A letter on writing

Dear reader,

There was a time when I thought writing had to sound a certain way to count. That it needed to impress, explain, or ascend.

But more and more, I write not to make a point, but to make a place.

A place to pause. To sift. To hold what I'm still figuring out. Where language doesn't need to arrive polished, only honest.

I write to notice what shifts — what repeats, what resists naming. To catch a glimpse of the current beneath the day's debris.

It's how I metabolize the world: the news, memory, fleeting conversations on the Metro that land heavier than they should. Writing is where I sort through the weight of what I carry (and what carries me).

There's an occasional urgency in getting it down. It feels like planting something. Other times, more like harm reduction.

Some things I only understand once I've written them down. A sentence lands before I know what it means. A memory will sharpen when I find the right verb. And in that small act of choosing — this word, not that one — I feel more anchored.

I used to think that writing had to be grand to matter. But what stays with me now is the smaller stuff: the way someone phrased a goodbye. The tempo of an ordinary Thursday.

There are so many loud ways to take up space. And I would know (and I'm sure, dear early subscribers, you know I know this too). I talk with my hands, fill silences fast, narrate even the in-between parts of stories. I've always been quick with words — maybe too quick.

But writing feels different.

It's not about being heard first — it's about listening longer.

I write to make space. Not to center myself, but to keep what I've heard. To name what lives between the lines. To voice what's been overlooked. To ask better questions.

This isn't a stage — or even necessarily a platform, it's a circle. One where we can sit with the mess, the memory, the half-formed thought — and see what unfolds from there.

Soft Cuts is my small corner for that practice. A space trimmed gently at the edges, where fragments are welcome and attention is the only credential.

A loose archives of impressions and instincts.

Not everything here will be tidy. But it will be true. Or at least, in pursuit of it — With tenderness, precision, and the kind of care that remembers where we've been.

Thank you for making room for that. For being here, at the beginning.

Until soon,

Sarah

soft power strategist / daughter of florists / fan of deliberate edits