one year of the doorway

this is not a "best-of" roundup, I promise

Dear reader,

I started this newsletter in January of 2024, fresh off of teaching a semester-long course to college students on creative practice and looking for the next form, the next project, the next container for the knowledge I’d gathered and shared that fall. My vision for The Doorway was more or less an educational venture—I’ve spent a lot of time reading and learning from great thinkers on the topic of how best to lead a creative life, and I wanted to bring that knowledge to a wider audience in the form of regular thematic essays and prompts. That is, I guess, more or less what I’m still doing (my snail mail letters almost always contain a prompt related to the topic of the month) but this project quickly became a lot more personal that I’d intended, because of course, I am not a robot who does this artist’s life thing perfectly. I am an in-process human being like everyone else.

There is so much advice out there, so many strategies for infusing life with more meaning, for prioritizing creative time, for slowing down. I preach these things and then I follow my own directions only sporadically. But that’s the reality of the thing, the meat of what I’m really trying to dig into here. Why is it so hard to live the lives that fulfill us? Why is it so hard to block out the noise of overconsumption and bootstraps productivity culture? What does it mean to return, again and again and again, to the values I hold at my core, and to hold myself gently in that, knowing that straying from my center is inevitable, and the victory and joy and wonder is in the relentless return?

I am really good at being hard on myself. Maybe you are, too. As I look back on the last year, the things I “failed” at jump to mind first. It takes me longer to think of all the things I did do. I recently had dinner with a new friend and offhandedly mentioned several of the things I do throughout our conversation and she was like, Nadine!!! What!!! You do so many things! I didn’t even know you did all these things! This is so cool! How do you have the time? (Answer: I do not have the time, I am doing way too much). It gave me pause because wow, yeah, it is cool that I do all of this, and wow, yeah, I’ve had an absolutely banner year when I step back to look at it clearly. It’s second-nature to downplay my accomplishments because I missed whatever specific and unrelated goalposts I set for myself. Unsurprisingly, I always set the goalposts just a little bit too far.

Here are some things I did not do this year:

• keep track of all the books I read consistently

• host the dinner party I wanted to host

• finish the manuscript I’ve been working on

• use my gym membership enough to make it worth the money

• spend as much time in the park as I wanted to

• read almost any of the Big Important Books of the year

• hang up those picture frames that are sitting in a box in the corner

• take a walk every day that was not just taking the dogs around the block real quick

• decrease my average screen time, like, at all

Here are some things I did do this year:

• found a monthly reading series and host five excellent events

• start a new job after 3 years at my previous one

• propose to the love of my life and start planning our wedding

• submit a short story for publication for the first time and have it accepted (you can pre-order the book it’s in here)

• finally see an ENT about my chronic sinus issues (a huge win for a person with a lot of medical anxiety)

• get a hobby that is purely “unproductive” (playing a video game)

• visit two more national parks (I’m trying to hit them all in my lifetime!)

• participate in 1000 Words of Summer for the first time and stick with it

• stick with this newsletter for the whole year

It strikes me that so many of my “failures” as really just “I didn’t do this as much as I wanted to” and not even “I didn’t do this at all.” With that attitude I’ve completely written off all the walks in the park I did take, the days I did make it to the gym, the books I did read, the mornings I succeeded in not picking up my phone first thing. All or nothing thinking strikes again!

The final snail mail of the year is en route and I’m feeling very grateful to have a job where no one works the week between Christmas and New Years. I’m wishing you many cozy cups of hot chocolate, late mornings, and gentle resolutions. See you in 2025! ☕️💤💌

If you’d like reflections on creative practice and goodies in your mailbox every month, consider becoming a paid subscriber. I currently donate 20% of proceeds to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

Patchwork Literary Salon — January 15, 7:00pm, Sisters (900 Fulton St, BK)
My reading series is back in 2025! If you’re local to New York, come hang out with us in Brooklyn in a few weeks. Our first event of the year will feature Sabrina Imbler (How Far the Light Reaches) and Wei Tchou (Little Seed) plus one another guest TBA. Drink specials, raffle prizes, fun and free and open to all!

• Last month’s snail mail contained mini prints from my first attempt at linocut on an eraser. It was a lot of fun!!! Another new hobby for my vast collection.

• I really loved this interview with Brandon Taylor in

  The Common Reader
  that gets into the craft of literary criticism, what consumerism is doing to the novel, and revisiting the classics you hated in high school.

• Very much enjoying

  Galley Brag
  , a new newsletter that’s a little bit of publishing industry insider baseball (if you don’t already know what a galley brag is, I can’t help you, and I’m happy for you). Today’s missive about reading less and how the publishing industry warps our conception of what the point of reading is really hit home!

• Along the lines of the previous two points: I still haven’t finished re-reading The Goldfinch, which, for those keeping track, I started reading a month ago. I am luxuriating in the prose. I am luxuriating in what a novel can do—Theo’s sentimental, philosophical musings and birds-eye perspective on his own life, the tangents and asides, the long paragraphs devoted to the details of a piece of antique furniture or the way a touch lingers on the skin. (I have read two romance novels in the midst of this re-read, one for our podcast and one just for fun, both of which I consumed in a matter of hours. It’s a very different kind of reading!)

• For Christmas this year I received several luxurious little kitchen goods that bring me so much joy: strawberry honey, pistacchiosa (think nutella with pistachios), fancy tinned fish (lowkey just because I love the packaging so much), cardamom bitters, homemade candied pecans and hot sauce. My future mother-in-law astutely noted that if you put a word in front of another word, I’m basically already sold even if the words mean very little together (black lemon bitters? white clove scented candle? fennel pollen hot honey? I don’t know. It just sounds good.) I can’t wait to cook in the new year with all my little treats.

That’s it for me this week. See you in the real world (and in the new year!) ❣️

🌱 Nadine