Striking out for deeper waters

It's, once again, time to stir things up....which might make me disappear from your inbox.

Hello there, beautiful! It’s so good to “see” you again.

For weeks, I’ve been treading water in these Something True newsletters, hitting my deadlines but keeping things floaty and brief. This week I’m excited to bust out with an explanation of this odd behavior as well as a solution that will let us strike out for deeper (or at least more intriguing!) waters.

But first, a bit of business:

A few days back, I had an extra half hour between appointments, so I decided to swing into Herbiary for a quick visit. As I walked down Market Street, I noticed a tall ladder leaning against the wall of the store. A workman was climbing up to unhook the Maia Toll’s Herbiary sign, which had hung over the door for the past decade. I stood anonymously on the sidewalk for a few moments, watching the man on the ladder pass the old sign to the young fellow standing below, who reached up to grab it.

In just twenty-six days, Herbiary will also be changing hands. One of our Asheville employees will be the new owner. Her vision, instead of mine and Andrew’s, will carry the business into the future. As I watched a new sign, with Herbiary’s now refreshed colors, get passed back up the ladder, I thought of my friends who are sending their rising freshman off to university this year. I imagine this scene felt similar to witnessing your high school senior pulling on their new college’s sweatshirt. It’s a small moment with big implications: the kid you birthed and raised is differentiating from you. There’s an exuberance in their smile as their face pops out of the hoodie.

Despite the sweat dripping down my bra band, I forced myself to stay and watch the whole sign-changing process. To take it in. The heat radiated through the soles of my flip-flops as I waited for something to stir in me, maybe a little nausea or a few tears. But searching around inside, I felt nothing but ready. Ready to shrug off the responsibility of employing more than a dozen people. Ready to stop worrying when the phone pinged at seven a.m. (who was calling in sick and who could take their shift?). Ready to slough off my past like an outgrown skin and stretch into something new. I also felt immensely grateful to be— just by coincidence— getting out of my car in time to see my name literally come off the wall.

I was halfway to free.

Between selling the business and our impending move to the UK, there will no longer be an outlet for signed copies of my books.

Additionally, I got a note that my publisher will be “remaindering” the Daily Magic deck. “Remaindering” is a fancy word for pulping. Basically, my publisher is saying “sorry, this one didn’t work out the way we planned, and it is taking up way too much space in the warehouse.” While I haven’t officially been told it’s going out of print, I would assume that’s the next step. Daily Magic is the little box set of quotes and lessons from my memoir Letting Magic In. Readers tell me it's fun to keep it near the coffee maker so they can pull a card with their morning cup. So if you want one, now’s the time!

Here’s a link for the last of the signed books as well as my decks, journals, and puzzles.

Now, let’s make for deeper waters!

A few weeks back, Andrew and I traveled to Edinburgh to house hunt. The days were ridiculously long. At eleven p.m. each night, we’d pull close the wooden shutters and layer on the black-out curtains, filtering out the last bit of light so we could get some sleep. The never-ending evenings reminded me—oddly— of late autumn, the time of year when the light feels both dark and bright, like a shadowy filter laid over a photograph. In this half light, after-dinner walks felt magical. We’d window shop for cheese and wine (the stores were closed) and walk along the river with the locals and their dogs. You couldn’t help but be aware of the length of the days. Of the summer solstice, which, at that point, was still to come.

I know I have written before about the etymology of the word solstice. Since this probably isn’t the first time you’re reading this, as a reminder: solstice originates from the Latin words sol and stice. Sol means sun, stice means to stand still. So at the solstices— both summer and winter— the sun appears to stand still on the horizon, an effect lasting about ten days. When we sync our lives with the seasons, these pauses become a time to take a breath and reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Once again, this has felt relevant as we have cruised through late June and into July. Not only am I between one incarnation and the next, I’ve been put in a holding pattern with my writing by, of all people, my realtor. Despite what I thought was an amazing amount of restraint on my part, I was told I was over-sharing about selling the house and my excitement for the move the Edinburgh in this newsletter. Apparently, I am extremely Google-searchable. My personal essays gave potential buyers insider knowledge, which can (and, on one recent occasion, did) become fuel for manipulation.

But my writing also fuels me. I’m currently between books, so my focus has been on the writing I deliver directly to you. Through last winter’s long darkness, as Andrew and I began making our plans, I dreamed of how I would use this space to take you along on my midlife metamorphosis. I envisioned how this adventure would shift, not just me, but this newsletter.

I don’t want to give that up.

Right now, I have the opportunity to capture the messiness of midlife as the moments unfold instead of constructing a sanitized version after the fact. Messiness is why I think people get addicted to reality TV. When we understand that love, and change, and creativity are often a mess in the moment but can still morph into something beautiful and generative, we get a little braver and more willing to wade through discomfort in order to become the people we desperately want to be.

So I want to share the mess. I am salivating to share the mess. Not just selling the house and figuring out how to separate from who I have been here, but also the expat adventure to come. And Edinburgh… I can’t wait to savor the richness of this multi-layered city with you as I discover it for myself. Envisioning what this newsletter can become— a heap of rediscovery, a pinch of travelogue, a smidge of cultural commentary— is mouthwateringly delicious for me.

This is where my energy is right now. And, of course, I can’t help but see these all of this through the lenses of metaphor and seasonal living, because that’s how I live my life. Those threads will pull through. Put another way: you can expect a continuation of past themes but with an entirely fresh plot line.

To do this and not piss off the real estate gods, I’m moving behind the paywall. Free subscribers will get a note every 4-6 weeks, paid subscribers will carry on weekly.

Additionally, I’m no longer going to try to maintain offering extra lessons and writing prompts. When I include these, it always feels like I’m stepping back in time. Most of those lessons and prompts were dreamed up a decade ago for online programs I was teaching then. Instead of regurgitating the past, I want to put all my attention on what I’m creating for you right now. I want to intentionally explore ideas and places so I can share them with you.

What you’ll get when you sign-up for Something True is good reading, delivered to your inbox once a week.

To make this easier on those of you who want the weekly ready but might be on a budget, I’m offering 50% off subscriptions in July. This means you can sign up for just $3/month! Half the price of your Starbuck’s fix.

I also did a little math. Over 4,000 people click open Something True every month. If each of those readers signs up at $3/month, I can treat writing Something True like my job… which means I can spend time exploring out from Edinburgh and reporting back in, I can research ideas we all might be interested in, and take the time to interview people you will find intriguing and enlightening. Your contribution means opportunities for your vicarious enjoyment will go up immensely!

I often get emails from folks who want to read but dislike the subscription model. Frankly, I’m not a fan of subscriptions. So here’s what I do: Sign up for a year and then cancel so it doesn’t renew automatically the next year (and, since a year is currently $30, it’s kind of a no-brainer).

This all begins next week!

Can’t wait to dive in with you.