the balancing act
Welcome to the Sunday post.
Paid subscribers: The next FRONT SEAT OFFICE HOUR is coming right up on Sunday, August 11 at 10am Pacific. We will meet via Zoom, check-in, turn cameras off and co-work for an hour. Please RSVP by no later than Friday, August 9th. You’ll receive the Zoom link the day before we meet.
If you’re keeping track, you might have noticed there was no Sunday post last week. My computer and my writing notebook (as opposed to the daily journal, seen above in bed) went unopened the entire 6 days my family was in Palm Springs. It was a trip that has become something of an annual thing, because we can withstand the intense summer heat when we have access to a pool and air conditioning. Our family/friend 100% made this trip possible, renting an amazing house for us all to stay in. While I wrote every morning as per my ritual, I couldn’t fathom opening my computer. Instead I spent most days bobbing or floating in the pool, napping, eating, and just plain zoning out.
Does it seem like July was explosive in your worlds? I know many people who weathered big life events in July, and I was among them. In short, my family has received some concerning health-related news that in the coming days we hope will see some resolution. The ‘resolution’ in fact requires some pretty serious steps, and it’s also all complicated by the complete shitshow that is the u.s. “health care” system. All of this to say: holding this news, we went to Palm Springs with the intention of getting some deep relaxation and disconnecting.
And we did that. We did it hard. I spent hours upon hours partially submerged in a pool that had the feel of warm bathwater day and night. When I got lost in thought, or when all thoughts seemed to cease, I knew I’d made it to that place I was seeking, and needed.
We’re back home now, and I’m looking at the ways I want to disrupt my routines just for the charge of feeling something different. Then, too, another disruption to the routines is guaranteed as we move deeper into August. I finished writing the week-to-week syllabus for the graduate nonfiction class I’ll be teaching at CalArts in the fall. I opened my book in progress document—once—then closed it. My writing notebook has been written in. An essay I’ve been working on for months is finished. And I’m having to quiet my mind often as I try to anticipate how the next few months will look. I’ve written here before about how, in the last few years, I began saying no to most things scheduled September through December every year, because it’s a busy time with the kid’s school year starting, a string of family birthdays, then the holidays. This upcoming season of September through December is probably going to look unlike any previous.
Readers of Mommy’s El Camino can look forward to some upcoming freshness in the form of another writer’s process notes, mini-interviews with artist/writers, and some book reviews and literary criticism by guest authors. This weekly endeavor of missives, lists, astrological talk, dream journaling, recommendations, process notes, streams of consciousness, interviews, and more is fully reader-supported. MEC is a project that also runs by the generosity of those subscribers who decide they want to pay for the work that goes into it. As I continue soliciting work from writers, the paid subscriptions support paying those writers. If you think reading MEC is worth the cost of oh, let’s say, a beer, or less than one movie ticket, or less than one of the streaming services, or two short lattes, consider upgrading your subscription below.
Thanks to everyone for reading.
