dear reader,

I want to write and share things, but often I want to share them before I even know everything I want to say about it. And how do you decide what everything actually is? What if tomorrow I come across something else on the same topic, but I’ve already told you about it? What then? Do I send a new email? Revise the old one and resend it? Do I mention it in a video? A text post? How many times is sharing about one thing too many times? How do I get past this resistance? Is a conversation ever really done?

Something something something…

We will be in conversation with the universe until the day we die, and even then. Even then?

I share anyway, that’s how I resist the self-imposed censorship triggered by the fear of seeming obsessed. Obsessed? Maybe that’s not the right word, but we press on. I insist and share even when I know I will have more to say later- and I most definitely will have more to say later. And that’s okay.

A reminder for you and for me: we are allowed to want to share, and we are allowed to expand. And as to when we’ve reached the limit? Well… in the words of Cady Heron: the limit does not exist.

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And that’s the beauty of the internet, too, isn’t it? On the internet, especially in your own spaces, you get to be in motion- in process, which is completely juxtaposed to how most people approach the internet these days. But there are a select few who also resist, and I want to mention them, because they use the internet in creative, simple, and amazing ways meant to inspire and not just sell. People like , Lee Jisoo , , and the list goes on. I am inspired by their work, as well as that of so many others, and I am aiming to add to the conversation in my own way. More on that later because there is so much I want to say about it still (case in point). (BTW, I have an ever-living list of websites that inspire me here.)

Laurel wrote an essay called My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be? There are a lot of things from that essay I want to delve into, but today I just want to highlight one quote:

“If a website has endless possibilities, and our identities, ideas, and dreams are created and expanded by them, then it’s instrumental that websites progress along with us.”

And I feel that way too, about the internet, yes, but also about words and artistry, creative practice which leads to expansion, learning! It’s why I am so adamant about the act of public persistence, of learning in public, building handmade websites in public, showing up on the good days and bad days publicly. All in public. No gatekeeping. What’s the point of keeping it to yourself anyway? We are creatures who need to communicate after all.

Here’s another quote I saved recently by Annie Dillard, that speaks to this idea too: “The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.”

I do not want what abundantly comes to me to dissolve into nothingness. That’s beneficial to no one. Energy is always reciprocal.

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I used to be a person so scared of running behind. I still feel that way when the anxiety builds up, when the depression decides it wants to make its haunting of my psyche known like a ghoul in the corner of a movie screen. The building tension that murmurs: if I don’t share my idea with you today (not just its inception, but a full-fledged and concise argument), then someone else will say what I want to say, and then when I say it, it will seem like I am just riding the waves of trends.

I am scared that I cannot catch up, that in my need to work boring full-time jobs and my inability to fully dedicate myself to the artistry that calls to me, I will fall behind. I will fall behind. I don’t want to be left behind. By myself or by others. Fuck this attention economy! The actual economy, too, for that matter. I am so tired of it all making me feel this eternal sense of scarcity. I know I am not alone, and there is solace in that… but the knowing is different from the feeling, isn’t it?

BUT/ AND

I am abundant, you are abundant. There is abundance!

I remember this quote by Tiago Forte, whenever this feeling arises: “There are people who will be reached only if they are reached by you. People who have no other source for the kind of guidance you can provide.” So I write. And sometimes I don’t know what to write because there is so much to write. There are always so many ideas. There is always so much to be said when you are a lover of learning, collecting, researching, and communicating. I do not have the answers, and I am not trying to sell you on an epiphany. I just want to tell you… tell you what exactly? I think in spirals and speak that way too so sometimes I’ll know and sometimes I wont. I’ll share it anyways.

I’ll continue to struggle, because to struggle is to be human. I choose, like with other aspects of my practice, to struggle in public, too. Perhaps what helps me feel less alone will transfer to you as well, so we can both meet in the middle as we reach into the void. There are no answers, only questions. Only a desire to be known. Only a wish I whisper to the universe that I can’t quite verbalize. An acknowledgment, a poem, a journal entry. In its infinity and in its ephemeralness: a conversation. To speak and perhaps, to be heard.

notes from the field ;

• the writing above was triggered by a desire to share about a recent are.na channel i have been filling up called: archiving as love language. i am not going to link to it yet, because it’s still private, but i will eventually. here are some other are.na channels i’ve worked on that i love looking at. may they inspire or spark something in you.

  • in movement

  • on paper

  • design/editorial

• i created my first handmade website last sunday-ish? a landing page for my virtual assistant business. it’s simple, still needs to be made responsive, but fully built by me using HTML and CSS and deployed/hosted through github pages. i am so proud of the thing. i cant wait in the future to showcase the different versions of the site and have this is be the first version. i love handmade websites !!!!

• addressing the elephant in the room, i have moved the newsletter back to substack. this is a decision i didn’t make lightly and i know some will choose to unsubscribe because of it- i completely understand the choice. but i will be experiencing a financial pivot in the next few weeks and the fact that substack is a free and robust alternative that has pretty good community features made it so that i chose to return. I was finally propelled to just do it after witnessing a fellow tornado person also switch back this week. thanks for always being a light.

i leave you with this video I took and promptly posted on Instagram with no filters or music or editing. the pages in the journal are not complete. i just like feeling the textures and hearing the sounds. i am wanting to extend this that I am talking about here to more than just my writing- I am hoping all these little actions help with the transformation.

passing it along,

ella nym