Rituals on keeping time :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED June 11th 2023

As a writer, there are so many ways I keep track of time that help me write. Half the job of a writer is to observe life. If we are not curiously observing, engaging, living fully alongside life, asking her questions and listening for the answers, there is nothing to write down when we arrive at our desk.

My moon is in Capricorn so Saturn does naturally encourage me to keep track quite well. A big way that I keep track of time is that around every birthday, I sit down and I write a list of the things that have gone on in the last year.

^ affirmation from the diary of a saturn return. #TheDaddyISeekIsInMe

I am not the kind of writer who lives life in order to write, as in I have never found myself seeking a story by chasing it like my education in journalism taught me to do. And I haven’t noticed myself naturally trying to create one out of nothing either. Maybe this is why I haven’t written fiction yet. I just sort of let life happen and then I write about what happened. That is my official, unofficial process. But when I am in the moment of it all, I am not thinking about writing it. I am just living. And then, through my rituals of keeping time, I go back and I see what I have lived to remember the feelings, the emotions, the events, all of it - to be able to write it down.

Most of my coming of age memoir was expanded from notes I kept on my phone tracking time throughout a decade. The other bits were expanded from listening to music my family listened to back then, walking to let the stories come alive after I had looked through photographs, going back to the same spots and smelling the air during a specific season.

Some of the things I keep track of doesn’t really ever make into the writing literally per say, but all of the list keepings, and the time keepings, allow me to remember. They allow me to write.

I found a journal entry from a pile of journals I got together last month (I am writing for a project again, and this means, I am time travelling again), and there was a passage that struck me. It’s from sometime in 2019, when I was living in San Diego. I write a few sentences, high on an edible, to my ex partner.

I say, “EX, You made everything better. I can’t remember any other moment other than when you told me you loved me. Now being in Encinitas, I see that saying I love you so fast was because of this culture. You taught me so much, I miss you teaching me things. I took more thc/cbd because I wanted to numb the pain. There is only EX, who I didn’t care if he had stuff in his teeth.”

It is so random and so messy and so desperate and so understanding as an entry and if I look at it now, after we broke up well over 4 years ago, I giggle. I find myself so ridiculous and also so loveable. The last line is so silly, but it is was me trying to capture the feeling of like, I don’t care about any of the flaws of this person, or their humanness never deters me, in fact, it pulls me in, and that is different than how I feel about most people. It was different, it was love. It is a declaration of, I love you with so much stuff in your teeth. You are perfect to me. And also there is fear here too, I sense a question in myself too. What if I don’t feel that again? You are the only one. Are you?

Spoiler: I fell in love like this again, even if slightly different.

And still, I remember the breakup now as definitely the worse heartbreak/ most god awful grief of my life. However, I don’t remember the nuances. I didn’t remember the feeling that night when I felt like, “I can’t remember any other moment other than when you told me you loved me.” How the pain and the love and the anguish and the grief was all that existed for me. While I am glad I am no longer heartbroken like this actively ‘cause it’s pretty stressful and I am glad that I healed from this pain and integrated it… when I read this, I can tap back into that version of me before all of that happened, all of the resolutions and the healing, and write from those dramatic, raw, and unfiltered places.

Here are some of the ways I keep time on a yearly basis by asking some questions with some memories from the past year. Feel free to borrow it for your next birthday too.

What were my favourite days of the year or favourite moments?

My absolute favourite day of this past year was when Shannon and I had a full adventure day and we went biking, we went swimming and paddle boarding and then we went to my favourite restaurant at night and shared dessert. I loved that day SOOO much. I can still remember what it felt like to dip my chest into the water that day - as if I was letting go of everything and I wouldn’t miss it at all when it left so I wasn’t scared, and the smile on Shannon’s face that I saw through cloudy eyes trapped by lake water.

I also really loved a day when my mom and I went to the market early in the morning in July and I went for a walk in another direction as she shopped around. When we met back up, she was leaning on the car, waiting for me. When she looked up to see me, her expression was pure love. I felt so safe in the world. By far, my most favourite thing about this last year is how solid our relationship is - how we got here after all that repair. I finally understand what it is like on a very deep somatic level to feel like someone truly has my back on all levels; to know that we will find safety after conflict each time, and that I have a family that is not going anywhere.

What songs did I listen to the most?

My most played playlists this year were SO EMO. I mean, makes sense, I went through a significant breakup this year. And also just random hype up songs, usually to play with Shannon. Here’s some of the hits.

Moon song - Phoebe Bridgers

Both sides now - Joni Mitchell

Stronger - Ziggy Alberts

I belong to you - Brandi Carlile.

Steal my clothes - Kito

Camera Roll - Kasey Musgraves

If I go, I’m going - Gregory Ivan Isakov

Emily I’m sorry - boy genius

True blue - boy genius

Special - SZA

Nobody gets me - SZA

No one dies from love - Tove Lo

The great war - Taylor Swift

Casual - Roan Chappell

Sober - Lorde

The lighting I & II - Arcade Fire

Psychos - Jenny Lewis

Let me remind you - Sugarland

Both of us - Zolita

Hope is a heartache - Leon

Best friend - Saweetie

Cut to the feeling - Carly Rae Jepsen

A shit tonne of third eye blind.

La Bamba (yes okay?)

Titi Pregumento - Bad Bunny

What kind of books did I read? Which were my favourite?

I read so much rom com fiction books. Probably more than I have ever read. My favourites were the Ex Talk, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Book Lovers, and Every Summer After.

I read A LOT of poetry. Basically all of Mary Oliver’s work and then I had to organize my fav poems of hers into categories.

I also read a lot of philosophy books, especially when Rae and I had crushes on each other. She led me to a lot of philosophy books that I nerded out with a lot and we’d talk to each other about it. That Gemini and Aquarius bond. <3

What was my favourite show of the year?

Hands down, a league of their own.

The wonderful Mrs Maisel too. Abe Weissman is everything to me.

MIRIAM? YES, THIS IS YOUR FATHER. WE ARE NOT OKAY. MIRIAM, YOU OUT OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW I AM GOING THROUGH A DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (dark night of the soul caused by making one single typo in his entry in the magazine he writes for.)

What was I eating?

I ate both the LEAP & AIP diet all friggen year. Regrettably, it did not heal me like it has healed a lot of other people.

What did I write about the most?

I wrote the most about inherent self-worth.

Which projects was I devoted to?
I was the most devoted to my book launch.

This is a screenshot of when I saw my physical book for the first time. Uz got a copy at her house before I got my own author copies to sign and sell at my house. She called me IMMEDIATELY and we gushed SO HARD. This photo is weirdly edited because at the time I was sunbathing in my yard and Uz is not wearing her Hijab. The day was July 7th. A day before the official launch.

And also, to my poetry. I wrote and edited and got a poetry book ready.

Genie, my typewriter who helped me write my first poetry collection. It is called you make me cry like a sunset.

What kind of exercise did I do? (If any) ETC ETC

I walked a lot in a forest that I met and fell in love with. Here is my mom doing qi gong in her.

Who did I meet? How did they touch me, inspire me, influence me, change me?

I met my acu, an incredibly calm and resourceful taurus, who loves on me through her intuitive and physical medicinal art practice every week and who has become a treasured part of my life.

I met Claire while dating. And she reflected back to me that I don’t want to be put in a box and that we can really do what we want to do, even if that means we lose out on other things. A art history nerd, a beyond nature lover, I enjoyed spending a little time with her in this life. We met an at intersection and we walked searching for birds together.

She’s a gemini and a part of her scared me, because I knew for certain I wasn’t going to be able to keep her within the first half hour of sitting beside her, and I knew that our time together would probably be short, but she taught me how to come back to the moment - curious, open, awe’ed by life again. In not trying to make her fit into a box, or get onto a timeline, or ask her to be any different, just allow her to be exactly who she is, I remembered how to do that for myself. I took myself a little less seriously after I met Claire. I relaxed a whole lot more.

Other questions that I ask myself to keep track of time on my birthday:

Did I surprise myself this year in any way, did I get to know new parts of me? If so, how and what parts?
What was I the most proud of?
What am I the most satisfied about?
What did I spend my money on?
How did I earn my money?
Who fell away from my life this year, and why?
Was I in love?
Did I kiss anyone, and if so, why did I want to kiss them?
Who did I spend the most time with, and who do I feel I know the most right now?
What was the most painful thing?
What was I afraid about?
What did I laugh the most about?
Who did I write hand written cards to this year?

I burn all my morning pages but I keep all my INSIGHT journals. Obviously different categories. ;) Although now I am starting to feel I should keep my morning pages too. I am kind of sad that I don’t have the last 10 years worth of them. What is your opinion/ stance on keeping journals? Burn them, so they don’t become an AppleTV or HBO show about queer love in 150-200 years or different thought process entirely? Or keep them so they do become an HBO limited series? Hehehe.

As I await my birthday on Tuesday, and I sit in the excitement of getting a whole new solar return chart… I am thinking about this prayer:

May we all celebrate our one and truly precious life. The good, the bad, the ugly and the stunning. May we all make art based on all of it. May we all know our art will save our lives. And that our art is always of service. I bet it feels like it went by so quick at the very end. I bet we think about how we wish we could have told the us we are with now to not worry so much - even if life showed us contrast and especially if things weren’t perfect. As I sit at this new threshold, one that keeps coming every year, luckily, I intend to enjoy every bit of being alive.

Blessings to you and to all the people you love the very mostest xx

A year in review

Rituals on keeping time :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED June 11th 2023