Generous Solitude
Self, writing, and your inner sun
There’s a sense of calmness that forms when wrapped and rooted in the light of the sun, a serenity in the solitude of the shade. This morning the rain came again and I am cocooned in humidity. It’s sticky and slow and I am at once confronted with discomfort and soothed by the coolness that comes after a rain’s release. Friction is transforming, I tell myself. Not all of life is smooth sailing, and when it is smooth, I savor it. I taste every part I can.
In the evening, out back, I make marbled paper half the size of the dining room table. I am fighting the swarm of mosquitos who have decided my legs are their dinner. I wake up in the morning with remnants of the incident arranged in a constellation across my kneecap. My mind jumps to the sky and I wonder what arrangement of stars makes up our current planetary umbrella.
After the rain, in the morning, I head to the garden. There are planes flying, loud, overhead weeds growing, leaves large and looming, air dense with humidity and morning water. Between green plant stalks are readying red tomatoes, and I am surprised by a cucumber. Dinner, I think. I pick it, and put it on the counter.
As the day unfolds, I do the same, and for a minute the sun emerges. I walk to the corner, I ship a package, I get a coffee. I think of friendships, connections, watch the cat in the shop asleep soundly in the window, unmoving. The sun in the sky hides again behind cloud coverage.
I start the day with writing. I write two pages and ask myself if there’s anything more I want to say, pause, notice resistance, some, and an instinct to express more, and let my pen move open-ended across the page. I write three more pages. I have very little sense of what exactly it is that I wrote, except that I did it, and that it the aftermath I feel clearer. I receive no great insights, but the writing feels close to how the sun arrives occasionally through the clouds today, gentle brightnesses shining through. In this day, quiet, this solitude, I find the beauty in okay-ness — I am accepting weather patterns, life, noticing each moment, as it’s existing.
In solitude we get to know our inner suns, what beams us brightly into life, where we find solace in shade. Like the planetary figures carving their consistent paths across the horizons in the sky, when we give ourselves spaces to find a rhythm that works, we tap into our own cycles: when we rise, shine, hide, descend, how we are, and what we express and repeat from day to day. We learn when we roar, how loud we sound, and how to tend to ourselves in the quiet. We get to know ourselves inside and out throughout the seasons.
On Friday, I turn thirty-two. Lately I have thought about self, identity, and being states — how we are in our lives, how we unfold and reform, and how that’s reflected and expressed in creative ways. In my notebooks, I reflect on what I love, what I am challenged by, what I am confronting, and what I am savoring, what fills me with joy, and what I am content with. When my thoughts are dense like today’s cloud I turn my attention outward into the world, let it linger on the skin like the day’s humidity, or take breaths deep and slow and diffused my attention into the cues of my body. This life is a journey. I breathe out. I am an environment, I think, and feel. Relaxation is possible here. A birthday, like any change time, any stepping back point, or celebration, can be a ripe point for internal reflection. I consider how many days I’ve been alive, and how good they feel, how the rising up of a sad day can be cooling like a summer rain, and how that inner sun shines brightly from my body’s center when I feel radiant, and grateful.
On the page and in the world as we’re creating our lives, we can discover, create, craft our inner and outer worlds, be visionary within our beings. To turn our attention inward is a path for empowering the visions we have for our lives, our intentions, and what we hope for ourselves and each other for the future. When we pause to do the internal work — tap into our suns, listen to what our shadows, stories, and shades have to say — we are creating our lives, crafting strong points of care and connection through repetition. The more I know who I am and how I am in the world, what I care about, value, fight for, and what my intention is, the more intentionally I unfold in shared and collaborative spaces. This inner work is the starting place from which the rays of sun in our lives expand outward; To do the inner work is to learn more deeply what we care about, how we want to feel, what kind of worlds within and around us we envision, and the steps we take in order to arrive there as we make, build, and create.
If you’re still learning yourself, as we often are — if you are unpacking, unfolding, molding, creating, shifting, and compassionately accepting how and who you are — start where you are right now, and serve it with a generous side of curiosity, compassion, confrontation, and care. As a kid in the summer I’d sit down on a hot day and make a rainbow colored list in markers of what I loved; it’s a practice that I still do to this day in all black with pen when I’m hit with the sticky hot slowness of summer, and boredom. Take out a sheet of paper, open a note in your phone. Make a list. Check in with what you care about. Try things out, explore, notice, and play. This inner work is not about asking ourselves to change but rather noticing how, when, and why we shine, when we need shade, and generously meeting ourselves and accepting who we are at each moment on each plane of existence.
This week, try these in your creative lives, on or off the page:
Think of yourself as a shape. Ask, what’s the geometry of me?
Consider the colors of your life with wonder. How do you glow in prismatic ways?
Tap into taste, texture, smell. If you were a food, spice, ingredient, or recipe, what might you be?
If you’re a sun, what are you glowing on? What are you supporting and growing? Notice what shines within you, and when it feels good in the shade.
If you’re a plant, what are you rooted into? What stabilizes your foundation? Notice when you’re planted firmly, and when you’re moving in the breeze.
this week,
Face masks out of lemon, yogurt, and sugar + dreams of cakes to make without an oven + clean sheets and preparing for this weekend — Brooklyn, see you at Renegade. Spiral notebooks hit the shop this week, and all writing class recordings in the experience library are on sale through next Thursday — no code needed.
experiences
August 19 + 20 Renegade Craft Fair (Brooklyn)
August 24 Suminagashi Basics (Brooklyn)
August 31 Pamphlet Stitch Bookbinding (Brooklyn) sold out
Book a session with me for a more personalized creative experience. Paid subscribers, a guided practice on connecting with the sun is heading your way soon.