What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Words for the reeling times
Preface
I have been reeling hard, deep in the reeling places, and wrote this piece to explores some of that, in between many panic episodes.
Something I have been holding on to for dear life, in addition to the concepts mentioned here today, are my Emergency Calming Techniques from, good lord, all the way back in 2008? 2009?, a long time ago, and that’s been helping me through.
So, I will be giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money at all to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund.
If you already have a copy then you can give it to someone else, or give it another listen. The more we practice, the better. For each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times.
Okay, onward, let’s breathe and figure out what we do in the reeling times when we are reeling or it feels like everything around us is reeling.
Words for the reeling times / words for these reeling times
The pre-reeling, if that’s a thing (it is now I guess)
To be honest, I was already reeling pretty impressively, shaken and stirred if you will, but not in a good way. Not having fun. Unmoored.
I was reeling initially from the U.S. presidential election, not so much from the results themselves which did not surprise me particularly, but from having to interact with the brutal reality of knowing for sure.
Knowing and seeing the devastating effects that are to come.
From knowing all the ways that I and people I love can be harmed. An overdose of cruel clarity.
Friday
The text was what shattered me. It’s another unsolvable mystery of the many unsolvable mysteries but here is the core of it:
Someone I cherish and care for tremendously and think about lovingly every single day wrote to say that they no longer cherish or care for me in that way or at all really.
And that something had happened to cause this change but they weren’t going to say what it was. They are just done, for reasons.
The unknown unknown
It was less elegant and more baffling and hurtful than that, but that was the gist of it.
I don’t have more information or a way to shed light on any of it because there is no more information they want to share, and any guess I could try to make only leaves me more confused and distraught.
Whatever I did or said or something-ed, I am incredibly sorry about it, and also I wonder if the whole thing surely must be some kind of terrible misunderstanding that could be resolved lovingly through talking about it? Like people who treasure each other do?
Except it can’t, because there isn’t any information and there is no mechanism for talking it out.
The void of not knowing, the void of nothing to be known
I will also say that, in retrospect, my initial attempts to confusingly but whole-heartedly make amends for any possible possibilities were just a very apt live demonstration of the [denial and bargaining] phases of grief in action.
Anyway, my heart hurts.
This is an understatement. I feel completely wrecked. Shattered and adrift. Reeling in the mystery.
Double and multiple multiplied meanings, bless them
The more I thought about how I am reeling, in the sense of spinning, in the sense of gravitational force has no meaning, I have lost contact with the earth, just bouncing around aimlessly in grief space…
It also occurred to me that [reeling in] is what you do with a fishing line.
I am reeling in the mystery = [I AM REELING] and this experience of ungrounded reeling is taking place within the great mystery of what cannot be known or understood.
And, also, I am reeling in the mystery = Here I am with my fishing pole, pulling the mystery towards me, even as it remains unknowable. I keep reeling it in, I keep reeling in the mystery.
The Reel Reel
A reel is also a filmstrip.
A reel is also a dance?
Reeling through an alternate reality, now I don’t know what is real anymore. (That’s why I’m reeling.)
It is unreal. An unreal reeling. Like a Sufi dance but in the chaos of collapsing, not the powerful whirling. In between falling and falling, there must be some kind of rhythm, but I haven’t found it.
Heart pain, again
Picture a whole heart, Cate suggested, when I said that I feel broken and shattered.
I thought about a whole heart, and my smaller shard-filled heart swimming inside the whole heart space.
Still reeling, still feeling, alive. Fucking miserable, but alive.
It didn’t help, but that is often the way of things that help, they don’t help until they do.
What is a fountain? What is a faucet?
I thought the sweetness and adoration this person and I had for each other were foundational, like a deep fountain, or a powerful waterfall that flows in all seasons.
And it turned out that for this person, these qualities could be simply turned off like a faucet, with a small movement of the wrist. Click.
My heart does not click on and off. My heart loves big and loves hard, and then sometimes it reels.
Wise words, wise self, wisdom from someone smarter (future me)
This is not exactly a mantra, I don’t think that’s right, but this is what Slightly Wiser Me, my personal internal crisis center, keeps repeating, every time I ask for wise counsel and support:
It’s gonna keep hurting until it stops hurting (or hurts less), but get this…
It’s gonna keep hurting until it stops hurting (or hurts less), but it’s not going to hurt the way it does right now.
You take one step and then another step.
You take one step and then another step
The pain will ebb. And then it will return but not as strong. And then it will ebb again. Sometimes it will blindside you. But mostly it will lessen and ease up. It is not going to keep hurting like this.
Sure, right now it is. You will reel until you are done reeling. Make it a dance.
Not funny yet, but also, not not-funny
One day this will be another boring mystery in the tales of boring mysteries, or even a funny story — bittersweet but still somehow funny.
Even now it’s a little bit funny, even as it is a devastation. Do I appreciate the humor? Oh, not at all. But I can’t pretend it’s not in there somewhere.
Even as I can’t sleep because I am having all night panic episodes, I can’t disagree with Slightly Wiser Me that there is also something oddly comical in how it happened, even given how terrible and destabilizing it all is.
The museum (imaginary, but also, imagine it!)
If you can imagine a museum solely devoted to the worst breakup texts of all time…
I am picturing long corridors filled with assorted horrors, a collection of devastation. These can be romantic breakups or friendship breakups or work breakups, pretty sure they all hurt in similar ways.
People gasp as they move from exhibit to exhibit. There are boxes of tissues available if you anything is too relatable.
That’s fine, it’s not a bad museum, however I’m going to need them to build a special wing devoted entirely to this particular text that began with “love a four day work week lol”.
Visitors to the museum will employ the skills of talmudic scholars trying to parse that one, but also they will laugh.
Shot from a cannon
When I am shattered, I read Etgar Keret, and also when I am not shattered.
This week he fortuitously wrote about being shot from a cannon, as a much better and more accurate metaphor for the writing process than giving birth.
It is also an apt metaphor for so many forms of heartbreak:
I am not ready for this, I am fully unprepared, I don’t enjoy the process of being smashed and shattered, god the pain it is so agonizing.
And also, I will, realistically, let’s be honest here, I will absolutely get back in the cannon.
Because
I don’t know.
Because I love to love people, and I love to be a person who loves, and because I am curious about what will happen.
And because flying is very intense. And because I’m not going to be able to resist.
Not just bravery in the face of awful things but sure let’s go another round
I mean, I hate being brave.
And right now, just functioning at a basic level while reeling is requiring a lot of courage that I do not have.
And yet, I would do it again.
Clearing the decks
Each day I get rid of a few things.
It’s a fractal practice. Emptying to empty. Clearing the path to clear the path.
Making room for something, whatever it might be. Not this.
Any port of focus in a storm.
The on-ramp and the off-ramp (RAMP!)
A friend likes to talk about Radical Acceptance of this Moment Present, as the on-ramp and the off-ramp.
The moment that is happening is the moment that is. It sucks, I don’t have to like it, and also I do have to turn the page and be here, because this is the current reality.
Radical acceptance of the present moment, even a very shitty present moment, is not about giving up or giving in, it’s about consciously and intentionally not fighting with what-is.
And then sometimes you can also see little glimpses of beauty in the what-is. Or you can see yourself raging against the what-is, and radically accept that
My heart hurts terribly, I am radically accepting this moment present, I am exhausted from not sleeping, radically accepting this moment present, wishing things were different and radically accepting that they are not, here we are, this moment present. Take the ramp.
The peregrination of the heart
I can’t sleep because all I can think about is how everything is other than how I thought it was, and so I jog in my kitchen from 5-6am and wait for the sun to come up.
Little peripatetic figure-eights, a journey that is both large and small.
For the final ten minutes I jog backwards. Jostling and moving.
Movement is the way I process pain, but also the way I process everything.
Clear-eyed
If you don’t already read Sarah Weinman’s excellent newsletter The Crime Lady, I recommend it.
She said something great last week, it was in the context of the election but it could be about anything:
I’d rather be clear-eyed than in denial.
I’d rather be clear-eyed, ideally with some Loving Clarity, but either way let me stay clear, than retreat into denial.
Denial is where I am fighting with the moment present instead of accepting it, denial is where I want to burn down the special wing in the imaginary museum, where I want to right things that cannot be righted, or at least not now and not by me.
Building from ruins
This was another great quote I’d saved last week, before the great unraveling that sent me into reeling mode.
It’s about chronic illness and very relatable to me, as someone who has better and worse days with Long Covid, but people around me are seemingly always somehow still surprised by the rough days, maybe because I can sometimes hide them…
Recovery stories will very often claim that a shift in mindset, or an increase in activity levels, was critical. But the silent story for most of us is that we “decided to get better” but couldn’t; started doing a little more each day but had a relapse; tried yet another treatment and found it wanting; and then, having lost everything, built the best life we could from the ruins.”
You can read the rest here, the piece is called The Trouble With Recovery Stories.
Reeling my way through what was ruined
Obviously heart-healing is a different animal (animal? that feels wrong, a different continent!) than chronic illness in many if not most ways.
And also it is still an experience of slow rebuilding, and, this is critical: you are not rebuilding what was, because what was is gone.
Radically accepting that is really not fun, though it is useful in the moments that it feels possible.
You are building something new from the rubble, and maybe you are the only one who can find the beauty there right now, and maybe sometimes you can’t find it either, and you still keep going.
Brave and stalwart, reeling our way through this new territory, learning its outlines.
When crushed, break glass
I have been making lists of what helps.
Some of it is wise words from wise friends or wise people I admire, or Slightly Wiser Me.
Some of it is things that help, small challenges, making tea, rolling on the floor, getting out into the sunshine for a minute.
Checking tiny things off the list. Renaming items on the list to be funny or ridiculous, and also keeping the items very, very small helps me the most! Mainly: progress towards anything.
Learning a word or phrase in another language and enjoying it.
It’s all brave and it all counts.
Listen to the Cowboy of Chore Hour
The Cowboy of Chore Hour is another wise self, an aspect of me, and this is what they had to say:
Something better will come when it comes, either way you are tough, powerful, a force to be reckoned with. I admire you.
I admire that you are someone who shows up to meet a hard situation with love, and you thought this other person was too, and it turns out they are someone who walks, and maybe that’s for the best and maybe it isn’t, but it doesn’t matter because now you know.
Now you have that information and it matters that you got it now instead of down the road. An unlikely blessing.
This is a temporary reel, says the Cowboy of Chore Hour
Right now is the worst it’s gonna hurt.
It will come in waves and do its thing like heartache does, but this is the worst part, when you are in the reeling part, you will reel, and then it will pass.
THIS IS A TEMPORARY REEL, this is the reeling time. It sucks, it is hard and painful and it will pass.
You deserve big wonderful love in all your relationships and friendships, a love that shows up for you and holds you and doesn’t drop you; I am so sorry that this wasn’t it, and also I’m glad you are getting this information fast rather than slowly over time.
Please trust the path and stay in your strength. Treasure the good parts of your life in the wilds, and keep doing the things that work, the things that help, doing your writing and cooking and training, building and rebuilding your world.
What is the wish?
Wishing for heart-healing, wishing for merciful compassion to accompany the loving-clarity, wishing for common good and for any solutions revealing themselves beautifully and swiftly.
Wishing for a sense of humor to hold me through the reeling. Wishing for kind perspective. Wishing for patience. Wishing for new good surprises. Wishing for the [it’s all for the best] to reveal itself, wishing for help and good companionship for the rebuilding.
Wishing for the courage to exist and keep existing while feeling so adjacent to the void; to remember that I can be both the one who is reeling and the one who holds a field of love in which the reeling can reel itself out.
What would that be like?
Reeling in the mystery as a superpower rather than a devastation. What would that be like?
What would that be like? I can’t wait to find out.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Recalibrating towards (and for) a challenge
Recalibration time / Challenge time
Recalibrating towards (and for) a challenge
Towards and for a challenge, towards and for the challenge(s) that are incoming.
Recalibration powers, activate. Towards. Towards and for.
We see what is coming, and we are recalibrating to invite in the version of ourselves who needs to be at the forefront for this challenge, for this series of challenges.
What does it mean to gird up for a challenge? What does it mean to recalibrate for what is coming? There is something active happening here, something active and agile…
In the face of devastating news, whether it comes as a surprise or not
I have been in the many feelings: upset and numb, angry and so very sad, but not at all surprised, by the devastating news/confirmation that a second Trump administration is incoming.
And so I am thinking about what it means to recalibrate towards a challenge.
There are going to be a lot of challenges. So many challenges.
The challenges born of tumult, the challenges born of necessity
The next four years, the next however many years, possibly-probably all the next years.
I am feeling both the numbness and the belly-punch of this, the challenges on the horizon.
Tumult and chaos, pain, fear for myself and the people I love, and the land I love, and the earth itself.
There are other challenges as well of course
There are usual suspects of challenges for me living alone and very remote in the cold grey dark of winter without central heating, though blessedly with electricity.
I am familiar with these personal nemeses — the cold, the deep aching loneliness of the winter holidays, and existing inside of a culture that is built on exclusion…
This morning was 21 degrees Fahrenheit (a fun negative number in Celsius, -6 degrees!), moving my tiny space heater around in my little trailer by the woods, and jogging laps in the kitchen, I can see my breath.
It’s all related though
Last night I had to decide if I wanted to store jugs of water and turn off electricity to the well pump, or just wake up early and move the space heater into the front room to warm it up before the pipes freeze. I went with the path of least resistance.
These are feeling like much smaller challenges now, of course, compared to the absolute shitstorm of challenges, political, social and environmental, that are in the pipeline, but also it’s kind of all related…
For example, but not only, etc
When New Mexico experiences fires or flooding or whatever kind of new climate-related disaster, we aren’t going to get federal support from an administration that hates our governor.
Thinking about that while I think about trans friends, and disabled friends, and abortion, and the Supreme Court…
Thinking about that while I think about the environmental agencies that will be demolished, and the Center for Disease Control that is already mostly a joke but will either cease to exist or will be under the control of some loser clown (RFJ Jr) who thinks vaccines cause autism, among other unhinged and unsubstantiated theories.
Into the pot
Thinking about all that while I make a big pot of Pkaila, a Tunisian Jewish bean stew of sorts with blackened spinach and onions and spices, to keep my hands busy.
Keeping busy is part of the challenge right now, keep it moving.
Thinking about what it means to see the challenge that is coming.
Okay, so we have some big challenges, this is our starting point
We have our work cut out for us. And I don’t mean that in a cheery way but I also don’t mean that in an Eeyore way.
I almost want it to be neutral: there is a lot of work to be done. That’s the reality.
This will require resilience and agility. It will be really fucking challenging, yes, that’s the nature of a challenge. If it was easy, they’d call it something else I guess.
What do we know about a challenge? What do we know about orienting ourselves towards and for these challenges? How are we shifting modes as we know we are headed towards the challenge times…?
Aliveness
How are we staying alive and holding onto aliveness, cultivating life sparks and moments of joy and pleasure where we can get them?
That’s part of the challenge too, right?
It’s a question worth asking, even when the answer is hidden behind some clouds.
Etgar
If you are a Hebrew speaker, I highly recommend the extremely short-lived but very excellent podcast Sefer Echad. It was only two episodes, one featuring Etgar Keret about his first book of short stories, Tzinorot, and one with the late Amos Oz, about Oto Hayam, The Same Sea.
Anyway, in the interview with Etgar Keret, he tells the story of how he got his first name, Etgar, Challenge.
This is something I have often wondered about: Who names their child Challenge?
It turns out that the answer is: a holocaust survivor who lost her entire family as a child, and when she was told that giving birth to this baby would possibly kill her, and the baby almost certainly wouldn’t live, she was like, Okay, let’s do this.
And she named the baby Challenge, the challenge in question being: STAY ALIVE.
Let’s do this thing
LIVE. That’s our challenge.
Let’s do this. Let’s fucking go.
Let’s live. That’s the challenge.
There are other challenges, but that’s the starting challenge, and the most important one.
Let’s do what we can to focus on whatever beauty and pleasures are available in this world, sometimes in very small doses, in whatever time we have here. Is it enough? Nope! Are we doing it anyway? Yes, that’s the challenge.
Challenges & Contingency Plans: 2024 and onward
I am thinking about how often I can disappear into the Forest Focus app: how many trees can I grow while I disconnect from the attention demands of my phone?
And I am thinking about strength training, or what I call assassin training, and agility, mobility, range of motion. Endurance. Being embodied and here.
Also something about protective spheres…
Like not listening to the radio in the car, maybe taking a break from most podcasts, definitely hermit-ing more but also connecting more with people I care about. More going for walks. More plotting and scheming. Fewer distractions.
I don’t want to be that guy but wow I kind of want to be that guy
Remember back in 2016 that one guy in maybe Colorado who was like, I simply shall not consume news until someone tells me he’s no longer president…
And we were all like, oh god what a privileged asshole.
There is a part of me who wants to be that guy and just get really into composting and solar and turning my piece of land into a sanctuary space for trans people or people needing to get to reproductive health care…
And obviously there is too much to be done to fully turn away from the world, so part of my challenge is going to be to stay in it and stay informed while also grounding myself in nature, ritual and cowboy chore hour.
Plus there are other challenges we can choose to play with because we want to!
Let’s name some possible challenges (here are some of mine)
Among the challenges I could choose to engage with:
- no radio
- morning and evening jog even if it’s just five minutes or a song or a walk
- staying off phone for two hour periods of forest focus, growing as many trees as possibly
- unsubscribing like a mofo, especially from everyone who is business as usual the day or days immediately after this disaster
- making a delicious morning or afternoon beverage and really taking the time to enjoy it
- assassin training for the league of assassins (sun salutations, bobcat stretching, endurance, balance challenges)
- making more soup: it’s soup and stew season, let’s gooooooo
A word about the nature of motivation
The purpose of a challnge, its raison d’être is to motivate.
And so, if you are thinking about a particular challenge, and your response is that you want to curl up in a ball and put pillows over your head, that’s not the right challenge for you, and that’s fine, that’s good and useful information!
Instead of berating ourselves for not being up for the challenge, we can just change the challenge. Lower that bar so it’s on the ground, or change the entire playing field.
Keep going until you come up with something that sounds like it might feel intriguing, like it sparks something for you. That’s a challenge that motivates.
Also this is not about results
As always we are process-oriented not results-oriented.
Things will happen how they happen. We will recalibrate and regroup and try again, and keep going.
This is not yet another reason to beat ourselves up. Part of the challenge is going to be starting again, or rethinking our approach, or changing the parameters as needed.
Part of the challenge is going to be giving ourselves some grace, ideally a lot of grace.
As wise friends and people I admire keep reminding me: These motherfuckers don’t get my despair. I will feel what I’m feeling, and I will stay mad, and I will meet the challenge.
What we can play with…
Choosing challenges that feel meaningful to keep us company alongside the other challenges, what are the challenges we want to play with?
For example: rituals, obsessions, new routines, strength training, supporting each other, cultivating what we want to cultivate…
And, as always, safety first. If something is too big, too scary, too much, we do less.
As ever, approach is everything. Let’s approach with kindness and curiosity where we can, compassion, Loving Clarity, a breath for this.
Recalibrating our approach, recalibrating towards the challenge
Combining RECALIBRATION with the eight qualities in my fierce bobcat compass:
Fierce: I am fierce and recalibrating my fierceness
Fearless: I am invoking fearlessness and recalibrating my relationship to my own courage
Powerful powers: I remain powerful and am recalibrating my sense of my own powers
Striking: Yes, I am STRIKING, and am recalibrating how I wish to strike
Grounded: Staying grounded and of the earth, recalibrating my relationship with the earth, recalibrating how I draw power from the earth, how I am of the earth
Wild: I am wild and recalibrating my wildness to be that much more wild and of the wilds
Glowing: I am glowing my glow powers and recalibrating my ability to be a glowing beacon of light in hard times
Alive: I am alive in my aliveness, recalibrating my relationship to life and aliveness, alive and recalibrating how I want to live, alive and rejoicing in life, recalibrating my ability to access this life force that is sourced in joy!
Amen, or whatever your word for that is
Amen:
Peace peace peace, compromise compromise compromise, miracles, miracles miracles, recalibration recalibration recalibration…
May it be so or something even better…
Additional powers I am channeling
Along with THESE MOTHERFUCKERS DO NOT GET MY DESPAIR, powers I am channeling now include:
I AM PATIENT (I play the long game)
I AM RESILIENT (we trained for this)
FUELED BY FURY, FUELED BY HOPE SPARKS, whichever I can access in the moment…
HEDONISM AT THE END OF THE WORLD (find my pleasures where I can, treasure each moment of deliciousness)
WELCOMING ALL MIRACLES OF IT SOLVES ITSELF
STAY GLOWING (cultivate glow sparks, find the helpers, be a beacon of good)
Mighty work ahead of us
As my friend Cate said, “Are you okay? We have some mighty work ahead of us.”
We really do.
From my journal notes:
Wow, what a rough hard challenging day, a rough challenging time.
So okay: I am challenging myself to meet the challenges with [whatever I can muster].
Feels like first day of Challenge Year, but there are only challenge years from now on, though I guess that was going to be true either way.
So I guess the question becomes: what is the treasure in the challenge, or, if I’m not ready for that question, what are the skillsets I have that are going to be useful in meeting this challenge?
Or: what other challenges can I focus on or welcome or engage with…?
What is next
I don’t know, but I know that part of the challenge is staying present, finding any amount of focus amid the numbness when I can, and, again, giving myself grace.
Grief times call for whatever helps, and for me that is going to be naming some personal challenges that motivate me to help anchor and guide me as I have to meet these other, bigger and scarier challenges.
We need each other, we need your good heart and mine, we need to keep on keeping on, and to help each other do that, and I am here for this exact challenge too.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
Get the ebook on how I play with time
Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Some election day breaths
Some election day breaths
Breathing for the collective
Breathing for the collective. Breathing for / with / towards the collective, or: just breathing. With the collective in mind. With the intention of a better place, a better way.
Or just one breath.
Inhaling and exhaling. For a better world or for feeling a little better in this moment.
Or just to remember that we can notice when we are tensing and holding, forgetting to breathe. Good job noticing.
Remembering to breathe now. Tending to the tensing through noticing, exhaling.
A breath for all of this
I know that many people who read what I write here are not located in the United States, but I also know that the agonizing tension of our high-stakes debacle is felt all over.
That’s fun, our national nightmare is also an international nightmare, great stuff.
A breath for how much it all is. SO SO MUCH. A breath for the enormity of the stakes, the enormity of the ambient anxiety.
A breath for remembering that I don’t have to carry the worry of the world, I can tend to what’s mine in this moment.
Nourishment for the collective
A thousand points, at least, to me, for staying nourished, for anything I do to stay nourished.
I have heard that some brave heroes out there (friends of mine) have been getting some veggies in with today’s stress-eating, and good job to them.
If pumpkin is a vegetable, then my cake-for-breakfast pumpkin bread included some veggie content. Also there were jalapeños in one of my rounds of snacks. A+ work, good job to me.
It all counts. Nourishment is nourishing. My body knows how to extract nutrients from stress snacks too. Good job, wise body.
Good job to me. Good job to all of us. Blessings upon the nourishment.
A breath for whatever we are doing to take care of ourselves
Any self-care port in a storm, any port of focus in a storm, and this is a hell of a storm.
Seriously it is WILD out there today. The vibes are banana-pants, as someone from 2016 would say, and certainly the trauma of November 2016 feels very present right now.
Good lord, I keep having flashbacks to the underwater feeling of that moment, the shock-despair-horror-dread of 2016 and thinking: I AM NOT PREPARED. And yet, here we are.
A breath for acknowledging that this is really not fun
It’s not fun. It sucks!
Also, fuck the electoral college, how do we still not have a representative democracy where individual votes matter the way they should?
Also I keep thinking about how deeply embarrassing it is that we are somehow here again, in this preposterous and terrifying moment of too close for comfort, of so much is at stake but it could go either way.
Feels like waiting to find out if the meteor is a direct hit or just a very uncomfortable bump that will also probably be bad but not as bad. Good times.
A breath for having to exist right now. We are brave and stalwart, we are getting through this moment, however we get there.
Movement for the collective
A one song dance party for the collective.
Rolling around on the floor for the collective.
Shaking head no no no no no no to the nonsense, for the collective.
A favorite stretch for the collective. A gentle neck stretch for me, and maybe a reclining side twist.
A five minute walk (or backwards-walk!) for the collective. Maybe I will walk to the mailbox and back.
Did I do 888 extremely modified sun-salutations for the collective because when I am anxious I need to keep moving until I calm down? Yes, that was me. I will probably do some bonus-jogging around the kitchen because I am full of nervous energy that needs to be expended.
A breath for wishes of safety
A breath for all trans friends, you are in my heart, held in love, and I know that is not enough, but we are hoping hard, wishing hard, invoking, lighting candles, taking a breath. Safety and sanctuary for you and your loved ones.
A breath for everyone in danger in this moment, for all of us looking down the barrel, so to speak, bravely keeping on.
Taking a breath. Taking sixteen breaths.
Shifting the moment by being present in the moment and acknowledging the fear, making room for this very human experience.
And if you are not functioning or barely functioning, you are in good company. That’s a reasonable reaction to current reality.
Make some noise for the collective
Laughing at a silly video of a pile of puppies for the collective.
Cry-laughing for the collective.
Screaming into the abyss for the collective.
We are making some sounds.
Distractions for the collective
Reading something that takes place in a different world for the collective.
Enjoying art for the collective.
Appreciating something delicious and decadent for the collective. A little hedonism at the end of the world.
I made vegan vanilla gelato, and it is so good, and I brought some over to a friend’s place so it’s there in a moment of need, and I hope that moment of need is joyous and celebratory, full of relief, but either way it’s there.
Counting for the collective / counting on the collective
Counting all the ways that Now Is Not Then. This moment might remind me of November 2016, and yet so much is true now that was not true then.
Many things have changed for the better, in many ways I am more equipped for this moment. Counting and recounting.
Taking sixteen breaths for the collective
Having a good yawn or several yawns or thirty-eight yawns for the collective. Counting these too.
It all counts. Whatever we are doing. Good job getting through. Good job making your way through this emotional storm. We are here, we are taking breaths, we are here for each other. It counts.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
Get the ebook on how I play with time
Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Safety & Sanctuary / spells for scary times
A quick note about vocabulary
Obviously, we all have different associations with words.
I used the word spells here, and I get that some people reading might have an aversion to spells. They might prefer to think about Safety & Sanctuary wishes, someone else might be okay with the idea of a prayer or an intention for Safety & Sanctuary. An invocation maybe…
Rewrite as you see fit of course, as always, and with everything. Make it work for you.
For me, spells is a playful word that connotes possibility, and I also absolutely get that it might not have the same reverberation for someone else. Totally fine.
Safety & Sanctuary Spells / Spells for scary times
A story about a gate
While I was away for three months, on Operation Circumspice which turned into the Michigan Marathon of Mercilessness & Mercy, and culminated in the received wisdom of Not What But How, I worried quite a bit about how my tiny home by the forest was doing without me.
Every few weeks when a friend from town took a long country drive and went by my place, I felt relieved when they checked in on things and reported that everything looked good.
No broken bottles in the driveway tossed from cars, no invasion of skunks, no signs of disturbance.
But one day I got a text from someone I don’t trust, saying that my gate was knocked down, off its hinges.
It all hinges on speed
I arranged for a local handyperson to come by that weekend, and they got the gate to function as a gate again, though they didn’t wish to hazard a guess about what might have knocked down a locked gate, a sturdy metal farm gate no less.
Now that I’m back, I was able to get a second opinion and am having the gate more thoroughly attended to, putting on new hinges for starters…
The consensus now is that it wasn’t an animal or a force of nature; whoever did this was a person and they used a truck to do it, probably the kind with a bumper protector on the front.
My driveway is a little tricky to turn into, and the topography demands slowness, which means they had to navigate a long driveway slowly, then speed up fast when they got close to have enough power to knock it down.
Unease
It is difficult to imagine a scenario by which this could have been an accident, or user error, or alcohol-related or all the ways I want to make up a story that could explain away how this happened.
Reality seems to be that someone wanted to knock my gate down, did it with some level of aggression, and succeeded. Maybe they didn’t know whose gate it was, and maybe they did.
I have been feeling uneasy about this.
But/and/also…
But/and/also…
I suspect I am also feeling uneasy about maybe twenty other things that are not this, at least, and the gate unease is serving as a nexus for all my other unease to land and to amplify itself, if that makes sense.
In other words, there was already ambient angst, ambient unease, and the distressing gate situation is magnetized in the right way that all the other unease can stick to it.
Stirring the stew of upset feelings
When I wake up at 3am feeling anxious about a noise or a dream, I find myself stirring this stew of unease about the gate.
I notice that feel very upset in addition to feeling anxious, and when I investigate feeling upset, I find that I also feel angry.
Some people feel anger first and then there is anxiety or grief or other feelings hiding out underneath it. Other people, and I am in this group, often feel anxiety first, and then upon further investigation find that the anger is the layer beneath it…
The messenger with one message
Something I have taken with me, taken very much to heart and mind, from Karla McLaren’s book on emotions, is that anger is a messenger, and the message is always the same message:
A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.
A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.
Making space for the messenger and the form of the message
Thank you, messenger, for the message, I say in the early dark hours when I am having anxiety and unease about the gate that turns out to be anger, but really it is about everything in my life and in this world we are living in, and not just about the gate.
Though also yes, I feel angry that someone knocked down my gate. More angry than I’d realized.
My anger is a helpful message; it is also useful if not particularly enjoyable to observe just how much resistance I have to the work or practice of restoring the boundaries.
What else do we know about boundaries?
I was talking this over with my friend Cate when we went on our monthly hike, something I missed terribly while I was away. I missed Cate, and I missed our walks at high elevation amidst the grasses, the juniper trees and the magical light.
Cate said something very reasonable and relatable about a fear of over-doing boundaries, like what if we just keep walling ourselves off until nothing is left…
And I think sometimes we can confuse a boundary with a wall, when a wall is only one very specific type of boundary. Provisional boundaries exist. So semi-permeable boundaries, like the way that cells that know how to take in nourishment and filter out what is not helpful.
A boundary can take many possible shapes and forms
A boundary can take many shapes and forms, and right now I am thinking about boundaries as filters, something that allows you to welcome in support and decline what is not supportive…
So I am dropping this idea — that boundaries do not necessarily need to be walls, into the cauldron of solutions, as a sort of conceptual bay leaf, just in case that thought is helpful for anyone else.
If it feels like too much to think about right now, or is bringing up too much stuff, we can let it go.
Into the cauldron of It Solves Itself
When I notice that I am non-stop worrying about the worry-inducing things, or the seemingly unsolvable mysteries, or I think I don’t yet know how to restore the boundary, or I do know but I am feeling anxious about putting it into practice…
In all of these scenarios, I imagine a large, round three-footed cauldron over a fire. Solid, cast-iron, formidable, taking up space. There is a vitality to the relationship between cauldron and fire.
This is the cauldron of It Solves Itself, and I put all of my wishes and all of my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself. With love, and with patience, and knowing that the most vital ingredient is time.
It is not my job to be the problem-solver, that is for the cauldron
My job is to notice what wants to go into the cauldron of solving, not to solve it all myself.
It is not my job to solve every single problem, and certainly not at 3am when I am too tired to come up with good ideas or generate solutions anyway, or even to differentiate between what is solvable by me and what isn’t.
My piece in this is to notice the fear-worry-anger, the fragility and vulnerability, the wish for elegant simple solutions, the wish for restored boundaries, the not-knowing, all of it.
And to deposit these into the cauldron. To let the cauldron do the work while I sleep on it, and beyond.
Safety and Sanctuary, into the cauldron…
When I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is also me worrying about the very-soon upcoming November United States presidential election, cycling through anxiety about how fucking much is on the line in this election…
Or, when I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is to say that I am feeling upset and furious that Netanyahu is still in power in Israel, which is also broader geopolitical angst, which is also existential worry, and is also the very human distress at the ongoing progression of horrific developments, and so on…
All of these scenarios have the same need, the same wish. Safety and Sanctuary.
Into the cauldron
Safety and Sanctuary.
For me, for the literal physical entry point to the place where I live.
Safety and Sanctuary for everyone who is in harm’s way whether from an election or a terrible government or the horrors and abominations of a cruel war, the ongoing atrocities…
Safety and Sanctuary for all of it, safety and sanctuary for each of us, and for everyone we love. This wish is going into the cauldron, may solutions emerge swiftly and speedily, may the solutions bring an easing to the unease…
X breaths, backwards breaths
When I can’t sleep, I count a certain number of breaths backwards of into the cauldron of it solves itself…
For example: 50, It is solving itself, 49, Into the cauldron of it solves itself, 48, I agree to let this solve itself…
Letting things percolate in the cauldron of It Solves Itself is also related to taking breaths of Ten Percent More Relaxed.
Sometimes I do both at the same time.
Oh right, I forgot about the option of a little bit more relaxed
Sometimes just the act of depositing my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself can remind me that being Ten Percent More Relaxed is even an option that’s available to me.
Or two percent. We can start wherever feels possible. We can just give it a try. What would that feel like, to be a small amount more relaxed?
I can feel my shoulders soften a little. I can let my jaw release a little, and then let it release again. Maybe a good yawn. Yes, that feels good. Settling into a position that’s a little more comfortable.
Yes, let’s do a clearing out
How much of this worry-anxiety-tension that I’m experiencing is really and truly mine, as opposed to bits of ambient worry floating around in the air, that I may have picked up from the internet or just from existing?
If let’s say that 2% of my anxiety belongs to me, then this other 98% of accumulated external anxiety can be given to the mountains to transform into potential energy…
How much of this worry-tension-anxiety is from now, and isn’t old anxiety from then that I have been lugging around with me out of habit?
Any anxiety that is not from right now can also go whooshing out of my body-mind to be transformed by the cosmos, not my job.
I am releasing this excess worry and asking for Safety & Sanctuary, for myself, for my home, for the people I love, for everyone in harm’s way, this beautiful wish can go into the cauldron of It Solves Itself…
Into the cauldron: Safety & Sanctuary, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles
I have people I love with family in Iran, in Lebanon, in Gaza — safety and sanctuary for the people I love and the people they love; safety and sanctuary for everyone in harm’s way.
Obviously I worry tremendously about my friends and family in Israel protesting the nightmare of a government and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in between air raid sirens, our hearts with the hostages and their families, and at the same time I also experience this same tremendous worry and terror for everyone in Gaza.
Like everyone I know, I am broken by the images, the heartbreaking horrors and agonizing devastation of this cruel war, the appalling war crimes, all of it.
Safety and Sanctuary for everyone, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles, this is the prayer that is going into the cauldron, up into the sky, deep into the mountains, wherever it needs to go.
Everything connecting
When I am thinking about how upset I am about the Israeli government, I am also thinking about what it means more generally when the government of your country is run by zealots and narcissists, which could be coming to a theater near me.
That is to say, I am worried about the upcoming U.S. election, and all the potential avenues for chaos, regardless of outcome, but I am also worried about the outcome…
And so on. Some of this is from then, aka reverberations of January 6, and some of this is from a further-back then, aka ancestral.
I am noticing all of it, and breathing compassion for myself, and letting it all go into the cauldron of solutions.
Into the cauldron it goes
Safety from hurricanes, safety from cruel laws, safety from bombings, safety from unjust systems, safety from the kind of people who think a gate (or any form of a boundary) is an invitation to try to knock it down.
What would it feel like to give this to the cauldron of solutions instead of being the 3am stirrer-of-anxiety-stew?
A breath for remembering that this is even an option.
A breath for being a human in this world of scary situations, keeping on keeping on.
Is this enough?
Of course not, in the same way that voting is not enough. Into the cauldron is not the endgame, nor is it the answer.
And, at 3am when you can’t sleep because of the too-many-worries-to-name, it is absolutely enough. It is enough for that moment, because all we can do at 3am is meet the moment.
Tending to ourselves in the tender moments, this is the work of life. It’s good for us and it’s good for the collective.
To whenever that may be, amen (peace, compromise, amen)
The scary things aren’t going to get less scary, until they do, whenever that may be.
We can acknowledge how scary they are, cultivate fortitude, glow sweetness towards ourselves, and keep wishing for a better word, and yes, all that is an accompaniment to whatever actions we choose to take out in the world.
This is one of the many ways we can support the collective, and it is definitely not everything.
There’s work to be done; we are going to do our best to stay grounded and clear so that we can take part in it in whatever way we can. A breath and a candle for this too.
Peace, Compromise, Amen
I keep wishing for peace (peace, peace, peace), and when I do this, two things come to mind.
One is an English professor I studied with in the mid—90s reading The Wasteland, reading to us but really doing a reading for us, channeling T.S. Eliot and something deeper:
Shantih Shantih Shantih. Peace Peace Peace.
Asserting it. Invoking it. Naming it three times.
But I also think about the wise words of Etgar Keret, who knows and reminds us that peace prayers can be wishful thinking or political lies, and that compromise and now are the real prayers.
I am also thinking about how he told Terry Gross that when we say “bring them back NOW” about the hostages, the now is like an amen, both in the sense that it is a heartfelt plea, and in the sense that it feels hopeless to ask (god, the government, anyone) for help in this terrible situation.
Belief and not belief
I believe in the power of naming, invoking, asserting, or at least in the ability of these practices to calm us, ground us, inspire us, reassure us, keep us holding on.
Not sure what else they do, but also not sure the what else is the important part, if that makes sense.
I am more focused on the 3am moments, and placing what I can into the cauldron, as a practice, but yes, maybe also as a prayer.
May it help. Amen/Peace/Compromise/Amen.
Back to the gate
So far one part got solved – an electronic gate that needs a code to open, but unfortunately someone delivering a package found a workaround and was able to pull the gate open enough to walk through, so now I need a workaround to counter their workaround.
There is one possible option that would do the trick and keep everyone out but is expensive, another option that involves putting up a sign saying something to the effect of “electronic gate, please don’t pull”.
Or there is the option of simply not ordering anything to be delivered, something I only do maybe twice a month anyway, and simply giving the cauldron some time to offer up a better solution than either of the first two options…
What comes first, let’s find out
Maybe once I am feeling less prickly about this crossed boundary, a creative solution will emerge.
Or maybe I need to just protect the boundary, for my own sense of safety, and feeling less prickly can come later.
Noticing, adding compassion, noticing some more
I am noticing that I am having a very strong physical and emotional reaction to the idea of someone opening my gate when I don’t want them to open my gate.
Then I apply Acknowledgment & Legitimacy to this noticing; add compassion and stir.
Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, in practice:
Of course it is logical, reasonable, so very understandable, that I’m having a strong reaction to a boundary being crossed after three months of dealing with non-stop boundary issues in what my therapist friends refer to as the ancestral home, the place I remember from childhood, a time of the opposite of sanctuary.
Of course it makes sense that I am upset about the gate when I have neighbors with flags that say TAKE AMERICA BACK.
Of course the gate is a stand-in for any number of fears, and, even if it was just about the gate, it’s also okay that I am upset about the gate.
What a human reaction to someone crossing a boundary, what a human reaction to a loss of privacy, what a human reaction to perceived threat, whether intentional or not.
It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling
It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling, I am letting both the emotions and the narratives move through me and find their way out of my body.
Safety and sanctuary for me, for the situation, for whatever the situation is bringing up or the ways it might be reminding me of experiences in my past…
A human being in a human moment, a breath and an imaginary candle for comfort, safety, ease, release.
A breath and an imaginary candle lit for everyone. Safety and sanctuary all around. Regrounding. A peace vigil of the heart. I want better for everyone. A breath for that too.
(Now Amen Peace Compromise Yes)
What would you like to give to the cauldron of It Solves Itself
Maybe the question itself is something that can be given to the cauldron.
Maybe some of what we put in to the cauldron doesn’t have words yet.
Safety and sanctuary for the process and practice, for being brave enough to trust and try.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
Get the ebook on how I play with time
Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.
Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place (long story), so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Small sweet joys
Small sweet joys
Strawberries, always
A friend gave me a jar of crushed strawberry vinegar, found on the sale rack at the back of a supermarket. I love that people in my life know I am always in the market for an unusual vinegar.
At the moment I am infusing a cup of it with cloves in a glass jar on the kitchen table, and missing Michael.
When I am missing, what am I missing
Michael is my wise and funny chef friend who died this past year, my co-conspirator in all taste-related joy-experiments.
I want to tell him about the cloves, ask him what he thinks, if it’s too much intensity. I think he would do coriander instead.
But also he knows about how I am a Flavor Maximalist, so he would support my choice. He’d be excited to know how it turns out either way, I can tell you that.
Hanging out
The clove-infused strawberry vinegar is for a peach shrub. The peaches are macerating with sugar and smoked cinnamon in the refrigerator, they have been there since Thursday.
I think I’m going to pull out my mom’s immersion blender and give them some help. With the immersing. I am missing her too.
And then I am going to add the vinegar infusion, and give it all a few more days to hang out.
I want to ask Michael about this too, what he thinks about infusing the vinegar separately. So the vinegar is hanging out with herbs while the fruit hangs out with the sugars, and then they meet up.
Infusion
I want to ask Michael about infusions. He always had dozens of ferments going, jars upon jars, so many gorgeous vibrant experiments.
Michael: a joy-infusion of a human being.
How am I going to keep infusing things with pleasure and meaning, how am I ever going to know enough about this work of melding? I guess I just have to keep going and find out.
I know from decades of movement practices (yoga, feldenkrais, dance etc) that you can infuse a moment.
You can infuse a moment
You use intention, attention, and breath.
Maybe a little magic, I don’t know how to explain it better than that. But it can be done.
The thing about not knowing / the grief of what is missing
There is a lovely certainty I can access when I am trying to feel into the qualities involved in missing my friend.
That is to say, I know without a doubt that Michael would be enthusiastic about my questions, happy for me, excited for my experiment, curious, imagining all the flavor combinations, his beautiful brain generating further experiments. These are the knowns.
And then there are all the unknowns. The coriander, for example. The ideas and suggestions he would have that I am not thinking of, the questions I don’t know to ask.
Imagining
How do you know the unknowns? You don’t.
I don’t know what he’d say. Something wise or caring probably, something that would fill my heart with warmth.
I have to imagine what these missing pieces are or might be.
Missing
I want his take on this shrub because I want what I am missing, and what I am missing is not just him but all the missing pieces of what he would say in this situation.
Or any situation.
I miss him, and I miss what I am missing, and I don’t know exactly what I am missing because it is missing.
A peach shrub is a small sweet joy
I wrote last year (the year before? what is time?), okay, a while ago, about the theme of Something To Look Forward To, about how vital it is to have sources of positive anticipation in your life.
Something to look forward to (a peach shrub).
Stay here, stay with us, there is going to be a peach shrub, and it is going to be delicious. I am infusing strawberry vinegar with cloves for us.
We will drink it with sparkling water from tall glasses with a metal straw. The light will be bouncing off the cottonwood trees, which are a vibrant shade of gold. Stick around, it will be so good.
Another fun thing
In addition to countering my fear of abandonment and fear of loss with infused vinegars and jars of fruit sitting in brown cinnamon sugar, I did something else with the gift of crushed strawberry vinegar.
I took a handful of dried cranberries and simmered them in a tablespoon of the strawberry vinegar and two tablespoons of water (I am at high elevation, if you are not then one tablespoon water should be fine) until they became plump and sticky.
These got added to warm golden rice along with diced jalapeño, it was a flavor combination for the ages.
Let’s come up with more flavor combinations for the ages. That’s something to look forward to too, right? Yes.
Fall
Here in the northern hemisphere at least, fall is here. It got a very late start in New Mexico, but it’s here with wild winds and fall color, with bursts of rain and surprise rainbows.
I love fall, and also it always comes with some melancholy, some trepidation, knowing that the cold and dark are coming, knowing that I am, as always, unprepared for the bitterest moments. I am going to have to tough it out like I always do.
Gotta stay ready.
Gotta stay ready (name the small joys)
There are lots of ways to stay ready of course.
Stocking up on tea lights. Making batches of soup stock to freeze. And of course, listing small joys, little delights I can look forward to.
Listing them, yes. Let’s name small joys. Let’s have an abundance of small joys that we can call on.
Like a dopamine menu — a big thank you to Alexis Reliford for bringing this to my attention, among many other great suggestions.
Or maybe it’s more like a things that work menu, because sometimes it’s hard to remember what dopamine feels like.
Things that help more than you think they will
I keep a running list in the category of [Things that help more than I think they will even if they don’t help as much as I want them to].
Here are some of mine in case that helps you figure out yours…
- Five minutes of stretching and rolling on the floor for example.
- A one song meditation.
- A DIY mini-pedicure by the front door.
- Massaging hands with sunflower seed oil.
- Heating pad. Tea. Favorite socks. Warming things. Or cooling things, depending on your season.
- Journaling (stone skipping) for a few minutes.
- Petting my imaginary dog who is also not-not a real dog, Ruthie Bean Bean, a stuffed animal toy puppy whose quiet reassuring soft company got me through my ordeal of a trip to Michigan and back – some day I will remember to post a photo of Ruthie Bean Bean so you can see their sweet face!
Ritual
Many of my small joys are rituals or ritualized.
Like making chocolate cinnamon banana bread for C&C Ritual Factory, aka Coffee & Cake Club which is sometimes Chai & Cake Club, my little pre-breakfast of sweetness and warmth.
Or massaging my wood bowls and cutting board with oil on new moon and full moon, spa day for the wood, it feels so happy, and then I am happy when the wood is happy.
A friend calls this a house-blessing, and while it is not quite the phrase my brain is looking for, there is something in there. Something about magic and intention, something about the way it calms me.
What calms me
There is the repetition element of ritual, the repeated movement is soothing, but also the repetition in the calendar, there it is again.
There is also room for newness, for innovation, for switching it up.
I am not married to doing it the exact same way every single time. I will do it the same way until the new way suggests itself, or until the old way runs its course.
Ritual as neurodivergent excellence.
What else am I looking forward to
Soup season.
Delicious hot beverages in a favorite mug.
Turtlenecks and beanies. Warm cozy everything in general.
I have a new scarf, it was a gift, I am excited to wear it constantly.
Something about the power of small doses of decadence
A few years ago, I briefly overcame my aversion to one-use kitchen appliances and got a fancy milk frother. I tend to forget that it exists in the summer, but when the cool weather arrives, and I take it out for the first Decadent Hot Beverage, that’s a lovely moment.
The other day I remembered that I have chicory and burdock root, so I made a decaffeinated Decadent Hot Beverage with these, some cinnamon and vanilla, a chai syrup I’d made for baking, and frothed up some oat milk to make it fancy. I might be a cowboy doing my chores, but my beverage game is top of the line.
And yes, it helped more than I thought it would. Something about festive, something about making something beautiful and extra-extra, just for me.
What else do we want to play with, in the category of Small Joys?
You can brainstorm your own list of things to try, things to look forward to, anything that might help.
It might even help more than you think it will, and even if it doesn’t help as much as you want it to (very normal, very relatable!), non-zero mood shifting is still helpful.
It all counts, and maybe it is also a form of fractal magic, which is to say that these seemingly small shifts are doing more work under the surface, and seeding good things for the future…
Some small sweet joys – any small sweet joy port in a storm, right?
I am lighting a candle for any and all small joys we can come up with, anything that supports you.
Postscript the first
Today was going to be a different topic, something I wrote the other day for us, and then the theme just felt a little heavy even though it was more about what to do about all the heavy stuff, so let’s seed as many small sweet joys as we can for now, and bring some hopeful energy into these chaotic and scary times for each other.
It couldn’t hurt, and maybe it will help.
Another candle for maybe it will help. A candle for possibility and expansiveness, for these ongoing practices in tending to the hope-sparks.
Postscript the second
Yes there will be a bonus essay this week, so if you need a reason to make a favorite beverage, there it is…
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
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Get the ebook on how I play with time
Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary fund this week (see below) gets this by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place (long story), so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then please let me know!
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A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️