write anyway
Hello, friend, and welcome to another newsletter. I’m going to be honest with you and let you know that this weekend flew by too fast, I didn’t do enough prepping ahead of time, and I’m sort of blocked on what to even write this week.
But I’m not letting that stop me. I was tempted to say to myself “ah, it’s fine, I’ll just do it tomorrow,” but I knew that that’s a slippery slope. That’s what happened when I took a bit of a newsletter break last summer. First, I started writing it late, and then I took a week off, and then the break just lengthened because I had already put it off and so why not continue?
So when that voice started whispering in my ear, I pulled out my laptop and just got to it. And maybe that will be the energy I take into my week—just get it done. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Doesn’t have to be magic. Just has to be done.
I imagine that that philosophy is easy, maybe even second nature, for some, but for me it feels like a rip in the space-time continuum. In some ways, perfectionism has served me well, but in just as many ways it hasn’t. If you’re like me, let this be your reminder that done is better than perfect. And if you’re already living that maxim, then carry on!
prompt #29
I assigned my students a task in which they had to reflect on their identity using figurative language and metaphoric thinking. It was a hard one for many of them, as they hadn’t ever thought about it before. So now, I ask it of you: if you were a number, what number would you be? What about that number is like you? What about you is like that number? You can be as serious or frivolous about it as you’d like. You can leave it simply at that, or follow the work and see where it takes you. Enjoy.
ashley's piece
I am eleven, riding my bike with Lala and Joy down the street, sweet freedom, ready to buy cappuccinos from the coffee machine in the food court with quarters carefully tucked away in our coin purses. We sold friendship bracelets at beach access last weekend to exactly three people (turned out there isn’t much of a market for them), but we each have a little something tucked away from babysitting or chores or birthdays, so we might even have enough for the new milky gelly rolls that were just stocked at the exchange. Everybody at school’s talking about them; it’s a form of currency and a mark of coolness to be able to pull one from your pencil pouch, not that Joy would know about that since she’s homeschooled with her sister as her only peer, but Lala and I keep her up-to-date on what’s new and popular at school and she’s fully invested as well. We have the whole afternoon ahead of us, hours of time to spritz perfume samples, try on low-cut jeans and flowy tops and model in the dressing room mirrors, pretending we’re allowed to wear them, pretending they look good. The only requirement for me is that I have to be home by five, a somewhat arbitrary timeline since the exchange doesn’t close until eight and the sun doesn’t go down until around then, too, but it’s the exchange I’m happy to pay for this tasty experience of freedom and wannabe adulthood. I lift my feet off the pedals as we fly down the hill, surrendered to gravity. It takes no work to cycle. I’m going. I’m gone.