I Quit My Job

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2021 has been my year of quitting. I quit social media for four months. I quit it again when I came back and handed over my password. I quit some habits I didn't want to do anymore. I quit people pleasing. I quit expecting my partner to fill every void. I quit feeling stuck. I quit feeling sorry for myself. I quit thinking I knew enough. I quit saying "I don't have the attention span to read". I quit only reading non-fiction books. And this past week I quit Patreon.

Quitting your job is scary. I have a lot of jobs. I teach an online quilting class, I write books, I self publish zines and stickers, I teach classes on creativity within and outside of work, I make dances and teach dance, and until this past week I was hosting an online community on Patreon. Within a week my income plummeted. In part because some people really valued the more "community aspect" that Patreon appears to have. And many people there were contributing $11/mo and so Substack felt correct to have as $5/mo. These are things I knew would happen, but whenever something actually happens it is a very different feeling than before it is happening. Many people came to this new space with a swiftness that made me feel appreciated and valued as a writer and thinker.

I want to share why I quit one thing to pivot to another, why I left something that provided me a consistent and stable income, and that I knew I was taking a somewhat large pay cut specifically during the transition period of the two spaces. Whether you work for yourself or for another, leaving behind income is a terrifying thing. In some ways this can be wrapped in privilege, and while my bank account and the debt I am working through doesn't currently reflect that privilege, my ability to earn more after almost ten years of building my career does. Jumping and trusting the net will catch you is both rooted in building the systems you know will support you, and having a whole lot of faith in the universe.

When I started The Planetarium Portal (patreon) I wanted to be able to promote less on social media, especially since I would be taking my sabbatical from January through May. It launched in July of 2020 and I had faith that the people would come there, to navigate their own relationship to distractions and habits through the lens of wanting to be more of service and less on apps designed to consume and sell our attention. It worked, a few hundred people eventually flocked to the patreon and for the first time in my career I had a consistent check that came in every month.

As time went on I found myself offering so much for $5-$11 / mo. I found my attention scattered by having my Mailchimp newsletter and my Patreon. The newsletter being free felt important to me and I missed sending it out every Monday, which became inconsistent when Patreon became every other Monday. As I started looking around at other membership communities I quickly realized they were between $33-$150 / mo generally. And here I was asking for $5-$11. I made pivots within the portal itself but still felt like something was off. And as I dedicated my time to reading about profit, under earning, and more, I knew it was time to make a shift.

While Patreon was absolutely profitable to me, it left me feeling like the exchange of hosting was not correct. I learned so much, I was able to hold space and learn alongside everyone - which I think is both a gift of my devotion to making space digitally and in real life, and a gift of those who committed to showing up and holding space for each other.

I sat down and asked myself - in the last 9 years what has been the best thing I have done for my creativity and flow? What has felt the best to my readers? And I came up with two answers : Sharing a free newsletter every Monday that anyone can access, and having an entry point for people to pay me for my work on a monthly basis. Then it dawned on me : what if these could be in one place? And Monday Monday was born.

It stayed in my head for a while though. I had worked so hard to build the community on Patreon and earn the consistent income I had dreamed of, how could I throw all of that away? The real beauty underneath the fear is : if you're throwing something away you are often making space for what is to come. As I sit here to write this first newsletter in this new space, I know it is correct. I know it is where I want to be. I also make pivots not just for myself, but for those who support my work. I know I wouldn't want to be a part of a space where the space holder themselves isn't experiencing the joy of putting out their work. I also made the pivot before real resentment emerged. A skill I have learned in the year of quitting. Begin before you're ready, as my dance mentor Pamela Vail tells us.

Some of my favorite writers and thinkers are on Substack and I was finding this was where I was going the most to read what people were thinking about, especially no longer scrolling my feed, and I knew I wanted to financially support and learn from other people off my phone screen (ok sometimes I read them on my phone screen obviously).

This shift reminded me of a few other times I quit my job with almost no money in my pocket. Again, I am doing my best to explain this in a way that includes the privilege of my whiteness and the career I built which is inherently connected. That being said, I will continue to explain this through that lens, but specifically about what is in my bank account with no generational or partnered wealth. Just to be clear!

OK SO - In 2013 when I quit my favorite restaurant Marie Catrib's to run Have Company full time I had $300. Total. In my bank account. Actually I think half of that was cash tips. And I knew that if I didn't jump and believe the net would catch me it never would. I lived in a town with cheap rent and had so few bills and I also had already built the container that I knew could generate me more income. And, as you may have witnessed, it worked.

I have had to do this many other times. Closing Have Company and moving to California. Opening Center, my public studio, and then closing it and moving back to Michigan. Moving in with my ex-husband to run an artist residency. I suppose getting divorced and forming a platonic domestic partnership three years later with said former spouse is about as trusting as the net can be. That the net can not only catch you when you jump out, it can hold you when you reform what it is you were jumping from in the first place.

I knew leaving Patreon was a risk. I've counted on it every month for 13 months to pay my rent on time, a skill and luxury I have not always had. I have counted on it to connect with others, as well as myself. And intuitively I knew it wasn't working anymore. It can be both / and. I also knew a pay cut isn’t just a pay cut. Sometimes the things making you money distracts you from the other work, runs your nervous system down, causes more stress than magic. This is about the movement of the containers to different burners on the stove.

So here we are with a gut feeling, a dwindling bank account, and a willingness to show up to the new container. I recently had a session with Jessi Rado (I traded sessions for A Quilt is Something Human) and she shared with me the idea of Holy Vacancy. How there is effort but also effortlessness in the showing up. How my hope is to be ordinary. To not show up to the page in an effort to try to be someone or to get it right, but to remove ego in the hope to be a worker amongst workers. So here I am trusting, in action, showing up in Holy Vacancy. A conduit for self trust with nothing to prove.

I'm glad you're here. If you're wondering why you're here or how you got here : my newsletter list I've been building since 2013 was moved from Mailchimp to here on Substack. Welcome. I would be thrilled if you wanted to become a paid subscriber. I would be thrilled if you wanted to share this with a friend.

1. The album Sunshine Kitty by Tove Lo

2. Tommy Dorfman would like to clarify

3. Backpacker Radio with guest Nicole Antoinette

4. So You Wanna Be A Witch podcast : Hard Work vs Hustle

5. Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too : Documentary

6. New live Notion class happening in August with Michelle Pellizzon

7. The smell of Sugar Pine Trees

8. Finishing novels : No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

9. A Quilt is Something Human registration opens next Monday August 2nd at 12 noon PST - there are 200+ people who have signed up to get the link and 76 spots (17 of which are 100% free for BIPOC quilters) Sign up here to get the link and have your card ready - plus NEW AND EASY two and three part payment plans WOW - excited to make blankets in October

10. Everyone in my home has purchased the Merrell hydromocks and I cannot figure out if they are too alien for me plus I am a croc guy plz advise tysm

11. The new Lil Nas X video : Industry Baby is everything to me - Jackie filmed me watching it without my knowing and my jaw is completely to the floor the whole time - part of the work is in collaboration with Bail Fund which you can also support monetarily. I can’t believe we get Lil Nas X while we’re alive : Lil Nas X has also announced that he has joined forces with The Bail Project, a national nonprofit organization on a mission to end cash bail, one of the key drivers of mass incarceration and structural racism in the U.S. criminal legal system. Through the “Bail X Fund,” he hopes to encourage other artists to join him and The Bail Project in the fight to end cash bail. 

12. Friends who make you get up at sunrise to see waterfalls

    

As fun as quitting is remember not to quit making your art when people say :

You can order How to Not Always Be Working from your local bookstore but it really is about the patriarchy and candles and dismantling systems of oppression through rest and opposing burnout so good luck you’ve been warned!

I will leave you with these words from Britney Spears to remember the effortless effort of showing up in the Holy Vacancy

“PSSS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE MY PRECIOUS ASS DANCING IN MY LIVING ROOM OR IT’S NOT UP TO YOUR STANDARDS … GO READ A FUCKING BOOK!” - BRITNEY SPEARS

Which reminds me : happy six years PERSONAL PRACTICE!

Many Blessings

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