Collecting Sunrises

An update.

Hello friends!

First off, I want to thank you for being here. Whether you’re a free or paid subscriber, casual onlooker, or occasional peruser, I’m happy to have you around. Your support, comments, messages, and emails have been food for the soul of the highest order for me. When I started this Substack a few years ago, it was more or less a repository for the grief journaling I was doing after the loss, which I thought might also be potentially helpful for others processing their own. “Make it through another day, collect another sunset.”

Many of the essays were emotionally intense and occasionally heartwrenching. Sometimes they still are, particularly when I publish something now that I wrote during that time (last week’s post is a prime example). You might have noticed that the dates on my essays jump around from time to time. Which has been intentional given that life itself, let alone grief, is hardly linear. But I’m nearing the end of those as-yet-unpublished grief-driven essays.

As time progresses and the person I am continues to evolve, the writing has naturally been doing the same. The topics and tenor continue to expand and change course, and I’m quite enjoying that growth. I have subtly changed the description of this Substack numerous times over the last year or so to reflect this, and I just did again a few days ago.

It now reads, “Life tales. Essays, photos, musings, poems, and ramblings about love, laughter, loss, euphoria, woe, and the redemptive power of Mother Nature.” It’s kind of scattershot, I know, but it sounds better than, “Shit I feel like writing and pretty pictures.”

The grief will always be there, and will find its way into essays in the ways it needs to. But I’m more contemplative than consumed by it now. I’m also more actively engaged in being present. At some point over the last few years, the ways in which I notice beauty and interact with the natural world shifted in some wondrous ways (I have theories). And I’ve been doing my best to appreciate, capture, or describe it with words as well as photos. And that’s been making its way to the page and onto this Substack.

So, posts will now include occasional photo collections, as well as the ongoing expansion of written topics beyond grief. And what has been up to this point, weekly posts, may reduce in regularity. When I was in profound pain, I wrote feverishly. It felt like my way through the suffering and back to the light. But now, writing more from a place of gratitude and inspiration, I find myself spending more time enjoying that light than detailing it with words. I eventually do, in due time, but I don’t want to put content out for content’s sake. I want it to be good, meaningful, and connected. Worthy of a reader’s time.

As this becomes less about survival and more about celebration and artistic expression, I hope you’ll stay with me through the change. If the grief writing was why you subscribed in the first place, I completely understand if the newer directions aren’t for you. The archives will always have those writings, and they will always be there. And hopefully, someday part of a book or memoir. I would also understand if you feel like less than weekly offerings aren’t quite worth the money. But I gots to stay true :-) Thanks again for reading!