The Grasshopper Sunday Edition 3/19/2023: Every Year Like Clockwork
Rebirth, and why Spring always surprises
“Even though it might sound conceited, sometimes I write stuff that I just like reading. I’ll write to entertain myself if it ... ’cause I only publish maybe a tenth of what I write.”
~ Patti Smith, from a podcast interview with Hamish McKenzie on Substack. I could pull ten quotes from this conversation.
My readers and friends know I obsess a bit about the weather. No regrets about that, it keeps me moving through the short days after the winter solstice, the long slog of January and February, and the unpredictability of March, which appears to be going out like a lamb.
This spring will be #68 for me though I doubt I remember any of the first three or four. I think it is possible that I actually started writing my first Grasshopper post on the first day of spring last year. It’s on the 20th this year, tomorrow for readers who actually read this on Sundays. Little did I know what 2022 would bring.
That spring started with me testing positive for Covid after dodging it for two years. I was pretty miserable for a week or so. The after effects included loss of appetite and vertigo which combined to topple me over one night, causing a compression fracture of a lower vertebrae.
Yes, I broke my back, which still seems surrealistic to write. It took about eight months, the rest of the year, to regain my normal strength, but it had no effect on my writing. In fact I put the pedal to the metal, adding this newsletter to my output for the year.
But I feel like I missed spring last year. My mobility was limited and my body was consuming too much of my attention. I’m happy to say I intend to enjoy this spring as much as possible, even those cold, rainy late spring days that throw you for a loop just as you thought you were past them.
It’s impossible not to use the word rebirth as spring unfolds. The world is reinventing itself and a lot of us can feel it moving in our winter bones. I know I do, and now I’m thinking about how I can take full advantage of the thawing and warming breezes.
The power of feeling ‘normal’
Feeling normal has been my goal during the last year. I have an enhanced sympathy for those with chronic health problems. I was always pretty sure I would heal. So, even though a broken back sounds drastic, it was really nothing compared to many things I could be experiencing.
I’m big on themes in life and writing, though I don’t think we can identify them until after the fact. I’ve had this idea of writing as therapy on my mind lately because my writing here, in particular, has served to give me perspective.
In the last issue I included some of my political writing on censorship and a look at AI as an extension of our writing toolset. It’s not my plan to bring my writing on Medium over here, not on The Grasshopper. But I am considering building out The Witness Chronicles, which you can see in The Grasshopper’s navigation bar.
It’s been hanging out waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Now that I am feeling semi-normal, I’d like to think I have the new energy required to take on another very different newsletter. I’ll keep you posted, and if you don’t want to hear my rants on elections, politics, and climate, you can opt out of The Witness Chronicles while still receiving The Grasshopper.
At least I think that’s how it will work.
Turning it up to eleven
The goal, for me, was never to amass as much word count as I can. It just happens that my little brain loves this writing stuff. But it’s not a question of how much writing you should do to call yourself a writer. Rather, I think consistently writing, every day, and finding a place to publish, are my criteria.
I have shelves full of books on Buddhism, all flavors though I tend to lean towards Zen with a sprinkling of the mysticism of Tibetan Buddhist thought. I like to think that this predilection inserts itself into my writing, even when I am writing about something terrible or just pragmatic.
Maybe a slightly more generous worldview? When I introduced a paid upgrade choice for subscribers I assumed that writing about money making would draw people to upgrade. I’m still going to write about that important aspect of being a writer, but it will get mixed in with everything else, and not be hidden behind a paywall.
I recently learned that substack is an abbreviation for subscription stack, the stack being the tools the platform aggregates to support writers publishing and charging for our writing.
But I’m rethinking that a bit. There is a concept called the gift economy, an economy based on giving and receiving rather than formal transactions. The Buy Me A Coffee model where a reader can send a few bucks to a creator as a thank you for doing our work.
It’s a pay it forward thing. I’m still limiting my Grasshopper article archive to paid subscribers. But all my readers can read issues published in the past two weeks before they go behind the paywall.
Some writers here offer paid subs that convey no additional advantage to the paying reader, but instead offer readers a way of simply paying it forward. I think it’s a wonderful concept but I wonder if it pays the bills, or even buys the coffee. Pure patronage in the best meaning of the word.
I’m writing about these considerations, because these days they are very much a part of being a writer in a public space. I can write about politics or mystical discovery but I still need to consider getting paid. Since my assumption here is that many, if not most, of my readers are writers or creators, I assume you are trying to balance commerce and art.
It’s an age-old challenge. Unfortunately some writers become obsessed with it, or getting into the world of traditional publishing as proof that they are really a writer. Money as validation. I admit, I’m ok with that. Pay it forward if you can.
I love daylight savings time. I don’t mind the dark mornings, that’s often when I write, but I love the longer evenings. I seldom write at night but if an idea strikes me I’ll jot it down and take a look at it in the morning. For some reason my best ideas arrive in the dawn before sunrise.
Substack enhanced its Chat feature, making it possible for readers of a publication to set up Chats amongst themselves or with any kind of interest group. It is part of their push to build a community here, a different kind of social experience.
Last year I tried starting a Thread with readers but got no takers. In a way that might have been a good thing because chats can eat up a lot of time and energy. But I’m considering facilitating one in my second year here, a year dedicated to experimentation.
Did you write today?
Martin Edic
1223 words
Good Lord, Martin. Do you pick up a banana with one finger and a thumb? I'm guessing you use all your digits. Why waste them. Get with the program and learn to type putting all 8 of the long ones to use. I can assure you, it's a lot quicker. -- Really now, I could care less how you manage to produce words. It seems to work for you, so keep it up my friend.
Martin, -- Some years ago I learned that being a writer has three different meanings. One, a writer is capable of constructing sentences, and even paragraphs, sometimes copiously. Two, a writer is that person who, to put it bluntly, can think, AND construct proper sentences. And third, a writer is someone who can construct language elegantly, AND think. It seems most betray a belief that they fit in the third category. I would hope to at least fulfill the second requirement, and occasionally produce a gem of "elegant eloquence", if I can be so immodest to think so. (So I wonder where that places me on the Dunning-Kruger scale). If I think my writing is good, I must be much worse than I think. If I think I don't write so well, I might actually be quite good. I came to this turn of opinion when I was asked by an aspiring author to read a book he had recently written and self-published. Briefly, it was laughably, and pathetically, terrible. But I could see with my own eyes that he could put sentences and paragraphs together like a pro. He was a Dunning-Kruger poster boy. And he fancied himself a writer. Let me interject, lest you misinterpret. You, my friend, are a fine writer, in my estimation. I don't know how good -- just plenty good enough to qualify as a category 3 writer.
Now on to my next point. You spent a bucket of words on describing the feelings of winter and spring in your neck of the woods, as if it was both your penance and reward for living in the northeastern US. I was born and nurtured in the midwest, but have spent nearly all my years in the Northwest, where seasons are sharply defined by the extremes of the dismal and the magnificent -- like for most northerners. But at this moment, I am ensconced in a little city in inland western Mexico, and -- you may not believe this -- have not seen a drop of rain in 6 months. The day dawns sunny and ends sunny, like in some mythical eden, every bloody day. So now, even after only this six-month experience, I am just a bit terrified of returning to the chill and rain of my native Northwest, as I must in two weeks. How can I survive it? Can my psyche handle it? We'll see. Be brave, old man, I tell myself.
Well, that's about it for now. Keep writing my friend, and all my best to you. Paul Shelton