Hi, I'm Nina Iordanova and this is the 33rd edition of Something Good, a newsletter filtered through my 🧠, 🖐, and ❤️. Coming your way every two weeks, I hope you find something good here.
Hello! I started doing morning pages last week and I’ve been curious about what that would do to my newsletter. Would it make it flow better, easier, or would it feel like I’d already said everything I wanted to and had to scramble for new ideas?
(Morning pages are 3 pages of handwritten, stream-of-consciousness writing that you do first thing in the morning, every day. It’s an exercise from The Artist’s Way, a book for unblocking your creativity. Niloo recommended it many months ago and I’ve just now started to go through the exercises!)
I’m really happy with my outfit tonight, can you tell? It evolved piece by piece until we got here and it just made sense, the way math does. Do you ever feel that way about anything? Where a certain combination of somethings (maybe it’s colours or tastes or textures or words) comes together and you just go… ah. Yes. It’s like you can feel the energy of all the pieces coming together, and you feel it in your body as much as you do in your mind. Like an internal excitement.
There’s an Italian film festival happening in my neighbourhood, so I decided I’d go grab a decaf coffee at 8pm and sit on the patio of my favourite little French café dressed like the European lady that I am and write this newsletter.
(The joke here is that, while I am European, I’m Bulgarian, which is about the least fancy European lady you could be. Me and my people are more about making rakia in our backyards and slaughtering lambs for festivals than neckerchiefs.)
I came so close to having my fantasy Parisian writing night, but then all the cafe tables were full by the time I got out. So now I’m sitting in front of a pizza tent, pretending it’s really the same thing.
But in all seriousness, it was weird feeling comfortable going out dressed like I was (with obvious effort put in), to sit at a cafe I like and write. Like, who does she think she is? A writer? Sitting outside to write, trying to look good, trying to be interesting? Wow, how embarrassing for her. It’s embarrassing that she doesn’t know how cringe that is.
So I made excuses to pace around my apartment for another 15 minutes, debating whether I really did need to do any of these things. I mean I could easily just stay and write at my dinner table, who did I think I was?
It’s something The Artist’s Way talks about, how these voices will come up and undermine the things you want to do, and believing them is one of the ways we keep ourselves stuck. So even though it sounds silly (or maybe you can relate?), it actually felt really cool to get cute and come write out here. Yeah, I do think I’m a writer! And I do think I’m interesting! And maybe it is embarrassing! But it’s fine!!!
The sun has started to set now and it’s really lovely. On the one side, dozens of condo windows reflect the orange-purple-gold light of the sunset. On the other, heritage buildings are blocking a pink and blue sky that’s shifting more towards blue each time I look at it.
I’d like to allow myself more of this - less who do you think you are and more this is who I want to be.
And, of course, here’s Gemma! She’s growing up very fast and it feels like she’s a bit bigger every time I see her in the morning. She’s also developing a funny little personality. I took a nap on the couch today and let her sleep outside her crate unsupervised (bold move). When I woke up a few hours later, she came over to me, stared directly into my face, then booped me on the cheek with her little wet nose before leaping back to stare at me again. VERY CUTE.
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I don’t think I answered the question we started the newsletter with… although maybe we did. Or maybe we will with time. But if nothing else, I’ve felt happier these last few days than I have in a long time.
Hope you wake up with a particular kind of joy this morning.
✨
Warmly yours,
Nina
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in two weeks! 👋