For You!
Side Effects
It can be a strange thing coming out of a hard time. You can see that the storm has passed. You can feel peace slowly make its way into your heart. You can hear your thoughts telling you it’s okay to exhale. But you suddenly feel terrible. All of the holding on, the demanding work, the head down “I can do this” comes barreling in and something inside you let’s go of survival mode and you stand face to face with the hard stuff.
2021, Grace & Return of the Malpeds
They say to write what you know. And I guess that’s a great idea…if you know what you know. In my case, I wrote Return of the Malpeds by creating a world and letting the characters romp around in it. What happened next, I suppose, was that those characters in return showed me some of what I “know” (although using the word know feels a bit lofty...perhaps it’s better to say what I’m learning…because what is life if not a work in progress!?).
Those tiny, furry Trebors did it again, they lived what I’m learning. They went running around the Land of Bori and in the process reminded me that coming together, being part of families and communities, isn’t always easy.
Grace Over Perfection
It’s well below freezing. I have on thermal pants, two sweaters, a down jacket, a wool hat, multiple pairs of socks, and ski gloves…oh yes…and a blanket. I’m sitting on my front porch watching my friend wriggle herself into the other Adirondack chair. Her wine is balanced carefully in her mittened hands as she shifts to pull her blanket in tightly to keep out the frost filled breeze. It has been months since we have had the chance to sit just the two of us. Life has been hard, unexpected and exhausting.
It might be 2021 (goodbye 2020), but we are still sitting in the cold outside, making lemonade out of lemons.
Chocolate Chips
I was standing at my kitchen counter shoving a few chocolate chips into my mouth (and by a few I really mean a complete fist full) while contemplating if I was going to honestly track them in my Weight Watchers app when it occurred to me that chocolate wasn’t the only thing I’ve been consuming numbingly lately.