If I may say something so bold I’d like to tell you, I love to work. I love to work because writing and making art and teaching is my job and I love these three things more than life itself. I love my job and it is the ultimate gift to do it, even on the days it feels somewhat impossible to sit down and do the work at hand.
In the same beam of light of pleasure is the pleasure of learning. This is why I went back to school, why I take classes up the road from my house, why I sign up for the things my friends organize and teach. It is of great pleasure to me to learn new skills, new ways of existing, new ways of showing up to the task of aliveness.
I find it all so innately pleasurable that it sometimes stops me from being in right relationship with myself and other people. It would be why I wrote the book How to Not Always be Working, to create systems for checking in with myself about when it is time to put the work down and when it is time to pick the work back up. But as one might guess just because you write a book about something doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it. Everything is a spiral and the lessons continue.
I’m finding lately (or, since the beginning of time) that the hardest part about my job is understanding money. How it comes in in waves and then I have to do magic math to understand how long I can make it last before the next big wave. I have had to learn my own inner cycles to know how often I generally feel called to shape a new offering, how often I want to be with the people, and how often I need to make more money.
It is obvious today but - no one teaches you this. I mean there are workshops you can take, some of my own included, that help you get clear on these waves of launching and being in the cycle. But it is so specifically of our own making what we each need to be in touch with. The rhythms of the seasons but also of our financial needs, our goals, if we did our taxes quarterly or saved it all up for the end.
In my experiment to put my newsletter mostly behind the paywall for a few months I also decided to take a break from inventing anything new. What an absolutely weird ass challenge to give myself, another part of the experiment I hated. The goal in this was to let myself fully focus on school, and in many ways this proved to really work. But I had more time on my hands than I wanted and the degree I am getting is designed to weave together my existing art practice with the new ideas I want be studying and researching. So instead of having a “break” I found myself with floods of wanting to bring a new idea forth and then stopping myself short of the invention. Edging but make it about work.
A few weeks ago I took a rag rug and natural dye workshop with Detroit artists Kayla Powers and Eleanor Anderson at Cedar North. It was so satisfying to dip into a textile practice so different than my own. To be with other people in the room, to see the brightness that comes when you finally figure something out, to eat together and braid together and touch plants together. It brought forth my deep missing of group work, of dancing with others, quilting with others, and hosting the digital portal zoom space with others.
I am grateful today to end my break of solitude from hosting. My inner world is satisfied and my outer world is ready to learn alongside the people. I find that Flexible Office is a place that I can learn, invent, fold laundry, flood the congress people’s lines, call the dentist, and feed myself - spiritually and physically.
I hope that you find your own waves of creation and don’t see experiments as failed or successful. May you keep gathering information to get closer to yourself and your work. May the work and the learning be pleasurable, abundant, and easeful.
FLEXIBLE OFFICE
An experimental digital co-working space for artists, writers, small business owners, freaks, influencers, parents, herbalists, teachers, and more!
APRIL 2 - MAY 30 + Tuesdays and Thursdays 8-10 PST / 11-1 EST
We are entering our third year of coworking in the zoom room. Whether you are returning or just joining us - we’d love to have you! Flexible Office is a place for you to bring your projects and work and hobbies and connect with other people dedicated to the pleasure of work and learning.
I find the most amazing part is the cheerleading. Folded a shirt for the first time in three weeks? - We see you girl! Finished a chapter in your novel? - You’re simply a miracle to us! THIS IS A FUN PLACE WHERE WE LOVE EACH OTHER!
We kick off with a visioning and goal setting session which imho is worth the price of admission. Then each session we draw on our beautiful menus and are never without direction.
May the path be winding and slow!
Reading : Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba
Completely INHALED the new season of Off The Grid and can’t believe how good it is. Listen to every episode! I loved the episode with Shivani Bhatia about if leaving social media is a privilege
This is tonight Mon 3/18 6-7:15 ET on zoom with The American Folk Art Museum : Autobiographical Landscapes: Gary Tyler in Conversation with Allison Glenn : Join artist Gary Tyler and art writer Allison Glenn for a conversation about racial equality, self-representation, and resistance.
April 3 at 5:30pm in Traverse City : Community Learning & Action Series: PLACE TRUTH & RESTORATION: (Night 3) "Night for Collective Action" Learn ways to follow local Indigenous leadership toward environmental restoration. Facilitated by Eva Petoskey of Mindimooyenh Healing Circle, & Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director of FLOW (For Love of Water)
‘DEVOTIONAL CITATION’ & SUSTAINABLE PRAXIS by: Storm Greenwood
is teaching this Thursday March 21 : Expanding Your Radical Imagination for Collective Liberation
writing continues to move me in the ways I long to be moved. From Commit to Being Haunted :
So many images arrive moment by moment out of Palestine. They are so brutal they have caused me to flinch, gag, cover my phone with my hand. So many heartbreaking words arrive from citizens, poets, & journalists on the ground. The onslaught is nearly impossible to alchemize for its sheer ferocity & incessance. But it is because of the impossibility of digesting this brutality that I must sit with it longer.
If it is impossible fully process this magnitude of trauma – & it is – I must at least commit to being haunted by it. Only if I am haunted by it can I be moved. We need a world of emotionally & psychologically moved human beings. We need feelers who become doers. It is the dissociated & dehumanizing who currently run our world. We desperately need the actions of the haunted.
I had the windows down for one brief day before the snow fell again and this was on repeat. Maybe I’m a dog whose lost his bite.
I was a guest on podcast talking about not using social media and it was a delight
I feel good about myself today and that’s a miracle worth sharing :)
⌇⋰ Website
⌇⋰ Email : info@codycookparrott.com