Noticing things and writing about them
I’m doing the small but immense-for-me act of launching a newsletter. (It’s not really a newsletter in the usual sense; more a space for me to share essays and noticings every couple of weeks, and hear what other people think about things).
I did once have a blog, but upon re-reading it after some time away, I was convinced it was awful (it probably wasn't) and was mortified at the possibility of other human beings reading it (they probably weren't), so I deleted the whole thing. Progressing in public is difficult. We do the best we can, and offer it to the world. Then we learn and change, and see the brilliance of others, and wonder if we're deluded for thinking our work was ever, will ever, be any good. And it can stop us from trying, and from being brave enough to keep showing who we are and showing up for others, as we go through the messy process of change, and with all our nuance. I do not show up very well -- to the point that many acquaintances, and even some friends, cannot really describe what I do for a living, or are at least surprised to hear of the variety of things I've done. This newsletter is a small step toward changing that.
But more than that, it's about writing. I’ve always had the urge to write, and have followed that urge in small and secret ways -- sentences in margins of lecture notes; poems on international project documents; interesting-sounding words on meeting agendas; ideas on post-it notes and scraps of paper. I wrote around the edges of my life. Always pulled to it, but never giving it space. Or more honestly, just not doing the work.
I do write already – reports, interviews and book reviews for magazines. But I want to do more of the writing that has always drawn me -- writing that is thoughtful, personal, beautiful at times. Writing that finds and rides a deeper current. Writing that is joy. A personal essay, a poem, a story for a child. I’ve experimented with these things but shied away when life took over, or because I wasn’t being paid for them (payment can be a soul and purpose-crushing reason to do, or not to do something, and yet...bills), or when I submitted something to a magazine or competition and got rejected.
But as well as the rejections, there were doors that opened just a little bit too – like being long-listed in a creative essay competition, or having reflective pieces published in magazines and anthologies. As well as this being the kind of writing I read, here was gentle affirmation that maybe, by actually working at this, it could be the kind of writing I also do.
So, committing to this newsletter is about making myself just do the work. It’s about creating a space to write, and a space to engage with readers and other writers, which, in the safety of its form, allows for experimentation within. I once felt form a restrictive thing, but am coming to see it as freeing. American author and farmer Wendell Berry speaks of the importance of form – of a poem, or of a marriage:
"The work of poetic form is coherence, joining things that need to be joined, as marriage joins them... Forms join the diverse things that they contain; they join their contents to their context; they join us to themselves; they join us to each other..." - Wendell Berry
I want to use writing to join ideas, and people, and things I’m noticing. I want to join inner and outer life, science and sacred, theory and practice, light and dark, and in doing so, open up space for discovery and nuance. So, making the space to write regularly is what matters here. Just doing the work is what matters. Showing up with a notebook and laptop; with ideas and words. I hope the momentum of a regular newsletter might create momentum for other things -- like the book I've been s-l-o-w-l-y working on, for one. And when I feel that momentum... well, it takes a hold and then I'm ok. But starting, showing up, prioritising this space -- that's the hard part.
So I’ll write. I’ll write about writing and reading and books. I'll write about place, local politics, rural challenges, community, international development, walking, farms and nature, because these are things I know. But I want to open up these topics, and find the sometimes-inconvenient but always-vital nuance. I’ll write honestly, thoughtfully, and at times creatively. I might even write stories and poetry because I like stories and poetry. I’ll write half thoughts and fragmented thoughts as part of a search for wholeness. I’ll write towards what draws me, not towards the ‘shoulds’. I’ll write and dig under the surface of who I am, what I’ve seen and learned, what others are doing, what I think is possible.
I’ll write. And it’d be a privilege to have you to read my words, leave a comment, and share your own words and noticings. By each offering our own fragments, and engaging with others as they do the same, the whole becomes clearer.
Finally, the name of this newsletter, ‘Red Lands’, comes from the colour of the soil in places that have shaped me — Devon, in the UK’s westcountry, and Zambia (and other African countries). Many of my pieces here will bring in experiences from those places.
Thanks for being here.