What a lovely surprise to see you pop up today. With words! And they are just as touching and inspirational as ever. I love how you share your truth. No matter where you are in the ebb or flow of life’s mystery. You are a gift to all who search for clues about how and when to expand or let go of the vast questions! Xo
This is a stunning invocation of the in-between, not as a waiting room, but as a wilderness with its own strange gravity. Your refusal to sentimentalise the loss of self, your willingness to let the old you go without embalming her in nostalgia, is one of the most tender things a woman can do past 40. Because, let’s be honest, the world teaches us how to debut, not how to dissolve.
Maybe the new language we’re searching for isn’t verbal at all, not yet. Maybe it’s somatic. Cellular. Maybe the new self doesn’t arrive in words but in weather, barometric shifts in our being. The selfie, once an attempt at preservation, now feels like an intrusion on a body still mid-metamorphosis. Like photographing a chrysalis and calling it a butterfly.
Can we also talk about how evolution gave us skin that bruises easier with age, but hearts that hold more complexity, not less? And how maybe that is the exchange: less collagen, more capacity for contradiction. You write like someone who has survived her own myth. Who now knows that breadcrumbs aren’t meant to get you back, they’re a trail for someone else, some future version of you, or some reader in their own dark wood, clutching a lantern you lit without knowing it.
I hope your words do end up in a box in Joan Didion’s estate, wedged between her sunglasses and a matchbook from The Beverly Hills Hotel. But more than that, I hope they keep finding us, those of us not quite ready to selfie ourselves back into view. We don’t need mirrors when we have voices like yours showing us how to see again, Jeanette!
Oh yes indeed, the liminalities have their own strange gravity. It's funny that you speak to my refusal to sentimentalize, and lack of nostalgia - I feel both very sentimental and deeply nostalgic in almost everything I do and write. Now I wish to go back and read myself to see how that lands difference, or how perhaps I understand those things differently, or take a kinder lens elsewhere than I do with my own words.
"Maybe the new language we’re searching for isn’t verbal at all, not yet. Maybe it’s somatic. Cellular."
Yes to this. After a lifetime of fighting so hard to be in my body, these last few years have invited me into a deeper understanding of somatics, a deeper kinship with my physical form. It's funny how, then, the need to fight to be with ceases, and a way is opened. As one who weilds words, it's easy to forget that words are the least and last of language, that so very much precedes it.
Hurrah to hearts that expand to hold complexity, for the multitudes to live within, each with their own stage and mic and not at war with one another, but in communion.
"You write like someone who has survived her own myth."
Woosh, to survive ones own myth. Not once, not twice, but eternally. I think we all must, if we are to evolve. But oh, those myths have a tenacious hold, and letting go of them often lodges in the deepest, aching parts.
1. Yes, if you mean that quote in Fried Green Tomatoes, “I’m too young to be old, and too old to be young.” Even though technically I am 67 years old, I don’t feel anything close to what I thought that should feel or look like. Not that I have some 20 year old body (I don’t) , but I don’t have any aches or pains. I do have a restlessness about what’s next. I just got laid off on Friday from one of my part-time Monday-Friday job. I would like to meet a few more lesbians (not necessarily for a romantic relationship) a few friends would be nice. This little town I live in is definitely not Berkeley or SF where I grew-up and worked for quite a few years. I do spend of fair amount of time thinking about financial security.
Then I try to remind myself that I have been down to 15 cents when I was living in LA (before I even had a credit card). I survived that and thankfully I have more than 15 cents at the moment. Thoughts pop in my head like you don’t even have a will. Then I think maybe I should get out more so at least a couple of people miss me for at least a half a second when I am gone. Then I snap back to the present moment.
The in between part of transitioning to the next phase is not easy. I remember clearly what I don’t want to do over again but the being brave and vulnerable is part where I can procrastinate when It comes to new relationships, or a big shift. So I force myself to take baby steps. Like okay, coffee with one lesbian this month. lol (we will see if that happens).
I was watching a movie and I saw this post on Substack. I turned the movie off. I bet Joan Didion read what you wrote those words that landed in her birthday card. I imagine she felt every single word on the page. You have what it takes to be a be appreciated even by super famous writers.
I am so glad you are here even if you are here for just the day. I'll still be here if and when you decide to be here again. Your words are everything. YOU are everything.
It was March 8 that you spoke to and saved this singular soul, through which you then saved a very drastically sad 13 year old boy. That is more than I’ve done in my 55 years. Your art in on my wall, and on the walls of family members who for all of their lives cannot quantify the feeling of “off” or “wrongness.” Of course your own journey/judgment/curiosity about yourself if yours. But in the spirit of taking little and giving much, to me it’s as if you’ve lived five lives of doing the latter. The ripples of good you have created will never slow down and become flat still water. That is not the nature of truth, and certainly not the nature of the way you convey it. Just my 2 cents.
What a lovely surprise to see you pop up today. With words! And they are just as touching and inspirational as ever. I love how you share your truth. No matter where you are in the ebb or flow of life’s mystery. You are a gift to all who search for clues about how and when to expand or let go of the vast questions! Xo
Oh Gina, I do adore you forever and ever, amen. Thank you and I miss you dear!
This is a stunning invocation of the in-between, not as a waiting room, but as a wilderness with its own strange gravity. Your refusal to sentimentalise the loss of self, your willingness to let the old you go without embalming her in nostalgia, is one of the most tender things a woman can do past 40. Because, let’s be honest, the world teaches us how to debut, not how to dissolve.
Maybe the new language we’re searching for isn’t verbal at all, not yet. Maybe it’s somatic. Cellular. Maybe the new self doesn’t arrive in words but in weather, barometric shifts in our being. The selfie, once an attempt at preservation, now feels like an intrusion on a body still mid-metamorphosis. Like photographing a chrysalis and calling it a butterfly.
Can we also talk about how evolution gave us skin that bruises easier with age, but hearts that hold more complexity, not less? And how maybe that is the exchange: less collagen, more capacity for contradiction. You write like someone who has survived her own myth. Who now knows that breadcrumbs aren’t meant to get you back, they’re a trail for someone else, some future version of you, or some reader in their own dark wood, clutching a lantern you lit without knowing it.
I hope your words do end up in a box in Joan Didion’s estate, wedged between her sunglasses and a matchbook from The Beverly Hills Hotel. But more than that, I hope they keep finding us, those of us not quite ready to selfie ourselves back into view. We don’t need mirrors when we have voices like yours showing us how to see again, Jeanette!
Oh yes indeed, the liminalities have their own strange gravity. It's funny that you speak to my refusal to sentimentalize, and lack of nostalgia - I feel both very sentimental and deeply nostalgic in almost everything I do and write. Now I wish to go back and read myself to see how that lands difference, or how perhaps I understand those things differently, or take a kinder lens elsewhere than I do with my own words.
"Maybe the new language we’re searching for isn’t verbal at all, not yet. Maybe it’s somatic. Cellular."
Yes to this. After a lifetime of fighting so hard to be in my body, these last few years have invited me into a deeper understanding of somatics, a deeper kinship with my physical form. It's funny how, then, the need to fight to be with ceases, and a way is opened. As one who weilds words, it's easy to forget that words are the least and last of language, that so very much precedes it.
Hurrah to hearts that expand to hold complexity, for the multitudes to live within, each with their own stage and mic and not at war with one another, but in communion.
"You write like someone who has survived her own myth."
Woosh, to survive ones own myth. Not once, not twice, but eternally. I think we all must, if we are to evolve. But oh, those myths have a tenacious hold, and letting go of them often lodges in the deepest, aching parts.
1. Yes, if you mean that quote in Fried Green Tomatoes, “I’m too young to be old, and too old to be young.” Even though technically I am 67 years old, I don’t feel anything close to what I thought that should feel or look like. Not that I have some 20 year old body (I don’t) , but I don’t have any aches or pains. I do have a restlessness about what’s next. I just got laid off on Friday from one of my part-time Monday-Friday job. I would like to meet a few more lesbians (not necessarily for a romantic relationship) a few friends would be nice. This little town I live in is definitely not Berkeley or SF where I grew-up and worked for quite a few years. I do spend of fair amount of time thinking about financial security.
Then I try to remind myself that I have been down to 15 cents when I was living in LA (before I even had a credit card). I survived that and thankfully I have more than 15 cents at the moment. Thoughts pop in my head like you don’t even have a will. Then I think maybe I should get out more so at least a couple of people miss me for at least a half a second when I am gone. Then I snap back to the present moment.
The in between part of transitioning to the next phase is not easy. I remember clearly what I don’t want to do over again but the being brave and vulnerable is part where I can procrastinate when It comes to new relationships, or a big shift. So I force myself to take baby steps. Like okay, coffee with one lesbian this month. lol (we will see if that happens).
I was watching a movie and I saw this post on Substack. I turned the movie off. I bet Joan Didion read what you wrote those words that landed in her birthday card. I imagine she felt every single word on the page. You have what it takes to be a be appreciated even by super famous writers.
You are the best cheerleader a writer could have.
I relate to this SO MUCH. Thank you for writing it and sharing it.
Thank YOU so much for reading and commenting. What part did you relate too most?
I am so glad you are here even if you are here for just the day. I'll still be here if and when you decide to be here again. Your words are everything. YOU are everything.
I am so blessed to have you continuously in my corner. The luckiest.
I'm the luckiest to forever be in your corner. Always! ❤️
Questions for my readers:
1. Is liminality a part of your human condition?
2. What do you believe or hope happens after our bodies are finished their journey?
3. if you are writing, what keeps you going when. you want to stop? if you are not writing (but wish you were) how are you coping with the pause?
4. Which line or section of this stream of consciousness peek into my brain resonated the most?
It was March 8 that you spoke to and saved this singular soul, through which you then saved a very drastically sad 13 year old boy. That is more than I’ve done in my 55 years. Your art in on my wall, and on the walls of family members who for all of their lives cannot quantify the feeling of “off” or “wrongness.” Of course your own journey/judgment/curiosity about yourself if yours. But in the spirit of taking little and giving much, to me it’s as if you’ve lived five lives of doing the latter. The ripples of good you have created will never slow down and become flat still water. That is not the nature of truth, and certainly not the nature of the way you convey it. Just my 2 cents.
does that mean it's almost our anniversary? :)
Thank you so much for all the ways you remind me that this work matters, that my words matter. It means more than you can ever know.