I've wanted to offer a gift for today, heading into the inauguration here in the United States and knowing that this time is so tender and troubling for many, many reasons. Like many of you, I am stretched so far and feeling so thin that I haven't pulled off my gifting hopes. But I have been playing with the word and learning more about CARE, because I hope care will be a balm for these times. Here's my word play. A poem perhaps? Maybe this feels like a soft landing ... Read more ...
love
Love Notes from Journal Pages
So much of my writing over the past year has been personal journaling. I have pages of scrawled notes and lots of therapeutic reflections. It’s the sort of writing that rarely sees the light of day. It’s also the writing in which insights pop up and out of the mess. Recently, I’ve been re-reading my journal pages and noticing how often I write love notes to myself, underlining what I want and need to hear. It’s occurred to me that these notes offer messages that many ... Read more ...
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m Again Writing with Heartache
My heart is with you and all of us grieving, raging, and moving through the day with heartache. My heart is with all of us and our people connected with Michigan State University (MSU) and all people impacted by gun violence. With DC and Southern California, with so many people, so many locations. My heart is with all of us living in a state of terror -- in the terrorizing nation-state of the United States and in the midst of normalized everyday violence. My heart is ... Read more ...
Grief and Gratitude: Reflections on a 3-Year Anniversary
This Saturday (December 13th) was my 3-year anniversary as a Patreon creator, and this week I'm reflecting on how much has happened and changed over these three years. In the midst of this internal review, I am grieving bell hooks, who I know will continue to guide so many of our lives, though I'm experiencing her loss as magnifying the many losses of this year and the last. I recognize again—through emails and text messages and phone calls and blog posts (like this one ... Read more ...
From Fear to Love: Working with Emotional Overload
Emotional Overload Is Rooted in Fear Last week I said goodbye to the phone I’d had for more than 3 years, a phone I was attached to more than I’d like to admit. I entered a state of complete overwhelm, spiraling between questions and frustrations, between crying and raging: How could I possibly learn a new phone? Why aren’t there any small phones? How will one of the new—BIG—phones fit in my pocket? It’s not fair that all the phones are large, while women’s pants ... Read more ...
Turning 40 with the Gift of 40 Miles: Why I’m Taking Myself on Walks This Month
May is both my birth month and a time of transition (when the school year ends and summer begins). For as long as I can remember, I’ve looked forward to May and its potential for renewal. This year I’m celebrating my 40th birthday and wanting to mark the occasion with extended time on trails. Specifically, I’m setting a goal to hike 40 miles on my own this month: miles that I’ll walk toward understanding how to be independent within interdependence. Why This ... Read more ...
My New Year’s Resolution = Self-Love for Countering White Fragility
The days leading up to this new year have been bumpy for me, pushing me to recommit to radical self-love. I’ve had some really tough conversations with family around everyday injustice, and these conversations have reminded me why we need a deep well of emotional literacies for confronting complicity. In the midst of one of these tough conversations—in which I was speaking aloud my embodied responses to white supremacy—I shared that my heart was throbbing, and I ... Read more ...
Parenting Myself 101
Over the past few months, I’ve been learning more about how to care for myself—a sort of self-care that I’m calling “parenting myself 101.” After a career change, cross-county move, and intense internal work “inside the chrysalis,” I’ve recognized the need to put good self-parenting into place. The language of “parenting” has been helpful for me to break from “self-care” focused on relaxation as an escape from everyday life. Rather than experiencing self-care as ... Read more ...
Inside the Chrysalis, or Experiencing Mess, Mess, and More Mess
It’s not uncommon for me to ride emotional roller-coasters with swings from sweet to sour as I go about my days. More and more, I’ve noticed these swings as I’ve tuned in with my emotions and embodied self through Reiki, yoga, and other contemplative practices. The more I do inner work and the more I embrace mess, the more the messiness of being an always-incomplete, imperfect human inevitability shows up. Still, if I’m being honest with myself, the past few weeks have ... Read more ...
A Love Letter to Students Surviving Sexual Violence
As we near the end of spring semester, students in both my “Contemplative Writing” and “Writing for Social Justice” courses are pulling together projects to make interventions in some way. Several students are addressing rape culture, and one student is compiling a book of letters by and for survivors of sexual violence. She hopes that others at our university will read the letters, write additional ones, and add threaded response—facilitating healing through ... Read more ...
