Feb. 13, 2023, 4:58 p.m.
Intimacy portals
How much to let in and when : teaching, relationships, and creative pursuits
Monday Monday
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In the privacy portal of no social media I find myself infinitely more free than I imagined. As I rise with the sun my mind is clear from hundreds of opinions, projects, ideas, and feelings that are not my own. I do not go on a search for signs of my inadequacy, my unlovability, or how I measure up to others. The insidious voice of doom fades away, one that was more persistent than I was aware of.
I awake rested, hopeful, and eager to notice where I may find and attune myself to real intimacy, not the intimacy projected on to me in a digital sphere, nor the intimacy I project that others expect of me. My portal becomes small and I become big within it.
While hosting Flexible Office last week I shared that with so many people in the room we may experience an intimacy gap. Some are there to really hunker down and just finish a factual project while others may be arriving to the space hoping to find deeper connection around their creative pursuits and how those pursuits intersect with their parenting, trauma, dream world, or chronic pain.
In these spaces I remember to trust my readers, listeners, students, members of co-working, friends and family, to create the resourcing they need to take care of themselves when we don’t all want the same things. I often tell my students in Quilt Class really funny personal stories I would never share on a podcast or in my newsletter. Not because it is so private and a secret they aren’t allowed to share, but because together we craft a portal of intimacy where the risk of sharing is met with a net of care.
Yet, we may pivot. As a co-working group we shaped and designed different channels in our digital community space so that those wanting more connection and resources around specific topics could find each other there. The gap in intimacy didn’t require complete compromise - but invited new structures to be built all together.
I want bigger risks, and so I shape a world around me that can hold them. I want real intimacy, so I craft relationships that can withstand that. I want my work to enter into a new layer, so I risk sounding stupid or being unliked to get there.
When I am crafting an offering, a creative pursuit, or a text to express my feelings - I use my morning pages to parse out what is for just me and god and what is for one person to see and what is for the world to see. What is for my friendships and what is for my family. What is to bring to my therapist vs my financial advisor. What goes to my sponsor, what goes to my ex girlfriend, what goes to my ex husband, what do I bring to just my dog while she pants in front of the wood stove? What do I bring to new romance and what do I keep just for my own ever growing heart?
We have so many places to bring our intimacy. Into quilts, into words, into dances, into classes, into songs, into paintings, zines, a farm side stand, the vegetables you grow, the flowers you buy from the grocery store. May we bring our intimacy into the woods and to the trees and to our recreation and hobbies and daily practices, then to our relationships, and then to our teaching. Whether it be in the form of the classroom, a social media post, a newsletter, a book, or a protest banner on the side of the highway.
There are so many ways to enlighten within and amongst each other. So many invitations of learning and growth, devoted to the edge - may we find that the sharp points let us know how much to let in and when to pivot with grace and integrity.
There is a divine sequence to things and when I let ideas come out of me and flow into the world in their designated order there is less resistance, less turbulence, more output and more bountiful projects.
I feel grateful to have so many portals for intimacy. I feel grateful to see where my own efforts have given me such clear vision of internal sight. I feel grateful that the more I build my own self esteem and intimacy with myself - the more fruitful my artistic life of service, generosity, and creation becomes.
Pamela, A Love Story (on Netflix) - was beautiful - and now I would like to listen to her memoir. My mornings have been spent listening to audiobooks while I get the coffee ready and give June her breakfast and start the fire. I am such a fan of Chantal Anderson’s photography and her photos of Pamela Anderson for the WSJ are no exception
Want more suggestions of amazing documentaries about inspiring people and artists to watch? Check out last week’s Friday Thread
I love Tamara Santibañez’s newsletter and this issue about pricing in the tattoo world, raising prices or not, and as clients how we can budget and think about tattoos - While a lot of Tamara’s writing and newsletter is about the tattoo world I find it incredibly inspiring and relatable for any art medium
Rihanna’s Half Time performance - the baby bump in the red jumpsuit alone…
This amazing episode of On Being (thanks for sharing)
This playlist I have been listening to while writing
This past week I reread via audiobook to Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie, one of my favorite books of all time
is one of my closest writing friends and today is very good :) I feel lucky to have friends like Holly who cheerlead me - get cheerleaders! Be a cheerleader! There's no other way through the portals!
I love newsletter and is where I discover so many cool new artists - highly recommend today's! Clearly my Instagram break has brought me into deep Substack reading :)
I have officially entered my Hildegard von Bingen era - everything from here on out is in endless service to god xo
A portion of February’s paid subscriptions goes towards the Dancing through Prison Walls Fundraising Campaign : also stay tuned for special edition prints to raise even more funds
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