a weird, modern meditation
My inbox is overwhelming.
This is not a euphemism, although I am on my period, so maybe it is after all!
Back to email. 90% of the content of my inbox is someone, somewhere, trying to sell me something. It is a capitalist shitshow. Usually I ignore it, mostly unbothered by the digital clutter, but last week a very tiny something inside me snapped and I spent an hour unsubscribing from things. It felt like an assault, these solicitations for my eyeballs and money. And so I took steps.
Open email > click unsubscribe > are you sure you want to unsubscribe > tell us why you want to unsubscribe > please don’t unsubscribe > ok, unsubscribed!
After the 5th or 6th time around those actions became a weird, modern meditation. A ritual of removal. A prayer for space.
And yet it feels like I could unsubscribe forever, do this meditation a thousand times a day and still be over subscribed.
It made me think about the way my email lands in your inbox. What it actually takes to cut through and make contact on the other end of this. How this space is sacred to you, to me.
I’m glad you want this email to land here. And if you don’t, please do your very own modern unsubscribe meditation. Reading this is a choice!
With that front and centre, always and forever -
Shares for the week:
READ:
One of the most beautiful pieces I’ve read in a long while. I don’t want to tell you anything else as I think falling in is the right way to go. (Please, make time for it.)
Georgia O’Keeffe on Art, Life, and Setting Priorities - this is also about friendship and witnessing one another to me. We just want to live, don’t we?
Will Being Cringe Set You Free? An Investigation
Spoiler - IT WILL.
LISTEN:
The godmothers of a specific corner of the internet slash world have come together for a 2 part podcast, and ooooooooffff that the second part is one of the most interesting things I’ve listened to in a long time. (If nothing else, Liz’s description of watching someone die, and helping them to do it was hugely informative to me).
A watch and a listen - Joan Shelley (feat. Bill Callahan) "Amberlit Morning" [Official Video]
LOOK:
‘Til next time bbs,
Lx
Just here to say I adore you!!
LeAnna
Laura, this landed at the most perfect time (also, I’ve turned off all emails for Substack and get a notification and I choose when to read posts, liberating!)
“A ritual of removal. A prayer for space”
What words!
I’m literally making space to listen to the Glennon Doyle, Liz Gilbert ekkk podcast. I feel it needs my full attention. Whenever I listen to these two, either together or separately, it’s like a transmission. The words + their impact are landing for days.
It was actually hearing Liz Gilbert on a podcast called Quitted, that it gave me the final push to just come the f*k off social media. And I’m loving my sabbatical so much. Gives me more time + more space to read content like yours. I’m going to go back now and re-read it too. As always it was full of glorious ripe fruit to pick and devour.