Recently, over coffee with a friend, I was asked, “What are you actually doing to slow down?”
Slow down isn’t in the vocabulary. Or at least, it hasn’t been for my entire adult life.
My late teens and early twenties have been a story of scale; rapidly increasing in volume and size—letters to the editor followed by journalistic investigative features, short stories to self-published novels and an award-winning micro publishing company, local volunteer boards and committees to the President of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. A sprint, not a marathon.
And 2026 has been my year. I’m incredibly grateful. Many awards. Many grants. Many successes. Many new friends and trips and experiences. And to many, this meteoric year seems like shit luck. Of course, a person doesn’t see the nights spent crying over applications and many, many, many, many rejections. The 16 hour days for weeks. The endless slog of networking. And most importantly ignoring the body’s cry for rest and powering through.
That’s what I’ve been told is required to be a working artist. And I made it. Finally, a breakthrough year, seven years in.
Historically, most of my ‘rest’ (the day or so each week I block off on my calendar and do nothing) has been spent thinking about the work I’m missing. Maybe I’ll write a few emails for next week. Or deep clean my freezers. Or send in that one application. A headstart on another grant. Oh, another application!
And how unsurprising. This is what Capitalism sells us. Spare time is missed dollars, opportunities, fame, and fortune. And as a ‘starving artist,’ who has time for that? There’s little prestige here. Not doctors. Not lawyers. Not journalists. Our role is to give, to save, to say endlessly, to our community, ‘We can be saved. We deserve to be saved.’ You’re tired? Have you tried scrolling Instagram in the dark for a week or two and then having to catch up on all those missed emails?
So, how do I rest?
I want to say that since my end-of-May health scare, it’s all come easily. A grand eureka moment. I mean, should I be writing this essay right now? Unfortunately, no, it’s not been easy. I’m resting more, but I’m doing it uneasily.
Rest seems to be diametrically opposed to the act of trying to save the world in end stage capitalism. To rest is to ignore our community. To rest is to turn our backs on the little buzz our brains get when our Instagram story is liked. To rest is to miss opportunities that form the bedrock of being an artist in community. To rest, is to do exactly the opposite of everything I’ve ever done to have my breakthrough year.
And so, an experiment. If I do nothing, will opportunities still present themselves? Will people still email—or will I slowly disappear?
Lately, I’ve been doing nothing at all. Nothing of substance. My suggestion to you, burnt out creative reading, is to stop answering your emails. In fact, delete the app on your phone and check it once in the morning and once in the evening on your computer. Get an old flip phone, if you can. Learn the names of those birds shitting on your freshly washed car. Bake a new loaf of bread with that yeast slowly dying in your cupboard. Write letters to your friends.
Choose an unproductive life and hold it closely, because it’s less about the activities chosen, and more about allowing the mind to finally be safe enough to shut off. We do not die! We do not wither! Read trashy A03 fanfiction again because that’s what got a young writer like you addicted to interpersonal drama. Watch old Disney movies that have some certain unplaceable magic. Build a 2013 throwback playlist on spotify and stare at the wall; pretend you’re fifteen again on a road trip with your family wishing you were twenty five and a famous writer.
Guess what? People still email. Novel ideas still come. Stories still get written. Grants get finished. But, I can take a weekend now, most of the time. How cliche to say it’s about the journey, not the destination. But maybe it is.
So, maybe spend a few more days this week doing nothing. Watch the world not fall completely apart.
And then do it all again.
– – –
A Poet’s Pre-Death Eulogy
I
it’s funny how the moons / the seasons
of one’s life move like spit below the tongue
an inside joke that is woven
in my stomach
it’s 11:17 p.m.
my youngest aunt just turned 41
and my cousins are old enough to finally be fun
and my grandparents are humming to one another
and i listen to Chappell Roan’s new album with
open windows and a dusty moon yawning
on the route to my own apartment
and i am home
so i do my laundry
pack a work lunch
my pens are made of stone—because I have work in the morning
so i sleep lightly, gut aching still / from laughter
dreading Monday morning
II
they tell me to live
in the moment but i’m too busy
mourning the life I’m killing
smothering
holding the pillow down over
my cousins are married now
my aunt just turned 54
i wrote the eulogy for my grandpa’s funeral
the city i know is still thrumming
and looking back I’ll have wished I stayed up
laughed longer
ate more food
had better sex
but I had work in the morning
III
when I’m old and my love is
gone
and a lonely burden of carrying these memories along
persists
live inside me
there will be no one to reconcile with
i will wish i could try again
because i’ll never be 22 again
never newly out of the closet again
living in a new-to-me city again
my cousins are divorced now
my aunt just retired now
my grandparents are resting now
and i listen to Chappell Roan on the retro radio now
and i’m not debt-free
i’m not skinny/rested/retired
because i can work again
but i cannot live
again