Dear friends, It’s somehow been two years since I started Be Where You Are. This newsletter began as one of my Aries-fueled late night ideas, and I’m still amazed that it survived. From my first essay about bringing mindfulness to the misery of sunblocking my daughter, to interviews with people I’ve learned so much from, to prompts and workshops, and seasonal recs & links gatherings like this one—this space has been a source of connection and community that has kept me afloat amid the waves. The Ass in Chair Collective, which I started up this spring with from The Long Pause, is a total joy and lifeline, and we’re currently hatching plans to start offering regular writing & yoga workshops this fall. Thank you for being here. I’m grateful that you use your precious time on this planet to read what I write and share. I’m able to keep doing this work only through your generosity and support. It means more to me than you probably know.
And hey, guess what, even though the school year frenzy is hovering in the wings, in the spirit of remembering to Be Where You Are, it’s STILL SUMMER. SO, here are some things from this summer that have brought me joy or comfort or made me feel seen or made me think. You can maybe tell from these offerings that my summer has been a bit all over the place…I’ve been struggling to make progress on *anything* because of the usual fragmentation of summer time with kids home and every day being wildly different plus the weight of the world these days. (Anyone relate?) But the one thing I did was to READ. See incomplete teetering book pile below. Let me know what resonates, what you think, and share YOUR recs with us in the comments, please! (*here’s the link to click to read this post in full if you’re reading this in your email)
READ 📚
Jay Hodges’ essay “As You Wind Down” is a heartbreaking, cinematic essay about caring for his beloved partner as he dies. It somehow accomplishes in writing what my favorite films do, which is help me feel the vast, tender simultaneity of being alive: “I want to shake you back. Instead, I cup your cheek. I rest a hand on your chest. I tell you I’m stepping away for a few minutes, and wonder if I’m making the right decision to feed the animals now instead of waiting until after what is happening has happened. Instead of waiting until after you.”
This stunner of an essay by Megan Leonard, “Seven Words about Lemons” in Electric Literature made me feel seen: “People love the idea of mothers writing a whole novel in fifteen-minute increments during their lunch breaks, or a whole collection of poems pecked into the notes on their smartphone while they simultaneously rub backs and rock babies and sing lullabies. It’s so sweet. It’s so non-disruptive. No one must be bothered by the woman’s writing this way.”
I loved this short piece by Dan Sinker: “In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care. In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it. At a time where the government's uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.”
Nobody was better than at making it cool to care and it still feels wrong that they’re not alive on this planet anymore. I’ve been re-reading Gibson’s books since they died and feeling grateful for all the fierce good they did in this world. I loved this letter from their partner, Megan Falley, after Gibson died, aaand I loved Jane Ratcliffe’s interview with Andrea here. And, I cannot wait for the documentary Come See Me In the Good Light to stream this fall!
Hanif Abdurraqib’s birthday post for June Jordan is full of truth and names what it is to be human right now: “It is to say, as I’ve written before and think about often: I am choosing to love you with the full knowledge that the world is ending all around us, ending more immediately for some than it is for others. And so on the outskirts of my affections, a steady rage paces, because I know how much better I could love the world and the people in it if I didn’t have to, so frequently live a life that is fighting against its treachery.” Also, if you don’t follow Hanif and don’t read this annual post every year, get to it.
I loved this powerful essay by , “Do we need religion to be on a spiritual path? Resisting the Quiet Seduction of Spiritual Capitalism”: “For most of us, we need something more than longing. More than a playlist of practices or a shelf full of spiritual books. We need a path. We need practices that don’t depend on how we feel. We need community. Accountability. A rule of life. Honest feedback. Elders. People who will call us to stay when we want to run. A rhythm that grounds us when everything else falls apart.”
This piece, “I Teach Creative Writing. This is What A.I. Is Doing to Students” is excellent: “When I write, the process is full of risk, error and painstaking self-correction. It arrives somewhere surprising only when I’ve stayed in uncertainty long enough to find out what I had initially failed to understand. This attention to the world is worth trying to preserve: The act of care that makes meaning — or insight — possible. To do so will require thought and work. We can’t just trust that everything will be fine.”
I ran into this short piece in ’s Links & Recs post & it named so much for me, “Link in Bio Ruined All our Brains”: “The bulk of the blame can be placed on Instagram’s “Link in bio,” which, to my mind, has done more damage to literacy and the media ecosystem than any other innovation of the past 15 years. Link in bio makes it just annoying enough that we’re disincentivized to click out to anything that might divert our attention.”
This essay, “Self-Employed, Self-Exhausted,” at The Isolation Journals was exactly what I needed to hear & meditates on one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems: “But deep down, another voice was stirring—the one that’s tired of the frenetic pace, the one that knows there’s a better way. The one that sees through the myth of enough, that knows the goalposts will always just keep moving. That understands how capitalism doles out prizes for visibility and speed—even when those very forces stifle the creative process and are at odds with what it takes to make something daring, unruly, and true.”
LISTEN 🎧
Here’s my eclectic Summer Mix for your listening pleasure…
If you’re not listening to The Mother of it All podcast with and Rake, whyyyy? I especially loved this one with Angela Garbes, whose books Essential Labor and Like a Mother are required reading: “There’s this huge lack of my own imagination and cultural imagination and representation because I thought that I would turn 40 and then I’d be like 65. I had no way of picturing this period of my life.”
’s Burnt Toast podcast conversation with
was *exactly* what I needed at this moment in perimenopause: “And women go through this at every stage of our life. I’m watching my middle schooler in puberty, where weight gain is absolutely normal and what we want their bodies to be doing. Reproductive years, childbirth, weight gain—this is a part of having a body with a uterus—you are going to go through phases where it is normal for your body to get bigger. And in every one of these stages, we’re told it’s terrible and you should avoid it at all costs.”Melani Sanders became one of my heroes and I am very happy to be in the We Do Not Care Club:
Catherine LaSota’s Feed the Art podcast has brought me exactly what I needed this week and I’m so grateful for it. I especially loved “Own Your Power” and “Capacity”: “What is the minimum viable action that you need to take for you to stay connected to your creative practice in a way that feels grounding to you?”
I loved this meditation led by , “Salt and Light” (5:55 min) from the Center for Action and Contemplation. If you’re not already subscribed to her substack, check it out here.
This Joanna Hardy meditation, “The Body as Refuge,” feels like a calm in the storm (21 mins).
HELP💥
Inara and World Central Kitchen are working to feed children and families in Gaza and areas of conflict around the world.
Also, ICE raids are still terrorizing our neighborhoods. Organizations helping immigrants in Los Angeles: CHIRLA and Immigrant Defenders Law Center, in Pittsburgh: Casa San Jose, and nationally: Immigrant Defense Project.
WRITE 📓
There are still spaces in some Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops for this fall! There’s an incredible range of workshops taught by a crew of brilliant women and nonbinary writers and many are online (some are in-person in Pittsburgh): DETAILS HERE. There’s nothing like Madwomen workshops for that magic mixture of rigor & encouragement. Let me know if you have any questions!
What You May Have Missed on Be Where You Are
This week’s Ass in Chair Collective was blessed with the Guest Host powers of Maritza Mosquera (see below). On Mon, Aug 18th, we have our monthly FREE one. Come make something with us and see for yourself what all the fuss is about!
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Be Where You Are is a newsletter about how to use writing and mindfulness to live more fully where you are. To reply to this newsletter, just hit reply. I’d love to hear from you! I read and respond to every comment. I’m the author of the poetry collections The Falls and Feed, and I teach for The Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops. You can also find me on Instagram / Facebook / Bluesky or find more info at my website.
Congratulations on your two-year anniversary, Emily! I am very glad you write this newsletter and so very glad I found it. And very happy to be a member of the Ass in Chair collective. Looking forward to rejoining next week after a vacation break! Hope you enjoy these last days of summer; all too soon we’ll be missing them when the full school rush gets under way (why are we always wishing we are in a different season?). Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!
Emily, I am so glad you are enjoying Feed the Art! Thanks so much for the mention -- more episodes are dropping (every other Thursday, including this week!) and I'd love to connect with anyone who would love some support in nourishing their creative practice. :)