a little bit of news....
I'm still standing, and so are you.
It’s taken me over a week to realize this fact: that YES, we have a little over two months of ruminating and catastrophizing before what we assumed was unthinkable happens. I’ve suddenly had a few yens:
to visit every national park in America. There are currently 429 national park sites in my country, and 63 bearing the National Park title in their names. I have been to Arches, Acadia, Dry Tortugas, Everglades, Shenandoah, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Redwood. The Grand Canyon is at the top of my must-see list, along with Olympic National Park, the latter of which was called by acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton the listener’s Yosemite and widely considered the quietest place in America. WHY I want to visit these parks before they become littered with fast food joints and open trophy shoot competitions is self-evident. If you have not yet seen Ken Burns’ The National Parks, please do so. And then read Terry Tempest Williams’ The Hour of Land.
to support — as much as I am able — NPR on an annual basis.
to support every independent bookstore I can when I make my book purchases unless it is absolutely unavoidable. (I do this already, but I could be better at it.)
to leave Little Upper Twitville, and move over to Bluesky. Please follow me there, at @elissaaltman.bsky.social (seriously: it feels very nice. Come say hello. There is no algorithm so you’ll never be at risk of suddenly getting a thousand tweets about Taylor Swift if you happen to post that you liked one of her songs).
to support independent crafters, producers, growers, and clothing manufacturers, and to buy vintage whenever I possibly can. (I do a lot of this already, but it’s easy to slip back into old habits.) Some of my favorites: Netherton Foundry, Cultiverre, Sarah Kersten, Trillium Soaps, Curator.
to limit my digital news notifications because — and I feel very strongly about this — the human constitution is not meant to metabolize a constant barrage of divisive vitriol. If I wanted more vitriol, I’d move back in with my mother.
to have a standing dinner date with my neighbors — nothing fancy; pizza will do — once a month. You will be amazed at how rejuvenating this feels.
to take my very little cousins to the museum and then for ice cream. Because it will not involve screens.
to spend some time actually getting to meet you folks in person.
As most of you know, I have a new book, Permission: The New Memoirist and The Courage to Create, available for preorder and coming from my amazing publisher in March. I will be doing readings and signings at many bookstores, and will post a monthly updated schedule here (and also on my website).
My first big Permission event will be a late March 2025 weekend at beautiful Kripalu in Lenox, Massachusetts. Sign up here!
I am offering the next fifty annual paid subscribers a signed Permission bookplate, and, upon publication, giving away ten signed hardcovers to current paid subscribers.
Please remember: be kind to yourselves. I look forward to seeing you soon.
xElissa
I love this list and it’s a reminder that all the things that seem “small” are in fact incredibly essential and huge 😍 and now I am going to go preorder your book from my local bookstore!
I thank you for being someone who can create something of a plan. I am inert, sad, fatigued, and my plan seems tiny (cancel NY Times, less FB scrolling, absolutely no more Mainstream news), and ...gulp...I'm starting a Substack. It's called Open Tuning. It can be a place where we can gather around music, songwriting, secrets of a radio DJ, books, nature, and free associate without fear (I hope).