Hi friends.
Years and years ago, my watch broke. It was a good watch, incidentally the first big purchase I ever made with my own money, at 15 or 16. That it didn’t truly give out till I was 40 or so is a testament to that. But also, to time. Because fixing this watch via the manufacturer cost more than I had initially paid for it in the mid-90s. And that seemed wrong to me, or made me I should say, reconsider whether I was still the person who would buy this watch today. Would I spend, again? Money that was now a lot more abundant to me as an adult but still was not an everyday amount (don’t we all have these slightly bizarre internal measures of financial limits that aren’t exactly rational? I think mine is defined by what I’d spend treating myself to a decent lunch out, which is roughly equivalent to a hardcover book. Small luxuries). I decided, no, and bought a different watch, for less than the cost of repair. I don’t like this watch. I bought a cheaper watch, a really cheap one. I don’t like this watch, either. I mean, it’s fine it was approximately 17 dollars. On a whim, my husband brought the old watch to a guy in Flatiron and he fixed it for $40, a number above my tiny luxury indulgence amount but far below what the original repair cost was. Et voila, a watch, again. Not quite me, but not not me.
I like not looking at my phone for the time. I like being able to wash my hands in this watch, impossible with the second watch, which had a leather band. I had decided, briefly, that I was a leather band person, apparently? I am not. I want to be a leather band person.
In full disclosure the old/new watch isn’t perfect, of course. I now need length added on (have the years of yoga, which coincide with the timing of not using that watch, increased my wrist size? Can one gain weight in one’s wrists? I dunno!), and I believe in recent years I took those links and decided I wouldn’t need them and got rid of them though of course now I do and of course I hold out hope that they’ll turn up, somewhere? In what language is the word for things that aren’t lost exactly but that you made yourself lose, that you hold out hope for will return? The watch is silver, and I don’t wear any silver since well, my teens. But it feels like a part of me, particularly after time away from me. A return.
It’s a confusing time for me, this September, this return to school for my kids but not, for the first time, with me taking much part in it. This return and its confusion is by no means a bad thing. Later in the summer I found myself sleeping in. For me this means the 7 o’clock hour (I know, I know. I’ve been this way my entire life). I worried about this, as my girls leave for school about then, and the idea of not seeing them at all in the morning was strange. I’ve been working on creative work later in the day—trying to fit myself into the groove of the 2pm-6pm hours when I feel my writing brain is best (which I think is somewhat worn down, defeated even, and so looser). But there is the tick tick of the actual clock through all this. Not my watch (I have had and rejected Swatches, for this reason. For a while my kid had to put hers in a drawer to sleep in the same room as it), but the one in my head when it does note the time. I’m held to the old times: the time I used to get up to get my kids to school, when we’d leave (8:10 and 2:40, the respective leave the house hours for elementary school drop off and pick up, are forever burned in my brain; that was a solid 9 years of my life on just that specific schedule), when lunch is, when I should pay attention to something other than my work. But those are the old grooves. I’d like to work through the girls coming home, sleep till my body tells me to get up, read on the terrace under the sun in the hours I used to be telling someone to get their shoes on. Or I should say, I can do that. It’s a privilege to, and I have to say that right now, after 14 years of being on a child’s schedule, which is not anyone’s ideal schedule for sure, it feels earned. But I don’t know if I will be able to use it, yet. I am going to try. I’m going to see where I return to.
New Things! Good Things!
You’ll see a link at the bottom of these emails with ways to support me, including a Bookshop affiliate link. This means when you purchase a book through that link I get a little bit of Bookshop’s proceeds. It also means of course that I’ll be keeping booklists over there, starting with all the books I’ve ever recommended in this newsletter. I’m working on getting those books loaded up—there’s a big backlog, but you can use that link now if anything strikes your fancy. If I’m shopping online, Bookshop is where I buy my books 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time it’s a bookstore’s website directly. It is never the website of the dude who launched a spaceship shaped like a dick1 into the atmosphere.
See You Soon, my paid subscribers-only newsletter edition, launches in a few weeks. If you’d like to get in on the first one, now’s your time. Smash that subscribe button or whatever it was people were saying on YouTube for a while.
I’ve been truly overwhelmed by how many of you have been willing and able to throw money towards the Danielle-has-to-finish-her-novel(-so-you-can-read-it) fund. It’s allowed me to turn down a few other gigs that would have sucked up precious writing energy and time. THANK YOU! And remember, any subscription at any level, including the free one, is a boost to me, and I appreciate it greatly.
I’d like to give away one annual subscription. Simply reply to this email that you want it by Friday, September 23rd, and I’ll enter you in a random drawing for it. We have been obsessed with online spinner wheels in our house, and that’s what I’ll use. It’s great to have something else make choices for you.
Free coaching! At the Founding Members level, I offer free half hour coaching sessions. Because you subscribers are a collective gem, I’ve had many people opt to donate this coaching, and I want to offer it to this group first. Again, if you are interested in this, please reply by Friday, September 29th, and I’ll spin the wheel again to offer some sessions. When you do this, please let me know if there’s a medium you work in, or if it’s just about tapping into creativity generally, or if there is a specific question you’ve been trying to work through.
Reading, Thinking, Feeling
Anne Truitt’s Daybook. Dated at times and yet also wonderful. I first heard of Anne Truitt (stick with me here!) on Katy Hessel’s Great Women Artists Podcast, with Charlie Porter, talking about his book What Artists Wear, which is on my to buy list. Truitt’s daughter’s discussion of her mother’s working outfit in contrast to her work itself has really stuck with me. I love this podcast, by the by. Listened recently to the Jordan Casteel episode, which was a delight.
Michelle Hart’s What We Do in the Dark, which I’m liking so far.
Valley Fever, by Katherine Taylor. A bookstore browse find I have begun and paused. I’m reading lots of books at once lately. Embracing the scattered.
Where to Find Me
At a new, smaller desk, rearranged so I face my patron saints of my writing desk: a photo of Colette Writing in Bed, a collage of a queen by the poet and collagist KC Trommer, a tiny artwork by my kid when she was herself tiny, and a watercolor of the chairs from the NYPL’s Rose Room by the artist Payton C. Turner.
Teaching that same Catapult class on process and practice in January 2023, when other people’s new years feel fresh. I’d love to have you.
Still, always, considering taking an Instagram break
Talk—and for those of you who have subscribed, See You!—Soon!
Danielle
I’m not promising I won’t curse anymore in the newsletter, but I’m also not linking to the image of this. Consider that my compromise.