Welcome to The Little Courtyard, Again

A friend of mine became a paid subscriber, so now I actually have to write this newsletter at least once a month. I'm pumped.

Hey, everyone. Some of you may know me as the author of the memoir, Walking to Listen. The rest of you, like my aunt Mary Ellen or my uncle Frank, for instance, probably just plain old know me. There are currently 459 of you. That’s a lot of people. If we were all in the same space together, the house would be packed. I want to feel you with me like that, in the writing to come.

If you’re getting this email, it’s because you signed up for my newsletter at some point since 2017, when I launched my first website as a newly published author and declared to the world that I had a newsletter. I did send out a few newsletters, as some of you know. But I wasn’t consistent and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I still don’t really know what I’m doing with this 2.0 version of my newsletter, but consistent it will be.

Why? Because my 459th reader just became a paid subscriber. C.J. Dirago. A new friend of mine in Maine. I couldn’t believe it. I got an email from Substack informing me that someone was now paying me $7 per month for my monthly newsletter. What newsletter? Oh yeah, right, that ever-unchecked box on my to-do list, that little persistent dangler. You gotta that newsletter out, really get it going. Why? Because it could change the world, man. Because you have some good shit to say. Because people need you.

I do not believe, at this point, that anyone needs me (beyond the ways in which we all need each other), or that if I could change the world, I should (perhaps we have an upcoming post there on that latter idea). However, I do still believe, truth be told, that I have some good shit to say. And I have realized that perhaps you don’t need me, but I need you. Quite literally. I need you, C.J. I needed you to become a paid subscriber in order for me to get off my ass and actually set sail, catch the winds of wherever this newsletter wants to go. I don’t know where it’s going, but it is going somewhere, even if it’s down to the dark, dark bottom or around in circles, because so long as even one of you is paying me for this, I am obliged to write something for us here.

Thank you, honestly. I have wanted to be writing here to you for a while, and when I say you, I mean: a group of people who are interested in my voice and in what this voice has to say. I have learned how lonely it is to be a writer without an audience, or rather, in my case, a neglected audience. Not that you’ve been longing and waiting and just desperate to read whatever it is I have to write. You’ve been doing you, and you’ll go on doing you. And I’ll keep doing me, but I think what I’m saying is that I want to do me with you. At least sometimes. Once or twice a month. From the comfortable distance provided by the written word and computers. I want to find out more of what’s inside here, and share that with you, and see what’s possible when I ask for your support: the simple support of reading along, and then the more engaged support of your financial backing.

So, as we go, as these newsletters start to come out and you start to get the feel for them, for whatever it is they do for you, to you, with you, I’d ask you to consider their value to you, and if the time should ever come that you want to enter into a reciprocal relationship with me, I’d heartily and with a great guffaw of love welcome you to become a paid subscriber. Gone are the days of believing I do not need money, that I can offer my work for free and god will provide. God does provide, goddess will provide, Gaia is always providing. And, and, and, self-respect is one of the pathways by which the universe provides for us, which is to say, for itself. There. That’s a good line, right? Chew on that one for a sec! You can expect lines like that, and stories, and who knows what else, here in this little clearing in the woods (which is what I’ve been told my last name means in the German), this little courtyard in the forest. Welcome to The Little Courtyard, my readers. Thank you for coming.

God, I just had a flash of anxiety that was like, Bro, this is just another false start. Here you are, pumping yourself up, talkin’ all grandiose, welcoming people into whatever it is you think this is, and you’re just gonna drop the ball again, dude. And no one’s gonna care. This is just you talking to yourself.

Well, you know what, Mr. Mean Man? You’re wrong. You know how I know you’re wrong? C.J. Dirago, dog! C.J. Dirago! You’re wrong, Mr. Mean Man! You’re wrong! C.J. Dirago signed up to be a goddamn paid subscriber! You know what this means? It means I’ll be showing up to this little courtyard at least once, maybe twice, perhaps (but probably not) three times a month! Sit down, Mr. Mean Man. Sit down. You can stay here in the Courtyard, all are welcome here, but you’re gonna need to sit down and hush, my friend. Thank you.

So. Here we are. I think I’ll leave it here for now. This first post in the Courtyard is to let you all know I’m setting sail, and I’ve got C.J.’s wind at my back, and we’re going somewhere, people. Stay tuned if you wanna find out where. It’ll be a long journey, I hope. I’d like to write here for a long time, with your company. I’ll keep sailing so long as just one of you is filling my sails with your breath, your attention, and your MONEY!

And to be clear: I understand what your money is. It is the time you spent babysitting those irate toddlers. It is the exhaustion at the end of a full day with your depressed and suicidal and intractably stuck clients. It is that energy you could have given to your wife, or your husband, or your best friend who is actually in your life. I’m not actually in your life, for most of you. Why would you give me some of your life? Because that is what you are giving me when you pay me for my work. You are giving me the time and energy it took to make that money, which is to say, your life. If you’re getting paid $18 per hour at Starbucks, and you’re giving me $7 per month, that’s 0.3 hours of your life you’ve just given me, not to mention the time it takes to read my work. Or however those numbers shake out.

But the truth is, the value of our lives cannot be measured in numbers. Your life is priceless. It is sacred. And for all of you, paid subscribers and free subscribers, I will show up to this work with that in mind.

You’ll have to stay tuned for more. I honestly don’t know where it’s going, what it could give you, or why exactly you should hang around. It’s live, folks. This post is the final call to get on the boat or toss your flowers out into the sea as a beautiful goodbye. If you’re on board, you don’t have to do anything (other than consider becoming a paid subscriber). If you’re like, nah, I’m not trying to sail somewhere with this guy, or I’ve got way too many sailboats taking me in all different directions, then I encourage you to abandon ship. I just went through a new year’s purge of unsubscribes and god it felt good.

Thanks, people. Thank you for who you are, and for helping me find out more about who I am, who we are, what this life is all from what I can ascertain. And thank you, C.J. You call me up, brother. Damn, dude, I owe you one. I’m psyched to pay it back every month. Welcome.

And welcome, again, to the rest of you 458 souls. The wind’s rising.