the very worst
So.
I am truly, without a doubt, the Very Worst Self-Marketer.
Why?
Because my latest book has been out for weeks and I haven’t said anything.
Prolly ’cause depression & anxiety have been getting the best of me. I haven’t been tending to The Babadook as I should.
(ICYMI, “Babadook” is the name of my mental illness, which worsens when I don’t set it a place at my table.)
Can’t celebrate a book when the ooze and goo are cementing you to the pavement.
October is usually my worst month, even though autumn is my favorite season.
I just don’t get to enjoy it until Halloween arrives. Going into the darkness the eerie the creepy the weird (the evil) the ludicrous always pushes me through to the cozy waiting on the other side.
On the other side, that good feeling never lasts…but I no longer expect it to. I nestle into the cozy and prepare as best I can to go dormant.
Y’know, like every creature in the northern hemisphere other than the modern human.
This is the season in which living counter to capitalism is most vital.
Like the trees, the squirrels, the bees, and the snails, at this time of year we’re meant to slow down, stay safe, preserve energy and sustenance. This year-round go-go-go rise-and-grind hustle culture is antithetical to how we’re put together.
I practice living intentionally counter to that. *Practice*. Because I’m not there yet. I never will be. But practice makes progress.
In which progress means doing less. Doing smaller….
In the practice of going dormant along with nature (because there is no objective difference between nature and human; we are a part of her; we are her), progress means *not* the more of what our capitalist world violates us with.
Progress = less.
So I get through October, descending into darkness. Despairing, almost. But the only way out is through. And Halloween has come to mean THRESHOLD to me.
The threshold is an invisible barrier thick as gelatin. Pushing through means pain and tired and tears and miserable and ache and loss and grief. But I push through, and I get out my wild costumes and my glittery makeup and my ridiculous high heels, and I dance my way through ghouls and goblins and spooky scary skeletons, and I come out on the other side ready to shed what does not serve me in this season.
I nestle into cozy, and I remind myself every day to quit the frenetic pace, to quit the activity, to quit. And rest. And re-create what does serve my being a human in this universe.
What *does* serve?
-settling into my senses: in this moment, what do I touch? what do I hear? see? taste? smell?
-breathing: a daily practice of i n h a l i n g as slowly as I can — h o l d i n g — e x h a l i n g as slowly as I can, repeating until my nervous system calms
-water
-sleep
-sunshine when I can get it
-reading
-listening
-kindness to myself and my self, to others and their selves
-boundaries: when rest is on the schedule, I won’t allow myself or others to fill that slot with anything else
-returning again & again (because I am highly distractible) to the *practice* of intentionality, of clarity, of gentle planning, of soothing words to my self when the plans change perforce or go awry
-attending to the trees as they lose their leaves and seem to die, as they look stark and bleak as though joy and vivacity will never return — and reminding myself that depression is a lying bastard — and sinking calmly into the warmth of my surroundings and *waiting* because it is okay to do so
-reminding myself to accept that I am accepted
-allowing myself to smile and even laugh, and saying to myself, ‘of course, of course,’ when things do not go as I wish them to (because they won’t)
-and all shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
XOXO