I came across your substack from the Office Hours thread. I run a literary zine in the form of a newsletter on substack called The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I'm currently looking for other writers who are looking to expand their reach through collaborations and cross posting.
I really enjoyed and connected with your writing voice, particularly the part of the essay where you're talking about being nostalgic for a life you never had. I think it would be a great fit for what I'm doing. Would love to collaborate if you're interested
Hey! Very excited about this. You can shoot me a note at theabandoneddreamscollective@gmail.com and I'll send you a background of my substack and the goal behind it as well as a description of what I'm thinking
I think the Better Call Saul ending was one of the better endings I've seen in a long time. I think that final episode wasn't just a resolution (though I felt resolution too), but I took it as the show wanted to say about the story of Saul Goodman was. Great storytelling, all in all.
I couldn't agree more! It felt true to the story, true to the character, but weirdly hopeful and poetic in a way that took care of (anti)hero we really loved and rooted for. They didn't let him off the hook, but they also didn't punish him/us in favor of total destruction. I feel pretty ok with where he lives in my mind and I will always think of Jimmy when I pass through the food courts and smell Cinnabon...which is more often than you'd think.
"Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages." ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Loved this essay. I am in my seventies now, which means I've done that spiral more times than I can count. But what resonated for me is the nostalgia for a particular time in my life. There are two particular kinds of dreams that have returned over and over, each set in a time in my life when I felt like you did on the roof top. The first dream brings me back to a student rooming house my husband and I ran for 2 years in a small college town (we had just graduated from that college and not moved on to the next stage in our life--that was 50 years ago and we are still together.) This town, this college, this house, my first years of marriage, the good friends we had made , was magical for me. But in the dream I have come back, and no one knows me. I point out that I was the one who had painted all the walls that light blue, I had been the one who restored the wooden floors, wainscoting, ceilings of the old Victorian house, made it a lovely home for everyone. But the students look at me blankly.
Then second dream is a variation on the first. Here I have returned to the graduate student office of the university where I got my doctorate. This is the place where I learned to be an activist, advocating for my often younger graduate student colleagues, and where I developed friendships that I thought would last forever - but didn't (although one of those friends is in fact still my best friend.) But when I return in the dream, again, the room is filled with students I don't know, the hallways filled with faculty members who don't remember me.
With both dreams there is this incredible sense of nostalgia for a sense of community I had, but seem to have lost. But I've also learned that when I have these dreams, I need to look at my current life, what I might be lacking, what I need to do to ensure I am creating the kind of community and sense of belonging that I had in those pasts. So, thanks for the essay. It's been some time since I've had one of those dreams and that pleases me. But I know with aging, and the inevitable losses of friends and family that I need to ensure I don't stop working on creating new community and finding things to do which give me satisfaction of being of service to some greater end.
I think you hit the nail right on the head- nostalgia and how that craving for a past time might be reflecting a current hunger. For me, like for you, I keep coming back to that lost sense of community and belonging. As I search for a similar thing, I'm so curious to hear what this will look like for you: "working on creating new community and finding things to do which give me satisfaction of being of service to some greater end."
When I started to think about retiring, I worried that without the daily contact with friends and colleagues, I would feel adrift, imaging coming on campus to have lunch with those who still worked, living vicariously off of hearing about their work lives (and catching up with their families--something that came naturally during the day to day contact when we were in the same work place.) In short, I feared that this would result in a third dream, where I came back to the campus I had worked at for twenty years, and no one would no my name!
But this didn't happen because by the time I completely retired I was fully into self-publishing and had created a new community in cyberspace. This came primarily from a group of Historical Fiction authors who came together to create a cooperative website to help market our books. At its peak there were 50 of us, most either independently published or hybrids. We have a private Facebook group, where for over ten years, people ask questions, give advice, celebrate publishing triumphs, and have developed personal friendships. Some of these friendships have deepened as we met each other face-to-face at conventions, served on panels, learned about each other's families. This mixture of professional and personal communication--on FB, through email, and through shared activities--feels remarkably like my work experience.
While about half of the membership has essentially become inactive, this still leave about 15 to 20 that still work to maintain that sense of community. By being one of the small core that kept the community going, helping recruit new members, maintaining the website, sharing what I have learned, I also got the satisfaction of knowing that I had been of service to authors who were new to self-publishing or the marketing that even traditionally published authors need to know. Sharing information about marketing newsletters like BookBub, how to get audiobooks made, why I shifted to substack (smile) means that I get the pleasure of knowing that what I am learning can help other authors. This also mimics the experience I had in my teaching career as a faculty leader.
The reality of this new community, even though most of the communication is in cyberspace, became starkly clear when one of our most active members died suddenly this year. The outpouring of grief by so many, the ache I feel when I participate in a thread of discussion and miss her voice, is no less real, even though I only spent time with her (at conventions) about 4 times over the year.
What time and perspective has given me is the recognition that nothing stays the same, but nothing is truly lost. My best friend from college, is still my husband. My closest girl friend is one of the friends I met in graduate school, even though we haven't lived in the same place, even the same region for 30 years, we still are in constant communication. I talk to my best friend from my teaching job at least once a month. And if the writer's community goes away (say I stop writing) I know that one or two of the friends I made will continue to be in my life.
My author friend's death has indeed change things, just as my sister-in-law's recent death had changed things within my extended family. Neither is good or bad, as long as I don't get stuck in wishing to recreate what was, and don't leave space for discovering what is going to be--including, for example, a much closer relationship with one of my nieces since her mother's death.
At my age, who knows what the next community might look like--maybe they will be a group of people who I take water aerobics with, or a group working to make political or social change? Or both! And who knows if from one of these groups, I won't find another life-long friend.
Hi Tami
I came across your substack from the Office Hours thread. I run a literary zine in the form of a newsletter on substack called The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I'm currently looking for other writers who are looking to expand their reach through collaborations and cross posting.
I really enjoyed and connected with your writing voice, particularly the part of the essay where you're talking about being nostalgic for a life you never had. I think it would be a great fit for what I'm doing. Would love to collaborate if you're interested
Hi! Thank you so much. I'd love to explore a collaboration. What's the best way to chat/ connect?
Hey! Very excited about this. You can shoot me a note at theabandoneddreamscollective@gmail.com and I'll send you a background of my substack and the goal behind it as well as a description of what I'm thinking
I think the Better Call Saul ending was one of the better endings I've seen in a long time. I think that final episode wasn't just a resolution (though I felt resolution too), but I took it as the show wanted to say about the story of Saul Goodman was. Great storytelling, all in all.
I couldn't agree more! It felt true to the story, true to the character, but weirdly hopeful and poetic in a way that took care of (anti)hero we really loved and rooted for. They didn't let him off the hook, but they also didn't punish him/us in favor of total destruction. I feel pretty ok with where he lives in my mind and I will always think of Jimmy when I pass through the food courts and smell Cinnabon...which is more often than you'd think.
"Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages." ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Loved this essay. I am in my seventies now, which means I've done that spiral more times than I can count. But what resonated for me is the nostalgia for a particular time in my life. There are two particular kinds of dreams that have returned over and over, each set in a time in my life when I felt like you did on the roof top. The first dream brings me back to a student rooming house my husband and I ran for 2 years in a small college town (we had just graduated from that college and not moved on to the next stage in our life--that was 50 years ago and we are still together.) This town, this college, this house, my first years of marriage, the good friends we had made , was magical for me. But in the dream I have come back, and no one knows me. I point out that I was the one who had painted all the walls that light blue, I had been the one who restored the wooden floors, wainscoting, ceilings of the old Victorian house, made it a lovely home for everyone. But the students look at me blankly.
Then second dream is a variation on the first. Here I have returned to the graduate student office of the university where I got my doctorate. This is the place where I learned to be an activist, advocating for my often younger graduate student colleagues, and where I developed friendships that I thought would last forever - but didn't (although one of those friends is in fact still my best friend.) But when I return in the dream, again, the room is filled with students I don't know, the hallways filled with faculty members who don't remember me.
With both dreams there is this incredible sense of nostalgia for a sense of community I had, but seem to have lost. But I've also learned that when I have these dreams, I need to look at my current life, what I might be lacking, what I need to do to ensure I am creating the kind of community and sense of belonging that I had in those pasts. So, thanks for the essay. It's been some time since I've had one of those dreams and that pleases me. But I know with aging, and the inevitable losses of friends and family that I need to ensure I don't stop working on creating new community and finding things to do which give me satisfaction of being of service to some greater end.
I think you hit the nail right on the head- nostalgia and how that craving for a past time might be reflecting a current hunger. For me, like for you, I keep coming back to that lost sense of community and belonging. As I search for a similar thing, I'm so curious to hear what this will look like for you: "working on creating new community and finding things to do which give me satisfaction of being of service to some greater end."
When I started to think about retiring, I worried that without the daily contact with friends and colleagues, I would feel adrift, imaging coming on campus to have lunch with those who still worked, living vicariously off of hearing about their work lives (and catching up with their families--something that came naturally during the day to day contact when we were in the same work place.) In short, I feared that this would result in a third dream, where I came back to the campus I had worked at for twenty years, and no one would no my name!
But this didn't happen because by the time I completely retired I was fully into self-publishing and had created a new community in cyberspace. This came primarily from a group of Historical Fiction authors who came together to create a cooperative website to help market our books. At its peak there were 50 of us, most either independently published or hybrids. We have a private Facebook group, where for over ten years, people ask questions, give advice, celebrate publishing triumphs, and have developed personal friendships. Some of these friendships have deepened as we met each other face-to-face at conventions, served on panels, learned about each other's families. This mixture of professional and personal communication--on FB, through email, and through shared activities--feels remarkably like my work experience.
While about half of the membership has essentially become inactive, this still leave about 15 to 20 that still work to maintain that sense of community. By being one of the small core that kept the community going, helping recruit new members, maintaining the website, sharing what I have learned, I also got the satisfaction of knowing that I had been of service to authors who were new to self-publishing or the marketing that even traditionally published authors need to know. Sharing information about marketing newsletters like BookBub, how to get audiobooks made, why I shifted to substack (smile) means that I get the pleasure of knowing that what I am learning can help other authors. This also mimics the experience I had in my teaching career as a faculty leader.
The reality of this new community, even though most of the communication is in cyberspace, became starkly clear when one of our most active members died suddenly this year. The outpouring of grief by so many, the ache I feel when I participate in a thread of discussion and miss her voice, is no less real, even though I only spent time with her (at conventions) about 4 times over the year.
What time and perspective has given me is the recognition that nothing stays the same, but nothing is truly lost. My best friend from college, is still my husband. My closest girl friend is one of the friends I met in graduate school, even though we haven't lived in the same place, even the same region for 30 years, we still are in constant communication. I talk to my best friend from my teaching job at least once a month. And if the writer's community goes away (say I stop writing) I know that one or two of the friends I made will continue to be in my life.
My author friend's death has indeed change things, just as my sister-in-law's recent death had changed things within my extended family. Neither is good or bad, as long as I don't get stuck in wishing to recreate what was, and don't leave space for discovering what is going to be--including, for example, a much closer relationship with one of my nieces since her mother's death.
At my age, who knows what the next community might look like--maybe they will be a group of people who I take water aerobics with, or a group working to make political or social change? Or both! And who knows if from one of these groups, I won't find another life-long friend.