I am feeling an enormous amount of gratitude today as I reflect on the uptick in subscriptions here at
. These past couple of weeks brought some new readers to my work and I am truly moved that people allow my work to land in their inbox. I do not take that lightly. I understand how FULL our inboxes can get and your willingness to plop me in there regularly means a lot.A huge, heartfelt extra dose of THANK YOU to
and and andfor upgrading to paid subscriptions this week. I came to this space not knowing if I would ever have the courage to turn that pay option on and the fact that you are willing to invest in my words, it means the world to me. I will continue to post my weekly newsletter to all subscribers on Fridays, and I have some plans in the works for how I will use the paid subscriber space. I’m thinking of diving deeper into whatever the “theme” of the newsletter is there with a take on some poetic prose. I’ll drop a piece to paid Subscribers on Wednesdays (first one went out this week). It’s a space where I’ll bring more vulnerable pieces of myself, ideas that aren’t fully formed yet and bounce them off others in a more intimate setting. I’m excited to see where it goes and would love to have you join in.
THANK YOU for recommending Dare to Be Dry to your readers. I love being in community with you and I find such inspiration from
Now to this week’s newsletter - rolling my sleeves up for some DESIRE.
In going back to My Alphabet Atlas1 the word I picked to write about this week is desire. And wouldn’t you know it, as I was gathering my thoughts about how I want to write through the idea of desire, I received the latest helping from
’s Story Challenge offered in her Writing in the Dark subscription. The part of her offering this week that stood out to me the most (and slowed down my breathing and frenetic thoughts) was,We could speak all day and night about desire, because most of us have gone to—go to—such great lengths to protect ourselves from the fullness of its sensation (and are so good at deceiving ourselves about the nature of our truest desires). This distancing and deceit impedes our art, without question. In art, the closer we get to ourselves, the better. In art, the more we feel, the better. In art, the truth of our desires is our guiding star.
Yes, yes and yes. I read this at the exact time I needed to. This seems to happen to me lately - the universe places my eyes on the exact thing that will expand my heart. The truth of our desires is our guiding star.
My response that I posted to the Week Five write your desire prompt:
I want time to stop bossing me around. I want empty hours in my day with a side of inbox zero. I want one more day with my dad. I want one more day with my dad as a young girl and the jukebox by our side. I want to redo the time spent at his bedside vigil and say all the things that were stuck in my throat. I want my mom to stop aging. I want my face to stop reminding me of my age. I want my teenage son to look up from his phone. I want my son to know how fast aging goes. How quickly parents fade. I want to go back to the days none of us had phones. I want to dial in to clouds, stars and drifting thoughts. I want there to be the right time to let all the tears fall without wiping them away. I want time to dream. I want time to cascade slowly like the falling tide. I want to lust for lust again. I want my marriage to feel youthful again. I want time for time to heal.
Time. That is what is at the top of my list of wants. I want more time. Over the recent break between Christmas and New Years, my husband and I both came down with Covid. Somehow our kids escaped it. The week with no school, both kids home the whole time and we get sick (figures). We had to take precautions to distance ourselves, wear masks in the home and not hug our kids. Only three years post-pandemic and I already slipped back into taking those hugs for granted. New Years Eve, the ball dropped, and I couldn’t hug my 10-year-old who was so excited to see midnight. Once I was in the clear, my daughter slipped back into my arms so fast it made my heart skip a beat. I held her for as long as she needed. I was not going to be the one to break up the hug. Afterwards, I grew disappointed in myself for forgetting so easily how lucky we are to embrace one another and for forgetting so easily how so recent it was that we couldn’t do that with loved ones.
In response to my post, Jeannine pointed me towards a poem I had never read titled A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux.
1946 –2017
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
Time. It slips away from us and how easily we forget that it can.
All of the talk about desire and thoughts of time passing makes me think about how at the start of the year we are inundated with voices declaring resolutions, intentions, goals. All the wants for the year. I have zero judgment with these declarations. I love a bright, shiny new year and a fresh start as much as the next girl. I’m just here today wondering - what if I (you/we) approach it differently this year? What if I practice listening to the wants right in front of me today? Or just this month. Or this season? What if we collectively dig even deeper than the typical goals that pop up around fitness, diet, finances and productivity. What if we slow ourselves down enough to listen to our true wants? The ones that we distract ourselves from following. The ones we distract ourselves from even feeling because of all the doing we do.
What if changing the way I show up to my desire shifts things so that my wanting turns into having?
Midway through 2023 I read a book titled, What You Want Wants You by Suzanne Eder. I heard of it by way of Martha Beck’s book, The Way of Integrity. You can find more on the book here. My thoughts keep returning to this idea, over and over. What you want wants you. I actually put that down as part of my “About” page here on Substack. “Slowing down with intention, honoring what I want, recognizing maybe it wants me.” I play with this over and over again.
When I listen internally, my voice beckons me to slow down. I’m in a stage of my life where in order to maximize myself I need to minimize everything else.
So I am going to expand more on the prompt
planted. Because I want my wants to grow.I want to believe the saying, wasting time is not time wasted. I want to recycle all the energy I ever gave alcohol and pour it into my kids’ hearts. I want my kids to know nothing can reduce my love for them. I want to convert my words into motion because passion is a product of action. I want fear to stop being the protagonist of my brain’s stories. I want my brain to stop narrating. I want my body to grab the microphone and speak up. I want to unwrap myself from expectations. The self-inflicted ones. The expectation that I can master time, the day in front of me. I want to drop the compulsion to hack and stack my day, trying to get it all done. I want to drop things. I want to leave things incomplete. And not have resulting angst when I do. I want time to afford extras. Extra emptiness, extra allowance to just be, extra spontaneity. I want time to return to me. I want ROI on my time spent. I want to breath more and deeper. I want deeper thoughts and less productivity. I want input, not output. I want to pour into me more, less into others. I want my imperfections to create connections.
I don’t believe I am alone. I don’t think my wants are unique.
Thank you for being here. I want you to know I so appreciate you. I would love for you to comment below with your wants. What are you hoping for this year? This season? This weekend?
If something spoke to you here, would you consider sharing it or passing it on? This weekly letter is my new labor of love. Your word of recommendation helps grow my reader community and helps expand my heart.
If you enjoyed reading this piece, please do send me some hearts,
comment,
or restack
xoxoxo
~Allison
Suzanne Eder’s book is on my to be read list, and I’m in the middle of The Way of Integrity. This post resonates deeply. ♥️
I love that you referenced these two books Allison! Beck's book is one of my all time favorites. When I read Eder's book I was deeply moved by her point that if we have a desire it is because the Universe is holding this thing for us, otherwise we wouldn't even be noticing that thing. I hadn't thought of it in that context before and have paid attention since and taken care to nurture and nourish what shows up for me.
Thanks for this great essay💕