August 2023: …to be ground and sky at once…
Finding stability amidst big changes, plus a few announcements.
Dear friends,
So…there have been some BIG changes in my life in the last month. Good and promising things, but also very stressful. I moved into an apartment early this month, and it has taken a while to emotionally settle in. At about the same time, I started attending a mental health IOP, or intensive outpatient program. An IOP is basically a program that allows you to have multiple therapy sessions a week (a combination of group and individual therapy) but still potentially be able to keep up daily commitments like going to school or work. People usually do an IOP as a step-up from less intensive care (e.g. weekly therapy) or as a step-down from more intensive care (usually inpatient care or partial hospitalization).
I’m doing the IOP as a proactive step-up during a period of transition and upheaval, having noticed that I’ve been more frequently destabilized than usual this summer. I have definitely grown stronger in many ways and have been more able than before to assess and meet my needs when feeling emotional intensity, but I have also been frequently at the edge of my capacities. So I hope that the IOP can help strengthen my skills for regrounding myself when I start to feel activated. My aim is to be ground and sky at once, being able to hold as much as I can the breadth of emotion I can experience without it breaking me.
Since the last monthly update, I posted three relatively short essays on Marginal Notes, one in the Narratives section and two in Musings. They are very much reflective of where my mind has been recently. The first is a probably long-overdue explanation of a sort of aspirational epithet I gave to myself a few years ago. The second is a boldly-written reflection upon the concept of Madness versus mental illness, which quickly slips into a compassionate yet urgent letter to a fellow human navigating new psychological terrain. The third is an exploration and analysis of whether Neurodivergence can be inherently Queer and whether Queerness can be inherently Neurodivergent. If you haven’t yet read these essays, below are the links to them:
By the way, only ONE of the 30-some of you who were originally on my Mailchimp list (and thus were only automatically subscribed to the Updates section of this newsletter because you only signed up for monthly updates through Mailchimp) has opted into either of the other sections of Marginal Notes (Narratives and Musings). That’s fine if only ONE of you wants to receive essays like the above in your inbox as well as monthly life updates like this one, but I doubt that that is true. This is the LAST time I’m going to pester you about this (at least in the context of a newsletter — I might pester some of you individually if you’re my friend and I suspect that you just forgot). If you like any of the essays I wrote earlier this month, please consider subscribing to the other sections of this newsletter! (You can always change your mind, too.) Click on the button below to manage your subscription.
I’m going to continue posting weekly, partly because I want to maintain a writing habit. As a creative person, I feel that I’ve been too dependent on occasional bursts of inspiration and am not as good at getting myself to exercise my creativity in smaller amounts on a regular basis. Writing these essays also is giving me an outlet for my obsessive inquiries, and I hope that my thinking and feeling gives inspiration to your thinking and feeling. I’d really appreciate if you’d interact with posts by liking them, sharing them, and perhaps most meaningfully, comment on them so we can connect and learn from one another. And if you want to support my work further, consider pledging a paid subscription for when I activate them:
Some of you have already pledged — thank you for doing so! When I receive enough pledges, I will activate paid subscriptions, which will come with perks like exclusive posts or paywalled sections of posts, and perhaps an exclusive chat community if there’s interest with that. Most of my content will remain free.
Alright, now with Substack housekeeping out of the way, here are some announcements:
I’m doing a workshop for kids through the Daydream hub of the Philly Fringe Festival! What Does Lemon Sound Like? invites young people ages 4 and up to explore connections between sound and other senses and make music together. I will provide a basic introduction to the idea of the graphic score (a non-traditional music score that conveys sound through images) and lead participants in making a 3D music score using everyday objects that stimulate our senses (like lemons!) and then in performing that score altogether for their families. Get the info about dates, location, tickets, and more here.
I’m offering mathematics tutoring, both virtually and in-person, for students in grades K-12. I work with students to help them achieve their personal goals, whether it is to achieve and maintain a certain grade in a maths course or to pursue enrichment and get ahead. My approach is creative and emphasizes the development of strong problem-solving skills and metacognitive habits that prepare students for challenges both in maths classes and life in general. Check out my website for more info.
I’m officially on the performer roster for Groupmuse, an international worker- and musician-owned cooperative and an online platform where hosts and musicians organize concerts (called “groupmuses”) in non-traditional spaces like living rooms, backyards, church basements, and public parks. If you’re in the Philly area and have a space with a piano, you can sign up to host me for a 45-minute concert to which you can invite friends, neighbors, and anyone else you’d like. (And if you can’t host yourself, I would appreciate if you could spread the word with anyone who might be interested!) Groupmuses are all about fostering community through music, and I am eager to converse with audiences about the music I perform. Check out my performer profile for my current offerings, which I’m working to expand.
Featured Creator
This month’s featured creator is Hannah Cai Sobel!
Hannah Cai Sobel (they/them) is a NYC based composer, conductor, vocalist, and ice cream enthusiast. Inspired by the human experience, Hannah's music tells stories about being a person in a world full of other people. Hannah has music directed and conducted both their operas, Frog and Toad and Brooklyn Bound L and they are very proud that a large percentage of their audience members were first time (and decidedly not last time!) opera goers. Hannah also conducts for the Brooklyn chapter of HaZaPrep and was a 2023 Young Conducting Fellow at the North American Jewish Choral Music Festival. They currently compose and sing soprano for NYC’s choral composer/conductor collective: C4. Hannah often performs with pianist and composer Lili Tobias, bringing a mix of contemporary and historical art song to the streets, ice cream shops, and yarn stores of NYC. Hannah is in love with people and their voices and will sing or write about anything as long as it’s a good story.
They are a lover of all cats, most hyperbolic triangle groups, and probably you.
Website: hannahcaisobel.com
Instagram: @hannah_thesopranah
(Oh by the way, it was not completely my intention for all three of the Featured Creators so far to be people who use they/them pronouns. I just happen to know a lot of awesome they/thems ;-> )
A Contemplative Offering
How meaningful is the concept of neurodivergence, if there is no such thing as a perfectly “normal” brain? (I’m planning a post exploring this question, but I wanted to offer it to you all first to ponder yourselves.)
Is there an aspect of your creativity that you haven’t tapped into yet? Go seek it out.