letters of our lives

I have some exciting news! For the rest of 2020, my friend and fellow writer Isabel Robinson and I will be collaborating on a project called Letters of our Lives.

Our Story

Phil and Iz met through the blogging community in 2015. Back then, Iz was studying in China and Phil was living and working in London. Both are writers – Phil published her memoir The Latte Years in 2016, the year after Iz began her first blog, Nanjing Nian chronicling her adventures in China. Internet tag followed; a blog comment here, an email there, and in 2017 Phil and Iz became proper penpals, writing long letters about their lives to one another from opposite ends of the world. Phil moved home to Hobart in 2018, and though only Bass Strait now divides them, the correspondence has continued.

They have met twice in person – that’s it!

Letters of our Lives is Phil and Iz’s first creative collaboration.

Our Project – Letters of our Lives

Inspired by the Women of Letters project begun by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire in 2010 to ‘revive the lost art of correspondence’ and ‘showcase brilliant female minds’, Iz (here) and Phil (here) will write a letter each month on a shared theme for the rest of 2020.

Letters of our Lives is also the title of a novel Phil wrote when she was 14. The story followed the lives of two teenage girls, one living in country Tasmania and the other in chic, cosmopolitan Sydney. While that’s not their exact situation (and the story had a tragic ending!), they love the reference to childhood and the value of a carefully composed letter in a world of texts and tweets.

[sidenote from Phil: I found the original Letters of our LIves the other day! Here’s the hand-drawn title!]

These letters are a response to our lives, inner and outer, past, present and future.

We hope you enjoy our project.

If you’re a writer and would like to join in, we’d be open to it. Please contact either one of us via the contact forms on our blogs.

Yours in correspondence,

Iz and Phil x 

i want to convince you

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"Nobody really knows what the arts are for... Once you deal with the difficult problems, like earning a living and getting planes to fly and trains to run on time, then you can have a bit of art, sort of like the ice cream at the end of the meal. What I want to convince you of is that that isn't the way it works at all...

That the only way that we can continue to cooperate and work together as a human society, and as the community that we are, is with lots and lots and lots of culture and art. I want to convince you that it is the most important thing you can do." - Brian Eno

how wonderfully precious this one life is

“When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness.

All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold.

To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life.

Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement.

You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth.

You gain a new respect for yourself and others and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is.

You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion that you had taken for reality.

You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence.

You know now that your true source is not outside you.

Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you.”

- John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher (excerpt from his book Divine Beauty)

the hardest part of this job

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"You can do anything you want. I had forgotten that and I continue to forget and remember and forget and remember that I am free. That is the hardest part of this job." - Miranda July

write every damn day

As of this morning, I have done Morning Pages for 250 days straight!

I’d say the most noticeable impact it’s had has been on my confidence. When you consistently show up for yourself and do the thing that matters most to you each day, I’ve found the inner critic, while still alive and well, doesn’t have as much ammunition.

The whole routine/ritual around Morning Pages is now my favourite part of the day. And I am not a morning person!

A follower on Instagram asked if I had any advice on getting started and my response was just that - to start. Just begin and keep going, even if you think what you’re writing is rubbish - it will be, that’s the whole point. But after a month or so you’ll find yourself coming up with new ideas because all the muck has been cleared out. Or you’ll feel differently about something you’ve been stuck on. So start, and then persevere. And create a nice ritual around it too, like making tea or coffee, or having your favourite music playing.

I meditate first - I’m still going on my daily habit there too (since 2 May 2017!) - and then I put my AirPods in and select my favourite writing music. Most days it’s Ludovico Einaudi but other days it will be Beethoven or Bach I want to hear. Anything gentle. Then I pick up the pen, turn to a blank page and write for three pages. Often Tom will bring a coffee in while I’m writing and thanks to the noise cancelling headphones and being in the zone, I will barely notice!

And once the pages are done, I am free to get on with my morning. My writing work later in the morning, or later that day, is always better for having cleared the decks first thing.

The next step, at some point, will be to go through the Morning Pages books and see what themes keep appearing, what words and images I repeat, what is clearly uppermost in my mind. They are the clues to where I might go next on this creative journey.

Do you do Morning Pages? Or do you have a morning creativity ritual?