The Anchorage

welcome to a new home!

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about what I love to read in a newsletter this past year, what makes me excited to open a favorite writer’s. And what I love to write and share with others.

As many of you know, I moved to the Pacific Northwest a little over a year ago, which brought many transitions, adjustments, and re-thinks in the ways I try to live a creative life, alongside the necessities of making a living. Working full-time and continuing to write through these changes has been a tricky one to sort through at times.

And I realized I needed a re-boot, a way to reset and find a more expansive frame for the things I love to write about and gain meaning from—place, memory, what has led us to where we are, and in what direction we move towards.

Why the Anchorage?

Having once lived in a place called Anchorage, I’ve thought a lot about the meaning of that name—of how places of anchorage allow for a safe harbor, a protection from storms.

The word anchor is traced to a mix of styles that situate its roots in Greek, Latin, and Old English, meaning crooked, curved. When I read the etymology I felt the word already offering more than I had expected: I thought of the curved and crooked paths life takes. Of how an anchor can be a weight, but also grants the power of refusal—to be able to stop in the middle of tides and currents, offering the capacity of removal from the flow of time, speed, winds—the power to claim a stasis that would otherwise be impossible. Anchors can steady us in rapid currents, that give gravity when we most need its pull.

Anchors latch on to different parts of us in ways we can’t see, in ways that we didn’t know existed. Scarless holds that beckon for return, that leave parts of its iron in the soft flesh of our feelings, identities, histories. When I think of the pulls made on us—those of where we think we should be and the pull of a somewhere we’re still uncertain of—I’ve come to think of anchors as starting points to memory, a means to understand the details of our surroundings and recognize what offers safety in a coming storm. A connection between where we are and where we are headed, so that we might measure the distance.

A wider frame

The Anchorage is a place that understands the straight road to an ideal never exists. It’s a place to examine the pull of both the vertical and the horizontal, the inclination of an anchor that allows us both movement and rest. To look beyond the horizon, while paying close attention to place and our surroundings. To use the anchor of gravity to incline towards others, the boat rock of back and forth, less a position of stasis, alone and easily blown off course, but to become practiced in the rhythm of help and need, knowing that strength comes from the care of what is around us. And from those who came before us.

This will be a space to explore how to live in the anchorages of now, to find space to imagine and create new ideas out of the worn grooves of routine, to refuse the noise that tries so hard to tell others what to think about how to live their lives in this world.

The Anchorage will deliver (mostly) twice each month. With a paid subscription you will receive Commonplacing posts—weekend links of favorite recent reads, ideas, obscure finds, and poetry, along with full access to the archive. I will also send occasional long-form essays and deep, obscure history dives to paid subscribers. Annual paid subscriptions will also receive a digital deck of cards with quotes from favorite, mostly obscure, women writers. Founding members can receive an analog version in the post.

Free subscribers receive:

• a monthly newsletter

As a paid subscriber you’ll also receive:

• commonplacing posts with links, reads, and poetry

• occasional long-form essays and deep dives into obscure histories

• full access to the archive (past posts are paywalled after three weeks)

A note on frequency: It’s important to me that my readers receive work I am proud of and want to share deeply with others. This means that there are times when I’m unable to produce content on a regular schedule, and I want to honor that we all have times where schedules do not work for the vagaries of daydreams, deep questions, or even reflection amidst the noise of daily life. Paid subscriptions help support more opportunities for research and creative work.

I am so grateful for the readers I have connected with over the time writing this newsletter—you all have offered support, community, and conversation in ways I never imagined when I started this. Thank you so much for your fellowship and support—it truly means so much to me.

In the meantime I’ll be out looking to share the next anchorage I find with you all soon

best,

Freya