Incapable of being content
a fall reorganization of my Substack
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a cozy homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. Here, you’ll marvel the mundane and wish for your wild, while reveling in rest.
You’ll learn about how to support your habitual travel adventures alongside your happy home base (even the one inside your own head). Cool kids subscribe. I appreciate you!
Fall is my new year, as many of my fellow autumn girls will agree.
As I imagine “a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils” and nostalgize Lisa Frank binders, there’s a freshness, a newness, to my world. As an Enneagram 7, seeking new and fresh is how I live almost every minute of every day. New = fun. My husband and I call ourselves “what’s-nexters” because we’re always on to the next thing.
And honestly, I sometimes feel shame around that. As soon as that house project is started (not necessarily finished, mind you), or this trip is planned, or that goal has seen some progress, I itch for the novelty.
There’s just so much to life. Why wouldn’t I want to try it all?
I sometimes wonder if I am simply incapable of being content. Recently, I’ve started to imagine: What would it look like if I accepted that as truth, and worked with it as part of my personality, rather than viewing it as a moral failing?
How can this light in me, that shines itself on all the hobbies and explorations there are to experience, be a source of goodness and growth?
My first experiment for working with this is allowing myself to reorganize my Substack! For one full year now, I have written Monthly Scrolls and Habitual Travel Itineraries. These are full of my wild enthusiasm for living with the seasons and traveling habitually, and I’m proud of the collections!
But, I also feel like I’ve backed myself into a corner — like I’ve over-strategized, and any deviation from the framework I’ve created is a failure.
Isn’t that interesting? I made it up! This Substack is mine! How can making it exist be a failure?
Monthly Scrolls and Habitual Travel Itineraries will stay in the archives for paid subscribers, because they will always be relevant for how to bring more travel, joy, and earnestness into your life!
And because it’s how I live my life, you can rest assured that book recommendations, travel ideas, and other elements from these collections will continue to find their way onto my Substack, because I can’t help myself.
Poetry, Please
Inspired by poets like
and who have chosen to make their Substacks poetry-forward (because we’re poets! duh!) I also want my Substack to be a place of poetry. Particularly, response poetry. (Maybe all poetry is in some way a response?)Prickly Thoughts essays will remain. They will be the container. Response poems and essays are my favorite to write! To belabor the metaphor for a bit, the cactus is the piece of inspiration (whether a poem, essay, or tidbit of pop culture), and my response is the shade.
Come, sit in the shade with me.
If you’re new here…
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.
Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)
Can't wait to see where you take this! I'm with you, change is GOOD.
I always find it so permission-giving when other writers allow themselves to evolve in public like this. Taking inspiration from you, friend!