Inconvenience Can Be Beams of Love
making dinner, quitting gmail, a few life notes
in and out of the time famine
I’m sitting at my desk, it’s Tuesday, feeling panicked about time again. I’m in that feeling that I can’t move in any direction because there are so many things to do. This has been a feeling I’ve had for much of my adult life, and it’s more intense since having kids. Almost all of my time is divided into tiny squares. Hours. Even two hours is a long stretch between things. And I make an active effort to keep my life from being too busy and hectic! And I don’t work full time! Lots of conditions in which I have time. It’s true and it’s not true. It’s a mental thing. It’s a feeling I can’t mentally put anything down fully, and so I hardly ever enter the world of one thing fully.
I long for past meditative states where I felt the ease of focus. And that is not my life right now! So how do I focus where and how I can, and also accept the reality of my time? Mostly by writing it to you. Moving from lamenting to accepting. And praying toward the memory in my body that even short bits of time can feel spacious if my mind is with my body. Sticking them together, lovingly, slowly.
quitting gmail
One of the small quiet actions I feel called to in this particular hellscape of “usa” is to quit google. I quit instagram 9 months ago, and I plan to quit substack soon. (More on that when I can get to it.) But yesterday I started my getting-out-of-gmail project. Which means this morning I spent 30 minutes on chat with netflix trying to get them to let me change my email to proton instead of gmail. It really starts to feel like a conspiracy when it’s that hard to get out! Google’s deleting of pride and Black history month did it for me. I realize that my life is full of contradictions and it’s probably impossible to get out of it completely but I want to stop working for google for free by giving them data. I’ve been using duck duck go instead of chrome sometimes but it’s hard because google gets so mad at me about it. (Another magic thing about duck duck go is you can turn off the ai, perhaps using the tiniest bit less energy?!) Hence proton mail. The harder it is to leave, the more it feels like a worthy project.
In many ways I feel so completely not built for this 2025 online logistical world (who is?!). As in the idea of logging into hundreds of online accounts and changing my email is my nightmare. But I’ve been trying to think of it as a labor of love. Writing this to you right now is my way of reminding myself it is a labor of love. It’s easy to feel like it’s nothing, and that feels like the exact psychology that keeps us in these places (online) that are shitholes. I’m not trying to exaggerate the importance of this, but also not disregard it completely as powerful in my own life. Energetically it feels like a worthy task, if in large part to see how hard it is to get out. To see how monopolized these big tech worlds are. And to trust that seeing more slowly, more precisely, will lead to more and other kinds of contributions. Somehow this is my effort toward a more cared for world right now. The reframe for me is the inconvenience is a shift toward more alignment in my life. Saying no to google in the places I can, as I can, is saying yes to companies, aka humans who are also saying yes more often to more caretaking of humans and all species. It’s an experiment to see what happens.
amelia has helped me so much with the above
I’m incredibly inspired by this podcast episode and alllll the things Amelia Hruby does in general. This beautiful conversation with Leah Kern tracks so many things about the awakening so many people are having around social media. And the support systems people are building instead! And the connection between our bodies / embodiment and listening and decision making in business / in life!
maturing alongside a person
The other night my husband and I had this conversation which was difficult to start - you know that edge where you’re like - is this gonna be a fight or not??? And through magic somehow we ended up with a new mantra: I love you and I want to be close.
This is a guiding light at the moment. The difficulties and defenses that arise, the lamenting at something being inconvenient or hard or confusing - underneath there is this core desire - I LOVE YOU AND I WANT TO BE CLOSE. Reconnecting with a life ethos. It’s a miracle when we can get there. To that place underneath. Because it feels like the defenses are this shell covering everything in society right now, and it’s the most precious life work to get underneath.
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I want to be closer to you, to life. Right now that includes cooking beautiful dinners to nourish myself and others, and getting off of gmail.
What are your actions toward your own alignment these days?! I want to hear.
I’ve got a couple of astrology readings left this month, I’ll be back here soon with my April astrology calendar. Either way / anyway, beams of love to you on this Tuesday.
-Sarah