My Dear Creative Compatriots,
Have you ever had a really dense friend? You love them, and they are wonderful and kind—perhaps too kind—but they cannot pick up on your subtle hints that you two need to make a quick exit from a party to avoid an embarrassing encounter.
I think that is how the Muse or the Universe or Whatever, views me—I’m the dense friend.
Becky has been reading every Glennon Doyle book she can get her hands on. I’ve seen them around the house. The covers are all gorgeous, and the titles are interesting, but nothing moved me to pick them up. I’d also never heard of her before.
Earlier this week, I was texting a friend about parenting. He got a call to schedule a special meeting with his son’s teacher. We exchanged a few war stories and then went our separate ways. A few hours later, he sent me a link to a podcast and told me it’s strange how the algorithm works because the podcast episode was about some of the things we were texting about.
I looked at the podcast and saw that the host had a familiar name and face. The podcast was an hour long, so I didn’t listen.
As I went about my evening picking up the house, I saw one of my wife’s Glennon Doyle books. That’s when it hit me. My friend had sent me a link to Doyle’s podcast.
It felt like kismet.
I listened to the podcast, and it was just what I needed. The guest was Dr. Becky, a parenting expert. But the podcast wasn’t about parenting children. It was about reparenting ourselves to break destructive habits and cycles.
My biggest blocks are my failure to fully deal with the trauma of my childhood, the way my parents treated me as an adult, and the fact that they passed away while were completely estranged and I was sick with kidney cancer.
While listening to one podcast episode is not going to solve all of my problems, I took the first steps down a long road.
It felt like some force saw that I am working on taking my creative work more seriously, and it put this opportunity in my path to will help me free up my creative energy.
I know we live in a world of skeptics and coincidences. But I choose to believe in magic and serendipity.
Creative Challenge: Look out for helpful hints from the universe this week. See if any accidents or random events might actually be cosmic breadcrumbs leading to creative bliss.
About the Haiku Comic
I wrote this haiku earlier this week. I had originally written about silver shards of light and had a different middle line. However, it’s wildfire season here, and the smoke that was still hanging around in the valley meant that the moonlight was nothing like silver at all.
The art is all mine. As you know, I’m a reduce, rescue, and recycle kind of guy when it comes to my work. The smoke and the leaf are new, but the moon has been used in a bunch of my comics. I just recolor it to suit the needs of the individual project. I originally drew it for my graphic novel collection of short stories, Quantum Joy Infinite Melancholy.
Thanks for reading!
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
Thanks for sharing your intense and beautiful truth. That’s some big stuff to process, but the Universe has you covered! Also the haiku is fabulous
Your honesty and vulnerability in your newsletter is humbling, my friend. Deep bows!