I'm so excited to see this that I am not even going to read it right now, I'll wait and savor it with my coffee in the morning. When I get an email from you, I feel like you are writing only to me (oh, god, this sounds so co-dependent) and so I am just writing you back to say, honey, don't worry too much about it. I'm glad you're back, and I hate it when you are gone, but hey: artistic process and all that. I KNOW that, and really don't expect you're going to disappear on me. Besides, I was busy in May having COVID, and now I am back in Maine working at fiddle camp and playing with my music friends. You know, sometimes I take a vaction (and a looong one,) from my fiddle. I always feel terrible, ashamed, worthless, incompetent, terrified to start again. And when I start again, there is always a change, an improvement. There is a saying, "You learn to swim in the wintertime, and to iceskate in the summertime." The brain continues to process new skills and consolidate them into muscle memor during periods which appear to be inactivity. So tell me how you are feeling a week or so into the new writing work. I am betting there is a new vigor there. OK, mother is done, here. Make sure you eat a little something and get to bed. Love, Pam
PAM I AM JUST WRITING TO YOU. This is, as always, the wisdom I want to hear. You are so generous and I love you to pieces. Thank you for being here all these years and fiddle camp in maine, stoppp. I ate a little something, I went to bed. I am so glad you are well again and I hope you escaped unscathed.
Thank you so much for (as always!) putting so much of what I've been lowkey thinking and feeling into writing. Just spot on. When I missed your writing I scrolled wayyy back in the archives, and also figured you would be writing about this exact thing when you resurfaced, and knew it would be helpful. Thank you! Have been grappling with a terror of "slowing down" becoming too permanent, despite that always being my advice to anyone about anything...slowly starting to face a burgeoning suspicion that perhaps the best thing to do is really just to keep moving. Finding that "doing less" becomes a kind of perfectionism in itself- either does not work or have just not yet found the way to get it to do what it needs to do. (Knowing what that is would probably be a start!)
I audibly said "Holly!" when your email popped up on my phone. That's the thing about your writing--it's so close to the bone, and feels so intimate, like hearing from a friend you don't always stay in touch with but always fall into a groove with when you're together. But, of course, I don't really know you, and you don't know me at all. I drive myself up the wall just worrying about what my husband, my boss, and my mom expect from me. To have legions of perfect strangers (like me) eagerly awaiting your next soul-bearing drop must be taxing, to say the least. I hope you know your work is always appreciated, irrespective of frequency and form.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder! This just made my whole heart swell. I know, parasocial is so weird, but I also feel like what a blessing to connect in this way. It never feels anonymous, it always feels personal, and I think so much of that has to do with this sense of familiarity that goes both ways. Thanks Randall.
Holly, I love you so much and I don't know you at all. Don't you dare ever forget what you do for so many of us out here in the internet-universe. This essay turned my whole day around and allowed me to get out a really good cry when I needed it. That alone is so priceless.
Thank you for writing this. I did notice you were gone, I loved reading this update. Home podcast saved my ass getting sober almost 7 years ago. Today, I’ve rearranged my whole life, and I sit in an apartment in an under-the-radar tiny town in Vermont, prepping for any amount of rest I need, so that I can yoga, and heal, and mostly so that I can write. No one is writing about marijuana addiction (that I know of at least). I’m over 6 years out of an addiction people will still tell me doesn’t exist. Reading your writing feels like an update from a friend I adore. Thank you, for all the honesty, and messiness, and zig zagging over the years. Until I read again.
Tracey <3 Does this mean you're going to write about pot addiction? I don't know many resources for it, which is wild considering. Would love to read if you do.
I literally woke up today and thought "Holly. I can't wait to see her name in my inbox again, whenever that is." And then, boom. Thanks. Doesn't matter when or how you show up. We stay.
I did notice you were silent for a while. And I thought - "it's great that my hero/guru/leader practices what she preaches!" I'm 5 months sober and I found your book right out of rehab. I've bought copies for everyone I know and I plan on working with or for you one day. QLAW, and this, gave me a gift I NEVER thought I would have for even a moment - total freedom from the desire to drink. I was you plus 10 years of more drinking - so I've lost a lot more. The fancy job(s!), the high bank balance, the remaining healthy relationships and all the other things. However I'm still a lucky bitch surrounded by grace and love. It's all a gift and I'm not wasting it. Truly, if you did nothing else in your life your vision for me alone is worth everything. Keep doing whatever it is you need to do. You've already done enough so everything is a bonus. You owe us nothing. My life is proof. I will tell myself that too along the way. Thank you will never be enough.
Love missing your writing and love getting to read it when I do -- resonate deeply with not knowing how to step back into doing doing doing, wondering about what it means to "step away" for a while, wondering if the perception of relevance is worth the need to "stay on" in ways that go against just living, which is inherently part of what we do here anyway. Thanks as always, really.
Oh, I think like a hundred percent the relevance piece. Though, for me personally, that was a bit of a factor here but not much, it was a huge deal when I was leaving Tempest and social media and going dark for a year but here it's just more contained to Substack, if that makes sense. I would LOVE to talk to you about that. Love you, miss you, thank you.
Just became a paid subscriber. I have followed you since the "home" podcast, which I listened to as a drank a six pack of beer at work. Your ideas and input were part of the foundation I laid to spend 5 years sober. I have since started drinking moderately again and realized alcohol was again starting to colonize me. When I ask myself why, I can see that part of the answer is in this essay- that we are living in a world where we will never be enough, have enough, accomplish enough. So back to life under mild anesthesia. I appreciate your insights so much- the lip service we pay to a truth, and the reality that we accept are often at odds. Thanks for calling it out.
Aww Emily, thanks for these thoughts and your honesty about drinking, I understand that 1000% but I also think, yeah of course we want life under mild anesthesia. It's brutal right now. And this part: the lip service we pay to the truth and the reality we accept.
Wow, thanks. That means a lot. This is my second day writing, and third day sober (again). The fact that someone read my words and took the trouble to comment is everything.
I love you so much, honey. This essay, like all of yours (and I'm not exaggerating) resonates on so many levels. I noticed you hadn't written in a bit and thought, "good for her." I'm in awe that you've been able to offer such thoughtful essays week after week. You're a wonder. xoxo
'My entire life I’ve been offering gifts to compensate for what I’m not, thinking I have to constantly conjure some value in addition to value, that I have to pay people bonuses because I’m not enough.' UGH - that is so resonant that I feel like I've been punched in the gut - but in the greatest way. I'm just so excited and grateful to read your words whenever you're ready and able to share them. You owe us nothing, but we're so deeply happy that you're here. Thank you for this, I will be returning to it often.
Noticed. Missed you. Support you in doing whatever you most need (or whatever you don't need but choose or want or don't choose but do anyway, etc.). Am grateful for whatever and whenever you decide to share. You've already changed my life, even if you never wrote another thing. (But I hope you continue writing other things.) Thank you, Holly.
You’re not alone in this Salomé - more than once, I’ve thought ‘I hope Holly is okay’ and considered checking in... which is yes, a touch creepy but also, because we care.
Holly you do not owe us anything and never ever apologise for rest and retreat. Your words are a gift to us all - to be clear, I’m here for the long haul too.
So much of this resonated with me. I am on a very generous severance right now, sleeping in late everyday, enjoying my gardening, and mastering more jigsaw puzzles than you can imagine. It feels lazy on some days and feels incredibly good on other days. I worry that I won't be able to get back to the grind in the same way when I land my next big thing. And maybe, that grind isn't meant to be lifelong? Maybe these long periods of somewhat unstructured time are a gift we need to embrace and let the universe take us where it will.
I'm at a loss for an answer too, Holly. But I don't think either of us are lost.
I feel that so much and have dozens of thoughts about it. The main one is maybe we're not supposed to get back to the grind; I've spent a long time waiting to get back into it, and I think the fear of not being able to is so interesting. Enjoy enjoy enjoy. Lazy is great.
A therapist once told me, and for whatever reason I was able metabolize her comment, I think because it made sense the same way comfort food always does, that I should not apologize for my process. My process: messy, non linear, demanding is just that - mine. It can, although mine (process) is not public, feel similarly to the description of yours.
My take away here in your post, in your pursuit of balance yet feeling the need for forgiveness in seeking balance, is that micro analyzing the days and months and even years for quantity of content versus quality of content negates the greater vision, your greater purpose. With your recent pause of public contribution are you able to validate what you have contributed to yourself?
I sometimes think to myself, what would life look like in plan view, beginning to end? From beginning to now? Have the big impactful, productive, worth affirming moments been balanced by my desperate need of the downtime of reflective, restful, lazy and purposefully curated activities? Has the yin fed the yang? Meaning, if the thing I know I so desperately need and seek is balance - homeostasis of all the variables that compose my time or how I spend or contribute to my life and others, then I need to stop analyzing the micro moments for production.
In my acceptance of the characteristics that manifest my individual process, I think balance will and does inherently and instinctually find itself. My balance (or what I consider my own personal version of success) cannot be achieved by culturally imposed hierarchal actions, but achieved through the hierarchal needs of self, importantly the dominating need for compassion and peace within myself. Although it is a personal struggle, I seek to empower my own hierarchal ladder so that I can continue to empower others.
So to end, your impactful, productive, worth affirming moments balanced by your honoring your own personal process, as your community here reflects- is something worth waiting for. Welcome back.
Thank you for sharing and validating what so many of us humans experience. And here, in your posts with community, knowing that you never have to worry alone.
I'm so excited to see this that I am not even going to read it right now, I'll wait and savor it with my coffee in the morning. When I get an email from you, I feel like you are writing only to me (oh, god, this sounds so co-dependent) and so I am just writing you back to say, honey, don't worry too much about it. I'm glad you're back, and I hate it when you are gone, but hey: artistic process and all that. I KNOW that, and really don't expect you're going to disappear on me. Besides, I was busy in May having COVID, and now I am back in Maine working at fiddle camp and playing with my music friends. You know, sometimes I take a vaction (and a looong one,) from my fiddle. I always feel terrible, ashamed, worthless, incompetent, terrified to start again. And when I start again, there is always a change, an improvement. There is a saying, "You learn to swim in the wintertime, and to iceskate in the summertime." The brain continues to process new skills and consolidate them into muscle memor during periods which appear to be inactivity. So tell me how you are feeling a week or so into the new writing work. I am betting there is a new vigor there. OK, mother is done, here. Make sure you eat a little something and get to bed. Love, Pam
PAM I AM JUST WRITING TO YOU. This is, as always, the wisdom I want to hear. You are so generous and I love you to pieces. Thank you for being here all these years and fiddle camp in maine, stoppp. I ate a little something, I went to bed. I am so glad you are well again and I hope you escaped unscathed.
(also please forgive me but I pinned this)
Hi Pam!
Hi hi hi!!! sending big hugs. (Not sure if my response to you got there...)
It did! Sending hugs right back!
I love that Pam - you learn to swim in the winter and ice skate in the summer. So smart ❤️
Thank you so much for (as always!) putting so much of what I've been lowkey thinking and feeling into writing. Just spot on. When I missed your writing I scrolled wayyy back in the archives, and also figured you would be writing about this exact thing when you resurfaced, and knew it would be helpful. Thank you! Have been grappling with a terror of "slowing down" becoming too permanent, despite that always being my advice to anyone about anything...slowly starting to face a burgeoning suspicion that perhaps the best thing to do is really just to keep moving. Finding that "doing less" becomes a kind of perfectionism in itself- either does not work or have just not yet found the way to get it to do what it needs to do. (Knowing what that is would probably be a start!)
Ooooh I love this, Sarah: "Doing less" becomes a kind of perfectionism in itself. Thanks for this
I audibly said "Holly!" when your email popped up on my phone. That's the thing about your writing--it's so close to the bone, and feels so intimate, like hearing from a friend you don't always stay in touch with but always fall into a groove with when you're together. But, of course, I don't really know you, and you don't know me at all. I drive myself up the wall just worrying about what my husband, my boss, and my mom expect from me. To have legions of perfect strangers (like me) eagerly awaiting your next soul-bearing drop must be taxing, to say the least. I hope you know your work is always appreciated, irrespective of frequency and form.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder! This just made my whole heart swell. I know, parasocial is so weird, but I also feel like what a blessing to connect in this way. It never feels anonymous, it always feels personal, and I think so much of that has to do with this sense of familiarity that goes both ways. Thanks Randall.
Holly, I love you so much and I don't know you at all. Don't you dare ever forget what you do for so many of us out here in the internet-universe. This essay turned my whole day around and allowed me to get out a really good cry when I needed it. That alone is so priceless.
Kathryn I'll take that. Also, causing good tears is such an honor. Sitting with you in your good cry.
Thank you for writing this. I did notice you were gone, I loved reading this update. Home podcast saved my ass getting sober almost 7 years ago. Today, I’ve rearranged my whole life, and I sit in an apartment in an under-the-radar tiny town in Vermont, prepping for any amount of rest I need, so that I can yoga, and heal, and mostly so that I can write. No one is writing about marijuana addiction (that I know of at least). I’m over 6 years out of an addiction people will still tell me doesn’t exist. Reading your writing feels like an update from a friend I adore. Thank you, for all the honesty, and messiness, and zig zagging over the years. Until I read again.
Tracey <3 Does this mean you're going to write about pot addiction? I don't know many resources for it, which is wild considering. Would love to read if you do.
Yes!!! I have a bunch written already, I just haven’t done anything with it
Marijuana Anonymous
I literally woke up today and thought "Holly. I can't wait to see her name in my inbox again, whenever that is." And then, boom. Thanks. Doesn't matter when or how you show up. We stay.
I felt that. Kidding. But also I think you're in NY, and I love you.
I did notice you were silent for a while. And I thought - "it's great that my hero/guru/leader practices what she preaches!" I'm 5 months sober and I found your book right out of rehab. I've bought copies for everyone I know and I plan on working with or for you one day. QLAW, and this, gave me a gift I NEVER thought I would have for even a moment - total freedom from the desire to drink. I was you plus 10 years of more drinking - so I've lost a lot more. The fancy job(s!), the high bank balance, the remaining healthy relationships and all the other things. However I'm still a lucky bitch surrounded by grace and love. It's all a gift and I'm not wasting it. Truly, if you did nothing else in your life your vision for me alone is worth everything. Keep doing whatever it is you need to do. You've already done enough so everything is a bonus. You owe us nothing. My life is proof. I will tell myself that too along the way. Thank you will never be enough.
'I'm still a lucky bitch surrounded by grace and love' words to live by. Thanks for this <3
Love missing your writing and love getting to read it when I do -- resonate deeply with not knowing how to step back into doing doing doing, wondering about what it means to "step away" for a while, wondering if the perception of relevance is worth the need to "stay on" in ways that go against just living, which is inherently part of what we do here anyway. Thanks as always, really.
Oh, I think like a hundred percent the relevance piece. Though, for me personally, that was a bit of a factor here but not much, it was a huge deal when I was leaving Tempest and social media and going dark for a year but here it's just more contained to Substack, if that makes sense. I would LOVE to talk to you about that. Love you, miss you, thank you.
Just became a paid subscriber. I have followed you since the "home" podcast, which I listened to as a drank a six pack of beer at work. Your ideas and input were part of the foundation I laid to spend 5 years sober. I have since started drinking moderately again and realized alcohol was again starting to colonize me. When I ask myself why, I can see that part of the answer is in this essay- that we are living in a world where we will never be enough, have enough, accomplish enough. So back to life under mild anesthesia. I appreciate your insights so much- the lip service we pay to a truth, and the reality that we accept are often at odds. Thanks for calling it out.
Aww Emily, thanks for these thoughts and your honesty about drinking, I understand that 1000% but I also think, yeah of course we want life under mild anesthesia. It's brutal right now. And this part: the lip service we pay to the truth and the reality we accept.
"Life under mild anesthesia"... omg, this is so good.
Wow, thanks. That means a lot. This is my second day writing, and third day sober (again). The fact that someone read my words and took the trouble to comment is everything.
I love you so much, honey. This essay, like all of yours (and I'm not exaggerating) resonates on so many levels. I noticed you hadn't written in a bit and thought, "good for her." I'm in awe that you've been able to offer such thoughtful essays week after week. You're a wonder. xoxo
Oh my wise dear friend, that means the world coming from you. Love you so much it's stupid.
'My entire life I’ve been offering gifts to compensate for what I’m not, thinking I have to constantly conjure some value in addition to value, that I have to pay people bonuses because I’m not enough.' UGH - that is so resonant that I feel like I've been punched in the gut - but in the greatest way. I'm just so excited and grateful to read your words whenever you're ready and able to share them. You owe us nothing, but we're so deeply happy that you're here. Thank you for this, I will be returning to it often.
But right? It's such a thing and even when you know you're doing it and spend years trying to deconstruct it, there it is. Thanks for being here <3
Noticed. Missed you. Support you in doing whatever you most need (or whatever you don't need but choose or want or don't choose but do anyway, etc.). Am grateful for whatever and whenever you decide to share. You've already changed my life, even if you never wrote another thing. (But I hope you continue writing other things.) Thank you, Holly.
Thank you, Dana <3
Better said and more condensed than my comment!!! Yes!
This! ⬆️
Oh god I missed you. I was going to reach out to ask if you're OK but then didn't because it's creepy (you don't know me).
You’re not alone in this Salomé - more than once, I’ve thought ‘I hope Holly is okay’ and considered checking in... which is yes, a touch creepy but also, because we care.
Holly you do not owe us anything and never ever apologise for rest and retreat. Your words are a gift to us all - to be clear, I’m here for the long haul too.
Thank you Robyn <3 Received.
<3 Salomé. Thank you.
So much of this resonated with me. I am on a very generous severance right now, sleeping in late everyday, enjoying my gardening, and mastering more jigsaw puzzles than you can imagine. It feels lazy on some days and feels incredibly good on other days. I worry that I won't be able to get back to the grind in the same way when I land my next big thing. And maybe, that grind isn't meant to be lifelong? Maybe these long periods of somewhat unstructured time are a gift we need to embrace and let the universe take us where it will.
I'm at a loss for an answer too, Holly. But I don't think either of us are lost.
I feel that so much and have dozens of thoughts about it. The main one is maybe we're not supposed to get back to the grind; I've spent a long time waiting to get back into it, and I think the fear of not being able to is so interesting. Enjoy enjoy enjoy. Lazy is great.
I noticed you were gone (and was glad you were taking a break) but you know you popped up in my inbox anyway...in poem a day! This has to be about you and I love it and you so much https://poets.org/poem/holly-says-sobriety-paying-attention?mc_cid=b68d8dd153&mc_eid=cf6ee8e62c
Oh fuck I forget to share that. YES! Isn't it gorgeous? The poet contacted me to let me know. Just totally wild.
Dear Holly Whitaker,
A therapist once told me, and for whatever reason I was able metabolize her comment, I think because it made sense the same way comfort food always does, that I should not apologize for my process. My process: messy, non linear, demanding is just that - mine. It can, although mine (process) is not public, feel similarly to the description of yours.
My take away here in your post, in your pursuit of balance yet feeling the need for forgiveness in seeking balance, is that micro analyzing the days and months and even years for quantity of content versus quality of content negates the greater vision, your greater purpose. With your recent pause of public contribution are you able to validate what you have contributed to yourself?
I sometimes think to myself, what would life look like in plan view, beginning to end? From beginning to now? Have the big impactful, productive, worth affirming moments been balanced by my desperate need of the downtime of reflective, restful, lazy and purposefully curated activities? Has the yin fed the yang? Meaning, if the thing I know I so desperately need and seek is balance - homeostasis of all the variables that compose my time or how I spend or contribute to my life and others, then I need to stop analyzing the micro moments for production.
In my acceptance of the characteristics that manifest my individual process, I think balance will and does inherently and instinctually find itself. My balance (or what I consider my own personal version of success) cannot be achieved by culturally imposed hierarchal actions, but achieved through the hierarchal needs of self, importantly the dominating need for compassion and peace within myself. Although it is a personal struggle, I seek to empower my own hierarchal ladder so that I can continue to empower others.
So to end, your impactful, productive, worth affirming moments balanced by your honoring your own personal process, as your community here reflects- is something worth waiting for. Welcome back.
Thank you for sharing and validating what so many of us humans experience. And here, in your posts with community, knowing that you never have to worry alone.
So perfectly and beautifully said, Harter. Thank you <3 Hear hear.