It has been a long time since I addressed those who follow my posts directly.
Ever since I left the community of The Undeniables, this site has been different; an abstraction of community, an abstraction of sharing, more ethereal than a place where I would share work with people whom I might later see in a cafe, in a bar, in an organizing space.
It has been five years since my last participation in The Writers Workshop, and in that time, I’ve moved away from Los Angeles, cultivated a livelihood as an outdoor educator and transcriptionist, and gained a passion for working with clay.
Amidst all of that, the writing has continued. Here, in private email circles, in the pages of notebooks and journals. I’ve continued to work on my chapbook-every-year-forever goal, which has been a way to reflect on the year, to look back on the writing I have churned out over time and collect it all in some coherent manner.
Having made 5 of these collections over the last 6 years, all while still striving to post new work with some frequency, has taken a toll. It has made me question why I am posting, why I am writing, for whom and for what I am writing. As always, the goal is to share, to be radically open. Yet I still hit the wall of what meaning does it have if I have not cultivated a real community here?
All this to say that I am going to be changing things around here a bit, and setting an intention to write as much privately as I have previously posted here, and to make chapbooks that are more intimate and cohesive. That by sharing less, I will be able to share more.
I’ve realized, thanks to people who have asked me what draws me to make pottery, that the common thread in all of the work that I do, be it writing or climbing or backpacking or ceramics, is intimacy.
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It is the end of November. Much has happened in the last 3 weeks. Making beauty and making connections is important as it has always been. I am working on my 2016 chapbook. I hope that you are giving yourself permission to make art, writing, food, whatever you need to do to find strength and fire and comfort for yourself and your loved ones and your communities.
I hope that you’ve found some here.
– narinda
narinda heng 