My Substack, Called “Middle Kindling”
Did you know that all the poets and real people have mostly left social media?
They have.
And they’ve (mostly) gone to Substack.
It’s the most non-performative space where a real exchange of ideas can still occur. And…it’s impossible to ghost people there.
It’s a place for the writer’s writer.
And so, I’ve also created a Substack for all who want to escape the cold paper-fires of Instagram. It’s called “Middle Kindling”.
Here’s your link , and here is an excerpt from my latest post there:
(yes, I am playing with AI. But this is the most realistic picture of my face, wrinkles and all, that I’ve ever been able to achieve. And that really is my hair on a good day. The right prompts make all the difference. Let me know if you’d like to learn the prompts I used.)
Excerpt:
I want to tell you something before we go any further. Before the Mother’s Day glory and the flowers, before the cards that say “you’re the best” from the very people who sometimes low-key stayed mad at you for years; I want to stop you right there, in whatever room you’re reading this, and say something I think you’ve gone too long without hearing:
Your age is not a liability. Your age is the art.
We live in a special time. A time when the whole population is both rapidly aging, and loving longer. (Yes, I meant to type “living longer”, but I am leaving the typo.). We are living in a time when our age gets to BE the “it” accessory. Wear it with pride.
We have somehow absorbed the idea, quietly, (which is the way you absorb things you never consented to), that a woman past a certain point should begin the slow work of making herself smaller. Prefacing her opinions with “well, I know I’m old-school, but...”
And the church. Ah, the church has not been innocent in this. We have taken the women most forged by fire, the ones carrying decades of hard-won theology in their bones, the ones who have buried grief and raised children and survived the unsurvivable, and we have quietly suggested they step aside.
What a devastating waste. What a catastrophic misreading of the room.
Make room, yes, but never at the expense of your own obedience.
