Falling in Love with Fall: Reflections on Growth in this Quiet Season
Changing as a writer, changing as a person
Photo by rikka ameboshi
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Merry Sunday, dearest readers.
I’ve struggled with what to write to you today - shall I write about a list of “fall” themed things I love like the season of autumn, waterfalls, falling in love, and so on? Or about my delight in the simple flower of chrysanthemums? (ours may be suffering a bit from summer’s refusal to go away).
While I like fellow Substacker
keep a list of ideas(not what she has christened hers - you’ll have to read her latest post about her creative process) on what to write, I often sit down in front of my computer and find that what I thought I might write about does not feel inspiring at all.The wellspring of creativity is simply not bubbling.
Reflecting on Writing Growth: Still Adult-ish?
On days like these, I often look back at what I’ve written, poring through almost 1000 posts between Substack and Medium combined over the last 2 years, thinking that there will surely be something in here to delight my readers.
What I’ve found recently is that my writing has matured. The young woman who started this newsletter and who started blogging in 2021 is no longer the writer for the audience I’m trying to reach. She wrote to find the answers, and in some cases, to give her readers an answer promised.
What do I do with this grief? How do I find a job that fulfills me? How can I make the world make sense when everything I thought would happen has not happened? How do I understand the world of dating, which is consistently sending me the message that I am not enough, a message I’ve worked so hard to unlearn? How do I tell people to give a damn? How do I tell people how to give a damn?
These were the questions I sought to answer through my writing, and instead of living the questions and letting my stories flow through me, I tried to control the narrative of my life by writing it all down and rearranging the pieces into something that would make sense to me.
That’s okay. I’m not mad at past me for missing incredible opportunities to document the time she dated a guy who was likely guilty of tax evasion and invested way too much in cryptocurrency or anything akin to that.
I simply think it’s worthy of recognition that I’m not that writer anymore. I haven’t been for a while, and maybe she visits from time to time, trying to figure out what on Earth is happening, and I welcome her.
So what writer am I?
It’s not like all of those untold stories got lost in the mail. They live in me, and new ones are made every day. Rilke encourages us to live the questions until we are ready to receive the answers and I hope that I will live my life until I’m ready to write it all down.
I’m still Adult-ish. I’ve thought about this for the past few months, as my business has been growing and I’ve become less “ish” and more “adult”. Will the newsletter still function as Adult-ish when I’m a full-fledged adult? I think the answer is yes, always yes.
I write my stories, and I write opinions and dialogue on our shared communal struggles in the hopes that my inner work will be helpful in my outer sharing and help light the way forward for our society, our communities, and our collectives. I think we’re all in the process of becoming the archetypal adult until we die - the one who has it figured all out because that’s the big secret of adulthood. Figuring it all out is simply an act.
This newsletter and my writing will continue to function as a way to highlight how on Earth to come of age in this society and time but also focus on being together in our unknowing and remaining hopeful anyway.
A friend shared this Ann Lamott quote recently about hope, and I love it: “Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
It feels right to reflect on what fall/autumn brings for me this year. Last year’s reflection was slightly work-centered and less me-centered. I’m trying to grow, friends(although work is unfolding joyfully!) and to remember that nothing is more important than love, so here are this year’s. I hope you’ll share yours or journal about them!
This Fall - Intentions + Releasing
May I open to suffering
Love others with spacious compassion the way I love myself
Remember the most important things
Rest and rest and rest
Stay curious
Be okay with hobby graveyards1
Find the miracles in every moment
see God at the birdfeeder
in my coffee mug
in the trash
in chores in stillness
May I allow
May I look for growth in the stillness
light in the darkness
and plant seeds of joy
Fall Treasures
From my garden to yours, here’s a picture of my favorite fall plant, chrysanthemums(this is ours, and maybe we can have it come back next year!):
And a work-in-progress chrysanthemum painting:
It’s actually sideways here, so just tilt your head to the right :) and then imagine it less square to get an idea of the final product :p
Off to go apple picking! (literally)
xx
Camille
Hobby graveyard - a term in the ADHD community for the piles of hobby supplies sitting around your house for the times you animatedly decided to take up knitting, crafting, pastels, gardening, or model airplanes, and abandoned the pursuit a week later in spite of having everything you needed to be an expert in your new hobby. One day with lots of time and attention(ick).
Exactly the post I needed to read today - thanks, Camille - and thank you too for linking to me!
I'm astonished at the definition of 'hobby graveyard'. That's ME - totally, utterly me! I throw myself into my next new thing at the drop of a hat and then wonder why I have piles of both stuff and resentment in every corner. I had no idea that it was an ADHD term - that's so interesting. 🤔
These words have given me goosepimples: "What I’ve found recently is that my writing has matured. The young woman who started this newsletter and who started blogging in 2021 is no longer the writer for the audience I’m trying to reach. She wrote to find the answers, and in some cases, to give her readers an answer promised." YES!
Camille, this is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I love that writing - your writing, our writing - is an exploratory process. We put out feelers with words, and see what feedback we get when they touch the world around us, harnessing the results in whatever we're writing. Awesome stuff.
When we lose the inner child and the willingness the play, I guess then we can say we’re “adult” but what a sad existence that is. And anyone who says they’re “adult” are boring or lying. Keep evolving, but never get there 💜