Ceremony

The email came on a Tuesday morning in October. I was at my desk in Calgary, watching the leaves turn that particular shade of blonde they get here in late autumn—not gold, not brown, something in between. Dying and beautiful at once.

*Your story, “Mise en Place for Writers,” has been selected for a Boost!*

I read it three times.

Ten years. One hundred and seventy articles. Previously getting only 3,600 views on my best-performing piece, [*“My Writing Process,”*](https://writingcooperative.com/my-writing-process-4868f986f97f) published in November 2017. Back when I still believed in tricks, hacks, and shortcuts. When I thought there was a right formula, right headline, right tags. And then Medium would finally see me.

Now, in 2025, the algorithm had finally blinked. I stood up. I needed to move.

December 2015. I was nineteen years old and convinced I had something to say. I published my first Medium article, *“*[*The Best Time to Start a New Year’s Resolution is Right Now”*](https://blog.brennan.day/the-best-time-to-start-a-new-year-s-resolution-is-right-now-ffdd389fbf01) with the kind of confidence that comes from never having been edited. Five hundred words of generic advice wrapped in the certainty of youth.

*Forty-three views*. I thought: *this is just the beginning.* I was right, but not in the way I imagined.

Ten years means one hundred and twenty months. Five hundred and twenty weeks. I’ve worked five different jobs, dropped out of university twice, fell in love and broke up three times, published nine books, started a writing club, learned to code, unlearned to code, graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts, had a breakdown in April that left me unable to leave my bedroom for two months. And slowly, in November’s frost, begun to find my way back to my desk.

Ten years means I’ve written about productivity systems and journal writing and quantified self. I’ve written about death and poetry and belonging. Most importantly, I’ve written that writing is ceremony, and ceremony requires patience, and patience is a kind of prayer.

The email didn’t change that. It just confirmed it. I put on my jacket and walked outside into the cold.

## PART ONE: PACING.

The air bites. November in Calgary carries a specific cold—dry, sharp, the kind that makes your lungs work for every breath. I walk without destination, just movement, just the body needing to be in motion when the mind can’t sit still.

The leaves are blonde. This is the word that comes. Not yellow, not gold. Blonde like sun-bleached hair. Prairie grass in late summer. Once alive and green, and now preparing for another form entirely.

My hands are in my pockets. The right one touches the Midori notebook—brown leather, passport-sized, scuffed at the corners from two years of being carried ever