Starting Small: Everything is a Practice

Maybe if I think I am blogging, I can write a book

This is my first blogpost since I stopped blogging on the OG blogspot. I have definitely written things since but it does strike me how much the blogging infrastructure has changed in design since I last did this. I am familiar with WordPress of course but as I write this, I realize that WP sneakily and impressively made the pivot from being a blogging or publishing platform to becoming the backbone and storefront of digital businesses and personal websites too. I guess I tried medium but then the founder was already in hot soup for trying to monetize it. The substack environment struck me so much as not for me because it asked me to monetize and subscribe and blah blah blah and I was like dude, I just want a corner and some pixel space to write so that I am not submitting my rants to esteemed magazines and then stewing in disappointment as they ignore my highly peculiar pitches.

Coming to why I wanted to start writing in this format again, briefly, was because I read this very accessible book on writing (Writing down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg) where the author says that just as you would not (ideally) embark on a long hard hike or a climb without any prep, the same is with writing. Why would you assume that you can write (a book, a paper, anything you would like to put out) if you have not been practicing the muscles for it? It hit home hard because I have also been hiking, climbing, running etc. this year, in fact, without much preparation and then realized oh maybe I should really develop relevant muscles so that I can enjoy this more and possibly do harder (but importantly enjoyable) things. The author apparently only commits to filling a specific type of journal every month. That is the practice. And then, I guess since she is well published and also teaches writing, that practice of writing about whatever has trickled into being able to write things for a living and things that mean things.

If this makes sense to you, journaling makes a lot of sense. Therapists also ask clients to journal, often as a way of managing difficult experiences. I have journaled off and on just based on that logic - to dump the inside out and reliably so, for me, writing as a practice of externalizing, really helps me work through my own ideas. Most of that writing I will never read again. Weirdly enough, I also started taking selfies on days that felt historic. Just as how you would take a mental snapshot. Without much strategizing. A few years ago when I was still in graduate school and lay in bed in a beautiful resort in the middle of the countryside in Vietnam, perhaps the first time in my life having gotten entangled with a deeply troubled, alcoholic man who had suddenly disappeared on me, I took a selfie as a form of witnessing me. I told myself when I have survived this I would like to see that person (the me in the thick of it) and feel compassion and gratitude for her who knew that she was going to make it. Selfies have never been quick snapshots of my best angles for me. I immediately feel the charge and the gaze of me looking at myself. In that moment, I am reminded that both, me and me, are people that I should actively respect and protect and if I am feeling like throwaway garbage or anything less than honorable, the act of taking the selfie becomes a momentary altar to dignity. I deserve to be seen with compassion and respect and I see myself as such. It’s actually very non-cringe. Point being that journaling textually or visually, if you get down to the practice of it, the method of it, can be great ways to meet yourself and not just automatic outlets for what is rumbling inside.

So, this blog is hopefully going to be my place to park the thick of practice. When I was little and in middle school, I momentarily got enthused at the prospect of taking a competitive national science exam (biology, physics, math and probably chemistry too). Hard to say but I think I was mostly excited about getting the big thick prep book with all the questions and answers and at least little-me was plain curious as to what something like this would entail. I got my mom to buy it and it cost a bit of money and then I quickly lost interest in the actual test of it all. Mother was angry and she said the thing I feared about me, which was that I should not become the kind of person who dips her toes in things and doesn’t ever see it through. That fear still haunts me as I have been dragging my feet on this first book that I have to and also want to write. Honestly, big props to kids and people and myself when I am those people, who manage to muster the right amount of skill, courage and readiness to meet a moment - to do the hard national test as a kid, or to you know, win a dance competition when it matters. Hammer meets hot iron moments. I would not be a tenure track academic if I did not have those moments of my own with ample luck of course. Most recently I failed my lead climbing test because I was in the opposite state. I didn’t fully know or understand the task at hand despite having taken a lesson with the most distracted and flirtiest twenty something kid. But a grown woman doesn’t complain, she has to make do, she still has to succeed. Imagine the jitters of this self talk as I then ushered another young white man to test me as I lead climbed with another really strong young white man. It was not the right environment where there is a voice that recognizes me as a safe and responsible climber already but again, excuses. Nobody died. My climbing partner even appreciated how I made him feel on the rope but the instructor was shaking his head so violently in disappointment by the end that I knew I had manifested my failure. Now, a week later, it stings less. But I have to create a hammer meets hot iron moment before I attempt it again.

I don’t think blog posts can be this long anymore but that is the audience we are cultivating here lol. So yeah, I think I am going to just obsessively write about the practice, embodiment and transformational power of the method of practice and hopefully it will lead me to do things that need to get done but also I think I really want to change my relationship with writing. I want to feel it as a skill and a strength and not as an obligation and a fear. Thank you for reading!