The final Brass Ring Daily of the year
Oh, hi friends!
I’m thinking about the cascade of out-of-office replies that will arrive after I hit “send” on this newsletter. Truthfully, I love reading them — seeing the names and jobs and polite “heck no, I’m not working” messages is one way I learn who’s actually reading these messages.
Shortly after I started this newsletter I decided that it was probably best not to look at who subscribes or unsubscribes, what the open rates are for my friends, and so on. So I don’t. We should try to avoid situations that might hurt our feelings. This is a good lesson. We should write what we feel and what’s true, regardless of who’s reading. Another good lesson.
But it is nice to see names, to get a sense of who you are, where you are, and it’s especially nice to hear back from folks. Because this newsletter has been the crux of my creative life, more so this year than any other. And there’s a reason it’s not a diary. I want to know your creative life, too.
And so I’ve started and stopped my December messages a few times. I considered asking people to share their accomplishments for this year, what they’ve lost and gained. I was going to do more Q&As or profiles or hand the keys to a guest editor. But honestly, I’m selfish. This is one place that I can truly own. There are no editors to file to, no requested revises, no headlines I didn’t write. There are no collaborative calls or editorial plans. There is no money attached. There is nothing but me and a keyboard.
This is also why I think it’s still going. Sometimes we need a place for ourselves (and maybe a few thousand strangers) where we aren’t asked to be anything other than who we are. I hope you have that kind of place. Because that’s what you’ve given me this year — this hard year of grief and anger, love and change, optimism and darkness. When you wrote back, the world felt less lonely. When you didn’t, I knew you were still there. And I trusted that relationship, in the same way I trusted that we would get through 2020, a belief that didn’t waver in March and April, when I refused to say the pandemic’s name, through June and July, when loss came to visit our family and the people I love and the country rose and shook and took to the streets, all the way through that endless first week of November, when I chanted “hope, hope, hope” every day.
And now here we are, nearly at the end.
Trust.
This is the traditional time to reflect on what we’ve gained and lost, what we might want to bring with us into the New Year. But you know yourself and your year better than I could ever hope to capture. I can only wish that the next year brings you less pain, more ease, and the energy you desire to move forward.
Thank you for spending the most gratifying and grounding part of 2020 with me.
I’m rooting for us all.
“Part of the work of being a modern person seems to be dreaming of alternate lives in which you don’t have to dream of alternate lives. We long to stop longing, but we also wring purpose from that desire.”
This New Yorker piece by Joshua Rothman — “What If You Could Do It All Over” about the uncanny allure of our unlived lives glows right off the screen. You will enjoy thinking about what could have been and, mostly, what you have.
“These days there’s always someone to say thank you to.
Even strangers to strangers with strangers’ stories as the message…”
From my friend Susannah Jones’ postcard play from this new series commissioned by the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company. Writers were given a postcard of rural America and told to write a play that fit within its 4x6 margins. I love the creativity behind these beautiful snapshots and stories and thought you might, too.
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You can also support my work by checking out my new motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara