I won’t usually write to you so frequently but I did promise that I would when inspiration strikes. And, as it unexpectedly does, it has. I’m also keen to build a little ‘back catalogue’ for you to call on, in times of creative cheerleading need. So here we are, with just a quickie.
‘Phrase’
/frāz/
noun
1.a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause
Welcome back my friend. Luisa here.
If you followed one of my previous Substack publications, ‘Salted’, you may recall my slight obsession with the concept of ‘Word Of The Year’. Obsession, because I daydreamed and wrote about it a LOT, in both a positive and negative light, depending on my mood. Call it a love/hate relationship. My very own Marmite of the literary world.
In the name of rebellion (eternally, it seems in my forties that bucking the trend is (again, unexpectedly) my calling) about eighteen months ago I started yarning on about choosing a Word Of The Season, instead. This would be a sensible place to share those popular posts but, alas, they succumbed in the great metaphorical creative fire of my Substack, 30th December 2023. May they rest in peace. And, oops.
However, by bravely burning our creative past to the ground we get to drop to our grazed knees and dig our weathered fingernails through those blackened ashes. Possibly finding a tiny, uncut diamond. We emerge trimphant, with our thinking around this topic awakened, a f r e s h . Isn’t that simply marvellous.
Phrase
This past week since ‘the great fire’, a lightbulb (so many of them, actually).
Like an open channel to whatever big magic energy pours my way, I can barely keep up. Back to the day job, back to the school runs, back to business, but it’s a struggle, right? When the creative energy is through the roof, up beyond into the stars, soaring further and further still, to who knows where?
When it all becomes a bit too much, when the desire swells from your creative belly and threatens to spew hot lava from your throat, your bones, your very soul…just…
…see if you can hold it there.
Sit with it.
Be in it.
Rage it into your notebook in a flurry of scribbles and scrawls, if it helps.
Empty it aloud through a voicenote to a (very understanding and probably writerly) friend.
For when things become too heavy, too hot, too awkward, too cumbersome, or just too flipping B I G, we can choose to either let them consume us, eat us up, swill and scoff and feast on us…or…
…we can…
hold it lightly.
hold it lightly.
hold it lightly.
hold it lightly.
Delivered as it was, through my own pencil into my own journal, there it is. My way of being with the world for 2024. An entire phrase has been gifted by those sparks of intuition and those whispers of intention, that kindles hope and lightness and utterly blissful freedom, for me. Not a word, no, for a word is not deep, nor broad, nor all-encompassing enough for 365 days of continuing to drink-in this beautiful, glittering, overwhelming life. A phrase.
My ‘Phrase For The Year’. I need to ‘hold everything lightly’.
Dreaming
And so, to dreaming.
Dreaming of how, even when it’s crammed only into the margins of our busy days, our writing can shape our lives and our lives can shape our writing. How the nooks and crannies of our twilight hours (I only recently discovered twilight can be considered dusk or dawn, isn’t that beautiful?) can be pockets of magic, portals of escape, empty vessels waiting to be filled by our wishes and spilled back into the world, should we choose.
My dreams for my own writing life in 2024 are of personal storytelling, littered with romantic metaphor. Elegant, exquisite words chosen with care after the initial flood of exhausting, but evocative, flow. Both raw, unfiltered, yet in other ways highly-polished. Poetry, art, fiction; words and images from all walks of life. And prompts of encouragement, gentleness and explicit permission to you (yes, you!) to go about your own writerly life as best pleases you.
Pleasure
If I was to choose a dratted Word of The Year, it may in fact have been ‘pleasure’. In all its forms. Drinking in pleasure, feeding myself with pleasure, drowning in pleasure, filling my ears until they ring with pleasure, soaking my eyes until they weep with pleasure. I haven’t felt worthy, until now. I’ll hold that lightly too, I think.
Q. So, what will you choose as your way of being in the world, this year? A word, for the year, or just for this season? Or perhaps you’ll gift yourself an entire phrase?
If you haven’t already please do consider subscribing (always for free, another lesson I’ve learned this winter because 1. we all already have enough financial stress, plus 2. my writing does not take kindly to any kind of pressure) to Writing Around The Edges, which I plan to have brimming with carefully and quietly crafted encouragement and with full access to any new posts and all publication archives.
Stroll gently, my loves.
x Luisa
P.S I would love to hear from you in a comment, with a ❤️, and/or a restack. :)
When you mentioned “hold it lightly” it reminded me of another phrase “wear it like a loose garment” which I love so much. So often as creatives we can become (often unknowingly) slaves to the prescribed way of doing things; just because it works for some or because it’s ‘mainstream’ doesn’t mean it’s for me….thats another phase I like “take what you need and leave the rest” I’m definitely not a 5am writer, as I’m already a 5am riser with my youngest who loves to play at that time. Rather than be frustrated with my reality, I saw where my pockets of time started to naturally occur. My children may wake early but they also go to bed early (“it’s all just a phase”) and it’s also the time my partner likes to sort the kitchen or play his guitar and then there’s just a blissful little patch of soft time for me to write. Twilight ✨
I do have a word of the year though and I feel so good when I write about it and return to it; reflect on it and write about it, that I’m thinking about getting it made into a necklace to wear (that’s not my original idea, it came from watching a video exchange between Alex Elle & Candice Brathwaite). My word is Devotion. I asked myself when I looked up the definition, how would it feel to give myself and my creativity all my devotion: “love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person or activity.” ✨ it feels good!
this was a delight to read. I just discovered you :) I have a phrase too, well a grouping of words Selah + Hygge Rhythms...Rhythms is kind of the ringleader, it is gentle, encouraging and helps me say "it is enough" whatever "it" is that I was able to DO - my effort was enough and I can go with the flow of what feels good and right :) PS. I LOVE "hold it lightly" that feels a bit like my Selah Rhythms to me.
I've been doing WOY since 2018 I think, and I've NEVER only had ONE word :) just didn't work for me