Let’s write together 📝 the life-right-now lists
gathering across time and space to crystalize our experience
At the end of last December, like so many Decembers before it, I posted up at my coffee table with a mug of tea and a printout of Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year workbook to do some year-end reflection.
I probably could’ve filled a good chunk of the workbook off the top of my head, with ‘big rock’ memories and milestones that immediately sprang to mind—almost piecing together a complete (if not choppy) picture of the last 12 months.
But part of what I love about the annual Unravel Your Year ritual is that it’s an opportunity to revisit the details, an annual cue to sift through a year’s worth of weekly lists:
things that are going well
things that are hard
things I feel grateful for
things I’m noticing or learning
On any given week, mining my short-term memory for crumbs of everyday life in these four categories and jotting down the bullet points feels pretty mundane. But by the end of a year, those ordinary lists create a technicolor breadcrumb trail that leads me back through the story of my life over the last 365 days—reminding me of whole seasons or chapters that might’ve otherwise faded into the dark corners of my memory.
And it’s the prosaic act of writing down the day-to-day details that paves the way—that helps me crystalize whatever it is I’m experiencing on the page as I’m living it, AND helps me uncover how I feel about it.
“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at,
what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
—Joan Didion
This is the single biggest reason I keep a Weekly Review practice: to take the time to crystalize my life’s experience on the page, knowing that it will help me unearth truths lurking just below the surface AND give Future Me the gifts of nostalgia and meaning-making as she thumbs back through today’s minutiae with a perspective I can’t yet fathom.
Because this simple practice of documenting the daily details has enriched my life so much, I thought we might create a new ritual of doing it together. ✨
This is (maybe obviously?) a recorded video: a container we can use to connect across space and time, and do some real time writing separately-together. I come with context and casual list-making prompts, which you’re free to either run with or ignore completely.
If any part of you is craving this type of documenting practice—either as a revival of a ritual you used to have, or as something entirely new!—press play and join me. 💛
(As the first of its kind, this video is a little on the longer side since it includes a little context-setting preamble: if you prefer to skip straight to the writing portion, feel free to jump to 10:28.)
I’m loosely planning to create and share this type of video writing container about once a month. And! As with anything in this space, it’s an experiment and subject to change. I’d love to co-create something that feels good and enriching for all of us. So if you love it, or you have ideas… all the more reason to let me know.
Let’s get to writing.
Do you have an established reflection practice? Are you feeling called to start one? Let me know—I’d love to read more about your relationship to documenting / journaling (including which verbiage resonates with you!) in the comments.