This is a reader-supported publication, meaning I wouldn’t be here without the paid plans of y’all. Thank you for showing up here with me. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber as a contribution to me and my work this pride month.
The complex feelings of success are sinking in as my dreams continue to expand in ways I did not anticipate. I’ve been updating my website, reworking my bio, and fine-tuning the ways I present in the world. This presentation is entirely different than what I thought it would be, and it’s exactly what it needs to be. I’ve been allowing myself to set a lot down.
I’ve been feeling very okay with being private — protective of the things in my life that have taken me a long time to acknowledge as significant. Most of these things aren’t even things. Most of these things are more akin to feelings.
the feeling of safety when I step into my home;
the knowing that I can pick up the phone and call a number of people for support on any given day;
the sanctuary that is my body as it provides so much more than I ever knew it could.
I recently worked on a project that left me feeling like I compromised the integrity of my word. It’s allowed me to sit with the nature of the work I make — the work I do that is up for consumption and the work I do that will never be for sale. It’s allowed me the time to sit with my very own framing of success.
I took a yoga class that allowed me the time to sit in my hips and reflect on the statement: “I am successful.” My first thought was to diminish the statement entirely. The more I tried to dampen it from my mind, the more it came up in varying parts of my body.
I sat with, and continue to sit with, the complexity of success. While success can have a finite meaning where I come from, it can also be what I’m willing to make it. It has the ability to take the shape of shapes I’ve never seen before. It has the ability to take the shape of a shape I make for myself. It feels like I’m just now tapping into that — the magic of cultivating the reality of choice and challenge.
When the facade of success begins to creep back in making me feel small, that’s when I come back to the written word of books and newsletters. It’s when I stumble upon new music that makes me feel old and challenged. It’s when I allow the people around me to tell me what work they just can’t set down.
Success is a capitalist construct. Success is alignment, which means that alignment is success. Alignment allows my body the time to tell me which way to go.
I find alignment with the work I can’t access through my phone.
Alignment pushes me to get in my car and drive to another town for a show with old friends.
Alignment makes me feel bigger in my body.
Alignment reminds me my path is complex and needed.
Alignment brings a smile to my face.
Alignment means there is dirt under my finger nails.
Alignment puts me in a baggy shirt and comfy pants every single day.
Alignment brings me closer to my loved ones.
Alignment means Bill is not far from my side and nature is within close proximity.
Alignment steers my path, and I circle back to it time and time again. Allow your body to continue to get clear with you about which way to orient.
🪢 “the wind doesn’t blow in purgatory” a solo exhibition by my dear friend Meg Ha opens 6/30 curated by Alice Serres
🪢 Neng jr’s write up in Them making me weepy
🪢 I saw Boygenius with every fan girl and their mom from the state and I cannot say that it disappointed
Happy pride y’all. I am grateful for y’all. I hope greater alignment finds you when you read this. I made a playlist shared up above that I hope will aid in that.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber so as to financially support this work.
<3 thank you thank you, gave me goosebumps considering reframing success as alignment -- currently thinking about this a lot.