A lattice of letters

Lesley's Unpsychology invitation and offering

Photo by Serena Repice Lentini on Unsplash

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Introduction

As outlined in our post Steps forward. Steps back, a couple of week ago, we - the Unpsychology editorial team - are now moving forward with a new set of small projects and collaborations.

Steps forward. Steps back.

Rather than curating and editing a magazine - as we have for the past 10 years – we've decided to explore some fresh paths which relate to the themes, processes and practices that Unpsychology taps into – and which will help us nurture ourselves, each other and the community that has grown around the magazine.

Each editor will be curating a different project, or creative 'nub'. This is Lesley Maclean’s invitation. Find Julia Macintosh’s project nub (The Unpsychology Writer’s Playgroup) HERE and Steve Thorp’s nub invitation (Small Forms) HERE.

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A lattice of letters

So it’s my turn now to present a nub of an idea for Unpsychology’s current iteration. It’s one that’s been brewing for a while but I’ve been finding it hard to write about. You can’t see it where you’re sitting, but here on my desk there’s a frenzy of scribbled attempts to articulate something that remains stubbornly fuzzy, a mutant labyrinth that refuses to find its centre. That’s how I’ve been lately and it’s a sense that has been gathering speed. Now I find myself teetering between wanting to participate creatively with geographically separated but like-minded others and wanting to chuck all that in and do less—more slowly—with people I can see and feel.

Although the concept of living simply appeals to me, my excitable mind has made that impossible. I jump in quickly, easily — splash!—in response to projects that interest me. Ideas spring out, crying for expression, inviting me to help to give them voice. I’m no longer alone, I belong to something larger, much larger — huge!

Before I know it, I’ve signed on to something more than I bargained for. Once the wheels are in motion, all kinds of details need tending to. So many moments of potential that could be—that deserve to be—noticed and considered. I get drawn into this tending aspect too, and yet this part of the process runs much more slowly. With all my excited leaps, I am frequently overcommitted and yet I find it so hard to step away. Perhaps I experience belonging as connected to being needed by others and I don’t want to let them down.

I have loved working on Unpsychology these past four issues, and have felt a strong sense of belonging. To the people I make this magazine with, who have become friends. To the contributors who have entrusted us with their creative offspring to play with and curate. To readers who have followed along, silently appreciative or through warm messages and comments. And to this curious organism that is Unpsychology, which I can’t pin down in words except to say it’s an organism that belongs to the organism we all belong to.

Unpsychology? It’s an organism that belongs to the organism we all belong to.

Here’s my nub…

With all that, I’m not feeling able to spend the time to serve a large magazine project, beautiful as it is, connected to all the hives of creativity it is connected to. But rather than just giving it up completely, I’d like to offer an experimental version of Unpsychology, one wiggly arm of this beautiful organism on a smaller scale, a looser weave of connection and belonging.

So here’s my nub, and its form is pretty simple. A group of us could write letters to each other.

We’d each be writing at different times to different people, there would be gaps in between and letters that don’t get sent or get lost in the post. We could try some variations; perhaps a chain letter that wanders around the globe, travelling slowly from person to person? Together we could weave a lattice of letters (and intentions to write letters) that crosses time and space.

It could still be a magazine of sorts, in the sense that the word magazine can refer to a kind of storehouse. We could each make our own unique storehouse-receptacle to hold the letters we receive. We would be a magazine where each issue is unique, yet connected. All of us participating would be contributors, makers, and readers.

I’m thinking we would use email initially to fine tune the process. We can meet sometimes on Zoom if we felt like it, without replacing our main activity of sending and receiving physical letters. If we wanted, one day, we could produce some kind of collaboration related to the process we’ve been in together, which we could publish on Unpsychology’s Substack.

This collaboration could take shape with just a few of us or with a larger group. The number will influence what we create, but the principle remains the same.

If you want to participate, are happy to write and send short letters and can pay to post them, please send me an email to lesley@unpsychology.org with your name, a sentence of two about your interest in this project, your email and snail mail address.

I will get back to you with an initial plan. You’d also need to be OK with having this information shared with the others in the group.

Lesley Maclean - Unpsychology co-editor

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