–C.S. Lewis

Just like death and taxes, rejection is inevitable in life. And yet, it still feels so. damn. shitty. I’m a writer, so no stranger to rejection (and I’ve written more about that in my book WORDS AND WONDER)—if I counted out all the no’s I’ve received over the last 10+ years I’m sure I’d have hundreds—but lately, it’s felt more painful, probably because of the daily reality of my unemployment.

Usually, when I’m struggling with something, I try to put it down on the page (or this stack, as it were) and thought I’d share some of my ways of not letting rejection grind me down here. I hope it helps you, dear reader, or serves as a reminder that, while we may fear or dread rejection, we don’t have to prefail or prereject ourselves. We can try and try again, and then try again. There is no limit on attempts, after all.

1. Write down your negative thoughts and feelings or fears, acknowledge them, and then move on to something else. Or write them down and then you can vent these to a close friend who can offer support, or send them to me in a longwinded email (or here) that I may not reply to. The simple act of sending your concerns to someone else does wonders to get the rejection blahs out of your system.
   
   Alternatively, you can write down your wildest hopes and dreams, like Octavia E. Butler, author and GOAT. If you can dream it, it can happen.

   
   “I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.”
   

   –Tracee Elis Ross

2. If you’re not comfortable venting out loud or sharing your anxiety or disappointments with others, I’ve also tried a technique called ‘conscious complaining,’ from Karla McLaren’s book The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You. She suggests you vent your grievances out to the trees on a long walk as a means of release.

   
   Life is unfair! I’ve shouted to the coconut palms. Writing is so hard and nobody wants to publish me, I say to the oaks. I just got another rejection, can you believe this shit, I ask a cedar. They always shake their leaves in understanding at the injustice of it all because they’re always on my side…it’s quite cathartic.
   

3. Embrace the fear of the thing you want not working out. Embrace the fear of not getting published, or not getting that dream job, or not getting the girl/guy/they, or not doing the right move and looking like a fool on the dance floor, or the fear of being single forever, or the fear of being unimportant, or not doing the right thing, or disappointing people or yourself. Just try. Just try and come what may. This will take the pressure off you and allow you to lean into the messy, fun, and liberating joy that comes in the maybes and why nots and who knows.
   

4. Breathing. I often use the box breathing technique (inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale for four counts, hold for four, and repeat), which helps reduce stress, let go, at least a little, of whatever rejection has its claws in you. To get scientific, this sort of breathing technique helps stimulate the parasympathetic nerve, which controls our rest state, and deactivates the sympathetic nervous system which regulates our fight-or-flight response, allowing for a better head space for creating, or hanging with people, or just, you know, being.
   

5. TURN. OFF. THE. PHONE. I don’t know about you, but if I start scrolling through social media when I’m in a rejection spiral, I go to the sunken place. Suddenly, everyone else has the book deal, or hot partner, or perfect body, or triple turn. Suddenly, I’m a forgettable blob who will have to move back home with her parents or live off the grid and disappear into a cave, never to be seen again. The phone, social media specifically, lies. I try to set parameters for myself, like turning it off in the morning while I do anything creative or apply for jobs or grants, or putting it on airplane mode when i feel overwhelmed.
   

6. Make lists of wins every week, or day, if you like. Some days, it might be a huge one–you got published, you won an award, you got a job–and some days it might be small–you got out of bed, you ate a healthy breakfast, you held space for a friend–but it all counts. Negativity bias is real strong in me, and if you’re the same way, we have to work harder to focus on the good. I suggest reading The Book of Delights by Ross Gay for beautiful reminders, or writing some yourself. Here are some of my recent wins:
   
   a. Got a pitch accepted to a well-regarded magazine!

   b. Made headway on novel edits!

   c. Had a few job interviews (no offers, but I’m trying, dammit)!

   d. Started volunteering as Event Comms for Creative Mornings Austin!

   e. Still dancing!
   

If you live in Texas as I do, odds are you’ve heard, read, and seen coverage on how Federal contractors have recently been bulldozing and grading roads inside Big Bend National Park, clearing vegetation near Santa Elena Canyon as part of a multi-billion-dollar border infrastructure push. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably been worried about Big Bend’s future.

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A few days ago, The People of La Junta for Preservation, a Lipan Apache-associated nonprofit, filed suit, arguing the construction is and will cause irreparable damage to archaeological sites and burial grounds, and disturb Native religious practices tied to the river. State legislators and citizens on both sides have urged Governor Abbott to intervene, but he didn’t do anything (shocker); not until yesterday. Construction is temporarily ‘paused,’ for now. For now, assessments will be made on the future of one of the most beautiful and impressive national parks in the US.

I visited Big Bend for the first time in 2022, long before any of this was happening. And long before that, in 2012, I moved to Chile to live and work in the nascent Patagonia National Park in the Aysén region, once a sheep farm, and before that, mostly untouched wilderness. At twenty-six, I knew very little about national parks, Patagonia, or conservation. I was supposed to be there for three months; I ended up being hired as the full-time English teacher for the park staff and their children and stayed for fourteen months. (I wrote more about that for National Geographic.)

The experience of living in a remote valley in a community of about fifty others, most of them Patagonians, taught me many things. It taught me that a park is so much more than just flora and fauna: a park—the land—carries history, culture, and identity. It taught me that the land cannot be separated from the people who live there, who have lived there for generations, and what it means to live in relationship with the land, rather than against it, or separate from it. It also taught me what it takes to protect it: a mixture of conservation, rewilding efforts, local and indigenous input, and lots of care and reciprocity and time.

What is happening in Big Bend hurts more than I expected it would. It hurts the way it hurts when a friend or family member is in trouble, or sick, or struggling. When someone is being taken advantage of, because really, that is what’s happening. The park is more than well-constructed trails, a home for endemic species, a place where people go to get lost and find themselves, as I once did: it’s a site of memory, of massacre, of rebuilding, of community. Big Bend gave me so much in one brief, four-day camping trip; I can’t even begin to imagine how much she has given to others from the area, for others who have their kin in the dirt, the roots, the water.

*

There are many places I feel like I don’t belong. In Patagonia, I was not a Patagona, nor was I Chilena. I was a gringa, but I was also ‘che Dana.’ In Miami, where I was born, I wasn’t a gringa, but I also wasn’t a Latina, even though my father is from Argentina and I speak Spanish. I have long felt like an outsider, an observer, a bit here and a bit there. Except outside, in nature. In nature, I always, always felt like I belonged.

I traveled to Big Bend with ten other women I met in a local hiking group in Austin. I helped the trip, and we went in November and slept in the Chisos Basin Campground located in the Chisos Mountains with views of Casa Grande and Emory Peak. Over the next few days we hiked the Window View Trail, Lost Mine Trail, and Emory Peak, and the Santa Elena Canyon Trail, among others.

I remember so much about the trip (more soon, I hope!), but what I remember most is the Santa Elena Canyon, crossing Terlingua Creek, the ramps and stairs descending into the limestone canyons along the Rio Grande, the quiet, the reflection of the towering rock in the water. How close we were to Mexico, how all of this was Mexico, once, how the land was stolen, how we’ve all decided we can just steal land, how quickly we forget our history, how so much of our history is a well-rehearsed, fictional story told to support the hunger for power and money and control by a few people who understand nothing of beauty, of connection, of sacredness, of protection, of love.

In Patagonia in the springtime, calafate—native purple berries that grow wild in the park—abound. Legend goes that anyone who eats the berries is destined to return to Patagonia.

I’m not sure if there is a similar legend in Big Bend, but I do know a part of me remained and is waiting for me to return to pay my respects to the park. I hope to go back someday soon. And I hope when I do, she is not destroyed.

Being unemployed has many cons, but one pro is more time to read and more time to share my recommendations. I’ve got pretty good taste, if I do say so myself, so if you’re looking for your next great TBR, check out my recs below, in no particular order:

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1. Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead (2009)

As this summer comes to a close, perhaps you’re already feeling nostalgic for when it all began, a time of World Cup parties, escaping to any place that had good AC, hanging out with the crew, and eating ice cream before it melted all over your hand...

Or perhaps you’re a millennial like me, and you want to revel in the days of mixed tapes, sneaking out of your parents’ house, and Stouffer’s microwave lasagna. If that’s you, try out Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, a pretty true-to-life coming-of-age novel that takes place during the summer of 1985 in that section of the Hamptons where many Black upper-middle-class people have homes.

Benji, our hero and narrator, is awkward and nerdy and longing for coolness and acceptance by his peers while trying to assert his independence at fifteen. Not a whole lot of ‘big’ stuff happens, but what does happen feels monumental in a way it always does at that age: getting your first job, having your crush pay attention to you, realizing your sibling doesn’t want to be like you anymore, realizing your father is drunk and angry, and you’re trapped in the house with him.

Sweet, nostalgic, touching, and funny, if you’re like me and your requested library copy of his latest book won’t be available for months, this is a worthy read in the meantime.

2. I’ll Take the Fire, Leïla Slimani (2026)

This is the best book I’ve read this summer, and probably all year so far. The third in a trilogy that’s inspired by Slimani’s own Moroccan French family, the novel follows several members of the Daoud family who struggle with questions of identity, safety, class, autonomy, justice, sexuality, and more.

There’s Mehdi, the father, a former Marxist activist turned president of a credit bank, Aïcha, the mother, a gynecologist who worries over her two daughters and constantly reminds them of all the risks the world has to offer girls, Mia, the older sister who is queer in a time when you should not could not be, and younger sister, and Inès, the younger sister who wants to be independent and free and to express her sensualness without punishment. Both daughters plot their escape to Paris, which is assumed to be a beacon of freedom and acceptance, and turns out to be, like most of our fantasies, not quite true, or not true at all.

Each character in I’ll Take the Fire is rendered in a way that is complex and captivating, and the women, especially, drew me in—how to be a woman is to confront danger at every turn: the danger of becoming pregnant, or being assaulted, or being judged; that as a woman, it is impossible to be innocent, that we must always be on alert. That to be a girl or an outspoken woman is a dangerous thing still rings true to me as someone living in the US, depending on the circle, the situation, the governor, the president. How I, too, police myself, and how, in reading this book, I was reminded not to.

3. The Topeka School, Ben Lerner (2019)

I tried reading Lerner’s previous novels (Atocha Station and 10:04) and couldn’t finish either, and I will fully admit that I gave this novel, his third, a try based solely on the cover: a country looking highway in the foreground, a huge, black tornado in the background, sure to bring pain and destruction. I’m glad I judged a book by its cover, because this one held my rapt attention and led to me giving it a rare 5-star review on Goodreads.

Set in Topeka, Kansas, we follow the main protagonist, Adam Gordon, whose mother is a famous feminist psychologist and father who is skilled at reaching ‘troubled boys,’ with brief, stream-of-consciousness interludes by one of Adam’s peers, a social outcast whose violent act has a ripple effect throughout the novel and serves as the nucleus.

Violence, in fact, is a huge part of the book, though much of it simmers below the surface. As is rage. And speech. How words can make you great, make you ascend mortality and be treated as a God—as in on a stage at a high school debate competition, as in a boy spitting the perfect freestyle—or as in the people in charge of countries. Speech is not merely sounds, and words can hurt far more than sticks and stones—in fact, they can cause more pain and destruction than a Kansas tornado.

Like the novels before this (Lerner started as a poet), this is a work of autofiction (basically, he novelizes his own life), or at least aspects of it, and while some sections are a bit verbose and circular in nature, it swept me up in the best way.

4. Strangers, Belle Burden (2026)

I love stories about people who seemingly ‘have it all’ because it reminds me that nobody has ever had it all nor ever will. Unfortunately, the story of the cheating husband who walks out on the faithful wife and young kids is nothing new, nothing surprising. What was surprising, at least to me, was the stunning washing of one’s hands: in the book, her husband tells her she can have everything, including the custody of their three kids, because, as he says, ‘I don't want any of it.’

I recently wrote about ghosting in dating; I can't even imagine the pain and confusion one might feel when a husband or father ghosts. And while I was less interested in the story of an upper-class family, I was fascinated by what struck me as outdated marriage roles and a strange belief that you will always be taken care of. A belief that turns out to be a fantasy.

The fact that Burden a legal training shows in her precision with words and sentences, in how she so carefully explains both what happened and how she felt; there is a real restraint of anger and revenge here, and more of her leaning into the power of telling one’s story, no matter how painful, no matter how people might use it to judge or blame, as people are wont to do: why dindn’t you try harder? How could you not have known? Why didn’t you fight more? Married or not, privileged or not, this is a story for anyone who has ever had the rug ripped out from under them.

5. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans (2025)

One of the hardest things to do well in fiction is to write an epistolary novel, or one told in letters. Mostly because when you write about things that happened, you don’t write them in scene (at least, I don’t). Which, you would think, would take from the immediacy, the urgency of a plot, of characters. And yet.

The Correspondent tells the story of Sybel Van Antwerp at the end of her life, a woman who lives alone, is a mother and grandmother, and like most of us, has some regrets. Sybel shows us in a wry and at times persnickety way that it’s never too late to transform, and what’s most remarkable is that the inciting incident for these changes is thinking about, writing, sending, and receiving letters. Kinda chic to be so analogue!

Themes of forging connections across time and geography, seeking forgiveness, finding comfort and solace in literature, and confronting past and present trauma abound. And the fact that a woman in her seventies is at the forefront did not make it less relatable—I have much life left (I hope), but there is still so much to learn.

Side note: I found out that this novel, Evans’ first, actually isn’t the first book she’s written. Like me, she wrote others before, but each was rejected, or never sold, came close to publication… but didn’t get published. 20 years of all of that led her to The Correspondent, which has been a huge success, which is encouraging for me as a still-writing and publishing, but non-published novelist.

A reminder to keep reading, keep writing, keep dreaming.

That it’s never too late to try.

I’m about to hit my two-month mark of unemployment (cue internal screammmmm). So far, it’s been a windy, bumpy road—sometimes it feels like I’m walking barefoot, dragging my bloody heels in and out of bed every morning and every night, a mess of brambles, thorns, and pebbles in my wake. And sometimes, on the worst of days, it feels like I have no feet at all.

And yet. Like many things in life, it hasn’t been all bad. And yet, like many things in life, one of the hardest parts of being unemployed is feeling like you’re the only one going through it. Even though I know that’s not true—apparently I’m one of more than seven million—it feels true, because I’m the only one looking and applying in my house, because the majority of the people in my life have jobs.

In some ways, this is a Substack for you, all my fellow unemployed baddies (and those who want to be more empathetic to what we’re going through), but honestly, it’s also for me: I also need these tips and reminders that, as the old cliché goes, this too shall pass.

Here are my top five tips so far of things that have helped me deal with being unemployed. I hope it helps you, and if it does, please let me know and share this with a fellow unemployed!

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1. Give yourself time to grieve

Even if you didn’t love the job, or already wanted to leave, or are deeply uncomfortable with feeling big emotions, it’s important to grieve the loss. In a country where one of the first things people ask when they meet you is ‘what do you do,’ to say you do ‘nothing’ feels pretty shitty, and it’s a slippery slope from feeling like you do ‘nothing’ to you are ‘worthless.’

We have to remember that what we do isn’t who we are. To remember that if you got laid off, it’s not because you did something wrong—the company did. They mismanaged funds, or overhired, or underperformed, and unfortunately, the company doesn’t care about you; they care about their profits. Another great reminder that because of all this and more—as Code Switch so eloquently put it—work does not deserve your full self!

If you don’t grieve, you won’t be able to move on without resentment, anger, or sadness, whether you realize it or not. So do what you gotta do, feel it all, and then you’ll be able to move on in a healthier, calmer way.

2. Find a free or affordable hobby that brings you joy and do it several times a week.

While we the unemployed may not have much (or any) money to throw around for hobbies, we do have something that our employed friends don’t: time. A gift and a curse, to be sure, in this iteration of unemployment, I’m taking much more advantage of that gift. Your interests may not be my interests, and if you don’t have any, well, now is the perfect time to explore what makes you happy, what makes you laugh, what leaves you feeling uplifted and hopeful, whether that’s painting, mead making, or D&D playing! Here are just a few of mine:

* Dancing: I took up salsa dancing at the end of last year, and have looked at this interesting period of my life as a way to up my skills. Not to get good, just improve, and that has meant more salsa dancing (Robbie’s classes are very welcoming and inclusive), yes, but also bachata and cumbia. I personally love Esquina Tango (they have a great work-trade program in exchange for classes, FYI), and I’ve also taken some amazing classes with Oro Dance Company (an amazing local Afro-Latin dance company) and my first ever (also Austin’s first ever!) cumbia wepa class at Riches Art Gallery taught by Lobo, followed by a cumbia class by Daniela and Thomas.

* Reading: I already did this a lot, but now I do it A LOT. If you don’t have a library card, get one stat, and you will have an endless free supply of books, magazines, audiobooks, and more at your fingertips. Libraries also make great offices, and are a wonderful way to get yourself out of the house and be reminded that as far as society may seem to have fallen, we still let people borrow books for free. Hooray!

(Side note: if you need some motivation, especially if you are an underrepresented woman, I highly recommend Octavia Goredema’s Prep, Push, Pivot. I also plan to publish a separate Substack on my reading recs of the summer so far, so stay tuned for that next week!)

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3. Volunteer or join a community group

This may feel counterintuitive—why would I be working for free…I need money, dummy!—but as with the above tip, this time isn’t all about getting paid. Yes, we need to pay rent, buy food, etc., but we also need to make connections, and you never know where those might lead you.

If you don’t know where to look, try Meetup, or, if you’re a creative or creative-adjacent, check out Creative Mornings ATX. Every last Friday of the month, they provide inspiration and connections in Austin’s creative community and “honor our city’s motto to ‘keep it weird’ by welcoming creative types of all sorts.”

I enjoyed my experience so much in July that I offered to volunteer…and now I’m in charge of Event Comms! Join us :)

4. Reconnect and connect with people

In June, as soon as I told my father that I was let go, he started waxing on about the importance of networking. Generally, I listen to my father’s advice on matters of employment (he’s been let go a couple of times, and had a successful career in finance, and later, the nonprofit world), but the word networking makes my blood run cold and my brain shut down.

Much of my aversion, I suspect, comes from the fact that your ‘network’ comes from the world of work, which, for most of us, on some level, feels transactional, fake, or manipulative. Treating someone (or being treated) like a stepping stone gives me the ick. It conjures up images of small talk, fake laughter, and brown-nosing—the banes of my existence. Or, if not that, then it’s a lot of time where I have to ‘sell’ myself and my skills. Either way, as an introvert, it’s a tough ask.

There’s a million articles out there about why you should network, and it makes sense—the more people you know, the more chances of getting an ‘in’ somewhere. But knowing myself, I knew I couldn’t go at it how I had in the past. And I wasn't going to continue sending messages to randos on LinkedIn without getting any hits. So I decided to change my mindset and strategy and did this instead:

-I looked through my contact list and LinkedIn list and wrote down any names of people I actually wanted to reconnect with. People I enjoyed, and without expecting any outcome, would genuinely want to see again and know how they’ve been. And I reached out for a coffee and asked to catch up. Nothing more, nothing less.

-I did the same thing again, but this time thinking about people who had jobs or worked somewhere I thought looked cool or wanted to know more about. I reached out to them, asking if I could just ‘pick their brain’. Not for a job or intro, but just to know about their experiences. Even for introverts like me, it’s flattering when people ask about you in a genuine way and curious manner.

Taking networking out of my vocabulary and replacing it with ‘reconnecting’ or ‘connecting’ with people made it much more pleasant and even fun. The goal isn’t to get a job, but to learn and share and get out of the damn house, and if some sort of lead or intro or tip related to a job comes from it, cool, but it’s also cool if it doesn’t. Add in a coffee or a glass of wine at a cool spot and what could be bad?

5. Count your wins, even if they are extra teeny tiny

This one is especially tough for me. Such is the nature of unemployment that we’ll most likely be hearing a whole lot of silence or a whole lot of nos for a while (on average 5-6 months…woof). In 2 months I’ve gotten 3 interviews, and my negativity bias is such that the 50 nos I’ve gotten take up way more room in my brain than the 3 maybes.

But a maybe is still a win! And so is applying for a job you think you won’t get, but would love to get. Or applying for a job at a dream company. Or deciding to go freelance for the first time, or get back into journalism and pitch publications (your truly), or take a class in something new, or attend a mixer that makes you break out in cold sweats but then turns out to be pretty okay, or going to the gym, or going to bed early because you feel pretty low and your body needs rest, or crying in the shower and letting it out rather than smothering the pain because to feel is to be human and not some bot.

All of those are wins. And I highly suggest writing them down and putting them somewhere visible to remind yourself of these good things. Because while it’s rough out here on these unemployment streets, it can also be a time to collect the Ws whenever we learn, grow, dance, read, laugh, f up, explore, take risks, reconnect, fail, fail again, and then, maybe just maybe, we wind up somewhere new and better than we even knew was possible.

Christopher Nolan’s latest film, The Odyssey, is an action/adventure interpretation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, which, in itself, didn’t make sense to me at first: Hollywood allowed this guy to spend $250 million to adapt a poem?

When I first saw the trailer for The Odyssey, my initial thought was: NOPE. I’ve long been tired of watching choreographed fights that all look the same, of loud explosions that hurt my ears, of endless studies and discussions of the cis-male plight. And, since seeing his last film, Oppenheimer, I really just wasn’t enthused by Nolan’s work anymore—I thought it lacked heart, agony, depth, and any real grappling with the horror of developing the atomic bomb.

But then I heard a review on Pop Culture Happy Hour of how fantastic The Odyssey was. And another. And another. Once I put aside my annoyance at predictable displays of masculinity and Nolan’s concerning lack of development in his female characters, I found myself stuck on the why. As in: why do we still care about this story? And why are so many people talking about it?

Curiosity won out. Last week, I went into the movie with extremely low expectations, and I left not only liking it, but thinking about it for days afterward and even checking out a translation of The Odyssey; to be more specific, the translation by Emily Wilson, who used contemporary language and tells the story through a feminist lens. (Note: there’s a 17-week hold for it!)

Say what you want about the script’s subpar writing (Wilson certainly had a ton to say about that and more in her sharp, scathing review published yesterday in the London Review of Books), and the flat female characters (tbh, SOS for Nolan); the themes, fears, and preoccupations stuffed into this Trojan horse of a movie are what got me to care.

The original Odyssey is all about a veteran’s difficult journey home and eventual not-so-joyous homecoming, his ability to resist temptation (kind of), and his cunning and clever ways of getting out of sticky jams, whereas Nolan’s version is more concerned with the dangers of war, violence, xenophobia, and a lack of empathy. There are many mentions of ‘Zeus’ law,’ which is an interpretation of xenia—an ancient Greek concept of hospitality and ‘guest-friendship’—a showing of respect from both the host and guest, a mutual reciprocity. Those who uphold it are rewarded; those who don’t are punished.

This idea that there’s a set of moral codes, an encouragement to accept others and an acknowledgement that we may one day be guests ourselves—strangers in a strange land—occurs again and again. And as we watch the code be broken again and again (the giving of a gift which turns out to be a way for Odysseus and his men to infiltrate and sack Troy, Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, the suitors disrespecting Penelope and her ‘servants,’ i.e. enslaved people), we also see the repercussions: the wrath of Poseidon, men becoming literal pigs, Troy destroyed, innocent people murdered.

It’s hard to watch those scenes, flashy as they are, and not think about what we mortals have been doing, what we are doing, that beyond our glittery, loud, brash alternative truth exterior hides a steaming, putrid pile of mistakes, shame, lies, and regret. Memories of the others we have called names at best, banished from their own homes, locked in cages, and killed, at worst.

Our current civilization, Nolan seems to be not so subtly hinting at, is a gilded one, and sooner or later, we will become like Troy—sacked and overwhelmed, burnt to the ground; by others, or perhaps all by ourselves. Instead of moving forward with blinders on, what we need to do is stop and think about where we’ve been, yes, but also where we're going. Do we want to be the people who build our lives on others’ destruction, or do we want to finally start living together with respect?

Do I think The Odyssey is the best movie of the year? No. Do I think the writing was good? No. Did I wish for more screen time for Penelope, Circe, Helen, and Athena, as well as more from Sinon, played wonderfully by Elliot Page? Yes, yes, yes. But as I mentioned at the top: flawed.

At the end of the day, any movie that makes me go down a rabbit hole of podcasts, look up Greek words, and check out a book that I haven’t thought about since seventh grade (which, by the way, I hated as a thirteen-year-old), is good. Any movie that can nudge us as a collective in a different direction, or inspire people to read and learn a new language, or consider the other, the stranger, the person unlike you, is good.

Because nobody belongs everywhere. Because eventually, every society falls.

Full disclosure: I’m of the era where people still had landlines. The era that straddles the line between dial-up and broadband, AIM and IG, a time time where I would come home and there would be a message waiting for me, written on paper, when people left voicemails.

All that to say, I’ve been around for a bit, and what I’ve noticed in the dating world over the past few years is that it’s getting worse, not better. And when I polled my IG followers (a very exclusive group of very smart people) about what my next Substack should be about, they all wanted to read my opinions on why dating sucks now, and to me that means it sucks for other people and not just for me.

(Just state the obvious: these are the reasons I *think* dating sucks and not scientific research, merely my experiences and observations as someone who has not resigned themselves to being a spinster quite yet.)

1. The Rise of Ghosting/Avoidance

To care is to feel, and to feel is to be a real, complex human with emotions and feelings that don’t always make sense, and many of us would rather numb out/avoid them altogether, which, I think, led to the advent and subsequent rise of ghosting. While the act of ghosting probably emerged in the early 2000s, the verb wasn’t added to Merriam-Webster until 2017 (legit status), and this is something I’ve seen more of over the last few years, namely, people who stop responding to messages, don’t follow up, or end short- or long-term relationships without any warning, disappearing without a trace or trail.

Not only is ghosting an immature way to deal with people on the ghoster’s part, but it’s also pretty harmful if you’re on the receiving end. A bit like being gaslit, if you’re ghosted (this year alone, I’ve been ghosted thrice. Thrice!), you can’t help but question whether the relationship was one-sided or all in your head. You can’t help but try to make sense of the disappearance, which requires a ton of emotional labor and is psychologically exhausting.

My hot take? If you’re going on dates or dating someone and can’t tell them you’re not feeling them, or you have an issue, or you simply don’t care to continue, then you shouldn’t be dating at all. It’s a respect thing, and if you don’t give it, what makes you think you’ll ever get it?

2. We Don’t Speak Emotion

During COVID, I read a lot of self-help and psychology books because I was going through it, to put it lightly. One of the most important books I read then, and still to this day, was The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You, by Karla McLaren. In it, she writes:

“Emotions are necessary—even when they’re uncomfortable or socially inappropriate—because they are a part of your psyche, a part of your neural network, a part of your socialization, and a part of your humanity. Emotions aren’t the enemy, but they have become vilified because empathetic awareness is so unusual.

In a culture that swings from trampling the emotions one moment to glorifying them the next, it’s savvy to turn down our empathetic skills [...] It’s also easier to pretend that we didn’t get hurt by someone’s insensitivity; it’s easier to hide our honest emotions and shun them in other people.”

Without our emotions, we can’t make decisions; we can’t decipher our dreams and visions; we can’t set proper boundaries or behave skillfully in relationships; we can’t identify our hopes or support the hopes of others; and we can’t connect to, or even find, our dearest loves.”

This applies to dating, yes, but also familial and friendship love. Having empathetic awareness is a sometimes lonely place to be, and I wish we were taught about our emotions and feelings in a more complex, nuanced way starting as children and through adulthood. Maybe then there would be fewer of these issues. Maybe then, there would be more meaningful connections.

3. Fear! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

If I had to guess, I’d say that a lot of people (myself included) use screens as a sort of protective shield around their hearts. It’s become pretty normalized to communicate via texting (I’m guilty of this; I don’t love chatting on the phone and have a roster of 3-5 people I will actually call, one of them being my mother). Which means that many of us have grown used to flirting, asking people out, telling people we like them or love them, or that we don’t like them or don’t want to be with them, via texts or DMs.

As a writer who obviously appreciates the written word, I still believe some things are better left said in person. I’ve grown to miss the days when people came up to me at a bar, or a bookstore, or a pool, anywhere, and just went for it, the days when people took risks, when they didn’t outright avoid rejection. If you saw Obsession, which I did—albeit with my eyes covered for a lot of it because it was horrific and depressing as hell—it probably makes sense that the film is about a young man who makes a wish for a woman to love him, rather than asking her out and risking rejection, which leads to some grotesque consequences.

I miss the days when people put themselves out there, which made me want to put myself out there, too, creating a reciprocal give and take of humans who were nervous or sure, scared, but did the hard things anyway. And really, if we all thought about dating with a bit more logic, we’d realize these ‘hard’ things are not life-and-death things. Really, what is someone going to do that would be so bad—laugh at you? If they do, bullet dodged, my friend, bullet dodged.

I’d still rather be someone who tries.

4. Laziness

Yeah, I think overall people are lazier in relationships (all of them, not just romantic, see above for evidence). Caring, or putting in effort, doesn’t seem to be en vogue or de rigueur these days. Doing ‘too much’ is cringe, and heaven forbid you come off as a simp…Of course, I’m not saying you should let people mistreat you, but I am saying: Try harder. Put in effort. Show you care if you care because caring means you feel something. And isn’t that why we’re all here?

In fact, I’d LOVE for there to be a revolution of caring, not too much, not little, but the right amount to feel real and meaningful. Caring enough to try new things, to tell people how they feel, to make efforts in dating, because in my book, that shows you make efforts in other areas of your life and are a fully actualized human being. So hot.

5. Bread-crumbing/Gluttony

The term bread-crumbing comes from the German fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel;” for the uninitiated (bless your heart) it’s when someone gives you just enough attention to get you hooked, but never actually commits or connects, stringing you along with little morsels that leave you wanting more and never get you to where you want to be…almost as horrific as a story about siblings who are abandoned in a forest and captured by a cannibalistic witch, right?

I’d wager that bread-crumbing comes from people’s fear/avoidance of commitment and connection and vulnerability, and also this false notion that we can have it all or there is something better out there, even if what is literally right in front of us is pretty great.

We live, unfortunately, in an age of ‘an embarrassment of riches’—taken from the 1726 French play L’Embarras de Ruchesses by Léonor Jean Christine Soulas d’Allainval. In the 18th century, the word ‘embarrassment’ didn’t mean shame, but confusion or difficulty, but I still think all three apply. We’re told that we have so many options—brought about in large part by the rise of online dating and then apps and AI—when it comes to suitors, and having so many options makes it impossible to decide which one to choose. So, instead of choosing one, you end up choosing many and none of them, all at once.

As someone who has been breadcrumbed and who is sensitive and tries their darnedest to be open, honest, and intentional in dating, this trend makes me feel, at times, hopeless. I get the desire to ‘play the field,’ but I think you can do that without stringing people along. And I also think if you want to find your person, you really can’t spread yourself too thin.

It takes time to get to know someone, yes, but not that long to know if there is any potential. If you don’t see potential, it’s a kindness to be honest about it sooner rather than later, lest you become a walking red flag who ends up alone or with someone, but not the right someone for you.

Please, for the love of Yahweh, just don’t do it. Don’t do it, and instead, spend that time investing in yourself, in honesty, in effort. And may we all have a little more fun, be a little more bold, and be a little more tapped into our emotions when it comes to dating!

“Where do you find inspiration?”

I think people ask this of artists (and artists of other artists, and artists of themselves) because we’re inherently wired as human beings to be curious, to try and solve problems and figure things out. In other words, we want to make meaning.

Meaning-making could be my silent middle name. It’s a huge part of why I write and why I got started on this path in the first place. Trying to understand why people do what they do turned into trying to convey, mostly through fiction, why characters do what they do. Endless questions lead to endless possibilities, and in the space between the two is where I love to explore and create.

The person who asked me this was a fellow creative with a desire to ‘one day’ write a book (I hope she does!). And in answering her question, I realized that I hadn’t taken the time lately to give flowers where flowers were due. Hence, this inspiration list, which I hope pays it forward to you, dear reader.

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In no particular order, a few things that have been inspiring as of late:

1. The Invite
   The recent film directed by Olivia Wilde and starring her, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton is all about love. All about sex. All about relationships. All about communication (or lack thereof). No, the dramedy is about those things but also about how people—specifically couples—do or don’t share their desires, and what happens when a dream, or many dreams, are deferred.

   It’s sometimes funny (though not always a fun watch—be prepared for lots of shouting), with a script and actors who are sharp and serrated. It also drove home the importance of saying what you mean and not being afraid to ask for what you want and need, and that at the end of the day, the beauty of a marriage (or anything, I suppose) is that it doesn’t have to be forever. It’s something you choose every day. Kinda like being a writer…

2. Milo J
   Aka Camilo Joaquín Villarruel, Milo J is a 19-year-old Argentine rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer. His debut album, 111, was released in 2023, but my first introduction to him was his Tiny Desk concert in April, where he performed songs from his latest album, La Vida Era Más Corta, which has rap batallas, but also moving singing and lush Argentine folklore, mixing zambas and chacarecas with pop, bringing in pan flutes, charango, and more.
   
   As the daughter of an Argentine immigrant who has been in the States longer than in his birth country, I haven’t found many ways to authentically connect to those roots, but something about Milo J moves me on a spiritual level. When I listen to his music, I travel back to the few months I lived in Buenos Aires and my year in Patagonia, teaching English and contemplating nature, land, ancestors, class, and ethnicity. Highly highly recommend.
   
   

3. The Correspondent
   I know that I’ve read a really good book when it moves me to action. In the case of The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, that action would be writing letters. The Correspondent is written in one of those rare, jealousy-inducing forms, i.e. as an epistolary novel (every chapter is a letter to or from the protagonist).
   
   I say jealousy-inducing because it’s very, very, very difficult to sustain that form for an entire short story, let alone a novel. How Evans pulls it off, I can’t quite tell you, but she does, and the themes of human connection throughout, as well as the deeply satisfying analogue act of putting pen to paper, sending a letter, and then waiting (gasp) days or weeks for a reply, feel so good to bask in given our AI-obsessed times.

4. Solo, Silent (ish) Morning Walks

This is something I started doing at the start of the pandemic, when my anxiety and uncertainty were at an all-time high. I found that my usual walks, coupled with podcasts or even ‘soothing harp music,’ were too much for my nervous system; that while I still needed to walk and get fresh air, it needed to happen without anything crowding into my brain space.

These walks became a place for my heavy, swirling thoughts to settle and seep out, as if my mind was a sieve, the thoughts that didn’t need to be there trickling out with each footstep and left on the sidewalks, the grass, the dirt. Eventually, only the necessary thoughts were left, and I could focus on what I was grateful for, or the sights, sounds, and smells around me: a pink and red rose garden, sweat gathering at my hairline, a trumpet-like honk of a peacock.

5. The World Cup

Most surprising to me is how invested I’ve been in this year’s World Cup. Perhaps because I’ve watched more games than ever before (thanks, unemployment!), or perhaps because most news outlets will have us believe that we are more divided, lost, and troubled than ever, I’ve experienced an immense amount of happiness watching people from other countries and cultures enjoy themselves and have good experiences in the US (I, too, know the delights of Buc-ee’s).

And while I know that these positive experiences don’t occur for every fan, team, or participant (one only has to look at how the Iran team was treated, or the Somali ref denied entry to the US) and that there have been shitty calls by Fifa and a ‘leader’ I shall not name, it is also true that I’ve made new friends because of the games. I have screamed and laughed and cheered with hundreds of people, all united by a game and the desire to find joy, to celebrate, to, dare I say, hope, which, in 2026, feels like a revolutionary act.

When the last game happens on Sunday, I know I’ll feel that absence. Much like the end of a brief but passionate romance or friendship, it will be bittersweet, yes, but I would rather have the memories than none at all.

When you’re laid off, it can feel like the whole world has stopped, like the ground beneath your feet has collapsed, swallowing you whole. Like you no longer exist, no longer matter, that despite doing everything ‘right,’ it still wasn’t enough.

That’s pretty much how I felt when I was laid off 2 weeks ago. And while some of that has been shaken off, there is still the lingering question of ‘why me?’

We’re taught that if we play nice, if we follow the rules, if we work hard enough, we’ll make it far and we’ll succeed, but it’s not true. Sometimes, shitty things just happen. Sometimes, our greatness isn’t good enough. We can be chosen one day and kicked out the next.

As my grandfather used to say, it is what it is.

I used to hate it when he said that to me. And when my mother said her version of it, c'est la vie, which is basically the same thing, but in French. It felt simplistic to compress any difficult thing or occurrence into a cliché, a signal that I should just move on and get over it already!

I don’t think that anymore. Now I think that maybe it’s only in simplicity—in space—that we can find answers or a path forward, a way of starting over.

Of course, starting over is terrifying. I have no idea where I’ll be next, nor how long it will take to find another job. Because ideally, I don’t want just any job; I want to work somewhere where I feel like I’m doing something meaningful, where I’m learning, and surrounded by kind people. (Okay, I’d be fine with two out of those three.)

Some people say being laid off is an opportunity to take stock of your life, to move on to the next phase of your career in a more intentional way. I sure hope that’s true. I sure hope that with all this space I don’t spiral (oops, already happened!) or take the next job I’m offered out of desperation (nobody has offered me a job, so I’m safe…for now).

Starting over with more space and clarity is the goal, but I know I’m going to make a mess of it. I’m not going to find myself à la How Stella Got Her Groove Back, nor will I suddenly realize that my dream is to be an actress and move to New York. I already know what I love to do, which is this, right here.

How, then, to keep writing while also paying the mortgage? And how to make money without turning into a character from Severance?

I’d love to hear from anyone who writes full-time or part-time on this. Or anyone who has been through a layoff themselves.

Tell me: What do you do when you are forced to start over?

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As a child, up until about the age of 11, I was a ham.

There is documented proof of this( me cheesing for the camera, wearing tutus or my father’s suits stuffed with pillows with equal amounts of glee); any chance to perform, I would take it, talent or knowledge be damned. (Did I know how to play the piano in my grandparents’ house? No. Would I play anyway? Hell, yes!)

I would sing, act, tell jokes, make faces, and perhaps most fun of all, dance. Tap as a little kid, then hip hop until seventh grade, and to this day I remember our team’s outfit for my last performance, the crisp, white shirt and huge, baggy, polyester pants with pockets and adjustable drawstrings (today we call this the ‘y2k look’).

During the shit years of middle school, dancing and reading were pretty much the only places I found joy. Little did I know that I wouldn’t perform again for almost three decades.

~

A few weeks ago, I caught up with a former stand-up comedy acquaintance, and he told me that if he could come back in another life, he’d want to be ‘blissfully dumb.’ Not dumb in intelligence, but dumb in ignorance, as in, not understanding the ever impending doom and dread of our modern existence.

I immediately disagreed. While doing away with doom sounds nice in theory, you wouldn’t have anything to prop up or compare your joy to if you knew nothing else. I don’t believe joy can exist on its own; joy is felt more and appreciated more when you know just how f’d up the world has, is, and can be.

I also disagreed because a recurring refrain of my teenage years, 20s, and 30s, to be honest, was that I wished I could just ‘feel less’ or ‘care less,’ i.e. be blissfully dumb. It was too hard to have all my thoughts and emotions and feelings, too hard to want people to like or love me as I liked or loved them.

Ignorance, sweet ignorance, is what I yearned for, and in the worst of times, when ignorance was impossible, I turned to obliteration. Not a healthy desire, to be sure. And in this current life I’m living, at least, impossible.

~

Fast forward to 2026. If you had told thirteen-year-old me that I would perform in not just one dance team, but two, in front of a theater of strangers and a handful of friends, I wouldn’t believe you. If you told me one of the teams was a Cuban mashup of styles( son, mambo, cha cha, and salsa) and the other Dominican (bolero, bachata, merengue, and dembow), I’d say you were on something.

Despite growing up in Miami, surrounded by the sounds of salsa and bachata, I was a punk at heart, an angry emo kid before emo was seen as lame and try-hard. I had no interest in dancing any Latin American styles, and when I finally came around in my 20s, I started with tango to connect with my Argentinean roots.

It would take many more years for me to come around to salsa — right around my 40th birthday last year. As one is wont to do, these ‘milestones’ get you thinking about where you are in life, and what might be missing.

I never lost my love of dance, and I was craving community, so I decided to try a formal salsa class for the first time. And then I kept going. Salsa led to bachata, which led to socials, which led to me joining two dance teams with Esquina Tango, where I take classes.

This past Saturday, I had my first performance, and if I may say so, we smashed it. Even if it wasn’t ‘perfect’, we brought the energy, the joy, the moves, and the high I got off of being a ham once again was intoxicating. I felt it all, and the doom, for a few hours at least, was nowhere to be found.

~

I loved dancing as a kid, and now, I love dancing as an adult. I know a lot more than I did at four, nine, and thirteen, and yes, a lot of it is deep, dark doom shit. But I also know more joy. I know what it’s like to be friends with people just learning to become adults, those who have traveled the world, and grandparents, all with their own highs and lows. I know what it feels like when we come together on a stage after practicing for months and are pumped full of adrenaline, pride, and some kind of magic.

I wouldn’t trade any of that for a one-note life. So, if you’ve got something you loved to do as a kid and haven’t done in a while, or since? I say: do it now.

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This morning, as I was working on my novel in progress, I stopped to listen to the call of a mourning dove, which, until this exact moment, I’d always thought was called a ‘morning’ dove because they sang/called in the morning. Turns out the name ‘mourning dove’ comes from what many think is the ‘sad’ or ‘mournful’ sound of the song that an unmated male makes, trying to woo or attract a female.

Part of the reason that I stopped and made space to listen to the dove in the first place is because I find the song to be comforting, rather than mournful. It sounds more like cooing to me, comfortable and soft, and that’s exactly what I was craving this morning. Or, to be more honest, what I’ve been craving the last month or so.

Which brings me to space. Why I need it, especially in times of overwhelm (which, I could argue, is always in this modern time in our supposedly modern country). If you read the news, I don’t have to spell it out, and frankly, I need space from what is happening, which is why I took it these past few weeks, and again this morning.

Space happens when we pause to listen to a mourning dove or turn off our phone. It happens when we take a long, slow walk with a best friend by the river, or write our first letter in thirty years, putting actual pen to actual paper. It happens when we get on the dance floor and try a new move–pachanga!–fail, try it again, fail even worse, and laugh ourselves silly. It happens when we let someone put lavender syrup in our tea, then wonder why we didn’t know about lavender syrup sooner.

Space is also needed in writing. From it, for sure, but also in it. A well-placed pause, a bit of white space, a chapter break, or a new stanza can do wonders. Space gives us room to reflect, to marinate, to pivot, or volta. And one of my goals in my writing is to encourage my readers to stop and put the work down for a few seconds or minutes.

Why? For me, at least, if I have to stop reading a book, story, poem, etc. because I need more time to let something sink in, that’s a good thing, the highest compliment, in fact. It’s me saying, I don’t want to miss this. I don’t want to forget this. Please, give me a little space, and let me linger here just a bit longer. Please, doon’t let me forget this.

If you’re reading this and you’re a writer, I encourage you to try playing around with white space today and the next few days in your work, see what happens when you let in some air, end or start in a new place, and really think about slowing down rather than speeding up.

And if you’re not a writer, then I encourage you to make room for space in your life and slow things down a bit or a lot. Linger where you need to, and go dark where you don’t. Take up all the space you need

and

then

fill

it

up.

My old backyard: Patagonia, Chile, 2013

As a child of the tropics, I am unused to cold, to winter. I don’t enjoy bundling up or layers, would much prefer being hot and sweaty over dry and frigid. I feel restricted by staying indoors, bristle at having to drip faucets or scrape ice, bring the plants inside so they don’t die, all of us cramped in a room, stuck inside, where we do not belong.

But this winter, something shifted; at least a little. Maybe it’s being older, maybe it’s being more comfortable in my solitude, my loneliness. I no longer think either is a bad or scary thing, something to avoid or run away from. I see solitude as necessary for refreshing my spirit, loneliness as necessary to take stock of what and whom I have. Not always comfortable, but needed. Sadness is intertwined with joy. They need each other, after all.

*

Winter, I realized during the recent freeze in Austin, when business shut down, roads were unsafe to drive on, and I spent 3 days alone in my home, is an ideal time – if you’re willing and brave – to face things you’ve been avoiding, or haven’t had time to think about because you’re just trying to survive.

In the silence, I had more time to think about capital C Community, and my place in the small ones I have found and cultivated in Austin – writing, biking, and most recently, dancing – as well as the larger ones to which I belong, of no choice of my own: citizen, daughter of an immigrant, queer woman. In the silence, I found the sound of my own breath.

*

“What can I do?”

A question I often run up against, talk to friends about. Really, what can any one person do when bad things happen, when there is injustice? If you read the news, it feels unstoppable, hopeless. Time marches on, and powerful people make decisions that are questionable at best, horrific at worst. People are erased every day–literally and metaphorically. What can I do, outside of listening, helping others, creating art, and holding onto delights big and small?

*

I turn, often, to books, to writers who knew how to listen, to translate. I imagine their breath as they worked, created, loved, despaired. I remember that we have to hold each other. I remember that I have to keep on: loving, writing, fighting, biking, dancing, laughing, calling, shouting, moving, listening. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.

“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

― James Baldwin

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To blunder in the choice of / to misunderstand the meaning or intention of / to identify wrongly / a wrong judgement/ a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgement, inadequate knowledge, or inattention

I call myself a recovering perfectionist. Starting around middle school, I wanted to be the best: best student, friend, daughter, partner, artist, writer, teacher, etc.

There was no end to what I could be perfect at, and also, no end to the disappointment I felt when I made mistakes. In trying to achieve perfection, I’d set myself up for a lifetime of pain.

Thankfully, I (mostly) no longer care about being the best and aim for good enough, and sometimes, enough. But looking back, I’ve been thinking that some of my best adventures, art, and self discovery came from those mistakes—from misunderstandings, errors, and inadequate or wrong knowledge, the belief in lies (like perfection exists).

*

I’m totally okay with mistakes on the page, especially a first draft, but when it comes to mistakes in the “real” world, it’s a bit trickier. Saying the wrong thing, dating a red flag, overextending myself with friends, then wondering why I would do such things.

I did and do such things because to err is to be human. And to err is to discover. For example, I’ve discovered that any camping trip more than 2 nights is not for me. That consistency and nonflakiness is a must if I am going to build a real relationship. That sometimes, I just want to read in bed on a Saturday night with my cats. That I don’t want to talk about your kids for more than 5 minutes, if at all, unless you’re in my inner circle.

*

It was a mistake to start grad school at 23, a mistake to live in Iowa city for 6 months. It was a mistake to stay with my partner in Patagonia, and a mistake to make so many changes to my first novel based on one editors comments, which turned it into a book that was no longer mine. It was a mistake to tell him I loved him, and to not tell her.

I’m glad I made those mistakes. I’m glad for the stories, the growth. And I hope everyone is making a lot of mistakes in their own lives because, make no mistake:

beautiful things can grow from errors.

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“In water, like in books—you can leave your life.”

― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

“Even angry girls can be moved to tears.”

― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

I grew up by the water, grew up going to the ocean almost every weekend with my family. There are photos of me as a baby, in a diaper, on the sand. I look comfortable, happy.

I grew up by the water, in the water, and when we moved to west Africa, our activities and play centered around the pool, the beach. I loved the smell of ocean, especially, the salt and brine, loved the bits of sand in my hair, the slick of seaweed. Our house was full of shells. 

For a brief time, I was on the swim team, like Lidia Yuknavitch, and I understand that sense of leaving, that freedom and peace. Just as I understand it in books and in writing.

*

The Chronology of Water— the book—which I first read many years ago and have since reread many times, and now the film adaptation (Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut), which I saw this past weekend, reminded me of how much anger I felt for so long, the layers and depths of it, how much time I spent crying over situations and people, much of which, I suspect, did not deserve my water.

I was a girl, am now woman, of water. Of anger. The film also reminded me of how many girls are angry, how many women. How important it is to be reminded that we are not alone. How important the book, and now the film, are.

*

For the most part, I tend to avoid big trauma stories that focus on sexual assault. Because it is painful, and I think a lot of people mishandle the telling (because they have no experience or connection to it, or they veer into trauma porn or cliches). Because it happened to me.  But when a writer like Lidia Yuknavitch shares her story, and a director like Stewart (insane this is her first film, truly) adapts it, I run towards it, painful as it may be.

The film reinforced in me the belief that writing is solitary, that you mostly write and edit alone and try to keep the noise and distractions out as best you can, but once you hit publish, on a platform like this, or in a book, it is no longer solitary. It is communal. We are, together, no longer alone. 

The film crawled with whispers, words, sounds of writing, splashing, the color of blood, of ashes. In watching Lidia’s story, I relived mine, in bits and pieces, flashes of scenes and images—a pockmark, a pot of chancho con chuchoca.

It may hurt less now than when it first happened, but it never goes away. It morphs, it evolves, but it, he, is still with me. But the water of that trauma flows less forcefully, I have learned to live with it, and not despite it. And I saw on screen someone else do the same.

*

I understand the feeling of not thinking you deserve good things or that you deserve bad things. What lies. What loneliness. 

Turns out we are never alone. The trick is to speak it (write it!). To put sound to the fury. And then: jump into those watery, wet pages.

― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

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It has been less than a week into the new year and things are…rough, to say the least. But when the world is chaotic and the (mostly) men in charge are pushing for more chaos and destruction, less (or no) community and care, I refuse to give up. I’m writing this here, to remind me (and you) that we have to remember and fight for what matters: art, nature, family (chosen and not), justice, love, life, words. Words written in water, words written here, my self-titled Blue era.

Some blue bits (musings, observations, who knows), collected in 2026, so far:

Dance with the pain like the pain is a tanguero, close and warm and hooked and intimate for 4 songs until the next milonga, in which they will choose another partner, leave you to rest.

Gather your basket, your suitcase, your backpack and revisit the places you may have left scraps of yourself. (Hanging like Spanish moss in the park where it was your idea to make love en plein air, the rats scurrying across the power lines.)

Count each white hair as a lesson learned from this, this place you have known before and may know again, but at least, at least, you can still feel.

Stay home alone. Stay in the kitchen alone. Eat on the floor. Eat on the balcony. Eat words for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The way an empty spot on the bed could be so expansive, so wide as to feel like an ocean of pitch depths. When you feel lonely, sleep next to a pile of books, surrounded by them, to remind yourself that you are never alone.

Say all the things you want to say because in the end, it’s you who needs to hear it.

2025 aka, the Goodbyes:

Rushing to hit quotas. Also, quotas. I’m over the scramble, the hustle, rushing from anyone or anything, unless it’s the rush of wind in my ears as I speed down a hill on my bike or that Troye Sivan song. What you think is important probably isn’t.

Avoidants. Yeah, I’m talking to you, person looking the other way, refusing to have a convo, or leaving me on read. Whether it’s intentional or not, life can’t be avoided (unless, I guess, it’s me avoiding avoidants). Be gone!

True crime. While I get the appeal and I have loved me some Serial/Adolescence/I’ll be Gone in the Dark, that shit is heavy, and I’m not sure what I’m getting out of it except the feeling that some people (mostly men) are truly awful, that law enforcement is incompetent, and incels are on the rise. Do I need to understand bad people? Do I need to spend time with the trauma of strangers? The answer is NO.

News Reading in the Morning. It messes with my whole day. There has to be a better time to do this—not before bed—though I’m not sure if there is ever a good time to do this.

2026 aka, The Hellos:

Dancing. More Dancing. I’ve always loved shaking my thang, but not since 2010, when I was a tanguera (I was dancing at milongas or taking tango lessons 3-5 times a week for almost 2 years), have I done it this much. One free 2-step class led to a few more, which led to me finally taking salsa classes after faking it my whole life. More of that joy, please!

Writing ‘Retreats.’ I want to hold them for myself and for anyone interested (yes, this is a plug), and that means 1 or several days of uninterrupted time to read, write, and share writing. I’ll start virtually, but maybe it will lead to in-person, too? I don’t know, but I do know that some of my best work and focus have come from long hours with other people, doing something we love and that is hard to understand if you don’t do it as well. Join me online Saturday, January 24th!

(Small) Dinner Parties: I would definitely not call myself a hostess, but now that I own a home, I want to open my doors more and also try cooking some new things. This one is inspired by my bestie, and hers have been awesome so far, so I thought I’d steal it. Flattery!

Phones. Less Phones. I am so guilty of doomscrolling and meme scrolling and wow, why is their life better than mine scrolling? During covid (again inspired by my bestie), I would take weekly ‘technology sabbaths’ where, for 24 hours, I wouldn’t use my phone. At all. It would be off and go into a drawer, and it was liberating. While I may not do the full 24 hours, I want to do at least 8 hours once a week.

For the uninitiated, bikepacking is a self-supported cycling tour/adventure, wherein you ride to your destination with all your gear strapped to the bike and/or yourself. Essentially, it’s backpacking on a bike, and allows access to more remote trails and wilderness than a car.

My first time bikepacking was in September of 2022 with Cycleast (RIP) to McKinney State Falls park, about 25 miles round trip from my spot in central Austin. I had no fancy gear and used a milk crate to hold my tent and sleeping bag, the rest stuffed in an uncomfortable backpack. I also had no gears on my bike, which was…interesting.

Since then, I’ve upgraded and own a saddlebag and a handlebar bag, and I finally got a new bike with gears. I’ve since done about eight more trips, varying from 50 to 130 miles. My last trip was this past weekend with Dogspeed Cycles to Happy Horse Hotel in Cedar Creek, and it got me thinking…why do I do this?

For those who are wondering the same, or are curious to try bikepacking themselves sometimes, here are a few answers:

1. Type 1 Fun

It’s enjoyable to ride a bike with a bunch of other bikers. It’s enjoyable to pedal fast and fly down hills, to stop at gas stations and drink $1.50 cappuccinos and chow down on $2.79 tacos, to pass by baby goats and longhorns and get chased by a cute but wimpy chihuahua.

It’s fun to laugh and do a Cher impersonation for people you’ve just met and people you’ve known for years, to talk about city infrastructure and the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, or, you know, whatever you’re into, as you zoom down a big ass hill. It’s fun to do something you did when you were a kid, and get as much—or maybe more—joy from it.

2. People

As an introvert and a sponge, I need and don’t need people in equal measure. Yin-yang and all that. I love being alone, but I also love being around people doing something we all love and getting out of my social comfort zone, to remind myself that, hey, you really need to get out of your head.

On every single bikepacking trip, there have been a cast of characters that could easily be from some indie A24 movie and fit into a general stereotype: the first timer, the pro, the performer, the goofball, the complainer, the reluctant recluse, the oversharer, the gearhead, the wanderer, the rebel, the thinker, etc. We fit and don’t fit so easily into these roles, and it’s fun to see what happens when we’re mashed together.

The stories you hear make bikepacking worth it in itself (the last trip included a tale of a Ren Faire brawl), and it’s a reminder to me that people are endlessly weird, fascinating, confounding, and brave. That we need each other, even if we have nothing in common except why we all signed up to do this one cool thing. That, plus someone is always willing to share their coffee or Skittles.

3. Exploration

I know the Austin streets far more than I do those in my hometown of Miami. (To be fair, Miami is not a bike-friendly city, and it’s about five times bigger than Austin, and drivers are insane and will kill you.) To know a city on a bike is to know it intimately, to go from like to love. On my bike, I’ve gotten to explore the streets of my new home, but also the surrounding areas, to see the city transition to farmland, to rolling hills, to places where you can see shooting stars. Texas, as it turns out, is stunning.

4. To Get Away From Myself to get Back to Myself

I think, a lot. I overthink. I ruminate. I overanalyze. I try to hold it all in and then I get overwhelmed and either crash or explode, sometimes both, and usually alone, unless you are in my deep, inner circle (sorry, not sorry). It’s not healthy, and I’m better, for the most part, of recognizing when I’m getting to the danger zone, but not always. Last week, I missed the cues, and one of the best ways for me to reset is to do something physical, like get on a bike and ride for a long time.

There comes a certain moment, probably around mile 12, where the endorphins, dopamine, and fresh air come together to wash away those nasty bits, when all those grimy thoughts, worries, and generally insignificant things are sloughed off like old, dead skin.

What’s left is what I like to think is the best version of myself: calm, soft, strong, kind, able to appreciate the amber-hued leaves and infectious giggles from twenty-something boys equally, to wave at strangers and belt out IF I COULD TURN BACK TIMEEEEE because, joy.

What I’m trying to say is: bikepacking is good medicine.

5. Type 2 Fun

It is not enjoyable to get a flat tire or get chased by big, slobbering dogs. It is not enjoyable to have drivers yell at you for getting in their way, or riding your ass and honking as if you have personally messed up their days. It’s not fun to wake up in the morning unable to feel your fingers or toes, to go uphill with an extra thirty pounds on your bike because you were a dumbass who thought camping was cool until the temperature dropped forty degrees, and the wind seems hellbent on killing you.

But then you get home, and you have a hot shower, and your body is buzzing, and your mind is still, and you sit on the couch with some hot food, and you realize you are stronger than you thought, and you did it, and you just had one hell of an adventure, and then you feel it: that desire to do it all over again

Because 2025 is almost over, I’ve been taking stock of my life, and more specifically, my writing life. Where did I go this year, and where am I going? Am I where I want to be? And if not, how do I get there? (Short answers: All over the place, no idea, no, read further to find out!)

I’ve also been thinking a lot about writing, what it means to be a writer, and the big E: Expectations. Since graduating with my MFA in 2018, and much to my chagrin, I haven’t achieved any of my expected goals. Okay, that’s not 100% true: I did graduate, and I did write and finish a novel, and I wouldn’t be where I am today as a writer without those two accomplishments.

But where I am as a writer isn’t where I expected to be—even though I wrote the novel, and it got me an agent who sent it out to many, many editors, and even though it received a lot of positive feedback, ultimately, it did not get sold.

Ultimately, the expectation I had of my first novel being my first published novel, died, along with the more frivolous expectation that I would have a book before I turned 35. (How I longed to be a “5 under 35!”)

The death of that expectation, quite honestly, broke my heart. It literally hurt. And I seriously considered quitting, because around 99% of my writing life thus far has been rejections, hard and soft nos, and every shade of no in between. It feels like dating someone for 10 years who constantly breaks up with me.

In other words, a mind f*ck. And trying to convince myself that “if I write, then I’m a writer,” just doesn’t work for me. I want an audience. I want to talk to people about writing. I want to write books that are sold on bookshelves. That people bookmark, underline in, gift to friends and family. Want, but also need, because when I don’t write, I feel less myself.

In that sense, no, I’m not a full writer, not yet. You can buy some old issues of literary mags and read my stories/poems/CNF, order my self-published writing guide, and read some bits and bobs here, but that’s not the ultimate goal.

The ultimate goal was, and still is, books. Worlds you stay in for hours, that make you forget wherever you currently are.

(Note: I do think all the other writing is in service of this writing. All writing helps sharpen the mind for the ultimate goal. The same goes for reading.)

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I’ve figured out (accepted) that the only thing I can control is that I write, that I try, and that I don’t shit on myself. Some days, I do all three. Some days, I do none. When I write, I keep a notebook on the desk to help track my progress and to give my eyes a break. I don’t like waking up early, but I write early before work because work is exhausting, and when I get home, I can’t look at a screen, and on weekends, I keep my phone on airplane mode until I finish a session.

I allow myself to get excited about the new first novel I’m working on, because I love the story and I love the characters. I allow myself to get excited about being at the stage where I’m getting sentences and scenes nice and crispy, rather than wandering around in the mud looking for plot points and backstory.

I don’t allow myself to imagine accolades and tours, cover designs and blurbs. HBO miniseries. Yes, yes, I still want all that, but as I move into 2026, I’ve killed, or at least quieted, my expectations. I don’t control if agents or editors want to take a risk on me, nor what they think they can sell, nor what’s hot on BookTok.

This year, next year, and every year I choose to continue, I get to be a writer. I get to decide what that means to me, and that goes for you, too.

Death to everything else.

Maybe it’s the foggy weather today, maybe it’s the new month, maybe it’s entering a new decade, maybe it’s the holiday season, or living in a hellscape, but the past few days has been a major energy drain.

After various outings and gatherings, I spent most of last weekend feeling like I was carrying around my weighted blanket, or that I, myself, was the blanket. Some of this was, admittedly, self-imposed.

As a person who is, generally, open, empathetic, and sensitive, I tend to have sponge-like behaviors: absorbing other people’s energy, actions, words, and even the subtext beneath the words. The trouble is, sometimes, I forget I need to squeeze some (or all) of that shit out. Especially when it comes from someone who is, let’s just say…leaky.

~

I spent a bit too much time recently with a person who had a lot to say – mostly about my body – and not much else about anything of substance. When I was younger, I found myself attracting, or being attracted to, these sorts of people quite often: effusive in compliments, tornadoes of charm, more often than not, some sort of ‘artist.’ The attraction was partly because it was an instant dopamine hit, but also, I just couldn’t seem to validate myself.

At some point early on in my life, I started to believe that what was on the inside (specifically my thoughts) were not to be fully revealed, because they were complex, weird, and sometimes, to be quite honest, scary. People, I reasoned, don’t like a mess; they like neat and clean, and they like things to make sense.

It didn’t seem feasible to me that any sort of imperfection could ever be valued or loved, so I hid it away. I overperformed and constructed a seemingly solid person, all the while a porous, quivering mass of loneliness lay beneath the surface. Suffice it to say, my teens and twenties were rough.

~

That’s why, knowing what I know now, and after so many years of therapy, it threw me for a loop to get sucked into the orbit of another leaky human! After so many years, couldn’t I see that dopamine and serotonin were messing with me? Couldn’t I be a normal, neat adult with perfect boundaries and a nose for bullshit and recognize the artist red flag?!

In a perfect world, yeah, sure. Maybe. But I’m still a human/ sponge. I still like to feel good, just like the next person. And I can only compliment myself so many times in the mirror. I’m not Narcissus.

I suppose one of the (many) conundrums of this life is we need each other, but sometimes, we also kind of eff each other up. I’m still working through that, and maybe I always will be, but at least now I can do it with more self-compassion. And a tiny bit of humor. On my good days.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be drying out over here in my quiet, cozy corner with lots of salty snacks and sad music. And not just some of me, but all of the messy, beautifully squishy being I am.

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Picture this: a chilly Friday Miami night (upper 70s), 10ish pm, circa 2004. I’m driving in my 1995 champagne-colored Toyota Camry down US1 to scoop up two of my best friends, Chris and Roxanne, in Cutler Ridge (this was before the area got a rebrand of ‘Cutler Bay’).

At 18, I always pick up my friends to go out because I’m the only one with a car, and we always get ready for a night of dancing at Tanya’s house because she’s got the best mixed CDs and the best outfits and accessories. But before that, there is business to attend to: a stop at the BP on 112 to get contraband Sutter Home or Mike’s Hard Lemonade, because we are teenagers and we don’t know better.

Contraband in hand, we lower the windows, blast one of Tanya’s CDs (Peaches-Le Tigre-The Knife-CSS), and get to her spot, a home with lime-green walls and a closet stuffed with thrift finds, her mother offering leftover arroz y frijoles if we’re lucky. While the girls get dressed and put on makeup, we swap chisme and jokes; sometimes we convince Chris to let us put makeup on him, and sometimes we allow Tanya to become our personal stylists.

On one of the first nights that we start this routine that will continue for the rest of our senior year, and then during our summers back home from our separate colleges, Tanya announces she has ‘the perfect outfit for me;’ she holds up a stretchy, black, halter top jumpsuit with white piping, the exact opposite of anything I have ever worn up to that point: skin tight, cleavage forward, sexy, and sure to call attention.

My first reaction is: hell no. I can’t pull it off. I’m not that person. I’m not confident enough. Everyone will look at me, and I don’t want that because I don’t think there’s anything worth looking at.

Somehow (Tanya is very convincing), she gets me to wear it. We drive to Soho Lounge, park under I-95, and chug our drinks in time to make it before the post-midnight cover. With the courage of two mini bottles of Sutter Home, I make it to the dance floor, still uncomfortable in my outfit, but a little less so. Amazingly, nobody seems to be looking at me. Or if they are, I don’t catch it.

Amazingly, once the music comes on (s/o dj sticky rice and/or dj spider p*ssy), and I start dancing, I get out of my head and into my body and I realize, for the first time in 18 years (or, more accurately, for the first time since I started feeling unhappy in my body, so in 6 years) that I love being in my body: I love how it moves, how it feels the beat, how it sweats, how strong it is, that it is mine, and that I am free. On the dance floor with my friends, in that jumpsuit, I became exactly what I told myself I wasn’t: sexy, confident, that person.

We don’t leave the club until 5 am, and by the time I have dropped all of my friends home and crawled into my own bed, it is almost 6. I sleep until lunch, come out to the kitchen bleary-eyed, and for the rest of the day, replay the night in my head, reliving that bliss. I want to do it again. I want to get that feeling back.

On the dance floor, I don’t struggle with depression. On the dance floor, I love life, and the thought of ever ending it is unimaginable. On the dance floor, I can see so clearly how much I have to give, how much I am worth, how very loved.

Over the next two decades, I will slowly merge these two worlds together—dance floor Dana and nondance floor

Dana—and now, more than two decades later, I am, for the most part, able to do that.

This past Friday, in celebration of my 40th, I went out dancing. Not at a club in Miami, but at a local music venue in Austin. Not in the old jumpsuit, but in a new one: still black, still halter with major cleavage and skin tight, but the white piping was replaced with sparkles paired with sparkly boots (this is Texas, after all).

On Friday, I danced like I did that night in 2004, and as the funk and disco played, I swear my 18-year-old self came back into my body, giddy, free. She was so happy that I made it to 40, because she really wasn’t sure she would at the time. She was so happy that instead of hell no, I was now living a life of hell yes.

I turned to nature and reading for comfort, as I often had throughout my life, and did a deep dive into the genre of Nature Writing, which led to the creation of a course (of course) I called, “Virtual Blooming.”

I like to think of these portals as fun ways to get back into writing (or jumpstart your writing), or just get you out of your home and into nature. It will help immensely to not have any music or audio playing when you are in the field, and, if possible, to not look at a phone (I’d suggest putting it on airplane mode or do not disturb).

If you don’t have access to a park, btw, find a lovely tree, or your balcony, or any place outside that has something alive. Sometimes all it takes is that impossible flower growing in the curb to get inspired, or your favorite fig tree (check out Ross Gay’s To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian if you don’t know what I mean!)

PORTALS:

1. Write once a day in minute detail about one new thing in nature (aim for 15-30 minutes);

2. Write what cannot be written; for example, compose the inner monologue of native plant to your state, or the sounds of photosynthesis;

3. Find a park near you (a state park, national park, or reserve, if possible) and before you go, research it. When was it created and why, what was it before, what can be found there, etc. When you visit, take notes on whatever strikes you. Afterwards, leave the notes alone for at least a day. Then start a new piece, either a poem, an observation, or perhaps a story incorporating your research and findings.

4. Listen to this podcast with Robin Wall Kimmerer as she discusses “hidden worlds, overlooked mysteries, botanical drama, forests in miniature, Native peoples’ uses for moss and philosophies about science and ecology,” and more. Take notes on anything memorable, or perhaps ideas for your own nature writing!

https://www.alieward.com/ologies/bryology

Enjoy!

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Naturing in Big Bend National Park, 2022