So happy to have you here! Thank you for supporting Beyond!

If you value this work please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will provide access to full interviews and allow me to do more interviews, pay guest contributors, as well as keep a roof over my head. And now it will help support rescue dogs. Upgrade your subscription today. And please keep leaving your thoughts and insights in the comments. I so enjoy this community and love hearing from you! Celebrating my birthday with friends of over three decades! Yay for friends! And pizza! Hello Dear Beyonders! I’m bursting with gratitude for so much in my life these days; I often feel like a benevolent being is watching over me. This is a very (very!) rare feeling for me but one I’m discovering that I quite enjoy! There’s a lot I could share but the most bursting-my-heart gratitude is for all of you! Thank you Beyonders for helping me to bring my vision to life. There seems to be so much sorrow in the world right now, and I want to offer as much light and hope as possible! Light and hope that is grounded in deep wisdom and compassion and kindness channeled through the words of some of our greatest and wisest and most tender-hearted writers. Together, we’re making that happen! Thank you! Speaking of which, I had some pretty magnificent light shone on Beyond this month from two people I admire beyond measure: Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert. Both are tremendously gifted writers and tremendously beautiful, generous humans. And they both said such lovely things about me and Beyond. After which my heart grew so big I wasn’t sure it would still fit in this rather petite body of mine. But so far, at least, it’s holding. I posted a big shoutout of gratitude in Notes last week but I realize many of you don’t use Notes so I thought I’d make mention of it here, as well. We really do all need one another. It’s just a fact. So my shoutout of gratitude this week is for beautiful humans who help lift up others! For me, in particular, Liz and Cheryl. Deepest bone marrow gratitude! How about you, Beyonders! What are you grateful for these days? Anyone shine their light of joy on you lately? What’s your good news? Any lucky breaks? Unexpected bliss? Ongoing sources of joy? I’d love to hear! ❤️ Really Good News: We had so many new paids (thank you!), our monthly donation to The DeTommaso Dogs will be nearly four times the usual. This makes me so dang happy! Ana works absolutely tirelessly to save these dogs. She sees some truly horrifying situations and faces regular heartache. Yet she keeps going. And so many many many dogs that would otherwise be dead or continue to live in dire circumstances now have beautiful loving homes. I’m delighted we Beyonders are a part of this. ❤️ Special Announcement: I’m excited to share that Leslie Stephens and I will be hosting a live conversation and community chat about rest on February 4th at 12 pm ET for paid subscribers. This event is capped at 200, and the details along with a link to RSVP are at the bottom of this post (behind a paywall - upgrade to access). I first met Leslie when she wrote this gorgeous, tender essay about her relationship with her dog Toast. And her Substack, morning person, was one of the first I subscribed to and still look forward to reading each week (I pick up so many great tips and recommendations!). Although we live on opposite sides of the country and were born decades apart, we were astounded by how much we had in common: dogs, long walks, early divorces, good food, and go-go-go personalities who struggle to rest. As many of you may remember, I hit a minor burnout during the summer. I made some changes that I sometimes keep up with (I feel so much better when I do!) and sometimes don’t. But I’ve been curious about rest ever since. I’ve spoken with heaps of friends about it, made this post in Notes, and started my first (and thus far, only) Chat about it. What is rest? How do we rest? It seems it manifests differently for all of us. Until recently, I’ve never really wanted to rest! Lately, I’ve been picking apart why. Here’s what I’ve come up with: 1. For many, many years I was extremely limited in what I was able to do due to my health. I’ve come to realize that resting (unconsciously!) scares me that I’m slipping backwards. Also: Because so many years were spent in deep survival mode, I have a lot I want to catch up on! 2. My parents grew up in London during the War and part of their coping skills, and the necessity of their lives, was to go-go-go. Stopping is a sign of defeat. It’s in my blood! 3. I have insatiable curiosity and sense of adventure. There’s so much I want to discover in this big world of ours. And I want to fit it all in. 4. I’m responsible for a lot. Leslie’s story is a bit different (she’ll share hers during our chat) but we ended up in an incredibly similar place. And I know from the two threads shared above, a lot of you are there, too! So, let’s talk about it! How did we get here? What’s working? What’s confusing? Is “active rest” really rest? Do I need to stop everything and just sit with my thoughts? The list of questions is long! I hope you’ll join us. Details and link to reserve your spot below:... Subscribe to Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe to read the rest. Become a paying subscriber of Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. © 2024 Jane Ratcliffe 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

Karlie75 (48) < 25 mi. Thank you for being here! Beyond is both love and labor intensive. If you value this work please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will provide access to full interviews plus the archives and allow me to do more interviews, pay guest contributors, as well as keep a roof over my head. And now it will help support rescue dogs. Upgrade your subscription today. And please keep leaving your thoughts and insights in the comments. I so enjoy this community and love hearing from you! Lullaby My essay about getting divorced when you're still (very much) in love. JANE RATCLIFFE JAN 25 READ IN APP Kory, Mathilda, and me on the roof of our Great Jones apartment. Hello Beyonders! So many new faces here. Welcome! I’m very happy and excited to have you with us. ❤️ I’m sharing an essay that ran in The Huffington Post about getting divorced when I was still very much in love with my husband. I originally wrote the essay for the Up Front section of Vogue. It moved up through all the editors from whom I received beautiful, tearful praise. And then it hit the desk of Anna Wintour who was going through a divorce of her own and did not care for my still-in-love take on things. She killed it. I had hoped to share a new essay with you about the impact of someone close to me relentlessly stating that I’m faking my symptoms from head and brain injury. My sense is a lot of us have experienced something similar. But it’s not finished! In part, because despite being on fast-moving Substack, I’m still an old-school writer and essays often take me weeks/months/years to write. In part, because writing time is in short supply these days. And in part, because the subject matter is very tender and difficult for me to write about. But I’m actually quite happy to share this essay! Recently, I came across a memoir I wrote nearly twenty-five years ago about being married. After my injury, I never finished it and pretty much forgot it existed (thank you, Cynthia, for the reminder!) I’m slowly working my way through trying to determine if it might be interesting to others. It’s fascinating to me, of course, because there’s so much I’d forgotten about my life that’s now being returned to me. If nothing else, we should all write simply so we remember the emotional complexity and vibrance of our lives! Also: I wrote an essay last year about a text my ex-husband sent me out of the blue two decades after our divorce, apologizing for the way our marriage unravelled at the end. If you’re keen to read more, you can do so here. Please do let me know what you think in the comments, Beyonders. I always love hear your thoughts! Lullaby The trick to getting divorced when you're still in love is, of course, to focus on the bad things in the marriage. To intentionally not focus on the way when you were fighting about who does the dishes more, and this is a very important issue as it speaks to, at least in your mind, who does more in the relationship in general, and he said, "all I did was eat a bowl of cereal" in such a way that you burst out laughing and then he burst out laughing as well -- and then the fight fell apart. Or when he set up the pup tent in the living room so the cats could play with their electric spinning ball without losing control of it. Or the way he secretly bought you flowers at the Farmer's Market and somehow smuggled them home amongst the tomatoes and sunflower sprouts and cheddar-chili bread without you noticing. It also helps to not focus on the fact that he's still in love with you, too. Instead, put your attention on the late nights riddled with promises of being home early and then nothing, not even a phone call. Or the times he swore he'd book a flight while the prices were low or pick up the gift you needed that night for your boss' birthday party, but instead he met up with a friend. Or the dish in the sink, again. I wasn't particularly skilled at dwelling on the bad. When Kory and I divorced it wasn't so much that my mind suddenly wandered toward the good, it was that it had established a well worn path there. He was smart, astoundingly kind, funny, playful, sweet, beautiful, talented. He had good taste in literature, music, food, home decor. He loved animals. He loved people. We always joked that we could walk into the same room and he would like everyone in there until proven otherwise, while I would dislike everyone until also otherwise proven. We almost always ended up agreeing on the same folks. He was a talented musician in a successful band. He was loyal and loving and fierce about family. He also loved to drink. I'm hesitant to say he was an alcoholic. Not so much because this is intended for publication, though that too, but more because if he was one, he wasn't your typical alcoholic. We rarely had booze in the apartment. He never drank in the morning, hardly ever in the afternoon. Almost all of his drinking was social. And he would often go weeks and months without a drop. But there were certain nights when he became carried away with his drinking that were, for me, unbearable. To be fair, there were plenty of things about me that he found unbearable. For one, my desire to control his drinking. But the love between us ran deep, and in many ways we balanced each other out. On sleepless nights we would lie in our white iron bed beneath the domed skylight, he'd read aloud a line of Burroughs then I'd read a line of Faulkner. Back and forth. We created our own tales that way. "I could never love anybody but you," he'd murmur as we drifted off to sleep and he would kiss me so gently that if I closed my eyes it would feel like the breeze. The day we were married, I wept so much the priest had to hold my lines in front of me, which I whispered while Kory squeezed my hand. Years later, in an effort to keep our vows intact, we went into therapy with an insightful woman named Joan and learned a lot about ourselves, each other, the sometimes lousy way in which we communicated. We practiced more fully embracing each other's lifestyles. He joined the gym, took up juicing, and read more fiction. Once a late-nighter myself, I helped him close bars and clubs and parties and I drank almost as much as I did back in the day. On the nights I stayed home, I didn't yell at him when he rolled in late smelling of stale smoke and beer. I didn't cry. I didn't judge. Instead, we learned to articulate our struggles to one another; in fact, we became so good at understanding one another we often didn't even need to explain much. For instance, once, after he'd been to a therapy session alone, he was helping me fold laundry. He folded a towel the wrong way, so without any fuss I simply folded it the right way. "I was just talking to Joan about that," he said. And without another word I knew exactly what he meant. Rather than sleeping apart after a disagreement, we huddled into each other, the cats curled at our feet, terrified at the notion of our relationship not spanning forever. "I'm sorry," I'd say. And I meant it. "I'm sorry, too," he'd say, his head snuggled into my neck, his arms wrapped tightly around me. "Let's never be apart," he'd say. "Never," I'd say. Though soon enough he would start drinking and I would start controlling. Or, from his perspective, I would start controlling and he would start drinking. But I never stopped loving him. Or liking him, for that matter. I know so many couples who, when they split up, hated each other so profoundly they sought vengeance and justice and punishment. Or they ended their marriages by having affairs. Or were so physically repulsed by their partners they'd stopped having sex, sometimes years before. All variations on the same theme: They did not want to spend any more time together. This wasn't true of us. We wanted to stay together. In fact, right up until our last night we were having the most beautiful and connected sex of our marriage -- I believe now this is because we were finally seeing each other for who we were and not who we wanted the other person to be. Sadly, the who-we-actually-were versions of ourselves couldn't find a mutually agreeable lifestyle. When we finally decided to divorce, when we accepted that despite our very best efforts at some base level we brought out each other's worst traits, we made a pact that we would always be friends. And not just ordinary friends. "I will always love you," Kory said solemnly. "No matter what. Whoever comes afterwards will have to understand that." I swore as much in return. But, of course, that didn't happen. Looking back, I realize now that I thought love would be enough. It was enough to date each other; it was enough to move in together; it was enough to get married. I thought it would be enough to stay married, to soothe our differences, and when that failed, I thought it would be enough to help us get divorced. After all, I didn't really want to fold towels properly and I don't suppose Kory wanted to roll in at all hours of the morning drunk. And surely if we loved each other enough to make solemn vows, that same love could help us evolve into the people we wanted to be. But as it turns out, I was wrong. Although I was the one who filed for the divorce, I didn't want it. On our final night together before I made that decision, right up until the last moment, I thought we'd finally found the perfect balance. We'd gone to a party in Brooklyn with two of our dear friends. We'd had some drinks, cracked some jokes, stirred up a bit of mischief. Then, around one-ish, Kory took my hand and said he wanted to go home. If there was a time when my husband wanted to leave a party before me, I certainly couldn't remember it. We can do this, I thought, delighted. Go out, each have a couple of drinks, then head home at a reasonable hour. The four of us tumbled into a cab. When we reached our place on Great Jones I hopped out and held the door for Kory. He remained in the back with Eric and Robert and very sweetly, though with a slight slur, said, "I'm just going to have one more with the boys." I knew if I let go of that handle I would lose him forever. And then it was just like in the movies, when a drowning person's life flashes before their eyes. Every flower-petal touch, every sweetness cooed, every fear steadied, every Christmas gift wrapped, every gift opened, every laugh shared, every sickness healed. All of it. In thirty, maybe forty, more likely twenty seconds or less. All of it summarized. All of it felt. All of it remembered and cherished. Then I closed the door. And he was gone. The last time I saw Kory, back in those days, we met at a favorite restaurant. We'd decided to split all of our belongings and bank account down the middle, so I was delivering a check. Neither one of us ate. Later, outside, we sat on the ledge of a building and wept as we held each other until finally our arms gave out. We had nothing to say. No words of anger nor of regret. Nor of healing. He walked me to the pet store and helped me carry cartons of cat food up the crooked stairs to our place just as we used to do. Then, with the cats bouncing against his boots, and the sun from the skylight catching his eyes, he gave me his set of keys, our skin touching briefly for the last time. I received my divorce papers a year later, on a crisp, sunny fall day when I was meandering into my first post-marriage tryst, and least expecting them. The final decree was two pages long stapled, like an office document, in the left hand corner. So few words to wipe out so much. I sat at my kitchen table and cried. My instinct was to call Kory, it was still embedded in my cells to share my joys and sorrows with him, but he had disappeared a year before and wouldn't surface until another year had passed. Now we speak occasionally. I rang him to let him know one of our cats had died. He, to let me know one of my favorite authors was reading nearby. We laugh easily, the way we used to. And we understand huge things about each other that no one else can. When we first fell in love, Kory wrote a song for me. The lyrics went like this: Go to sleep in my arms/A soul to keep from all harm/I lie awake in a crystal calm/Your face so sweet till the end of time. And the chorus like this: A lullaby makes you feel better/The world's all but died, but we're together. And then we're not. Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe is a reader-supported publication with the goal of bringing as much light as possible into this world of ours. If you enjoy the work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid Thank you for being here, dear Beyonders! ❤️ Your comments mean so much to me. I read each and every one. Leave a comment Beyond is published every Thursday by veteran journalist Jane Ratcliffe. It’s reader-supported, so if you’re enjoying the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscription for $5 a month or $50 a year. You help keep Beyond afloat and create access for others. Upgrade to paid This is a public post, so feel free to share links to Beyond on social media or forward it to someone who might benefit. Thank you for reading! SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2024 Jane Ratcliffe 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

Happy, Healthy, And Surrounded By Love

Thank you for being here! Beyond is both love and labor intensive. If you value this work please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will provide access to full interviews plus the archives and allow me to do more interviews, pay guest contributors, as well as keep a roof over my head. And now it will help support rescue dogs. Upgrade your subscription today. And please keep leaving your thoughts and insights in the comments. I so enjoy this community and love hearing from you! Happy, Healthy, And Surrounded By Love The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer Christina Wyman JANE RATCLIFFE JAN 22 Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond! Christina Wyman is a teacher and author living in Michigan. Her debut novel, “Jawbreaker,” is a middle-grade book that follows a seventh-grader with a craniofacial anomaly that's caught the attention of school bullies — including her own sister. "Jawbreaker," published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is a Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2023. “Jawbreaker” is also a Readerlink’s Buzz Reads pick for October 2023 and is available for sale in Walmart and Meijer stores, and is also a November Middle Grade Reader Book Club pick by Target stores. The book can also be purchased online wherever books are sold, including through local independent bookstores. What are you reading now? Believe it or not, I am right now reading the very first novel in the Nancy Drew mystery series, The Secret of the Old Clock. As a child, I was obsessed with this series! I was wondering how I’d experience it as an adult. What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents? As a child, I read everything I could get my hands on, and when nothing new showed up, I read them again. Because there are so many books to choose from, I’m able to list most of them according to their author: Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew mysteries!) and Ann M. Martin (Baby Sitters Club series!) come to mind. I should also say that, because I did not come from a family of readers, I got away with reading a lot of Stephen King when I was twelve years old. My first Stephen King novel was IT. I still remember devouring the pages on the family couch, being unable to put it down, my parents none the wiser. My literature selections really grew more expansive when I started teaching. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, is absolutely breathtaking – it was my first-ever engagement with a book-length story told through poems. Also, anything by Jason Reynolds is a homerun (I devoured GHOST in mere hours). I also have memories of falling in love with a book called Mad, Mad, Monday, by Herma Silverstein. It’s about a teenager who falls in love with a teenage ghost from another era. I think it stands out to me because of how quirky – and just so cool – the concept was. What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time? I don’t really reread books anymore, as my stack of unread books continues to grow every week! But one book that I continue to revisit, at least in my mind, is Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls: Case studies of life between lives. The stories and concepts in this book are far more compelling to me than anything organized religion has offered me. It has helped me to reconsider my beliefs about death, but also life. What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you? Definitely big, bulky sweaters! (I live in Michigan, afterall.) I just bought another sweater today. I don’t actually need another sweater, but here we are. What’s the best piece of wisdom you’ve encountered recently? To “hold everything lightly.” Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild? My pets have always been special to me. In the past couple of years, we’ve adopted two rescue cats: An adult Siamese we named Alfred, and a kitten Tabby we named Greta-Cannoli. It’s basically my life’s mission to make sure they are as happy, healthy, and spoiled as two domesticated animals can possibly be. I think our bonds with animals can sometimes be stronger than our bonds with some humans, and I take this responsibility seriously. What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected? Not too long ago, I was on a very different career trajectory. Had things worked out the way I thought I wanted them to, I likely wouldn’t be writing this piece for you! I am very, very grateful to have been turned down for several career-related opportunities, which were experiences that really bummed me out at the time. But had those worked out, I’d be spending my days doing any number of things that I absolutely now know would not have made me happy in the same way that writing for children does. I wish it were not uncouth to personally thank every person who decided against my candidacy for certain positions for, well, deciding against my candidacy for those positions. If I could send every one of those power-players a card and a box of chocolates, I absolutely would. Their decisions altered the course of my life in a way I never thought possible. The adage when one door closes another one opens comes to mind. Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself? I’d say both! Especially when it’s 90s rock. I’ve been on a Weezer kick lately. What are your hopes for yourself? I like to think that I’m a (mostly) simple human. I just want to be happy, healthy, and surrounded by love. Those are my boundaries, and I walk away from anyone and anything not in service of those efforts. What’s a kindness that changed your life? There have been a number of people who’ve taken me under their wing in recent years, both in my personal life and professional life. All of these people have uplifted me in a way that wasn’t available to me before. Not to be too cryptic, but I don’t exactly come from a framework or paradigm in which love, kindness, empathy, validation, and emotional support was the rule. It was quite the opposite. So any person or event that honored my humanity – and my truth – in all situations and circumstances stands out to me in some way. What’s a guiding force in your life? My peace is a guiding force. And I protect it at all costs. Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe is a reader-supported publication with the goal of bringing as much light as possible into this world of ours. If you enjoy the work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Meet me in the comment section How big is your stack of unread books? How strong are your bonds with the animals in your life? Anyone you’d like to send a card and a box of chocolates of thanks? Do you have people in your life who honor your humanity? Beyond is published every Thursday by veteran journalist Jane Ratcliffe. It’s reader-supported, so if you’re enjoying the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscription for $5 a month or $50 a year. You help keep Beyond afloat and create access for others. This is a public post, so feel free to share links to Beyond on social media or forward it to someone who might benefit. Thank you for reading! © 2024 Jane Ratcliffe 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

Jane Ratcliffe liked your comment on The Warm Vanilla Pudding Hum Of Well Being: A Conversation with Liz Gilbert, Part II

 

Jane Ratcliffe liked your comment on The Warm Vanilla Pudding Hum Of Well Being: A Conversation with Liz Gilbert, Part II. The Beyonder (/biˈɒndər/) is a fictional cosmic entity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Jim Shooter[1] and artist Mike Zeck, the Beyonder first appeared in Secret Wars #1 (May 1984) as an unseen, nigh-omnipotent[2] being from outside the multiverse who kidnapped the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe to have them do battle on Battleworld, a fictional planet created by the Beyonder. The character plays a more antagonistic role in the 1985 sequel, Secret Wars II, in which he takes human form to learn about desire but threatens to destroy the multiverse out of increasing frustration. Noah Bawdy Writes Noah’s Substack 21 hrs agoLiked by Jane Ratcliffe The Beyonder (/biˈɒndər/) is a fictional cosmic entity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Jim Shooter[1] and artist Mike Zeck, the Beyonder first appeared in Secret Wars #1 (May 1984) as an unseen, nigh-omnipotent[2] being from outside the multiverse who kidnapped the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe to have them do battle on Battleworld, a fictional planet created by the Beyonder. The character plays a more antagonistic role in the 1985 sequel, Secret Wars II, in which he takes human form to learn about desire but threatens to destroy the multiverse out of increasing frustration. LIKE (1) REPLY (1) SHARE Jane Ratcliffe 17 hrs agoAuthor Wow! I had no idea! © 2024 Jane Ratcliffe Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice