Do you ever get going so fast that you realize…you’ve lost yourself?
Misplaced a bit of who you are the way you’d misplace your car keys, or that darned paper you were meant to fill out for your children who may or may not attend their next activity or school depending on a chaotic branching pattern of possibilities.
Also possibly on your busy and tangled mind…
What country should you be living in? Should you return home…or a place that feels more like home than home?
Family near…and far that you haven’t seen in a while--or who is harder to see than before.
Your career—which is is shifting underfoot--and you’re wondering what you even want it to look like these days…
Changes within the culture(s) you know—it’s all looking just a bit different now. And you’ve always had your foot in more than one culture to begin with.
And in all this, life goes on!
Only now you’ve forgotten yourself like you forgot that appointment…
Where did you go? What were you doing just now--and why?
You could have sworn you put that important part of you someplace for safekeeping--so you would be able to find it!
2022 has come in so fast…and here we are talking about the new normal.
I want to make the gentle suggestion that we make this new normal work for us too.
And so my invitation--to you, to myself and all the creatives, multilingual, and dreamers around here is this:
Make time in your day-to-day to ‘stop time’ and remember who you are. Why you do things. Why it all matters.
And, fellow Vagabonds, maybe for you that means
stopping time by picking up a great book.
traveling along with characters who know what it’s like to navigate more than one culture, and plenty of strange times
taking a few gentle steps from reading…to writing to get a grasp on all that becoming, evolving, shape-shifting and changing…to heal from it in a way, and to get ready for more.
It never ceases to amaze me how healing reading time can be--and writing time.
Especially when life is fast and unrelenting.
I bet you haven’t missed the fact that we live in times that require a great amount of flexibility. This ability to invent and reinvent ourselves, to come up with new and novel reactions to an ever-shifting landscape.
It’s at the root of our resilience--and so it’s also the root of our creativity.
Do you know what else changes the way I see things…keeps me reading and writing, what keeps me flexible, creative…sane?
Reading and writing alongside others. Because it keeps you going. Because it helps you make sense of the world--and therefore--yourself.
I’m thinking of that fascinating conversation we’re having in our Vagabond Voices creative community.
The one that got us thinking about why the different cultures we’re from, or live in have superstitions, how we think of good luck or bad. How people of different cultures bond with each other--or not--through shared experiences, sometimes hardship. That conversation, with people I love to create alongside, changed me. It changed the way I see my own life.
Not because the people who had something to share are from where I’m from…or live where I live. But because they know what it’s like to be from an of many different places--to have more than one point of view. To ask similar questions.
And so, let me ask you:
Who are you in these times--in any times?
And…in case you’re thinking of asking yourself some interesting questions--or just traveling the world in a book and finding yourself again…
Here are our Vagabond Books through June of 2022…
They will remind you who you truly are--right in these busy and strange times.
There is no better way to find yourself than by exploring the world…So here are the books we’ve chosen this time:
February 15th: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
March: Woman at 1,000 Degrees by Hallgrímur Helgason
April: Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
May: The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas
June: Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
If you’d like to read along? Be sure to sign up for the newsletter so you can join us for one of our books chats.
And if you’re thinking that now is the time to wander from reading…into writing. Well, join us for the next step of your adventure.
Ways to wander from reading to writing…
If you’re reading this, then there’s a chance you already know how to do this… and why it’s so important to you. You just need the tiniest invitation…or the knowledge that others are also making the journey. And there you are, your feet covering new ground, your mind opening, the words flowing.
If you’re not sure how to make the first step--or you have been feeling stuck lately here is an invitation to travel:
Start with writing for yourself--I’m convinced after years of writing alongside others and running writing workshops: when you start with what’s on your mind first, all that stuff you’ve been ignoring and neglecting, the writing begins to flow again. This first step we all have to take of making sense of our lives and ourselves first is not just essential for living. It makes your writing wiser, more inspired too. (But you don’t even have to worry about that…just write about your own life first).
Use your reading to guide you…yes, to guide you to writing about your own life. Because, ultimately, the stories we read are about us too.
In our Tip of the Iceberg Writing Community this month, one of our invitations is to take inspiration from the Icelandic novel Woman at 1000 Degrees. This is a novel that starts with an incredible character--near the end of her life. And then looks back over the moments she’s lived through.
What if you spent a little time looking back, taking stock of things you’ve lived through in your lifetime?
You might discover that you’re pretty incredible as well.
And that, while life may have been messy for you at times, well, you have a lot of grit--and creativity.
Ready to take a world tour with books, wander into writing and find yourself?
If you’d like to get more detailed writing prompts, invitations to free live writing events and book chats, and short and sweet email course that may entice you to take a small step towards writing for yourself, be sure to join the newsletter.