Slowing life down to savor the moment

A brief illness forced me to slow down my usual frenetic pace. But I'm in no hurry to resume life-as-usual in this year of redefining what it means to live a life with intention.

I have lived too much of my life with the ticking clock echoing in my ears, quickening my pace. I had to do it all, do it perfectly, do it right now, not miss out on a thing because…well, there was that ticking clock. Year after year. Decade after decade. Relentless. There was so much to get done but was I choosing the right things? Was I choosing me?

The past two years have been a conscious slowing down. I stopped running. I turned around and saw her, waving at me in the distance. The younger me in all her incarnations: the child who wanted so much to please; the teenager who craved acceptance and approval and romantic love; the young woman in search of lasting love, a husband, a family, the fairytale she’d been raised to believe in; the young mother trying to maintain her own separate identity amid caregiving; the hard-working career woman in her forties and fifties. They were waving at me frantically, a chorus of “slow down, girl! We’re all still here and we can’t keep up.”

So now in my early sixties, I’m folding them all in, letting them tell me their stories. They have a lot to teach me. And that ticking clock? I barely hear it anymore. This year is all about ABUNDANCE, FREEDOM and FLOW and scarcity of time has no place in that equation.

I spent the past two weeks battling a cold. It forced me to slow down even more and for that, I’m glad. Here are a few things that help deepen clarity, connection, community and creativity for me—the guideposts of my life and the focus of this second weekly newsletter for paid subscribers. I hope you find inspiration here.

And don’t forget, for paid subscribers, our monthly community call on the third Thursday of the month, is next Thursday, Jan 18, at 12pm PST, 3pm ET and 9PM CET. You’ll get a zoom link a couple of days before. The idea is to say hello, get to know one another, talk about the topics I’ve written about or whatever else is on your mind. Life can be wonderful and as we all know, really, really hard, too. Let’s be there for each other through it all. Hope to see you on the call.

Photo by Julia Caesar on Unsplash

Clarity

I’ve been a wannabe meditator for a very long time. In the last couple of years I’ve finally begun to enter that quiet space that helps me get away from the thicket of my thoughts and into a gentler, calmer terrain. There, I feel a spaciousness, a sense of peace and possibility.

The meditative space wouldn’t have been possible had I not done the inner work that’s allowed me to recognize how much I needed to slow down, that deep soul-level awareness that my destiny was still mine for the making. Here, Deb Blum, creator of The Whole Soul Way Program, has been life-changing for me and I look forward to welcoming her as a podcast guest in the coming weeks.

I am not yet able to meditate in silence. I prefer guided meditations and my favorite teacher is

Sarah Blondin

whose Substack I highly recommend as a heart-centered, warm community, with her beautiful essays and recorded meditations. You can also find many of her meditations on Insight Timer, my go-to app for meditation. Since the start of the year, I have been enjoying Insight Timer’s Reset & Refresh Challenge featuring Sarah as well as

Alex Elle

, another wise and compassionate teacher whose Gratitude Journal here on Substack is lovely. I tune into these offerings each night as I settle into bed. They invite in clarity. I quiet my mind and make room.

Connection

The most enduring form of connection for me are my friendships. Recently, as an exercise I had to fill in a chart ranking from 0 to 5 my satisfaction with different parts of my life. Every category (Love, Career, Finance, Health, Personal Growth, Fun & Leisure, Family) had some room for improvement except for one: Friends.

That section of the pie was colored in as a fully magnificent 5. That’s not because I am a perfect friend or that my friendships can’t improve or deepen. It is because I am blessed with many close friendships. I’ll go out on a boastful limb and say I have a talent for friendship. I am a tenacious friend. I keep circling back and reconnecting, even if it’s been months or years since we’ve seen each other or been in touch. Once in my heart, a friend does not easily disappear: I simply won’t let it happen. Every Saturday a group of us women who have known each other for decades but live all over the world check in on each other via zoom. Nothing is more delicious to me than a long catchup with a friend, whether virtual or in-person. In 2024, connecting in person with many more of my friends is one of the ways I want to live abundantly.

It is in January that I tend to think about, and value more than ever, my friendships because January 8 is the birthday of my best friend, Faye, who died far too young at forty-six. She was a force of nature, the wisest person I’ve ever known. I think of her often, and of the two beautiful daughters who are her greatest legacy—for her, the only legacy that mattered. We had been best friends since college, for 25 years, and she knew me in so many of my earlier incarnations. In the way of one’s closest friends, she knew me better than I knew myself. I know she would be proud of me today.

Amy and Faye

What I know is that friendships require nurturing, and a decent amount of courage to create new ones, especially as you get older. If you are at a point in your life where you want to make new friends (a move, a life transition, or simply a desire for more friendships), subscribe to

A social life, with friends

from

Madeleine Dore

with a podcast by the same name. Madeleine also writes the terrific Substack

On Things

“a newsletter for the curious-minded reader exploring creativity and the complexities of being alive.”

To continue reading recommendations of what has inspired Community and Creativity for me this week, please consider becoming a paid subscriber; you’ll get my voiceover of every article, too (scroll down to the end). So glad you’re here, regardless. I appreciate everyone who invites me into their inbox and busy lives.

Community

Writing requires one to slow down and much of it has to be solitary, especially the writing of novels. But when it’s time for me to come out from my writer’s den and be in the world, my writing communities are there waiting for me.

For decades, I have formed and been a part of writing groups, bringing writers together for critique and camaraderie. One of the earliest and most formative for me was The Stockholm Writers Group, still flourishing today, and one of its members, Catherine Pettersson, become the founder of the annual Stockholm Writers Festival, held this year August 23-25. There are so many reasons to visit my former adopted home of Sweden but if you are a writer, this is one you won’t want to miss.

More recently, four of us women writers have formed Coffee & Critique, a weekly virtual gathering to critique each other’s writing and offer support in so many other facets of life. One of our members, Patricia Averbach, is about to release her latest novel, Dreams of Drowning next month, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The rest of us are counting on her success to be contagious.

And right here on Substack I am finding writing community that gets me to slow down to get it right: wonderful tutorials on everything from desire to voice to character from

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette

. As if they knew I was knee-deep in revision,

Courtney Maum

offers a detailed description of her tried-and-true novel revision process, and Rebecca Makkai in

SubMakk

has her quirky take on it, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright (“True revision has more to do with the wrecking ball than with the red pen”).

And just this week, there was generous, behind-the-scenes craft advice from none other than

Elizabeth Gilbert

on

Jane Ratcliffe

‘s Substack “Beyond.”

So much of what Liz Gilbert said intrigued me, especially this:

“The single most important question that I ask before I begin a process and that I always encourage other people to ask which is, “Who are you writing to?” Not “Who you writing for?”…Each one of my books has been written to a different person that has been very carefully selected by me. I choose the person who I think would be the most delighted by this book, and then I write every single word of it as if it's a letter to them.”

Creativity

The communities that get me to slow down and see my writing and that magical elusive process from different vantage points are precisely what allow me to return to my creative solitary space, newly inspired.

So here I will leave you with a recommendation to read “that octopus book” (as droves of people have called it, asking their booksellers for it). It is actually called Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and has a curmudgeonly octopus as the narrator. The story of how this novel became an unlikely best seller is told recently on the front page of The New York Times. It was word-of-mouth and bookseller recommendations that led to more than a million sales of this wonderful, quirky literary novel. That renews my faith in the magic of books.

If you’re a writer retreating to your own lair to create, I like how

Beth Kempton

, the author of the Way of the Fearless Writer: Ancient Eastern wisdom for a flourishing writing life slows it down. Here’s an excerpt:

I wake at 5am and go downstairs in the dark. I switch on the fairy lights in the kitchen, boil the kettle, make tea and toast. I take this into my study and close the door behind me. I sit at my desk, where my notebook and pen are waiting, along with a candle and a box of matches. I take a few deep breaths, inhaling the gentle energy of early morning, then I light the candle and welcome a new page.

Happy creative and fearless living to all of you—writers or not. Let’s take it slow.

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