vulnerability calisthenics

& one year of this newsletter!

In college, I briefly lived in an off-campus community that was oriented towards all things alternative living - chickens, compostable toilets, topless dance parties, non-monogamy, anarchism. It probably opened my mind and made me think about what I believe in more than any single class I took in college did. As a 19 year old obsessed with the newest Drake song and what I was going to wear to the big spring pirate theme party, I wasn’t allowed in the inner circle of the anarchist group that hung around the co-op (probably wise on their part). I would be in the kitchen fiddling with my new rice cooker that I got on Amazon (I didn’t want them to know I was shopping at Amazon so had it delivered to my college’s mailroom) while they were in the common area plotting what to me sounded like superhero antics, stopping a pipeline here and offering mutual aid there. 

When I proved that I was non-judgmental enough and not a narc, they let me tag along on a weekend trip to San Diego. Each day of the trip, they completed something they called anarchist calisthenics. They talked about it before, asking each other, “What are we going to do for anarchist calisthenics today?” I had just quit the college track team and was interested to see what kind of lunges or arm workouts we’d be doing to support my quickly dwindling fitness.  When they were readying supplies in backpacks, it was explained to me offhandedly that anarchist calisthenics meant doing one illegal thing per day to remind themselves that the state is arbitrary. That one illegal thing per day wasn’t something like jaywalking either.

I was not a law defying teen. I was scared of smoking weed and had removed my nose piercing a day after I got it because my parents said it made them feel like they didn’t know me. I went to the bathroom just before we left and claimed I couldn’t come on their mission due to explosive diarrhea from an earlier burrito. 

This October marks a year that I’ve been sharing writing and sex ed musings on this monthly substack. It’s been great practice in what I’ll call vulnerability calisthenics. Once a month, I challenge everything in my brain and body that says I ought to just be quiet or I’m really better off a reader. Each time I post and am not met with the things I fear but a sweet email from one of you saying that my writing made you want to write too. Or, that my post made you book a solo vacation to the Jersey Shore. Or, you wish you had a sex ed teacher like me, it buoys me to continue on the creative journey. It’s a monthly practice to remind myself that I can show myself and I will not only be okay but probably better off. One of the greatest experiences I’ve had over the course of this year, is watching friends set up substacks to express their own angle (you can find Lila’s here, Travis’ here and Brielle’s here).

Thank you for being a reader! I am not spying on you all but I do have analytics and it is so heartwarming to see the percentage of you that open this publication per month (70-80%! High for a newsletter!) I would love to get to 250 subscribers for my 1-year on substack. Could you share this publication with one person and encourage them to subscribe? 

Take a look back on my most loved posts here, here and here. 

Something to write: Set a 7 minute timer. Write without stopping to the prompt: what would I do if I wasn’t afraid?

(I got this prompt from Haley Jakobson’s writing class!)

Something to read: I just finished True Biz by Sara Novic, it gave me an incredible education in deaf culture and the history of ASL without me noticing it because I was so wrapped up in the story of the main characters fighting for language and their school’s existence.

Thank you for reading!