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More Than Humans

I haven’t written in awhile. Or rather, I haven’t written anything to share.

Things are just so… inconceivable.

(And I’m sure we all just imagined Princess Bride).

Lately it feels like nothing I add adds value. Writing, lecturing, discussing, it all just feels like… fiddling while the world burns.

There’s nothing I will say that hasn’t been said or thought of before. The world is too big and has existed for so long, that I know that part is true. Good old pastiche.

However, there are platforms that exist now that have never existed before so maybe I can reach someone who I otherwise could never come across.

So just in case, I’ll put this out there–

Humans can create great beauty and cause great suffering.
The Earth is much more than just humans.

When I find myself overwhelmed by the ugliness and destruction and heartlessness and hatred of the world, I go INTO the world and remember that the wreckage I am witnessing is just HUMANS. Not the WORLD.

So I go outside to look for a plant or a tree. I think about how long that tree has been there, how it doesn’t have body dysmorphia. I notice animals– twitchy ass squirrels who freak out all the time even though it’s okay (hmm, that feels familiar), ants who are doing their thing step by step by step, butterflies who lived most of their lives as caterpillars, only to soar now.

And I feel a bit better about the world.
Even if humans are still being shitty.

And sometimes, I’ll even notice the good humans. The helpers. The kind ones. Who instinctively reach out instead of pulling away.

And some times, if I’m really lucky, I’ll be one of those helper humans.

So if you’re feeling shitty– go outside, love. Help someone if you can. And remember the butterflies. You may get to soar.

xox

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Birthday Reflections

Yesterday I turned 41 (one more year until I’m the answer to the Universe and Everything!), and I had a really lovely day.

When I think about where I was last year at this time– unemployed and reeling from it, no feeling in half of my face, waiting for a brain scan and unsure of what would be ahead of us– I am so damn proud of where I am today.

Even though, to quote Barbie, I’m not President. No one on the Supreme Court is me… all those Great Expectations never got checked off. I haven’t invented anything or won any prestigious award. The world doesn’t know my name and every month I get creative paying off bills.

With all that said (and please don’t punch me), I have a pretty great life. I noticed that yesterday.

I took K to school and then went and worked for a few hours (it’s true! Ya girl found work!) then it was time to pick her up again. We got to FaceTime with the cousins and her super cool 12 year old cousin took the time to show off her Garbage Pail Kids collection (yeah, they’re BAAAAACK!)

Then we got to pop over to our friends’ house for a bit before getting all fancy and going out to dinner.

Also, explaining the concept of Gift Certificates to K was funny– she and her friend thought that was SUPER cool. 

Now, when I say fancy, I mean I put on my eyebrows. K however, went full out with pink satin gloves, pink sunglasses, and her white wolf dress. And was a HIT. Her “pleases” and “thank yous” came automatically, she ate mussels and flounder meunière and we each had a mock-tail. I was even able to share my up-until-now-useless knowledge about removing her gloves under the table. And not only did she do it, but the server noticed!

The servers were above and beyond– chatting about DogMan when they saw her book, offering her BOTH “smooth” water (what she calls still), AND bubble water. 

It was just NICE. To be together as a family– the three of us. Sitting next to my girl and across from the handsome Rhys, I realized what a lovely life we have.

This clever and precocious girl, with such zest and creativity. This kind and handsome man, who makes us all laugh and plays peekaboo with the baby at the next table. Our little family. Absolutely complete.

There have been so many times in my life where I felt incomplete, LACKING. Like I was behind, or missing something. And now, at 41, I can see how full my life is. Not earth shattering or documentary-worthy. Not historic or inspiring or monumental. But lovely. And full.

I finally felt like I was enough.

Even without a Nobel Peace Prize or even a regional nod. Even if nobody beyond my family remembers my name when I’m gone. 

Who knows how long this moment of peace and understanding will last. Knowing me and my ADHD, I’ll be back in the depths of despair in a moment (probably after checking my phone). (BTW, yesterday I left my phone on Do Not Disturb and it was a lovely little respite. Highly recommend). 

But for now, let me share this: Oh. Wait, actually, I don’t have anything wise or insightful to add. Just that I hope you can set aside the Great Expectations and see your life through a lens of contentment. Through a historical lens, maybe.

That on the cosmic calendar, it’s pretty damn cool to be living our lives right now. Yes, so much is broken. SO, SO MUCH. And– so much is wonderful. 

The sound of rain when you’re inside and cozy.
The smell of the earth after rain (mmm, petrichor)
A freshly brewed cup of coffee.
Multi-generational friendship.
Dogs.
Music.
Dancing.
Dress up.
Remembering to take my time.
The smell and feel of fancy soap.
My roses that are somehow blooming right now.
Creators who make art and stories.
The things that feel so fancy to a child.
A crisp cloth napkin. 
Drinking from a fancy glass.
Heated seats in the car.
Real mail.
Helping someone. 

So, now that I’m REALLY in my 40s and not merely 40… I hope to spend the next 40 years enjoying the little things. Slowing down enough to remember the magic of someone grinding pepper onto your salad FOR you. 

I hope you find some simple magic in your day today. 

You are loved, by me and others. And you are ENOUGH, as you are. Even if you’ve never been to space.

xox.
(Remember to hydrate and moisturize)

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Guardian Angels at the Park

As many of you know, my kiddo is quite the climber. QUITE the climber.

“I’m a National Climber,” she’ll tell people, after overhearing me call her a natural climber. After all, she crawled up the stairs long before she walked, and then trees, playgrounds, any structure she came upon.

And at eight, we’ve reached the point where I am no longer monitoring her every move.

And that’s where we begin– at a familiar park with high slides and a good time.  However this time, it was not the slide she climbed.

She shimmied up the SUPPORT POLE for the tallest slide. Yup. Full on Mulan’d her way, barefoot, up the pole and pulled herself to perch on the cross beam.

At which point she realized how far up she was. And how sweaty her hands were. And how she’d have to let go of the pole to wipe her hand and there was NO WAY on God’s green earth that was going to happen.

This is when she called for me. 

And I, alas, did not hear her.

I know, you’d think in the edit/re-write I’d portray myself in a better way. And come right away, get a spidey sense something was wrong but nope. I was chatting away/listening to the moms (as the New Mom, I’m working hard to find my place). So I didn’t hear her holler for me. 

I mean, fullest disclosure, I thought I heard her, but peeked around and didn’t see her in any Area of Concern, so went back to smiling and nodding. 

Then, one of the boys came over. 

“K needs help.”

Oh shit.

At which point, I discover her, in tears, about 15 feet up, beyond where I can reach her.

I thank the boy and scramble up the play structure so I can touch her foot.

“Hey,” I say, “Hey, let’s have you slide down this pole.”

Knowing she’s slid down the fire pole before, knowing she’s generally fearless.

And I have never seen her more scared in my life (Maaaaaybe when the gray dog chased her. Maybe). 

After several other approaches I realize I am just too short to reach her, she is too panicked to let go and drop to me, and she is begging me to call 9-1-1.

Then, I see a woman waving at me from across the park. 

“My husband is coming!” She shouts.

I see him swiftly walking towards me, I jog to meet him.

“Your son is stuck?” He asks calmly.

“My daughter, actually.”

“Here’s what we’ll do, I’ll climb up, pull her into the slide and she’ll get down.”

He’s clearly done this before.

We explain in to K. She is near hysterics. I calmly tell her, level with her (dangling off the rock climbing section), to take his hand. And after a moment she does. And he pulls her in, she slides down, and she’s safe.

I didn’t even catch his name, she was crying so hard and he was already trotting back to his family. 

Grateful doesn’t cover it.

I was so humbled by the moment of fear and helplessness. And even more humbled by the presence of help. 

I couldn’t help my child. 

I hate that. It was absolutely awful. And I felt so negligent. How could this have happened when I was right there?

And at the same time, I am so incredibly grateful for the strangers who were my angels. The woman who noticed me in distress and offered assistance. The man who knew what to do and was willing to do it. And grateful for my own willingness to ask for and accept help,

But most of all I’m grateful that she’s okay. That the lesson came with fear but no injury. That Daddy was home for her to run to. That it happened on a day that we could all be together as a family that night. 

Also (is it too soon to admit this?), I’m damn impressed that she shimmied up that high. Hopefully next time she won’t be afraid to slide back down herself. 

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Deck Blinds

These blinds have been sitting on my deck for longer than I care to admit. They symbolize the double work of chronic illness.

I know… but I’m only human

See, I am intermittently functional. There are days that my body can do just about anything, and then there are days where even my hair hurts. The ratio of functioning days to non-functioning days can vary.

About a month ago, I was doing pretty well. My body was keeping up with my mind and my spirit was soaring. I thought I’d found a brilliant balance between rest and work to keep myself functional.

When it came time to clean my blinds I knew better than to try to do all at once.

“Easy does it,” I coached myself, and did just two sets of blinds one day. Got them down, got them clean, got them back up.

Man am I nailing this adulting thing (I thought).

The next day I got down three sets of blinds, got them cleaned and reinstalled two of them and then my body said NOPE!

Whether or not my body surges into a flare depends on a multivariable calculus with factors I am still identifying. I realize the heat, my consumption of tomatoes (I know they’re nightshades but it’s the summer and they bring joy!), physical exertion, and maybe my cycle (?) all contribute. It’s not as simple as single cause and effect.

And this flare has been BRUTAL. Headaches that make me want to shave my head, extreme fatigue, like, there needs to be another word for it– cellular rebellion? Mitochondrial strike? Like nothing I’ve experienced before. (Yes, we checked my levels they’re all wonky and we’re rechecking them in another week to see what can adjust).

So this last set of blinds has been sitting here on the deck. And now they’re dirty again.

Chronic illness carries with it an invisible work load. Managing meds, running spoon calculations so you don’t burn out and get stranded, meal planning for those days when “Mind over matter” is simply not possible. (Peanut butter on a spoon counts as meal planning in that instance).

And these blinds, which at first felt like they were mocking my fragility, teasing me for my inability to finish a task, now feel like a symbol. A symbol of the double work, representing the extra load, the jobs that need to be done twice. And I won’t feel guilty anymore.

Shaming myself for something I cannot control is really twisted and does nothing to improve the world.

Yes, I have dusty ass blinds on my deck. Not very classy at all. But I’m getting stronger every day and one of these days I’ll hose these puppies down and re-install them. Not today because it’s a million degrees. And that’s NOT procrastinating, that’s considering the circumstance. And my challenge is to remember to cut myself some grace. To soften my standards.

So, for you, dear one, remember to offer grace. To your neighbor, to yourself.

Take good care of yourself.
You are loved by me and others.

xox

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Gratitude within a Flare

One of the strange things about life in my body is that somedays I feel and look perfectly healthy and fine and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a flare comes on which renders me nearly incapacitated.

Today is one of those days. 

It started in the early morning, and I woke up and took my meds and applied biofreeze and drank water and tried to get more rest (which did not work).

So I took a shower and did my stretches and used my TENS unit and took more meds and brewed my tea.  I put on more bio freeze.

And now, just after lunch, I am beginning to feel like a human again.  A human in a lot of pain, but capable of functioning at about 30-40%.

This morning I did my best to avoid self-pity (which as you know is REALLY hard when you don’t feel well), but mostly managed to recognize that there are things outside my control and I’ve done the things I can do so all I can do is wait it out.

And this is where the gratitude comes in.  

I am grateful that my child is old enough that when I’m knocked out like this, we can still mostly function.  

I am grateful that I can (sometimes) maintain perspective.  

I am grateful I have a partner who understands and believes me.  

I am grateful for my TENS unit, batteries, and fresh electrodes.  

I am grateful that I no longer believe that I deserve to suffer.

I am grateful for dark mode and prescription sunglasses.

I am grateful that I no longer expect myself to “toughen up and keep going.”

I am grateful to understand that gentleness is strength.

So, whatever you are grappling with at the moment, I hope you find a way to be soft with yourself. 

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Waiting for Barbie

I am looking forward to seeing the Barbie movie (I haven’t yet), and that is a sentence I never would have anticipated writing ever in my life.

Like many Silver Millennials, my relationship with Barbie is complicated. I played with the dolls, my grandmother had a suitcase of Ginny dolls, and I remember standing in the aisle of the long-gone toy shop in the once-upon-a-time mall, starting at the wall of Barbie stuff in complete awe and overwhelm.

Over time, I absorbed other people’s feelings about Barbie. In elementary school my friend and I did a report on ancient Egypt and planned on turning one of my Barbies into a mummy. Our teacher offered extra credit if we gave her a thicker waist.

So I learned that while we were expected to achieve the ideal, we would also be hated for it.

At one point, I built a gallows out of Contrux and jelly bracelets and hung Barbie for treason (she invaded She-Ra’s village… and I had no idea what treason was, just that you could be hung for it).

My eating disorder (that has sadly shaped most of my life), sprung NOT from a plastic doll, but from all the humans around me and the projections they placed on that doll. But it’s easier to criticize a doll than your mother, so Barbie took the blame.

In college I managed a production that took on Barbie and GI Joe and sexuality, and it was BEAUTIFUL and started to crack me open a bit.

We let the world decide what is and is not feminine, what is and is not acceptable. I rejected all things pink, sparkly, and flowy because the world showed me that being a woman is terrible. Juvenile. Stupid.

We mock Barbie in a way no other toy or franchise receives.

Because it’s easier to blame a doll. It’s tougher to tackle misogyny and capitalism.

When my daughter was born, I didn’t buy her Barbie. Then someone else did. (A Cinderella Barbie). And she loved her. More gifts came– Tiana, Elsa, a pass-along Barbie with chopped hair and a pink streak. I still haven’t bought her a Barbie but it’s no longer a Stance, it’s because she has enough. Two mermaid Barbies joined the team, a Chelsea doll (I *may* have bought that one), and a pink haired, actual-thighed canoeing Barbie. (I almost called her Thick Thighed, but they aren’t really thick, just… normal).

We attacked Barbie instead of the yogurt ads that promoted disordered eating. We attacked Barbie instead of questioning the plot lines written by middle aged men for preteen girls. We attacked Barbie instead of noticing that she was an astronaut, President, and teacher. We rolled our eyes at it.

We attacked Barbie instead of the culture that told us “You must be perfect but you must not look like you’re trying or you care.” We attacked Barbie instead of the double bind that keeps us trapped.

We blamed a DOLL for the problems humans created.

But the doll is not our culture. The doll is a doll.

It’s taken me 40 years to realize that Barbie was never the problem.

And I’m going to see the movie next week. I may need to borrow something pink.

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“Are you OK?” (No. Yes. Mostly?)

The past couple weeks have been a LOT. There’s been loss and grief and shock and perspective shifts. There’ve been so many adjustments, life almost feels fluid (which is pretty beautiful), and now it’s the end of May.

The phrase “Are you okay?” always throws me off. I feel defensive and defective and completely unable to answer it in an authentic way that doesn’t freak people out.

I don’t mean to freak people out. I really believe that I am doing mostly okay even though nothing feels okay. So many things are not okay. And I spend a LOT of my time and energy fighting to make things better.

Learning to use my rage as a tool rather than a self-destructive weapon. Channeling it into action to influence and change the things that are NOT inevitable. And then my doom? And I am learning to take my doom into the garden. Because yes, everything is ending and yet there are flowers and birds and music in the meantime.

I don’t fear my doom. It’s the darkness that feeds the light. The decaying husks that feed the soil. And the difference between a darkness that replenishes and a darkness that festers into rot is air. Just like we turn the compost, to keep it well, we must shift our selves so the darkness doesn’t linger. So it can restore us, rather than consume us.

Get some air y’all. And some light. It’s overcast here but the birds are singing.

You are loved, by me and others. Glooping along in the cosmic blob.

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Existential Crisis and Love (and Poetry)

Living in the End Times is rough. Societal collapse, with rising prices and stagnant wages and an unthinkable wealth gap, is exhausting.

Mass shooting after mass shooting. Scandal on top of scandal. The floor keeps sinking in the race to the bottom and the climate crisis is here and the tipping point four years out.

So, yeah, I let my first grader cosplay as Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas to get her to go to school.

Loving someone amidst an existential crisis is so very confusing and so incredibly important.

I see my partner’s dismay/frustration in my constant naming of the Doom. I contain it in front of Kiddo but let it fly when it’s just Us.

I don’t know where else to put it, so I’ll put here:

I kept my Doom within me,
And it slowly ate my cells.

I hid my Doom from the others,
And sacrificed myself.

I turned my Doom against me,
Harming myself for years.

I spoke my Doom in the darkness,
Consuming myself in fear.

I took my Doom to my journal,
Writing thousands of words or so.

I took my Doom to the garden,
And got some flowers to grow.

I share my Doom with you, love,
Because I trust you and

If you know Doom like I do,
Let me hold your hand.

****

I’m heading out to the garden, loves. Have some water, chew something, and take good care.

You are loved my be and others.

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Saturday Morning in the Cosmic Blob

These are the days I need to write and yet I don’t.  Words and thoughts swirl around my mind so quickly I don’t even notice them, my fingers can’t keep up.

Like florescent lights flickering too fast to be noticed except on a subliminal level, my thoughts storm my mind.

I have nothing to say and everything to share and none of it feels worthy or worthwhile so it stays trapped in my body, stuck in my cells.

I don’t know what it is I need to say to you.  Except that life is hard.  Life is hard and beautiful and terrible and lovely.  I know how hard it is to be a human and I don’t mean to take it out on you. 

The only thing that makes any sense right now is music.
And movement.   
And rest.
And my love for you.
For all of you.

Here we are, trapped in the cosmic blob together.  Held in the chaos within the void.

So maybe none of it matters, but in a good way.
Maybe none of it and all of it is just a piece of cosmic glitter.
Fatalism can be a bit comforting.

Or maybe I need to go eat something.

All of this to say, you are not alone.  I promise you.  
You may feel lonely.  You may be lonely.
But you are not alone.

We are all just hurdling through time and space.  And it’s hard to be a human.

Maybe I can be a dandelion next time.

What should we eat?

xox

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Returning to Joyfulness

It’s been a minute. Hello and happy Spring. The sun has returned and life springs anew. Flowers are blooming and birds are singing and I find myself smiling to myself on my walks– staring up at the trees in wonder.

Wonder and Joy have been big themes for me lately.

I’m doing a play, a brilliant play with incredible people and it feels so damn good. It’s my first show since COVID. And my first full length show since motherhood and my diagnosis.

It was so scary at first; stepping into a space where I am unknown can spike my anxiety and insecurities. The urge to “prove myself” and “win them over” kicks in and I remind myself that my work will speak for itself and to just RELAX. Nothing is more annoying than a thirsty theatre wench, so I keep my desperation in check.

And the JOY y’all. It’s such a privilege to step into another space and try on another person’s experiences. My character, Annie Jump Cannon, is a PHENOMENAL woman, and it is an honor to pretend to be an astrophysicist suffragist. Like, so freaking cool.

My draw to performance started with that desire to become someone else, even just temporarily. The freedom of being “not-me” for a few hours of rehearsal. As time marched on I started to learn how to stay in my own skin rather than morphing like a chameleon into whatever I imagined was desired/required of me.

Having chronic illness has pulled me out of so many experiences, especially in the last few years. I’ve been afraid to step back into performance, nervous that my body might give out, worried that I’ll leave people hanging.

I’ve been practicing honoring my body. To recognize where it IS reliable. To identify both my own power and influence and also my powerlessness. There are things I can do and there are things outside of my hands. This is always true. This is true for everyone.

After seven plus years of apologizing for my body, of resenting its unreliability, of punishing myself for the crime of being human, I am FINALLY back in a rehearsal room. And it’s such good medicine. To be with other creators.

Instead of over-riding my physical needs, I listen to my body. I go home and go to bed after rehearsal. I keep up my treatments, and I respond to (rather than deny) my needs. I know that any moment it may all change. Of course, that is true for every human.

The precariousness of life can be anxiety-inducing for sure, but it can also be liberating AF. We’re on this planet, hurdling through space, with just this tiny layer of atmosphere protecting us from the void.

Everything is such a delicate balance and I hear Brene Brown in my ear asking “Are you going to let fear rob you of joy?”

So as you breathe through your day, I hope you can notice the beauty and be open to the joy and wonder. The vibrant green of new growth, the persistent poppies that squeeze out of cracks in the cement, the intricacies of tree bark.

We are part of the great tapestry of life– no greater or less than any other component. Nourish yourself. Do the things that bring you joy. Tell stories, make art, build faerie houses, take a hike, pet a dog. Be brave enough to seek joy.

“It may all fall apart.” It WILL (eventually) all fall apart, but in the mean time, there’s music. So let’s dance.

Take care of yourselves, you are loved by me and others.

xox

PS: if you are Napa-accessible, please come see “Silent Sky” at Lucky Penny. It will fill your cup with wonder and joy.

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When your Daughter is Beautiful

It’s Strange When Your Daughter is Beautiful
To see it but dare not say it,
Not wanting to define her by her beauty.

I hear it, and stumble my response.
Thanks feels inappropriate, “I know” feels wrong too.

It’s Strange when your Daughter is Beautiful
And she looks like you too.

You see it,
You hear it,
You wonder if it’s true.

We know that she is beautiful, 
And it makes Us Beautiful too.

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Pep Talk: Almost Spring

This time of year gets really tricky. It’s the longest we’ve been in Winter mode, anxiously awaiting Spring, doubtful it will ever arrive.

Historically, for me, it’s a tricky time of year as it marks a lot of loss.

I’ve come to understand that the longer I live, the more loss I will sustain and this no longer breaks me down. Loss is the cost of love and I will not short change myself in the name of “protection.”

All to say, we are almost there y’all. If the cumulative weight of the past few years is crushing down on you, please remember that Spring is just around the corner. New season, new life, sunshine and birdsong and delicious produce. Just around the corner.

Hang in there. It’s cliche but it’s important. We are almost to Spring.

Where I am, it’s raining. It was storming and then it stopped and now it’s raining again. Which feels poetic and appropriate.

I don’t know where you are, literally and figuratively, but I know that you are loved. That we are all part of the cosmic blob, careening through space and time. Expanding and spiraling and hurling into the unknown.

Into the Next.

Keep breathing. The trees sure appreciate it.

You are loved. By me and others.

Have you had breakfast? I’m on my second pot of coffee so it’s long past time to chew something. Let’s chew.

xox LC

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Bone Broth is *NOT* Soup

So, you may have seen the video of a certain Goop Heiress discussing her so-called “Wellness Routine” wherein she describes HIGHLY DISORDERED eating. I’m not going to link the video, it’s harmful, but I am going to say this.

Bone broth is NOT soup.
Vegetables are NOT a meal.

I’ve been writing in my recovery journal and found a note from a few months ago that said “A banana is NOT a meal. A banana is a snack.”

Under that I asked myself, “What IS a meal?” (These are some humbling and embarrassing questions at 40). Well, a MEAL involves multiple food groups, I told myself. Traditionally a protein, a grain, produce, and some fat.

Soup could be considered a meal if it has those things in it. Broth is a MF’ing ingredient. Not soup. Not a meal.

That video fucked me up. As you may know, I’m mid-recovery and while the spiky, cheeky, determined-to-recover part of me rages against the video, the latent, nefarious, disordered part of me keeps whispering “SEE.”

“See– it’s possible to need LESS.”
“See- LESS is more.”
“See- she’s being celebrated for this.”
“See- the interviewer isn’t challenging her.”
“See- it’s part of WELLNESS.”

Intermittent fasting has long been a dog whistle for disordered eating, because the intermittent fast is what naturally happens after dinner, before breakfast. Break (the) fast.

I’m gonna keep climbing out of this rabbit hole. Even though I’m tempted to crawl back down. I know what’s down there. It’s familiar, it seems safe, but it’s trying to kill me. It wants me so small I disappear entirely and you know what?

I am TIRED of making less of myself.
I crave SOFTNESS. I yearn for gentleness.

I’ve spent decades trying to get a “hard body”, but I don’t want to be hard. I am not stone. I am not a machine. I am a human.

So if you find yourself tempted back into the darkness, if your issues got reactivated recently… just know that you are not alone. Know that you deserve freedom. We both do. We all do.

I’m angry at Goopeth, but I’m also really fucking sad for her. I’m more angry at all the enablers and the interviewers and those who normalize this type of self harm.

I haven’t eaten yet. So I’m off to chew something. You chew too.

You are loved. By me and others. Take up space. We are no better or worse than most other humans.

xox

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Secular Saturday Theology: Proverbs

I picked up my childhood bible last week for the first time since ???  It’s a complicated history, to put it simply.  

I started in Proverbs because I always loved Proverbs. Little gems of wisdom, advice, and insight. I had a bookmark in there from church camp in 1996.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of bullshit in there too.  The book mark has some disturbing questions on it, we might discuss that later but for now… I’ll sift through and find some gems. And boy does Proverbs have some.

So, what’s Proverbs?

Proverbs is a book of the Old Testament, and it’s basically a code of living, words of wisdom from King Solomon—son of David, some Jewish wisdom basically.

The book introduces itself as so: 

“The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

For attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight;

For acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair;

For giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young—

Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance—

For understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools* despise wisdom and discipline.”

(Proverbs 1:1-7)

I’m all about attaining wisdom.

I’d like to pause here to comb through some fun language things:

“Discipline” does not mean strictness.  Remember that a disciple is a follower.  In our modern language, “discipline” is the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior.  Punishment is often used or implied as a tool of training. But in ancient times, a discipline was more of a practice.  A study.  A deeper connection and specialty.  In current times, discipline can be used to describe an area of study, or a major in college.

So, wisdom, code of living, insight…

A specialized and prudent— we often conflate prudent with financially cheap or conservative, financial wisdom.  But prudent means “acting with or showing care and thought for the future.”

I love the implication that wisdom is not something you achieve, it’s something you cultivate and continue to grow (“Let the wise listen and add to their learning”).

And FOOLS— the Hebrew words that were translated into fool, denote one who is morally deficient.  A lack of a moral compass.  Not a lack of brains.  A very important distinction, I think.

I’m sure y’all can see why I like Proverbs.  It’s a guide of wisdom.  Oh!  And wait until you hear the description of wisdom!  I love it!!

Still in chapter one, verses 20-22

“Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares;

At the head of the noisy streets** she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:

“How long will you simple ones** love your simple ways?  How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?”

This part I really like.  

Wisdom is not quiet and guarded.  She is loud!  She is public!  She is not locked in an ivory tower or tucked into a corner with her books.  She is out there proclaiming…

Fun language notes:  Remember again, “Fool” was used to denote MORAL deficiency.  It wasn’t about intelligence, it was about right and wrong. 

Also, “At the head of the noisy streets” in Hebrew, “Septuagint” meant “On the tops of the walls”.  Which can imply not just a cry to those within her vicinity but a call to all.  Wisdom wants all of us, not just some.  She wants to show us all the way.  

Simple here, also means one without MORAL direction, a person inclined to evil.  Not about intelligence or lack of complication, but a lack of or a perverted moral code.  

I find that’s an important distinction to make.  Wisdom isn’t making fun of the uneducated, she is asking how much longer folks will marinade in our cruelty? At what point will we say, enough, let’s elevate the conversation and look for insight?!

Yeah, I love Proverbs.  I forgot how much I loved Proverbs.

“I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.  

But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,

Since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke,

I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you—

When calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.

Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, 

Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke,

They will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; 

But whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Yeah.  I like Proverbs.  That’s Chapter one.

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Increased Agitation

Hi there. It’s cold and windy. Our PG&E bill was ridiculous even though we heat to 66 and run appliances during off hours.

I’ve been cranky and weepy and snappish. It’s been a lot already this year with the job loss, facial numbness, the brain scan, stuff with kidlet’s school, her big feelings, my big feelings, life just life-ing, you know?

And everything feels chaotic because it kinda is.

So I try to handle the things that I can.

I started to tidy my dresser top–not because I’m a tidy person, I’m a very spready person, I love horizontal surfaces… no, I don’t tidy because I’m tidy. I tidy because I’m a sloppy nerd.

I read that a huge amount of our nervous system processing is spent processing visual information. So when I look at a space and there’s a LOT to take in, it can be extremely overwhelming. A clearer space (even if it’s just my mess collected into a few containers or piles) is an easier on my brain space.

All this to say, I was clearing off my dresser when I came across my medical insert from one of the meds they put me on during all this weird brain/face thing.

“May cause increased agitation. May cause an increase in anxiety and suicidality.”

I sat on my bed and burst into laughter.

It was such a fucking relief.

My fuse was feeling shorter and shorter. A familiar rage that I thought I’d made peace with long ago had been rising within me. I saw myself getting saltier.

And I’d been doing the things!!! Going on walks, getting sleep, eating, drinking water, talking to people, meditating, and still losing my cool. After all the progress I’ve made over the few years.

And I know, progress isn’t linear, relapses, backsplash, ball change, and all that jazz. So I had accepted this recent upswell despite my best efforts as my own fault– part of my given nature.

Y’all. It’s been a side effect. (Perhaps a bit of this and that, you know… a rich tapestry).

And the most sitcom part of it all? My husband and I are chatting last night and I say, “Turns out a side-effect of one of the meds is increased agitation?”

And he’s like, “And anxiety. Oh honey. I’m so sorry. I totally forgot to tell you.”

But I couldn’t even get mad, I was so grateful.

Plus, he had rushed to the pharmacy before it would close to get me this medication when we had NO IDEA what was going on or what our future would hold.

I wasn’t even super mean to myself about not reading the insert because, again, keeping my eyes open was a challenge and then amid the everything it just… wasn’t a thing I remembered to do.

Until I was tidying my dresser top.

I’ve of course talked to my doctor, I’m weaning off that med and we’ll figure it out. We have so far.

So you keep doing your thing and I’ll keep doing mine.

Take care of yourself, you are loved by me and others.
Let’s go chew something.

xox, LC

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How We Work: Lesson Two

Lesson Two in the “Fucking Fitness” Series

My super simplified version of  human function.  We have the executive suite (nervous and endocrine systems), operations (Cardiorespiratory and lymphatic systems), utilities (digestive and urinary systems), outreach (reproduction), and infrastructure (muscles and bones).  

Read on for my shallow dive into the executive suite, or take this re-framing and run with it.  We are more than just muscle, bone, and fat.  Seriously.  

EXECUTIVE SUITE

Behind it All: Nervous System:  Brain, Spinal Cord, Nerves

The brain and spinal cord control and choreograph every function in the body.

At the core of everything is our brain and spinal cord. The brain processes everything, the spinal cord creates the freeway for the nerves to travel through.  They wiggle out, and carry messages to and from the brain to the rest of the body.  Sensory input, muscle control, all that runs through nerves and neurons.  

Vice President: Endocrine System

The system of glands that make and release hormones works with the nervous system to control and coordinate… everything.  Pineal, parathyroids, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, pituitary, and ovaries/testes.

Hormones from these glands regulate everything from blood sugars and metabolism to heart rate in a stress response and calcium levels in the blood.  We often think of hormones only in relation to puberty and pregnancy but hormones are involved in every single function of the human body.

Today’s Exercise: Improving Parasympathetic Tone
The body can be in parasympathetic response or in the sympathetic response. This setting determines/is determined by hormones and affects blood flow and all sorts of functions. Improving parasympathetic tone will benefit functionality of the systems.

Sit in a comfortable position. Better yet, lie down (if that is comfortable). Keep the spine long. Breathe deep and long. Exhale slowly through the lips. Close your eyes and continue the deep breathing.

Exercise Snack: Brain Break
Throughout the day, when it is safe to, close your eyes. The majority of our brain power is spent on visual processing. By reducing the input, we can reduce the workload and take a mini brain break.

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Fucking Fitness: Perspective from a Silver Millennial, Lesson One

I’ve resisted this for years.  I’ve resisted this for officially a DECADE now.  

And now I’m giving in.

FINE.  I’ll write about fucking fitness.

“WHOA?” You may wonder, “Why such hostility?”

Because the diet and exercise industries are so… fraught with dangerous messaging.

Because capitalistic systems have made BILLIONS off our insecurities while making us sicker and then shaming us for not being skinny.

Because American medicine misses the mark nearly every single time.

Because I’ve been at war with myself since I was twelve years old and it makes me FURIOUS.

And then I think… if by sharing some of my rage, experience, confusion, and hard learned lessons, maybe I can help one person avoid some of that pain, frustration, and shame

So FINE.

Please know that my hostility is aimed at our culture, not at you, dear, sweet reader.

I’m angry because we’ve lived our whole lives in our bodies and nobody taught us how they work.  I’m angry because what they taught us what how our bodies SHOULD LOOK.  Not what they do, or how they work, but HOW THEY ARE WRONG.

I’m here to tell you, your body is not wrong.  

There is not one damn thing wrong with your body.

Let’s go over that again, I think it’s worth repeating.  

THERE IS NOT.  ONE DAMN THING.  WRONG.  WITH YOUR BODY.

I have to remind myself of that over and over and over because we are told over and over and over that our bodies are wrong and they need to be fixed.

Listen, my body has it’s stuff.  My neck injury still reverberates in my body.  Auto-immune diseases have confused TF out of my body.  There are disabilities and diseases and disorders that live in my very cells.

This makes my body HUMAN.  This does not make my body BROKEN.  Even though it can feel like that.  ** SIDE BAR for my Zebras

For the Zebras:

Being disabled and chronically ill is a reality that I won’t attempt to sugar coat.  Y’all know.  I know.  It’s really hard to live in a rebellious body.  In a defiant body.  One that doesn’t obey commands. We may have components that don’t work in the way they are expected.  That is true, it’s a reality.  But a dysfunctional pancreas doesn’t mean that YOU are broken.  A confused immune system is just that—one part. Our experiences will be different but I want you to know that I know your body is not wrong.** 

Every body is different.  I won’t speak for your experience but this has been mine—I’ve seen my body as “other” for most of my life. 

 In adolescence my body no longer felt like ME, I started to move out of my body and more into my mind.  

My body became this battle ground—this enemy that I couldn’t control.  It grew when I didn’t want it to and I started my campaign of cruelty.

Like two athletes who fail to recognize they are also teammates, I pitted myself against my body.  Mind over matter, intellect over instinct.  Mantras were repeated over and over, as if I could overpower my human needs by being smart enough.

By figuring out how to live with less, how to make as little of myself as possible, I thought I would WIN.  I would beat my body and be victorious over my flesh prison.

And I stayed locked in battle for the next 20+ years.

So yeah, I’m mad.  Because I bought every damn “Fitness” book and magazine they made from the 1990’s until a few years ago.  And I stayed deeply in my eating disorder and exercise disorder while getting sicker and sicker and the advice I kept receiving was that I was lazy or stupid or doing it wrong.

So.  Lesson one is a three parter.  Let’s be clear:

  1. There’s nothing wrong with your body.
  2. You are not lazy.
  3. You are not stupid.

Lesson One can and should be repeated often.  ❤

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Back in My Body: My Cells My Self

CW: Eating disorders, self harm

I’ve spent the last couple years getting back into my body.
Returning to my body for the first time since I was twelve is a fucking TRIP.
I didn’t realize how much I’d dissociated from my own existence until I started to move back into my cells.

Learning to stay in the hard moments instead of disappearing.
Learning to feel instead of escaping into pain or hunger or business.
Learning to allow instead of punishing.
Finally letting myself be human.

And in this time I’ve discovered so many deeper wounds that didn’t get to heal. That I just patched over so it was “fine enough.” And to be fair, it was more than “fine enough.” I managed to excel with my disease. I got into a top school and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors and continued to destroy myself. That’s one of the things that’s so hard for me to reconcile. My sickness didn’t look like a problem unless you looked really close.

As someone who has been conditioned to believe nothing is true unless it is noticed, I gaslit myself into believing that I was fine.

I can finally admit that my eating disorder never went dormant. That I have been living with her for whatever 40-12 is. 28 years? A LONG ASS TIME. Most of my life!!

There wasn’t a perceptible BOTTOM (from the outside), unless you count my tooth falling out my senior year in college, which was a wake up call for me and in hindsight the first step towards my recovery.

Yeah, my tooth came out, just sheered off in my mouth. Aftermath of years of purging. It was really terrible. I felt so broken and ugly.

But then they gave me a fake tooth and everything was “fine enough” again.

Though to my credit, I did stop purging after that, which I thought meant I had recovered. In hindsight I recognize that my disorder just morphed and I channeled that rage and fear and disgust into exercise.

Here’s another sneaky component of my disease.
It knows how to get applause. How to garner praise.

You see, since I am no longer slicing my skin or burning my body or throwing up,
I’m a fucking hero.

Instead I was logging hours on a treadmill, popping pills like it’s the 50s, and living off Diet Coke, gummy bears, vodka, and beer. Still lost from my body.

When I think of those years, they are so strong, they feel so close. But that was the early 2000s. That was nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO.

And since? There’s been progress. Or further morphing, I don’t know how to describe it.

I stopped diet pills after my heart went crazy on the treadmill (and the FDA banned the fake speed in them so what was the point after that).

Orthorexia supplanted anorexia/bulimia. Which again, gets praise.

Nobody thinks egg whites, spinach, and grapefruit is a problem, right? Isn’t that something to be applauded/praised/encouraged?

I exercised incessantly, which again got me praise. I became a personal trainer, I was held up as a Model of Health.

The thing is, when your interior monologue is as destructive and judgmental as mine is, nothing you do is healthy. No matter WHAT it looks like from the outside.

This is my hardest lesson. That my interior truth outranks exterior perception.
For so long my inner voice has been this harsh, critical, mean whisper/aside/yelling heckler. It’s easy to think that voice is my inner truth– but she’s not.

That voice, that inner mean girl, she’s actually trying to protect me.
I know that feels so counter intuitive.
That this destructive force may just be a corrupted protective instinct.

After all, I was only twelve when I created her. Twelve year olds make mistakes.

Now, this may lose some people, and may even be a further function of my disease, I don’t know, but hear me out–

My inner mean girl/ED voice– she isn’t entirely wrong.
Yes, she is destructive and unhealthy and dangerous, but she also brings some ugly truths to light.

I AM treated better in the world when I am in a smaller body. That’s not a lie. That is TRUE. I benefit, in society, from being smaller.

But the praise was never for me, it was always for my body, which I sensed to be separate from my self.

After a show, my performance was rarely complimented, but my body was constantly commented on. “I wish I had your abs!” “Ugh! Those dancer legs!”

This is where I come back to my inner/outer conflict.

My old thinking has me believing that because on the OUTSIDE it’s EASIER, then that is what’s true. But living that way, on the INSIDE, it’s fucking horrible.

It’s fucking horrible.

I have forfeited so much of my life. So much of my bandwidth, my spark, my energy, my time. I have passed the microphone to this mean voice and bullied myself from the inside.

So now, at 40, I’m going to try something new.

I’m gonna tell her it’s okay. I’m gonna invite her back into our body. I want to show her that it’s safe here. That she can relax. That we can be good inside. That’s available– we can just cozy up in our own cells and breathe and be good. Not just fine enough, but deeply good.

So I don’t know. Maybe try that. Snuggle into your cells, into your self. In with all your selves. They aren’t bad. You DON’T HAVE a bad part of you. It’s all good. Some of it is just… wounded. Misguided. Young. Even if we are no longer young, parts of us always are.

Okay, it’s 10:15 and I need to go have breakfast. Have you had more than just coffee?

Let’s chew something.

You are loved by me and others. xox

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Human Jellyfish

I’ve been thinking a lot about our bodies– how miraculous and baffling they are. All the different components working together, the signals, the hormones, the cues and responses. I’m trying to think about how my body works instead of just how it looks.

Also, when half your face goes numb and the doctors are trying to figure out wtf is going on, curiosity can sneak in. They take pictures of my brain, I learn as much as I can about my nervous system.

And yes, as a trainer I already had physiology and all that, but this brought it to a different level.

I started thinking about our brain, and how THAT is us. My perceptions, my feelings, my senses, my thoughts, it’s all there in this clump of neural whatnots shooting electrical currents back and forth.

And from that little blob stems out all these little tentacles, like a jellyfish, that thread throughout our bodies keeping every piece chatting with the others. These nerves that tell us what is going on around us, where we are, if we’re safe, what the temperature is, all of that.

The ones in my face— are having a moment. The motor neurons are firing, so I can MOVE my face. But the sensory nerves aren’t online. I can’t FEEL it. Like after the dentist, but now it’s been two weeks. It’s weird. So very weird. Yet I find not just comfort but AWE in the wholeness of my body, this phenomenal network.

And that awe extends to the rest of the world. I’ve been digging into my plants, repotting, whatnot. And seeing their root system– makes me feel connected. Plants are jellyfish too! (Obviously not really, but you know what I mean).

I guess what it comes down to for me is to realize that we are all more connected that we remember. That we really are walking miracles. Our nervous system alone is worth pausing to write poetry. A magical electric network, sensing, sending, moving, communicating nearly instantly.

So take that magical human jellyfish suit and enjoy your day in whatever capacity is available to you. You are loved. By me and others.

xox

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Outliving Roe

There is so much swirling in my brain and I have post-it after post-it stuck around my house with Things To Say and Ask but now that I’m here all I can manage is uff da.

I turned 40 the day after Roe should have turned 50. I am living a life where my daughter has FEWER rights that I grew up with. For the first fucking time, rights are being RESCINDED by the Supreme Court. We’re moving backwards.

Sunday, Bean and I went to our local #BiggerThanRoeRally. I explained that people in Wisconsin were now trapped under a law from 1859. That women in our country aren’t being allowed to make decisions about their own bodies and healthcare.

Abortion is Healthcare. Healthcare is a right. Abortion is a RIGHT.

Bean wore a bright pink shirt that said “Keep your laws off my magical body” and on the back “My Body Belongs to Me.” She made her own sign, with a unicorn on it.

Her sign. “2023, not 1849. I miss my rights.”

Our Congressman, Mike Thompson was there, Bean met him in 2018 at Rock the Ride. I reminded her of him and she said “Oh yeah, we ride bikes together” (the chutzpah, I love it). He spoke, and our amazing Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry spoke (we are so lucky to have her).

Bean with her “biking buddy” Congressmn Mike Thompson at Rock the Ride Napa, 2018

Women who remember life before Roe spoke. Teenage girls who’ve watched their rights be chipped away got up and spoke. It was really something.

Junior leadership and senior leadership.

Though my favorite was the young man, maybe 20 (maaaaybe), who stopped by the table to clarify why exactly we were there. “Wait, pro-Roe or anti-Roe?” He asked with his pen suspended. “Pro. And Roe was the floor, not the ceiling. We need more than Roe.” “Oh good,” he said. “I don’t have money or anything, but I have time and energy to give.” That’s what we need most dude.

He signed up. He’s gonna text bank to Wisconsin. “Oh, I can totally do that!” he filled with pride. Some of the dudes are okay.

Meanwhile the toll of gun violence shatters my heart again and again.

I am made of shattered pieces. This does not make be broken. It means I am rebuilt. Reformed.

I should also go have breakfast.

Have *you* chewed anything recently?

Much love to y’all, it’s hard out there. You are loved by me and others.

xox

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December Blues

I think it’s an exceptionally difficult time to be a human.

People are really struggling.

We were running on empty before, then emergency reserves, then fumes and now? Who knows how we keep going.

In the face of corruption and greed and violence.

In the face of planetary destruction and no response by the powers that be.

As we live paycheck to paycheck until illness bankrupts us.

The December blues are in my bones.

I fill our days with Merry and Bright to stave off the Darkness.

Lighting handles, hanging holly, feeling anything but jolly.

I know I am not alone.

So I light another candle to keep the Darkness away.

To keep the Darkness at bay.

I wish you comfort and coziness. May you know that isolation is a lie for we are all connected. And this great despair that fills the air makes this an excruciating time for the tender-hearted.

You are not broken. And you are loved. By me and others.

And I promise, the light will return.

xox

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December Blues

I think it’s an exceptionally difficult time to be a human.

People are really struggling.

We were running on empty before, then emergency reserves, then fumes and now? Who knows how we keep going.

In the face of corruption and greed and violence.

In the face of planetary destruction and no response by the powers that be.

As we live paycheck to paycheck until illness bankrupts us.

The December blues are in my bones.

I fill our days with Merry and Bright to stave off the Darkness.

Lighting handles, hanging holly, feeling anything but jolly.

I know I am not alone.

So I light another candle to keep the Darkness away.

To keep the Darkness at bay.

I wish you comfort and coziness. May you know that isolation is a lie for we are all connected. And this great despair that fills the air makes this an excruciating time for the tender-hearted.

You are not broken. And you are loved. By me and others.

And I promise, the light will return.

xox

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Performance Studies 2002

In the fall of 2002 I took “Issues in World Theatre” at UC Berkeley and immediately declared my major. The course covered not just various styles of world theatre, but also how it was used politically in South Africa, in Chile, in Europe.

Reading “Galileo” by Bertolt Brecht and how the play, like the science, had to smuggled out– the different endings, the implications of each– I geeked out and decided Performance Studies was the ultimate in humanities. Declared my major and never turned back.

We discussed the performative aspect of daily life, from religious rituals to “game face.” It was an interesting time and evolving era with the explosion of reality television, the birth of social media (computer based at that point) the line between performance and authenticity blurred.

A once smudged line is now near chaos as time and technological expansion have taken us from dial-up internet, film photos, and roaming fees (remember those??), to 4-5G, smartphones with unlimited data.

Our show-time has expanded from the 8-hour daily grind to a 24/7 bingefest.

The past twenty years have been a TRIP for Performance Studies majors.

Watching our thesis about the “Detriment to Democracy: Infotainment, performative politics and 24-hour news” come true is not the satisfying experience academia promised.

The micro-generation that started college pre-9/11 and attending through the acute-post witnessed so much degradation in real time in a way that very few experienced.

Those who were on MySpace and had a Xenga journal (you know who you are). Gen X’s younger siblings. We experienced Facebook when it was just for college students and have been on it so long it’s now how we show our parents pictures of our kids.

It’s very specifically WEIRD. We remember red-orange-yellow alerts becoming a thing (before we were just constantly hyper-vigilant and anxious). And maybe we’d done a lockdown drill in high school (I didn’t but maybe you did), but we didn’t have active shooter drills in elementary school (our baby cousins did. Our kids do).

I suppose it’s true that every generation experiences a huge cultural and political shift, as change and the swinging pendulum seem to be the only constants in the world. It just feels accelerated.

Because 2002 was TWENTY YEARS AGO which doesn’t seem possible until you think about all the things that have changed and then twenty years doesn’t seem like long enough for such a decline.

Yeah.

I’m fun at parties (I actually was sometimes, I promise).

So. Let’s hydrate and moisturize, who knows what waits ahead of us, so let’s face it fresh.

Goodnight. You are loved by me and others. Be kind to yourself and let that leak all over everybody. xox

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Quiet Time

I’ve taken some quiet time lately. Saying less, listening more. unplugging and plugging back in, time to think and wonder to myself. It’s been a nice respite from my standard reflect-and-pontificate repertoire.

We even snuck in a quick overnight camping trip. And I hardly posted about it! It was a glorious quiet recharge. Sunshine, fresh air, water and sand, stars and trees and goodness.

When we got home, things launched into hyper speed and I’ve made a point to keep some of the chill going. I ride my bike without music, I walk without a podcast. I even go sometimes *without my phone* (I know).

I checked out actual paper books from the library and read after lunch rather than scroll.

And what I’ve noticed in the quiet, when I’m quiet enough to hear it, is the unheard constant symphony of life. Birds chirping, sprinklers clicking on, car locks clicking, blunted thuds of the music of passing cars, the click of keyboards and the hum of the lights.

Sometimes I hear the leaves rustle, or a squirrel run across our roof (that was truly horrifying the first time it happened– I had NO IDEA what was happening and wondered if I was maybe losing my mind).

I hear offers of help, I hear pleas for help. I hear the rattle of phones vibrating on tables.

My phone tells me my screen time was down last week, and I am struck by the strangeness of that announcement and flex.

So, I recommend it. For whatever length of time it is. Ten minutes. A couple hours. Overnight.

Throw it on airplane or do not disturb and just… listen. And breathe.

It’s amazing what we can notice without notifications.

Much love. We are specks of dust on a speck of dust spinning and hurdling through space. It’s a lot– nothing and everything all at once.

xox

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Ancestors in Waiting

In our little kitchen nook I’ve created a family tree. Names and dates and photos with twinkle lights draped around. A little altar of sorts.

Tonight, kidlette sat next to it, drinking her warm water before bed, and suddenly she burst into tears.

“I will be so sad when you die! Who will take care of me? I don’t want to be alone!”

Oh kiddo. It’s all so scary. There is so much and I know that you see more than I think. I know you remember more than you say.

You know there are days that my body won’t cooperate. You know that time is fleeting. You watch our garden run its cycle and you mourn the loss of your grandparents’ dog.

“I am here,” I say. “I am here and I love you and I will always love you.”

The cost of living is high. The toll of loving even higher. And my darling, I promise you, not even death is strong enough to keep me from loving you.

Hopefully one day she will look at our tree and see all the generations nurturing and nourishing the next. For now, I fear, she sees only the Names of the Dead.

I am honored to be an ancestor in waiting. I hope, however, to wait a long, long time.

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Post-It Sized Cage

For over a year I’ve had a post-it with various weight ranges and categories listed.  As a reminder.  A post-it sized cage.

I’ve spun some pretty spectacular bullshit to justify its existence: That the range helps me from focusing on a single number, that it helps me keep perspective, that it keeps me accountable, that it prevents me from continuing to move my weight goal lower and lower.

And while some of that could be partially true, the underlying point is, that post-it controlled my sense of self-worth.  

I needed reassurance that things were “Okay” and I thought that being in the Fit category would mean that things were okay…. Spoiler alert— THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS.

So today… I ripped up the goddamned post it.  I’ll admit, I took a picture of it first.  I felt like it needed to be… memorialized?  Who knows, maybe that’s more bullshit.  Maybe that’s my disease morphing to escape detection.

At the end of it all, I don’t want to externalize my self-worth.

Because the moment I have to PROVE that I’m worthy, I’ve bought into the assumption that I wasn’t in the first place. And that’s the real bullshit.

WE ARE WORTHY BECAUSE WE ARE. Cut and print.

Be gentle with yourself. You are loved by me and others.

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Ready or Not, my story

CW: pregnancy loss, abortion

January 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th , 2021 were the worst days of my life so far.

One of the things most friends don’t realize because we were all sheltering at home, is that I was pregnant in 2020.

It was the one redeeming thing of an awful year. I cozied into our little nest, glowing with a secret and a promise of good things to come. Our world had been small for awhile but now it felt special. A merry little Christmas indeed. My growing body didn’t show up on Zoom and I looked forward to a silly reveal.

Rhys and I playfully bantered about if we’d find out the sex this time (maybe, no, yes? no, maybe? yes. no).

We were feeding the cats across the street and enjoying the creek when Twitter told us about the attack on the Capitol. I was stunned. We ordered pizza because I just could not even anything.

That night I started to bleed. Just before bath time with Bean.

I’m not going to do a play by play. This isn’t my space for that. But I held the line for the advice nurse and held hope through the night and into the next day where it became clear that there was no hope.

I went to my doctor’s office.

No heartbeat.

They sent me home.

Holding on to a hope that couldn’t last

But it got worse and I got sicker and sicker. Back on the phone. And to the ER.

It’s always a lousy time at the ER. January 2021 was a really shitty time to go to the ER. Pre-vaccine, mid-surge, there were no rooms.

It was awful.

It was awful and I almost died alone in an ER. And by the grace of my state government, I was not interrogated.

I am aware of that. Of my privilege. On the worst day of my life I knew it could have been even worse. That it WAS worse for so many others out there.

I blamed myself, though the doctors told me there was nothing I did wrong.

Had I been interrogated, I would have confessed to anything.

It was the worst day of my life and that was under the best circumstances. I had care available. I had social support. I had people who could take my child. I had a ride to the hospital. I had an N95 that I could wear in the waiting room. I didn’t catch COVID at the hospital. I SURVIVED.

There was so much that was terrible. The isolation nearly broke me. Maybe it did.

Where they saved me

The financial cost would make you want to tear everything down. Add the Everything Else and I think, yeah, the whole thing broke me down and broke me open and I’ve been rebuilding myself ever since.

So there it is.

Fuck you SCOTUS. You have no idea why a woman would need an abortion. We do not owe anyone our stories, we do not need to justify ourselves to you. Whatever the reason.

I WANT ONE is enough of a reason. Cut and print.

And “I need one” will always be a reason. Without the care that I finally received at the hospital, I could have died. My partner would have been left to raise our daughter alone.

I’ve learned, in order for folks to care about something, I have to frame the suffering of a man. My death would have made my husband’s life less convenient. So maybe now they’ll care.

Ugh.

My daughter and I went to our protest yesterday and spoke. She grabbed the bullhorn and said, “We should be free. We should be trusted. My body, my choice!” (She is six).

So what to do now? Get loud.
Pass the Judiciary Act of 2021 that would expand the court to balance the bench.
Pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (it’s already through the House)
And disrupt as much as we can– refuse to allow things to continue as usual.

Bean and the bullhorn “My body, my choice!”


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Unrecovered

I’ve uncovered something about myself.  As honest as I am, I’m a total liar. I lie so much.  Most often to myself, and so often that I sometimes have to pause to distinguish what is true from what I’ve told myself should be true.

I lie to myself out of necessity, for self-preservation.  

I lie to the world for the same reason, or so I thought.  

Until I realized I’m not preserving MYSELF. 

I’m preserving my disease. 

I’m safeguarding my disorder to insure that it will continue.  So It will survive.  It will go underground and change its name to Wellness and garner so much applause it’d keep Tinkerbell alive forever.

But maybe I don’t need applause to survive.  Maybe I could learn to live without requiring constant validation.  

What if I knew that I could weather the storm? What if I wasn’t afraid of my own existence?  What if I hadn’t clipped my own wings?

So I’m asking a lot more questions than I’m answering, and I’m trying to sit with that uncertainty. To let it stay a little messy. To say, huh, how about that, without tying it up with a tidy conclusion.

Times are hard. I’m tired. Recovery is hard. I’m fucking trying.
And some days are easier and some days are longer but every day I get up again. And that’s something. I’m discovering myself in recovery, uncovering myself. Trying to just let myself BE myself. (We’ll get to my ‘best self’ later, one thing at a time, y’all).

I’m learning to trust that I can be myself without any major modifications and life will continue to do its thing. And maybe I can learn to live without applause.

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WTF

I have a lot to say and no idea how to say it.
I have a million words running through my head and nothing to say.

Nothing more, at least.

Except maybe this–

When I joined Moms Demand Action, my daughter was still in a crib. Late one night I was up nursing and scrolling through my phone when I saw a post of a little pixie preschool girl balancing on a toilet seat.

The mom had seen her daughter doing this and thought, “What a wonderful and strange child I have,” until the girl said what she was doing.

It was what they did at school. When they played the Quiet Game, so the bad man wouldn’t find them.

Her heart broke, mine broke. Soon after, I joined our fledgling local group of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Parkland, our own community, and then place after place joined the list, and I became more and more involved.

(And to clarify, I am speaking just as me, not for the group).

I learned a lot of data. That though school shootings were terrifying, they were not where most kids got shot. Most kids that get shot, are at home or a friend’s house. Most kids that get shot, are shot because an adult didn’t lock up their gun.

I learned that school shooter drills are not proven to be at all helpful, but have traumatized a generation of students and increased anxiety in schoolchildren. I learned that most school shooters are students at or former students of the schools. That most of the time (like 80% of the time), they get their guns FROM HOME. Or a friend or relative’s home. From an adult who didn’t properly secure their weapons.

There are certainly other conversations to be had– about gun show loopholes and military grade weapons and high capacity magazines and all sorts of things.

But my biggest take away is that when we get adults to properly secure their weapons (in a securely locked container or disabled with a trigger lock), we stop kids from getting shot. We stop kids from being shot unintentionally, we stop kids from killing someone unintentionally, and we can stop a lot of school shootings.

So let’s do that.

And my little community, we’re doing pretty well. We’ve thwarted some scary situations, we’ve faced a few as well. Our city council was on board for a secure storage ordinance, the interim Chief-of-Police was on board too, and then… nothing happened. It lost traction. It wasn’t a priority for them.

Our school board stepped up and sent home information to parents, reminding them of best practices for safe storage. Parental notification of our responsibilities to prevent unauthorized youth access to firearms. (Thanks NVUSD!)

So I’m getting louder with city council and with the mayor. Because there are a lot of things we need to figure out, but there are some things we already KNOW. We know safe storage saves lives.

We knew seatbelts saved lives and said, y’all gotta wear one. We learned pool-gates saved lives and said, y’all gotta get one.

Well guess what?

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children.
Secure storage saves lives.
What the fuck are we waiting for?

I won’t be wearing pearls and saying please.
I’ll be in the red shirt, demanding that we DO SOMETHING.

Because we must.
And we can.
So again, I ask– what the fuck are we waiting for?

My daughter now attends kindergarten. My dream that I could get drills abolished by the time she was in school has revealed my naiveté. She’s six years old, missing her two front teeth, and she told me, “If a bad man comes to my school, I’m gonna kick him in the face.”

And I broke. Not in front of her, but that, I think, is when the hollowness started to creep in. The horror.

But I can’t afford horror. I have a child to raise, there isn’t another option here, we have to keep going. We have to do what we can because we may FEEL powerless, but we are NOT powerless.

The myth of powerlessness is a lie that evil whispers in our ears, shouts in our dreams. That there is *nothing* we can do.

But there are things we CAN.
So we must.
Because WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS.

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Earthlings for Everything

In the beginning was the Before
And the Time of Unknowing.

As more Became
And More became Known.
We entered the time of Discovery 

And Forgetting.

Now we are in the After the Before
Or the Beginning of the After, depending on your angle.

Much is Known and much is Forgotten.

We listen to learn and remember.

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Caterpillar Soup

I’ve been sitting in some experience, waiting for wisdom, since Christmas. Practicing non-reactivity, allowing reflection. This is a new practice for me.

What started as an intentional pause, become curious uncertainty and now seems to have settled into some knowledge.

The wisdom is yet to come.

Perhaps you’ve experienced something like it– see, I saw something that showed me the contrast of choices and priorities. How two people can appraise the same situation in such opposite ways. How our actions reflect our values (this I knew) and our reactions reflect our inner state (this is new).

Since my inner state is in flux– it feels like these last two years have been a cocoon and I dissolved into goo and am rebuilding.

Also, YES. Caterpillars do not simply sprout into butterflies like a seed into a flower, they almost completely dissolve, keeping only the very few parts of them that will serve them as butterflies. I can’t make this up. I learned this from my kindergartner.

It makes so much sense.

Of course you don’t just hide for awhile and miraculously change, bippity boppity-new. Transformation like that is grotesque and painful. Miracles are brutiful.

A caterpillar (I still struggle to spell that word), releases enzymes or something that dissolve most of itself.

But the thing is, before it nearly destroys itself, it builds protection. In order to transform, it needs a safe space to dissolve it’s Self and then REBUILDS NEW organs, legs, everything.

The caterpillar is a phoenix, returning with wings.

Completely different.

I feel like I’ve done the dissolving part, maybe right now I’m still in my cocoon, flexing my wings against the confines, gaining strength, stepping into my new self. Or maybe I’m still growing new pieces. I hope I’ll always be growing new pieces.

I’m grateful I had a safe space to dissolve and change, otherwise I’d just be caterpillar soup.

My wish for you today is that you get a safe space to stay in while you can become yourself.

That’s all you need to be, is yourself. You’re the only one who can do it.

You are loved. By me and others.

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Kindergartener, COVID and Disneyland

So we did it, we took Bean to Disneyland. It was her first trip! We had planned to take her when she turned 5 but… #2020

The pandemic continues and I had my hesitations, but seeing as we all had it in February, I figured this was our window of opportunity before it mutates more.

So I did my deep breathing and reminded myself there was no point in worrying once a choice has already been made. That we’d be outside and (thankfully at that time) masks would be required on the plane.

And y’all, it was perfectly magical.

It was a surprise for Bean, and we revealed it bit by bit. Though, right out the gate when we told her we had a surprise for her she shouted “We’re going to Disneyland!!” and Rhys and I looked at each other like WHAT, and she said “What? I’ve never been before. What’s the real surprise?”

(Gotta respect a kid who reaches for the brass ring, but damn).

So we told her we were going on a vacation and we got in the car. She kept guessing, “Gogo and Grampie’s? Auntie Ro-Ro’s?” I started giving her clues– well a riddle really.

“What has a nose but isn’t a dog? A tail, but isn’t a cat? Wings but isn’t a bird?”

“A robot?”

When we got to the airport and her grandparents popped out she was really into it.

“We get to ride an airplane with Glamma and Poppa?!? Are we going to see Uncle Larry??”

No kid, we’re going to a hotel.

“A Ho-Telle? Is there a pool??!?” She’s about to burst with excitement and I’m afraid we may end up with a Kristen-Bell-sloth-meltdown situation when we finally get to the reveal.

I think so.

We get to the hotel (The Grand California… we went big, it’s been a tough 2 years)– she is starting to notice…lots of ears, lots of swag.

“This is a special Ho-Telle,” she whispers in the lobby.

And it was. It all was. I won’t continue the play by play: it was really hot, it was less hot, it was magical, and I’m so proud of us.

I’m so stinking proud. She did really well and on Saturday when we walked up towards Disneyland, she got so excited about a pretty fountain on the walk, there were other kids watching the fountain and the JOY and delight they shared was really something.

“She has no idea what’s to come,” I whispered to Rhys, as a stranger next to us chuckled.

I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to Disney, and it was such an incredible experience to watch her live in the magic. She perked up when they called her “Princess,” and kept up her pleases (mostly) and thank yous (always).

It was hot, it was expensive, and I’m so so glad we did it. I’m grateful for the timing, for the extra hands of my in-laws, for a night at Disneyland with my husband, for the cast members at Galaxy’s Edge who played checkers with my child, for Chewbacca for growling at Bean when she told him she broke the Millennium Falcon, for Rey who told her she could be a leader.

I’m grateful for the Other Elsa and her mother and their kindnesses and grace when my Elsa belted out “Why don’t you have any hair?” I’m grateful I got to watch the two girls dance in front of the display window while Bean told her “I like your head!”

I’m grateful I remembered to slow down and enjoy it. I’m grateful for Raya and the shade, bubble wands, and the lifeguard at the hotel pool (that’s another story I’m not quite ready for).

Because there were TIMES. Oh there were times I almost lost it. When it was hot, when Bean got cranky, when I got impatient, when Rhys was walking too fast. And each time, we were able to take the lid off before we boiled over. Some shade, some water, some food, some bubbles– it didn’t take much to give us the break.

In the past, my cynicism/fear/anxiety has kept me from a lot of joy. I’m kind of blown away that we managed such an epic and magical trip. I feel like we leveled up as parents: achievement unlocked.

Letting her take her time, rather than rushing her through on my imagined schedule, has been the lesson of my LIFE.

Traveling home was hard and sad (lots of big feelings and big tears, especially since we couldn’t bring the balloon with us). We weepingly got her through security, and there was Dottie, a therapy dog, and through sticky sobs and her mask, Bean asked “May-I-puh-lease-pet-the-dog?”

And her handler said, “Well I wish you would, that what she’s here for,” and all was well again. I watched Bean completely shift. Her breathing slowed and her body relaxed. All was well because there was a dog.

Keep breathing y’all, there are dogs. And Disneyland.

xox

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Eavesdropping on love

I was at the playground a month or so ago, when the family on the bench next to me started having an intense conversation. I tried to give them their privacy and kept my head down, working on my postcards, and I tuned out a lot of it (“He’s just trying to make you jealous,” “I think he was trying to drive a wedge between us…”) but as more of their conversation drifted over me I took in more and more.

And it was a different kind of wonderful.

It was beautiful and sad. The older woman was counseling the younger woman about documenting abuse. “You got to build your case, show the pattern, nobody will listen if you speak up just one time.” She was counseling her, not just on what logistical steps to take, but was also being kind “I don’t know you but I know him and I believe you.”

It’s tender and terrible and beautiful and brutal. She reassures the young woman that she’s doing the right thing, she needs to focus on her and her son, just the two of them, and here the older woman breaks my perspective– “I don’t care about sides, his, yours, I just care about (the boy) and making sure he’s taken care of and from what I can see, you are taking care of him, so I’m going to take care of you.”

Sitting on the bench, head down, I am convinced I am witnessing G-d herself at work.

And then… more pieces connect. The older woman, it turns out, is the mother to the abusive addicted father.

Now I obviously do not know their story. I only witnessed this one piece of it. But the love a mother who is losing her son to addiction, reaching through grace to care for her grandson and his mother, whom she had not previously ever met, is a fierce-ass love, and I was honored to eavesdrop on it.

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We Can’t Bully Ourselves into Better

There’s no beautiful way to put this, I’ve been really, really mean to myself. I’m sure a lot of us have. We will say things to ourselves and about ourselves we would never accept or tolerate from or about another person.

I’ve told my clients over and over, “You can’t hate your way to healthy, you can’t bully yourself into wellness.” I say this, not from a book, but from my own experience.

I mean, books prove it too, there’s tons of them, but my experience is what informs my own lesson.

I’ve tried to be harsh, strict, disciplined, regimented, pick your word but you know what I mean. Then I’ll swing into sloth mode because I’m EXHAUSTED. But I’m learning, slowly, to be kinder, gentler, more gracious and understanding. Which allows me to be more consistent and present.

This year I broke one of my own traditions and made a New Years resolution. (I’m usually very anti-resolution as you may have inferred). I resolved to do less. To let time exist without filling it– to stop trying to fit in “one more thing”. I’ve simplified. Streamlined. It’s glorious, I highly recommend it.

If you need a sign to be kinder to yourself, to nurture and nourish yourself, take this one here. We can’t hate our way through healing. It doesn’t work that way. We have to rest, and stretch to work and grow.

Drink some water, close your eyes, know you are loved by me and others.

xox

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Things I Do Not Understand

Things I Do Not Understand: War Edition

I know that I do not know much about international relations, world politics, or war.  I am not a strategist or a scholar of authoritarian regimes.   I am broadly educated in world history up to about 1946 when we ran out of time to finish the syllabus so listened to “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” while our teacher tried to explain the lyrics.

#publiceducation

So I do not understand what the best options are or all the pieces in play.  I won’t pretend to, I don’t get it.

I don’t get most of it.

Like, I don’t get why folks continue to be shocked by what this killer dictator does.  We know that he poisoned some dude in the UK.  We know he invaded Crimea and bombed the life out of Syria.  I don’t get that.  He showed us who he is, and I fully believe that scholars in the future, if there is a future, will mark WWIII as having already started by now.

They’ll come up with some cool academia word for it, like “Frog Soup War” or something to indicate it transitioned gradually from a cold war to a hot one.

It’s the first to include a digital front.  And I don’t understand that either.  

I also don’t understand the POINT of having all of the things that we have: the alliances and the weapons and the trainings and the treaties and the multi trillion dollar military budget, if we’re just going to sit and watch this happen?

I mean, in my bones I know the point of the military industrial complex is NOT to stop war and promote peace, but instead to make as much money as possible, I know that, but it’s different to see it here.  To know that we have all these things and we… are just watching this and saying “Hey, well NOW we won’t do business with you.”  After Crimea.  After the hits.  After Syria.  I’m sure there’s more we’re missing.  “NOW we draw the line.”

And I also do not understand sanctions, and I know that I do not understand it, but it seems to me that if we had reacted this way when Syria happened, that would have been the moment to draw the line.  I dunno. That’s from parenting books.  You gotta “NOPE” it quick if you’re going with a mild approach.  We didn’t.  We let Vladdy keep buying candy at the market. 

So I don’t get this.  I don’t get any of this.  

I don’t get why we aren’t in there building pop-up hospitals and dropping off defensive weapons.  

I’m sure there are reasons, there must be reasons, but they feel like bullshit to me.  

This feels like the sickest plot twist, the dark fallout of reality television.  We scroll through the war on our phones.  

I do not know what to do.  I feel like I know how we got here, but that’s not very pertinent right now.  I want to rant but that’s pointless.  To sit in my peaceful home, ridden with guilt,  whom does that help? Not a damn person.  

There was a peace rally in town I almost attended but chose not to, for they were against any intervention and I am not.  I want us to go in and help.  What’s the point of being the United States if we don’t go in and help? 

(I know, such a Pollyanna moment, forgive me).

Because if Russia stops fighting, there will be no war.  
If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine.

There’s no both-sides’ing this.  I’m not against “all forms of violence,” unless there’s a carve-out for violence-against-occupiers.  Which there might be, I haven’t read it all, like I said, there’s a lot I don’t know about war.

Once upon a time I was a Peace and Conflict Studies major, I took all the language requirements but the courses just broke me open.  A true bleeding heart.  I’d wanted to be a White Helmet but couldn’t take it.

Because I don’t understand how this one precious life that we have—the miracle of our existence at all, the conditions of the planet and atmosphere, the circumstances that lead to our ancestors meeting, all of the pieces that brought us into existence, and some men are hellbent on just destroying everything around them.  They cannot handle the cosmic connection, they are insulted by their cellular proximity, they feel it diminished them.  These destructive fools who waste their less-than-a-century, literal once-in-a-lifetime-life, KILLING PEOPLE.  Destroying cultures.   Because they can.

I just don’t understand it.

At fucking all.  

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The Women Who Stepped Up

I’ve been thinking a lot about the women in my life, specifically the ones who stepped up and into a positive role without really needing to. The women who didn’t owe me anything but paid it forward anyhow. In ways great and small.

The women at the laundromat who shared with me the value of finding a freshly used and therefore already warm dryer.

The women at the office who show you the shortcuts both to the vending machine that spits out two for one chips or that you can tab over on the keyboard through that page.

The teachers I reached out to long after leaving their schools, who reached back and held on. They had every right to ignore my messages but they did not. They reached back. Thank goodness.

Thank goodness for the women.

Thank goodness for smiles and nods and quiet hellos.
For scooting over to make room.

Thank goodness for the generosity of an ear or a shoulder.

Thank goodness for the friend who will drop off peanut butter.

Thank goodness for the women who share their wisdom, who bear witness to unrecorded history.

Thank goodness for the women at the park who practice patience and remind me of the beauty of taking the time.

Thank goodness for the women of faith and science who show me that there are things I need to know, things I want to know, and things I already know.

Thank goodness for the women of Poland who are leaving strollers at the train stations for Ukrainian mothers. And grandmothers, because many mothers stayed back to fight.

Thank goodness for the women who bring other people’s children into safety.

Thank goodness for those who reach back when someone calls out.

Uff da.

It is all so heavy and I am grateful for the women who keep me rooted. This web of women around the world, I believe in us.

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Lessons (Re) Learned

Recently I’ve been reminded of the importance of boundaries. I’ve never been great at healthy boundaries, I either lock people out completely and provide a curated character to interact with the world, or I fire hydrant blast all my thoughts everywhere.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten better at being less performative, I’ve integrated more my hard learned lessons into my daily life, and I’m learning to trust more.

Unfortunately, old habits hold on tight, and I trusted someone who hadn’t earned it. I was so hopeful, so excited, that I over-served grace and over-shared my experiences, which were then weaponized against me.

And now I have to check myself– I pause to verify my intention.

What I learned (again), and what I’d like to share with you, is the importance of trusting ourselves and the power of a pause.

How many times have we over-ridden our own instincts because we thought we were being silly? I’ve certainly talked myself out of my Knowing, doubting my own read on things, convincing myself that I’m being dramatic or judgmental or over-protective.

What I forget, in these moments, is my cellular wisdom. I forget that my bones know things my brain will deny. I forget that sometimes what I want (a thing, a person, a connection), is not always wise, and is not always what I need.

And, in case you’ve forgotten too, it’s okay to NEED THINGS. It’s also okay to want things, even if we should not HAVE those things. It doesn’t mean you’re broken, it means you’re human. We all want things that it would not be wise to actually have– jet packs, pet tigers, a motorcycle, sequined pants (they’re fabulous but they are NOT practical, trust me).

Knowing that something isn’t wise or healthy doesn’t necessarily remove the want, and this is where the power of a pause can come into play.

Often, I charge through my wants into denial, refusing to even acknowledge what I want. Other times, I blast from a want to a get, following that impulse before verifying that it’s true. Sometimes this is a harmless, silly purchase. But sometimes it’s more than that.

I can be in such a hurry to reach “OKAY” that I don’t allow time for healing. If someone has hurt me, I can quickly say “it’s fine,” without taking the time to MAKE it fine, and then it gets worse, and I’m responsible for my role in that.

So whether it’s getting bangs, or reconnecting with someone who has hurt you, take that pause. “Is this really what I want? Or am I trying to prove something?” “Is this smart or is this easy?” And it’s okay to not have the answer. Sit in that wondering for a bit. Because once something is shared, once something is cut, it’s… done. The toothpaste doesn’t go back into the tube. Your hair will grow back but that will take some time.

In our comment-happy culture, it’s easy to get caught up in the reactionary loop. I certainly do and it’s gotten me into some trouble. I’m learning (again), the importance of taking a breath, of not responding right away, of not feeding into the whirlpool of nonsense swirling around us all.

And if forgiveness is divine, then it’s also sacred. Rushing through the process cheapens the whole thing. Healing, like growth, happens on its own schedule and cannot be hurried. Regardless of my wants, life will unfold on its own schedule and if we try to expedite it, we run the risk of being the child who “helps” the butterfly out of the cocoon, dooming it to a flightless life.

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Parenting in End Times

I’m learning that I’m rarely alone in my feelings or my thoughts, however isolating they may feel.

So I’m wondering if there are others out there who struggle with raising a child amid the climate crisis.

Within ten years the world may change so much we are in unending catastrophe. My girl will have just gotten her license, if cars are still a thing, which I imagine will be true.

I picture her as an adult, grilling me as I remind her that once there was clean water and she took a bath every day, sometimes twice! Showing her videos of Planet Earth and what used to be.

The urge to sign her out of everything and travel to Alaska and see glaciers while we can, is tempered by the reality that we are currently living in a pandemic and travel is likely out of the running and beyond our tax bracket.

One day, I assume, she will approach me with the same fury I brought to my parents. “How could you let this happen!?”

And maybe I’ll tell her about my time with Environmental Action and show her pictures of us at the Climate Now rally. Maybe I’ll remind her that we did what we could, reducing our plastic at the refill station, riding our bikes in town, composting and picking up trash. Or maybe I’ll just stroke her hair and apologize.

I have memories of sitting in the station wagon with my mom in the front seat, driving to EcoSLO to drop off our separated recycling. It was a lot more work then and she did it. With three kids and a job, she still separated the paper and the glass and the aluminum cans and drove them over to be weighed and received. I remember that. Perhaps my child will remember something too.

But at the end of the day it’s bigger than what my child thinks of me (although it’s hard to imagine anything bigger than that at the moment).

Sometimes I cave to the impulse to spoil her now to make up for the dystopian future ahead. Yesterday she had hot chocolate with breakfast. Right now, as I type, she is watching Kung Fu Panda.

What did Roman mothers do just before the fall? They probably were making lunch and playing make believe.

I call my representatives all the time, we need to green the grid, we need to get serious about this, blah blah blah. I don’t know that it will make a difference, but I know that for me, giving up altogether would be the ultimate defeat.

I understand, or am trying to, that there is SO MUCH beyond my control. I am not responsible for that, how could I be? But the things that I CAN do. I am absolutely responsible for that. And I never want my girl to see me refuse to do the things I can. Fueled by courage, rather than ego. I know I am not Captain Planet. But I will do what I can.

I may be playing “I Spy” as the Titanic sinks, but the kid needs to be entertained.

So maybe we’ll stay in our pajamas all morning and have chocolate milk with breakfast. Then this afternoon we’ll go sit in the sunshine and listen to the birds and stare at the clouds and enjoy this beautiful, amazing planet. Short and fleeting like a beautiful, amazing childhood.

Take good care and be gentle with yourself. You are loved by me and others.

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Baked Potato and Progress

I read a note I wrote on Facebook in 2009, and I was so proud of myself because I had baked a potato all by myself.

I share this vulnerable moment with you, so that you know there is nothing too small to celebrate.

I didn’t have much in my adulting/self-care/survival skills toolbox. That potato was one more tool, and in the however many years it has been since (carry the one or new math, brain glitch, 13?) years, wait a sec, THIRTEEN YEARS?

Okay. Yeah. I’ve made a lot of progress in thirteen years, although could someone check my math, is that right?

I have been gathering tools and learning skills and training myself to remember to take care of myself. (Yeah, that sounds kinda sad when I lay it out like that but there it is). I am still learning that I am worthy of care. That I deserve rest. That rest does not require exhaustion, and I don’t need to earn my shower or my meal. I can just GET those.

I’m still learning. I like to take my time with lessons, make sure they really stick.

This old note was a happy reminder of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come and how proud 2009-me would be of 2022-me. And how proud I am of 2009-me. And that is growth.

I can look back on myself with kindness. I can be gentle, I can offer grace. It feels wonderful to be free from the weight of self-judgment. To take a moment to celebrate where I was and where I am and all the work and humanity in between.

So, take heart! There are potatoes.

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The Personal, Political, and Practicing ImPerfectionism

I, like many of us, have often let my perfectionism prevent me from STARTING. Things pile up around me because I can’t just do them, I have to do them RIGHT and I can’t do it right now, so it waits. It can fester.

I, like many of us, am learning that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, because something is better than nothing and done is better than perfect.

(Exhale). Done is better than perfect.

I’ve repeated this lesson over and over and I’m still learning it.

I first heard it from the brilliant Kate Mattson at UC Berkeley. It was our Production Management class and she saw my draft after draft of an unsubmitted version and tell me “SMITH. Done is better than perfect.”

“Done perfectly is better,” I’d respond, refusing to learn and watching my hair fall out.

I, like many of us, was raised under the delusion that my behavior could fix the world. That if *I* recycled enough, and turned the lights off when exiting the room, climate change (then called global warming) could be stopped. That if *I* stopped eating meat, there’d be enough grain to feed the world. And that if EVERYONE ELSE could do like I do, then everything would be fine (LOLOLOLOLOLOL).

We had elementary school assemblies and I quickly became the enforcer at home. Turning lights off, separating the trash from the recycling, picking up trash at the park, admonishing smokers on the street.

My parents are, and always were, incredible– with their drought buckets in the shower and catch pitchers by the sink, early adapters of canvas bags, they recycle and even compost now.

I’ve kept it up too– we work hard to reduce our driving by walking or riding our bikes when we can, we’ve reduce our plastic (I totally buy those laundry and soap tablets) we refill rather than repurchase, buy things second hand. My daughter, now six herself, shouts out “REUSE!!”

But I carried and spread a disproportionate amount of guilt and anger about the fact that my personal responsibility is not and has not been enough to fix the world. I see that now. I want her to know that too– that it’s GOOD and important to do what you can but at the end of the day, there are bigger things so far out of our control.

The times I’ve scolded my partner for throwing away something compostable, or trying to recycle paper towels (seriously, who thinks that’s a thing?), the times I’ve gotten angry at myself for throwing something away instead of repurposing it, the strange things I’ve kept tucked away because “It’s a really nice bottle,” or “I can find something to do with this.”

I don’t want to discourage folks from doing what they can, it is a form of empowerment. Just please, keep it the right size. Remember that yeah, we can recycle those little toilet paper tubes (or compost them), and yeah, a BUNCH of those get thrown away every year. But… that’s not the driving problem.

We’ve been sold the lie that WE, individuals, are responsible. And we believed that lie because of ego and fear. We want to feel powerful, not powerless.

But if you’re trapped in the prison of perfectionism, feeling like a failure because you are not solving All the Things, I’m here to remind you… the responsibility belongs to a few corporations, all owned by and benefitting the extremely rich.

But we, as third graders, were told was our job to fix.

And maybe, you, like me, have a stack of things that Don’t Get Done because they Should Be Done a certain way. I’m gonna remind you that done is better than perfect. Throw away the toilet roll tube, throw the coffee filter in the garbage. Yes, it’s good to recycle and compost, but if you are struggling this little bumps can stall you out.

The times I’ve left a filter in our coffee maker overnight because I needed to wash the compost bin so I could put a fresh paper in it before I empty the filter…. and none of that was going to happen? Yeah, just throw the damn thing in the trash. Then it’s done.

That doesn’t mean climate change is your fault.

I challenge you to do something poorly today. Practice imperfectionism.

Lemme know how it goes.
xox

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Holy Bones

This week the grief has been heavy. Eating away at my bones like osteoporosis, til I’m too weak to stand. The slightest pressure causes collapse and I don’t know where to find the strength to rise again. But I must’ve found a source of strength somewhere because here I am again. Breathing all day, walking around looking like a human when really I’m just a stack of empty, hollow bones, covered in muscle and skin, passing as a human.

So I pour myself another cup of coffee and let the warmth revive the wavering spirit within me.

I hold my daughter close and try to keep my tears from dripping onto her curious little head.

I call my representatives and beg them to do SOMETHING, anything. And I try to stay afloat while Grief strives to pull me under. I tell myself this is the darker side of love, that the waves may come but eventually they will relent. That though I may feel this way forever, I will not feel it all the time.

That the anger and sadness weave in and out of my days, sometimes thicker than others, sometimes longer than others, and while they can dominate my brain, they are not the only players. There is also joy and levity, there is beauty and light, even if right now I cannot see it.

When I was a child, my parents took us to the Griffith Observatory and it was fascinating. I loved watching the world grow smaller while our perspective grew, and took great comfort in the vastness of the universe. When the show was over, they warned us that upon exiting, we would not be able to see for a moment. Our eyes would need to adjust after being in the dark for so long.

I feel that today. I know there is sunlight and beauty in the world– flowers and birds and dogs and yet– I cannot perceive them at this moment. My eyes are accustomed to the dark. My senses cannot yet register the joy and freedom around me. I feel tied down, incapacitated. Just a pile of bones Grief is gnawing on.

I want to share this, I know that I am not alone, I know that naming it zaps its power but I am afraid to share my fear, my sorrow, my anger. I know how uncomfortable it makes everyone . Especially those closest to me. Nobody knows what to say so they resort to platitudes which are just the very worst.

I know there is still joy in the world, but I cannot see it. Telling me that it is there, to have faith, to believe and trust that it will return— I know it comes from a good place, I know that it’s TRUE, but what’s also true is that is not a helpful message. That messaging helps the teller escape discomfort, it does not extend comfort my way.

And I do not want to pollute your feed with my angst and grief and anger and despair. I long to trumpet out calls to action and messages of hope and resilience. Am I not always saying “Keep Going!” And yet… today I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to curl up in a ball and hold my girl close and disappear into our little cocoon.

I’m afraid of the holidays. I’m afraid of my resentment and my grief. I fear my heart is not strong enough to hold them any longer and I don’t know what will happen when it cracks open.

I am so fucking sad.

So if your bones feel weak, if you feel like the tendons that were holding you together have gone on strike, I feel you. If this holiday season you are torn between gratitude and grief, oscillating between joy and sadness, unsure which parts of you are invited to dinner… I feel you. If one more perky message threatens to send you over the edge or into a puddle and you’re afraid you may tell Santa himself to Fuck Right Off, you can come sit next to me.

We can wear our sweats and watch spy movies and eat M&Ms and curse when the kiddos aren’t paying attention.

We can have a cranky Christmas together, without anyone asking us to cheer tf up.

(We can’t really, there’s this whole pandemic thing, plus I’ll be down at my parents… but in spirit. I’m right there with you).

You may feel lonely, but please know you are not alone. My grieving bones and I will be right there with you.

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Tax Suitcase of Keep Forever Things:

I hold onto things for a ridiculously long time. I’m rather sentimental.

I have my Poppa’s old tax suitcase (It’s a little old suitcase with a labelmaker label on it that says “Taxes”). It’s where I keep my Keep Forever things.

I keep my Keep Forever things in the tax suitcase because there are two things in life you can count on, death, and that I’m-going-to-keep-that-forever.

I kept, not every, but many of the many cards my grandparents sent me. Encouragement cards during days of visible struggle, birthday cards, Christmas letters, Just Because cards. Notes pontificating on religion, family, politics, and the world, saying they’re proud of me and in my corner. The handwriting gets a bit shakier over time, his more than hers, but every card is stuffed full of love. Gone for almost a decade but still with me.

Last night I smiled more than I cried while I read them. My gratitude is now bigger than the grief. I ate up every card and kept diving in for more treasures.

Birthday cards and notes from my parents, cards from friends, and drawings from their children. I have an envelope my now high-school niece scribbled “I Love You” on when she was probably 6. Cards from our engagement and wedding– words of advice and celebration. Cards of sympathy and notes of understanding– generous and compassionate.

I held them to my heart and smiled. I felt so loved. It felt SO GOOD.

The opposite of a Dementor– my own little Patronus.

So for those of us who live with depression (and standard folks too, why not), I highly recommend gathering up a box of collected memories—words from people who know and love you, who can remind you who you are when you forget. Because we forget. And the disease can get loud.

Chocolate helps but only so much. You gotta cast that patronus. Fortify yourself with the armor of love.

Because you are loved. By me and by others.

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My Mother, the activist

My mother would never describe herself as an activist,
But I do.

She never allowed Nestle in the house,
She vetoed Carl’s Jr on every road trip,
And never participated in Black Friday.

My mother was an activist, in her way.

With three kids to raise, a husband, and a job to juggle,
She protested with her purse,
Refusing to support those who didn’t support others.

Not for all the “But Mom”s in the universe.

“But Mom, strawberry milk!”
But honey, those babies.

“But Mom, criss cut fries!”
But honey, women’s rights.

“But Mom, I want to see a movie!”
But honey, those workers.

That was how she showed her values.
Pocketbook protest, economic Evangelism.

She claims to not know where I get it from.
But I know I get it from her.

I know where we get it from too,
I’ve been studying the branches.

Our Family Tree tells me
of a woman named Belle who stood up for others.

She fought for benefits she would not reap.
She planted seeds and we get to bloom.

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Guts

We have 22 feet of small intestine. I don’t think we appreciate that enough. 22 FEET. I am more guts than anything else. I am basically guts tucked into a cavity with limbs, connected to a brain. We all are.

Clearly I’ve been reviewing my physiology notes.

But seriously, our small intestine is under appreciated. It’s what really runs the digestive show, not the stomach. The stomach is just the blender that dumps into the intestine, where all the nutrients are actually absorbed.

It’s so strange to think about how little we think about how our bodies work. How much we don’t really know or understand. About our own bodies?! It makes me kinda mad,

So from our guts, it goes into our blood, then to our liver and then out and about (brain, heart, etc).

For some reason (insert lots of sarcasm here), I always pictured mouth-stomach -ass-thighs.

When really it’s mouth (stomach)-guts-blood-heart-brain-body.

From one set of guts to yours, LC.

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First Impressions in 2021: Parent Teacher Conference on Zoom

I’ve learned a lot about first impressions, in the year of our plague, 2021.

A) I’m usually Wrong in my assessment

B) Tone is hard to read in text

C) There’s no point in pre-stressing over might-be issues

Historically, I don’t have the best track record with first impressions– that is, what I first notice about other people, my first read on them. (I have no control over what other people’s impressions are of me– I’ve always been afraid to find out, so I pretend it’s not important).

But my first read on someone is almost always wrong.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. But… painfully accurate.

The people I am initially drawn to most are often the most toxic or dangerous (and therefore exciting and interesting). The people I initially overlook tend to be the ones I really appreciate upon knowing better. This is less true with men. My initial read on men is a bit more accurate. I still swing and miss a lot, but my batting average is higher.

This is all to say, I headed into our parent teacher conference CONVINCED that my kid’s teacher was going to be adversarial.

Parenting a kindergartner during the pandemic is really interesting. We also had the privilege of parenting preschoolers during the pandemic, so we’re a real interesting breed of incoming parents.

I have not been into her classroom or allowed past the gate of her campus. All my interactions with her teacher have been over email (See lesson B).

Long story not-so-long, I log onto Zoom bracing myself to be yelled at for having the kid who dances and gets in trouble for singing, and cuts her hair, and is sent to the office, and is basically all your favorite kid characters like Ramona Quimby and Calvin, and Pippi Longstocking, who you love to read about but is exhausting to raise?

And instead, I see a veteran teacher, smiling, talking about how the other kids don’t always know what mine is doing, but she does– she’s dancing the letters as they sing them, she’s exploring acoustics, she’s bouncing to the beat of her own drum. And I see an ally. And I’m so grateful I could cry (and for once am glad I’m not in the classroom but logged in from my kitchen table), so I say thank you and click off to get a glass of water and a snack.

And I think of how sick I’d made myself in anticipation of this meeting. And how silly it was of me to assume the worst out of a public educator. And how proud I am of my girl for being 100% herself. And how lucky I am that her teacher sees and values that too.

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Ego

The WORST

I was listening to a woman I admire and she said something that landed so hard I have to share it. She said that she can’t say she had “low self-esteem,” because she had “no self-esteem.” And that part I’d heard before and nodded along with, but then she went on to remind me that thinking so poorly of ourselves is another form of self-centeredness. And that knocked me on my ass.

Because it is selfish, and self-centered, to think that you are THE WORST. And when you’re a recovering perfectionist, your knee jerk reaction to anything less than perfect is to declare it the WORST.

But I’m not the worst, I’m not even like medium worst, I’m accidentally terrible from time to time, but I’m learning to accept that as part of the human condition. And just aim for okay.

When I can reframe my self-loathing as self indulgence and remind myself that those feelings aren’t facts, I feel like I can skip the train. I can let it go by without climbing onboard.

So if you start to feel like you’re the worst… remember you’re not. I’m not going to say “we’re great and you’re perfect,” because… maybe we’re not but we don’t have to be. And if rah-rah- sis-boom-bah recovery isn’t for you, I hear that.

Because somedays I don’t want to hear that I’m a ray of sunshine and a child of the multiverse, because sometimes I’m a storm cloud throwing a tantrum. But here’s a thing that helps me when my monster starts to tell me I’m the worst.

I used to try to tell my monster to shut up. For years I listened to her and handed over control, and then I locked her in a cage and told her to shut up. But she’s been talking to me for years, whispering, screaming, and now I’m trying something new.

Instead of locking her up inside me, I go down and let her out. We sit and talk.

“You’re the WORST.” “I’m the– oh hey. I’m not the WORST, who’s the WORST?”

And we think of someone who might qualify. Someone who kicks dogs and splashes pedestrians and doesn’t tip. And I come up with things and she comes up with things and it’s fun to start to think about the worst person ever and right before it gets way too dark (or sometimes right after), we dissolve into giggles and I invite her up.

She isn’t ready to leave, but we can settle back in having determined that we are not, in fact, THE WORST.

Maybe we’re okay. And isn’t okay the goal?

I always thought I wanted to be superhuman. To do all the things. But now I’m going to try just being human. In all the things.

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Grr-attitude, Gratitude and Grief

I bristle at a lot of advice I’ve received and I cringe sometimes, worrying that I am perpetuating toxic ideology. I won’t dare to assume what another human is going through, and I am no model on how to handle life beautifully and gracefully.

In fact, I often feel like I have more Grrr-attitude than gratitude.

The mere mention of “gratitude” can cause internal (and external) eye-rolls on my part. It evokes images of placidity, complicity, and a dereliction of duty. Like, instead of going after the things that need to be changed, women are told to “be grateful” for what we have.

And like a grumbling Anya in “Anastasia,” I get real snarky real quick.

But I am no longer a sullen teenager raging against the inequities of the world. I am a woman who faces them. I am a mother working to change the things that I can. And what I’m learning is that gratitude is less about counting your blessings and ignoring the curses, and more about seeing both at once. It’s about maintaining those blessings in the presence of curses.

Because the blessings abound (okay I just threw up in my mouth a little), but they really do. I have a roof and heat and a safe bed. I have clean water and clean air. It will rain soon and that always feels nice. I have power and internet and have been vaccinated against horrible diseases that killed my ancestors and plagued my father-in-law.

All of that is true, and none of it is less true in the face of all the other horrible truths that surround me.

Navigating grief is a heck of a thing. I am feeling every feeling I’ve ever encountered. Rage, despair, painful joy, brutal hope, and bright red anger when that hope proves poorly founded. And while I struggle to accept gratitude within my grief, because it reeks of Disney and Pollyanna, I am (gulp) grateful for my grief.

WHY? HOW?

Because it means I have held on to my humanity though all of this. I grieve because I love, and while it makes me vulnerable to pain, I would not give up my capacity for love for anything in the world– not even the protection of isolation.

Vulnerability is hard, but it beats the socks off of the numbness I’ve sought and surrounded myself with for decades.

Gratitude does not mean I’m throwing a pink filter on everything and saying “this is great” or even “everything happens for a reason” (EWWW!!!!). Nothing is more insulting than to claim someone’s pain and suffering is all part of some grand design. My anger rears up at the arrogance and callousness of statements like that.

No wonder I resisted “gratitude” for so long. I had a corrupted concept of what it meant. Gratitude, for me, is not “choosing to see the good instead of the bad”, (also known as selective acceptance) but seeing it all. Putting AND in place of OR. That things are terrible and beautiful. That people are loving and cruel. That I am grateful and overwhelmed with grief.

That opposing truths do not cancel each other out, but add depth to the human experience. Their duality is not a contradiction.

We can be grateful for 4 weeks paid leave and still know that it is not enough. I can be grateful for my beautiful family and still mourn the losses we’ve sustained. I do not have to pick one side, I contain multitudes.

My grief is as deep and overwhelming as my love.

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The Extremist, the Ocean, and Enough

I’m an extremist. I understand that now. I’m a perfectionist who thinks things (myself included) are either perfect or terrible, and if I’m not perfect than I must be shit.

I am unlearning that dichotomy.

As a student, I’d claim I failed an exam if I landed a C. I thought I wasn’t a good English student because I always got an A- on my report card. My metrics were ridiculous then and can still be from time to time.

But I am not my worst mistakes. And okay is OKAY, and “okay” doesn’t mean PERFECT. It’s hard to break that patterning but it is VITAL.

One of my biggest fears is passing on my perfectionism and extremism to my child. I see her rip up a drawing if she makes a mistake and it’s a shock to my system.

I’ve tried to use my past methods to break free from this lifelong, self-built prison, but it turns out the tools I used to make this prison will not help me escape it. I need a different toolkit.

I’ve tried to muscle my way through it, to discipline my way through it, to push, grind, write, analyze, discuss my way through it. And I haven’t gotten very far. After years of smashing brick after brick against the walls around me, I finally see that there’s a door. Rusted shut, yes, and painted over and over and over again but there it is. My way out. If I’m brave enough to try. If I value myself enough to know I deserve sunshine.

And that door was not the fortress gate I’d imagined, I didn’t even have to kick it down. I just needed the courage to push a little and it gave way. But how to find the guts to step out, beyond the familiar walls, into the greater world.

So here I stand, squinting in the light, confused by all the noise around me, completely overwhelmed by the vastness and insignificance of it all. The living contradiction that used to baffle me. And I think of the lessons I have yet to learn. The gifts people have given me that I haven’t quite opened yet.

My Dad told me never to turn my back on the ocean. But I stand here, facing away from it, wondering why I’m getting knocked over, why my mouth is full of sand. Why why why, when what I need to do is turn around and witness the strength and the power and the glory of the ocean. To see it come at me and step back if I need to, or roll up my pants, or run toward it and dive in. But first I have to face it– a power greater than myself. Something beyond my control. Something affected by the moon itself.

The ocean can hold me, the ocean can destroy me, the ocean carries life and mystery and power and history. The ocean is so much greater than me and yet we are both here, on this tiny and immense planet. We both grew out of the nothingness.

I remember the ocean and I feel less alone. I re-size myself and can recalibrate my expectations. When I turned by back to the ocean, I was turning away from myself. I was afraid to admit my powerlessness. I want to be mighty. And in my own way, I am. But the ocean is bigger. Our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, the cosmos are so much bigger. And for once that doesn’t feel diminutive. It doesn’t make me feel small because they are infinite and they contain me. I am part of the Everything. And that is enough.

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Big Feelings, Bigger Picture

A year ago I took my girl to the park for the first time in over 200 days (206 to be precise, we were definitely counting).

Now she’s back to Kindergarten after a couple days out with a sniffle and testing negative.

We had a play date with Forever Friends. It was amazing to watch them together. These only-children who met before birth, who were preschoolers of the pandemic, checking in on one another.

These kids, y’all, they’ll break your heart. Even the ones that are making it through okay are going through so much. Mine’s having a hard time. She doesn’t want to go to school. There are a couple boys that she has friction with.

She’s an ALL CAPS kid, like Gabi in Vivo, her very own brand of awesome and not everyone’s flavor. I point out the 17 other kids in class who think she’s fun and creative and a good teammate, but she hears the two boys who call her a crybaby.

She’s got big feelings, my girl. I do, too, I always have. It was really hard in elementary school (and middle school and high school and college and now), to be so passionate about so many things. Starting in elementary school I rose to every perceived injustice with the same fire I see her breathe now: I stormed out of a student council meeting when I felt like I wasn’t being heard (that was 3rd grade?)

Sidenote: Ever notice in Student Government, Parli-Pro is invoked way more frequently against girl students than boys? I certainly noticed. Early.

I know she comes by her fire honestly, and I do NOT want to tame it but I don’t want it to burn her either. I want her learn to hone it, to harness it, to wield it.

I spent decades trying to quiet my big feelings, trying to tone it down or keep it in and I’ve scorched myself in the process. I’ve spent years discovering ways to wield it. I still get burned, I’m still learning.

August 2025

In the past week I have:

Successfully set up camp solo

Gone paddle boarding (tall knees)

Worked three shifts

Taken kidlette to the fair (solo!)

Practiced harmonies for my next show

I am proud of these mini accomplishments, things I wouldn’t have thought possible not too long ago.

I’ve also:

Run into people I know

Relaxed in the presence of strangers

Had garden fresh tomatoes AND fair food.

Practiced my deep squat.

Not to mention:

Existed in my bathing suit

Taken my daughter to the beach without any body talk

Roasted s’mores two nights in a row

Started a fire all by myself (well, with a lighter)

All in all pretty darn proud of myself.

Progress y’all. Recovery is so so weird and really flipping incredible.

Why We Write It Down

I’m doing my reluctant room-clean, going through the piles that have stacked up, and I came across an old “Goals” list.

Bake bread, jog/walk neighborhood, gratitude practice, weekly clean 1 task a day.

Now these goals may seem elementary to you (congratulations on your achievements), but to Then-Me, these were significant.

To current me these are still relevant.

And I HAVE baked bread (not in awhile but I’ve done it and will again).

I DO walk my neighborhood (lately I’m harvesting seed pods to sprinkle after the next rain).

Gratitude is slowly becoming a default response for me, I am training that lens.

As for the cleaning… I’ve been pretty consistent with a weekly reset and daily tasks.

I’m still chaotic, but I like to think chaotic good. And I continue to make progress.

And THAT’s why we write shit down. Because I don’t FEEL like I’ve made all that much progress. Because my “progress” isn’t about MORE anymore, I don’t want to climb, I want to expand. I want to settle into my own abundance rather than claw my way higher.

And these little things- walking my neighborhood, creating my own food, caring for my living space, loving the life I lead… these are everything. Or they can be.

This current chapter is softer and easier and kinder than I thought possible. When I remember to be soft and kind.

So I encourage us all to find moments where we can soften, opportunities to be kind to ourselves and each other. Cuz boy do we need it, now more than ever.

Much love my darlings. Take good care.

Rest and chew and drink some water.

Xox

Self Worth

I was recently, and painfully, reminded that while people can change, most people don’t.

That the way they’ve treated you in the past is a real indicator of how they’ll treat you today and tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow).

(Sorry, theatre nerd, I always have to say it in threes).

At first, I got angry and indignant. How DARE they. WTAF, etc etc.

Then I heard the therapists line from Dexter: “is this new behavior?”

And… no, it’s not.

And while it hurts, it shouldn’t be surprising, and as self-righteous and wounded as I’m tempted to be, I cannot change how other people are.

I always thought that if I worked hard enough, selflessly enough, if I improved myself and honed my skills, that everything would shift into place!

And while I wish that were true, it’s just NOT.

My bratty instinct is then to either stop trying, or double down and get obsessive.

Today I’m trying a new option.

What if, I work hard and improve my skills because I am a hard worker and want to improve myself. Not to earn some exterior approval or a round of applause, but just because that’s who I am and what I do.

I’ve been outsourcing my worth for decades, hoping that the next honor or award or recognition will finally validate me so that I’ll know that I’m enough.

What if… the struggle is the prize?

What if… I trust my worth is inherent?

What if… I do the work, not because I don’t think I’m good enough, but because I want to learn more, see more, connect more?

What if it’s NOT about improvement, but expansion?

I know I’m not there yet, but I’m trying on this new narrative. Because I’m so tired of feeling unseen, undervalued, under appreciated.

And if I see myself, if I value myself, if I appreciate myself… I’ll never have to feel that way again.

Or at least I can feel that way less often.

When you’ve been a people pleaser your whole life, it’s easy to forget that you too are a person.

And maybe it’s time to try recharging from within.

Thank you for your patience with me as I weave in and out of despair and hope. 

Please extend yourself the same grace.

You are loved. By me and others. Xox

Emergency Refill

SOMETIMES, you order your refill meds on time.

But they don’t arrive in time.

And SOMETIMES instead of panicking or blaming yourself/the pharmacy/mail, you seek a solution.

And find one.

Grateful for a holdover refill, grateful to have had the availability and bandwidth to solve the problem. And grateful I could drive there instead of riding my bike.

A year or so ago, this would have been a BIG PROBLEM. Today, I fixed it with a phone call and a trip to the pharmacy. No guilt or shame needed.

GROWTH!!!! Mental health is health

Antidepressants save lives.

Love, Little Miss Anxiety/Practicing Imperfectionist

Not Today, Satan!

Shakespeare in Recovery

Navigating the world while recovering from an eating disorder is tricky. Some pieces are CLEARLY tricky: when diet culture is constantly inviting you back into sickness, when advertisers bank on activating insecurities, when hustle culture applauds working through lunch.

These are challenges I am aware of, and can more-or-less cushion against. Part of my brain remembers that it’s manipulation, that these distractions rob me of my power. I can put on my battle gear for that and face the day prepared.

But sometimes there’s a sneak attack. The darker sections of my mind will suddenly spring forward without any warning.

I’m a performer, currently with Shakespeare Napa Valley. We’re doing 12th Night and it’s been an absolute dream. When the measurements appointment happened, I was really impressed with my own growth and humbled by some of my own slips/regressions in the way I talked about my body in the costume shop.

At our first dress rehearsal, one of the garments got stuck on my upper arms.

I panicked.

There was no logic involved, I let my passion sway, not my reason! It was a purely visceral reaction complete with a PTSD flashback to years ago and getting stuck in a costume and shamed for it.

I couldn’t breathe, I wasn’t in my body, it was completely overwhelming.

The SUPPORT I received in that moment was beyond description.

A casemate saw the panic and struggle in my face as I fought back tears and asked if I was okay. “No,” I admitted.

“Would you like some water?”
“Yes please.”

They were so gentle and respectful, not inflammatory or dramatic. And I was proud of my honesty and my willingness to accept help.

Then the embarrassment set in. For my outburst, for what it revealed about me. And then, more kindness came my way.

Without meeting my chaos, the costumer said “There’s nothing wrong– there’s nothing wrong with your body, there’s nothing wrong with your arms. You are beautiful, and if this is a problem, we can let out the seams.”

And of course, once I got my breath back and out of panic mode, the garment shifted and suddenly it DID fit. Just like Bethany said it would. I didn’t feel strangled. And most importantly, I started to come back into my body.

As embarrassing as it is to admit this whole episode, I wanted to share it. Because recovery is ongoing, it’s a bit of a cha-cha. And often, we don’t share the back-steps. But they are part of the dance.

Not only are they part of the dance, they are INTEGRAL to healing and growth. You can’t go forward if you haven’t gone back. It gives us momentum.

June, one of my angels

I’m practicing viewing this week’s episode as GROWTH. As an indication of the shift of my awareness and willingness to admit my imperfections, to accept help, and to stop beating myself up for being a human and having a vulnerable moment.

So maybe it wasn’t a relapse or a regression. Maybe it was a progression. Evidence of my ability to make mistakes and take the course correction.

Going into opening night I am filled with gratitude for all the amazing humans who have come together to CREATE something. To build each other up and hold space for the tumbles.

I am playing the Lady Olivia, and it has been no small journey to get myself into the headspace to be ‘the most beautiful woman in Ilyria.’ To feel worthy of the beautiful language and speeches directed at me, to receive the poetry.

But we’re here. And I am beyond grateful. I’ve wanted to work with this director for years, and it has been such an incredible treat. I feel held and seen and supported, not coddled. I feel safe and free and loved. What else could we hope for?

Take care of yourselves, dear ones. And take care of each other. And LET others take care of you, too. We’re hurling through space and time together.

xox

Ilyria, a land of music. Also known as the diRosa Art Preserve.

Old School Day at the Creek

Warning: Contains wholesome content that may result in Feelings.

I’m at the creek with my kid (8)and my friend’s kids (7 and 5), when a foursome of young teen boys head downstream. 

The 5 year old (boy) scampers up and says “Hi, big kids, do you like SpiderMan?” And the boys are like, yeah, especially when we were younger…and when we were kids we swam here. 

“Yeah, and we’d jump off that log” another man-child says. 

“That’s what WE’RE doing!” The kiddos shout with glee. 

The boys continue on their way and kiddos ache to follow them. 

“Nah,” I say, “let’s give the big kids their space.”

Flash forward, the teens came back our way and after rock skipping and rock plunking, have now jumped fully into the creek with the kiddos. Dockers and all. 

Which I’m sure their mothers JUST bought them for school. 

Forgive them. They’re great kids. 

They even retrieved little dude’s discarded SpiderMan shirt.

“Later, Peter Parker!” And they biked off.

So, yeah, they probably ruined their new school shorts, but it was a small price to pay for a day trip back to Kid-land.

Heart rock

It was refreshing in more ways than one.

Good job, parents. Good job, boys.

Break the Binary

Breaking the binary of all or nothing… I know, I love it.  This whole “OR” mentality.  As if something has to be one or the other.  Healthy or toxic.  Good or bad. Right or wrong. I’m learning that here’s a whole lot of in-between.

Also, I am constantly being asked, by friends and clients, “is this healthy?”  Is coconut oil healthy, is CrossFit healthy, is Keto healthy… And sometimes, I’ll admit, my militant/judgemental side will come out and label things as one or the other, but when I’m really in myself, I can ask, compared to WHAT.   “Healthy” is a range.  I mean, the difference between a poison and a cure is often the DOSE.

But also, there is so much wrapped up in “healthy”.  We often have a picture of health in our head, primarily what it looks like.  I encourage folks to explore what it feels like, what it includes, what it doesn’t.

Because “HEALTHY” isn’t a stagnant state, it’s not some peak on top of a mountain that you reach and just live there forever.  Healthy is DYNAMIC.  It changes person to person and day to day, it changes seasonally, it changes for one person throughout our life.

What SEEMS healthy from the outside can be deeply disordered. What looks unhealthy can be a kind indulgence. Do not look at my pizza and tell me I’m being bad. Do not look at my salad and tell me I’m being so good.

Basically, be a little gentler, a little kinder, to yourself and to those around you. There’s more going on than we know. Let’s offer the benefit of grace, y’all.

No Time Turner Available

Good morning y’all.


Lately I’ve felt the stress of wanting to be in two places at once. Pummeled by the reality that I CANNOT do all the things (because they’re often happening at the same time).

The guilt that encompasses me is pretty illogical.

Am I really gonna be mad about being subject to the laws of physics? (I mean, yeah, but when you put it that way…)

So, if like me, there is somewhere you wish you could be, something you wish you could be doing, but other obligations prevent that—- maybe we can give ourselves some grace.

Keep breathing, see the beauty where you are, and trust that others can carry that part while you carry what’s in your arms.

We can’t be all the things all the time.

Take a breath, take a break, take it easier on yourself.

And maybe have a snack.

You are loved, by me, and others.

Xox

Love Letter 3674

If I wrote a love letter to my husband every day (I don’t, but if I did), today’s would read like this:

I fall more in love with you every day. Or rather I fall in love with you again every day. Little things remind me of how amazing you are and how lucky we are and I go through all the motions from A to Z.

Today I was tidying up when I came across these rainbow pencils.

Purchased by my husband in a flurry at the gift shop of the de Young on our first City Day. Our kiddo had BEGGED for “the rainbow kitty pens” when we were in the gift shop and we’d said “Not now, sweetie.”

At the end of the day (and on the cusp of a breakdown) I took her outside while Rhys dashed off for minute. He met us at the slide and whispered “I wasn’t sure which ones she meant and there weren’t any kitty pens so I bought every type of rainbow pencil I could find.”

Three “rainbow” pencils, all swirled together, and a slew of regular pencils in a rainbow of colors.

Sweet, sweet man.

Completely wrong , she’s wanted the rainbow gel pens, with lids that looked like kitties.

Which after discussing it, I dashed back to grab them, not to spoil her, but to give her something to use that will remind her of this day.

The correct rainbow kitty pens

And she uses them all the time. Like today, to make a valentine-birthday card for her new BFF.

And I laughed, holding these pencils, remembering that day last May when we traipsed over to San Francisco and the right man bought the wrong pencils.

Another beautiful mistake.

Let’s go make more.