Let's have tea.

Imagine I've just poured you a cup of tea. Go on, choose your favorite and smell it for yourself. Pu-erh with ginger for me, please. Let's pretend while we're having tea, you're looking in my eyes (they're green, outlined in grey) and we're dropping into each other for a few.

Let's pretend you're not reading this on a device and you can see for yourself how unevenly I cut my bangs this morning.

Now we've got our tea, I have to tell you: there's a lot I don't tell you. You'd think between the blog, Twitter, Instagram, and generally being alive, you know all there is to know about me. Truth is, I share (some days much) less than 20 percent of my life on the web. That changes now - I'll be sharing more, and more intentionally - and I want to talk you through why it's changing, and how.

Let's be brave.

Recently I've been +10 exploring my world. In the freshness of the discoveries I make I see I've toned/watered down, strangulated and left out details of my stories for fear of, well, anything.

Fear you won't like it.

Fear I'll regret it.

Fear it needs more editing.

Fear it'll be too much, too fast, too unsettling to you.

Last December I wrote I want to share more of my truth. I want to live at the razor's edge that is my life. Even if that means I'll bleed some. Even if that means you'll feel uncomfortable sometimes.

Here's the edge.

During a trip to NYC in January, I met with Tanya and Jenn from Language Department. I'm acting as their social web sherpa and they're acting as discovery agents for me.

That means we're collaborating in ways that elevate all of us. (Truly, if I could spend a bit of every day with the Language Department team, I would. It's just, New York, your winters are even more fierce than Boulder's. So that's out.) Many of our discussions focused on why and how to evolve blogging. Our decision is to wipe this blog clean this month, and to build, in public, a new blog. We'll leave up the writing, and it will likely be archived as a zip file. More from Tanya on what's next:

If you wipe your slate clean [and with Gwen’s site, we'll literally do this], if you take away all the assumptions, all the current expressions, what remains? What rises back? What is the truth at the present moment? This is determined not by likes and tastes, but by determining the How, What and Why, and then beginning to visualize those truths within the present moment in the human/tech timeline.

The digital & in person how:

I will be speaking to Tanya's how, what and why, but for now, let's stay with the how.

This blog will continue as a place of sanctuary, a place of public post-process writing.

The platform is changing, and the slate will be wiped clean, but in general, I'll be using the blog to share observations and synthesized thoughts - primarily about our relationship with technology, with the social web - here at gwenbell.com/blog.

Letter.ly is now the place I'll share more in-process, intimate ideas and information. It's the in-process writing that I won't push to a large, faceless audience. It's a letter I write to you. No design, no bullet points, no editing to the nth to be sure it makes you feel comfortable with yourself/me. It's my writing well before I hand it over to my agent. (I should add, if you'd subscribed to the newsletter, that's now and forever defunct.)

Facebook is over.

Twitter is the best place to reach me and the people with whom I dialog most. If you're not on Twitter, sign up. If you're following me, follow the other people I care about.

(A word on Twitter. Twitter has a way of dropping some of the awkward first meeting shell. It allows you to show up and connect quickly - I know where you're at with a glance at your latest tweets. This promotes instant/rapid intimacy. There's definitely an edginess to it, intimacy - some of which I'll be exploring in the letter. If you prefer a slower connection, the blog will be the best place to do that in the coming months.)

Email keeps itself alive in my life, but barely. I check it infrequently and prefer to have public conversations over private ones. (Client work excepted.)

Text is preferable to calling, and if you're calling it's because I gave you my number - and you're one of less than one hundred in possession of it. And you're likely either my grandmother or a client.

In person is the most preferable, and we'll talk about that soon, how we might do more of that in the near future, you and me. (Like, actual tea.) For now, I'm not taking on new clients. I'll announce it here when I do.

Honesting up for free falling

The more rich and nuanced my life becomes, the less I feel the urge to document publicly. And yet, I know there's something to pushing publish.

There's honesty in the free fall.

Once upon a time, long ago, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, "The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there's no ground."

What I'm discovering is it's a different ride when you let go. Last year I gripped and screamed and didn't simply stay with the free fall.

This year, I commit to that free falling. There's something to going to the places that scare you. To staying open and tender, vulnerable and true to yourself. To pushing publish.

In the past, there were moments I wondered whether I'd hit the ground. But it turns out I didn't; there is no ground to hit. It's liberating. It makes you simultaneously more risk-ready and more tender.

You can be both. Let's go there together.

*

Thanks for having tea with me. Now, let's level.

Are you ready for the free fall?

(If not, click here for baby chicks.)

(I'll be here when you get back.)