New Year Blessings

Health updates and seasons greetings

Illuminations is a reader supported publication. Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You can share excerpts of today’s Illuminations on social media, forward it to someone who might benefit, or text it to a friend. Thank you for reading.

---

Dear Reader,

I’m writing to you here from my bed. I am nestled beneath my peach velvet comforter in recovery from the surgery I had yesterday. It feels like a huge weight off my shoulders, though there’s no telling yet if it will make a difference in my life. As you all know, I’ve been battling with my health for 3 long years, and sadly it’s too soon to tell if yesterday has made a difference or not. More on that soon. In the meantime, I’m just grateful to be well rested. To hear the clinking of pots and running water in the kitchen, sounds of home, as my mother is with me- caretaking and tending as she does best. She brings me offerings of cut pink lady apples and persimmons. Cans of ackee. Thick tubes of vegan sausages with fennel. Black tea sweetened just right. She leaves me and my home better, more nourished, than she found it.

A bit late but I’m wishing you a New Year overflowing with tenderness, care, love, creativity, fulfillment, vibrant health and vitality (however that looks for you).

I’ve been juggling so many disparate feelings this season. Gratitude for the omnipresent abundances in my life. Grief for the various fires burning all around our beloved planet. Mourning some of the remaining illusions I’ve held about the world I believed I live in, BUT hope about the worlds of care I see us creating. Excitement about new projects and opportunities. Nerves around the uncertainty I hold about the future. Relief as I gear up for what I hope to be a huge breakthrough in my health and the subsequent leaning into lightening my load- approaching everything in my life with intentionality and releasing that which no longer resonates (I tend to hold on much too long). I’m certain so many of you are swimming in the waves as well. I don’t have anything more to offer except the acknowledgment that I am also here. That you aren’t alone in the thick of it all.

The New Year is a time when people post their impressive highlights and list off their accomplishments. When they begin the laundry list of things about themselves and their lives that they would like to change. In the midst of all of that, I hope you remember it’s okay if what you have to show for the past 12 months is more subtle. If survival held the bulk of your focus (as it surely did mine). If the only things you succeeded at were things you have no photographic evidence for.

I could do a run down of all the shiny parts of this past year, but what is truest for me is that I lived through some of the scariest and most challenging moments of my life. I also lived through the most beautiful, the most transformative, the bravest ways of being I’ve ever lived. I’m proud of the small, less flashy ways that has shown itself just as much as I take pride in the bolder, more obvious ones. They are all worthy of praise.

Just wanted to check in with my substack fam. In a short time, this has become my most cherished corner of the internet. I’m grateful for all of you (including the new people that arrived in the last couple of months… welcome, hi 💜). I will be pouring so much more love and energy here in the months to follow. This model of sharing feels much more warm and nostalgic for me- different from any of the other virtual spaces I currently occupy, and I’m so here for it.

Talk Soon.

P.S.

A poem for you. I’m going to share more of my favorite poems here.

The Thing Is

BY ELLEN BASS

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

🍉🎨📓📚✂️🖍️🌈💌🧿🪩🔮🎥🎞🫀🦋🦚🌱🍄🌻🌞🪷🐚🪸🌛🌍🫧🥭🍵

---

My In Out list

bc all the cool girls are doing it.

In

Vinyl

Film photography

Being a style chameleon and experimenting

Less output (with more love and intention)

Digi cams and early 2000s camcorders

Glitter Stickers

Snail Mail

Pen Pals

Discipline

Gel pens

Printing photos and adorning your home with loved ones

Vintage gold

Clothing swaps

Taking classes

Adhering to your own metric for what “good” art is

Scrapbooking

Art journaling

Substack

Making my own outfits (got a lavender sewing machine for Christmas)

Special interests

Interdependence

Niche collections

Decorating even temporary spaces

Parallel play

Inviting friends over for dinner

Watching art films

TV shows with subtitles

A Free Palestine, Congo, Sudan and Tigray

Out

Fast fashion

New technology with planned obsolescence

Apologizing for being tired and taking space when I’m unwell/healing aka internalized ableism

Comparison

Doing it all alone/Isolation

The content hamster wheel

Perfectionism

Social media platforms that censor healthy public discourse

Western Imperialism

Eating out when you make better food at home

Hoarding things you don’t like/love (give them to someone who will cherish)

---

Ways to Create Together This Season

Registration for the upcoming session of Written Into Being ends this week and we'’d so love to have you join us. I’m grateful to start 2024 grounded in creativity and communion💛

---