This year, I did something I’ve never done before.
Declare a sabbatical without an end date, knowing that the end date might be quite far away.
It started in the summer.
And one of the things I noticed in the beginning was that I was feeling a profound fatigue around short-form content.
Weary to my bone of carousels and reels, emails and podcasts, being relentlessly mined for dopamine, and the illusion of having done something useful with one’s mind just floating in a sea of quickly churned out, and equally quickly forgotten output.
So, when I logged off from the world, it wasn’t even out of some lofty principle.
I was just following what I instinctively yearned for — the way a shark can smell blood from miles away, the way pregnant women are said to crave the food that contains the nutrition that their gestating fetuses need.
I needed words cooked slowly.
Slooooowly.
Perhaps even agonizingly slowly (I once had a friend who was a novelist. The time it took to birth a novel — agonizing indeed.)
To make up for the years I spent immersed in words, images and videos that took only minutes, or hours, to make. The fast food of creativity.
So I dove into a months-long marathon of doing almost nothing but reading novels.
Through the written word, I’d traveled to the Deep South, Harlem, Vietnam, Australia, India, Iran, Brazil, Senegal. And more.
More importantly, I’d traveled to the insides of extraordinary minds. Minds that were fully awake to the world, sensate equally to its brutality and its beauty.
Poverty.
War.
Partition.
Genocide.
Slavery.
The endless re-enactment of hatred and trauma.
And, threading through the midst of it all, impossibly — courage, love, kindness, tenderness, art, humanity.
These minds grabbed the thorniest, most uncomfortable questions of humanity by the throat, and stared into its eyes and refusing to look away, courting madness and fury.
These novels did not give me answers.
They did not prescribe a “how to” for how I ought to live the next chapter of my life, nor how to respond to a catastrophic world with my sanity and conscience intact — both of which I was subconsciously looking for.
But what they did, I feel, was restore my humanity.
They connected me back to the person I am, and always have been, outside of the professional roles I play.
Simone who looks. and keeps looking.
Simone who thinks and asks questions.
Simone who does not tire of searching.
That Simone is the most authentic Simone there is, and any identity of mine that is even a little bit more stable, poised, and reassuring than that is a lie.
These books also punctured giant gaping holes in the comfort of my former intellectual and ethical indolence. I found myself interrogating:
Why was I so content to communicate to my people through tiny Instagram squares and minutes-long videos?
Why was I so content to consume the same from others, and call it “learning” or “connection”?
What happened that I had become so comfortable conflating learning with entertainment, conversation with sound bites of conversation, and the sacred materiality of human togetherness with doing a bunch of clicking and swiping?
Had my thinking become so at ease with the conformity and shallowness that commerciality dictates, that I felt little inner tension with doing just that for years and years?
“If you’re ever going to go back to work, do it different,” I heard from within.
I need space where my thoughts can really stretch out without having to be cut up into squares.
I need space where my friends can read, and we can talk to each other without the interruption of constantly having to scroll left, and blinking notifications left and right.
So here we are.
An old-timey, 2006-style blog.
A blog is not the answer.
But it is a place where we can ask a hell of a lot of good questions.
Hi, Simone! Love this & you!!
Coolio! Bring it on, Simone. <3
Slow-cooked writing is like slow-cooked food, it just feels more nourishing. Is it weird that after 8 years of not blogging, I am also ready to start again?
Excited to read more from you. So grateful.
I feel this so deeply! I just decided this week to move more towards long-term writing myself as what I’m talking about (money and trauma) requires so much more depth and nuance
Happy to watch you paint your next canvas…
I’m here for all of this ♡ have been feeling this nudge too myself and loving to read your words here. Feels nourishing ♡
This feels like a homecoming. My soul says thank you.
I really love and appreciate this. Excited to read the blog!
I homeschool my autistic teen and our style of education is very book heavy. Traditional education feels a lot like social media…learn this info quickly, get tested, forget it. I wanted something deeper, but I question myself all the time because we’re doing something different. Kiddo is a slow reader and hates most audiobook narrators, so I read aloud constantly. My voice is hoarse by the end of everyday. But there’s so much depth, it’s worth it. Looking forward to your blog!
From the hundreds of responses to this blog that are bouncing in my brain right now, I shall only offer this: THANK YOU.
Love this. Love you.
Slow cooked soul here. I am in process of creating a business for guiding women through the recovery journey. I have known since before, I began to hatch the plan for my business that I needed to stretch out my being. I need a slow unraveling. That being in a place of embodied stillness is enough to invite others into the same, Without needing to appeal to their senses or convince or… I’m still figuring out how it makes sense to show up in relationship with people and get paid for that. That has felt strange for me. I realized that the things that we pay others to do for us are the things that we used to get from living in communal relationship with one another, And I’ve been saying these words without being heard for quite some time. I need a way to pay my bill bills and support my children, But I also need community and relationship with others. I really am not able to wrap my sensitive empathetic brain around the way things are. I feel as if I have to betray some deep innocent part of me in order to survive in this world. Anyhow, cheers to the 2006 blog life. I started one back in May and I like having my own little corner. I look forward to connecting more with you here. I have appreciated your guidance in my journey.
You create art with your words. Your message resonates deeply, and even more than that, I’m struck by how beautifully and uniquely you share it. I have a largely ignored blog…but you’re inspiring me to rethink it. I am curious…so many are turning to substack. What drew you to writing on a blog vs writing on substack?
You know I’ve gotten that question so frequently lately, I might just do a blog post on it! Thank you for asking. Gives me more incentive to think of a worthy answer.
Oh, and thank you so much for your kind words. Deeply and humbly appreciated.
hiii :). love to have you as someone I can look to on the business journey whose always tuning into your intuition and doing wtv it calls you to do, even if it’s “not in style”…
i have benefited from your generosity in sharing your thoughts and journey over the years… and love your long form stuff…
so looking forward to this new space. big love. b
This made me cry… I have a deep desire to support and create a community for women who have lost their babies before birth but the thought of “building an online business” on this makes me feel so uncomfortable. How do I “do the work” without selling my soul?
Thank you so much for sharing your words and learnings. I’ve felt the nudge to go back to my blog as well. I can’t say I was ever content with communicating via squares on ig. It has always felt limiting to me and like I cannot speak the way I want to speak or naturally speak because it will never draw and hold the attention of people on that platform to be “successful.” Needless to say, your words have been very affirming. I think it’s a gift that we get to hear more from you in this format and I’m looking forward to more of your posts.
Incredible! This blog looks exactly like mmy old one!
It’s on a totally different topic but it has pretty much the same layout and design.
Excellent choice of colors! https://www.waste-ndc.pro/community/profile/tressa79906983/