Advocacy is Exhausting
Balancing warrior energy with daydreamer vibes
I have one remaining spot in my Thursday 7:00 pm women’s writing circle! Want to snag it? Details here.
It was winter-summer in Colorado this weekend. March brough 65 degree weather, sunshine, and no wind. Naturally, we donned bathing suits and cleaned up the backyard. We went on two hikes. I didn’t look at my to-do list once. It was glorious. My thirteen-year-old and I finished Schitt’s Creek and started Stranger Things. We took down all the winter decorations and hung up the thrifted art we bought last weekend to line the walls downstairs to my writing workshop—after a brilliant idea from one of my favorite friends, we are giving it a “Down the Rabbit Hole” vibe. So now, as one descends the staircase to my Wonderland-esque Workshop, the walls are adorned with Alice in Wonderland art, clocks, and whimsical creatures.
What a sweet relief it was to carve out beautiful moments in the past few weeks to be frivolous, playing outside, buying and hanging thrift store decor, blasting Taylor Swift while we cleaned up the backyard in our seasonally inappropriate swimsuits, taking a “whimsy walk” to explore our favorite paths in the open space in our neighborhood. We attended our first Bat Mitzvah and tore up the dance floor; I did some very unrehearsed stand-up comedy at a women’s mic. We made our favorite meal—poutine—in the middle of the day on Sunday.
I felt my nervous system exhale out a deep, contented sigh.
In the background I could still hear the hum of reality—a leaking roof and a string of political events both devastating and disgraceful, poor time management, and a to-do list that resembles that Hogwarts textbook from the 3rd Harry Potter book, you know, the monster one that goes crazy if you dare to open it?
What to write. . . powerful or pointless?
I want to write important things—I want to tell you about how I disregarded the whisper of the Good Girl and instead harnessed my Warrior during my kid’s 504 meeting. I want to tell you that I said things like, “What good could come from not creating a 504 plan aside from bureaucratic crap I don’t care about?” I want to tell you that I looked over at my daughter and saw her face glowing with awe and pride and gratitude and I realized that she knew I was never going to stop fighting for her.
When terrible things are happening, writers should write meaningful essays and inspire others to be fierce advocates and use their voices with courage. We should teach and use our platforms to highlight important topics and make people think.
But we are also exhausted and want to have fun and be creative in a silly way, not an impassioned way. So I think I’ll save my “How to make sure your kid gets a 504 plan if they need one even if you are worried that people are irritated with you or you are inconveniencing them and you can’t tell if maybe there is some subtle gaslighting happening” column for another day.
Because I also long to write pointless anecdotes about my stream of consciousness mind-chatter when I spent an hour sitting in my backyard hammock swing drinking coffee and meditating and listening to birdsong. As I listening to them sing back and forth to one another, I remembered that I used to love my Merlin bird identifying app in the Before Times (so long, it takes, after a major reinvention, to recall the little things that brought us joy once upon a time), so I fired up the app and then also remembered that the chickadees’ song is a descending minor third. What other tiny miracles had I forgotten?
And then, while I blissfully savored the gorgeous gift of nature in my ears, I suddenly became aware of the deranged ululations of my backyard neighbors’ parrot, who sounds to be diseased or at the very least, dismayed. My app did not identify this Scuttle-like (Little Mermaid fans?) warbling amidst the peaceful sound of sparrows and finches, and I clenched my buttcheeks at this intrusive auditory invasion. I proceeded to fantasize about sending an arrow flying through its tortured heart, then chastised myself for this macabre visualization. No, no, I could never be a murderer of birds. A birderer, if you will. I know it’s technically a “murder of crows,” yes?, but a murder of parrots seems more practical.
Any way, you get the idea. My favorite things I read on Substack last week ranged from a blistering commentary from Lyz Lenz on the unforgivable actions of Iowa Republicans this week to a snicker out loud post about Truck Nutz from
. I needed both.Regardless of whether you are a writer or a painter or a singer or a doctor or an accountant, we are all doing that precarious balancing act of “staying sane vs staying informed,” or some variation of work-play negotiations. But I think writers in particular are struggling to know what to do with ourselves right now.
We just wrapped our first HerStories Project “Incubator,” a 30-day intensive for midlife women writers. In anticipation of beginning a new session on Thursday, I wrote on
about our experience last month and our decision to focus on the theme of “Using your voice during hard times”.P.S.—I would encourage any and all level of writers to write with us in March—whether or not you are a capital W Writer, if you want community and creative expression, join us!
First there were the fires—both literal and the metaphorical dumpster variety. The news was terrifying and relentless, as was the Flu. While we rallied for Zoom meetings and virtual co-writing, the collective mood was also imbued with overwhelm, anger, and helplessness. In other words, not the ideal ingredients for diving joyfully and optimistically into one’s writing goals and projects.
And yet nevertheless, we persisted. “How are you?” we tentatively asked one another on Zoom meetings after our usual comparing of weather conditions around the globe. Nobody knew how to respond. “Good. . . I guess?” Everything felt colored by the world around us, and nearly everybody was sick at some point. But we kept showing up.
While the world burned, we continued writing. We continued learning from women who shared their expertise on everything from project organization to developing rituals that evoke creative flow to the importance of storytelling at midlife to confronting our saboteurs from a new angle. We learned so, so much. And as one dear participant commented during our wrap-up session, we have so much to learn from each other, and so much to teach.
At the risk of descending into cliche, we affirmed that yes, we are stronger together.
As we debriefed from a month of learning, goal-setting, and writing together, some themes emerged: Yes, we do need each other, for one. We want to continue to show up often to gather, to learn together, and to write together. To cheer each other on, and to share our beautiful, vulnerable, powerful words. We want to use our voices for advocacy and to effect change, to speak out about injustice and truths that need to be shared. But we also want permission to write about sunsets and falling in love and the loss of our pets and the change of the season and perimenopause and that hilarious thing that happened at the grocery store.
I love my friend
’s Substack column where she shares 3 good things—Every. Single. Day. She is one of the people who helps me tap into permission to write about beautiful things and happy things and not feel like every moment of the day needs to be spent advocating and educating and inspiring. Maybe sometimes we can just write about watching our teenager clear debris from the creek to enjoy the satisfaction of the water flowing freely and the gratitude we feel at observing that wild child still alive within her. Maybe we write about the joy of finding the perfect piece of art for $3 or eating potatoes with melted cheese and gravy in the middle of the day.Maybe we write about how every once in awhile, we wish to murder an annoying bird like Phoebe’s cop boyfriend did that one time on Friends. 🤷♀️
I hope you are allowing yourself to take breaks from the seriousness of it all, whether that means your micro-crises or the macro-crises or the goddamn intersection of it all. Reflect on the absurd and the gorgeous and the irritating and the mystical. Write about it all. There is room for all of it.
XO,
Steph
P.S. You guys, I really do want to write with you this month. I have one last spot in Writing Womanhood, a weekly therapeutic writing circle, on Thursday evenings. The upcoming HerStories Incubator also starts 3/6.
Check out these incredible guest presenters, and join us for a month of community and co-writing, sharing, learning, deepening your writing craft, learning how to advocate via a killer Op-Ed, or just freewriting about birds. All types of (midlife, women 😉) writers, and all types of writing welcome. Check out “Using your voice during hard times” here, and here’s a preview of the lineup.
Our Incubator Schedule
Participate in as many or as few of the events that interest you and that work with your schedule. Or watch the recording and join the conversation later.
March 6: "Depth of View: The Voice of Experience and The Voice of Innocence in Memoir and Essays" with Ellyn Gelman at 12:30 p.m. ET
March 7: "Radical Love in a Time of Crisis: with Rev. Evelyn Bourne at 1 p.m. ET
March 10: "The Writer as Character: How to Craft Narrators Readers Trust" with Claire Polders at 11 a.m. ET
March 10: Night Owl Co-Writing Session at 9 p.m. ET
March 11: Co-working Session at 4:30 p.m. ET
March 12: Co-working Session at 1:30 p.m. ET
March 13: "Healing Through Story: Writing About Trauma Without Re-traumatizing Yourself" at 1 p.m. ET with Lisa Cooper Ellison
March 14: Free-write and Share at 12:30 p.m.
March 17: "The Power of Personal Narrative: Crafting Op-Eds That Spark Change" at 1 p.m. ET with Elizabeth Austin
March 18: Co-working Session at 11 a.m. ET
March 19: "Writing During Challenging Times" at 12 p.m. with Nancy O'Reddy
March 20: "Your Writing Year: Using Wintering as a Starting Point" with Alice Kuipers at 3 p.m. ET
March 21: Co-working Session at 1 p.m. ET
March 24: "Writing For Resilience and Healing" with Karen Wesley at 1 p.m. ET
March 26: Free-write and Share at 4 p.m. ET
March 27: "Truth or Dare: Writing about Family in Our Non-Fiction or Memoir Essays" with Aine Greaney at 2 p.m. ET
March 28: Co-working Session at 12:30 p.m. ET
March 31: Salon Experience at 11 a.m. ET
April 3: "Write for the Next Generation" with Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD at 2 p.m. ET
April 3: Night Owls Salon Experience at 9 p.m. ET
Thank you for the mention, Steph! You are doing amazing things here and with HerStories/Midstack, we are lucky to have you in our midst talking about parroticide, even. ;) We've all entertained passing thoughts of murder of an innocent creature. The mother trucking blue jays and the way their calls seem specifically designed to pierce through my thin veil of sleep, for instance. Those little bastards.
To add to your point, though, it's not only that we can take a break from informing and advocating and supporting and protesting to look for good things around us, it's that we can also be putting out art into the world that informs, advocates, supports, and protests BY looking for good things in our days. I'm starting to see this work as an act of protest against a world gone crazy.
Oh you think world war three is imminent? Yeah? Well have you ever REALLY LOOKED at the details of a milkweed pod just bursting with seeds? It is infinity in gray brown crackly shell. Inflation is rising? Here is a cat trying to attack a squirrel through glass. Worldwide problems with solutions to remote and unreachable? Today I put on a sweatshirt while it was still warm from the dryer. It felt fantastic.
Your words of joy about your weekend roaming (and my own envy at the warmth. It blitzed way back below zero here again this weekend!) filled me up today. That's what we do. That's why it's worth it and why what we say matters. Because in the end, the warm weight of a sleeping pet on your lap is the whole point of this living thing.
I can't wait for the March incubator to start!