I Substack, Therefore I Am

I am doing this because I am scared to do it.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been wondering where?

Where do I belong? Where can I feel safe? Where will I finally feel free?

Of course there is no place out there that can override how I feel here, inside me. And there’s the catch, you can search and search and search. You can wander all over the globe (and I have). You can journey near and far and you will always only be traveling either closer to or further from yourself. The location doesn’t matter nearly as much as how willing you are to inhabit your own skin.

In exploring this question of where, I often wonder about the spaces I can inhabit or create for more connection and care. I have been considering the idea of starting a Substack for some time now as a direct response to this gnawing hunger for a platform that isn’t just about selling me something I didn’t even think to need until it kept showing up in my feed. I’ve been craving a community that feels less like a sad mall and more like Instagram did a decade ago. A place to feel better, not worse, about being here on this miraculous planet. A place for remembering the beauty of being human.

Of course it’s not lost on me that this space is also offering something for sale (my heart and soul taking shape in the form of words strung together on the page). But my hope is that it feels less like buying something you don’t need and more like supporting something that provides some sense of comfort and belonging. This is what I’m reaching towards every time I write.

Beyond exploring the question of the digital where, I have been experiencing an acute ache for a physical space we humans lovingly call home. A shelter. A sanctuary. A home for the home of my body. For the past several years I have been in the practice of making myself at home without a more traditional one. I have slept in vehicles and on other people’s floors and couches. I have paid to pretend someone’s house was my own for a month or two. I have slept in the guest bedroom of my younger, yet more responsible brother. I have dabbled in luxury and weathered its absence. I have questioned my standards of comfort. I have challenged the notion of comfort altogether.

And yet the undeniable fact persists, I long for the warm embrace of my own space. My clothes freed from their wrinkles hanging in a closet. My books out of their boxes and organized by color on the shelf. My kitchen stocked with the food that makes my stomach sing its most satisfied song. These are the fantasies that form when your beloved belongings are all stacked in the back of a 2003 Honda Odyssey and you’re on mile one million and some of going somewhere…

Somewhere, USA

Seven years ago I put everything in storage and set out to try and solve the riddle of how to remain free in an increasingly expensive world. I used to feel I had the whimsical ability to manage a fine French linens lifestyle on a French fry budget.

But it seems the world has changed. Or my wand is rusty?

Now I scour the internet searching for the coordinates to map this quest. And I check my bank account. And I swirl my wand. And nothing is happening at a speed that feels like magic. And I wait. I take long baths in this home I am pretending is my own but am quite honestly relieved is not. It is worn in that way that makes me feel tired. Its carpet is stained in that way that makes me feel ashamed. Its mismatched furnishings and generic box store art make me question the meaning of life too deeply. No amount of decorative pillows are going to fill this hollow space.

We keep trying to fill the void, but the void is what fills us if only we remain willing to stay open.

I am living in this stranger’s house for one more week. One more week with this ridiculous staircase I traverse each night when I wake to pee. It’s hilariously treacherous! Its proportions are all wrong! Constructed by someone with seemingly little understanding of physics or the average length of the adult human foot. I perch precariously on each step, teetering and half asleep. Gripping the rails of differing heights like they are actual life lines. I want to make it through another night. I won’t let this silly staircase take that away from me.

I want to wake and see what the morning feels like. What the day has in store. I want to show up and be surprised by life.

Not knowing what’s next is not a death sentence, it’s simply an honest life. We don’t know, ever. No amount of organizing our closets will prevent our death. Your to-do list will not reveal the exact measurement of time you have left to love this life of yours you’ve been lucky enough to live.

And that’s where I’m at. Feverishly typing this out in a cafe hoping to remember my own great fortune. And so, for this moment, high on just the right amount of caffeine, I feel my aliveness hovering in the sacred space of feeling fine with not knowing. In this moment (all we truly have) I am perfectly tended to. I am held. The seat under my butt is unwavering. The fingers that type out these words are faithful to my cause. Later today I will forget all of this for the umpteenth time and I’ll cling to my laptop like a rubik’s cube that I just need spend enough time with to solve the riddle of life.

Bless the moments when I simply live my life. Nothing to solve. Learning to love the mystery as a force not meant to be puzzled out. The mystery is a place to worship all that is yet to be understood with our minds but is known with our hearts. My mind doesn’t even understand what I just wrote. One of my favorite things about writing—letting an invisible force take the reins. The keyboard becoming a Ouija board I follow while the part of me that isn’t limited by logic tells my fingers what to do. I write to find out who I am beyond all the thinking I know who I am.

And I suppose this is why I have become one more person with a Substack. I offer subscription based online content therefor I exist. Maybe if enough people read these words I will validate my existence, and pay rent. I keep trying to be someone who transcends the limits of business as usual. But I’m also someone who would like to have a key that unlocks a door to a place I get to call home.

How do I honor my spirit and feed my body? How do I pay bills while knowing I’m just vibrating light? How do I transcend time and space while clinging desperately to the structures of time and space? The questions we must ask while we’re here. I remain committed to bizness as unusual. I want to be a living example of surviving what requires my survival while also transcending the stifling strictures that attempt to limit my endlessly expansive truth.

Self-help me.

I want to be a dance, both silly and seductive. I want to make you laugh and cry until you can’t tell the difference. I want us to fart in our sweatpants while marveling at our grace. I’ll take pictures of you to show you just how lovely you are. As you are. Not as you wish you could be, though that is there too. Our longing informs our beauty in the ways it lines our faces and exposes our uncertainty.

I want this to be a place that reminds us we are beautiful. I believe I could exist off beauty if forced to. Though I would miss food and water, but just because they are two of my favorite forms of beauty.

Here’s the truth about how I feel about starting a Substack:

• I am scared of the commitment of it.

• I am scared I will feel emprisoned by this promise of regularly delivered musings.

• I am scared that I will be unable to deliver on the promise.

• I am scared the muse won’t be interested in a set schedule.

• I am scared I will enter into an exchange of expectation and disappointment.

• I am scared an angry mob will hunt me down and burn me.

• I am doing this because I am scared to do it.

And on that note, I begin. A song I will keep singing until I become stardust again. And then I will sing the song stars sing.

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