on finding yourself
an impromptu essay of gratitude and awe
This unplanned and somewhat impulsive essay is a ramble in which I attempt to capture the magnificent gratitude I feel for all the readers here—we’re a growing cohort of 3.93 thousand and I cannot tell you how much that boggles my mind and delights my soul.
I’ve been reflecting on Closely Reading lately.
How surprised I am by it, and how thrilled and also a little scared I am by the reception of it from you, dear reader. One of the wonderful magical and wildly smart people who have somehow found my words.
I don’t know how you found me. But I’m glad you did.
I wonder, how do we find each other in this giant online world of algorithms and recommendations.
I wonder what was the headline or the image or the repost that caught your eye and made you click a second or a third time; what did I write—and how did you read it—when you decided, “you know what, I’m gonna subscribe to this random stranger’s essays here on the internet.”
I think about why I started writing here in the first place.
Spoiler alert: it was not so that you’d subscribe. Or that I’d make a few bucks. Or even that anyone would necessarily read any of this.
I started writing here because there was an ache in me saying, “you have to keep writing. Somewhere. Anywhere.”
And my journals were sick of me.
My pile of battered Leuchtturms with cramped handwriting and pages upon pages of looping lost feelings were like therapy sessions; they had helped me through so much.
But there were all these things I was not writing down but was thinking about all the time.
Like why Sleepless in Seattle is such a perfect film. Or why reading Anne of Green Gables made me not feel so lonely anymore. Or how Matilda is actually a book about rage. Or how on earth I was going to help more people find, read, and understand The House of Mirth and Lily Bart’s particular brand of tragedy.
I had never even heard of Substack and then I saw a link to someone’s essay here one day. I clicked around a little; the site looked so easy and straightforward to use. I found ten different people I wanted to read and subscribe to within an hour.
I thought, I’ve been wanting to write more. Why not here?
The name, Closely Reading, came easily—I knew I wanted to write literary pieces that were essentially close readings of my favorite stories. (Writing close readings was always my favorite part of grad school.)
But I never planned on a book club or guided exercises or drawing on my years of teaching college English. I never planned on finding so many people who already loved, or want to love, Edith Wharton as much as I do.
It has all come so naturally.
My first few posts were hilariously easy to write; yes, like riding a bike when you haven’t touched one in years, a little-kid-version of you taking the reigns and springing forth in your adult body to pedal fast and fly down a big hill.
You put your arms out and think “why did I ever stop doing this?”
Each week, as I wrote to two people, then five people, then twenty-eight people, I thought “wow. This is more fun than I thought it’d be.”
And then more people started subscribing.
And commenting.
And liking.
And even sharing what I was writing.
They asked when I was going to read something with them. They invited me to buddy reads and asked me for help picking books for their own book clubs.
Eventually, someone asked when I was going to turn on a paid option, because they wanted to pay me for my words.
And I thought, “Really? My words are worth that to you?”
You see: I thought they were only worth anything to me.
What a strange and kind of scary realization to find that the messes in your head that you work so hard to get into words on the page (or the screen, as it were) are worth something to someone else too—especially someone who doesn’t even know you.
(Though, of course they do, at least a little bit, after reading your words.)
I felt an internal struggle arise: Why would other people care about my story? My ideas? The way that I read literature?
And somewhere down that rabbit hole, I realized this thing I was doing for me, that I thought would only ever mean something to me, has turned into such a beautiful thing I’m also doing for you, something that somehow means something to you, too.
And damn if that isn’t the power of writing.
Because if it were just for me, truly deeply only for me, all this could be in one of those messy journals tucked under my bed.
And if it were only for you—purely, just, only something I was making for you—I wouldn’t love it so much. I really don’t think I would. It’d be a brand or a side gig or a hustle, something turned rancid by over reliance on engagement metrics or campaign strategy or a rigid calendar that made me resent being here.
If it was just for me or just for you, I certainly wouldn’t write as often as I’ve come to; I wouldn’t run our funny little book club or show you photos of my messily annotated book pages or ask you what you thought of chapter fourteen.
This thing I started doing for me required that I trust the aching voice deep inside me that was telling me to write and to share and to conjure the courage to click the “publish now” button.
And it is also something I started doing because, deep down, I think I believed—or maybe even knew—it would lead me here.
In this place where that vague and overused notion of “online community” has actually started to feel very real to me.
Where I’ve sent many of you actual physical postcards in the mail and have received so many back! (We should do that again, yes?)
Where I have learned your names and you’ve told me about your hang-ups with reading or your favorite line from The Age of Innocence and I’ve told you mine.
Where I’ve asked you to set a timer. Grab a pen. Write every thought in your head until that timer goes off. Even if your pinky falls asleep.
Where we embark on close readings of amazing novels in which our observations border on the tedious as we creep on our tiptoes across every syllable in every sentence and ask ourselves why was it made this way? Why did they choose that word? What does this mean?
We ask ourselves: is this thing they wrote for themselves also a thing they wrote for me?
It is no coincidence that in the writing of others we so often find ourselves.
And so, all of this rambling is really my way of saying: on your way to finding yourself, which I believe the reading of all good words lights the way to, thank you for finding me.
I’m a new member of your pod! There are so many interesting Substacks out there, but your story and your plans for this group drew me in like a moth to a flame!
Thank you. It does feel so very natural here, doesn’t it? I’m so glad I found you as your words are so pure and heartfelt.