Creature Comforts N°11
Your weekly newsletter coming in to slay the Sunday Scaries! Let us replenish and reset ourselves for the week ahead—from the Secret Librairienne.
Happy Sunday, dearest Creature!
This week is infused with a little extra glob of ooey gooey happiness. Why, you ask? Two reasons, mainly:
Many folks have the day off of work this Monday, April 1, on account of Easter hols. As a result, the Sunday Scaries vaporize into a lavender plume of magic fairy dust and POOF! Disappear. We’ll be taking this into account today, of course, so read on.
Secret Librairie is up to 86 free subscribers, so so close to the big 1-0-0! I can see the milestone peering around the corner at us with a glittering smile. I want to thank you so much for being here, for giving me a chance, and for taking an interest in the potential magic of reading someone else’s creative writing. You know what’s way cooler than being an indie writer? Being someone who reads indie writing :-)
Life Requirements
Monday bank holidays remind me of the paradox of time.1 It’s not the Sundays themselves that are laced with doom—it’s Sunday’s usual proximity to returning to “work” and, therefore, time spent away from creative freedom. Luckily for many, not everyone needs the expansive feeling of true creative freedom. Unluckily for me, however, I value it, crave it, and as I get older, might even require it. Slowly, I’m beginning to collect my essential requirements for a fulfilling life. These “requirements” are radically different for everyone.
Joan Didion required an hour alone before dinner each evening.
Have you ever considered that everyone has their own unique requirements for life? Some people require exercise before heading out to the office every morning. Others require constant calling and texting with friends and family.
Other Peoples’ Life Requirements
Louise Bourgeois required a cup of tea every morning, “with some jelly straight out of the jar.”2 At one time, Beyonce required lemon wedges, white towels, and candles in her strictly 78°F dressing room. Julia Cameron required freewriting three pages in her notebook each morning. André Leon Talley required size 13 Manolo Blahnik snakeskin evening slippers trimmed with crimson satin ribbon. Joan Didion required an hour alone before dinner every night. For more than a decade, Andy Warhol required a 9:00 AM phone call with his friend Pat Hackett to dictate the previous day’s events. In 1989, two years after Warhol’s passing, Hackett published these dictations as The Andy Warhol Diaries.3 More on those diaries later!
Learning Our Own Requirements
To know what one requires takes time, confidence, strength, and a great deal of self-discovery. I’ll be the first to admit that I had no flipping clue what I required from life throughout the entire decade of my 20s. I flopped around like a lunatic in search of guidance and answers but eventually found that this kind of self-knowledge was not the kind that required hunting. Instead, it was the kind of information that comes with quiet observation.
Regular solitude,
journaling,
books,
visits to the ocean,
candles,
creative expression,
and clothing.
Lots of clothing.
In my 20s, I thrashed around like a fish out of water. Doesn’t everybody? I created chaotic conditions for myself, complicating even the simplest of times. Don’t get me wrong! I lived the hell out of my 20s! I was the first person in my family to get a bachelor’s degree, then sold everything I owned to move to France. I fell in love. I skinny-dipped in rivers and cold-plunged in ponds, pierced my septum, traveled the world alone and with strangers and with loved ones and alone again. I filled notebooks upon notebooks writing, finding myself, cosplaying Hunter S. Thompson, Gertrude Stein, and Bukowski all mashed into one demented 20-something aupair with a baby bangs and big dreams. At times, my inner dialogue would’ve had even Sylvia Plath quaking in her black patent leather shoes. Through thickets of struggle and failure, I learned that my nonnegotiables included regular solitude, journaling, books, visits to the ocean, candles, creative expression, and clothing. Lots of clothing.
Owning Your Requirements
Eventually, I came to do less of what made me feel like shit and more of what made me feel alive, noting these ideas down to remember in the future. These notes were the foundations for my requirements, and they’re still in development. In the past six months, I’ve only just now acknowledged to myself that publishing my writing might be a requirement. Could it be? Solitude is one of my requirements for feeling centered, strong, and grounded. Supporting myself financially through writing is one of my aspirational requirements. What, dear Creature, are your requirements in this one wild and wonderful life?
On this week’s menu
Brainstorm your requirements for life. I prefer jotting these down in a notebook. If you’re more digitally inclined, create a new note in your Notes app.
Do you have any obvious requirements? If not, that’s okay. Perhaps you’ve never considered this, and it will take a couple of months or even years to unearth. That’s perfectly fine. Wonderful even! What an exciting journey of selfhood you have ahead! Just keep them in mind.
What can you absolutely never live without? Sure, it could be as basic as clean drinking water. It could also be something like going on a yearly camping trip, going home for the holidays, eating pie on your birthday (I’m serious!), or reading books.
Name some things you wish were your requirements. These are things you know you’ll survive without, but you do have a yearning for them to be a given in your life. Perhaps it’s taking summers off, or living in a specific city, or simply partaking religiously in 20 minutes of writing every morning. Attending the Venice Biennale? A new wardrobe item each season? A monthly body massage? A sit-down family dinner? Regardless of whether or not you ever adopt any of these “requirements”, our aspirations are super valuable information for self-discovery.
If this is difficult for you, try to think of someone who you feel jealous of. What do they have that you wish you had? Could that be a requirement you wish you had? Perhaps! Write it down.
Hold on to these life requirements! We’re going to return to them next week and do something fun. Till then <3 Thank you for being here!!!
Secret Share Challenge! I’m working to get Secret Librairie up to 100 subscribers in April! But I need your help. Please (please, please) pick one of the following:
Forward this email to 2-3 people
Mention it in a link on Reddit
Instagram a screenshot
Use this Share Challenge as an excuse to text someone out of the blue.
A sample text:
Yo! I’m a part of this new little group that offers weekly creative ways to mix up the norm. This week, we’re challenged to send a friend this link, so I chose you :-) Lmk what you think.. secretlibrairie.substack.com
LAST THING: Share one of your life requirements in the comments, OR hide your list somewhere in your house and comment a location clue to remind yourself. Next week, you can come back to find them for part two of our exercise!
XX—CZ
Secret Librairie is a digital space that provides experimental resources to anyone looking to replenish their creativity. Using the journal as our vessel, we explore topics of creative expansion and self-discovery. Whether you’re a writer, artist, designer, student, or creator, the Librairie is your oyster. Dive in!
Explore more!
Diaries • A Meticulously Curated (New) Archive of (Old) Journal Entries
Let’s expand our perspective of what diaries are! Peer into a wide variety of published diaries, including excerpts from the journals of philosophers, artists, explorers, literary darlings, and even a random girl from San Diego.
Journaling • Your Twice Monthly Dose of Inspiration
I’m not kidding when I say journaling can change your life. Enhance your practice with these simple strategies, insights, prompts, and exercises—all of which make journaling easier and more fun.
Creature Comforts • The Weekly Newsletter
Fend off the Sunday Scaries with this relaxing little (sporadic) weekly newsletter. Includes a fun little self-care menu to replenish and reset yourself for the week ahead.
Launching April 1, 2024
On Big Dreams • A Paid Monthly Digest
I believe in following your dreams, and to do that, you need inspiration, direction, and a supportive community. So, I’m launching a new monthly digest specifically designed to stimulate big dreams, and following yours. Together, I know we can do huge things.
The Paradox of Time is an interesting psychology book to discuss further, but I wondered if it would be too much for Creature Comforts. Should I have included it? The deeper, the better? Or keep it light for Sundays? I would love to hear your opinion on this. Comment below or message me!
My very top life requirement doesn't even require a though; it shouts itself from my soul. I require at least one dog to share my life with at all times. Life without a dog is unbearable.
Further inspection has revealed that I also require smooth paper and bold pens. Anything less traps all the words in my head.
Having people in my life who appreciate sarcasm and speak it fluently finishes off my top 3 Life Requirements.
I'll send this over to Notes. It's my only social media platform. The rest are poop.