On Choosing Joy over Isolation: Olive & Ink March 2026
This letter was originally sent to Olive & Ink subscribers in March 2026. Olive & Ink is our monthly Snail Mail Club—handwritten letters, original art prints, and creative writing delivered to mailboxes around the world. Want to receive future envelopes? Subscribe.
Dear Creative,
There's a version of life that sounds like this: isolate yourself, work harder, sacrifice everything for your craft, and success will follow. Discipline over joy. Dedication over balance. The punitive approach: anything that isn't "the work" is a distraction.
But what if that's backwards?
This month, I've been thinking about Alyssa Liu, this year's Figure Skating Winter Olympic champion. She skated for the majority of her youth, fell out of love with it, quit for a few years, and then returned on her own terms. When she came back, she approached the sport completely differently. She let her life be holistic. She made space for joy, for rest, for experiences outside the rink. And here's the kicker: she became more successful because of it.
I've discovered this in myself as well: growth in isolation only goes so far. Real development, the kind that transforms us, comes when we open ourselves to corrective experiences with other people. When we leap toward love instead of locking ourselves away. When we let happiness guide us as much as ambition does.
This month, I want to challenge you: pursue something that brings you joy, not because it's productive, but because it makes you feel alive. Let yourself be a whole person, not just a working one. Trust that the work gets better when your life does.
This month's piece, The Shape of Light by Colina van Bemmel captures the moment light becomes visible. When the world grows dark, art carries us. Hope, Colina writes, is the deepest form of love.
The accompanying poem, "Writing Towards Home" by Emma Aellen, explores home not as a place, but as something neurological. Created during a workshop led by Saba Hamzah and inspired by June Jordan, Emma maps home as found in our nervous systems, our chemical responses, the body we accept. It's about making peace with the flesh that carries us.
Here's to choosing joy over isolation, to leaping for love, and to trusting that we become our best selves not by working alone, but by living fully.
Warmly,
Britt Broadwood
What else was in this month's envelope:
🎨 Print & Prose: The Shape of Light by Colina van Bemmel (@colinavanbemmel)
Artist statement on hope, light, and turning to art when the world grows dark
✍️ Poetry: "Writing Towards Home" by Emma Aellen (@universalinguistics)
A meditation on home as neurological—the body we learn to accept and the nervous system we call home.
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