On Writing and Rejection and Opening Your Own Window

Somehow, through some beautiful divine alchemy, my feelings about rejection have started to change, particularly when it comes to writing.

Since becoming a sturdier human being over the last couple years—that, coupled with a few randomly placed quotes about rejection I’ve stumbled across—it’s come to mean something other than what it used to mean.

Rejection is what led me to the path I’m on of independent publishing and blogging—of doing my own thang. After getting nowhere submitting essays and stories to mags for a few years (with the caveat that I am far less patient and punctilious about following up than others are), rather than keeping my writing out of rotation with the world, I just decided to put it out there using my own outlets.

That repeated rejection—which frankly sucked at the time--led me to autonomy and freedom: the freedom to own my own writing schedule, write about what I want to write about, to have typos, to mess up.

Rejection used to feel so 1) personal and 2) world-ending. It used to feel like I was losing something, I was missing out. But now, I take it to mean that I’m just that much closer to finding my true tribe, the people my writing truly connects with (like you :-)). I remind myself that this is a big, beautiful world, and there are treasures all around. In other words, rather than being in the mindset of scarcity when it comes to rejection, I’m in the mindset of abundance.

I’m realizing that judging rejection—that taking it as “bad”—is a waste of energy. It’s also so often not true. That “no” was the thing that brought you closer to other “yes’s” that were meant for you. Maybe the no’s are giving you the gusto, freeing you up to shout “What have I got to lose?!” and flinging yourself at the next opportunity, a little wild eyed, tal vez un poco loco, but freer, less sensitive.

And one last thing—I used to take rejection as so finite. Like it was “No forever, for all eternities and beyond! NO and NO and NO and NO!” Now I take it as: Not right now. I take it as an invitation to check in down the road, see if the stars might be more aligned then.

It still stings. But I’m feeling more resilient, moving on faster, not feeling it in such a deep wounding place. I’m staying light, staying high and knowing my only job is to keep showing up with my writing. That it finds its way to the right hearts. It’s not my job to understand why it all unfolds the way it does. It’s just my assignment to do what I’m fashioned to do, day in and day out, and trust. That—and if the world is shutting doors in my face, open my own window.

Resources:

BOOK: Sheri Salata, The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence, and Transformation

PODCAST EPISODE: Don’t Keep Your Day Job (Hosted by Cathy Heller): Sheri Salata on Transformation & Turning a Beautiful No into a 20 Year Career with Oprah Winfrey

The Ocean is My Home and I Will Go: Be Surf

Went out with Maddie to LS yesterday just north of Rs. Low wind, sun and temps in the high 30s made it a bluebird day for winter surf. We hit it at mid tide and saw someone getting fun, hang 10 rides on a longboard as we were suiting up.

We kept finding ourselves in a strange pocket and we had a fair number of closeouts but the waves were fun and perfect size, 2-3, and consistent.

I can’t imagine not surfing through the whole year. Winter surfing can be painful and getting out of your wetsuit after is absolutely a tragic experience, but the last couple weeks the waves have been consistently FUN, and I can’t imagine missing them. Not only that, I just can’t imagine surfing being available to me, and me not going. I can’t imagine not being tethered to that lifeline. It’s just my sacred space. It’s where I get to see my friends, it’s where I get to go and be quiet on other days, it’s where I get to go and just be. There are no expectations of me, no roles I’m playing, no emails to answer, no promotion of business to do. There’s just me on a board in the water, willing a wave to come my way. it’s simple, it’s joyful, it fills my heart.

So ya. Turtle rolling and having 38 degree water massage my face is not a comfortable feeling. Struggling to wiggle out of my wet suit while the wind is licking my bare legs is also a tragicomical experience. But the ocean is my Home and I will go.

Forget Resolutions. Choose a Word (or Phrase) for 2021.

On a walk with my friend Maddie the other day, we started talking about the new year, which inevitably led to a discussion of resolutions or resolution-like-things. It was then that Maddie told me that her friend Beth doesn’t set a goal or a resolution for the new year—she sets a word, and now Maddie does it too. At first Maddie was suspicious of the practice, but, after having done it for two years now, she said it’s proven to be worthwhile.

“Wow,” I said. It struck me immediately. It felt simple, like a talisman to keep returning to when I inevitably fly off the handle in 2021. “I’m going to do it too,” I said.

I kept thinking about it, kept tossing and turning over and over about what my 2021 word should be. I had a seemingly endless list going in a note on my phone but, ultimately, my word for 2021 is “ask”.

I just kept coming back to it:

Ask…

• the difficult questions

• my loved ones how they’re doing/about their lives more

• for help

• for consideration and opportunities

• myself why I’m afraid of [insert so many things here!]
  

Root my feet into the floor of doctor’s offices or other places I’m scared to take up space in and ask the questions.
Put myself in the shoes of my loved one and ask them a question about what they just said, or reach out across the gap of space, we have so much of it now, and ask the question “How are you doing?”

*

I am not a natural asker of questions. Talk to my loved ones. They will corroborate this, and quickly. It’s been brought to my attention over the years, and was recently brought to my attention again, which got me thinking. It really got me thinking—with my coffee at dawn, in the car, on the couch, in the ocean. I thought—what does it mean to ask a question? And—why am I so bad at this? These were the thoughts that ensued:

To ask is to make a commitment to stay a bit, to not move so quickly from Point A to Point B. It’s a commitment to dwell as you’re waiting for the person to reply--to ask is to sit and keep your ears open as the other person responds. A question literally creates a space that wasn’t there before for someone to step into and share, maybe even set down a weight they’ve been carrying alone. And to be honest, a lot of my life, I have been moving too quickly from Point A to Point B to take the time to ask, been too engrossed in whatever’s going on in my own “echo chamber” (to crib from Dean Nelson’s book on asking questions).

To ask is to still vocal chords, put them in the back seat and let your companion drive and tell and share.

To ask is also to feel you have the right to take up space, like a cow in the road. To be still. It’s to say you’re worthy of the space, the time and the answer and it’s an offering to the other person of those inimitable things as well.

To ask means you want to know more about the world and its inhabitants and phenomenon.

Questions are for asking yourself too.

Ask yourself why you’re scared.

Ask yourself, who says you can’t?

Who is “them”?

Why not?

*

So here I am. Entering 2021 hoping to invite others to share more, to take up more space, to linger, to root my feet in and ask questions I’m scared of asking of others and myself, to indulge curiosity. It feels good.

Special shout out to Maddie for inspiring me, and extended shout out to Beth, who gave the idea to her. <3

PS: When I told my best friends from high school about this endeavor, most of them got really into it too—every couple of days a friend would pipe up on our group chat with their word and why. I’m so excited about this, and to see how the practice unfolds for my loved ones this year.

PPS: This poem by the wondrous Mary Oliver starts and ends with some of the most beautiful and important questions I have ever come across.