Writing is what happens next

Dear Writers Everywhere and Everyhere Eternal,

Keep writing. Keep sharing your written gifts. We are collectively writing the human story and those who are heart hungry will go looking for it and drink it in. It matters! 

Write to remember. 

Write to offer. 

Write to receive. 

Write to be where you are, as you are.

Write to stay.

Write to grieve. 

Write to rejoice.

Write because it’s what you do and what you are.

Write as an act of love. 

Writing is your friend. 

Writing is peace.

Write where you belong is write where you belong. ⭐️

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to thank your pens, your hands, your unique and familiar penmanship, your blank page and all the love you give it.

Let us remember that we are dear to one another. To ourselves. To this world. A wild and bright constellation of our stories connecting word-by-star, forever being written across the sky. Like the Sky Writing that made you so happy as a child !  💗

All hearts reaching: what I love about writing with you

 Every time we write and share together I am encouraged to witness the immediate palpable empathy that kicks in when you read your writing; from word one, we are rooting for you: we want you to get through this, we want to tell you to keep going, you can do it. No matter how big or small, we want you to go after and get the thing you are wanting, whether it is a trip to the east coast, a new puppy, allowing your grief and joy full expression, finding moments of peace amidst your grieving, getting there on time, finding the perfect pair of shoes, finding the courage to do or say the thing—whatever—and we will be listening along the way, through the obstacles, the inner and outer conflict. 

Despite everything wrong with our insane world and the wtf inexplicable ways of humans or the apathetic people we fear that we too have become and the moments we just want to give up, when I listen to you read, I know our empathy is still in check, going strong. As you read, we let all the insanity go and return to the present moment. We morph with you, becoming one with you as you read, grieving beside you, celebrating, feeling the warmth of a sunny day on our backs, marveling at the sprouts emerging in your garden, the excitement and uncertainty in the car with you on a long road trip to somewhere we've never seen, yet feel for certain we've been as much as we know you'll eventually get there; in one way or another, you'll arrive back home. We know it like we know that all told, we care deeply for ourselves and one another and we know we are not alone. 

It happens every time. 

Do remember

 how the other day on the table getting your yearly thyroid ultrasound you realized that you weren't exactly gripping your left hand with your right as much as you were holding it, giving it a place to rest and squeeze if need be and that your own ability and wish to comfort and hold yourself 

has been happening all along

Even though

they remind me of all the fallen fruit of my childhood, those carnival colors,  citrus stained slicks all over bleached SoCal sidewalks or sometimes even like a strand of prayer flags or those bulky paper chains we made out of construction paper as kids in slightly faded primary colors

even so, please don't litter your beautiful masks.

We are so funny

 because this is what I noticed myself craving today:

a trip to the dollar store to buy a colander                                        a higher sink in the bathroom like the one at the furniture place because that would solve everything.       And a smart place or thing to organize all  the extra garlic and onion

And last but not least a (or maybe a few) tiny dehumidifiers and oh yeah, one more, a hand towel that will actually dry my hands and around the bathroom sink where the faucet is too low

I also waited on an email from my yoga teacher, but waiting is an entirely different category of craving.

to the mid thirties platinum blonde mom I saw at Wolfe Park tonight with her 7 or 8 or maybe 9 year old boy

listening to that I guess grunge band                                       as the usual kingdom of clouds road in on the lowering citrus sky 

or for that matter to any mom about that age out and about roaming beneath generous summer skies with your about that age son:

It's not that I was staring exactly, in case you were wondering 

in case you looked up the hill at me through those dark black sunglasses I know so well, wondering why is that fifty year old lady with pink shoes glaring at us, the same way I saw up all those hills at staring elders feeling stared at or judged (for certainly there was so so much to judge)

What I really want to tell you is that I wasn't staring: I was mesmerized 

I was watching a movie of my old life: I was there, that was me, he is my child, you are me right down 

to the scattered, unsynchronized, sleep deprived, over caffeinated, text checking, starving, free spirited, free to be you and me micro moment exactly, to the bandshell music that only rarely, but sometimes perfectly captured the moment as you swizzled your neck around to check on your  blonde firefly: his little jumps and hopscotches and mama calls, falling freely into the summer night, his voice so edibly sweet. 

I want to tell you I am not staring at you at all: I am drinking you, I am feasting on a mirage, I am believing in miracles.  I am loving you

If you look up the hill just for even a second, we could bridge on the arc of a smiling sun so i could tell you things, so we could prolong things. But you never looked my way, go figure, you never did, you moved too fast.  And  I wished and wished that you would stay longer, that this movie would never end but a million other things were calling and in one exquisite swoop you were going, biking away with my son.

What I'd rather be doing this summer instead of going to and making so many doctor's appointments

 swimming

painting my toenails

spending money on clothes instead of copays

work on my writing

write more songs

 finish painting the living room wall

deep clean my floors

 practice piano and learn how to whistle loud and play bridge and bridge shuffle

build something

paint a mural in the writing room

bike forever like I used to

meet you for coffee or lemonade

go on a walk with you

see all my friends

go to the zoo

take day trips

garden

berry picking 

make postcards

finish 

be spontaneous

be the supermom that I used to be and take my son on wild all day adventures while he's still game

go to the mall

clean out my closet

and my junk drawers

get rid of everything we don't need

call you back

do my PT exercises

go to a kirtan retreat 

get a massage

         help you

help out

catch up on all my New Yorkers

take a day off to do nothing

make a bunch of meals to store in the freezer

do things I used to do that make me feel less vulnerable

not do

not go

spend less time in my body

float

dive

be a mermaid 

touch the drain at the bottom of the pool 

hand out cookies 

bury treasure

grieve and go

here these words and witness

and stay