The author’s mother, labrador Jake, husky Kane, the cows I grew up with, and author, twenty one days after the birth of the author. Taken by Meg Fels.
I’m not pregnant. And if I was, I probably wouldn’t post about it pre-abortion. But for nine months I have been cultivating another kind of creation; my substack.
I have shared truths of many kinds on here; from overtly and passionately personal essays about grief, to a think piece on the role of social media on romance, chapters of my novel Cardinal Prayers, and I am currently swept up in poetry during National Poetry Month. I love my substack. I am semi-proud of everything I have published; semi because recently I have been publishing a lot of poetry, and they are the first poems I have written in a very, very, very long time.
I started my substack the summer before my first year at University. I had it planned out to be a letter to my friends and family back home; akin to Christina MacIntosh’s Newtsletter. It became clear, fast, that I did not have what it takes for writing based on observation, a la Cusk, Tartt, or MacIntosh (both sisters and authors whose writing I have read have exhibited a deeply personal un-attachment). I have not yet been able to emulate that style; I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I tend to remember people’s secrets but not their last names.
Fresh out of the delivery room, nine months in; I am one subscriber away from triple digits, and I know many substackers have many, many, more subscribers than I do, but triple digits feel very large to me. When I turned ten (famously the first double-digit) I was supposed to get my ears pierced— I had begged, for years, my mom said I could get them pierced when I turned ten: two digits, two ears, two holes. I couldn’t go through with it. Before we even stepped inside the Claire’s, I told my mom I felt sick and needed to go home. She never brought it up again.
It’s been almost a decade since that birthday, and I still do not have my ears pierced. I am the only person I know who does not have pierced ears. My friend Cam abandoned me on our crusade against modernity and pierced hers herself about a week ago, and my other friend Summer doesn’t have her lobes pierced but does have many cartilage piercings.
This is not a meditative piece on how certain aspects of my upbringing affected my perception of my feminine self to the point where I identified with another gender, but rather an attempt at saying THANK YOU! to anyone who reads this post, or any of my posts. But they have to read this one for the thank you
My dearest substack readers, Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I love you all. Every like and comment is a little kiss I feel on my forehead. I cherish my teeny tiny community here. I sincerely do. You all allow me (I suppose allow may not be the right word, but I love using the wrong word— frequently my posts get no likes and I post more of the same stuff anyways) to strip any and all pretensions of dignity and being cool. With you all, I feel I can be myself; a writer, an over-thinker, a performer, an emotional artist.
So thank you for listening and reading, no matter how much or how little you read. I am full to the brim with love, and most of it goes to you all. My cup runneth over with the joys you all bring me.
Shoutout to Cleo Cummins. My most loyal reader and commenter. I love you cow girl!
Special shoutout to Phoebe MacIntosh (who’s surprised) for getting me to start a substack. All my great things start with you; all great things end with us.
All my love, forever.
Desdemona
love you!!!!!
My ears are not pierced!