Cody Cook-Parrott's Blog, page 2

When love goes unseen

Dear Reader,

There are kinds of love that don’t announce themselves. That weave through the shadows with grace and precision, leaving me feeling cherished beyond measure.

Photo by young Russell at Community Sewing Hours

At my opening last week, so many people saw the quilts, the writing, the color, the work. But what you wouldn’t have seen, unless you were looking closely, was Katy staying up late to do the dishes and perfectly measuring where the wall vinyl would go. Tamara quietly trimming all the stray threads from the quilts and lint rolling them for the last of June’s stray hairs. Lukaza making sure I was fed and hydrated before I even knew I was hungry.

Kate telling me I wasn’t allowed to grab the food and curating a perfect snack board for the opening, cooking dinner with Sam for everyone to come home to. Katy’s mom telling me she was going to Costco to get seltzers and brownies without me having to ask. My dad’s quilt shirt deserved its own moment — coordinated, researched, mailed socks and all. He googled “button up quilt shirt” and his sister mailed him quilt socks. My brother and mom, managing the vibes like the cool cucumbers they are. And Katy’s dad and step mom, showing up before everyone else to buy the first quilt.

Dad’s quilt shirt

And if I may again bring it back to my beautiful radiant girlfriend Katy — Katy who moved through every moment of the last few weeks with quiet clarity and endless tenderness. Who kept the house feeling calm and intact, even as I unravelled and re-stitched myself again and again. Who put records on and folded blankets and made sure I had clean socks and a warm bed to collapse into. Who changed my oil in our driveway (hot) when I was many miles over the limit. Who gently insisted I not sleep in sandy sheets, even when I whined and said they were fine. Who made food and coffee for me when she had other things to do, who took June for walks so I could work without guilt, who made beauty out of the mundane while I focused on making beauty for the show.

Lukaza and Tamara at Cedar North

I used to think this was a kind of love I had to earn, or prove myself for. And now it’s just here — growing with us, steadying us, making everything else possible.

I don’t take it for granted. I want to name it, honor it, say thank you out loud. Not just to Katy, but to all the quiet loves that live behind the scenes — the ones keeping the house together, the ones remembering the grocery list, the ones who see us when we forget how to see ourselves. I want my work, always, to be made from that place.

Not everything needs to be visible to be holy. This, too, was love.

Things Of Note :

For the next few weeks I am hosting an ABOLISH ICE Group Quilt Raffle made during Community Sewing Hours. Read all about it and contribute here - everyone who enters gets a postcard of the finished quilt mailed to them

River Nice is hosting their twelve week virtual program Take Control of Your Money that starts in August - there is Reparative pricing for Black and Indigineous participants and payment plans for all - I have already learned so much from their work I really recommend

We gained many ancestors this week, some right on time and some far too soon. Read this beautiful note from Andrea Gibson’s wife Meg Falley. Andrea leaving in such an untimely way has me holding my queer love even tighter today.

Popping open Active Hope today by the great great mentor Joanna Macy who we also lost this week at the very full age of 96. What a wild one. I learned so much from her and am so grateful for her words and teaching in both how she lived and how she died.

There are now open hours, a new workshop, and a closing reception for The Quilt As Archive - I would love to see you there! August 13 Beach Blanket Workshop

for Black and Indigenous participant

CLASSIFIEDS : A nomadic international artist residency for exploring the inner landscape in creative connection to landscapes across the world. Join the WAITLISTClose Circle: Paintings, prints, paper goods, and more made by and for artists and eccentrics. Accessible art collecting. Community over commerce. The Art of Thriving Creatively: Take your first steps to an aligned, alive, and abundant career in this free workshop: Join here.Herbal Consultations open with clinical herbalist Caroline Caswell - book a 15 min free consultation to see if its a good fit by emailing carolinecandacecaswell@gmail.com

Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Are.na
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read June’s installment of the Yes Yes Advice Column for paid subscribers : Check out Choosing Our Inner World

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Self Publishing as Documentation Practice

Public Access Pilates

Dear Reader,

I find that every noticing can become a project, and every project begins as a noticing practice. A noticing pattern. A pattern of all the things I notice in my journal, my notes app, in the tether of my weekly newsletter.

I wade my way through the words to see what sticks again and again and this is how I find my way toward what wants to become permanent. By permanent I mean ever changing and by ever changing I mean always willing to stick the landing.

I use my journal as a place of contemplative research. It is where almost every project begins, or with one sentence scratched on a post it or in my phone. It then makes its way in long form to the notebook, in longer form to the computer, and in public form to you.

Some of these notes never leave the page. Some shape the scaffolding of a future essay or offering, but many just sit there, glowing quietly in their rawness. I’ve come to understand that not everything I write needs to go somewhere. But the act of writing itself—of witnessing—does something to me. It organizes what I didn’t know I was trying to understand. It shows me what I’m circling, what I’m avoiding, what I already know.

There’s a rhythm I return to: the inner, the page, the conversation, the offering. Back again. The rhythm isn’t about productivity but presence. It’s not about output but about practice. Journaling, for me, is not a holding tank or a draft—it is a place of devotion, and sometimes, a place of becoming.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to let our private language slowly meet the world. What it means to shape something loosely, gently, and with care—so that someone else might pick it up and feel less alone. I don’t think we need to rush that process. But I do believe in creating containers that help us tend to it with intention.

Without social media I find that the hardest part for me is not having an easy digital container to swiftly self publish my work, even if only three people see it, I still want a vessel to place my creative efforts. This is what I have loved so much about creating channels in Are.na. It feels like building constellations in an ever growing archive.

The process usually begins with a phrase that comes to me - the name of a class comes to me before the curriculum itself, or the name of a book or zine or art show or essay. Witnessing Practice, the class I am teaching this Saturday, actually came second - I knew I wanted to teach a focused and spacious class about self publishing and I wanted it to be clear that it was about the witnessing, not just the making.

My most recent project, Public Access Pilates, came first as a name and second as a project. It doesn’t make money so I don’t really consider it a business in this moment, but maybe some day it will be. That is why the class is called Witnessing Practice not The Business of Witnessing.

For me, self-publishing has always been a way to build containers for my noticing. My writing, my videos, my photographs, my voice memos, the scattered artifacts of my attention. Creating websites for little projects has become more exciting since leaving social media as well, whole little worlds to contain my projects.

Lately I have also been asking myself what to do with the ache of this moment—the ache of watching genocide unfold, the ache of trans women remaining the most vulnerable, the ache of neighbors held in ICE detention, the ache of trying to hold joy and grief in the same breath. There’s so much that can’t be fixed with language, with somatic movement, with ritual. And still, I write, I get on the mat, I stand at the water’s edge. Not because it solves anything, but because it’s one way I stay with what I refuse to look away from. Writing, self-publishing, and small acts of attention help me keep my heart from hardening. They’re not solutions—but they’re part of how I stay human.

And from there, action emerges. Not always loud, not always public—but precise, personal, shaped by the integrity of what we’ve noticed. A quilt made as a group, collaboratively deciding on how it can be used to fundraise. A letter mailed. A phone call made. A class taught. A thought held in pages. These are not side notes. They’re the form our steadiness takes.

On Saturday I am teaching for three hours and going to tell you everything I know about self publishing books, zines, websites, and newsletters - all from the ideas in your journals! Class is $55 and recorded if you can’t make it live. You could also apply the lessons in class to an oracle deck, a board game, or anything else you’d like to self produce.

I don’t think everything needs to scale. I think some things just need to be held. The smallest audience, the quietest offering, the gentlest arrival—these, too, are forms of publishing. Of saying: I’m here. I made this. I noticed. Whether it’s a hastily stapled zine, a single webpage, an email sent to five friends, or a quilt draped across a coffee shop gallery wall—what matters to me is that it came from a place of care.

So this is where I leave you: with a gentle reminder that your private thoughts are not wasted, your half-formed ideas are not unworthy. They’re the beginning. They always have been. Whether you join me this weekend or not, I hope you’ll keep noticing, keep tending, keep finding ways to offer what you make to the world—even if only three people see it. May you find a form that fits the shape of what you’re creating.

READ MORE + SIGN UP FOR WITNESSING PRACTICE

I look forward to meeting you there in the great witnessing. Let me know if you have any questions, or reply to this email - I’d love to know what you’re working on or thinking of bringing to class!

Things Of Note :Photo by Tamara Santibañez

The opening of my show The Quilt As Archive at Cedar North was beyond my wildest imagination. Three of the nine quilts sold and you can find the remaining six here. Payment plans available at checkout. If you are in Northern Michigan between now and September 13 send me an email info AT codycookparrott DOT com or respond to this email and I’ll meet you over there and give you a tour of the show!

For the next few weeks I am hosting an ABOLISH ICE Group Quilt Raffle made during Community Sewing Hours. Read all about it and contribute here - everyone who enters gets a postcard of the finished quilt mailed to them

I was incredibly moved by The Quilters documentary on Netflix, especially Chill’s butterfly quilts

Picked up The Art of Money Workbook by Bari Tessler (book club anyone>??)

New Valerie June album is unreal

CLASSIFIEDS : Liberation work gets messy. Conflict is sacred, not shameful. The Conflict Clinic is where justice-rooted leaders come to stay human.From Do You Ever: Razzle Dazzle ‘Em // The only tool you need to answer the question, what do you do? Free.99 notion templateLINE TIME is a podcast by and for artists. We provide monthly transition rituals to help you ease into your flow. Grab a drawing tool and join us. Need help with your story? Joyus Studio is a storytelling consultancy (and host of the podcast, Thinking on Thinking) that specializes in helping creatives find their differentiated brand, voice and story. Book an audit hello@joyus.studioYou’ve done the inner work. Now you want change you can see. 1:1 coaching for queer ADHDers—diagnosed or not—ready for structure, self-trust, and real accountability. We’re all recovering from something & we don’t need to heal alone. Learn about SHE RECOVERS inclusive, accessible programming & support, here.

Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Are.na
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read June’s installment of the Yes Yes Advice Column for paid subscribers : Check out Choosing Our Inner World

Consider becoming a paid subscriber of Monday Monday for $5/mo or $35/ year to keep it free every Monday and access Behind The Scenes of Business and the Yes Yes Advice Column

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A Sweet Opening

Dear reader,

Today is the opening of my first solo art show, The Quilt As Archive. The good news is before the show even opens I sold my first quilt. I am giving you, my sweet email list, first pick of the nine quilts I created for the show. They are available here for purchase before the public lays eyes on them this evening at Cedar North from 5-8pm. I love the idea of them on the back of your couch or on your bed.

Archive Five

This week Tamara and Lukaza came to visit me from New York to help me get ready for the show, support me, and just be with me. It has meant so much to have chosen family by my side during such a big week. To share meals, laughter, sadness, grief, and get to weave them into my local friend family.

On top of that, my mom and dad, my little brother, and his partner all rolled up to my house last night and I made us a big dinner. We went to the gallery, grabbed ice cream on the way to the beach, and swam while the sun set. We got back and all spread out on the five acres and found our nooks and slept through a big rainstorm. I’m not sure I have ever felt so loved. June is happy to be getting so many pets.

Community Quilter Sara Reilly

This week during The Quilt as Archive we came together for Community Sewing Hours to work on a group quilt. We brainstormed where we could use the quilt to redistribute funds and found the organization No Detention Centers in Michigan 

They pointed us to the Go Fund Me for Lucas’ father who is being held at North Lake ICE detention center and needs bail money to be released so their family can be whole again. These are our neighbors. 

🎟️ ABOLISH ICE QUILT RAFFLE
🔗 Contribute $15 or more to the GoFundMe by August 15 to be entered

Go to the link to contribute to the go fund me, upload the screenshot of your donation, and enter your mailing address for a postcard of the finished quilt sent to all raffle entries - quilt winner announced by August 16

Community Quilters Include :
Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo
Bobby Touhey
Cody Cook-Parrott
Sara Reilly
Laural (Ona) Horton
Russell Horton

In other quilt news : My Quilt Camp Retreat with Green Door Folk School is SOLD OUT (!!! wow) but make sure to check out all the other amazing classes they are doing - including Wild Dyers Lab with Kayla Powers

I hope to see some of you this evening at Cedar North - Ellen repainted and added on to the goat scultpure park - so if that isn’t reason enough to come I don’t know what is!

And for those of you who can’t make it but wish you could - buy a show catalogue with an essay, poem, photographs of all the quilts, all ninety one of my quilt books written out, and more!

In gratitude,

Cody

Notes on Practice and Pricing

Archive Seven

Dear Reader,

I have never had an online quilt shop because I thought if I had an online quilt shop I would hate making quilts. I have a BFA in Dance but I’ve barely made any money dancing in the last twenty years because I think a part of me so desparately wants to protect how much I love to dance that to monetize it would be to risk losing the sacred nature of its form.

Here I am, five days away from my first solo art show, and I will indeed have quilts for sale. When I was going to price them I felt stuck like, should they each be a few hundred dollars, a few thousand dollars, or a million dollars? A friend suggested thinking about the hours I spent on them. But what about the hours pouring over the quilt books in the back of John King or the hours dreaming of color combinations. How do you factor in seeing quilts in every crack in every sidewalk?

I bring all of this to my journal. My morning pages journal always the same, the cover appearing in different shades of kraft or pastels or this time a bright pink. Always the same size just shy of 5.5 by 8.5 - enough to fill a page triumphantly but not get tired.

I bring it to the page because this is where the answers come, the clarity emerges. The price emerges. $750. $2000. $355. I price to sell. Not because I do not think I am worthy of more, but because I want these blankets on a white wall to find their homes on a bed.

Last semester in grad school I worked on two pieces of writing that will appear in the show catalogue for The Quilt As Archive which you can purchase for $15 here. It includes a long form poem, essay about the AIDS Memorial quilt and group quilts, a bibliography of my personal quilt library that will be in the gallery, and images of each quilt.

The show opens this Saturday July 12 at Cedar North from 5-8pm and I am hosting free drop in community sewing hours starting today through Friday from 1-3pm (sewing machines and fabric provided)

If you find yourself on the way to beach, come by. I continue to find tracking our hours is not just about the making but about the deep reverence, the practice, the time it takes to become.

Quilts hold time in this way, in each stitch a memory or a fact or a certainty of faith. A soft archive, holding steady when everything else seems to fail so easily.

We keep going, patiently, letting the work become part of us as we become part of it.

A question to my readers : What is an integral part of your practice that you do not monetize? Why is this so? Are you pleased by this decision? Reply to this email and let me know, I’d truly love to hear from you!

Things of Note :

I released my first FREE Pilates warm up video. You can download it here. Just practicing.

There are only THREE spots left in my QUILT CAMP retreat with guest teacher saylem m celeste September 5-8 in Cedar, MI. Sunset swims, radical quilt lectures, new friends, and more!

I loved this episode of Off The Grid with Jen Carrington - very few people talk about self employment and being chronically ill the way Jen does and Amelia continues to run one of the greatest podcasts of our time

I have a survey open right now about your small business TECH STACK if you’d like to fill it out. Everyone who fills it out will have access to the results by Friday. Over 150 responses so far!

Two of my coolect friends Holly Whitaker and J Wortham talk on Holly’s new podcast about how to stay present during collapse

Three books I picked out and skimmed while eating at Hexenbelle the other evening - would recommend them all - especially Moral Abdication

CLASSIFIEDS : Crafted over seven years of drawing, writing, and wandering Pacific Northwest trails, Magic Flowers is a plant poetry oracle deck made just for you.Somatic business & social media support to find your peace. Book a free call to explore 1:1 or join the Gentle Momentum Group Do you know how to tell your story? This season on Thinking on Thinking we’re sharing the secrets of making and telling the story you want told. Watch now on SpotifyOPT OUT: How to Quit Meta, Google, or Amazon with Ease — Craft a softer, surveillance-free life online with Amelia of Off the Grid podcast ⟡ July 15-17 on Zoom ⟡ Take $10 off with code MONDAYMONDAYDesigners, crafters & color lovers: meet your new fave tool! Palette Scout is a deck of cards with 180 colors, here to help you build color palettes with ease. More color, more joy!

Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Are.na
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read June’s installment of the Yes Yes Advice Column for paid subscribers : Check out Choosing Our Inner World

Consider becoming a paid subscriber of Monday Monday for $5/mo or $35/ year to keep it free every Monday and access Behind The Scenes of Business and the Yes Yes Advice Column

Upgrade now

FREE : Pilates Warm Up Video

Dear Reader

Today I gift you a 14 minute video of me guiding you through a warm up of basic Pilates moves.

It is me practicing teaching. It is you showing up for your body today. It is the magical gift of Pilates.

It is also me officially launching my new project Public Access Pilates which is mostly an archival art project of me doing Pilates at home but also some day might become a business but today is an invitation to keep practicing.

FREE PILATES WARM UP VIDEO

Download the free video and practice Pilates at home. No spandex no props all you need is a body and a mat.

Take care

Cody

Public Access Pilates

Dear reader,

I write to you from a business ecosystem vortex where everything feels out of place but right on time. I have begun documenting my at home Pilates mat practice and made a website for it.

Welcome to another insallment of : Behind The Scenes of Business ☺

A New Effort

Dear Reader,

I have so much to share with you these days. So many things in my professional and creative ecosystem I want you to know about. It is also day by day that I learn what devotion really looks like, how it moves in the body, how it shows up in small, consistent ways even when no one is watching. Lately, I’ve been filming myself in my movement practice, not to post immediately or prove anything, but to witness how my body shifts, how I hold myself, how I grow. It has helped me gain confidence, not in an extreme way, but in the quiet assurance that comes from seeing yourself commit to something you love.

I remember after I filmed myself dancing every day for a year over at @personalpractice thinking : wow, I got so much better at dancing. I didn’t “try” to get better at anything, I just did the same thing every day and those were the results.

Some days showing up feels easy, like when I’m already on the mat before I’ve had time to think about it. Other days it’s more of a negotiation, a small conversation I have with myself about whether I really need to move or write or sew, and then doing it anyway. I’m learning that devotion isn’t some big dramatic gesture. Most of the time, it looks like doing the thing in a regular, unremarkable way, over and over, and letting that be enough.

These new shapes remind me that the body is capable of constant reorientation, that I can become stronger and softer at the same time. Every time I film myself doing Pilates, I wonder, “Do I start a YouTube channel?” Imagine it: a quiet, gay corner of the internet where I breathe, move, and remind you to do the same.

I’ve also been noticing how everything is connected. Sewing a quilt feels a lot like practicing Pilates—figuring out where something is too tight or too loose, finding the next right piece, paying attention to the details without getting lost in them. Writing feels like that too. It’s all just small steps that add up, moving forward even when it feels slow, trusting that it matters.

This commitment to practice extends beyond the mat. It shows up in the ways I write, self-publish, and share work with you. My next online class, Witnessing Practice, is open for enrollment now, and it’s about exactly this: how the private pages of your journal can lead to public sharing—newsletters, zines, books—without losing the tenderness and integrity that made you want to write in the first place. It’s about devotion to your voice, your stories, and finding a rhythm that allows you to share your work without burning out or disappearing into overwhelm.

I am also opening up space to take on a few 1:1 clients who want to work together on creative practice, business systems, and building structures that support your art. It feels connected to everything else I am doing: the way a movement practice supports writing, the way writing supports our ability to witness ourselves clearly, the way witnessing ourselves can transform how we move through the world. If you want support in this season, I am here.

And yes, Quilt Camp registration is open, too. (Use code QUILTCAMPWAITLIST) I am delighted to share I will be joined by guest teacher saylem m celeste. In September, we will gather with our sewing machines and our questions, piecing together days of sunset swims, improvisational patchwork, radical quilt lectures, and resting. All of these threads—movement, self-publishing, devotion, humor, community—are part of the same fabric I am weaving with you. Thank you for being here, for moving and making alongside me.

Things of Note :

Sky Fusco is hosting TUNE IN DROP OUT : an accountability group to take the month of July off of Instagram

Esmé Weijun Wang is teaching Writing Through Brain Fog on Saturday July 12

My first solo show The Quilt As Archive opens July 12 at Cedar North 5-8pm and I’d love to see you there

If you are in NYC make sure to check out FREEDOM TIME : Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls July 5-August 9 at Recess Art - Opening Gathering July 5 5-8pm : Dances sent from inside Jenin, Palestine

CLASSIFIEDS : Quilt near the North Pole—find space to reflect, reconnect, and create in the deep stillness of Svalbard’s polar night. Receive full spectrum support for gender questioning, exploration, and transition with The Gender Doula!Need fresh eyes on your site? Creative clarity? The Brand Dossier was made for you. Book a free 15m anything-goes chat with Carrie (zoom/phone/text)Scratch That Podcast / queer illustrator & disabled storyteller / on being parents & people at the same time / off script & starting from scratchGraphic designer seeking poster, album art, & branding clients - also offering discounted web design while I learn to code. Let's grow together ~<:)

Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Instagram : @codycookparrott @personalpractice
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read June’s installment of the Yes Yes Advice Column for paid subscribers : Check out Choosing Our Inner World

Choosing Our Inner World

🪟 Registration is open for QUILT CAMP September 5-8 in Cedar, MI. Sunset swims, radical quilt lectures, and improvisational patchwork. Housing right next door to our classroom space, up the road from my house. Presented by Green Door Folk School. Use code QUILTCAMPWAITLIST to access the webpage - 10 spots total / 8 spots left

🪞 Tomorrow Sunday June 29 12-4EST in Landscapes : CAVE DAY where we write for four hours together in the zoom room

🪡 My first solo show The Quilt As Archive opens July 12 5-8 at Cedar North. I will also be hosting community sewing hours July 7-11 from 1-3 pm at the gallery to work on a group raffle quilt. Free + drop ins welcome, no sewing experience required and sewing machines provided.

Welcome to Yes Yes - my advice column tucked into the Monday Monday newsletter.

I write to you from a dreary morning in Northern Michigan. It has been overcast much of the days with pops of glorious sun. I have been throwing my body into the water as much as I can, sharp in the way that Lake Michigan is most of the year, but baptismal in the way I long for.

Today’s question is right in line with what I am thinking about as I explore domestic partnership for the first time in three years and prepare for my first solo show.

If you have a question for the next Yes Yes Advice Column you can ask it here. It’s anonymous and you are welcome to ask professional and personal questions.

I am not a therapist and I have no training in advice giving. I am an artist, a writer, and a teacher of creative practice with a devotion to how we live. These are my opinions, my best shot at hope, and what I know from 37 years on the planet. As always, may you hold a gentle spirit while reading, take what you like, and leave the rest. Let’s dive in!

Dear Cody, this is a question about aloneness and valuing your own work and journey. As a recovering codependent, I really struggle to choose myself and my solitude over whatever else is happening (my partner wants to watch a show? morning pages can wait - the simplest of examples). The problem is I’m finally at a point where I’m tired of not choosing my inner world and ideas and can feel the frustration with myself building. Part of it is I avoid time with myself and stillness so I’m glad for the distraction, but part of it might also be that I don’t value my own mind enough to want to dedicate time and space to what comes from it. How do I get unstuck from this place and move towards creation?

Dear reader,

First, I want to say: you are not alone in this. In fact, I am right there with you today. Even people who appear deeply committed to their practices and inner worlds still struggle to choose themselves when the tiny, everyday invitations to drift arrive—a partner asking to watch a show, a notification blinking on a phone, the gentle pull of “just one more thing.” It’s tender work to notice this pattern, and it sounds like you’re at the exact, uncomfortable threshold where real change begins: tired of your own avoidance, curious about the “you” that’s waiting in the quiet. In 12 steps we see “I was sick and tired of being sick and tired”.

A Known Homosexual

A day at home

Dear Reader,

It is a gift to beam into your inbox today. Every Monday I am charmed but today feels especially ripe as I write about one of my favorite things, love. I once retired from writing about love, noticing that it left me feeling empty and alone, even in the sharing of greatness. Like Michael Jordan I love to come out of retirement and try new sports. Or get better at the same ones as before.

In my last serious relationship I found myself projecting a version of what I longed for that wasn’t rooted in reality. This made leaving harder because I had painted a public picture of what I thought was happening, when behind closed doors it was far worse than what I could comprehend.

As my new love has grown I have paused many times to consider how much to share, when to share, and what feels relevant to the reader, to the witness. And while I happen to be gay 365 days out of the year, I am no stranger to the feeling of Pride month pushing me towards my own visibility.

Katy and I have a wild love story that started sixteen years ago. At twenty years old we fell madly in love, but as any good alcoholic knows, I wasn’t ready to keep a good thing going. Fast forward to this past winter when she was visiting her hometown, the one next to mine, and voila - love spells abound, we reunited.

I don’t know that I believe in love at first sight, but I do know that when she walked through the door of my house she was my person. The one I had asked for, wished for, and prayed for. The one who I would take big risks for and protect at all costs.

Trusting love doesn’t come easy for me. I fall hard but then as things settle into their shape I start to question the smallest things. A pull away of the hand, making plans without me, the every day lulls of domesticity. These fears, grounded in my anxious attachment, have been a pain in the ass in most of my relationships. It has felt simply unhealable, like I will never fully believe I am safe enough to relax.

The other night as I was getting ready for sleep Katy sat with me on the edge of the bed, reviewing our day. She tucked me in and said I love you in the way she always does when I go to bed first which is every night. A few minutes later I gasped, I believe you I said.

I realized that for one of the first times in this relationship my first thought after hearing I Love You wasn’t - but when will that run out? It was just - I believed her. I fully believe that this person loves me.

This is a testament to finding someone who is exceptional at showing me love in the ways that make sense to me. But what it also is, which I feel deep satisfaction in, is my resilience to working through my own generational trauma and inner demons. When I realized I believed her I felt the shoulders relax on my ancestors. Like yes, we made it, we believe in love.

Katy teared up and started to cry a bit, which is when I realized that believing she loves me doesn’t just heal me, it heals her. In the trust of love she is seen, she is alive, she is made of stardust.

I love my private little life in the woods, and I also love to shout love from the rooftops. I hope however this Pride month is feeling for you you are able to love yourself fully and let love in.

Last night we watched the first installment of the Pee-Wee Herman documentary and I wept and wept. At the generation we lost to AIDS, at how quickly we can go back into the closet, at how success and wanting to be ourselves collide. I jotted down the phrase “known homosexual” struck by the knowing. To be known, to be seen, to be loved.

I find myself more patient with my fear and more certain of my luck. Loving Katy feels both ancient and startlingly new. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I know I want to meet it beside her — and for now, that is enough.

Things of Note :

My SOLD OUT retreat in Northampton just had TWO SPOTS open! I am teaching Scores of the Invisible : a two day writing and movement workshop during my residency at ATLAND - I’d love for you to join! August 23 + 24

This past year I have had the pleasure of being coached by the very cool Dr. Kate Henry and she is teaching an online class you don’t want to miss on Sunday June 29! Get Unstuck and Move Forward: A Project Reset Workshop

I don’t quite have the words today for continued violence, but I do have this that I come back to time and time again

Sister Corita Kent

The Solstice Super Sale class bundle ends tonight! Get seven class recordings for only $99

I am hosting sliding scale mat Pilates 1:1 sessions at my home studio in Cedar, MI this Summer : respond to this email to schedule a session. Beginners welcome!

CLASSIFIEDS : Does a part of you love astrology and a part of you love IFS? 🌞 We connect them in our podcast: weekly discussions and ‘scopes for the deep + curious."It's better than I could've imagined" ☻ Creative support for values-driven & mission-centric artists, makers & small biz ownersGet a free month's membership at Sparkle on Substack with Claire Venus. Learn how to set up a free newsletter. Join us for monthly classes to develop your voice and grow sustainably and joyfully. What if your emails could help you sell before you ever launch? This is what I use with 1:1 clients to warm up their list. 👉 Get on the waitlist.A different kind of quilt retreat—space to breathe, reconnect, and explore your creative voice in the quiet beauty of the Pyrenees.

Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Instagram : @codycookparrott @personalpractice
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read May’s installment for paid subscribers : Check out A Devastated Heart, a Return to the iPhone, and a Pilates shed

In My Solstice Cocoon

Dear Reader,

After weeks of reporting, marketing, and email sending — I feel quiet. I want to retreat into my cocoon. There’s something about this moment in June: the longest light, the heavy blossoms, the gentle insistence to pause and notice what’s right here. I long for beach weather and yet the dreary rainy days also wrap me up in a way that feels familiar.

Yesterday in Systems for Artists (feel free to join us and grab the recording) I shared some of my favorite definitions of the word system.

a group of celestial objects connected by their mutual attractive forces, especially moving in orbits about a center

Photo by Lilian Pitser

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to small corners of my day that don’t ask to be shared. The way the light pools on the kitchen floor at 7am. The slow circles June makes before lying down. The words I write that never leave the page. These small, secret things remind me that my life is still mine — even when I feel the expectations of others swinging down on me.

I suppose this is my way of saying: I hope you’re tending to your own interior spaces too. The ones no algorithm can find. The ones that grow wild and soft when left alone for a while. The great seed planting.

Sometimes I forget that Landscapes is not just a writing group or a place to share work — it’s a room I can slip into when the world outside asks too much. A soft interior space for thinking beside others. A place to be changed by what someone else is noticing. This month my dear friend Sky Fusco has been hosting so that I may take a break. Focusing on Pilates, dance, and rest - it has been both a luxury and a place I miss dearly.

This week Friday at 12pm EST I am delighted to be hosting Laurel Schwulst inside of the Landscapes ecosystem. Laurel will be giving an Are.na talk — an informal hour about how she works, how she collects ideas, and how she trusts the shape that things want to take. Laurel’s practice reminds me that the internet can still feel like a garden, or a bookshelf, or a half open window where ideas land on your desk and you shuffle them around and then create new work.

If you’re feeling quiet too, come sit with us. Bring your questions or just listen. Maybe you’ll pick up an idea or two to sit with later.

See you there.
More soon,
Cody

Things of Note :

Grief Writing for Children of Immigrants is a free writing series hosted by Alej Perez-Kohl, MS, LMFT

Northern Michigan folks : Molly Moynahan is teaching her amazing memoir class again this Summer at NMC - July 7th–August 4th (Mondays, 10–12pm EDT)

I finally saw Sinners and I loved it

Huge congrats to Green Door Folk School and Cedar North on collaborating and giving Green Door a home!

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Want to include a classified ad for August? Click here to read more

Instagram : @codycookparrott @personalpractice
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read May’s installment for paid subscribers : Check out A Devastated Heart, a Return to the iPhone, and a Pilates shed