Smultronställe, a Transformation

I started Gathering in October 2020 after deciding to take a months-long social media hiatus. First I posted little musings, and then I began writing about being away from social media. Socially Awkward was an attempt to give the newsletter a focus, but it hasn’t felt right, and now I am transforming Gathering/Socially Awkward into Smultronställe. Smultronställe is a Swedish word literally meaning “a place of wild strawberries.” An idyllic place overflowing with beauty.

For nearly two decades I’ve been a serious fan of Brain Pickings, an incredible website curated by Maria Popova. I’ve also relied on the podcast On Being, which “pursues deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.” Two years ago, when I sold my book, I was planning on creating a website in the spirit of these two beautiful things— where I could forage for gorgeous and heart-infusing art, writing, people, natural phenomenon, and objects. Then I was notified I’d been chosen to go to the Czech Republic for a Fulbright ETA, and I did that.

After a massive detour (most of us have taken massive detours over the past two years), here I am, starting the thing I wanted to start years ago. I am leaving my full-time nanny job and expanding into myself not only as a writer, but also as someone who wants to cultivate something beautiful— a community and a refuge.

I need you to help me create this, and I’m not talking about paid subscriptions.

I need your participation. Your readership. I need you to open my emails sometimes, to read, to comment, to volunteer your own beautiful contributions.

I know I have sometimes been inconsistent with my newsletter, and this is a product of my full-time day job. But Smultronställe, come September, will be folded into my life as part of my full-time job. I am going to be pouring a lot into this newsletter and I would love for you to be a part of it all.

Whether you’re a paying subscriber or not, you’ll receive Vellichor, my Sunday newsletter. Paying subscribers will have the opportunity to participate in write-ins and will receive my Wednesday Writing Notes. Whether you are a paid subscriber or not, you are a deeply valued part of this community.

This is what I need from you today:

• Comment on this post with one (or more) things you have been finding beautiful and heartening lately. Tell me what it is, and tell me why is it.

• Tell me about one thing you have carried with you through your life. An object, a sentence, a phrase, a picture, that gives you courage and/or comfort.

• Share any ideas or thoughts you have about what you want this community to look like, and what you’ve loved about this newsletter as well as what you’d love to see.

Every comment of yours will help brighten and strengthen this community. I can’t wait to send you the newsletter this Sunday and show you the new format!

With love,

Stacy

Gustave Le Gray “Exploring the dramatic effects of sunlight, clouds, and water, Gustave Le Gray gained immediate recognition for his landmark photographs of the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel taken between 1856 and 1858. At this time photographic emulsions were not equally sensitive to all colors of the spectrum, making it impossible to achieve a proper exposure for both sea and sky in a single image. Thus, for may of his seascapes Le Gray printed two negatives on a single sheet of paper, a technique called combination printing. One negative was taken of the water and the other of the sky. The overlap often apparent in such multiple negative images is not visible in this skillfully executed print.”