Free Range Organic Suffering
Shortly after sending my last newsletter, I opened my front door to my landlord’s realtor informing me the owner wanted to sell the house, and I had a handful of months before being no-fault evicted. And while no-fault evicted is better than full fault evicted or 2% fault evicted, it still meant I would have to leave the place I had lived for many years.
So I plunged into a rental market whose prices had spiked since my last hunt, racking up all sorts of Experiences:
A landlord proudly showing me the plastic paper towel bag he taped to the outside of a window to keep out rain.
A realtor immediately saying, "Yeah, the owner was going to sell, but we're waiting another year" as soon as I walked inside.
A landlord repeatedly calling me the wrong name over text (turns out the other person got the rental).
A two bedroom where one bedroom didn't have a door and the other bedroom was seven feet wide with a floor hatch leading into the basement.
And of course, waking up to a text from a listing agent trying to talk me out of the tour, only to show up and find the front door lock was jammed from a break-in attempt.
I had tabs open for every rental website I could find, cycling through them every hour while I delayed responding to yet another email from my landlord’s realtor and my deadline ticked ever closer. As the stress mounted and my selections narrowed, an insidious thought curled through my brain.
Why not push it further? Call the landlord’s bluff, stay where I was, and make them show the house with me still in it. Have me sit through showing after showing where strangers walked through my space and touched my belongings as the realtor shot daggers at me behind their backs. Lean into an inconvenient and stressful situation. Lean into the pain. I might get a good story out of it.
Because good stories come from pain, right? Conflict builds character. I might get an amusing anecdote out of it or I might get the seed of a great novel. But surely I would be inspired.
I could almost picture it. The awkward looks, the early starts, would-be flippers sniffing around my leaky shower while I pretended to read a book on the couch. I would bring the people watching to me. All these potential narratives walking through my living room would be a goldmine, and all I had to do was suffer a little. I was mentally prepared for war.
Then my expensive new air conditioner broke on the first hot night of the year, forcing me to open the windows and step outside into the balmy gloom. And as I paced my small and lumpy yard, I looked through a break in the trees and realized the sky was green.
It was Friday, May 10th, and North America was experiencing one of the largest aurora borealis events in recorded history.
My brain left my body. I scrambled down my street, shoes untied, tracking the green beams of light over fully lit intersections and rumbling cars. I had wanted to see the Northern Lights my entire life, and now they were quite literally in my backyard, visible to my bare eyes.
I stayed out until 2 AM wandering all over my neighborhood, taking photos and forming temporary bonds with the other people out and about doing the same. I ventured down alleys and dead end streets, looking for the best angle away from the streetlights. I saw green and pink glows, shafts of light over an empty baseball field. I woke up Saturday morning exhausted, sore, and elated, my mind spinning with that singular experience and bursting with creative inspiration. How lucky I was to be living in that exact moment of time.
Shortly after, I found a new place to live that was newer, cleaner, and in a better location. I did not sit through showings, and I have yet to write a single word inspired by the ordeal. But I have several ideas about the aurora.
I am not telling you that all bad experiences will lead to better ones. What I am telling you is you do not have to manufacture suffering. You do not have to chase sadness. You do not have to lean into pain. These things will find you regardless. And while stories require conflict, you require joy. Joy will keep you going through hardship and propel you forward when you are stuck. And joy is not a guarantee. You have to make it yourself, or at the very least you have to look for it. Moments of joy, however brief, are what make life worth living and stories worth reading. Gather as much as you can.
Writing Updates
Next weekend, I’ll be at Flights of Foundry, one of my absolutely favorite events. Flights of Foundry is 100% virtual and runs the entire weekend, so there’s programming every hour of the day. Registration is free, although I strongly encourage you to throw a donation their way. They put on a heck of a show that’s engaging, inclusive, and guaranteed not to give you any sort of con crud.
You can find me in the following places:
Author Reading by A.L. Goldfuss (Program hour 5 aka Friday September 27th at 2pm PDT)
The Long and Short of It: Writing Across Different Word Lengths (Program hour 29 aka Saturday September 28th at 2pm PDT)
Chill-n-Chat with A.L. Goldfuss (Program hour 55 aka Sunday September 29th at 4pm PDT)
Cool Shit
As we enter the final months of the year, I encourage you to find some joy.
The Aurora Dashboard will show you a Northern Lights forecast for the next 24 hours.
Spooky season is here, so please enjoy this playthrough of Amnesia: the Bunker.
Since joy also comes from affordable/accessible healthcare, Americans please check out the Paxcess program for getting free Paxlovid prescriptions.