Quick. Click the ♥️. thanks.
“We’re all like paper dolls. Happiest when linked to one another, often unaware of our flimsiness. So easily torn.” Holly Ducarte
Dear Readers,
This past week, I was sick.
The kind of sick that keeps you inside, grounded by symptoms and craving stillness. I spent hours on quiet, almost menial tasks, like logging artwork and preparing files for my publisher.
I revised illustrations I’d been avoiding, letting them slowly unravel.
My body healed. My mind cleared. Solitude gave me what I needed: rest, focus.
But by the end of the week, I noticed something. I had clarity, but not energy.
The ideas I had sharpened in silence were asking to be tested, stretched, shared. When a friend texted to get together, and when I was able to go to the gym again yesterday, something in me clicked back on.
The work that solitude had refined came alive again in connection.
Psychologist Gillian Sandstrom reminds us of something our bodies already know: even small in person connections matter.
The smile exchanged with the person bagging our groceries, the wave across the street, the stranger who becomes a momentary companion on the bus.
These brief touches remind us: we belong to each other.
And still, we all crave quiet. I love the solitude that lets me find my own pulse, listen to my own voice, untangle the messages I am trying to write or illustrate or feel.
But too much of that quiet and I start to feel like I am disappearing into myself. Something in me only wakes up when others are near.
We are taught to think in terms of balance - our diet, our checkbook, yoga. These are all challenging. Is balance real?
Can life be perfectly divided between
➡️solitude and connection,
➡️self and other,
➡️independence and interdependence?
The truth is more alive than balance. It is weaving.