While I will forever find it impossible to extricate the thoughts I have from the books I read (as in this essay on re-reading Station Eleven in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic), I find my words and thoughts pulling away from book reviews and listsicles (though I do still write both for Shelf Awareness, with no plans to stop anytime soon), and am considering what this space can be--and if this space will be--moving forward. I am tempted to let it go, and yet: every time I consider doing so, I hesitate. And so here we are, questioning: Is the hesitation because this has been a space I lived in and loved for so long, and I am sad to see it go? Or is the hesitation borne of some interior pulsing, a quiet nudge to re-engage with creative words that are not boxed in by an editor's word count or a specific subject?
I am leaning towards the latter, which is a lesson: a lesson in pause, a lesson in hesitation, a lesson in listening to a deep inner feeling that I've learned, through years of living with anxiety and being socialized as a white woman in 21st century America, to ignore, to stifle, to tamp down until it is a small and quiet thing, a compressed ball of pulped emotion no good to any one any longer--least of all myself.
And so instead of boxing up this hesitation and retiring from this small corner of the interwebs, I'm here, letting words come as they please, adjusting my own expectations for the space. I will hold this space open not for follower count or feedback or likes or engagement counts, but for myself, as a place for my own practice in listening to gut feelings and expressing that which they bring up. Or maybe just putting this out there was the closure I needed. Only time will tell. Regardless, it's been an honor to be in community with those of you who may still see these words in some relic of a book blogging subscription service, and I hope our paths continue to cross in new ways as we venture forth together.
