Penny Post #25: Rewind
Celebrating six months with an in-depth look back.
If you want to catch up on previous posts, this is your time to. With Penny Post #25 (wow!), I encourage you to journey with me backward to mark the growth of my writing and wisdom.
It was February 19th. I was sitting in my Celtic Literature class, droning out the lecture, tuned into the stirring of something deep inside me. Ideas - both good and bad - hit me suddenly. The title of my podcast: sudden. The name of my nonexistent Golden Retriever puppy: swift. The idea for this newsletter: a lightning strike. There is no telling when the idea will hit: when I’m driving, as I’m falling asleep, or in the middle of a long lecture about Celtic literature. More often than not, I trust these callings. Which is the reason why you are reading this. My instincts led me here, the voice that told me this was a good idea didn’t feel like my own and thus, was trusted enough to take action.
Directly after that Celtic literature class, stuck in a student lounge on Notre Dame’s campus, moved by the lightning strike that had mobilized my spirit, I wrote this:
A classic this-is-my-first-post-ever identity struggle. Am I a writer? What does that label carry?
Best line: The first time someone called me a “writer,” I didn’t dare believe it.
In that same comfy chair with a swing-around desk dreading the time that brought me closer to my next class, I wrote my next post, again a quest for identity and a relentlessness that has carried me through much, much terrain. The reader I was most scared to show it to was the one it was about: my mom. Spoiler alert: she loved it.
Best line: She knew the grass wasn’t always greener, even though I insisted it was.
The idea for the next essay came to me like the idea of this newsletter: as if a lightning strike. Fateful and dangerous and basically formed at its inception. If there was one thing I was as relentless about as insisting Santa Claus wasn’t real, it was insisting we needed a golden retriever dog. And as evidenced, I was one convincing 9-year-old. We got Rosie, who was the best companion a fragile spirit like mine could’ve asked for. When I was asking for the golden retriever, I was asking for the cute pictures and the soft fur and to name something as my own, yet I got so much more. The subtext here: an insecure spirit was testing her believed-invisibility and was proven wrong with a slobbery kiss and a K-9 hug.
Best line: The speed with which she pursued me was the depth at which she valued me.
And then I took a turn: instead of the happy-go-lucky talk of golden retriever puppies and the joy of Christmas, I let my fear take the pen. What happens when you turn a beloved childhood game into an ominous struggle for identity? This:
Best line: I’m hiding behind the metaphor of a children’s game because I’m scared to say that writing is how I’m found.
The eeriness continued when I attempted to distance my true self from the self that is the author of APFMT.
Best line: I don’t dare open my eyes underwater as I know the salt water would sting and the thought of trying to look for the light in the dark is scarier than seeing nothing at all.
Then came a bit of curiosity when walking down the aisles of Michaels, the ultimate artist oasis. Forget creative retreats or a cabin in the woods (hello, Henry David Thoreau), just go to the nearest Michaels. This post was also coincidentally inspired by a homework assignment from the same Celtic literature class where the idea for this newsletter struck in the first place.
Best line: Creativity has a way of procuring possibility out of unimaginable circumstances.
Curiosity piqued again in the form of an elementary school boy. I continue my practice of turning something that feels burdensome (ie the raucous conversations of 8 year olds) into the ultimate privilege (ie sharing wonder with a stranger). This post still makes me smile.
Best line: I couldn’t help but feel his wonder seep into me and become mine.
Then came a more cerebral pondering, about the principle of the same thing being experienced in many, many different ways. This is an example of my writing where I just let the questions guide me to an answer (or even more questions).
Best line: Time speeds up and time slows down regardless of our attention to it yet time speeds up and time slows down in response to our attention.
Speaking of time, what happens when the passing of time is eerily marked by the jeopardy theme song? This:
Best line: I desire to live a full life, even if it means holding two competing worlds in harmony.
Somewhat out of place but also somewhat indicative of my work now, I used the metaphor of a puzzle to illuminate truths I’ve come to understand about humanity.
Best line: To get to the big picture, however, you must handle each miniature picture.
Then I graduated. & moved cross country. & took a much needed break. Ironically, my writing improved and so too did my confidence, and here comes a series of exceptional essays exploring early adulthood life:
Beginning at dreams and ending in rejection. A curious arc.
Best line: I embrace my soaked-in-a-dream self; the one that believes Anne Hathaway and Leonardo DiCaprio would want to act in a story of mine, the one that believes there is wholeness in the stories that come from the deep recesses of my mind, and the one that has the foresight (pun intended) to believe that love is much more than what you can or cannot see.
I wrote the next essay semi-dreadfully in a laundromat waiting for several loads of laundry to dry, which perhaps mirrored the tone that encompasses:
Best line: Pleasing others may be costly.
Next came an undoing and a reboot. The strike lingered, the lack of focus particularly hazy, and I unwound.
Best line: Boredom has been gnawing at my mind, making me feel bad about myself today and worse about myself yesterday.
With the help of a magical apple product, I tuned the world out and recommitted to my craft, letting my curiosity lead the way.
Best line: Writing is where I go beyond and the vehicle by which I arrive at the beyond is a not-so-delicious looking apple that someone already took a bite out of.
I wrote this next essay while in the car driving to Los Angeles for a day trip. Apples’ AirPods again aided me in floating beyond my immediate surroundings. One experience with one very sharp Cutco knife and one deeply meditative essay on sensation.
Best line: For me, sensation and language are causative. Without one, there exists no other.
Then came a really good day. A day to trump all other days, marked by how I walked through it with open arms.
Best line: When I go through my day searching for what to be grateful for, sometimes every moment is gratitude-worthy.
Penny post #17 is my most popular essay yet. I wrote it scattered - some in my childhood bedroom, some on the flight to San Diego, some when I returned to a home ripe with decades worth of untouched memories.
Best line: Cruelty can find itself in the imagined humanity of inanimate objects.
I travelled back to San Diego where I was bogged by a series of unfortunate events.
I crashed my car.
Best line: But in hindsight, I realize that not everything went wrong.
My apartment flooded.
Best line: No amount of wishing for sleep and a warm bed will stop life from happening.
I sat in Charlotte Douglas International airport for 3 hours (this one I must take credit for).
Best line: But I also know that to turn away from that pain is to turn away from all else that accompanies the pain: the goodness, the companionship, and Notre Dame football goddamnit.
Then came the exploration of privacy (wedged within the the chosen lack-of-privacy of this newsletter) with my uniquely-monikered neighbors:
Best line: It is a weird social contract: we are going to live (and by live I mean have everything good or bad or somewhere in between happen to us) and we are not going to acknowledge that life is lived fully or not at all or somewhere in between right behind this wall.
More nostalgia. Perhaps the most common of all that I explore on this website.
Best line: My teacher is now the stranger on the motorcycle who I don’t see before he gives me a wonderfully decorative middle finger. My teacher is now my supervisor who nervously gives me a hug when she can see my hurt. My teacher is now my boyfriend who patiently explains to me what the hell credit even is. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had teachers like that before. The teachers beyond “back to school” are more abrupt and tattooed than I’ve ever witnessed.
A post inspired by another wonderful author on this app, where I felt as aligned to this big floating rock in the sky that we call home as ever.
Best line: I’m both an insignificant porter of the Earth’s tilt and a special witness of it.
Last but certainly not least there is rejection. Too many “we’re sorrys” have led me to make a commitment to myself moving forward: I will not be sorry for my work. In fact, I’ll celebrate it. All twenty five penny posts.
Best line: The work that I do here on Substack, among other things, is to share my craft. To weekly conquer the discomfort that comes with sharing work steeped in vulnerability.
25 pennies in 8 months with roughly 100 hours of concentrated effort = immeasurable meaning.
If you appreciate this work, or at the very least read it, please consider subscribing below. I work full-time, so this writing happens during a rushed lunch break curled over my phone, at dawn with caffeine in hand, or (as you’ve read) in the middle of the night at CLT in the company of whirring moving sidewalks and yellow-vested airport staff. My writing typically happens in the “in-between,” but one day I would love to see it fill every space, not just the ones that are between something and something else. With your continued support, this dream is within reach:
Until next time,
Kiera