I love the pictures you share of your parents' place. I love that big open garden bed. We gave up our larger plot to focus on our home raised beds this year because we need the freedom to do other things. Next year, I hope I'll have the freedom to have a bigger one again.
The who has enough/what is enough/what is a luxury conversation sure is kind of knotty, isn't it? I used to instinctually bristle when people would tell me that staying home was a luxury because it didn't feel like one, despite knowing there were people who made the same choice who DID feel like it was. I think it's interesting how what feels like luxury can be so different to each of us.
In regards to the Big Writer, I really appreciate your take. I saw so much on it in such a short amount of time that the content felt like churn for the sake of churn so I had to avoid the feed for a few days. The camps felt so divided and unwilling to acknowledge the mess of the issue. I appreciate you being willing to highlight the gray and the imperfection of figuring out how we are going to consume, share, and use resources - many of which are finite - online and in the physical world.
So knotty! I had so many years of struggle when it would have felt/been luxury to stay home. I'm so grateful to be able to do that now--to not need to work for more income now--and yet. Sometimes it doesn't feel like one. It still feels like a lot of hard work. Because it is, and because it's so invisible to everyone, even those who directly benefit from it. It's always both/and, isn't it? (I also avoided the feed for a few days because I got so tired of that churn. Glad it's settled down.)
When time allows, after I read a thoughtful essay like this one, I make a point of reviewing the comments. Here, I want to applaud this continuation of the conversation as much as I want to sing the praises of the original piece. Kate (and Rita), this: "I think it's interesting how what feels like luxury can be so different to each of us." And as you both point out, we could replace the word luxury with abundance, safety, wisdom, success, happiness, comfort, belonging, power.
I wish we were less inclined to blame others for perceived transgressions. I wish we could stop assuming our happiness would improve if someone else did something differently. I'm not sure happiness is that linear or predictable. Of course there are people in places of power who are making terrible decisions, putting most of us at risk of reduced fulfillment. That's worth resisting! But so many of my day to day frustrations have nothing to do with that. If I could focus on what I have instead of on what I don't, I think I could be abundantly more satisfied.
Rita, I so appreciate what you've written here, the life philosophy you've shared, as I have been grappling very much with the idea of abundance and scarcity over the past few years and the debate around Big Writer kicked up a lot of that dust for me again. I want to feel abundance in a smaller writer's life, a smaller creative life, but another part of me longs for certain markers of success--a published novel, primarily, traditionally published, ideally--and I can't seem to separate that long-held dream and definition of abundance from my ultimate happiness in this life of mine. I want to say it doesn't matter. I have so much to be grateful for, so much abundance in all the areas that matter: two daughters who love me, siblings who love me, many friends and extended family--I've loved deeply and been loved in return. That is the source of all abundance. I know this in my heart. And yet the ego longs for these things, these markers of success. I have found since entering certain communities, like Writing in the Dark, where we are encouraged to play with language, to do exercises, to share our writing in small spurts of inspiration and support others who do the same--it has been surprising to me how satisfying that all is, these small moments of creative abundance. The small moments can add up to a satisfying creative life, I am learning. It may, after all, be enough. There is so much freedom in having faith in whatever abundance we manage to create or attract around us. To consider that small magic the "big magic" of which Elizabeth Gilbert writes. For me, it's a balancing act between what I aspire to be and the nature I have, that I've always had. I am at my core a woman who yearns deeply, who seeks more of what she loves--which is to put my writing out in the world and yes, have it be loved and acknowledged. It would be dishonest of me to say that this doesn't matter to me. But I am coming to understand and accept--without the pangs of disappointment--that the acknowledgement and love does not have to come in the form of thousands of paying subscribers, or a big book contract. Sometimes it can be so simple. Not long ago, a college friend of mine posted on Facebook that her 94 year old mother had died. Since her mother was an avid player of Scrabble, she asked for a word from those who were extending sympathy. I offered "serendipity." That seemed to me a winning word for any Scrabble devotee. But my friend Stacy wrote back in a private message that this word, which she shared with her daughter, who was just then giving birth, two days after her mother's death, was cherished by both of them. "Sometimes," Stacy wrote, "a writer thinks she needs to publish a successful novel when sometimes a single word can make the biggest impact." I was touched and reminded that we often underestimate the impact of our small creative lives, and how simply living from our creative centers is the biggest magic of all.
Oh, Amy! This, this, this: "...we often underestimate the impact of our small creative lives, and how simply living from our creative centers is the biggest magic of all." And this, too: "There is so much freedom in having faith in whatever abundance we manage to create or attract around us." I think it's so normal and natural to want the things you want. Of course part of me would love to have the kind of success that other writers have had, the kind you aspire to, but the longer I live, the more I realize that there are tolls on every road. I think we all want to be good at what we do, and we want to love what we do. For me, the writing and the sharing of the writing are two different things. I love the writing, always have. I need the sharing for the writing to feel meaningful, but I don't love the sharing and I'm not very good at it. It's been a lifelong process to figure out the best balance, ways that both can work for me with the resources I have. I'm still figuring it out! I think the answers keep changing as my life changes. Wishing you all kinds of success, however you come to define it 💚
I acknowledge that what I’m about to say could be rooted in jealousy, but it’s my feeling that when it comes to matters of time, attention, and money, things pretty much are zero-sum. Each of us has only a finite amount of time with which we get to direct our attention, and most of us only a finite amount of money with which we can buy non-essentials. This, to me, is just reality, something that should be common sense, but perhaps success blinds people to that.
I think abundance is another word (like thriving) that I don’t use. Sufficiency, yes. Enough, yes. As for ambition, I did have some, once upon a time. Perhaps one day it’ll return, but for now my life is very small and I think I’m getting to be ok with that.
Whether rooted in jealousy or not, I find a lot of validity in what you say. We do only have so much of time, attention, and money. We do not all have the same 24 hours. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that. I think more of us need to, especially when so many don't have essentials they need.
Maybe I am trying to do some kind of reclaiming or redefining of words like abundance and thriving? I'm certainly not thriving in the ways we typically think of it. (Spent most of today prone, thanks to on-going issues with my brain, a year and a half post-injury.) And my life is small, too. There's not a lot of material abundance. But I have a good amount of the kinds of freedom that matter to me--or, at least, I do in comparison to the past three decades of my life--and so it feels like abundance. I want to recognize it where I have it, in spite of the ways and places in which I still don't. It might be that for so many years I didn't have so much of what I needed that sufficiency feels like abundance now?
Maybe this is all semantics. I hope you have enough of all that you need and want. Getting to OK feels like my version of some kind of paradise, to be honest. I'll wish for that for you and me. For everyone.
"It might be that for so many years I didn't have so much of what I needed that sufficiency feels like abundance now?" This definitely rings true for me, Rita. Starvation turns a slice of bread into a feast, right? I do hope my comment didn't come off as me criticizing your use of the word abundance. My inability/reticence to apply the word when thinking about my life stems from my childhood and really amounts to superstition. As to whether this is all semantics, I don't think it is; I think the way you're choosing to talk about abundance is helpful and nuanced. And, hear, hear on that wish.
No, I did not feel any criticism at all. And even if I did, that would be OK. I appreciate debate that is rooted in thoughtfulness and a desire to deepen understanding, and I know that is always where your writing is coming from. I certainly never think I've got anything all figured out (some of my life story would be testament to the ways in which I have not!), and I'm grateful for those who push my knowledge and understanding forward. You've always been one of those people for me. And if it's not semantics, and some of your feeling stems from a childhood in which there truly was not enough of important things you needed (and I know you, like me, had such a one), then I'm revising my wish. I wish you more than OKness; I wish for you an abundance of peace, or of what soothes you when peace can't be found.
"Choosing to never put my writing behind a paywall is a kind of abundance that’s available to me, in part, because I’ve chosen to live a small life."
Ditto. I appreciate that some people have to make money off what they write, but I don't so I won't. I'm not around Substack enough to know who the big deal writer was, but if she felt under-appreciated and that bothered her, then sounds like she did the right thing.
As for me? I am a nobody, happily so, thus whenever anyone bothers to read what I write on my personal blog I am content. That's enough abundance for me.
You and me both, Ally. I'd like to make money off what I write, won't lie. But, I'm not sure that I could, and I know I don't want to do the things that making money that way would require. Aren't we lucky that we don't have to I always appreciate what you give away freely.
Thank you for another thoughtful essay, Rita. I just want to say how wonderful it is to see your parents so active and engaged and strong in their 80s. That's a real gift.
I know! I feel so lucky that my parents are doing so well. And lucky that they had me when they were so young, so I've gotten to have so many years with them. Things are changing, so to have a weekend like we just had feels like a huge gift.
Rita, I appreciate your take on abundance and I share your gratitude in having the freedom to choose how to engage on Substack and in life. And, I love tartlets! The crust to filling ratio is much more satisfying than pie in my opinion. ❤️
Oh, so much better than stew! I’m trying to learn how to make a good pizza. The real, not metaphorical kind. I would love to know if you have a great recipe for crust.
Ken Forkish's Overnight Pizza Dough from his Flour Water Salt Yeast book is SO good. (He also has a dedicated pizza book, but I haven't yet checked that one out.)
I decided not to start my own Substack because of timing but also because I got honest with myself about how I wanted to spend my time here. I really love being below the water line and swimming in the comments. I love engaging in conversation someone else starts, like this. Maybe I am no a barnacle but for now that is serving me and my energy/ time.
The word I keep coming back to is “ enough.” At the Passover Seder, in the Haggadah (the book that leads a family through the stories of Exodus and other commentary around the importance of that story to the Jewish people, ) there is a prayer featuring the word “ Dayenu.” It means it would have been enough —it is a long list and each line ends in dayenu. Had God done x,y,z, dayenu. In the prayer, God goes beyond what is enough but I am struck by the repetition of it— it drives home that word like a reminder- you are enough, you have enough.
I am learning to embrace the shape of my days and years as enough. That does not stop me from doing more, it just gives me a steady foundation to consider some things gravy and to celebrate them that way.
Had Big Writer taken down her pay wall, would it have been enough? I also think quite a bit about the privilege I walk around with— it feels like big clown shoes and ridiculous shoulder pads that make me leave way too big a footprint and shove others aside. I wonder what the world would be like if we all were aware of our impact when we show up in new spaces and if we adjusted accordingly? What if we all read the room before we walked in it? What if those in the room demonstrated the best of themselves so others entering might learn the norms? What if the extended a little grace to someone trying to figure it all out?
I love learning about this prayer. It reminds me of the Friar Laurence "there art thou happy" speech in Romeo and Juliet. There is something so powerful about listing all the things that are enough, about setting them to a rhythm.
I think I'm in a place where enough feels like abundance. I love your writing and would (of course!) love to see more of it, but you share so much of it in the ways you do that it is (of course!) more than enough already. It feels like abundance of several kinds.
As for BW and what might have been enough...I don't really think it was about the paywall. I think every thinky (and feely) thing I read about it was true. It reminds me of the parable about the blind men and the elephant. I don't think BW is the elephant, though; I think Substack is. She was just riding in on it. I so appreciate all the ways in which you extend grace in all your interactions with other writers.
Well now I have to dust off my Friar Laurence! And thank you- your sense of abundance feels that way to me, too- I didn’t close the knot on that particular thought but of course you did. I so appreciate this space and these gentle souls. And yes- I think you are onto something with that substack elephant. I found the whole conversation exhausting and a little sad so I only read a couple of things.
I feel we are living at a time of the elephant— there is so much at our fingertips and available to us but we are not equipped as a society to digest it yet or fully comprehend it. It is a growing time where we are struggling to figure it out— the biggest group project ever.
I love thinking of this space as a gathering of gentle souls. I never thought of it that way before, but I think everyone who shares their voice here has a gentle soul. And is fierce, too, each in their own way. Thank you for that!
And fully with you on this time and what it's asking of us. So far, we are very much "in progress"!
Hello Emily! I would just like to say how much I appreciate this comment, especially the last paragraph. I used to blog, writing mostly about the environment. Awareness of our impact on the planet was/is something I thought/think about a lot, but of course that extends to our interactions with each other as well. I SO appreciate your "what if" questions!
Reading Rita's note, I came searching for the Haggadah reference, and of course it was you, Emily! I love how you thought of Dayenu and turned it into a reminder that we are enough, just as we are and with what we have.
So much food for thought! I think so many people have become overly protective of their own pies, if I can put it that way. In some ways I get it, but in the grand scheme of today’s world it just seems like another way to fight the same old us-against-them, everyone-for-themselves battles that have brought us to this exact place in history. I try not to spend time envying those who have so much more than I do, partly because I know I also have so much more than so many others. No, I cannot make a living from my writing, which would be a dream. But no one is STOPPING me from writing, either. Except maybe myself?
I love it that you can spend that beautiful time with your parents playing in the dirt. After 12 long years living on the opposite side of the country from my parents, we are just months away from moving closer to them again. I cannot wait to just hang out with them, not just once a year but OFTEN, while we still can! OH and I am also an appreciative tart connoisseur 🥧
I am so happy for you that you are soon going to be closer to parents you want to be close to! I've long wished to be closer to mine, who are 4 hours away by car. Now that my daughter is a 24-hour journey away by plane(s), I feel so grateful I can reach my parents relatively easily. Your comment here helps me see how so many of our thoughts about enough and not enough are never about amounts, not really. There's so much comparison involved, almost always. I used to dream about making a living from writing, too--until I realized how much of that job I would really not like. Especially when my genre was poetry! Only a very, very few could survive on book sales alone, and even they have to do so many things other than write. But the writing--yes, it's available to most of us. I did use to wish I had more time, more ability to focus on it. There were real and immovable limitations to that. (As Marian says above, and I agree with her, most resources are finite.) But I've always had writing in some form. Probably enough, even though there were years I wanted much more. Thanks for a chewy response--I didn't even get to the us vs. them ideas!
So many gems in this piece!! And, just this morning and the past 24 hours I've had to reframe my own abundance mindset about a lot of things. In my first business -- my claim to fame -- I offered a program based on abundance. We had a wonderful exercise in the first week called I can't have _____ but I can have ... I found myself doing that exercise today after years of not doing it. Anyway, thanks for your post. I especially love this: "Choosing to never put my writing behind a paywall is a kind of abundance that’s available to me, in part, because I’ve chosen to live a small life." Because YES. Same. And, that question -- what kind of hard do you want? Love it. Going to share that with my daughters. I wish my mom passed along wisdom to me like this.
This is very much how I've come to think of my own role in the writing world, though it wouldn't have occurred to me to express it in the currently popular abundance discourse (having low tolerance for the sort of pro-corporate liberals pushing that). Very well done.
I went so far as to apply a "copyleft" Creative Commons license to everything I write back in the heady days of Web 2.0, which I've recently been having second thoughts about, given what the LLMs are harvesting under the supposed cover of Fair Use. Now this post has me realize that no, I am on the right course for me, and the LLMs can all go to hell.
Sometimes I worry that the LLMs are going to take us all to hell with them. Other times I think that will be true only if we (each of us, individually) go willingly. I'm trying to make choices that allow me to continue to make choices about the things that matter to me. I hope paper and pen will always be available, if it comes to that. Glad to read that this was helpful in some way. I guess I'm so out of some channels that I didn't realize "abundance" has a popular discourse.
Lots of interesting food for thought in this post, Rita. I believe we all are right where we are meant to be learning the lessons most important for us. And it's natural to peek over the garden wall wondering what someone else's life might be like, but I just wonder, if given the choice knowing all there is to know about that other life, if most of us wouldn't choose to stay right where we are. My money is on the fact that I'd likely never give up my reality, not for dollars or fame or any other tempting reality.
The more I really look at what other lives require, and then look at mine, I'm glad to have the one I have. Aren't we both lucky to feel that we wouldn't give up our reality?
I love the pictures you share of your parents' place. I love that big open garden bed. We gave up our larger plot to focus on our home raised beds this year because we need the freedom to do other things. Next year, I hope I'll have the freedom to have a bigger one again.
The who has enough/what is enough/what is a luxury conversation sure is kind of knotty, isn't it? I used to instinctually bristle when people would tell me that staying home was a luxury because it didn't feel like one, despite knowing there were people who made the same choice who DID feel like it was. I think it's interesting how what feels like luxury can be so different to each of us.
In regards to the Big Writer, I really appreciate your take. I saw so much on it in such a short amount of time that the content felt like churn for the sake of churn so I had to avoid the feed for a few days. The camps felt so divided and unwilling to acknowledge the mess of the issue. I appreciate you being willing to highlight the gray and the imperfection of figuring out how we are going to consume, share, and use resources - many of which are finite - online and in the physical world.
So knotty! I had so many years of struggle when it would have felt/been luxury to stay home. I'm so grateful to be able to do that now--to not need to work for more income now--and yet. Sometimes it doesn't feel like one. It still feels like a lot of hard work. Because it is, and because it's so invisible to everyone, even those who directly benefit from it. It's always both/and, isn't it? (I also avoided the feed for a few days because I got so tired of that churn. Glad it's settled down.)
When time allows, after I read a thoughtful essay like this one, I make a point of reviewing the comments. Here, I want to applaud this continuation of the conversation as much as I want to sing the praises of the original piece. Kate (and Rita), this: "I think it's interesting how what feels like luxury can be so different to each of us." And as you both point out, we could replace the word luxury with abundance, safety, wisdom, success, happiness, comfort, belonging, power.
I wish we were less inclined to blame others for perceived transgressions. I wish we could stop assuming our happiness would improve if someone else did something differently. I'm not sure happiness is that linear or predictable. Of course there are people in places of power who are making terrible decisions, putting most of us at risk of reduced fulfillment. That's worth resisting! But so many of my day to day frustrations have nothing to do with that. If I could focus on what I have instead of on what I don't, I think I could be abundantly more satisfied.
Nice work, Rita!
Rita, I so appreciate what you've written here, the life philosophy you've shared, as I have been grappling very much with the idea of abundance and scarcity over the past few years and the debate around Big Writer kicked up a lot of that dust for me again. I want to feel abundance in a smaller writer's life, a smaller creative life, but another part of me longs for certain markers of success--a published novel, primarily, traditionally published, ideally--and I can't seem to separate that long-held dream and definition of abundance from my ultimate happiness in this life of mine. I want to say it doesn't matter. I have so much to be grateful for, so much abundance in all the areas that matter: two daughters who love me, siblings who love me, many friends and extended family--I've loved deeply and been loved in return. That is the source of all abundance. I know this in my heart. And yet the ego longs for these things, these markers of success. I have found since entering certain communities, like Writing in the Dark, where we are encouraged to play with language, to do exercises, to share our writing in small spurts of inspiration and support others who do the same--it has been surprising to me how satisfying that all is, these small moments of creative abundance. The small moments can add up to a satisfying creative life, I am learning. It may, after all, be enough. There is so much freedom in having faith in whatever abundance we manage to create or attract around us. To consider that small magic the "big magic" of which Elizabeth Gilbert writes. For me, it's a balancing act between what I aspire to be and the nature I have, that I've always had. I am at my core a woman who yearns deeply, who seeks more of what she loves--which is to put my writing out in the world and yes, have it be loved and acknowledged. It would be dishonest of me to say that this doesn't matter to me. But I am coming to understand and accept--without the pangs of disappointment--that the acknowledgement and love does not have to come in the form of thousands of paying subscribers, or a big book contract. Sometimes it can be so simple. Not long ago, a college friend of mine posted on Facebook that her 94 year old mother had died. Since her mother was an avid player of Scrabble, she asked for a word from those who were extending sympathy. I offered "serendipity." That seemed to me a winning word for any Scrabble devotee. But my friend Stacy wrote back in a private message that this word, which she shared with her daughter, who was just then giving birth, two days after her mother's death, was cherished by both of them. "Sometimes," Stacy wrote, "a writer thinks she needs to publish a successful novel when sometimes a single word can make the biggest impact." I was touched and reminded that we often underestimate the impact of our small creative lives, and how simply living from our creative centers is the biggest magic of all.
Oh, Amy! This, this, this: "...we often underestimate the impact of our small creative lives, and how simply living from our creative centers is the biggest magic of all." And this, too: "There is so much freedom in having faith in whatever abundance we manage to create or attract around us." I think it's so normal and natural to want the things you want. Of course part of me would love to have the kind of success that other writers have had, the kind you aspire to, but the longer I live, the more I realize that there are tolls on every road. I think we all want to be good at what we do, and we want to love what we do. For me, the writing and the sharing of the writing are two different things. I love the writing, always have. I need the sharing for the writing to feel meaningful, but I don't love the sharing and I'm not very good at it. It's been a lifelong process to figure out the best balance, ways that both can work for me with the resources I have. I'm still figuring it out! I think the answers keep changing as my life changes. Wishing you all kinds of success, however you come to define it 💚
I acknowledge that what I’m about to say could be rooted in jealousy, but it’s my feeling that when it comes to matters of time, attention, and money, things pretty much are zero-sum. Each of us has only a finite amount of time with which we get to direct our attention, and most of us only a finite amount of money with which we can buy non-essentials. This, to me, is just reality, something that should be common sense, but perhaps success blinds people to that.
I think abundance is another word (like thriving) that I don’t use. Sufficiency, yes. Enough, yes. As for ambition, I did have some, once upon a time. Perhaps one day it’ll return, but for now my life is very small and I think I’m getting to be ok with that.
Whether rooted in jealousy or not, I find a lot of validity in what you say. We do only have so much of time, attention, and money. We do not all have the same 24 hours. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that. I think more of us need to, especially when so many don't have essentials they need.
Maybe I am trying to do some kind of reclaiming or redefining of words like abundance and thriving? I'm certainly not thriving in the ways we typically think of it. (Spent most of today prone, thanks to on-going issues with my brain, a year and a half post-injury.) And my life is small, too. There's not a lot of material abundance. But I have a good amount of the kinds of freedom that matter to me--or, at least, I do in comparison to the past three decades of my life--and so it feels like abundance. I want to recognize it where I have it, in spite of the ways and places in which I still don't. It might be that for so many years I didn't have so much of what I needed that sufficiency feels like abundance now?
Maybe this is all semantics. I hope you have enough of all that you need and want. Getting to OK feels like my version of some kind of paradise, to be honest. I'll wish for that for you and me. For everyone.
"It might be that for so many years I didn't have so much of what I needed that sufficiency feels like abundance now?" This definitely rings true for me, Rita. Starvation turns a slice of bread into a feast, right? I do hope my comment didn't come off as me criticizing your use of the word abundance. My inability/reticence to apply the word when thinking about my life stems from my childhood and really amounts to superstition. As to whether this is all semantics, I don't think it is; I think the way you're choosing to talk about abundance is helpful and nuanced. And, hear, hear on that wish.
No, I did not feel any criticism at all. And even if I did, that would be OK. I appreciate debate that is rooted in thoughtfulness and a desire to deepen understanding, and I know that is always where your writing is coming from. I certainly never think I've got anything all figured out (some of my life story would be testament to the ways in which I have not!), and I'm grateful for those who push my knowledge and understanding forward. You've always been one of those people for me. And if it's not semantics, and some of your feeling stems from a childhood in which there truly was not enough of important things you needed (and I know you, like me, had such a one), then I'm revising my wish. I wish you more than OKness; I wish for you an abundance of peace, or of what soothes you when peace can't be found.
Ah, Rita. Thank you for this. I wish the same for you :)
"Choosing to never put my writing behind a paywall is a kind of abundance that’s available to me, in part, because I’ve chosen to live a small life."
Ditto. I appreciate that some people have to make money off what they write, but I don't so I won't. I'm not around Substack enough to know who the big deal writer was, but if she felt under-appreciated and that bothered her, then sounds like she did the right thing.
As for me? I am a nobody, happily so, thus whenever anyone bothers to read what I write on my personal blog I am content. That's enough abundance for me.
You and me both, Ally. I'd like to make money off what I write, won't lie. But, I'm not sure that I could, and I know I don't want to do the things that making money that way would require. Aren't we lucky that we don't have to I always appreciate what you give away freely.
Thank you for another thoughtful essay, Rita. I just want to say how wonderful it is to see your parents so active and engaged and strong in their 80s. That's a real gift.
I know! I feel so lucky that my parents are doing so well. And lucky that they had me when they were so young, so I've gotten to have so many years with them. Things are changing, so to have a weekend like we just had feels like a huge gift.
Rita, I appreciate your take on abundance and I share your gratitude in having the freedom to choose how to engage on Substack and in life. And, I love tartlets! The crust to filling ratio is much more satisfying than pie in my opinion. ❤️
Here’s to the tartlets!!
Love being a tartlet with you, Emily 💜
Hahaha- me tooooooo❤️
Well, I love a good pie, too! And cake. All the desserts! That's what writing is for me, dessert. And too much dessert is never a good thing. 🙂
All the desserts! Especially homemade chocolate chip cookies for me.
Writing has become my main course!
What food is main course writing? A hearty stew, I hope.
Hmmm, I'm going to say a good pizza – I'm working on the craft of both!
Oh, so much better than stew! I’m trying to learn how to make a good pizza. The real, not metaphorical kind. I would love to know if you have a great recipe for crust.
"0" Flour is the key! And lots of rising time.
Ken Forkish's Overnight Pizza Dough from his Flour Water Salt Yeast book is SO good. (He also has a dedicated pizza book, but I haven't yet checked that one out.)
I've used this recipe with good results: https://www.insidetherustickitchen.com/best-basic-pizza-dough-recipe/
… and your parents found amazing, as does this weekend project! What a gift.
I decided not to start my own Substack because of timing but also because I got honest with myself about how I wanted to spend my time here. I really love being below the water line and swimming in the comments. I love engaging in conversation someone else starts, like this. Maybe I am no a barnacle but for now that is serving me and my energy/ time.
The word I keep coming back to is “ enough.” At the Passover Seder, in the Haggadah (the book that leads a family through the stories of Exodus and other commentary around the importance of that story to the Jewish people, ) there is a prayer featuring the word “ Dayenu.” It means it would have been enough —it is a long list and each line ends in dayenu. Had God done x,y,z, dayenu. In the prayer, God goes beyond what is enough but I am struck by the repetition of it— it drives home that word like a reminder- you are enough, you have enough.
I am learning to embrace the shape of my days and years as enough. That does not stop me from doing more, it just gives me a steady foundation to consider some things gravy and to celebrate them that way.
Had Big Writer taken down her pay wall, would it have been enough? I also think quite a bit about the privilege I walk around with— it feels like big clown shoes and ridiculous shoulder pads that make me leave way too big a footprint and shove others aside. I wonder what the world would be like if we all were aware of our impact when we show up in new spaces and if we adjusted accordingly? What if we all read the room before we walked in it? What if those in the room demonstrated the best of themselves so others entering might learn the norms? What if the extended a little grace to someone trying to figure it all out?
I love learning about this prayer. It reminds me of the Friar Laurence "there art thou happy" speech in Romeo and Juliet. There is something so powerful about listing all the things that are enough, about setting them to a rhythm.
I think I'm in a place where enough feels like abundance. I love your writing and would (of course!) love to see more of it, but you share so much of it in the ways you do that it is (of course!) more than enough already. It feels like abundance of several kinds.
As for BW and what might have been enough...I don't really think it was about the paywall. I think every thinky (and feely) thing I read about it was true. It reminds me of the parable about the blind men and the elephant. I don't think BW is the elephant, though; I think Substack is. She was just riding in on it. I so appreciate all the ways in which you extend grace in all your interactions with other writers.
Well now I have to dust off my Friar Laurence! And thank you- your sense of abundance feels that way to me, too- I didn’t close the knot on that particular thought but of course you did. I so appreciate this space and these gentle souls. And yes- I think you are onto something with that substack elephant. I found the whole conversation exhausting and a little sad so I only read a couple of things.
I feel we are living at a time of the elephant— there is so much at our fingertips and available to us but we are not equipped as a society to digest it yet or fully comprehend it. It is a growing time where we are struggling to figure it out— the biggest group project ever.
I love thinking of this space as a gathering of gentle souls. I never thought of it that way before, but I think everyone who shares their voice here has a gentle soul. And is fierce, too, each in their own way. Thank you for that!
And fully with you on this time and what it's asking of us. So far, we are very much "in progress"!
Hello Emily! I would just like to say how much I appreciate this comment, especially the last paragraph. I used to blog, writing mostly about the environment. Awareness of our impact on the planet was/is something I thought/think about a lot, but of course that extends to our interactions with each other as well. I SO appreciate your "what if" questions!
Thanks so much, Marian. Happy to know you here!
Reading Rita's note, I came searching for the Haggadah reference, and of course it was you, Emily! I love how you thought of Dayenu and turned it into a reminder that we are enough, just as we are and with what we have.
Ha! Thanks, Tracey! That word comes up so much for me year round!
I want to write more in response but for now I will just say I really value your writing.
Also interesting: Janis never knew how successful Bobby McGee was.
I didn't know that! Isn't there a lesson in that for all of us who create?
So much food for thought! I think so many people have become overly protective of their own pies, if I can put it that way. In some ways I get it, but in the grand scheme of today’s world it just seems like another way to fight the same old us-against-them, everyone-for-themselves battles that have brought us to this exact place in history. I try not to spend time envying those who have so much more than I do, partly because I know I also have so much more than so many others. No, I cannot make a living from my writing, which would be a dream. But no one is STOPPING me from writing, either. Except maybe myself?
I love it that you can spend that beautiful time with your parents playing in the dirt. After 12 long years living on the opposite side of the country from my parents, we are just months away from moving closer to them again. I cannot wait to just hang out with them, not just once a year but OFTEN, while we still can! OH and I am also an appreciative tart connoisseur 🥧
Thanks for another really GOOD chewy read, Rita.
I am so happy for you that you are soon going to be closer to parents you want to be close to! I've long wished to be closer to mine, who are 4 hours away by car. Now that my daughter is a 24-hour journey away by plane(s), I feel so grateful I can reach my parents relatively easily. Your comment here helps me see how so many of our thoughts about enough and not enough are never about amounts, not really. There's so much comparison involved, almost always. I used to dream about making a living from writing, too--until I realized how much of that job I would really not like. Especially when my genre was poetry! Only a very, very few could survive on book sales alone, and even they have to do so many things other than write. But the writing--yes, it's available to most of us. I did use to wish I had more time, more ability to focus on it. There were real and immovable limitations to that. (As Marian says above, and I agree with her, most resources are finite.) But I've always had writing in some form. Probably enough, even though there were years I wanted much more. Thanks for a chewy response--I didn't even get to the us vs. them ideas!
So many gems in this piece!! And, just this morning and the past 24 hours I've had to reframe my own abundance mindset about a lot of things. In my first business -- my claim to fame -- I offered a program based on abundance. We had a wonderful exercise in the first week called I can't have _____ but I can have ... I found myself doing that exercise today after years of not doing it. Anyway, thanks for your post. I especially love this: "Choosing to never put my writing behind a paywall is a kind of abundance that’s available to me, in part, because I’ve chosen to live a small life." Because YES. Same. And, that question -- what kind of hard do you want? Love it. Going to share that with my daughters. I wish my mom passed along wisdom to me like this.
What a great exercise! Thanks so much for sharing that here. And that question has helped me through many challenging moments. Glad to pass it on!
This is very much how I've come to think of my own role in the writing world, though it wouldn't have occurred to me to express it in the currently popular abundance discourse (having low tolerance for the sort of pro-corporate liberals pushing that). Very well done.
I went so far as to apply a "copyleft" Creative Commons license to everything I write back in the heady days of Web 2.0, which I've recently been having second thoughts about, given what the LLMs are harvesting under the supposed cover of Fair Use. Now this post has me realize that no, I am on the right course for me, and the LLMs can all go to hell.
Sometimes I worry that the LLMs are going to take us all to hell with them. Other times I think that will be true only if we (each of us, individually) go willingly. I'm trying to make choices that allow me to continue to make choices about the things that matter to me. I hope paper and pen will always be available, if it comes to that. Glad to read that this was helpful in some way. I guess I'm so out of some channels that I didn't realize "abundance" has a popular discourse.
Lots of interesting food for thought in this post, Rita. I believe we all are right where we are meant to be learning the lessons most important for us. And it's natural to peek over the garden wall wondering what someone else's life might be like, but I just wonder, if given the choice knowing all there is to know about that other life, if most of us wouldn't choose to stay right where we are. My money is on the fact that I'd likely never give up my reality, not for dollars or fame or any other tempting reality.
The more I really look at what other lives require, and then look at mine, I'm glad to have the one I have. Aren't we both lucky to feel that we wouldn't give up our reality?
Absolutely, Rita.
One more reader likes these words you’ve laid down. No paywall for me, either.
It is always, always a gift when a reader tells you that. Thank you!