A Missive from the Whirlwind

& journaling in images by Ash Parsons Story

In today’s New York Times

Hi friend,

The Book of Alchemy flew the nest earlier this week, and the response has been beyond anything I could’ve imagined. I feel so much gratitude. I’ve heard from many of you about the book, and I’ve had the honor of gathering with thousands of you on the Alchemy Tour. I’ve also gotten to see some of The Book of Alchemy’s contributors at the various tour stops, which has been such a joy.

Many of the 100 contributors are brand new to the book, but some voices are evergreen and have appeared in this newsletter before. Those are the ones I return to again and again. One of my very favorites is called “Just Ten Images” by Ash Parsons Story—so timeless and so fruitful that I never get tired of it. In it, Ash tells the story of how, during a difficult time, she started a practice of recording ten images from that day in her journal, mainly to ground herself, though eventually it proved to have other benefits. I’m going to invoke Ash’s prompt in this missive today, but rather than images from the last 24 hours, they’re from the last week.

In a whirlwind like this, everything feels like a blur—that it’s all moving at warp speed. To anchor myself, and to help me remember what happened (and when), I’d like to share a visual diary of ten images, starting with this photo of me stooping.

Stooping, if you haven’t heard of it, is when one person’s trash becomes your treasure. Like when it’s the day before your book’s publication and you’re rushing to a meeting, but you see a weird and beautiful little stool, so you stop to pick it up, and your colleague (Holly) says, “But you’re running late!” and you say, “One’s never too late to stop and collect discarded furniture from the sidewalk.”

And then there was pub day, when I had the pleasure of being interviewed on CBS Mornings. I brought extra books and got to inscribe the secret bookplate beneath the dust jacket to none other than Oprah, who happened to be there.

When planning a multi-city book tour, I wasn’t prepared for what that would involve wardrobe-wise. Fortunately, my dear pal Stacy London came over and helped me put together some looks. I can’t tell if Jon is impressed by my outfit or if he’s asking when this marathon styling session is going to end.

It took several living room tour rehearsals for Jon to convince me to play the double bass on stage. Up to the very end, I tried to finagle a way out of it. I call this look, “Do I really have to?”

A photo of me with a few of my favorite things: The Book of Alchemy, independent booksellers, & Lentil. Thank you, Uncle Bobbie’s in Philly, and all the other wonderful independent booksellers who partnered with me on this tour!

Opening night in Philly. The audience was so warm and loving. Afterward, I stayed up way too late scrolling real estate listings. Go Birds!

Elizabeth Gilbert

was one of the early readers of The Book of Alchemy and showed up in a big way from the beginning to the end. So grateful for friends who double as creative doulas!

A backstage glimpse of the show at the Salt Shed in Chicago, while Jon was playing “Butterfly.” It felt like creative church.

In love with The Book of Alchemy-inspired tour merch, especially this glorious silk scarf in the same marbling as the book cover. (Shout out to Sheryl Oppenheim, who made this gorgeous marbled pattern!)

The most gorgeous bouquet of flowers from my British publisher, Vintage. UK readers, The Book of Alchemy is available to you too!

So those are my ten images from the last week—and though they don’t begin to cover the whirlwind, it was helpful to pause, to take stock, to recall these discrete moments, to see how they accumulate. Now I’ll step aside and let Ash tell you the origin of “Just Ten Images.” Then I’d love to hear what appeared to you.

Sending love,
Suleika

Come see me live on the Alchemy Tour!

The first few shows have been absolutely incredible—to finally get a chance to gather with this community is such a dream. Everything is sold out except for the April 28 show in San Francisco and the show in Los Angeles on May 1. I hope you’ll join us!

Vincent Van Gogh, The Garden of Saint Paul's Hospital (1889)

Prompt 335. Just Ten Images by Ash Parsons Story

I spent my early years in a rural village in Zaire, Africa, in the 1980s, and when our family moved back to the United States, I didn’t fit in. Fortunately, my parents gave me my first diary, complete with a little gold lock and key, as a “welcome home to the home that doesn’t feel like home” gift. Lonely and confused about this new version of a village, I poured everything into those pages. I never missed a day, and each year I started a new one. Understanding my life by writing it down became a practice I carried into adulthood, married life, and motherhood.

Then we adopted our third son. Zion was born three months premature and weighed two pounds. The first time I saw him, wires and tubes came from his body like octopus legs and the beeping alarms of the NICU screamed at me. But the sight of him gave me the same feeling as when I gave birth to my other two sons: It was like coming home. I spent the next six weeks holding Zion inside my shirt, skin to skin, watching him grow. Life as a NICU mom was all-consuming and not conducive to writing. There’s only so much you can do when you’re holding a fragile, football-sized human in your arms.

So I started to make mental notes of images:

—The scrub room at the NICU entrance, where I’d lather my hands at the wide metal basins, using my foot to control the faucet.

—The flashing red number that signaled his oxygen saturations were dropping as he lay in his incubator, and how they came back up to normal as soon as I held him.

—The way he furrowed his brow like an old man when he was hungry, pursed and wrinkled his lips as he gave out a little squawk.

I carried these images in my mind’s back pocket and wrote them down when I got home. Without even realizing it, I was finding a way to write my life—even when I had “no time or energy to write.”

Zion is nine now and life hasn’t gotten any less complicated. Mothering a critically ill child with disabilities is the most wild gift. It’s a life of surprises, delights, and never ending interruptions, and that’s just before breakfast. But writing is how I translate my life to myself. It’s my sense-maker. So in the middle of it all, I have embraced a writing life of Ten Images. That’s it, just ten.

I think of ten moments, mental pictures, scenes, objects that pop up when I recall the last 24 hours and then I write them down. They range from the mundane to the exceptional—it doesn't matter. The value doesn’t lie in the image, but my attention to it. Sometimes one of those images jumps out at me and says, “Let’s go somewhere together…” and I find myself writing an entire chapter or essay. True story: I’m currently writing a memoir this way. But most of the time I look at my list and exhale with a great sense of accomplishment: I have lived another day. I have seen what I’ve seen. And I have given my life a voice by writing it down.

Your prompt for the week:

Your life might look nothing like mine but maybe you also feel that you lack the time, emotional space, or the presence of that saucy minx, “inspiration,” to write. Maybe you can’t sit down and write multiple pages or hundreds of words but I bet you can come up with ten images from the last 24 hours. Give it a try.

One of my favorite things is going back through my “Ten Images” pages from the last year and seeing what I saw. No matter what is going on in the world, within or without, I know I can find a home in these pages.

Today’s Contributor—

Ash Parsons Story is a photographer, writer, and mother. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, American Photo Magazine, and Real Simple Weddings. An alumni of the 2019 Thread at Yale program through the Yale Journalism Initiative, Ash has taught at workshops, creative retreats, and been a web designer, community volunteer, and a vital part of creative collaborations all over the world for the last fifteen years.

Praise for The Book of Alchemy

“An extraordinary collection of wisdom. The Book of Alchemy is a springboard to new ideas, new insights, and new identities.” —Adam Grant, author of Think Again

“The Book of Alchemy proves on every page that a creative response can be found in every moment of life—regardless of what is happening in the world. It also demonstrates that we can be more creative together than we could ever be alone. I recommend it to every dreamer, with the highest respect and joy.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love

“Beyond her brilliance as a writer, Suleika Jaouad’s greatest offering to the world is her brilliance of generosity, her curiosity, her seeking heart and mind. The Book of Alchemy is an extension and expansion of these gifts.” —Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year

“Brilliant. Gentle. Encouraging. This book is the perfect mix of incandescent wisdom and kick-in-the-pants motivation to start your own creative journey.” —Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason