1) starting somewhere

Here is the scary new thing, the why would anyone read or care or want to know about new thing, my very own Substack. The idea has been lurking and slinking around the creative impulses that I prefer to direct towards more familiar outlets: playing guitar, writing a song, messing around recording, writing an essay for some future publishable dream. Because I don’t know what it could be, or should be. I forget the mantra—(it doesn’t really go like this, but I’ll modify to suit the occasion) ==> You cannot think your way into actions that are meaningful, but you can act your way into thoughts that are meaningful. In other words, what my Substack could be or should be will only “be”…if I try it. Or in even more other words, refer to John Cage’s “begin anywhere” or the corporate ad slogan of Nike’s “just do it.”

It’s really been the whole Twitter takeover/takedown that may have been the final nudge. Way too much time that I could spend writing and creating has been spent on that site, fun scrolling, doom scrolling, time suck scrolling. And yet, I enjoy reading, interacting, engaging with people. The Substack seed was planted about a year ago as I thought about how I could do both: interact and engage with readers at the same time as productively writing. Actual writing, not thinking up and figuring out 140 character sound bite cleverisms. Isn’t it better to have a handful of people who care enough to subscribe and support being in my orbit than to have a sliver of thousands of twitter followers click a like or a retweet?

I think maybe instead of trying to build up a new cache of followers on some new social media site (that’s kind of bs, don’t believe that I won’t be trying on my new Counter Social account) it’s time to do the scary new thing. So here it is.

But first, this! A glimpse into my word processor, ie., brain:

Doubts and Rationales that Kept Me From Starting, and the Counter-Thought

• I need to be writing stories, essays, not rambling reflections.

  You need to be writing, period. Anything.

• No one is going to want to subscribe or read my Substack

  You wrote a memoir that tons of people read and liked, so maybe someone will

• I don’t want to commit.

  Structure and accountability is exactly why I write well in classes.

• What if I don’t feel like it or have anything to say?

  Then figure out something else to post. Lyrics, poetry, a list, a letter, an excerpt.

• I shouldn’t “give away” writing that needs to be saved up for books and publication.

  Whut.

• My laptop keyboard is too annoying to write on, I need to wait til I get home.

  This is actually true, the keyboard is driving me nuts with double spaces and double letters constantly making me go back and fix.

  ---

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I’m going to quickly get right to it now, the first missive. Why I chose this title “The Direction of Motion”— I think it’s self explanatory, but also vague and open to interpretation. Some of you who have been following me on social media know that I’m in the UK for an extended stay. But I haven’t been so posty and forthcoming about why. Yes, there was a family matter, a celebration of life for my uncle, Roy Valentine, who passed away in April 2020. More on family stuff later probably. That was the impetus for coming, but not why I am staying for a few months.

The thing is, that with the whole empty nest deal, my mom dying in June, the Go-Go’s on an indefinite hiatus, coming up on another birthday putting me further along on the wrong side of life’s bell curve —not that I’m not very grateful to be on the curve at all still—I am for the first time since I can remember, very uncertain how to proceed in doing stuff and being me and finding my new way, my new place to inhabit in the world. Not just geographically, but I kind of don’t know who I am right now. It’s weird. I’m a mom, but I’m not a mom who drives her kid to school, makes meals, takes to dance etc. Haven’t been that mom in a while, with a university sophomore. Nope. Of course, I’m a musician, and love my Austin band the Bluebonnets and always proud of what I’ve accomplished with the Go-Go’s, but I’m too practical to think I could “make it” in the music biz again. At 63. Same with songs, I’ll always write songs, but realist alert, prob not going to have any more hits, ie, future income generators. And I did write a cool book and I’d like to think I have a few more cool books in me, but you’re only as published as your last published book, which means, yeah I’m a writer, but so are a zillion other writers. I’m still all of the things I’ve defined myself by for years, and yet—something feels stagnant. So I’m moving, in the obvious way, first by traveling to my mom’s homeland, to connect with family, to float about. It’s a direction. It’s motion. I hope I figure out where I’m going and what I’m doing or what I should be doing.

I hope you’ll come along with me and maybe we can figure out some stuff together, or by being a part of my going through the directions of motions you’ll relate and find parallels to your life too.

Cheers from St. Just, Penwith, Cornwall, UK

xxKV

1. video clip borrowed from here and features my song “Somewhere to Nowhere”