A Year of Online Adventures

Thank you for showing up, reading and connecting

A year ago, I sat outside in a cafe in early January in Dubai and decided I would commit to publishing here every week for three months.

Now in December, I have written 30 something pieces over the last year, overcome a lot of fears about sharing stories online and experienced the geniune joy of connecting around topics I feel deeply about. All while learning about the world we live in and the challenges we face as a global community.

Friends, thank you for subscribing, for showing up, for commenting, sharing, liking and giving some of your energy to this space.

I am grateful for each and every one of you and I hope some of my stories have offered inspiration or solace or insight to your daily life.

Walking in Dubai. Photo CKnapman

What I learned about world saving

When I started out this year as a somewhat jaded aid worker, ‘Notes from Saving the World’, was a bit of a slightly ironic title choice for this newsletter.

Yet, as we end the year, I have found that sharing stories with you all has helped me feel less burdened by my own synicism and been an ally in my trauma recovery.

This has lit in me a bit of hope that, as a global community, we do still have agency and potential to work together in ways that challenge the prevailing systems and allow us to apply our creativity and hearts to protecting the aspects of world that we need - like nature, community - and to live in ways which treasures those tiny moments of joy which occassionaly we get to witness through our writing, art and attention.

What we shared

I have loved getting to know many of you in comments and sharing through these explorations.

On my travels this year, I spent time in Dubai, Scotland, Greece, Bali. But I also went back in time, to previous moments in my life in Italy, Nicaragua, Myanmar and Egypt.

My most read article was a piece about my first time living abroad in France:

On Not Being Ready as Readiness Itself

The piece where we had the best community conversations, was about writing in non-linear ways:

An Off the Beaten Track Guide to Writing a Novel

I enjoyed a virtual walk with

Bonnie Radcliffe

this autumn (Walk With Me: Catriona Knapman on Wild Quiet Folk.)

And talked with

Lauren Powell

about my 20 years in the aid sector (Career Compass 10, the Navigation.

I co-created this piece with my friend Catherine, sharing moments from a year in our lives - from Scotland to Dubai.

Reviewing notes from old journals for writing inspiration. I clearly find my journals so interesting :D . Photo CKnapman.

Some words from other writers, I still think about

For me writing is a collaborative process, ultimately about sharing and exchange to shape new ideas.

A few authors’ words have stayed with me long after I read them on the page. These quotes came with me on my daily walks to the Dubai metro, while thinking about the climate crisis for my day job, or while on my travels.

They shaped my understandings of the world we live in, my trauma recovery or, in some cases, influenced my ideas about how to be in the shower, like this piece by

Don Boivin

: If You’re In the Shower, Be in the Shower - which sums up so much of Buddhist philosophy, in a way which helped me, well, not be at work while I was in the shower:

“The practice of mindfulness could be summed up in this way:

If you’re in the shower,

don’t be at work.

Be in the shower.”

I loved discovering creative approaches to nature writing and mythology on Substack, especially this beautiful piece by

Jane Pike

which touches on so many human and nature questions of how the climate crisis frames the times we live in:

“Of all the fortune tellers, nature is by far the most accurate and reliable. She often takes us by the arm, reads our palms based on the number of creatures we unsettle when walking in the wetlands by the river.”

From: before the world’s highest mountains; before the atlantic ocean even existed, the silent, the sacred & the unseen: becoming frog

I also appreciated nature stories told by

Amanda Verdery Young

, like this one: When Once I Was Alone in the Woods with a Wild God and

Jan Elisabeth

, who writes beautifully about the need for claws to protect what we love:

“The owl too tenders the world, mothers and sings, lullabies her chicks, soft feathers a nest, but she knows also she will need her talons, her wings.” From: In the liminal season we are flowers and owl

I worked up the courage to tell something from my own trauma story and I equally took solace from other writers sharing their trauma recovery, in particular

Clare Egan

, whose words have stayed with me:

“You have to stay alive long enough for your life to change.”

From What I learned from my first live storytelling event

And in books, I really enjoyed ‘Drifts’ by

Natasha Burge

(which my friend Catherine, gave me to read). Her explorations of neurodivergence, living in the Gulf and our equal dislocation and connection to the world around us echoed my own experiences of living in Dubai:

“Time is what your lose: the feeling of time making sense. It feels like things should not move on when we are gone from the place where our heart lives, he says, but they always do.”

Natasha Burge

from her book ‘Drifts.’

A page from Drifts by Natasha Burges which I sent to my friend John, who also reads this newsletter.

Conversations

Writing has always been important to me, even the many years when I wrote only for myself, but this year has been ten-times better having other people to talk about writing with.

A shout-out to writers including:

Tamsin Haggis

,

Jo Taylor

,

Liza Debevec

,

Francesca Bossert

,

Lindsay Johnstone

,

Claire Venus (she/her) ✨

,

Bonnie Radcliffe

,

Lauren Powell

,

Monica Nastase

,

Michelle Neeling

,

Rachel Ooi

Clare Egan

and

Sanobar Sabah

who have given me much food for thought, some laughter, new ideas from in their writing and comments.

And my ‘real life’ friends: John M., Catherine C., Becky P. who read and offer generous insights and conversation starters from my writing.

What you can expect in 2025

I feel I have only scraped the surface of the topics I want to explore. So next year, you can expect more stories from my experiences in the aid sector, nature/climate and insights from my creative and other journeys.

I would also like to shape a more intentional calendar for 2025, which will focus on unpacking aspects of ‘world saving’ and to think more about what we can do together to tend to our lives, creativity and climate as an engaged community.

More details to come in January, so stay tuned.

Thank you again for being here.

And looking forward to seeing you in 2025,

Catriona