Not My Business

On taking a sabbatical, setting limits and Russian Stacking Dolls.

My fiftieth issue of Ripe Time came out in earlier this year. Before my current, bi-weekly format, I wrote a monthly newsletter which I started in 2014. My daughter had just turned two and I was beginning my consulting and training work on how sexual trauma impacts sexual and reproductive health. Since then, I've taken time off for holidays but never more than a month. But after today's issue of Ripe Time, I'll be on a brief break.

I'm someone who is a lifelong multi-passionate. Jobs that have been the most meaningful have been the ones where my greedy fingers are in multiple pies. My solopreneur work was the same: multi-dimensional and complex. But in this newborn writing life of mine, I've been energized by the opposite idea: restraint. Publishing here, for example, not here, Medium, LinkedIn and my blog. Oliver Burkeman's book, (mentioned here) introduced me to a concept called "limit your work in progress” (WIP).

Fashion trends are as fleeting and limiting as poodle skirts. But when something fashionable (little black dress, costume jewelry) sticks around, it stops being fashion and becomes style with its own rules associated with it. One jewelry style rule, for example, says that three bracelets is minimum to wear on a woman's wrist. Go to five if you're feeling sassy but definitely stop at seven. Works in progress, Burkeman says, should also be limited to three. The rule here is that only when you bring one of your three to completion, should you add something else. Over the past year, I've kept to three WIP.

My co-hosted podcast Wondermine just wrapped up its second season. We're now on a bit of a break. The writing group I'm leading started last week at the downtown public library. I'd planned that group to happen during the Wondermine lull. And so those two cancel each other out. That's one WIP.

Ripe Time is ongoing. I start work on the next piece, or pick up where I left off on a previously worked piece, on the Thursday after the Wednesday release. I'm also always in the middle of curating ingredients for the categories below the main essay. Ripe Time is my second WIP.

You may have found your way here through my social media. Social media, for me, is a way to test out ideas. To share thoughts that reflect my values and to engage with other creatives. I also use it to see what my favorite authors are writing, reading and talking about. Like Ripe Time, content for and engagement on social never truly finish. Social is my third WIP.

Last Wednesday, however, I opened an email that informed me that there was an opening in a writing course that I wanted to take. I had been second on the waitlist since April. Did I want the spot?

{Limit your works-in-progress}

My intuition shot out a fevered "YES!".

Then I looked around.

I have a child, husband, house, occasional volunteer work and I spend two consecutive days in a retail shop. I also have three works-in-progress. Of course I wanted the slot but...how?

{Limit your works-in-progress}

I talked with two of my right people. I considered how the decision would "enlarge or diminish me"*. I thought about my personal values and how they would be honored. I also looked to the universe for a sign(s). No rules there, I guess. Instead of three, I saw six.

• my child is back in school.

• money was available.

• the course happens on a night I'm free.

• my family and I are not headed out of town until October.

• the course is only 6 weeks.

• the course is live and with a small group.

On Friday, I decided that I would take a sabbatical from Ripe Time. Doing so would remove the newsletter temporarily as one of my works-in-progress and allow the writing course to slot in. It's an answer I feel good about but one that also makes me nervous. But I realized as I'm writing this (writing is so groovy this way) that the nervousness is about your reaction, dear reader, not about my decision.

At the Hear To Slay retreat, participants asked Tressie McMillan Cottom and Roxane Gay how they continued to do their work and stay sane. (That's not the one exact question but an amalgam of many questions with a common theme: the world is burning; how do you keep going.) One answer especially stuck with me. Tressie said, "what you think of me is not my business."

What you think of me is none of my business.

Some writers worry about not being liked. I'm not writing enough about real people for that to be a concern. My worry is rooted in a longstanding Achilles Heel: you'll think I'm flighty or not serious enough about my work, judge me unqualified or unworthy and walk away. This worry is a Russian Stacking Doll: one layer is scarcity thinking, another is the capitalist hustle mentality, another is a patriarchal devaluing of emotions, yet another stems from supremacy thinking about how things "should" be done, etc. But if I tell myself that what you think of me is none of my business, the Doll becomes one more tschotske on a shelf. Taking up space, sure, but not doing any real harm.

And you? Well, you have a bit more space in your inbox for the next eight weeks. If you miss me during that time come find me @EMJWriting in my usual haunts: Twitter and Instagram. I'll be back here on Wednesday October 5 with a fresh essay and new content for you.

Thanks for being here,

Elizabeth

*Question by James Hollis, via Burkeman’s book. Great, right?

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What’s On My Mind:

• Restraint. You never would have guessed this one, right? :-)
  Passing on something. Saying “no”. Or giving it away. I’m thinking about how we are socialized by both capitalism and supremacy culture to jump on the thing (Carpe Diem!), quick, before anyone else does. And considering who isn’t. Who’s exercising both generosity and restraint by not jumping and by giving it away instead. Kiese Laymon talks about this in Thresholds podcast here. Also Roxane Gay (“I don’t have to hoard opportunity. I don’t believe in scarcity,”) and Tressie McMillan Cottom (“Not every good idea needs to be chased down by me…I can share them,”) at Hear To Slay retreat. The share is almost like a higher level of “no”. Like, not only am I passing but I’m passing it on. I’m lifting up someone else instead of me. I love this hard.

What I’m Reading and Loving:

• Arrivals by Bryan Washington. A short story from July 11,18 issue of The New Yorker. I’m not a short story fan but somehow this one really stuck with me. Head here to read it or listen to Washington read it.

• Ohhhh….. my. Kiese Laymon’s novel, Long Division. You know by now that I am a HUGE Laymon fan. I couldn’t stop talking about his memoir, Heavy, after I read it. Laymon has become more well-known this year after buying back the rights to How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others and Long Division and then re-vising them both. What the what?! Yes, yes he did. Anyway, Long Division. I’m VERY early in it and golly, it’s so meaty good.

• Julie Lythcott Haim’s piece announcing she was running for local government. I’m a huge fan of her early books, a memoir and a “parenting book”, for lack of a better term and I love how Julie cultivates community through her toll free venting number, Facebook lives and in her “pod”, a weekly email to 11,000 folks. Julie’s pretty amazing. Go read, follow, support, share.