the art of sitting still

weekly dispatch #5 ✶ trying my damndest to embrace the season i'm in

jonie ✶⋆.

Dec 01, 2024

december 1st — los angeles, california

yesterday’s journal entry

It’s nearly December and I can hardly believe it. Because of time and how it passes (always faster, always surprising) and the endless sun of southern California (always present, always a delight).

I’m feeling a bit seasonless myself, constantly looking around and attempting to determine what phase of life I’m in. How am I changing? Are my leaves turning? Is this a time for inner withdrawal, or a time to bloom?

I’m practicing a new form of reflection by asking my body what it feels and letting it fold into the feeling, fully, until it dims.

When I close my eyes and ask my body what it feels, I sense something tender and alive. I see a lily with her leaves already open, taking in the light.

In the past four—nearly five—months in LA, I’ve grown in ways that are hard to articulate. I’m certainly still me, still circling back to the same questions and frustrations I’ve always had. The changes are there, though.

You’d only notice if you looked closely—if you knew me well enough to see what’s different. Adam, who knows me most intimately, certainly has sensed the change, and together we celebrate the little personal growths and successes and adjustments.

It’s beautiful and strange how relationships shift over time, love deepening and expanding unexpectedly. What continues to surprise me is the capacity for finding new depths—how I can still find myself feeling more love than I thought possible.

Here in LA, our relationship feels like the point from which everything else begins. From this shared lookout, it’s so much easier to take in what’s ahead. None of the life we’re building here would be possible without us doing it together, and I find a moment to be grateful for it every single day.

This sense of grounding feels especially necessary in this current season of reflection. Already, I sense a season of getting back in touch with my innermost heart. Of doing the hard thing, because it demands to be done. Of drinking tea, writing, and taking long, slow walks to work out all the thoughts left un-worked.

I’m genuinely looking forward to the challenge of living through the next few weeks with this spirit of openness and gratitude, about returning to Oklahoma for the holidays and exploring my familial relationships and past with curiosity and grace and wonder.

Eventually, it will be time to finish my record, put myself back into the bigger world, and patch together my place in music.

For now, for this very moment, I will sit as still as I can and enjoy the morning. The clear sky. The bees, buzzing tirelessly these days. The faraway birds chirping to one another, under the hum of a passing plane.

All of it a reminder that the world moves on, even when we sit still, even when we wait.

— Jo

this week’s roundup of things to come, fun facts, personal recommendations, and more.

👋 upcoming

I’ll be taking a break from the “weekly dispatch” over the next three weeks.
That said, I’ll be sending out some excerpts of others’ work that touched me deeply in the weekly newsletter’s place. You’ll also likely see a regular ol’ post from me soon! Keep your eyes peeled.

☝ did you know…

Women in the 1940s used gravy juice to paint on nylon stockings due to the nylon shortage during World War II?
Yeah. That’s a real life historical fact, according to Mashable. The things we’ve done (and still do) for beauty. 🦃

🗯 conversation starter

What do you think defines American culture?
I would genuinely love to know your answers to this. Positive and negative takes alike. Please comment or respond to this email and tell me if you have any thoughts that immediately come to mind!

🎧 song of the week

I recently discovered The Innocence Mission thanks to a recommendation from one of my favorite artists, and I’ve fallen completely in love. Their vast, seemingly endless discography feels like a treasure trove waiting to be explored, and it feels like a special gift that their newest record dropped just a day after I began my deep dive.

📚 recommended reading

✶ They Returned, As If We Returned by Mohammed Mohisen

This piece is a haunting reflection on what it’s like to be a displaced person still inside Gaza at this very moment. Mohammed’s writing always touches me and breaks me open. He has a GoFundMe for his family here.

Gaza is a prison, its people trapped in tents that are ripped apart by the wind and drowned by the rain. Last night was the worst. The rain fell with a vengeance, as if the skies themselves wanted to drown us. The sound of water pounding against our tents was deafening. It wasn’t just rain; it was a deluge a punishment. Tents collapsed, water seeped into every corner, and the cold cut through us like a blade.
Can you imagine holding your children in the dark, trying to keep them warm, while everything around you is soaked? Can you imagine waking up to find everything you own floating in filthy water your clothes, your blankets, your food?
No words can describe the heartbreak of a mother watching her children shiver in the cold. No words can capture the terror of a father who has nothing to give his family.

✶ The Invisible Man by Patrick Fealey

A firsthand account of being homeless in America that ripped me to shreds. Patrick’s story mirrors thousands of others who, once living on the street, become invisible to the outer world and are essentially left to die out on their own. Please read it, and please look a homeless person in the eye and say “hello” when you pass.

“Many of you could be where we are—on the street—but for some simple and not uncommon twist of fate. This is part of your rejection, this fear that it could be you. You deny that reality because it is too horrific to contemplate, therefore you must deny us. And the moneyed reject us because they know they create us, that we are a consequence of their impulse to accumulate more than they need, rooted in a fear of life and the death that comes with it.”