That was a really beautiful update, Ruth. Thank you so much for sharing all of your reflections with us. They are encouraging me to dream a little more expansively into the summer also. 🙏
Thank you for this sharing - your words resonate and please know so many of us are trying to extract ourselves from the Good Girl mold that we were casted in when we were young. It’s both uncomfortable and liberating. I look forward to hearing more about your August writing workshop. My hope is that the time zones align somewhat for me to attend (no pressure 😆). 🌿🦋🪻
Gosh, Ruth. I could write a paragraph in response to each of these -ings. I appreciate how you seem to know (or cultivate knowing) yourself. This morning I had the thought to write a piece about body parts, particularly women's parts, as a follow-on to a lively conversation I had with some girlfriends earlier this week. It would be silly-serious, and might ruffle some feathers, but I think I'd be laughing all the way to the publish button. So, here's to joy!
I'd love to hear more (at some point) about your Good Girl thinking. I have the feeling it might align with my body-parts thoughts.
I want, with all my heart, to believe that you can have your damselflies and dragonflies. So, maybe that makes two of us?
My heart aches for you in the loss of those trees, and for the families of roots and organisms that are now in chaos and mourning. Do you know how Resurgence will handle it, in whatever gets written? I hope they can help a wider audience connect to something that feels like action. It's hard to not feel utterly paralyzed by such devastation.
I sincerely appreciate your gratitude, and that you feel it all. That is, as far as I can tell, what we must do.
I'm so sorry for this overdue reply to your gorgeous and encouraging message. I love the sound of your post. Did you hit publish?? I am afraid I am SO behind in my Substack readings that I need things thrown in front of my face!
Goodness where even to begin with the Good Girl thinking. It's a bit like a fish thinking about water - ha! That said, as I unravel it I am beginning to observe it a whole lot better and see the many ways that I have always sought to please, to be good, to be nice, to be agreeable. Do you know the work of Lisa Marciano the Jungian analyst who co-hosts The Jungian Life? She has just released a new book called The Vital Spark and much of it is about issues tangential to the Good Girl complex and how we need to retrieve our Outlaw Energies. Anyway, it's pretty good. I like it a lot. but then I like Jung and I especially like women making it relevant to other women. I recommend it for this line of thinking though.
It's such a good question about the Resurgence interview. I think I will see what the interviewer comes back with and see if she intuitively weaves it in! I appreciate your recognition of the impact though. I can be very dismissive of things like this as a protective strategy I suppose, but it was shocking after so many years working there and it feels good for me to name that impact and not just let it pass, as would be easy to do. Again...be the good girl manifests...don't make a fuss...don't ask for solace...xx
I like the rhythm of your update Ruth, and I shall be stealing your prompts for my journal this week! I too am feeling bereft for not buying Taylor Swift tickets (although not bereft by the £1000+ pay tag). Seeing your therapy land must have been terrible and I was reminded of the term ‘topocide’ that might describe the feeling I think. I lived close to where the controversial High Newton bypass went in the south Lake District and for months I was obsessed with the destruction of the land I had known and walked for years, even though I had moved away by that point. As these things do, with careful planting and stone walls, the bypass now looks like it was always there and when I go back, I hardly recognise the place I once knew. Strange experience. Topocide covers it well I think. But how quickly it becomes a distant memory, how the land must have changed over the years. This feeling offers a glimpse I reckon of what people must have felt over the centuries watching everything change. Progress, eh? Xx
Topocide is a the most fitting words for it, I think. Yes. Although I was working on forested land, so I suppose it was my mistake to think that the site was now recreational rather than forested. I did check once upon a time, but perhaps they changed their minds. But I think the point still remains about the industrial expansion, because somewhere along the line it is feeding that. It's so difficult and fraught and I am trying to hold the nuance of one part being felled, while another has regrown (a part that used to be desolate when I was first there). So there is something of a cycle here, and perhaps a lot of this is down to my short perspective. It's still shocking to see though, and I appreciate so deeply how you must have felt watching the Bypass go in. I know the one you mean of course and it would have been shocking, but as you say, now it's somewhat naturalised. Perhaps this is a reason for hope and adaptability. Gold cannot stay, but it can melt and reform? xx
lovely update. i am still impatiently awaiting "weathering's" US release. sigh. i thought is was June, but found out it is September. fortunately i have a healthy TBR stack to keep my occupied until then.
So sorry to hear about your beloved space being so decimated. I had the joy of discovering our front 'lawn' full of grasshoppers yesterday, it felt like reaping full-on rewards having done the minimal of things - leaving it well alone! And thank you for the Duolingo nudge. I started Italian too, but felt that my peri-meno brain just wasn't absorbing it - maybe it's just it takes your sort of perseverance rather than mine! I will go back for more. Hope you are well xx
Oh, I am so glad for your grasshoppers Clare! Hooray for them!
And gawd, yes, I don't think my peri-menopause brain helps with learning either, but I am trying not to get too attached to the story I carry about that and to plod forwards anyway in hope! haha
I’m so sorry about your felled trees. Exactly the same thing happened with the space where I used to meet my therapist. That was nearly two years ago and I’m not yet recovered from it
Oh goodness, that's so interesting to hear you have experienced this directly. And I am really sorry for its lingering after affects. I am glad I wasn't in practice at the time and that all of my clients had a chance to say goodbye to the space when we ended our therapy together, one and all.
I love your updates Ruth which encourage me to be introspective too. I decided last night I’m going to Pride in London on Saturday - for too long I’ve been hiding behind my perceived loathing of big crowds to avoid going. This year I have the opportunity to march with a new group, the Queer Business Club, and will embrace my belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community which I first became part of 40 years ago, and somehow estranged myself from in recent years.
Aw, Kate! This is wonderful. I am so pleased that you have made this decision to lean towards a new (new-old) place and community of belonging. Yes, big crowds are hard aren't they? But I hope the togetherness you feel will alleviate some of that dis-ease and that you have a wonderful time! Hooray for bold new steps :)
I loved hearing about your recent suffix-ings, Ruth. What fun (except for the transformation of one of your beloved outdoor spots. That's a certain kind of deep grief, and I'm so sorry you and the nonhuman inhabitants of that place are in that right now. Sending healing love~). 💚
That was a really beautiful update, Ruth. Thank you so much for sharing all of your reflections with us. They are encouraging me to dream a little more expansively into the summer also. 🙏
Thank you Ariana :) Please do dream! X
Thank you for this sharing - your words resonate and please know so many of us are trying to extract ourselves from the Good Girl mold that we were casted in when we were young. It’s both uncomfortable and liberating. I look forward to hearing more about your August writing workshop. My hope is that the time zones align somewhat for me to attend (no pressure 😆). 🌿🦋🪻
Uncomfortable and liberating. Yes! Exactly both :) Oooh what time zone are you in?? X
Mountain Standard Time(MST) in the States. I’m 7 hours behind you.
Ah. Well you will probably be asleep! 😭 But I will be recording it for catch up. I will also perhaps run it again in an evening for US friends....
All good. It’s a tricky thing. Have a great workshop!
Gosh, Ruth. I could write a paragraph in response to each of these -ings. I appreciate how you seem to know (or cultivate knowing) yourself. This morning I had the thought to write a piece about body parts, particularly women's parts, as a follow-on to a lively conversation I had with some girlfriends earlier this week. It would be silly-serious, and might ruffle some feathers, but I think I'd be laughing all the way to the publish button. So, here's to joy!
I'd love to hear more (at some point) about your Good Girl thinking. I have the feeling it might align with my body-parts thoughts.
I want, with all my heart, to believe that you can have your damselflies and dragonflies. So, maybe that makes two of us?
My heart aches for you in the loss of those trees, and for the families of roots and organisms that are now in chaos and mourning. Do you know how Resurgence will handle it, in whatever gets written? I hope they can help a wider audience connect to something that feels like action. It's hard to not feel utterly paralyzed by such devastation.
I sincerely appreciate your gratitude, and that you feel it all. That is, as far as I can tell, what we must do.
I'm so sorry for this overdue reply to your gorgeous and encouraging message. I love the sound of your post. Did you hit publish?? I am afraid I am SO behind in my Substack readings that I need things thrown in front of my face!
Goodness where even to begin with the Good Girl thinking. It's a bit like a fish thinking about water - ha! That said, as I unravel it I am beginning to observe it a whole lot better and see the many ways that I have always sought to please, to be good, to be nice, to be agreeable. Do you know the work of Lisa Marciano the Jungian analyst who co-hosts The Jungian Life? She has just released a new book called The Vital Spark and much of it is about issues tangential to the Good Girl complex and how we need to retrieve our Outlaw Energies. Anyway, it's pretty good. I like it a lot. but then I like Jung and I especially like women making it relevant to other women. I recommend it for this line of thinking though.
It's such a good question about the Resurgence interview. I think I will see what the interviewer comes back with and see if she intuitively weaves it in! I appreciate your recognition of the impact though. I can be very dismissive of things like this as a protective strategy I suppose, but it was shocking after so many years working there and it feels good for me to name that impact and not just let it pass, as would be easy to do. Again...be the good girl manifests...don't make a fuss...don't ask for solace...xx
I like the rhythm of your update Ruth, and I shall be stealing your prompts for my journal this week! I too am feeling bereft for not buying Taylor Swift tickets (although not bereft by the £1000+ pay tag). Seeing your therapy land must have been terrible and I was reminded of the term ‘topocide’ that might describe the feeling I think. I lived close to where the controversial High Newton bypass went in the south Lake District and for months I was obsessed with the destruction of the land I had known and walked for years, even though I had moved away by that point. As these things do, with careful planting and stone walls, the bypass now looks like it was always there and when I go back, I hardly recognise the place I once knew. Strange experience. Topocide covers it well I think. But how quickly it becomes a distant memory, how the land must have changed over the years. This feeling offers a glimpse I reckon of what people must have felt over the centuries watching everything change. Progress, eh? Xx
Topocide is a the most fitting words for it, I think. Yes. Although I was working on forested land, so I suppose it was my mistake to think that the site was now recreational rather than forested. I did check once upon a time, but perhaps they changed their minds. But I think the point still remains about the industrial expansion, because somewhere along the line it is feeding that. It's so difficult and fraught and I am trying to hold the nuance of one part being felled, while another has regrown (a part that used to be desolate when I was first there). So there is something of a cycle here, and perhaps a lot of this is down to my short perspective. It's still shocking to see though, and I appreciate so deeply how you must have felt watching the Bypass go in. I know the one you mean of course and it would have been shocking, but as you say, now it's somewhat naturalised. Perhaps this is a reason for hope and adaptability. Gold cannot stay, but it can melt and reform? xx
lovely update. i am still impatiently awaiting "weathering's" US release. sigh. i thought is was June, but found out it is September. fortunately i have a healthy TBR stack to keep my occupied until then.
Thank you! Ah yes the palaver with it stateside! No matter I think it's more.autumnal than summer anyway;) it's on book and audio already I think too?
autumnal...oh, i like that. will be patient!
So sorry to hear about your beloved space being so decimated. I had the joy of discovering our front 'lawn' full of grasshoppers yesterday, it felt like reaping full-on rewards having done the minimal of things - leaving it well alone! And thank you for the Duolingo nudge. I started Italian too, but felt that my peri-meno brain just wasn't absorbing it - maybe it's just it takes your sort of perseverance rather than mine! I will go back for more. Hope you are well xx
Oh, I am so glad for your grasshoppers Clare! Hooray for them!
And gawd, yes, I don't think my peri-menopause brain helps with learning either, but I am trying not to get too attached to the story I carry about that and to plod forwards anyway in hope! haha
I’m so sorry about your felled trees. Exactly the same thing happened with the space where I used to meet my therapist. That was nearly two years ago and I’m not yet recovered from it
Oh goodness, that's so interesting to hear you have experienced this directly. And I am really sorry for its lingering after affects. I am glad I wasn't in practice at the time and that all of my clients had a chance to say goodbye to the space when we ended our therapy together, one and all.
I love your updates Ruth which encourage me to be introspective too. I decided last night I’m going to Pride in London on Saturday - for too long I’ve been hiding behind my perceived loathing of big crowds to avoid going. This year I have the opportunity to march with a new group, the Queer Business Club, and will embrace my belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community which I first became part of 40 years ago, and somehow estranged myself from in recent years.
Aw, Kate! This is wonderful. I am so pleased that you have made this decision to lean towards a new (new-old) place and community of belonging. Yes, big crowds are hard aren't they? But I hope the togetherness you feel will alleviate some of that dis-ease and that you have a wonderful time! Hooray for bold new steps :)
Beautiful, Ruth! I'm so sorry to hear about all the felled trees!!
Thank you Shannon :)
I loved hearing about your recent suffix-ings, Ruth. What fun (except for the transformation of one of your beloved outdoor spots. That's a certain kind of deep grief, and I'm so sorry you and the nonhuman inhabitants of that place are in that right now. Sending healing love~). 💚