My Precious Days

On emerging from the forest

In my dreams I am drowning; in my dreams there are baby elephants; in my dreams there are horses, in my dreams there are fields. These are just slivers of the intricate stories that have been playing out in my mind as I sleep; the splinters embedded in memory when I wake. With careful hands I extract them, turning these strange needles over with a delicate hold. I’m not searching for the source. The source is obvious from where I stand, in the thick of change.

For nine-hundred and ninety-nine days I was on what is labeled on my resume as a “Creative Sabbatical”. At 23, I was exhausted and unsure that a career in broadcast news was what I wanted, so I quit my job.

I had entered the newsroom three months after graduating college in the heat of the pandemic. Grappling for something steady, something certain — a paycheck, a job title, a schedule — I accepted the opportunity to join a local newsroom as a producer with enthusiasm and relief. There would be shape to my days, the degree I was in debt for would be put to use.

Journalism is a challenging field; you brace for a chaos that may or may not come, all the while moving forward to accomplish what must be done before air. The days are strenuous and riddled with anxiety. It’s difficult work. But it’s work that matters. I loved being able to craft a show that reached thousands of viewers and resonated with them, every single night. There’s a story in every act of kindness, there’s a story in every seemingly mundane city council meeting — because of the people within it.

Those years in the newsroom were exactly what I needed then. When it’s time to go though, you know. And I knew.

So began the Creative Sabbatical. I slept in. I stayed up too late. I went to concerts. I sat out under the sun. I began working on a novel. I started a garden. I paused one novel to start another…and then another. I sought out the Georgia O’Keefe painting in my hometown. I sat on the back porch and found poems in the birdsong, in the light on the water. I hiked in Olympic National Park. I stood on the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States. I walked through old-growth forests and balanced on the bleached, toppled trunks of a tree graveyard. I returned to the Oregon coast where I had been visiting just before the world was brought to its knees by the pandemic. I swore my father to secrecy and got two tattoos, not telling anyone else until the needle hit my skin and it was too late to back out. I explored coves; marveled at the starfish and sea anemones that called the tidepool boulders home. I tried to get into birding. I got really into yoga for a bit. I reread all the YA books I loved at thirteen. I worried about money. I hiked the pink granite cliffs of Maine. I drove along the coast to glimpse at lighthouses, armed with my disposable camera and a pack of tissues for the head cold I picked up. I went to more concerts. I roamed art museums. I reawakened my passion for Greek mythology and read The Odyssey. I began to doubt myself and questioned the direction of my life. I made myself write on the days when I really didn’t want to write. I fell asleep to the chorus of cicadas and frogs outside my childhood bedroom window. I read Mary Oliver. I went to the gym more. I began to apply for jobs. I set my time around job hunting and writing. I hopped between LinkedIn and writing projects in a fit of anxiety and guilt. I scrolled on my phone until my eyes burned in an attempt to outrun my heavy feelings. I wasted days. I questioned my abilities and place in the world. I pulled tarot cards. I went to the mountains. I joined a poetry group. I got off of Instagram. I compared my life to those of friends I don’t even talk to anymore and those closest to me. I read Ann Patchett. I got back into art through block printing. I was kicked off my parent’s health insurance. I came back to the novel. I went to the ocean. I took note of what mattered to me by noticing the shape of my days. I began new traditions and continued old ones. I picked tomatoes in my grandparent’s garden. I tended to my friendships and family. I created the Substack that has led me here to you.

You met me at a strange, messy, and important time in my life. My precious days. A scramble of feelings, high and low.

I have just emerged from the forest. The forest I roamed for nine-hundred and ninety-nine days. The forest I ached to be free of, the forest I ached to remain in. A terrain with a boundary line I could not see until I crossed it. From here, unable to go back, I can’t quite see what that time did for me. Something has shifted within me though; I can’t place the shift but I can feel the soil has moved.

For much of it — too much — I was certain I was failing in some way. Failing to exist amid that forest more. Failing to not break from it sooner. There were visions I had for myself that I failed to actualize — finish a novel, go overseas. And there were realities that I could have never predicted.

But what I know now that I didn’t know then, was that there was no wrong or right way, no risk of wasting it. I was simply supposed to live. And I did.

I began this essay in my childhood bedroom but I’m finishing from the bedroom of my apartment. The chorus of cicadas and frogs has become a brass band of city sounds. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go to work. And hopefully, next week, I’ll write to you all again.