resurfacing for air

Where I’ve Been & What’s Coming

I miss you all.

The truth is, I tend to hunker down after stretches of travel. As one of my best friends says, I disappear and charm my way on a trip. “It’s so heartwarming to see you sparkle,” she observed when I returned home from Spain. When I land back on American soil, I need to settle in and recharge—exist in my hidey-hole for a while.

My spouse and I recently sat down to calculate the amount of time we’re spending away from home this year. We have our entire calendar mapped out for the remainder of the year! In a cruel stroke of fate, we realized that for most of fall, we won’t even be home at the same times. We’re forced to be apart longer than we’re accustomed. Strange how adult life sometimes means planning your own loneliness.

Some Housekeeping Changes…

You might have noticed some of my top posts are missing. Full transparency: I’m editing, culling, or putting them behind a paywall because I’m working on a manuscript that might include versions of these essays. Others I’m revising so I can send them to literary magazines. If you read them here, they were unpolished versions that worked fine standing alone, but could use more refinement for formal publication. I told myself I’d be more intentional with shooting my shot, so something had to give. 🫠

Honestly, I only have a couple of good Substack essays in me a year. There are parts of me that would rather focus on refining my existing body of work as a cohesive collection and keep new writing for trusted readers only. I’m figuring out what I’ll use this space for moving forward. But I’m curious: what do you, as readers, like best? Should I save some of my more intimate essays for here as unpolished, rawer versions of my work? What brings you back to this newsletter?

New Focus

Closing my life to romance temporarily as I nurse a broken heart opened up more room for career and creative focus. I’m rediscovering old work I haven’t touched in years, reading voraciously, and playing with language and form in ways that feed something essential in me.

There are cool things coming. News impending. I can’t share details yet, but there’s movement beneath the surface.

I’m alive and hope you are too. How are you spending your time these days? Drop me a note in the comments—I’ve missed our conversations.

All my love,

C x