Here’s the audio version of this post if you need, or prefer, met to read it to you.
My loves,
As you will know by the (in)frequency, and mood, of my posts this year it’s been a bloody tough one. Now that I feel like i’m emerging from the chaos chrysalis i’m starting to truly notice just how dysregulated and disassociated i’ve been for, if i’m honest, most of the year. A dear friend recently said, ‘I keep picturing you like you’re in the ocean and you’re swimming, the waves are really big, and back in December one knocked you over and you lost your footing and breath and then you just keep getting pummelled by waves over and over again.’ ‘Exactly,’ I nodded with mouthful of sea water and a starfish stuck to my bedraggled clothes and bruised body. Then we hit the end of August and, my loves, I was drowning…in shitty health stuff, grief, trauma and going through the hardest thing i’ve probably ever had to navigate. I acknowledge the ambiguity of this, but i’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’m still processing and healing and I certainly need to go back to therapy to talk about all of the woven tendrils and aches, but that requires executive function and funds. Soon. Soon. October has seen slightly calmer waves. Life threw me a Gatorade and I found some energy to swim to steadier foot holds. I’m still in the water but there’s breath in my lungs now. When the breath came back, the words came back, and when the words came back the ideas came back. When the ideas came back I got buoyed by the possibility of all the possibilities - there’s just so many things to make and create and dream about. A shower thought arrived as an audacious whisper that felt full of energy. I’ve come to learn, especially in the last few years, to trust these joy-filled nods.
So, i’ve made a zine and I want to share it.
Like me, she’s chaotic and whimsical and sparkly. The first issue is called Permission Slips and Pacey Witter and she’s thirty-two A5 pages of ponderings, pearls, quotes and questions and I’m going to sell her for $12. I’m nervous and excited and relishing in the fact that i’m only beholden to me in it’s creation and distribution. I made a thing. I’m selling the thing. Just me. My way. I think I needed this after this year.
Today i’m pondering creativity and joy and the chaos of my brain that is hardwired to have four million tabs open at all times, that is audacious to think it can do a million things at once. I don’t know what’s hustle culture and capitalism or just my own cockiness and lack of understanding of time - she’s a whirly, swirly, optimistic, unrealistic, creative sploshy kids pool in there. There’s a practical part that tries to find order in all of this, that tries to be logical and think of next steps and what other writers are doing, who loves logic and logistics. But what i’ve realised is that part is fear led not joy led. And I want to be joy led.
I want to be joy led because of the certainty of the waves crashing on our heads, not in spite of it. This isn’t toxic positivity, this is active and anarchistic, a choice to see how blue the water is even as it hurts my heart.
All of this is to say, this week i’ve had another layer of learning to the #EffTheRules philosophy in that things take as long as they take, and it’s okay to go from project-to-project as little joy-led morsels and chaos is part of the deal. Gratitude, joy, rest, action as core values.
I want to say i’m grateful for you, for reading and listening and supporting me, my words and ponderings. It’s a beautiful feeling to feel seen and heard, it’s the thing I think we are all ultimately craving the most, and I hope you know I see you and believe in your rules fuckery and joy as much as my own.
So, if you love a Claire&Pearl Instagram post, or these Pearler Substack ponderings then I reckon you’re gonna enjoy this slightly longer-form pearlescent offering, or at least I hope you will. You can pre-order your copy of Pearler Zine Issue One here.
Make the thing. Just because. You can.
I love you.
Claire.
Pearler is created on the unceded lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera people in Meanjin, and I pay my deepest and heartfelt respect to First Nations Elders past and present. Sovereignty never ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.