Going rogue, quietly...

...and is this really a thing?

I’ve been pulling away from things that are electronic and sped up of late.

Less time on my cell phone, and less time playing Mah-Jong with strangers on that cell phone late at night just to distract myself from what I’ve been going through physically and mentally with my ongoing rehab. Less of some things leaves more time for other things.

More time reading books, and ones not always by friends and colleagues, so I stretch my mind out yogically into areas I’ve not stretched out into as a reader and writer. More time listening to music—through wireless speakers, but also just through old CDs on my Bose system. A clearer choice in foods so that I feed my physical and mental health more consciously—you know, more veg, fruit, and (yup! menopausal lady here) more calcium and protein. More time in water so my muscles and tendons knot up less frequently in the middle of the day and night. More time walking around my block with my sticks, rejigging my gait.

I think maybe having had physical health problems over the last three years has been a wake-up call to me on a more holistic level. You can have all of the dreams and goals you set for yourself, but if your physical body is throwing you metaphorical and literal curveballs, you pretty much come to a place where you have to listen.

The Universe, I’ve learned, does truly work in mysterious ways.

For the next couple of months, I’m pulling back from scrolling and posting online.

It’s my attempt to see how I can do with going analogue, trying to pare back the noise and focus so that I can live with less anxiety coming into my life from the outside. I’ve got enough anxiety about health stuff that I can’t handle the anxiety of the online stuff at the same time. Makes sense. . .

Going analogue, or being less present online, is hard to do when you’re a writer because everything that connects us now is online—especially marketing and the public side of releasing new books.

When I started writing in my early 20s, in the 1990s, it wasn’t that way. There were open mics, even then, and people knew—here in Sudbury—that Sweet & Savoury had open mics for poets on certain nights and that book launches were happening in local venues, but it was a different way of connecting. I remember going to Hamilton when I was first published in Kairos for a reading and my dad came along for that road trip. It was the first time I met writers outside of Northern Ontario. We created community in literary circles differently then…

I noticed, in May, that it just seemed too much for me, personally: noisy chatter and sides taken about all sorts of issues—here in Sudbury, in Northern Ontario, in the country. Around the world. I can’t feel calm inside or even think when that chatter is coming at me. It makes me want to listen to 90s music, and so I do. Avoidance, maybe, or maybe it’s just that I know I need to be healing, and to be creative, from a place of calm.

I’ll still post photos of books I’m reading, or share events occasionally, and I’ll definitely post trees and lake photos as I try to get back into the world as I walk with my poles to strengthen my legs, knees, and ankles. But I won’t be scrolling mindlessly because I want to get stronger physically.

A friend I’ve never met in person, but who I’ve known for a long, long time, is shifting careers a wee bit. He’s moving from work that centres on energy and soul, to work that is about baking and creating.

My friend Amar has been a gift to my life, to be honest, and I hope that he knows that. Funny, never to have met someone in person, but to have spent quality time with them online—via chats and emails.

So, I guess I’m “going rogue” by being more absent from social media, in many ways, but I’m grateful for the space I’ve begun to open up for myself in recent weeks. Just unsubscribing from the flood of email newsletters and adverts over the last week or two has lightened my email inbox. More space inside my head and body is a good thing.

I’ve been working with Chelene Knight this spring, to try to find my writing “spark” again after all of this physical health stuff I’ve been going through, and I’m grateful to her for helping me to carve out the space that I need to lead a centred life in 3D, not online. She’s taught me how to slow my brain down, to sink into creativity as a way of life. That’s a gift I’ll always be grateful for.

There are some of us out here who don’t share much personal or political stuff on socials. There are reasons why we don’t. And maybe we did at some point in the past, but maybe it doesn’t suit us now. Our reasons are just as valid as the reasons why others do share more often on socials.

And sometimes life brings you different and really challenging experiences and waves/ways of being that require you to pay attention to your own life first. I’m at this spot now. All of my energy goes there first.

I’m still here, just not as much visible, perhaps.

Who knows? Maybe my analogue summer will turn into a new way of living in the world. For now, I’m cool with listening more than speaking, with meditating and swimming more than being present online. For me, right now, that’s kind of necessary and also kind of fabulous…

k.

Photo by Joyce Hankins on Unsplash