Sofie Couwenbergh

You don't want to dance with everyone, so you can't expect everyone to want to dance with you.
... and that goes for more than just dancing.

Different generations, sure. From different backgrounds, too.

Does that change that it was inappropriate? No.

I might take a detour to get to my car later, because there are only so many battles you can fight in a day.

To be continued.

I saw him again yesterday, yet this time, my “boa tarde” gave him enough confidence to comment on my backpack, my clothes, and the tone of my skin. He also asked what time I’d pass by today so he could make sure to sit outside then.

That took an uncomfortable turn fast.
👇🏻

A week or so ago, an old, grumpy-looking man appeared on the street I park my car. He’d be sitting there on a bench, face closed. So two days ago, I decided to greet him a “boa tarde” as I walked past.

His face lit up and showed a serious lack of teeth. “Boa tarde,” he replied.
👇🏻

That last line sucked me right in.

Unsplash image of the Earth, mostly the nightside with a tracery of city lights on every continent.

OK, this is wild.

In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them.

It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*.

What the HELL?

1/

That is pretty cool! Congrats :)

I rewatch this every time it passes by. Pure gold.

Oh this is interesting. Thanks for sharing!

More and more, I'd say. Although poetry, for example, still works best for me when it "arises". This suddenly made me think that writing for myself might be so hard because there is 0 constraint. No accountability (but to myself): no deadline, nobody's waiting for it, it can come out as anything...

Absolutely. I've learned that while I usually crave to keep connection going, I need to take space whenever something triggering happens so I can sit with how I really feel about something (and thus what I really need to say) vs whatever my Protector wants to throw out in the moment.

Today I realized,
I'm not too much.
Their arms simply weren't strong enough to hold me.

Writing is digesting.
You take in something raw or well-cooked.
To make it your own, you need to swallow, even when that's hard.
As the experience moves through your system,
what's nourishing gets absorbed,
what's not passes through,
and in the end,
you just hope that what comes out is solid.

I'd say it's also exploring and deepening your thoughts, your processing, your perspective.
And this makes me think of the many letters to men I've rewritten dozens of times over until I reached a point where I knew where I was at with the situation :D

States of Being As hard as it is to implement, I like how Portuguese makes the difference between ser (“to be”) and estar (“to find oneself in a state of”).

About how Portuguese helps us differentiate between how we define ourselves and the temporary states we move through.
open.substack.com/pub/sofiecou...

When you crave something deeply and then get a drop of it - but just one - your need isn’t met; you’re just reminded of it fiercely.

And so with gratitude for each drop, comes grief for the lack of a stream.

Totally going to use the 👉 instead of my inefficient x/y system. Thanks for that :D

I'm feeling torn between "That is so cool, I wish I could do that" and "That looks laborious. Do I really need to do that to get my point across?" And perhaps there lies the question of what matters most: sharing a message in a pleasant-enough-way, or creating art.
👉

I'm noticing that writing within time constraints helps me write more uncensored, and I enjoy using prompts to unearth topics that may have been dormant, or to approach them from a different angle. When it comes to writing within the constraight of a given format (braided essay, list form, etc.) 👉

I either go into over-explaining or deciding that the time for that piece hasn't come yet and leave it for later.

But maybe I'm not understanding what you meant?

It seems reasonable that sometimes, experimenting with structure, syntax, etc. can help us phrase things we're struggling to formulate but that are still true. Not speaking from experience here, though. 3/4 (last one, promise :D)

I'm truly wondering about that now as I'm taking a writing course after 15 years of just doing my thing (with a master's in Literature as the foundation, I will say) and we've been talking about structuring personal narrative, finding your voice, etc.
2/3 (Sorry keep having more thoughts).

I'm thinking of experimenting with structure, for example, instead of just writing, checking for flow and typos, and hitting publish like I usually do. *enter shame*
Similarly, is something less truthful when we try to say it in a nicer or more interesting way than we would conversationally?1/2

I should probably try to sound a bit more like a good writer, if I'm being honest with myself :D

There is no applause
for choosing to create light
amidst the pain and sadness,
but it's the only way
to not let the darkness win.

If only we could learn that caring for our wellbeing also helps our productivity, how much faster we'd go do the things that make us feel better :)

This ad made me chuckle :)

On Self-Loss and Grief How often do you hold space for the grief you experience when you lose a part of yourself? Sometimes we consciously upgrade who we are, yet in the process, we ignore that not everything about the old ...

"Less normalized (...) is the grief we experience when losing ourselves. Sometimes, we consciously upgrade who we are, yet in the process, we ignore that not everything about the old us was that bad. We throw away the baby with the bathwater and then wonder why we miss something to care for." >>>

That is so cool!

I'm reading "The Extended Mind" right now and it talks about how studies have shown that, for example, investors, take better decisions when they are attuned to their bodies and follow their gut feelings versus when they analyze huge amounts of data.