Oh the Oregon coast is beautiful... I spent a foggy week writing there and loved how you could always hear and feel the ocean but not always see it. Thanks for reading and sharing.
Thanks, Nancy -- and big congrats on your good book news this week! I'm looking forward to reading, even (maybe especially?) as someone who doesn't have kids but has felt the weight of the mother myth as it intersects with infertility. Sending lots of good thoughts as you dig into the writing!
i love the way you talk about object permanence - i never thought about my forgetting what helps me and is important to me as perhaps related to that. i also want to make a coffee table book entitled "food I really meant to eat" that's just pictures of plates i fixed and abandoned :)
Thanks, Wendy... it's been great to find other folks via substack who are doing this kind of language-work! I've been getting a bit tired (bored? LOL) of the the limited/diagnosis-y analogies for thinking about ADHD.
Thanks for reading -- I was really struck by the pruning connotation of "computer" too! It has some nice stickiness to it. (And prune is much more elegant-feeling word than computer, which helps.)
Wow…she just gave words to so much of what I’ve been thinking of in my own life. It’s Why I needed my own substack to be a place to be a table as a way to locate myself. Damn. I have to sit with this one for a bit.
Thanks, Dina... so grateful for the synchronicity of letters like these. For a time I worked with the metaphor of a table in thinking about how I led workshops, so that resonates a lot as a way of locating yourself (and as a way of holding space for others... and more curiously, in my experience at least, noticing when those two are the same or different... the place you locate yourself vs. where others locate you). I see your work touches on ancestral tables/stories/spaces too, which is something I've thought a lot about as it relates to all this... anyway, I'm rambling, but all this is just to say I'm glad to run into your work here!
This piece was moving and so relatable. I’ve written so much about place as it relates to home, which I finally realize is not a physical location but exists in my being. And I return to a line by Anna Husain again and again: “How many places must we live/Or unlive, before we are home.”
I see humanity in this post. I believe the arts are going to be important in this age of ai.
The coast of Oregon, which is really beautiful, inspired me to write, after almost a lifetime of living in the Midwest.
Beautifully written with beautiful photos too.
Oh the Oregon coast is beautiful... I spent a foggy week writing there and loved how you could always hear and feel the ocean but not always see it. Thanks for reading and sharing.
ooh I really love this, Emily. the imperative to "locate yourself" is such a rich one.
Thanks, Nancy -- and big congrats on your good book news this week! I'm looking forward to reading, even (maybe especially?) as someone who doesn't have kids but has felt the weight of the mother myth as it intersects with infertility. Sending lots of good thoughts as you dig into the writing!
i love the way you talk about object permanence - i never thought about my forgetting what helps me and is important to me as perhaps related to that. i also want to make a coffee table book entitled "food I really meant to eat" that's just pictures of plates i fixed and abandoned :)
This is really lovely and, as a someone who also has ADHD, I appreciate how you wrestle with the language around that. I do too.
Thanks, Wendy... it's been great to find other folks via substack who are doing this kind of language-work! I've been getting a bit tired (bored? LOL) of the the limited/diagnosis-y analogies for thinking about ADHD.
love this piece, especially rethinking "putare" and pruning :) thank you for sharing!!
Thanks for reading -- I was really struck by the pruning connotation of "computer" too! It has some nice stickiness to it. (And prune is much more elegant-feeling word than computer, which helps.)
Wow…she just gave words to so much of what I’ve been thinking of in my own life. It’s Why I needed my own substack to be a place to be a table as a way to locate myself. Damn. I have to sit with this one for a bit.
Thanks, Dina... so grateful for the synchronicity of letters like these. For a time I worked with the metaphor of a table in thinking about how I led workshops, so that resonates a lot as a way of locating yourself (and as a way of holding space for others... and more curiously, in my experience at least, noticing when those two are the same or different... the place you locate yourself vs. where others locate you). I see your work touches on ancestral tables/stories/spaces too, which is something I've thought a lot about as it relates to all this... anyway, I'm rambling, but all this is just to say I'm glad to run into your work here!
I love it. Maybe you’d want to join me on my podcast for a conversation on this topic of “locating” oneself.
Always thrilled for the chance to trade notes on these things! My email is hello@emilystoddard.com, if you want to connect more that way.
This piece was moving and so relatable. I’ve written so much about place as it relates to home, which I finally realize is not a physical location but exists in my being. And I return to a line by Anna Husain again and again: “How many places must we live/Or unlive, before we are home.”
Thanks, Amie! And I *love* this line... especially the idea of unliving. Big, big yes to that!