On The Wisdom of Past Selves
plus our upcoming poetry week
When I finished writing my 2020 memoir Native, I remember sitting in an Irish pub that was nestled just a few minute’s walk away from our house in Atlanta. I was thinking about the particularly difficult trap that writers often experience, a kind of time loop that creates a bit of stickiness in our lives.
The problem is, we write from where we are. We don’t write from who we will one day be, and we don’t even write from who we were ten minutes ago. We have only this moment, right now, our current selves that are showing up to the work.
So that day in 2019, I wrote the afterword to the book, and in it, said this:
“As I write, you are getting the Kaitlin of her thirtieth year of life, the one who has only learned as much as she can by this point. By this time next year, she will know new things, and those things will shape her. She will have found better ways to express love, better language to fight hate, and will have learned from the books that have yet to be written by others in the world doing extraordinary work…may we look back on our long-ago selves with kindness and know that there were always things we should have done better.”
These words were a bit of a love letter to the reader, and to myself—past and present. It takes courage on multiple levels:
to admit that our past selves were wrong about some things
to love our past selves despite their wrongdoings and ignorance
to hold space for ourselves and each other as we grow
Sometimes, words I wrote years ago, before I was a published author, will pop up on Facebook, because back then, living in a tiny apartment with little ones was a season of writing blog posts and my spiritual practice was a second to post a picture to Facebook for friends and family to see.
Recently, I found these words from 2015:
"To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight, with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up." -Barbara Brown Taylor
Let's remember today that things aren't so black and white. Our beliefs, our politics, our needs, our experiences-- they aren't always this or that.
Look someone else deep in the eyes today. Stare at the clouds in the sky longer, make shapes with your imagination and make constellations out of the stars tonight while the cicadas screech lullabies to each other.
May we find a little more humanity there, a little more rising up with our falling down, so that we remember we are not alone.
There is wisdom in our past selves. This past self, this former me, she was only 24 years old, a young mother, trying to find herself, struggling with, in many ways, the same thing I still struggle with today:
who am I?
what words help express who I am?
what does it mean to be human?
It takes imagination and care to acknowledge all of who we are, and all of who we’ve been. And as authors, especially those of us who write vulnerably about our life experiences, are laying it all out there, all that we’re learning and unlearning, all of what it means to be human.
So sometimes we honor how far we’ve come, that we’ve unlearned some things, that we’ve learned some things.
And we honor the wisdom of past selves, that they, too, were figuring some things out about what it’s like being human. They, too, were trying to honor their bodies and hearts, trying to figure out what it means to love.
And one day, when we’re older than we are today, we’re going to look back on this very moment and say the same things again.
A simple practice for the week: write a letter to your future self, and put it somewhere where you’ll find it years down the road. Thank your future self for loving you, for honoring you in every season.
Now, something I can’t wait to tell you about: a new poetry series!
Tender Transitions is a daily poetry practice we will enter into together from September 15-22nd. This is partly to celebrate my birthday on the Autumn Equinox, the 22nd, and to celebrate the tender movement from Summer to Autumn.
So, mark your calendars! This coming Sunday we will begin! Carve out just a few minutes to honor the transitions you find yourself in. I promise it will be worth it.
This time of year goes by so fast, and I want to slow down and savor it a little. Please join me. If you haven’t done this with me before, here’s how it will work: Each morning from the 15-22nd, I’ll send out an email with some thoughts, a one-word poetry prompt, and my own poem. You’re welcome to just read the poems, you’re welcome to write your own poetry or prose, and you’re especially welcome to share in the comments if you feel comfortable.
This is a community of creatives who hold liminality with one another. All are welcome here!
Some extra, exciting things!
Until September 23rd, you can get 60% off the audio edition of Living Resistance! I really, truly love recording the audio for all of my books, and treat it as a journey, as poetry and medicine. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Just 8 bucks!
Tomorrow, September 11th, I’m hosting a workshop on Holistic Care for Writers. I’d really love to fill this up with some more folks, so please consider joining us. Share with some friends, make a little room in your calendar if you can. I promise it will be a tender, sacred space to gather and share what keeps us going in our writing. Register here!
There is still time for you to come to Ireland with us! Last week we had our planning session, and it’s going to be an *incredible* time together. Register here.
THE GIVEAWAY HAS EXPANDED!
Friends, we aren’t just giving away a copy of Native and Living Resistance! Thanks to my amazing publishing teams, we are now giving away multiple copies of Winter’s Gifts and Summer’s Magic, plus a few of you will win a tote bag from RandomHouse! All you need to do to be entered into these drawings is be a subscriber to The Liminality Journal! I’ll draw names on October 1st.
Please subscribe and share with your friends! And thank you for being part of this community.
My birthday too, is on the Autumn Equinox, Sept. 22nd.....and this year it's a biggie for me.....65 wholesome years! This is always a sacred time for me, but this year, more than usual, and your theme of Transitions is a perfect one as I/we move into the last stretch towards it! I loved your last poetry series, and look so forward to this one! Maybe I'll try to write my own as well, rather than just appreciate everyone else's. Thank you so much for this opportunity!
What a delightful message I resonated with your love letter . At 73, I know my past self did the best she could with the resources she had. I am more resourceful now and will have even more capacity and choice next year. Thank You