series of quilts; they are a model for what making difficult, necessary art looks like.
I've been inspired recently as well by sewer and designer Christi Johnson after reading her latest book, The Art of Embroidery Design. I've never thought of design as something I could do and after reading her book, embroidery now feels like a form of personal expression rather than following decorative patterns.
And just recently I found the work of Kening Zhu, who thinks about the intersection between creativity and self-expression on the internet. How can we share who we are without trying to sell ourselves in this world in which everything is for sale? I've been thinking about this question for a couple of years now and was glad to find someone who has been digging into it for a long time.
/
I got the idea of the /now page from Derek Sivers, which I found through 32-Bit Cafe.