I promised I would share updates and give an answer to the question I posed to each of you last week:
What are your plans for the summer?
My answer to this question is long and winding, like a back road stretching wordy, in and through woody places. Like a creek, racing through bare ground and backyard.
My hope, as I’ve said, is to ease back into this place, using it less for the promotion of things and more for the processing of things. I dream of documenting life in long-form writing, just like I did over a decade ago when the world had less apps, and I had less access to the world itself.
For a while now, I’ve felt a longing and a deep desire in my soul to really write. I feel the call of words, beckoning me to travel with and by and through words. To use them to explore the world around me, as well as my own interior world.
In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be unraveling this shifting season, writing about place and people and love and land. After months, even years, of staying buried in the dark, cold ground of grief, it feels like spring is slowing rising to the surface. Like blooms bursting through the frozen ground. Like the sun lingering longer. Like whales returning to warmer waters.
For the last ten years, we’ve called Charlotte, North Carolina our home.
And, in a few short weeks, my family will be moving back up north to the New York/New Jersey area that my husband and I both call home. We’ll be staying there with family for one year, taking a kind of “gap year” to heal our hearts, bodies, and marriage, and to discern next steps for our family.
This decision is the culmination of many reasons, both good and grievous.
We’re stepping into a lot of unknowns, stepping into more questions than answers. Neither of us really knows what is “next” for work, though we both have inklings and sense we’re taking small steps in the right directions.
We feel a mix of emotions and fears.
And, yet, we’re weirdly, wildly excited—and at peace.
It feels a bit like time-traveling, all this tending to the past, the present, and the future. And, so, rather than leaning too much into any particular time or tense, we’re trying our best to stay centered, a word my husband used. I don’t know if that makes sense to others, but it feels right to us and where we are right now.
These photos are of the boys creating memory treasure boxes.
I knew we’d all need a few rituals to help carry us through the hard bits of this transition, so I thought of filling treasure boxes with special items we’ve collected throughout the years.
I’ve often said if I could have included one more chapter in The Matter of Little Losses, it would have been on material items and how much they matter, and what to do with them (or the tragedies that get done to them) when we are walking in and through loss.
Here’s a question. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
If you had a treasure box, what items would you keep inside of it, and why?
Truly, I need to express my gratitude. I am grateful for all of you and thankful for your grace. As I writer, it means a lot to me to show up in the world with my words. However, the last few months I’ve been quiet and retracted. It’s taken a lot out of me to tend to these weighty decisions, and I’ve missed being in this space—sharing about my life and hearing about yours.
I hope to share an updated mailing address as soon as possible. I’ve been longing, and slowly returning to slow communication. (If you know me, you know I value slow communication.) Here’s to all of us sending (and receiving) letter, notes, and cards in the mail again.
Finally, if you’re someone who enjoys welcoming my words in this space, and if you find my words to be filling or formative in any kind of way, please consider financially supporting this newsletter. Which, ultimately, means financially supporting me and my work.
I am a lifelong writer, but this May officially marks twelve years of me sharing my words in the public. Generously, freely, unreservedly. In all my seasons, I have held nothing back: Chasing Kite Tails, She Chases, Ink & Parchment, Indelible Ink Writers, The Fallow House (updates on TFH to come, in time), Let There Be Art, The Matter of Little Losses.
Your encouragement and your support, of all kinds, throughout the years is what has kept. I want to stay and continue to be kept here. Thank you for your giving, as it gives my words and work wings.
And thank you for letting me be a bird on a wire, peering into your stories, comment by comment, email by email, letter by letter.
Ever grateful, and can’t wait to share more. Thank you for being here. Take this song with you. It’s one of my favorites, lately, and I’ve been wanting to share it with you all. ♡
See you next Saturday.
All,
Rachel
P.S. If you’re new around here, please introduce yourself. Would ♡ to meet you in the comments.
Other ways to support, read + review:
Let There Be Art and The Matter of Little Losses
Excited for you and your move!! When I left a treasured home in Michigan to move back into old space, I brought a small jar of white sand from the beach. I look at it every day and it reminds me of where I once was and that this *once was* is still a time and place that matters today and always will.
Moving is big, Rachel. May it be smooth and filled with new opportunities. Excited to see what God us doing in your life!