When I need a pep talk I cue up Oprah’s Golden Globes acceptance speech for her Cecil B deMille award. (Here: Today a fabulous highlight reel played in my memories, including Oprah’s speech.
These 9 minutes can count towards 15- mins of self care.
But today I noticed Alfred Molina’s face while listening to her.
And it was so absolutely beautiful. It gave me the HUGEST BOOST today.
(Side note: “Promising Young Woman” is phenomenal)
There are a lot of good people out there. That’s helpful for me to remember 💕
Most people are mostly good. I believe in that.
Anyhow, remember to eat something. Hydrate and moisturize. You are loved by me and others. Xox
Here are my two cents, take them or leave them like the pennies at the checkout counter.
Let GO. For real. Do LESS. Waaaay less.
My spirited is in first grade and this year boy is it something. All the magic plus more awareness, it’s a beautiful thing.
It’s also A LOT. She wakes up earlier to find the elf, she’s constantly negotiating for candy canes, Kringle, and cakes, the house is a mess of boxes that she’s turned into a robot/a tea shop/Mr Fox’s house.
Mr Balloonie keeping watch in the chaos
There are fairy lights every where and not in a neat line, but flung every which way in a merry and chaotic way.
Then the cards start arriving. My beautiful friends with their professional photos and matching outfits and it’s easy to feel like a failure.
Let that GO.
We baked cookies the other day, and having never made roll out/cut out cookies before, my stress level was HIGH. But guess what? They were fine! Pretty? Not quite. But still delicious.
And my second lesson was learned- DO LESS. I thought we needed to decorate ALL the cookies we baked. NOPE.
Kidlette wanted to decorate two of them. And decorated TF outta them. She much frosting and sprinkles. And then she was ready to do something else.
I almost instinctively was like “THAT IS TOO KUCH FROSTING FOR ONE COOKIE!” But eh. Then muscle memory kicked in with “NO! We have to finish! We must do them ALLLLLL” but no! Turns out you can have two intensely decorated cookies and a bunch of plain ones and life continues.
I only had two kinds of sprinkles and turns out that’s FINE. And I miscalculated, apparently she decorated three.
I wanted to see the tree lighting downtown, kidlette was sick, we stayed home, the holidays continue. It wasn’t t a big deal.
Last night was a holiday stroll, she really wanted to go. I had in my mind expectations of decorating ourselves and packing food and we ended up with glow-sticks, pbj, and hot chocolate in to go mugs. It was lovely. It was more that enough.
There is SO MUCH PRESSURE put on us (and a lot is self-imposed), to do all the things at a Pinterest level.
But trust me when I tell you, you can unsubscribe to that.
Especially those with under 6s. (Mine is now seven). Just take it easy. The tree will be a mess, it’s fine. (Ours is outside, lol). They won’t sit through Nutcracker, it’s FINE to wait! There *will* be Nutcracker when they’re older.
It’s okay to NOT shell out hundreds of dollars for a train ride or to ice skate. It’s fine if you DON’T get a picture with Santa this year. Kids are sick, stay home and cozy!
There’s always been pressure on parents. But social media has increased it exponentially.
So learn from this messy millennial mom (if you want, or leave it, like I said): IT’S OKAY.
Be a little easier on yourself. It’s your holiday too. Don’t miss it because you think you have to do ALL THE THINGS.
You don’t. I promise.
Hydrate and moisturize, you are loved by me and others.
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.
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.
One of the strange and wonderful things about aging is realizing which traditions you want to hold on to and which ones you can release.
Lighting the advent candles is something I’ve held onto. Hope is such a strong, gritty, determined thing. And more light and warmth is almost always a good thing.
After all this is the time when days are shortest, when cold settles in, and when people need the cheer brought by the promise of light and warmth.
“Week by week, the candles remind us that the darkness of fear and hopelessness recedes as more and more light is shed into the world.”
Thank you Aunt Robin for encouraging me to listen to UU. Thank you mom and dad for sharing your faith. Thank you Jenifer for the advent kit last year.
Thank you to all of who who are beacons of light in the darkness.
I am slowly learning that hope and faith are not dainty quaint notions but are relentless and messy dedications to something better.
It’s starting— the weather’s shifting, coughs are getting deeper, green is fading to gold, and I get to wear scarves.
GAME ON.
California catches a lot of flack for “not having seasons,” which we do, they’re just kinda chill about it. Nothing too extreme.
(Until everything catches fire again but shhhh)
Our neighbor’s tree is changing, I look forward to the day I turn the corner in my bike at catch it in all its golden glory.
Meanwhile, let’s enjoy its gorgeous transitional state
From green to gold
Then again, isn’t every state a transitional one? From seed to sapling, green to gold to red to bare to green.
From child to daughter to self to mother.
Little versions of ourselves, tucked in next to each other and around each other like a giant blob of mish-mashed play dough— complete within its components and yet something entirely new as a whole.
I love autumn. It reminds me that change is the course. That life doesn’t need me to MAKE IT HAPPEN, it will unfold as it will.
Because it does, season to season, year after year after year.
So fret not, my darlings. Breathe in and out all day long. The sun will rise and it will set. Wear sunscreen and hydrate.
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
When I was a kid I thought Philosopher was basically the best job ever. You’d stand in an amphitheatre surrounded by Roman columns and pontificate. Or you’d sit in nature and know things. You’d walk and hear and tell stories that weave our truths together. That was my take on it and it sounded pretty great (I’m a weird adult, I was a weird kid).
My freshman year of college I took Philosophy of Morality. I LOVED it. It was the right kind of hard. It got me all fired up and angry but in a productive kind of way. I was into it. And again thought, DAMN, philosophers know their shit. It must be GREAT to be one of the great philosophers.
Then I took Philosophy of Politics and it was all the kinds of ickiness you’d image and I tried y’all, I really did, but I could not. I took that one pass/fail.
And I got to read all kinds of amazing things and some infuriating things and listen to and question and learn from all kinds of different people and scholars. And I was so goddamned lucky but completely oblivious.
I had no idea I was living in a golden age.
That NOBODY does, do they? When they’re in it?
But I lived in this magical pocket of time.
I was able to attend a public university and sit in giant lecture halls and listen to the great voices of my time. I got to cozy up in cafes and question graduate students and open up my teenage mind. I studied abroad, living for a year in France studying language, dance, and theatre.
SHIT!!!! That was the motherfucking DREAM.
And then the entire world/economy fell apart… and came back together a bit… and then everything caught on fire and then came the plagues… and now there aren’t any crabs… or bodily autonomy so… It’s all pretty wild.
And here we are, pontificating on the internet (“Did philosophers know they were philosophers?”).
I don’t know anything y’all. I’m just trying to get through the Everything. I hope you’re getting through it too.
Drink some water. Moisturize. Take good care of yourself. You are loved by me and others.
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.
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.
Pretty Good Ugly 