Sorry I didn't write. I would have, but I didn't want to.
Bubble Time: Six boundaries for a DIY writing retreat.
If you find something that strikes you, please share this newsletter with your reinventing, resilient, slightly rebellious friends.
Until last week’s miss, I’d been diligently posting to Substack weekly, but struggling to focus on my book writing. Life intervenes, sure— family, Felix, house projects, snow removal, and binging old episodes of The Mindy Project—but why aren’t I making more progress on my memoir?
What am I committed to?
I put this question to the life wizard ten months before quitting my job—when I was in a hurry to start my next chapter. “If I want to write, why aren’t I writing?”
“What if you had no job, no deadlines?” she challenged. Diane, my life wizard, described a vacuum world without external distractions, comparing it to the inside of a bubble. “All your identities—partner, manager, goal-getter—are outside the bubble. Whatever you think you should be or must do can’t penetrate the dome.
“But I do—still—have a job,” I said, out of breath from climbing the stairs to my home office.
She wanted me to imagine floating freely inside this bubble, but I pictured the kind I blew from a tiny plastic wand as a kid. Sparkling spheres floated toward the sky, then—POP—left wet rings on the sidewalk.
“We are trying to make an environmental shift here,” the wizard pointed out. “If you can’t commit to self-care, how the hell can you commit to the next meaningful thing?”
Skeptical, I gave bubble time a whirl while at yoga practice and while walking the dog, but I didn’t truly understand it until this weekend when I stepped back into the bubble for a DIY writing retreat.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Amid Life with Catherine Palmer to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.