Life Be Lifing (and work be working)
Plus: a garden update.
Hi, it’s me.
Welcome to my Wednesday newsletter, sent to you on…what day is it? I know it’s been awhile since I last wrote to you. Life is doing a lot of…. lifing lately. I’ve gone inward, adding words to the pages of my journal where I can safely sort out all the shitty first draft thoughts that aren’t suitable for public consumption. Thoughts that aren’t balanced or measured, but maybe a little unhinged and irrational. Where my newsletter might make me a better writer, my journal makes me a better person.
I’ve also been making the time and space for my mind to wander, to consume stories and be in nature. I’m admiring the architecture of buildings and the design of gardens, pruning my tomato plants, and weeding around the greenhouse, and cleaning out the front closet. All of my best inspirations come to me when I’m tinkering, meandering, and writing for no one in particular to see.
Years ago in my Mad Men era, I loved watching the subtleties of Don Draper’s creative process play out during each episode. Seeing Draper “work” was the first time I recognized that my own inner creator never really stops creating. Whether watching a show, washing the dishes, or dancing in the kitchen, there’s a distracting thought spinning in the back of my mind, connecting everything I’m experiencing to the idea I’ve been noodling on. And eventually, hopefully, the right words get knocked loose.
One of my favorite Mad Men scenes opens with Draper sitting in his office in one of his fabulous mid century club chairs, smoking and staring at the wall in a haze of dim light. His colleague Roger Sterling walks in, observes him a moment, then says, “I still can’t get used to the fact you’re actually working when you do that.”
Wasting time is not always wasted time.
So this is where I focus my time these days, filling up my creative bank for a little while. I trust you’ll understand.
from The Editing Spectrum calls this a Season of Rest:Let Writing Seasons give you permission to be the exact writer you are today. Permission to embrace a Season of Rest even when it seems like everyone around you is soaring to greater editorial heights. Permission to be enthusiastically unproductive and even playful.
. . .
This season was probably the hardest one for me to wrap my arms around.
It’s the season where the answer to writing is “no” but you may not know why.
It’s the season where “rest” is tending to all the parts of your life and self except the ones the world likes to applaud. It is a “no accolades” kind of inner productivity.
Forever grateful to Amanda (and Don Draper) for reminding me that being a writer isn’t always about words being read.
I’m also still crazy busy at work and have been using more of my brains than usual to be excellent at what I do. It sometimes feels weird to be in nonprofit fundraising, especially within the social and human services sector. Some of colleagues work directly with community members experiencing homelessness while I sit at my desk on my clickity-clackity keyboard, writing some words that will hopefully compel people like you to pay our salaries and keep our lights on so a few thousand people can find or stay sheltered, get access to healthy food, and and begin to heal from their trauma.
When I succeed at my job, someone hands me a check1 for five, or twenty, or a hundred grand. Maybe more. I clench my fists and pump the air, letting out a satisfying YESSSS as I strut down the hall from my office to enjoy a celebratory brag session with Bryan, who also works from home.
“GUESS WHO JUST LANDED ANOTHER NINETY GRAND FOR ONSITE MENTAL HEALTH CARE!”
“Nice job, babe,” he’ll say. A very anticlimactic response when I actually probably deserve a parade.
I know this behavior makes me look like a suited finance bro when they do numbers things that make it possible for people to live in big houses on hills or behind gates. I see the movies where young men with snappy hair cuts pump their fists and bump their chests, neckties flinging over their shoulders as they whoop and holler. I’m not dissing their accomplishments–everyone deserves to celebrate a job well done. But my expertise uniquely straddles two distinctly different worlds: high stakes negotiation for your time, money, and attention, and service delivery that helps alleviate human suffering.
By the time summer is over, I will have written $1.6 million dollars worth of funding proposals in just a few months’ time. I’m proud of my work, yet cautious. I must mind my ego. Being a rainmaker can make you feel powerful, godlike. I enjoy a good fist pump and chest bump. I like to say, I did that.
To make a bold ask of someone, you have to possess a certain amount of moxie, which I do. I could easily lose myself in the euphoria of importance if I listen to the faint inner voice who whispers, that program exists because of you; those people are being helped because of you. What I’m saying is, it’s a slippery slope from I did that to because of me, so I try to celebrate with measure.
Anyway, I miss you. I miss writing to you here and seeing your names show up in my comments. I always read your names and all your comments, but I can’t remember if I’ve responded lately. I haven’t been able to and I feel bad about that, but I also haven’t been able to. Some things are out of our control.
I had an editorial plan for August that was written on sticky notes, and when my ideas make it to the sticky note phase, I get extra excited. Sticky note ideas have traveled a long way from the unhinged ramblings in my journal. At this point they’re more of an ordered mess that my ADHD brain can track.
Hopefully these sticky note ideas will make it from my wall to your inbox sometime soon, but I can’t say for sure when.
Until then,
Jen
What’s happening in my garden this week
Currently getting a daily harvest of cucumbers, green beans, shishito peppers, and yellow zucchini. Banana peppers are starting to trickle in, too. This might be all the figs we get this year—the rest are small and might not ripen in time. Which is sad—normally we get a couple baskets full of figs!
A few One Second Everyday moments from July 🌼
Not an actual check, but I’m old school. And anyway, receiving an EFT notice from the resource coordinator who got an email from the finance team makes for less fanciful writing, so I embellish.
It was week 3 actually but who is counting? Oh, me apparently.
Thank goodness for post-it notes! They come in handy for the ticker-tape parade you absolutely deserve for weaving words that turn into dollars to support those in need of mental health care.
I am grateful to have found you here as I embark upon my own Substack journey.
Already I feel like a little kid who wandered into the right sandbox! And to know that I am surrounded by people who are also working while “staring off into space” feels good!