April 21, 2025

Down to Zero : Leaving Behind All or Nothing

Dear Reader,

Today in the early morning hour I am spinning around my house listening to Joan Armatrading as loud as I can and weeping at the simplicity and sickness that it takes to live in this world.

The love in my heart is wild and untamable, I let it fuel me instead of distract me. I let it soften my heart so that I can stare across the table at my former part time lover and hear him in his pain of our disagreement. I can take it to the streets, I can take it to the newsletter. I can wrap it in any form it needs to be packaged in.

I usually use this space, this simple email modality, to share my thoughts on the spinning world. My best gift at taking the happenings of the ecosystem and giving my two cents. Letting you, the reader, find your own entry points through the ones I have found. But this year, since the new administration has come to be, I have found this task to be of little interest or available to me creatively. My role is changing and it feels swift. I feel afraid to disappoint, to seem less radical, a separation of how my real life and my internet life collide. Am I trying to prove something or am I trying to be of service?

I also think that when the events of the world start to touch in on your personal life it can actually be much harder to be the news reporter of the newsletter world.

I have a confession, which is actually why I am here today, to tell you about it. I miss social media. I miss expressing myself in little blips. I miss seeing what people are up to. I don’t know if the gifts of staying away completely outweigh the magic of touching in. As I edit my next book I find myself wavering at particular things I say with such certainty.

I am certain of nothing! I am certain of today’s sobriety, today’s love, today’s flickering candle, today’s musical accompaniment. There is very little else that feels certain to me. I am one to make grand statements and then wonder why I made such vast promises to myself, publicly, or to others.

Perhaps I am just here to say, for all the talk I talk about leaving social media or taking breaks, I can’t say my life is infinitely better or changed from the all or nothing approach. This is happening for me in this month’s spending ban. The strict restrictions I made I almost immediately loosened, specifically around grabbing a coffee out with friends or a bite to eat once a week (originally I had said no coffee shops or restaurants).

I am leaving behind the all or nothing approach. To everything. This newsletter, the way I love, the way I dress, the way I spend, the way I may or may not dip into social media. I miss making Personal Practice videos, why am I denying myself something I enjoy just to say I do all or nothing?

What does all or nothing prove? That I can do it all? That I can abstain from it all? And why would I try to prove anything in this short scattered life?

What if everything was not as big of a deal? Not so blown out of proportion in my mind? Right sized if you will. I apply these principles in all of my affairs.

Things of Note :

Registration for The Cartography of Time opens tomorrow : Click here to join the waitlist
Live on zoom Saturday May 3 12pm EST
This is a short fun class all about shaping your week for creative and work alignment. It is similar to my class Organizing A Day - so if you liked that you will love this :)

Naropa’s Summer Writing Program is live and open and you should come to Boulder this summer and hang out and take amazing classes with amazing poets! Looking forward to digging in to three weeks of magic while Sky Fusco hosts Landscapes while I am away.

TO THE STREETS : A six week online class taught by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo with Sarah Al-Yahya truly looks like the coolest class ever and if I didn’t have a scheduling conflict I would be there! This class teaches you how to use street installations, printmaking, and performance to engage with your community.

Next Monday April 28 at 6pm I will be reading alongside Jacqueline Suskin IN REAL LIFE at Second Hand Social Club in Traverse City. We will be celebrating the release of Jac’s new book of poems The Verse for Now and I’ll be reading from Look About You. Totally free come on by I’d love to see ya

I got so much out of taking Queer Body Pilates workshop around working with inclusive language in cueing, especially with queer and trans people. If you are a somatic practitioner in any modality - I cannot recommend this enough. Sofia is an amazing teacher and mind in the pilates world and I am so grateful to learn from them.

Florist is going on tour thank goodness

I look forward to attending this talk on Wednesday at The Dennos Museum on Creative Public History

CLASSIFIEDS : 

Nurture a writing routine: one that actually works for you. A Routine of One's Own meets Wednesdays starting May 7, 7:30-9PM EST. $15 off with code CODY15.

The Creative Liberation Portal is a transformative self-coaching space for artists ready to turn stagnation into inspired action. 

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Thank you for reading another installment of Monday Monday by Cody Cook-Parrott. If you loved this newsletter feel free to share an excerpt on social media, forward it to a friend, or link it in your own newsletter.

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