May 19, 2025

Staying With The Unresolved

Dear Reader,

On Saturday I celebrated fourteen years of continuous sobriety, no first drink no matter what. Years ago I heard a woman say all the things she did to keep sober and at the end she said : … I have a sobriety date that I protect at all costs. I protect May 17 at all costs. It is a day I hold dear to me. More than my birthday or any other anniversary.

It marks the day I stopped trying to die and started trying to live.

I had a strange anniversary this year, ultra tender in all the ways. Instead of my usual celebration and joy, I found myself in a bit of despair. As bombs rain down on Gaza, trans rights continue to erode, and ICE disappears people into the void, I couldn’t access my celebratory state. The dissonance between personal milestones and global grief felt impossible to reconcile, as if joy itself required a kind of forgetting I could no longer manage.

I’ve always believed that in seasons of collective sorrow, celebration becomes its own quiet form of protest. That to fuel our fight against facism it is in our best interest to find the pockets of joy. But on this day I could not. Everything felt oversaturated, sharp-edged, unbearably loud.

I was also emerging from artist residency utopia, where for a week I found myself immersed in art making and friendship building in a protected corner of the world. This fueled me spiritually and creatively, but coming back to reality felt like a bit of a shock.

While May 17 gives me much to celebrate it also reminds me of the emptiness I felt on that day fourteen years ago. I had hit such a low and hated myself so much. I knew where to turn and found a solution with other people who thought like me. There is a deep tenderness in remembering that day, that season of my life, what I was in the process of becoming.

I am so different than I was on that day, and yet I am so the same. A wild little gemini with a million notebooks and projects and big big feelings. Today they are a bit more organized and have a bit more steadiness to them.

I won’t lie to you, dear reader—while I don’t feel frozen, I do feel a kind of dim hopelessness. And yet, I lean into Pema Chödrön’s wisdom: that hopelessness is not the end, but a beginning. That in surrendering our attachment to outcomes, we become empty vessels—receptive to change, available to act.

I use what I have—my voice, my feet, my signs, my newsletter, even the glitchy channels of social media—to resist the machinery I long to see dismantled. And still, the structures persist. And still, I remain to pray.

I remember that my role is to hold the space. To tend the fire. To make room. Knowing my place in the larger ecosystem steadies me, especially when meaning feels just beyond reach.

I do not pretend that holding space is the only solution. But I do know it is a way of staying present when distraction feels easier. A way of staying responsive instead of retreating into abstraction. If I can’t offer certainty or solutions, I can offer attention. I can stay with what’s unresolved—and that, too, is part of the work.

Things of Note :

• THIS WEEKEND : Quilt in A Weekend is happening in Traverse City, MI. I am collecting all of the supplies and getting so incredibly excited for our time together.

  

  This workshop is for you if you:
  
  🌸 Have always wanted to learn to quilt
  ✨ Patterns intimidate you and you want to try an improvisational approach
  🌼 Are looking for in person community
  🏓 Want to expand your hobbies and creative practice
  🪽 Desire the magic feeling of finishing something
  🌿 Are ready to experience the magic of spring in Northern Michigan
  
  📏 NO RULES NO RULERS 📐
  
  Sewing machine and all materials are provided

• SAVE THE DATE : My first ever solo show The Quilt as Archive opens Saturday July 12 5-8pm at Cedar North in Cedar, MI - programming and more details coming soon

• Tamara Santibañez is hosting a Parole Prep Community Fundraiser and this week only all donations are matched

  

  • NYC friends - check out Laurel Schwulst’s Ultralight School : The first class starts June 15 : “Sense to Sense” is a publishing class about translation and the senses. Over five weeks, participants will engage in readings and discussion about the five senses and explore what it means to carry sensations over into written form.

CLASSIFIEDS : 

How to Run Your Creative Business During a Recession (or any slow period)  ⟡  A new class from Amelia of Off the Grid podcast  ⟡  Happening 5/28 on Zoom  ⟡  $25 USD  ⟡  Learn more & sign up

Calling all creatives at a crossroad. Join this free workshop to pause, shed old layers, and reconnect with your inner compass to guide what’s next.

Structured Knowledge supports research-based creative work through 1:1 advising, developmental editing, and detailed feedback services.

Write your memoir within your limitations, not despite them. 3-month flexible program with bestseller expertise. 

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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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