is it safe to fall apart yet?

this tempered joy is no match for a good Bernie meme

Friends, this Sunday is my next writing workshop. There are still some spots available:

Sign up here: Disrupt the Narrative: Writing Through Chaos

I teach these workshops based on the Amherst Writers Method, described here by the founder, Pat Schneider:

Whether your purpose for writing is artistic expression, communication with friends and family, the healing of the inner life, or achieving public recognition for your art – the foundation is the same: the claiming of yourself as an artist/writer and the strengthening of your writing voice through practice, study, and helpful response from other writers.

It’s a gentle, generous, and profound approach. We’ll walk through a couple of free-association prompts, exercises that often surprise us with what gets stirred up. We’ll share our writing with each other (or not - no one has to share), and we’ll only give feedback about what is “strong and successful” in the work. There is no critical feedback.

What I know is that for many of us—and I’m guessing for you who follow this newsletter—writing and words and narrative and story are how we make sense of things. It’s how we understand the world, how we move from feeling to thought, how we create meaning out of mess. It’s how we reckon with the uncertain dance between order and chaos (it’s an awkward dance, full of weird, unpredictable foot work and superfluous hand gestures).

I’m inviting you to do all of that with me on 1/24, and I haven’t even mentioned the best part, which is that you’d get to do that with other people who also aspire to meaning and sense making. It’s a very special space and you will leave feeling more grounded, more connected to your center and the centers of your fellow humans, and with your imagination sparked.

Sign up! Tell your friends, tell your boss and your barista and your dog. Cost is on a sliding scale but if you want to join and can’t pay please please please just tell me, I got you.

Your pal in possibility,
dani

Photo by Bekky Bekks on Unsplash

Watching the Inauguration Coverage this morning—seeing everyone show up wearing masks, listening to the inane chatter of the announcers, noticing the stark difference between this and previous ceremonies—I am a weepy mess.

I’m remembering the fall of 2008. I had moved to Northern Thailand at the end of that summer for what would end up being almost a full year. As soon as I could, I set up a Skype call with a patient roommate back home, painstakingly going through my absentee ballot because there was no way in hell I’d miss voting for a certain Barack Hussein Obama, especially considering the only other election I’d been old enough to vote in at the point was 2004, and we all remember what a gross mess that was.

The night of the election was morning time in Thailand. I was up at 8am and wandered around until I sniffed out a few other Americans at an outdoor bar, where the Thai proprietor was kind enough to open up, handing us sodas and flipping on the TV to a Thai news station covering the election. I remember staring into the eyes of other people like me, our faces crinkled up in joy as the city revved to life around us. It felt different, this man, with a face and history so unlike all who had come before. He spoke a message that sounded like truth, and for a girl who’d been raised on spin, it was medicine.

This is decidedly different.

I was so scared this morning. That something would happen. Something bad, and dark, and destructive. I had a hard time letting myself feel joy, or celebration.

And then came the jewel-toned coats. And Bill Clinton wearing his mask under his nose like every other clueless grandpa you’ve ever seen. There were all the fistbumps and, you know, other expressions of basic fucking decency. And then came Gaga’s voice, and J Lo’s español, and KAMALA DEVI HARRIS (our girl from Oakland!) getting sworn in my Sonia Sotomayor, and oh, is that poetry I hear, from a young queen, no less, and who the hell would of thought Klobuchar could be so damn rousing, and of course, there was our favorite manila envelope toting, home-made-mitten-wearing curmudgeon, Bernie (stay tuned for Friday’s Open Thread for an exhaustive Bernie-meme roundup). And Biden, yeah, that speech, he said the things that we’ve been needing to hear, you know? A different kind of medicine. The last shot kind, the bring us back from the brink, last ditch effort type.

I was struck by the quiet of the ceremony. Flags whipping around where the throngs would typically be. It feels quieter, doesn’t it? More humble. And though I’m not sure if it’s hope I feel, I for sure am going to let myself enjoy this moment of relief.

And it snowed. And then the sun came out. And I sit here, remembering what it feels like to breathe.

“This winter of peril, and significant possibilities.”

“Don’t tell me things can’t change.”

President Joe Biden, January 20, 2021

I love you all so damn much. We made it.

See you Friday. I’m heading out for ice cream…

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Slow Motion Sober is a newsletter and community for creative types who are sober or curious about sobriety, and all the life-y intersections along the way. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, facilitator and sobriety advocate in San Francisco, CA. 

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