Sustain (corrected)
Sorry for the duplicate emails! This one has some corrections.
Welcome to In a Word, a newsletter that cultivates thoughtfulness, one word at a time. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:
A lot of the ways we’re working, parenting, and living in 2020 aren’t sustainable; we can’t keep going like this forever. What sustains you when you keep doing the unsustainable? Do you build endurance? Burn out? Both, in different areas?
Maybe that’s a big part of adulthood generally: triaging the stressors. We learn (often, through failure) where we can bear a little more weight, where we need to ease up. Sometimes we’ll hear that whisper of “I can’t keep doing this,” and it will be wisdom, telling us to stop. Sometimes it will be our inner child throwing an all caps tantrum: “I CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS,” and we will find that yes, we can, if only because we must.
I’ve been wondering, with all the doing and all the wondering how long we can keep up with the doing, how our souls are doing. These are the kind of esoteric thoughts I don’t stick with for very long. Despite being a writer and lover of open-ended art, I’m a literal, straight-line thinker most of the time:
What are the facts? What do we know for sure? What is the next step?
So, when the phrase “anemia of the soul” appeared in the writer side of my brain, I let it clank around to see if anything tangible would reveal itself.
And there, staring into the pantry without seeing, I realize that I have whipped my meal plan into shape and forgotten to ask for daily bread. I have assumed that pain has more to teach me than pleasures, and thus neglected the pleasures.
Women in particular seem prone to defining ourselves by our deprivations—how little of everything we can subsist on—as though the not needing will make us wanted.
I have subsisted on quick hits of productivity and distracted conversations and half-formed prayers— furtive sips stolen from a mostly evaporated well. The rationing of my internal resources has left me weak, lightheaded, spiritually aloof.
I’m just a girl, standing in front of a darkened pantry at 11pm with a handful of chocolate chips, asking to see God.
A short list of things that are sustaining me at a deeper level right now:
Reading to my daughter
Telling the truth
Putting my phone down for a nap
Afternoon tea
FaceTimeing my family
Running near water
Praying with my feet
GIF-rich text threads
Lowering my expectations
Inhaling fiction
I’m noting them so that I don’t neglect them. Because if we’re going to keep doing the unsustainable, we must name and prioritize our sustenance.
In this issue, you’ll find a novel, an eye cream, a podcast, some thought-provoking articles, and of course, a benediction. And I have a poem for you coming in a separate email later this week!
Look, I know the most sustainable option is to consume less. But I bought this sustainably made light weight sweater on sale and I have no regrets. ✌
Clockwise from left:
Kids are a mess. These washable bamboo towels have saved us from using all of the Pacific Northwest’s trees to wipe up soggy cereal and pee. Also, AS SEEN ON SHARK TANK, so what else do you need to know.
My beloved signature hand soap is no where to be found (a minor but felt Covid casualty) which led me to buy glass soap dispensers that I can refill with whatever is available. (I can’t fill my Basil Mrs. Meyers soap containers with Softsoap; it’s lying, and if one thing will be intact at the end of 2020, it’s my integrity.)
I gave Dropps laundry and dishwasher detergent a try, and I like it! (I ordered the Oxi boost, small load and sensitive skin pods, and lemon scented dishwasher pods.)
I bought these bamboo rounds a couple years ago for my micellar water cleansing (read: lazy) routine. They come with this little bag for washing!
Oh, and not pictured but very recommended is our compost service. We do not have a yard for composting, but there’s a local service that picks up our rotting aspirational kale biweekly. (There’s a weekly option, too.)
My dashboard says we’ve diverted 389lbs of food waste in the past 11 months. That’s a lot of rejected toddler meals and coffee grounds.
My link= two week trial for you, if they serve your area.
It’s a worthy cost to me, especially since we don’t pay for trash service. (Trash is included in our rent and consists of a loud truck barreling into my dreams every Monday at 4am as it heaves our community dumpster contents into its garbage belly.)
Soles 4 Souls: Goodwill is great, but they often get more items than they can handle and have to throw things away. I found Soles 4 Souls, whose mission is multifaceted but one thing they do is help people start businesses selling used items. My shoes get a second life, and they help create a sustainable income for someone.
Knickey: I have also been plagued by the waste of throwing away old underwear. I know, no one wants to wear used underwear, and I can’t even use it for cleaning rags. But! I knew there had to be something better than adding to the landfill, and Knickey is an underwear company that will recycle them (plus tights, socks, and bras) responsibly for you. (They also give you a free pair of underwear when you recycle!)
You just print a free shipping label from both sites!
You can also Google “textile recyling + your city or state” and see what comes up. There weren’t really any local options for me, which is why I opted for these one.
This may be a very niche need not applicable to readers of this newsletter, but in case someone needs it: now that I am a student again, and because I am an old student and thus like to take notes by hand, I needed NOTEBOOKS. I found this Wave Rocketbookwhich you can scan to save your notes digitally, and which is reusable. (You microwave it and all the words disappear, so you can use again!)
Some last links worth a click:
Sweatpants Forever (a really fascinating look at the fashion industry and its sped-up collapse during Covid)
A good reminder from Shauna Niequist in this caption:
May we stop defining ourselves by our deprivations, as though not needing will make us wanted.
May we deem ourselves worthy of marrow-deep sustenance.
May we learn to calculate what we require, and believe it is not too much.
As always, I’d love to hear what this issue calls to mind for you! Simply respond to this email to share your thoughts with me. I’ll be back in your inbox with a poem later this week, since this email was too long!
Gratefully, Jacey
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