Solstice Season

 Today I'm at home, awaiting a new dishwasher that needs to be delivered and installed during working hours, deeply enjoying the quiet of the house and finding that the time to reflect is the best gift of all.

Normally, my alarm goes off around 5am and I take half hour to encourage my body to wake up (which it is loathe to do - I have to build in a half hour of quiet because I am NOT a "bound out of bed" person), then a half hour to write my morning pages (thank you, Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way) before REALLY rushing to pack my lunch, shower and dress, and get out the door so that I can arrive to work by 7am. I hit the ground running when I get to school, and I don't even take a breath until 7th period - my only prep period - because I work through lunch, answering Teams chats and email as I eat my soup or salad at my desk. There is a brief reprieve in 7th period to try to get a couple of tasks done, and then the kids show up again at 3pm for tutorial, often not clearing out the classroom until 4pm. Only then can I do my "real" work of grading, planning, etc... and I am so exhausted that my brain does not want to comply.

On my good days, I work until 5:30 or 6:30, or I am able to take some work home and do it for an hour or two. On my bad days I practically whimper as I walk to my car, and feel incredibly grateful to live alone so that nobody will see me fall into the sofa with something probably-not-healthy for dinner before going to bed.

It's not sustainable, and I do not approve of this way of living. I'm constantly trying to do better, and it's hit and miss.

But it's Winter Solstice season, the darkest part of the year, and as the days get shorter and the nights get deeper, I'm asking myself to go deeper, too.

Deep breaths.

Deep thoughts.

Deeper well (thanks, Kacey Musgraves).

Some seasons are for frolicking in the fields, or planting, or harvesting... but in my mind, winter's darkness is a place for quiet. It's a chance to sit in those long nights, enjoying candlelight (which will have to suffice for a fireplace, which my 1923 house does not have... how do I not have a fireplace?!) and hot tea, reading and writing, crochet or other crafty endeavors. It's a season of soups and roasted vegetables... quiet, unfussy food that still has deep nourishment.

(Tonight's soup: curried butternut squash, made with coconut milk and finished with chili crisp. Simple doesn't mean boring.)

This year I'm really embracing the solstice: looking to nature's rhythms to guide me through the darkness. Usually I decorate my house in traditional (Dickensian?) themes, lots of red bows and red and green tartan, bringing out the "good" dishes with the gold rims, pretending I'm in Downton Abbey or something.

Not this year. This year I gathered fallen branches of cedar and fir in the park, and hung them around the dining room light. I laid out white crystals - druzy, lots of selenite, and one lovely and large quartz agate. I put the cheery red pillowcase covers on the family room sofas downstairs, and I put the snow globe and nutcrackers down there too, because upstairs I wanted to think about snow, forests, ice, the night sky. We have our traditional tree with all of the memory ornaments - souvenirs from vacations, ornaments received as gifts, ornaments purchased to commemorate important events like births, graduations, and such... but this year, I gently put away the angel and replaced it with a star. I'm looking to nature.

How does one live in the modern world, with corrupt politicians and starving children in Gaza and 5am alarms and broken dishwashers and aging bodies... and find joy, peace, rest, nourishment? And how dare I put "broken dishwashers" on the same line as children in war zones?

I'm taking my cues from nature.

The sky is dark, but it's filled with stars, even when we can't see them behind the clouds.

It's okay to slow down, like the trees do, bare branches quiet against a gray sky.

It's a good idea to have a few extra pounds to make it through the cold season.

And the waves go in, and out; in, and out ... just as they do all year. The crows still gather, and the squirrels still scamper, but the chickens aren't laying like they did in summer, and the grass isn't growing, and everything is gently fluttering but not surging.

I had a professor who talked about the fallow field: a time when a writer needed to let things sit, just like a field in winter, because that time is not wasted, it is a replenishing of the soil, a preparation for planting and harvest, not wasted time.

It's okay to go inside, to curl up with a book, to snuggle into the sofa cushions with a handmade blanket keeping one cozy. There is value in that, too. 

Somehow, I need to figure out how to be cozy and still, while still living in the modern world. There is a big difference between the quiet of a good book and a cup of tea, and the quiet of convenience foods in front of the television. The glow of a candle nourishes in the way that the phone screen cannot. And bodies need to move in order to be well, even if they don't want to move at full pace. And the students must be taught, and the papers graded, and the laundry done... despite that natural pull towards stillness.

I think I might need to seek stillness in other places. Farther away from the city, more time under the night sky. Less time on pavement, more time on the soft trails of the park. Fewer large gatherings, and more small cozy ones.

I may not want to rush around at a madcap pace, but I can still my mind and get words on paper; I can gently tend to my home on indoor projects, small things that improve my life. I am certainly enjoying the decor that Tessa and I set up on the day after Thanksgiving. I'm trying to live with the season, embracing soft sweaters and warm coats, wool hats and socks, and leather gloves.

As it turns out, I don't have any of the answers. I think if I pay enough attention, nature might tell me some things... but that's all I know.

It's almost solstice, and the days are getting darker and darker. We decorate the house with lights to remind us of the return of the light; we bring in evergreen to remind us of that evergreen's life. We humans don't hibernate, but it's a chance to remember to slow down, to soak up the quiet air.

My desk faces a window into the backyard, plants on the windowsill between me and outside. The dogwood is completely bare of leaves; the styrax bare of leaves but covered in dangling seeds (fruit? nuts? what are those?); the maple is still a blaze of burnt yellow-orange and brown leaves. The sky is thick, low, and gray, ever so still, and I don't see birds. I'm grateful for the stillness, letting my mind sink into stillness, too, no music playing, no buzz of activity today. Fallow.

Tomorrow the alarm will go off far too early, and the day will be filled with the joyful chaos of students, but somehow I'm going to try to keep this stillness within me, to embrace the fallow season, even as I look foward to the return of the light. There is deep beauty in the solstice season, deep rich evergreen hues; crisp white frost; blue and white mountains over the Sound. I'll keep looking for the light, within and without, taking comfort in knowing that it will return.

It feels good to pause.

Wrong side of bed

 For the past two days I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, as the saying goes.

Or, more accurately, I didn't really sleep at all, so I tossed and turned on the wrong side of bed, or something like that. But whatever you call it, I'm crabby.

It started with feeling behind at work, so overwhelmed that I barely know how to dig myself out of the hole. (Hint: writing this instead of grading might not help with that problem.) It continued with a sequence of irritating small things: tracking in leaves all over the house last night before I realized it, leaving their crunched up bits all over the floor; having to go to three grocery stores in order to find the necessary ingredients; deciding to treat myself at the taco truck (because after two grocery stores I went from hungry to REALLY hungry) only to realize that they didn't have vegetarian options; making myself a cup of tea and having the teabag burst open, leaving me with murky tea leaves in my "soothing" drink. I sent Tessa a package of holiday decor - lovingly chosen and boxed up so that she and her roommate could have a festive Christmas environment - and she didn't even bother to pick up the package or write me back.

None of it is the end of the world, and I know that. Maybe it's the fatigue from not being able to sleep? But whatever it is...

I'm crabby.

I'm fighting it, though.

I cleaned up my desk, recycling unneeded papers, getting my paperwork that needs to be dealt with in order. I went easy on myself for tomorrow's lessons, creating something that isn't too painful. I captured my holiday schedule in a single document (and realized that I HAVE A LOT GOING ON!). I told my morning besties chain (Susan and Carolyn) that I was crabby, and accepted their loving grace. I created a plan to tackle the grading, with goals for end of day that will make me feel better.

I wore a professional blazer over black slacks and blouse, with my witchy boots and earrings (sun/moon combos with quartz crystals, my favorite), and I'm calling it my power outfit. I have a stone from Lowman Beach in my pocket, and I'm going to go there after work before I settle in to baking, to breathe the sea and to return the stone and choose a new one. 

And then two kids sent me nice notes, unsolicited. That was nice.

I put up a poem that inspires me where I can see it near my desk.

I had a snack (dark chocolate covered pistachios).

Today I had no energy to make healthy lunch, but I freeze soup when I make it, and so I defrosted a jar of it, and I have a hot thermos of soup awaiting me for lunch, filled with veggie goodness, made on a day when I had more energy and had my act together. A pink lady apple will round it out.

And I'm being gentle with myself by coming here to breathe, to write it all out so that I can remember that sometimes it's okay to be crabby.

I wonder if some of it is the holidays upon us - my family is a source of pain for me, and it's a family season, so I can't help but notice it. Or maybe it's being single in a time when it's all Hallmark romance and friends with partners they can't wait to hang out with. Or maybe it's my class overage, or maybe it's the being thrown off kilter from the windstorm and all its disruptions, or maybe it's the dark side of menopause, or maybe I just need a nap.

But whatever it is, I'm going to push back... gently.

Power clothes.

Hot soup.

Tea.

Finishing some low hanging fruit at work.

Music.

And after work, I will go to the beach and remember to breathe with the waves. In, out; in, out. I can hear the gentle tumble of the pebbles in my mind now, breathe in the smell of salt and cedar.

I will make the cranberry bread that I love, in preparation to eat but also to share with the people that I love. I will write my daughter a welcome home note to leave on her pillow, in case she gets home tomorrow before I do, and remember how much I love her.

I'll drink lots of water (I don't think I did that yesterday!).

I'll read before bed, and I'll stay off the news.

It's not a REAL bad day - no death or disaster. I know the difference. And maybe it's in my power to change it, or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and it will just feel different. I know that it will pass, and just thinking about that makes my shoulders fall a little.

In, out. In, out. I can't wait to be by the sea.

Power

I've been thinking about power a lot lately. Power structures, power outages, power dynamics, power plays, power games, power over, power beside, personal power, magical power, nature's power.

But I hid the main idea: I'm thinking about my own power.

Sometime last year I entered my crone phase. I don't know why this is true, only that it is. I've been in menopause since my cancer diagnosis and treatment in 2005, but I feel a shift in my body and wonder if I'm entering my natural menopause now. I feel different in my body, and I'm not talking about the changes that others can see (thickening middle, thinning hair - what strange balance there is there!), but about those I feel.

I feel powerful.

I care a lot less about other people's opinions than I once did, and I allow myself more opinions than I used to. I'm a lot better at saying "no" and meaning it. I care more about some things, and less about others. But through all of it, I feel a surge in my chest and belly and somewhere deeper, a building of energy that I've never felt before.

It's different than the energy of youth, when I pulled all nighters and maxed out the Stairmaster for 45 minutes; it's different than the burning thighs of twelve mile hikes with thousands of feet of elevation gain, or carrying a 45 pound pack (yes I did and yes that's crazy). It's different than working multiple jobs while going to school, and it's different than the drive I felt to put in twelve hour days at work without pain. It's very different than the life makeover that happened when I became a single working parent.

In some ways, it's quieter. I feel more introverted than I used to... because I enjoy my own company more. I've learned to still my mind a bit better, and so a house with no interruptions is a chance to dance with my own mind, to explore ideas, stillness, dreams, wonderment, without the clawing anxiety that I've lived with for most of my life.

I feel enough. Not better or worse, but enough, and this is more than I have ever felt before, and it's a type of quiet that I don't know how to explain but it's beautiful, like nighttime in the woods or being in a rowboat in the middle of a lake or finding a beach with nobody there. When I listen, there are all kinds of sounds (like the breeze through evergreen branches, or the waves on the shore) but most of all there is my own breathing, in, out, in, out.

Yesterday I saw the movie Wicked and walked away thinking about Elphaba's power. I'm sure that I'm not the only person to feel this way - I might be the ten millionth - but I related to her so incredibly deeply. I felt the pain of her family's rejection and their bad behavior; I felt the desire to be deeply good to others; I felt a pull to be sharp and smart to make up for other lacking traits. I felt deeply weird and green, just like her; I felt the humiliation of a "friend" who set me up to be mocked.

But most of all, I felt the relief of letting go of all of it and embracing the weird: of daring to dream of a place where the color of me is everyone's favorite, and, once realizing that such favoritism has limits, deciding that I know my internal compass and right from wrong, and fighting back simply by being my full self.

Defying Gravity, indeed.

The world has all kinds of rules for women like me - neither rich nor poor, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither old nor young. I think the main rules are 1) Be everyone's helper and 2) When not helping, be invisible.

Fuck it.

I've been helping for a long time, and slowly it is dawning on me that the person I need to be helping is MYSELF and that if I ever gave myself the attention that I give to others, maybe I too could defy gravity. It's only when Elphalba stops caring for Nessie and is willing to walk away from Galinda that she figures out how to take care of herself, and that's when the magic happens.

My daughter is ready to defy gravity all on her own - connected by heartstrings forever, I hope, but also ready to fly untethered. She needs to take on her own dreams and responsibilities, to take risks and fly. I'm a place to land until my last breath, and my thrill at watching her become herself is beyond joy, and I hope that my faith in her fuels her faith in herself. She is a main character in my story, beloved and important, teacher and student both. If she needs me, I won't hesitate to fly to her - she is life, love, breath, and there is nothing I wouldn't do for her. But she's got her own power, and she's growing into it, and she doesn't need rescuing most of the time. She needs space to grow, supported by love but not strings.

But anything is possible as I come into my power, and she needs to witness it so she'll know it's awaiting her, too.

I'm ready to create an unconventional life for myself, reinventing myself as a writer in my mid-fifties. Somewhere along the way I noticed that I don't even want to date anymore, and that the men I meet bore me more than they excite me, and so many of them need caring that feels like ropes around my neck and wrists, tethering me to a life that belongs to them, not me. I see people in healthy, happy relationships and I don't think that this is all men or all relationships, but I think, more and more, that it is MY truth.

The liberation of not craving a partner is unexpected and joyful. All that energy is available for other things, now.

Writing stories that matter, allegories and metaphors and dreams, rage and love and hope and disappointment, friendship and mothers and daughters and the occasional lover,  love letters to the world, lanterns to guide the way for those who find themselves on my story roads.

Defying gravity.

My intuition is sharper than I knew was humanly possible - they could study me, I've predicted so many things. Power. This is going to happen, is happening, unfolding as it should.

I've started loving my body more than before, maybe more than ever before. I love how I walk faster than most people, filled with energy. I love that it takes me under the waves, the cold water that deters others drawing me in. I've grown to love the strange white stripe that is such a prominent feature of my hair these days. I love the curve of my hips, and I love that at 55 I do more yoga than ever (I did yoga the past two days - in my "yoga library" downstairs, a lovely clear area of bamboo flooring surrounded by bookcases). I love the painful pull of my chest as I stretch, a reminder of not the cancer but of the strength that got me through it. It's a body filled with power and potential, even after all these decades.

I'm applying that power in new ways, manifesting new versions of my life. I'm ready to defy gravity, to break every rule, to become the unconventional and outspoken old witch in the cottage, the subject of whispers and sought out by just as many as avoid her.

I'm ready to embrace my power.

It's about time.

Moon Magic

I've decided that whenever I can summon the energy to do so, I'm going to head to my local beach in the dark hours before I go to work, stand at the shore, and let the saltwater heal me.

My beach on Puget Sound is covered with driftwood and pebbles, and faces west. Today I went there at 6:15am, expecting rain but determined to go anyway, and I was rewarded with dry skies.

And the moon.

It was a full moon last night, and the moon was hanging low over the Olympic mountains, playing peekaboo with clouds passing over it. I stood at the edge of the shore, moving away from the killdeer shore birds, who screeched at me in the dark, scolding me when I walked near them.

The sea was gentle today, just the breath-rhythm of the waves - in, out, in, out - until I felt my own breath synching. When the water reaches the pebbles on the beach, the pebbles tumble against each other gently, a sound of stone and sea that soothes.

I stood under the moon, tried to capture it in photos, but my phone failed in the attempt.

Probably for the best that I stopped trying - put away my phone, so I can dip my fingers into the water, so that I can pick up various pebbles and feel their texture between my fingers, so that I can see the moon with my eyes and not through a screen.

In, out. In, out.

Full moons are a time of magic: there are those who practice spells to harness that magic.

My spell is to immerse myself at the edge of the sea, in line with the reflection of the full moon, and breathe. I could feel my heartrate slow, I could feel my shoulders release, and I could feel all of the potential and beauty of the world. If that's not magic, then I don't know what is.

My new ritual is to pick up a stone at the water's edge, and carry it in my pocket all day, a reminder of stone and sea, moon and magic. At work - sitting at my plasticky desk under fluorescent lights, a million demands upon my time, it's a touchstone to remember who I am. Moonlight and stardust, cedars and meadows, mountains and magic. Love and light are in that small stone that I picked up in the darkness.

Tomorrow I'll return the stone, and choose another, refreshing my intentions and giving myself the gift of the sea again.

In, out. In, out.

If I keep doing this, I feel more sure somehow that I will be okay, and that I will have the strength to do what needs to be done... and maybe that's the biggest magic of all.

Itty bitty tiny steps

Powerlessness is my least favorite feeling, and lately I feel powerless. I do not know how to be the change I wish to see in the world; I do not know how to feel about my future, seeking joy, or a lot of other things that I felt a bit more certain of a week ago.

So I'm focusing on the tiniest of steps.

I've decided to try to lower my personal carbon footprint in baby steps.

I was running out of shampoo and conditioner, and using a drugstore brand that has who-knows-what in it, so I decided that I'd do some research on what a more environmentally responsible choice would be. (I landed on Avalon Organics products, which don't break the bank, are widely available, and have the highest rating from The Environmental Working Group.) When I got into the shower this morning to wash my hair, I thought "I can't change the world, but I can change this..." as I lathered and rinsed.

My shampoo choice will, sadly, not save the planet. But... it's something. It's teeny tiny, so small as to be miniscule.

But it's something.

Right now, I don't know what to think of the world and my country, and I don't know how to make meaningful change.

So I'm going to focus on the smallest things.

Making conscious choices about products - maybe imperfectly (the contents of that bottle get a gold star, but what about the plastic container?), but better than before. 

I'm thinking that I really could buy less on mail order, and patronize my local stores more when I need something.

I'm thinking about how cold it's becoming, and going through my house to find blankets to donate to the local shelter.

I'm thinking about making something delicious to put in the break room at work, just because.

I sent a dozen Thanksgiving cards to people in my life, telling them how much I appreciate them.

It's not enough, clearly. It doesn't end racism and misogyny, for starters, and it doesn't improve the wealth gap. It doesn't end wars, or help starving children.

But it's something, and something is better than nothing.

Today I vow to find more tiny steps to do just a little bit better.

Blood, tears, and the sea

 Like a lot of Americans (although, apparently not the majority of Americans), I have been licking my wounds this week. I have gone inward most of the week: doing what had to be done at work, and then coming home and collapsing. I watched my first (and second) Christmas movies of the season - cheesy romances with no plots, but lots of pretty people and wonderful scenery and a guaranteed happy ending. 

By Saturday, I knew I couldn't do that long term, and I invited some of my dearest friends to come by for tea and conversation (and blue bracelet making, but since that whole thing blew up and was declared performative, not a sign of solidarity, we didn't do that after all...). My friends, true to form, showed up with beautiful food, arranged it on platters, and it ended up being a feast. At the last minute I put together a cheese board with fruit, nuts, olives, smoked salmon and three kinds of cheese, but I needn't have bothered, as we could have fed the neighborhood.

And so the healing began.

I printed out some of my favorite poems to gift, rolling them in scrolls tied with ribbon so that each person could take one. Perhaps someone else will find comfort in Maya Angelou, Wendall Berry, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver. Just gathering the poems certainly helped me.

We looked each other in the eyes and talked about how wrong we felt, how wrong we were, how confused we were by America's choices. We hoped that there was something we were missing. We talked about understanding our neighbors near and fear. We talked about not feeling safe.

We talked about our children and those we love.

We ate. We drank herbal tea. We listened. Quiet women were unusually talkative, and noisy women were unusually silent. Everything felt turned upside down.

We talked about news fasts through the day; we talked about changing our news sources to get out of our blue bubbles. (I downloaded the Associated Press/AP app, as it's top and center of the Media Bias Chart by ad Fonte, factual and non-biased; I removed the NYT and Seattle Times from my phone, because checking them over, and over, and over is not good for my health.)

Most of all we talked about loving people: each other, our families, our neighbors, our communities. The weariness is palpable as we face whatever lies ahead: how will we find the energy to fight this, to help the world become a more just place?

Last time, I marched practically every weekend, I wrote postcards and called senators and hosted an ACLU meeting and donated to causes I believe in. (Those donations still come out of my bank account monthly, like clockwork.) I really tried hard to be a part of the solution. The mere thought of it makes me weary now, especially because last time I felt sure it was a four year problem, and this time the problem feels indefinite. I have no faith in the systems designed to protect us, their guardrails worn down by someone in charge who is methodically removing those guardrails.

I feel it in my blood, and in the tears that refuse to come, that refuse to give me relief.

So instead, I gathered up my people, checked in on text far too many times on those farther away... and spent a lot of time solo.

I've vowed to write every day, and I've upheld that vow to myself. I'm working on my book, I'm doing my morning pages like they are morning prayers that will save my soul (thank you, Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way." 

I've made a giant pot of lentil vegetable soup - good for the environment and good for my body and such good comfort food. I've got two quiches cooling on the counter, to eat and to share this week, with leeks and mushrooms as the base, the warm cream complimenting the eggs, thyme and parsley and sea salt seasoning them (and, served with a side salad, hopefully not too bad for me).

I'm regrouping.

This morning it was absolutely pouring down rain, the branches moving in the wind, the windows being pelted with large drops, the streets with small rivers running downhill to the drains, but I kept my promise to myself and laced up my shoes and headed in the car to the park - because I knew for this plan I'd need the car. I walked two and a half miles (shorter than usual, but still something) along the sea and through the forest, and found some small fallen cedar and fir branches to carry home so that I could remember the incredible, rich, soothing smell of the forest. I got back to my car...

And stripped down to my bikini, the old lady one with a sporty top and giant bottoms that come practically to my rib cage. I pulled on my Chaco sandals, and my old blue terrycloth bathrobe, grabbed my towel, and went into the sea. I walked without pausing, the gentle slope of the beach meaning that I had to get a good ways out in order to have the water meet my bra line. I took all of that grief, confusion, and fear, and I walked into the ocean and asked it to carry some of it for me. I dove under the water, seal like, and swam a few strokes fully submerged, eyes open and astounded at how bright the pebbles looked, how clear and green at good the water was. I felt my blood pressure fall, and if I cried I do not know because my face was covered in salt water, but suddenly I didn't feel like I was holding back tears anymore.

I felt victorious over some small part of myself, and truly cleansed by the sea. Not "everything is better now" (oh, if only there were such simple solutions!) but... like I had what it took to manage it.

Righting myself, I stood again, my hair streaming down water, my body strong in the water, my shoulders in the cold air. I looked up, and a bald eagle was riding the currents just north of me, above cedars and houses on the other side of the park. I smiled all the way back to my car, the short drive home, the immediate hot shower that awaited. A bit of that smile has stayed with me, and will get me through tomorrow.

I believe in signs, and on this gray, wet, salty day, I needed that. Just a bird, doing what I have seen birds do a thousand or more times in that location. But this time I was in the sea, and it felt bigger, better. By the time I walked back to shore, toweled off, and wrapped myself in that ugly but warm bathrobe, I could breathe a little easier. I can still remember that I need to breathe.

Today I've been writing for much of the day, listening to music, cooking, doing the chores that make the week go easier. I'm on my walking treadmill now, moving at a slow enough pace to keep typing and not sweat, but it's something, better than being in the fetal position.

I have been thinking about cold plunging for at least a month, called to do it, and I am a slow learner so I resisted and resisted, but today I remembered how it makes me feel alive, connected, strong.

I need to write. To walk in the forest. To plunge into the sea. To look for eagles (and whales, and sea lions, and kindred spirits, and good books). To touch the rough bark of big, old trees; to hold pebbles in my hand and feel their texture and weight. To feel salt on my face, whether it be tears or ocean water.

I am down, not out, and I'm starting to think of how I will live out my days again... not in the fetal position anymore, and so that's a start.

For the millionth time, I'm so grateful that my life placed me near the Salish Sea. That's not a small thing, and I'm going to hold onto it as fast as I can.

It's a start.

Grief Season: Might and Right

 To everything there is a season, and right now, a lot of us are finding ourselves in a season of grief.

Grief that the American people voted for a rapist, felon, liar. Grief that America fell for an angry man's taunts and lies, siding with power plays instead of truth. Grief that women and people of color and LGBTQIA+ are losing ground. Grief that a man who threatens to end democracy (this is not hyperbole, and the receipts are there) is now in charge of democracy.

He says he can "grab them by the pussy" (I will NEVER get over that) and that immigrants are "eating the dogs, eating the cats" and that if "beautiful Christians" vote for him, they'll "never need to vote again."

And that's old news, and so over the top that it feels unbelievable, and yet America chose this version of our future. When he won the first time, I thought "surely this is a mistake, a fluke of the electoral college, because most Americans do NOT want this!" But now, people voted this in, fair and square, and my grief is fourfold. America knows who he is, and they voted for him anyway.

***

When I was a girl, my parents disciplined* me through spankings. I remember one spanking in particular: the humiliation of being told to lay myself over my father's legs as he sat on the edge of the bed, and him pulling down my pants to hit my exposed bottom. I remember sobbing, more from the humiliation and rage of it than the pain, and saying "It's not fair! You're big, and I'm little, and it's not fair!" as one large hand repeatedly smacked me and the other held me down.

What was also unfair is that some of my spankings were for things I did not do: I was innocent of the crimes of which I was accused. But justice, fairness, and size didn't matter. In my house, might made right.

And that, to this day, is my biggest fear: that it is someone's power, not their truth or justice, that determines outcomes. It's my fear that those in charge get to distort natural laws of truth in their own favor, and redefine what is fair.

* "To discipline" is "to teach." What those spankings taught me was that the world was unfair, and that I could not trust the adults in my life. Those spanking did not make me want to be a better person, so I don't think that they were "discipline" at all. I never learned the intended lessons.

I feel like that again right now: the humiliation of being a part of a system designed not to make me grow into my own power of integrity, but a system designed to make me obey. I feel vulnerable and angry, humiliated and powerless.

And before someone says so: of course I know that I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm "just" a woman, but I am white, middle class, straight, in a blue bubble. I know that I'm lucky, just as I knew that I was lucky as a girl that my father didn't break my bones when he spanked me... but that it was still wrong. Not as wrong as some other things, but still wrong.

I feel grief and rage and pain, and still know how it could be worse.

***

When I was in cancer treatment I went to an online support group at YSC (Young Survival Coalition, for breast cancer survivors under the age of 40). One day a verbal fight broke out amongst the members, because a stage 1 woman was deeply grieving her diagnosis, and other people jumped in to say "you're so lucky! there are stage IV women here, you have nothing to complain about!" and I will never forget what happened next. One of those stage IV women chimed in; she was someone I admired, and her journey was awful (and she later died of the disease). 

She said, "Cut it out. This is not the Suffering Olympics, and there are no gold medals. We all take it differently, and who are we to judge each others' pain?! You have no idea what someone's mental health is, and the fear is real for all of us - we've seen stage IV women survive, and stage 0 women die. So cut it out! Suffering is suffering, and we ALL deserve our tears. Support each other!"

I have never forgotten her lesson. It doesn't mean that you get to have a pity party at the expense of someone else, but there is enough space for all of our grief. Sometimes I am one of the lucky ones with fewer problems; sometimes I am one of the unlucky ones who seem at greatest risk.

But every time, I think we are all allowed our grief, and in our grief, we can connect with each other.

Black and Brown women have it worse. LGBTQIA+ women have it worse. Women with poor mental health have it worse. Women in red states have it worse. Low income women have it worse. I know that, and I am trying to think of new ways to support those groups. I'm grieving, but I don't forget those women. I've been trying to support those groups in tangible ways for a long time, try to let my life serve to live these values that I hold so dear, about loving my neighbors and standing up for oppressed people and never, ever being a bystander.

All of those things are true, and also, I feel so wounded right now that I am breathless, the wind knocked out of me. I'm trying to catch my breath, gather my strength, and figure out what I need to do next.

And I don't want to participate in the Suffering Olympics. I want to give whatever I have to support other women, to acknowledge my privilege but allow my grief, and the grief of every person I meet. I want to give space to help people to be seen. If someone is hurting deeply, I want to stand up for them, even in my grief. There is space for all of us, and if we work together, we can hold each other up despite our injuries and pain.

***

I went to a workshop more than a dozen years ago where the facilitator gave the attendees an analogy. He said that it wasn't enough to be glass half full, that we needed to imagine that we were a teacup under a waterfall, and that the waterfall would keep our teacup so full that it would overflow into the saucer. He said to make sure we stayed under the waterfall enough to keep our teacup full, so that we would have a never ending supply of water in the saucer to give to anyone who needed it. I love this image: when we are filled, we have SO MUCH MORE TO GIVE.

Right now, I feel like there is a dirty puddle at the bottom of my teacup. I try to share that muddy water with my students, with the people in my pathway, but I am aware of how low my reserves are, and how close to breaking I have felt this week, and how my gifts are smaller than usual because I am so drained. When I feel like that, I am crabby, and I don't give the best of myself - I'm at danger of inflicting damage on others, rather than healing. I'm quicker to take offense, more likely to misinterpret, less likely to think before responding. I'm weary, and like every tired toddler, I'm more prone to tantrums when I need a nap.

My plan is to take that nap. Not a hibernation, but a true nap. I will try to refuel myself with the things that give me strength: gathering with my closest friends, reading poetry, listening to music, being in nature, eating soothing food, gentle exercise, more introvert time to read, crochet, make jewelry. I am gathering my strength. I will use this time to summon strength for myself, and for others.

***

Soon, I hope, I will feel strong enough to take more initiative, to help in new ways, to be a light in the world that is bright enough to share my light with others. Because one thing I know for sure is this: power gives the power to tell lies without penalty, but might does NOT make right. What is right, good, and true is a natural law, not manmade, and no amount of justifying or rule-changing can make it any other way.

Might is power, but it is not right.

I'm thinking about women who have come before me and made change in the world. I'm thinking of the influence of great authors like Mary Oliver or Maya Angelou who inspired us to be better; I'm thinking of activists like Angela Davis and Gloria Steinem who showed us new ways to gain our power; I'm thinking of trailblazers like Marie Curie or Amelia Earhart or Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm never got to be President, but she showed us that we could do more than before.

Maya Angelou never got to see a world with racial justice, but she saw improvements.

Gloria Steinem is 90 years old and still fighting to end the gender pay gap and violence against women, but some of her work means that I can be a single divorced mother with my own mortgage, credit cards, and job.

The women who first fought for women's suffrage died before it came into being, (and they did it wrong too, because they left out too many women (people of color) in their efforts, and Black women couldn't vote for far too many years after white women gained that ability). 

Might pushed them down, but it still wasn't right, and the truth continued to break through. Eventually, justice started to catch up.

Sometimes might wins for a while. I got the spanking, Abigail Adams couldn't convince her founding father husband to "remember the ladies," and the gender pay gap continues, and it's much, much worse for Black and Brown women to this day.

But I do not believe that it makes right, and I don't believe that it will prevail.

Might is just... might. Strength is not leadership, nor goodness, nor intelligence. It's just power, and it's not right, even when it's pretending to be.

I'm still grieving. I have no idea how I'm going to edge the moral arc of the universe towards justice just yet. I walked in the rain and gray skies today, grateful that the weather reflected my mood, grateful for the damp cold seeping through my clothes and making me feel, even if that feel was an aching in my middle aged bones, because it's better than being numb, and I'm still feeling pretty numb.

But I know that after this season of grief, I will rise again. I will find ways to fight for what I believe in my soul is right. I will speak up for myself, and for anyone in harm's way, and I won't be a bystander.

I'm suffering, and I'm not getting any medals for that suffering. Waves of grief pass over my body, and sometimes I want to go into the fetal position; sometimes I want to scream. I'm trying not to do either.

We're in fight or flight now, but I'm going to tend and befriend, because fight or flight was never my style anyway.

I'm going to look for waterfalls to fill my cup, and I'm going to gather that strength and power and use it to help myself and anyone who I can. Shakespeare's line, "Though she be but little, she is fierce" is resonating. I'm one of the little people, but I am not without my own power, and as soon as I can get off the floor, I'm going to see if I can be a light.

So many mixed metaphors - light and Olympics, teacups and waterfalls and muddy puddles. My brain is a muddy mess like that right now. Let me just catch my breath a bit more, but I'll find a way towards clear water: I'm seeking waterfalls.

Let me know where you find waterfalls, and where you know ways to halt the destruction of those who believe that might makes right.

Synchronicities and Signs

 Lately, I get signs everywhere I go - repeated patterns offered to me by the world, messages from something outside me, often clear as a bell.

I have weeks where I see bald eagles all the time, even over the freeway on the way to work, and one week not one but two of them (on different occasions) swooped down low over my car, making me shrink back in my seat behind the steering wheel, glancing up in amazement and then giggling once the shock had passed. Power. Joy. Possibility.

And then there are weeks when everywhere I go I see feathers. Foot long black and white ones on the beach, coming in with the tide. Sleek crow feathers on every block. A beautiful pure white feather, at least eight inches long. Feathers on the ground, feathers drifting toward me in the wind. A reminder to be light, to keep it light? To let dreams take wings?

For years, I've found more four leaf clovers than just about anyone. I think about a friend who is having a problem, or my own wishes, and I make a wish, then look down... and four leaf clovers appear. When I've said this to friends they have often said, "uh huhhh, suuuuuure" until I've said "give me a minute to show you!" and they they've watched me find them their own four leaf clovers. Surely, this is a sign of my own good fortune.

And then I read a book that had hints of the book I'm working on, and, quite surprised, I thought, "Oh! There IS a market for this!" I don't know why I picked up that book, it wasn't what I was looking for, but then... there it was, a message clear as day.

And then the right person comes at the right time, with the right words.

And just when I thought that I wouldn't know how to pay for Tessa's fifth year of college, a job opportunity.... teaching creative writing! ... on top of my regular contract just dropped into my lap. Presto, college paid for, and now I'm being paid to research and teach creative methods. Fabulous!

I'm getting used to seeing the signs, to noticing the synchronicities. I'm on week 10 of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and she suggests that creatives look for them, look for the signs of the Universe sending messages...

... and the messages keep appearing.

The question is not if they are real. The question is, will I pay attention?

Dear Hugo

 Actually, not so dear Hugo.

This afternoon I was working on the patio at my local coffee shop (shout out to C&P, best coffee shop ever) and someone sat down nearby with a sweet dog, so of course I visited. Said sweet dog was, apparently, named Hugo, and he was quite dear.

But it was also rather synchronous, because for the last week I've been thinking about writing about a different Hugo. Thanks, canine Hugo, for the tail wags and soft fur... and for the reminder to pick up my damn laptop and write some more.

So here it is: not so dear Hugo.

When I first got divorced, I worked for a small jeweler doing business development. It was the perfect job, and a terrible job. Perfect, because the hours were right and I could (barely) squeak by on the pay; perfect because it was my re-entry to the workforce after a decade of being a stay-at-home mom and (simultaneously) a cancer patient. It wasn't perfect because I have no business working for a retailer, or in jewelry - these are not my passions! - but perfect because I had the skills somehow to grow the small business, so I was successful in this first foray; perfect because I got to dress up and go downtown and remember who I was when I wasn't a mom.

It was also perfect for downtown coffee dates, and when I first started back at work I was also doing my first dating. It was a wild scene: I was in my early 40s, fit, and happier than I'd been in a long, long time and I found lots of people who wanted to go out with me. I'd put on my heels and dress and go to work, but sometimes take my lunch break early for coffee and walk around the corner to meet some internet stranger to see if there was a love match.

Hugo was one of these, and I have not changed his name to protect either of us. Although he didn't give me butterflies and he wasn't a supermodel, this was fine with me because I'm also not a supermodel, and he was attractive enough. He wore Clark Kent glasses - and I'm a sucker for Clark Kent glasses. He seemed to have his life together, and as I was oh-so-eager to be with someone who had it together, I agreed to meet with him when he asked me out.

We went to a donut shop, even though I'm not really into donuts (give me a cupcake over a donut any day of the week!), and I wore a cute skirt and work appropriate heels. We placed our order and he insisted on paying, but my stomach sank when I noticed that he didn't leave a tip on our donuts and coffee order. I quickly said, "I'll pay the tip - no problem!" and the first giant red flag was when he said, "They just gave us donuts. They don't need a tip."

The person I am now would have smiled, said, "It's not a fit," and walked away. The person I was then was mortified, but didn't know how to say so, and even though the date was already doomed, determined to try. I didn't talk about minimum wage or restaurant wages, and I didn't say "if we can afford donuts, we can afford to tip" - I bit back my tongue.

We did the usual small talk, interviewing each other for the basics of our lives. Him: no kids; me, one kid. We both worked downtown. Both of us divorced. He started grilling me on my career, and I explained the Microsoft to teaching to stay-at-home-mom-cancer-patient, and then this recent foray into the jewelry business. He visibly recoiled, and said, "If people haven't figured it out by 40, they're never going to figure it out," and the date was over not that long afterwards. (Almost over. I excused myself to put a $5 bill in the tip jar before we walked out and went our separate ways, never to speak to each other again.)

That was a decade ago, I think. I haven't thought of it much, because it was just another anecdote for dating stories with my girlfriends ("He didn't tip? THE WORST!") but not terribly important in the scheme of things - back then I was going on at least one date per week with someone new, and his was a half hour annoyance, not important.

But something about it stuck with me - I can't remember the other random dates with much clarity, but I still remember the look on his face as he informed me that I was a Loser who would Never Figure It Out or become someone... because it's clear that is what he meant.

A bit of me was sure he was right. Back then I joked that my car was held together 'with duct tape and hope' and even when I was pretending to myself otherwise I knew there was no way I was destined to be part of the jewelry business long term. I was on the razor edge of my budget, barely getting by, one missed check away from losing everything. I was scared most of the time, but I hid the fear under bravery (an effective technique - I recommend it).

And for some reason, I remembered him recently, and I thought...

He's wrong.

He was wrong then, and he is wrong now.

As I recall, he had a career that sounded dull to me, and his entire affect was one of someone going through the drudgery of life - there were no hints of joy, no inside jokes, no hints at passions of his own. He did seem to have stability, and cute glasses... but that is all.

I've spent the last decade without much of a thought of him, but now he's back in my head, and... he's wrong.

A friend of mine escaped a terrible marriage at the same time I did, and now she's doing work that the whole nation is paying attention to. Another friend of mine, divorced at the same time as well, went from having a thin business in a down economy, to being top of her field. Another friend just left her career to go back to grad school, and another friend decided to retire early.

And me? I'm writing for real this time, and I'm so settled into my teaching career that provides the joy and stability that I wanted so much when I first got divorced. I travel sometimes, and when I eat out it doesn't kill my entire budget. I don't wear heels to work... ever. Because I don't want to, and because I'm not dressing for the male gaze anymore, and no longer believe that in order for shoes to be cute they have to hurt like hell and hobble me. (In the zombie apocalypse, women in stilettos will be the first to die, I think.)

I'm 55, and there are some things where I'm just getting started. I've had the same house for a long time, and I got rid of the duct-tape car and drive something that's held together with... well, whatever cars are supposed to be held together with! I host dinner parties and I save for retirement and I love the heck out of my kid even when she's hours away at college (bursting with pride that she's getting closer to graduation).

I don't date much at all anymore, because I can't be bothered to spend time with guys like Hugo, and I don't need external validation that I'm a good person and worthy, so the idea of dating a different guy every week in order to find "the one" is exhausting and a hard pass. I'd rather spend time with friends, or down on my favorite beach, or making jewelry (the costume kind, and not for sale, just to be creative), or planning a trip.

Hugo was wrong. I'm my best self, a million times version of the me he met back then. My hair has a streak of silver, my belly is softer, and it's been a long time since I ran a half marathon... but in the ways that count, my life is better. I *did* figure a lot out after that silly date. I went to therapy, I found my career path again, I sent my kid to college. I remodeled my basement.... and I did some important work on managing my relationships with my family of origin, which is its own kind of basement remodel.

I floated on the Ligurian Sea at Cinque Terre, not a care in the world.

There are all kinds of deadlines we set for ourselves, and our lives. Graduate from college in four years. (Research says that it used to take 4-5 years on average, but now it's 6 years on average.) Get married by 30. (I did it a week before my 30th birthday, and I sometimes wonder if I'd been more patient then what would my life have been like, what would  my marriage have been like?) Put a million dollars in the bank (um, I'm still waiting for that). Work at one employer until you die (uh - no). Have a size four body, have 2.1 children, retire by 60. No, no, no.

Nobody I know did all of those things. The deadlines are utterly arbitrary. Sure, it's nice if you can do it (that million dollars in the bank would be very convenient!)... but it's not real.

Hugo didn't know that frequent belly laughter is a better metric.

Chosen family at any age.

Stacks of good books available 24/7.

Tickets to an event that you're excited to attend, always another one coming.

Dancing at a concert under the stars several times a summer.

Picnics near the ocean in all seasons.

Farmers markets every week.

A kid who visits often from college.

And long, long lists of dreams that I'm still chasing.

Hugo was wrong, about all of it. I saw him on a dating app a year ago - I guess he hasn't found anyone who measured up yet. But then - nor have I, and somehow that seems okay, because if I have to choose my own company or the company of someone who doesn't leave a tip for the kids selling donuts...

I'd choose my own company, gleefully, every time.

I'm glad that I still believe in the power of my dreams. I'm working on a bunch of them again, and I think I'll make them happen - after all, I've already made lots of dreams come true, so why not these? I'm just getting started - but now I have a lovely foundation to build upon!

Poor Hugo - our paths will never cross again, and I'm the better for it. I did like dog Hugo a lot, though, and I hope I run into him again.

Again?

 I have Covid. Again.

I'm kind of hoping that third time is the charm. I'm fully vaccinated (what - five, six times now?), and because of my cancer history and age the doctor easily agreed to prescribe Paxlovid, so I'm halfway through that treatment (thank you to telehealth appointments - 25 minutes after signing up, I was talking to a nurse practitioner from the comfort of my home; the next day, a friend delivered my prescription). I last had Covid over a year ago, and given that my immune system took some huge hits with cancer treatment and I work with teenagers (150 kids a day coming in and out of my room, and some of their hygiene is... questionable), it's probably amazing I haven't had it more often, but I'm glad that the drugs appear to be working. Saturday I was pretty miserable with a headache, sore throat, stuffy nose, and general fatigue. Yesterday it was pretty much just leftover fatigue.

Today, my main symptom is cabin fever. It's mid-winter break, and I am supposed to be with my beloved friend Carolyn in California, going on little adventures and having fun together. She had planned some super fun activities, and we always have the best time together, so to say I am disappointed to be at home rather than on that trip is an understatement.

But the real "again" isn't Covid, I think. The real "again?" is my wake up call.

There are some parts of my life that are going swimmingly well. Work is actually pretty good. My friendships are lovely. I adore my West Seattle home and community. Tessa's launching as she should, and I breathe easier knowing that she's a junior in college and well on her way to finding her path.

But there are other parts where I swear I need ... what? A swift blow to the head sounds violent, but that's the first image that came to my mind. Since I don't believe in violence as a solution to anything, let's say instead, I think I'm getting a wake up call.

There are two things in my life that I am really mismanaging: my health, and my writing. And I think that this round of Covid - and I really am hoping that third time's the charm! - is my wake up call, the persistent alarm going off that screams "pay attention! get out of bed! go! go! go!" and I'm going to try my hardest to pay attention.

My commitment to writing is stronger than ever, and my commitment to caring for my body has somehow gotten lost, but these things are connected. When I move my body, I swear I can feel my braincells activating. When I don't move my body, I swear I hear them mumbling "whatever, leave me alone!" and rolling over to zone out, die, shut down, or nap. And I think that Covid is a reminder about two things this round:

1) Health is everything. On Saturday, I was just trying to get by, blowing my nose with disgusting results, counting the hours between ibuprofen doses. I could not be creative, or accomplish anything. I ate leftover takeout, I stayed in my pajamas all day, and I was pretty genuinely miserable. I was glad when it was bedtime, because I hoped sleep would block the discomfort. And... I know this all too well. I know that everything can change in an instant, and that without health everything else stops. I know it because of Covid, I know it because a dear friend had a heart attack and is now on a strict regimen designed to save her life (pills, lifestyle changes, diet), and I know it because I'm a freakin' cancer survivor. 

When I first started recovering from cancer, I took up running, watched my diet, and got into the best shape of my life. I knew how important it was to prioritize health, and I just felt - aglow. I felt energized, and alive. How did I let that go?

Covid is a reminder, again. I can take care of myself, or my body will fall apart.  There is no other option. I am reminded.

2) I think the universe is telling me to stop procrastinating and to write more. Not a half hour here or there, but to really actually get moving and write and write and write. Brainstorm, chart characters, churn out chapters, edit, edit, edit. Covid, in my case, and after the first day, is more about boredom and cabin fever than anything else. I am trapped in my comfortable home, with all the supplies to sustain me. Friends have offered grocery runs, and I am always well stocked anyway. I am forbidden from engaging in person with other humans until Wednesday at earliest (or whenever I test negative for 48 hours), so I'm alone with no demands on my time. It's mid-winter break, and I cannot travel or socialize, so.... what will I do? There are no excuses left. No stack of grading due tomorrow, no social commitments, no errands to run. There's just me, and my choices. How will I use my time?

No lie, I spent two days moping. Saturday I had a pretty good excuse - my head was pounding. Yesterday, maybe I had half an excuse... I made a big batch of soup (which is good for health, and food is a necessary item after all) and then I felt tired. I sat in front of the TV and crocheted, finishing a blanket I have been working on for two months. (Michelle Obama was right - doing this kind of thing - she knits - is so good for my mind, stilling the anxious voices, and creating something lovely in the process.)

Maybe I could have written a bit yesterday, but maybe not. Reading was fatiguing yesterday. Or is that an excuse?

But today I'm out of excuses.

I'm here with you, my little audience of readers, rambling on as a warmup, and my body is warming up as well, the treadmill beneath me set to three miles per hour, the fastest speed at which I can walk but also type. I have a notebook next to me where I jot my thoughts about plot, character, and theme sitting next to me. The document with my first draft is pulled up on another screen.

I think that Covid might have been necessary. It would have been so easy to visit Carolyn, to come home and do chores and grade a bit and visit a few local friends, and never write a word.

But without my health, I have nothing, and I can't think straight. I am reminded.

And if I don't create the time, the habit, the wordcount, this book will not write itself. I am reminded.

So, dear readers, Covid has a silver lining. Now that the worst has passed, I will take it for what it is, and do what I keep saying I should do.

My plan: 1000-2000 words per day for the rest of break, a minimum of 7000 words. And yoga, and walking on the treadmill, and if my body lets me, running on the treadmill too. It would be nice if I could do some walks outdoors, and even try to run to Lowman Beach and back, but I don't need that to happen to hit my goals. I can treadmill walk, do Yoga with Adriene videos, do a little yardwork (always good for a workout), and I can use that energy to fuel my writing.

I'll be back here - I'll let you know tomorrow how it goes, because warming up here is really helpful. And if I'm not here, feel free to call me on it.

Health.

Writing.

After my love for my daughter and my hope for the future, there is nothing more important.

So here I go!

Reset, version one million and twenty two

 This weekend I've been hitting the reset button in a small way. I was sick for most of January with some generic crud (negative Covid tests) that made me tired, crabby, unproductive, and not my best self. Worse, it was my biggest grading assignment of the year and so instead of having extra energy to grind out all of those papers, I fell behind when I needed to be be getting ahead. By the time I felt well enough to tackle all of the things I fell behind on, I had to dig myself out of a big hole full of grading, a messy house, a diet and exercise plan that had turned to junk food on the sofa, and motivation in the toilet. First, I had to do the basics - get those papers graded so that I could turn in my semester grades. Then, I got to celebrate Tessa's 21st birthday in a weekend filled with festivities.

But now I'm actually hitting reset. I'm not sick anymore, and there is no giant looming deadline - to the contrary, there is a break just a work week away. The semester grades are turned in, and now I can think about doing better instead of merely surviving. It's time to hit the reset button.

I hit the reset button a lot. Sometimes it's a giant reset button that I hit while the factory floor is blaring with emergency alarms yelling "DANGER! DANGER! STEP AWAY NOW!" like when I got divorced, or when I finally acknowledged that my family is suffering from inter-generational trauma that I had to step away from or be sucked into. Sometimes it's a medium reset - but medium resets always feel gigantic when you're in them - like when I've needed a new job, or to restructure my finances (like when my basement flooded and I needed a HELOC to fix it, or like when Tessa went to college and I needed to figure out how to make up 18 years of not saving enough with 4 years of college (which, in all honesty, is looking closer to five years).

This reset is minor by comparison. A few weeks of having some flu-like thing, the doldrums of the post-holiday letdown in rainy January, the daily grind of work in a busy season - these things are not so important that I'll remember the feelings that accompanied them a few years from now.

But I love a good reset anyway.

I listened to a podcast (whose name I have long since forgotten, but it might have been an episode of Hidden Brain?) years ago that talked about how when you have a change in your life is the best time to create new habits to create the life you most want. This can look like after graduation, after marriage, after a child, after a death in the family, after a disaster, after a health crisis, when getting a new job, when moving to a new city, etc. This intuitively makes sense to me: when the balls of my life are thrown up in the air and some fall to the ground, it's an obvious time to decide which balls to get rid of, which ones to take care of, which ones need adding.

So my January mini-crisis is a good time to hit reset again.

Whenever I get sick, I remember cancer, and how it nearly stole my life, and how it did steal several years that should have been joyful (raising a small beloved child) and turned them into high cortisol level continuous freak outs and pain over surgery and drugs and loss. When I got better, about eight years later, I vowed that I would live my life to the fullest. I vowed that I would remember how I nearly lost it all, and I would live my life fully. It was a major reset: I lost 40 pounds, got divorced, became a hiker, ran a half marathon or two, embraced my life, created a career out of what felt like thin air, parented intentionally. If I was a super human, this would be the end - learn the lesson, live the lesson, happily ever after. But I'm not. I'm absolutely, 100% human, and I'm prone to forgetfulness and mistakes, and slowly the lessons slipped away. I didn't go back to hell - I didn't remarry my ex, or restart chemo, or enter a financial no-(wo)man's-land, but I slid. I gained pounds. I complained more often about stupid stuff. Some days better, some days I was worse, but on all days I was human. Perhaps you can relate? For isn't this everyone's story?

But the gift of backsliding far enough is that it makes me hit reset.

Yesterday, I cleaned my house. I took out all the vacuum cleaner attachments and got into the corners. I pulled all the shoes and storage bins out of the bottom of my closet, and vacuumed up the (shocking amounts of) dust I found. I wiped down the fridge, cleaned the bottom of the trash bin, organized the mail. I got a pedicure and a haircut (the last ones were in...AUGUST?!), brought books in for credit at my local bookstore, gassed up the car and got a car wash. I went to the yoga studio for a class for the first time in the month (and remembered how much better an in person class is than a session of basement yoga, even if I have a good video lesson). I threw open the doors and windows of my house, and let the fresh air blow through, cleaning the air, but also whispering over my skin and waking me up. I flipped my mattress, and washed everything including the throw pillow covers and the mattress cover.

And then I sat back and thought "yes.... yes yes yes." 

This morning, it's a different kind of house cleaning. I'm on the desk treadmill, writing to you, clearing the cobwebs from my brain and warming up to work on my book. I've listed major threads of the book - themes that I am weaving together - in a fit of brainstorming and organization for said book. I am pysching myself up for some grading later on today, reminding myself not how much I hate grading but how good it feels to start the week on top of things (this is a major reset in the way I think of things, something I struggle with a great deal).

Even at three miles an hour on the treadmill - hardly strenuous - I can feel my body waking up, feel my brain tickling with the reset. It feels filled with possibility - maybe I CAN make the life I want! - but also energy creating. In the time it has taken me to write this, I feel a light sheen of sweat inside my pajamas (one benefit of an at home treadmill is that I don't need to wear workout clothes - I can work out in last night's pajamas, saving myself a bit of laundry!). Heat is building inside myself.

I've made myself a promise to finish the first draft of my book by the summer. I've made myself a promise to stay out of the grading hole (hence tonight's plan). I've made myself a promise to hit the treadmill or the yoga studio on the rainy days.

It's a little reset, and one I'm well prepared for. The book is underway, and I have pages of notes to guide me when I get stuck. My little office whiteboard (how lucky am I to have an office?!) is covered with ideas. I have a desk treadmill so that I can move my body even when going outside is unappealingly grey, cold, and wet. I have students I love, and I'm not in the grading hole yet, so I can stay caught up. And I have a week of vacation right around the corner - a few days visiting my bestie in California, and a few days to work on that book and be introverted and catch my breath (in between runs or walks to Lincoln Park, and yoga classes, and reading books).

I love a good reset, large or small. I know that I'll probably struggle some days - after work, it's SO HARD to remember to write when I'm tired and hungry and crabby; same thing with exercise. But the days are getting longer, and I'm renewed with energy, so I'm pushing that button.

What a joy it is to be healthy. What a joy it is to be freed from toxic relationships. What a joy it is to have lovely plans on the calendar! Cleaning the house wasn't as fun (it took longer than expected and it was quite a physical workout), and grading isn't as fun, but I remember again how much I like living in a clean house and how much satisfaction I feel when my grades are up to date.

This summer, I'm looking forward to saying "I wrote a book. I'm editing it now." I deserve that satisfaction, and so I'm hitting reset on how often I write. I'm thanking Ann Patchett for mentioning that she wrote her last book on a treadmill like the one I was inspired to get, so that I can take care of my body as well as my mind.

Reset!

Filled with gratitude that I don't have to do a huge reset - same job, healthy, same friends, same hopes and dreams, and projects in the works to remind me of my creative self - I hit the button lightly, but intentionally.

What are you resetting right now? How do you manage your reset? Do you have times of year that you hit reset? This one has beautifully coincided with Lunar New Year, which is not my cultural holiday, but still contains beauty that I can learn from. I love to hit reset at the semester, at my birthday, at the beginning of school, at every break, in summer, on actual New Year's, and any time life changes a bit (like recovering from being sick). Some of the resets stick better than others, it's true, but all of them count, and my life improves a little bit with every hit of the button.

I know I'll go up and down forever until I die, and these days, that doesn't scare me at all - it is the cycle of life. But I also know that as long as that reset button awaits me in my life, as long as I remember where it is, anything is possible.

Anything is possible.

Reset!

No, thank you

 Last night I had yet another conversation with a friend about how hard it is to say "no" when we could, if we contorted ourselves enough, say "yes." Almost every woman I know struggles with this, and I've been thinking about how we got to that place.

We were taught.

"Don't you want to help your brother?" No, I do not (and he never helps me), but I know that the correct answer is "yes."

"You wouldn't mind picking up this extra shift/task/problem, would you?" Yes, I would mind. I know I can't say no to you without jeopardy.

"You believe me, don't you?" from lovers, bosses, parents who do things that hurt us and then explain why really, it wasn't their fault, wasn't their plan, wasn't their problem. No, I don't. But what else will you do to me if I say so?

When we say yes - I will give you my time, my body, my love, my efforts, my labor, my support - we are told how good we are. We are told that we are thoughtful, and considerate, and so easy to be around. We are told "I love how supportive you are" and "You're so dependable."

And we long to be dependable and supportive, to be Very Good Girls Deserving of Such Praise.

But even more than that, we've learned that the fallout can be punitive. These were not actually questions, they were passive aggressive demands that put the pressure on us to respond appropriately. 

"I expected more from you."

"I guess you don't care about me after all."

... and the result is that affection is withheld, promotions are not forthcoming, or even violence results. The threat that our compliance is necessary in order to maintain our place in the family, to prove our worth in the workplace, to deserve love, is a raw fact that we don't admit even to ourselves. In the worst cases, the threat is that violence will ensue - violent words, violent actions.

I had a boss long ago who was, frankly, a disaster. He liked to believe himself all knowing, and beloved by all, when the reality was that many in our work community disrespected him and his authoritative, pompous, occasionally ridiculous management style. He hired me to a new position to grow revenue, and I started to do just that, bringing in income that the company had never seen before. Rather than heaping praise upon me, he told me to stop trying to change things - things were just fine the way they were, and I was the upstart employee judging perfectly good systems. I pointed out, rather reasonably, I thought, that he brought me in to change revenue, and that I couldn't change revenue unless I changed the approach (and besides, my changes had already proven effective). This pushback - saying no to his ideas about how I should work - caused him to fly into a rage. He shouted, slammed his hand down on my desk, threatened, and actually slammed the door to my office as he left, loudly talking about insubordination and disrespect. He didn't dislike the particulars of my ideas, he just disliked that I wanted to do anything different than he had done previously, his ego harmed by my suggestions for change. And he REALLY disliked that I said "no, I can't grow income without doing things differently than you did before."

I sat at my desk, shaking. I'd never raised my voice to him, and I'd only pointed out our success (giving him credit for supporting earlier ideas I'd come up with, giving him credit for the business success we were now seeing), and gently saying that I wouldn't be able to change profits unless he let me change something else to prompt those profits - brought about his rage. I feared that I'd lose my job and my reputation. I feared that my colleagues would think I was terrible (on this, I was wrong - the one that overheard him came to my office, closed my door, and invited me to go get drinks after work to talk about what a jerk he was).

I resolved the problem by looking for, and finding, another job. I was lucky (or smart, or both), and got a better job with higher pay. (Equally terrible management, but that's another story.) But in the time between his rage, and my fear that I'd be fired for not bringing in more income and my fear that I'd be fired for reasonably suggesting that we'd have to do things differently to get different results, I lived under the fear of additional rage episodes. (I didn't get fired, but his rage was real, and not infrequent, and was applied in my direction more often after that incident.) I'm still mad about it, all those years later, and take a bit of cold comfort in the fact that the organization's revenue declined significantly after I left, proof that I'd been right all along.

But in the meantime, my means of supporting myself and my daughter was threatened. My sense of safety was threatened. My sense of belonging - so tenuous back then, so fragile - was obliterated.

And if this was the only problem, it would just be an anecdote about a bad boss, about a single experience... but there's nothing singular about it.

Girls and women are taught from an early age that "no" is not the right answer. "No" often leads to breakups, angry bosses or firings, fraught relationships. No is seen as an offense to the system, mostly (but not always) comprised of men making the rules, or women behaving as the successful men before them.

And.... punchline, please: I AM OVER IT.

When men say no, they are seen as powerful players in the system, and when women say no they are seen as noncompliant.

So - noncompliance, it is.

I'm trying to teach my daughter by showing her my life and being open about it, and I'm trying to teach my students, and I'm trying to teach myself, that "no" is okay even when it leads to startled expressions, angry words, disappointment, or other consequences.

And I'm tired of the exhaustion of explaining myself when others behave badly.

I'm getting better at saying no, but I've got to say, it's not easy or without consequence. That old boss didn't fire me, but I walked on eggshells of fear for the rest of my tenure there. Saying no to what was unhealthy in my marriage ended my marriage. I have lost friendships.

But I've gained so much more than I've lost when I've had the courage to speak. It is risky, speaking the truth to say "NO!" but there are rewards, too. No, I will not take on that extra project without pay or promotion. No, I do not agree with your idea and won't pretend that I do. No, I will not contort myself into a pretzel shape to please you. No, I won't own your behavior. No, I won't. No.

Instead, I'm saying yes to myself. Yes to my integrity. Yes to my worth. Yes to choosing how to spend my time. Yes to believing that my voice is just as important as anyone else's. Yes to walking away from what doesn't serve me, isn't true. Yes to valuing my time, my body, my words, my truth.

Not everyone likes it, but their responses don't scare me as much as they used to. I've found that direct eye contact, waiting for them to explain themselves when they protest, does wonders. 

No, thank you. I'm not mad, I'm not protesting, I'm not arguing. I'm just saying... no.

If you think this is easy, then you are probably not a woman of my generation. But if you're learning how to say no, also, then you're also feeling how ridiculously good it is. It gets easier with practice, and the world hasn't imploded because I stopped trying to please everyone around me.

Progress!

Expectant

 21 years ago, I lay in this same room, facing the television, on my left side because it was better for the baby during doctor ordered bedrest due to pre-eclampsia. I flipped channels, watched old DVDs, and saw whatever was on our limited cable. I held my breath with the expectation of how soon things would change - the induction date was on the calendar, a result of the pre-eclampsia. My excitement was matched only by the boredom of staying so still, my blood pressure skyrocketing and literal stars in my eyes (which might have been beautiful if they weren't so terrifying).

We called the baby TessaBenjamin, because we didn't want to know the gender. What I never would have admitted, not under pain of torture and death, was that I longed for a girl, with a depth of certainty that I couldn't describe even to myself. I understand now that I wanted to have a daughter that I could raise in the belief that she was worthy, loved, capable, interesting, and important. And I understand now that I was afraid of being run over by a son (and I also understand that given that I would raise a son so differently than my own experiences, that wouldn't have been a problem... and it was a risk worth taking, and I knew that, but I understand it better now).

But there I was, expectant. Waiting. My love for the child inside me was fierce in a way I had never experienced before. I didn't know them, but I'd be willing to die for them, and I waited to see their face, to get to know them.

I lay on my left side, uncomfortable, but taken by the miracle of all of it, incredulous that my body could produce a real, live, person. She (because it was her, even though I only guessed it) gave me persistent kicks and turns, reassuring me of her wellness, astounding me with every movement.

The night before she was born, she was particularly active, and I closed my eyes and soaked it all in. I knew she would be my only child, and I wanted to soak up the crazy, marvelous, beloved wonder of all of it. The expectation was delicious, and I rested my hands on my taught, round belly and soaked it up, vowing to never forget it.

I kept my promise to myself. The sofa is different, the walls are different, the floors are different, but the house is the same. My body is different, too. My breasts are filled with silicone, not collostrum; my belly softer and though less rounded than pregnancy still more rounded than it once was. My hair has a wild gray streak, my eyes have more crinkles around them, and my body is covered with scars that once would have terrified me but now are just part of me. But this different body - not pregnant, and no longer containing a uterus - is still the same body. The hands that rested on my belly - my belly, my hands - still remember. I think the house remembers, too. It has cradled that baby and I for every year of her life.

We were so expectant for the life that would come. I was wrong about a lot of it - I didn't predict cancer; I didn't predict divorce - and I'm glad I had no idea what was coming or I would have been too scared and sad to keep going. But instead, I had the optimism that it would all be okay, that somehow it would work out. I didn't know how, or why, it would all work out, but I had a stubborn determination that I would love this baby so fiercely that we could weather any storm, and that she would feel my love deeply in her bones, never questioning it for even a second. It was my expectation, my hope, my dream.

In the pause that came before my daughter transitioned from life in my body to life, I held my breath. I paused, soaking it all up, knowing with certainty that it would never be like this again, and that I needed to hold the moment in time, to will the sensations to never leave my body even when the sensations were far in the past. I held the moment, yet remained expectant for all to come, trying to balance how any of it was possible at all.

She was born eight hours after the induction started, gentle at first and then with an intensity that was too hard to feel real. It all fell apart towards the end, the room palpable with panic. The doctor - kind and warm in every other instance - shouted orders, and a red button was pushed, and then the room filled with people and crash carts - a large one for me, a smaller one for her - and the doctor demanded that I push with all my might so that we could both live. I remember the details like they were yesterday, though some of these moments would be happier if forgotten, and in my first seconds of motherhood I learned that I would do anything, anything at all, to save this baby that I hadn't even met yet. I pushed through the pain, knowing that I would tear and feeling it as it happened, not sure if I could survive it but certain that I would give my life to protect hers, well aware of the terrifying numbers appearing on her monitors.

And then... "it's a girl." My first words were "are you sure?" because it sounded to me, even through tears, like winning the lottery and encountering a magical unicorn and falling in love and summiting a mountain and diving into the ocean and ... and I had never loved like that before.

They placed her in my arms, Susan beside me murmuring with happy tears, her father stepping back to wipe his own tears, and I looked into that face and felt promises and love and hope and more promises and more love rising within me. I had never seen anything so beautiful, and her startled blinking, her starfish hands (the line from the Plath poem became so clear and obvious when I saw them), the small, wet weight of her against my body was balm against the craziness of the world, and even enough that I could try to tune out the needle going in and out of my most tender parts, trying to piece me together again.

There is nothing like that moment, which I have only experienced once in my life, and will never experience again.

And then the expectant pregnancy seems like nothing, nothing at all compared to this, and the expectation of the lives that would follow. I looked into her face and imagined first steps, first words, first days of school, first time on a two wheeler, first sleepovers, first returned "I love you."

She came home to the home that she was conceived in. She snuggled with me on the sofa where I had waited for her. She met all of the firsts that I'd hoped for.

As she got older, we had other firsts, too - her slammed doors, eye rolls, cringes when I tried to hug her or offer comfort. There were tears of broken promises - I did not stay married to her dad. There was the cancer, but also the scares that followed it, and the day that she said, "Mom, are you dying? How do I know if you're telling the truth?" and I promised I would never lie to her.

I kept that promise, even when it was harder than I'd imagined.

And she was a flexible gymnast, a wonderful friend, a story teller with a marvelous sense of humor. She developed an impressive integrity. She was my backpacking partner, my adventurous eater, my dreamer. And she was more than that: a true crime junkie (she didn't get that from me!), an introvert, a superhero when someone was in need (that time with the kids who got dropped off at the wrong bus stop; donating her hair to kids with cancer; volunteering for all kinds of causes...). She was - is - extraordinary.

And more than two years ago, we took the trip in the Subaru, loaded up with blue IKEA bags and a new laptop, and moved into a new phase, so that now there was "our house" and "your dorm" and she had more than one address, and she spent more nights there than in her old room down the hall. This was an expectant time, too, of all the firsts to come. I feared that I would be lonely - that the child whose breathing was as familiar to me as my own - and I feared that I hadn't prepared her adequately, and I feared that she'd be filled with fear, and I feared her fear... I held my breath, waiting, prepared to scoop her up at a moment's notice, to rescue her if rescuing was called for.

She didn't need rescuing. Slowly, I released my breath (though admittedly I think I held it for a year). She found her way, and though she was far away (not so far as colleges go, but farther than we'd ever spent time apart nonetheless) I felt our connection as if she was still in the room down the hall.

She loans me books she recommends. She taught me to crochet. She corrects me when my language is outdated or harmful (glad for that). She believes in me when I long to write. She's become her own woman, so much more than that blinking little bundle in my arms; so much more than the giggling sleepovers; so much more than homework battles or high school graduation.

I'm still expectant, though, still catching my breath and wondering at the miracle of it all. She's extraordinary, and so much more than I was at her age. She's finding her way in her own way, inviting me to the parts of her journey that are appropriate for a mom to join.

As Tessa approaches her 21st birthday, it occurs to me that - sitting here in this room, on a sofa in the same room where I once waited for her - I'm just as expectant as I was 21 years ago. And it's just as miraculous, and just as unknown, and just as scary.

Scary because scary things happen - unmentionable things that I cannot mention. But it's still just as much of a miracle as it was back then, her tiny body swimming inside my larger one.

It's her perfectly formed body in the great big world, filled with questions and wonderment and the dream of firsts. First words are replaced with big ideas about the world that she is developing and sharing with me. One day the trip to college will be replaced with a trip home with those bags in tow (more of them now), but she'll move out one day and never move back, too. That's scary but exciting, too - I never raised her to live at my hip like a child, and she will live a woman's life, not a child's life. She will have jobs, relationships, adventures. She will create. She will be brought to her knees, and she will rise up again. 

And there will be shared trips, holidays, meals. We'll keep sharing book recommendations, and a love of Gilmore girls, and all the milestones.

This week she's coming home, and we're going bar hopping. This sounds much more adventurous than it really is - we're going to have appetizers and sometimes drinks at the 21+ places in the neighborhood that we can walk to. Neither of us is a big drinker, but it's a rite of passage, and I can't wait to share it with her. (And I bought her a silly Miss America style sash that says "Tessa's 21st Birthday" and I'm not sure she'll agree to wear it but at least I can get a picture of her in it!)

If anything, there are more things to look forward to than I could imagine 21 years ago.

I never dreamed I'd get so lucky as to have a daughter who wanted to celebrate her 21st birthday with me, mother-daughter style.

Sometimes I still forget to breathe, holding my breath in this expectant state, worried and hopeful. That hasn't changed. And I still don't want to forget a minute of it - her long, silky hair (will I be lucky enough to see it go gray one day?), her new ideas of the world and how much she teaches me. I don't know if there will be a marriage, a child, or graduations - these things are not promised. Most certainly there will be new jobs, new homes, new friends, new adventures, new books, new creative endeavors, new travels. There were will be a career or careers.

I'm delighted, in love with the woman that I haven't even met yet, the version of Tessa that is still to come. It's a miracle that she's in my life, that she exists, that she is the extraordinary, beautiful, smart, capable, compassionate woman that she is.

There have been rough moments, some of them mine, some of them hers, and there will be more. But mostly, overwhelmingly, it's just been a miracle. I can't believe I got so lucky.

So here we are, she and I, the first 21 years behind us. Undoubtedly, we will watch more movies in this room where I once lay on my left side, expectant, watching her create ripples across my belly, trying to hold the moment so I'd never forget it. I sit here today, writing this, trying to hold this moment, the completion of the first 21 years, the expectation and wonder about the decades to follow. Who will she be? What is our path together, and apart? What choices will she make? What will life throw at her? What will it be like to live in different homes permanently? Will our relationship stay close? Will we maintain our closeness? Who will she invite into our lives? Will I know how to be a loving and wonderful mother to a grown woman? What is it like to mother a full grown woman, not a child? Who will she be, and who will I be, in this new life?

I'm still holding my breath, expectant, and blown away by the miracle of it all.

Happy 21st birthday to the daughter of my dreams. I love you, Tessa, and I hope that all of your dreams come true. And I hope to be there to bear witness to you achieving those dreams, loving you, cheering for you, a steady presence in your life that you can count on whether things are wonderful or terrible. You'll always be my baby, but I'm so grateful that I get to know you as a woman.

***

Of all the girls, in all the world, I'm so glad that you belong to me, and I belong to you. I love you sooooo much! Snuggle, kiss, BITE!*

*The first words were my nightly ritual with Tessa as I tucked her in after stories. She thought it was so funny to add "bite!" and pretend to bite my nose, giggling wildly with silliness after the sweetness. We don't exchange those words anymore... but every time she goes to bed, I say them to myself. They're as true now as they were then.... but I'm relieved she grew out of the idea that biting was funny!

Enough

 I've been pondering the word "enough" for a while now.

There's the question "enough?" which means: am I enough? do I have enough? is there enough to go around?" and resides in fear that the answers are no, no, NO.

There's the yelp "enough!" which means: for the love of all that is holy it must STOP! and resides in frustration and more fear that it will never end.

And then there is the declaration: "Enough." It means that I'm done grasping for answers, that equilibrium has been reached, that I am sated. It means that I'm not hungry, it means that I have what I need, it means that I can be still.

Enough.

It seems to me that most of my life has been lived in "enough?" which is a question asked of people who weren't capable of telling me the truth. It means looking outside myself for answers, going to people to beg permission to exist; going to the world with a beggar's cup in hand to plead for survival.

After a few decades of that I screamed "ENOUGH!" at the top of my lungs: at my marriage, at my parents, at the world. It was filled with rage rooted in fear that the world wasn't safe, that only through the power of my force could I possibly stop disaster and keep myself alive and afloat, not asunder and askew. It was rooted in the exhaustion of "enough?" but not removed from it. It was about adding fire to the dark, and the light was helpful, and I lived.

But I still lived with "enough?" and the fear that I'd have to keep shouting just to keep the whole thing going.

And I think, maybe, yes, for sure, that it's time for enough.

What if I know that I am enough? That I can do what I need to do, what I want to do? What if I am not good or bad, perfect or hideous, right or wrong, but I am simply enough? What if there is space for me to be imperfect yet lovely, sometimes wrong but still good, making mistakes but still making progress?

What if the world has space in it for me, and my life is filled with enough? Enough love, enough friendship, enough security, enough joy? What if I am a good enough teacher, my body is good enough, my home good enough, my life... enough?

And what if, in the material world, I already have enough? What if this gnawing feeling that I've carried for so long that I am close to the edge and I'd better grasp what I can before it all slips away... what if that feeling isn't true? What if my life has stability and even abundance?

***

I've been seeing my life through new eyes recently.

In before times, finances were such a struggle just to stay afloat. Not even going into childhood or my marriage (not for public consumption here), when I got divorced all I could do was hold on. It took a series of miracles to keep my home - interest rates that dropped at just the right time, promotions or new jobs that came exactly when I most needed them. I laid in bed at night running through the numbers, the backup plans, certain from all of the years of being told so that I did not have what it took to survive this, and that any minute the sky would fall.

I look up. It's gray and raining outside today, but the fact that rain is falling means that there is, actually, a sky. It's still up there, doing the work it was made for, life giving water falling on my emerald green part of the world. I was wrong for sure. I'm here, and the sky has not fallen.

And it seems to me, actually, that in my own life, the sky has been doing exactly what skies are supposed to do. Months of rain lead to sunshine. Snowy hikes in the mountains in one season, paddle boarding on the sea the season opposite, and rain in between, with occasional glimpses of blue just to remind me that it still exists. Beautiful cold nights where the stars startle with the reminder that they've been there all along. A moon that waxes and wanes, shines bright and disappears, slivers and globes and light and darkness, playing peekaboo with the clouds but - just like the baby behind the blanket - there all along.

In my life, this looks like surprise bills (the fence needs mending! the dishwasher broke! the car costs HOW MUCH to repair?!) scattered amongst blue sky moments like a concert with friends or a trip on an airplane to do something exciting; days when the commute and the long hours and the rain bring me down balanced by days when I'm walking in Lincoln Park and a porpoise peeks out of the sea or I have a day to light candles and read all day as the rain falls (I can vacuum later and it turns out that this will not make my house fall down).

It means that when I go to get dressed, I have stacks of warm sweaters to choose from in winter, and a row of bright sundresses to choose from in summer. It means a selection of coats of just the right thickness for whatever the sky brings. It means sharp knives in the drawer, a basket overflowing with teas to choose from, a liquor cabinet made for entertaining different palates. It means tools of all shapes and sizes in the garage, the kitchen, the craft cupboard. It means stacks of books in all the right places. It means a fridge overflowing with food, a printer full of ink with backup in supply, dozens of mugs to choose from when I make my coffee. It means that I write this at the desk I try to reserve for writing because I don't like bringing other energy into the space, on the treadmill that means that I can get the creative juices flowing at the same time I try to care for my body, and it means that I don't have to go outside for a run when it's cold or wet or hot or smoky. It means a little jungle of houseplants, and throw blankets at the foot of every sofa and bed and cozy chair. It means a daughter living in her apartment in college, partway through her junior year, and a little stack of gifts to show her that she's seen and loved and special for when she comes home to celebrate her birthday.

The list goes on for miles. The things I need are all there. I don't have to be hot, or cold. There's enough to share - a spare coat, plenty of food, a guest room. When a letter needs sending, or a gift needs wrapping, or the yard needs tending, it's all there. When there is a fancy party, there are outfits to choose from; when there's a picnic, there is a choice of baskets.

A choice of baskets? Yes. The contemporary sleek canvas one with the metal handle; the old fashioned one with the built in dishes and wine glasses; the Little Red Riding Hood ones. There was a backpack one too that I gave away. There were plastic picnic dishes I gave away, too, preferring my enamelware metal ones. And all the paper plates for just in case - I gave those away too. The baskets are representative of something else - too much. Not enough is not the problem. I own two red coats; four colors of puffy coats. Multiple wool dress coats. Just to be clear, most of these were bargain prices, or gifts, or thrifted. I haven't totally lost my mind and started buying whatever I want, but I've been good at the local Buy Nothing and Tessa and I like thrifting and I watch the online sales and friends give handmedowns and the one coat I regretted not buying in the store was available for only $20 on Poshmark and....

And if you haven't become exhausted from all that already, then you have good endurance, but let me save us all here.

Not enough has tipped into something else.

Enough. I have enough. I do not need to worry about running out of underwear (painful memories of the ones I wore as a child cutting into my legs because they were too small, and my mother's voice saying "but nobody can see them anyway" when I complained about the stretched out elastic and holes, missing the point entirely). No more embarrassment when a friend invites me to an event and I truly don't have the right things to wear. 

I still remember going to a charity event with a ticket gifted by my lovely, generous friend Sandra. I showed up at her house in my new Marshall's simple black dress and out of style shoes, and she took apparent delight in putting the rest of my outfit together, declaring "I know just the bracelet" and such, loaning me from her supply... and I looked at her jewelry, pretty costume pieces that were just right, and in abundance... and I felt my own lack, despite the generous loan. The press showed up at our event, and our picture together was published in a local magazine, the three of us looking playful and fabulous, and I realize now that nobody could see how small I felt, how unsure of myself; nobody realized that my costume jewelry was borrowed and the ticket was gifted and I couldn't afford to raise my paddle. They only saw a smiling woman in a black dress with her friends, wearing just the right jewelry.

Even when I was barely scraping by, there was enough. There was a friend to help, a free ticket, a fun night.

And now I could loan a friend what she needed from my own ample supply. Silver? Gold? Classic? Playful? Witchy? Delicate? Chunky? Tell me what you like, I'm sure I have something... I could take the whole town out for a picnic. I could wear a different coat each day of the week.

And I am done. It's enough.

Recognizing that Amazon isn't great for our planet or our local businesses, I decided to go cold turkey on January 1st. Mostly, I bought household stuff: office supplies, cleaning supplies, big boxes of tissues. But I also bought random kitchen things, or inexpensive sweaters, or party supplies (I have a set of twelve plaid cloth napkins that I purchased for my plaid party; was that really necessary?!).

It feels good to remove the app, to stop scrolling for things I "need." It's moving into other parts of my life, too.

I tried on four outfits before we went to The Nutcracker this year, and I hated the first three. This one too tight, this one the sleeves aren't quite long enough, this one what was I thinking? This time, instead of putting them back in the closet for another occasion, I put them in the donation bin. This made me look at my closet - bursting at the seams - and wondering what else was there. This sweater is cheap acrylic, this one not the right color for my skin tone, this one in the style a friend wears and looks great in but really isn't great for me. These pants are too tight, these ones unflattering. Gone, gone, gone!

And the spices: expired - gone. Faded herbs - gone. And the condiment shelf in the fridge, same.

I have a lot of work to pare things down. The house is tidy and organized, but this is a trick because the house has lots of storage and carefully stored things I don't use are still clutter. I have a lot of work to do on all those closets, the attic, the garage, the laundry room.

But what is interesting (oh finally I get to my point!) is that the best part of this process isn't going to a closet and seeing only clothes I enjoy that actually fit me; the best part isn't saving money (even a $20 Poshmark coat is $20); the best part isn't lowering my ecological footprint by stopping bringing things into my house.

The best part is how it's seeping into my real self.

I'm safe. I have enough. I don't need to worry about others judging me as I felt they did when I was a child who never fit in and never had the right things (getting yelled at in PE because my shoes were too slippery and not safe, and telling my parents, and they shrugged it off and ignored the request whether because of money or inclination or both, and returning to school each day to hear the same humiliating lecture, afraid of running as I knew I'd fall again); I don't have to worry that Tessa's feet will grow too fast and I'll have to find a new corner to cut so that she will get new shoes when she needs them. I have things to share, and I needn't rely on charity.

(But I love my hand me down house. The living room and family room sofas, dressers, side tables, dining room chairs... this house is filled with gifts from friends, their castoffs which I like perfectly well. Craigslist and Buy Nothing and Value Village filled in most of the rest, and what they couldn't provide I proudly purchased at IKEA, choosing painted white wood that feels fresh and clean and functional and natural if not stylishly luxurious.)

Instead of feeling the not-enoughness of my hand me downs, I feel the love of the friends who shared them, and the universe which made sure I had enough. The universe even flooded my basement with sewage - so gross! - which means that half my house was completely redone, fresh and clean, even a bit stylish. What I thought would end my time in my home actually improved it.

So what if this went beyond stuff? Beyond feeling comfortable and confident in my clothes, beyond having the right supplies when I reach for them in the cupboard? What if this seeped into my soul?

I have enough.

I am safe.

I do not need to spend my energy "getting and spending" (and there are plenty of people on the planet who do - it is the utmost luxury to not have to spend one's life trying to get by).

It's time to switch gears.

Instead of spending energy just trying to hold on - a sofa to sit on, a jacket to stay warm, a book to read, food to eat - I'm trying to remind myself that just as I have enough, I am enough.

I have enough in my life.

Enough friendship. Enough love. Enough safety. Enough hope. Enough creativity. Enough peace.

I don't need to look for new things to remind me that I'm enough.

I don't need to fret about my friendships, or worry that some new person doesn't like me.

I don't need to wait for some magical moment that it all comes together because...

Because this is the magical moment.

I'm clearing clutter so that I can figure out all of it.

I'm trying to lead my creative life, getting rid of the messages that say I'm not good enough or smart enough and the odds are against me so there is no point in trying. The new book is right - I feel it in my bones. It's meant to be written, and it's meant to be read.

I can let go some of my pain of worrying about Tessa. She is nearly 21, and she is becoming the woman she is meant to be. She has ups and downs, but I see her strengths, and she's extraordinary. She doesn't need my anxiety or worry on top of her own, and so I'm setting that down. She is enough. Our relationship is enough. It's unfolding just as it should.

I can stop trying to hold on so tight to what I fought for. I fought so hard to keep this house that I can't imagine living anywhere else... but maybe I can. I fought so hard to regain my teaching career that I can't imagine anything else... but maybe I can. I fought so hard to find my peace that I've been afraid to change anything that might disturb it... but maybe I can.

Maybe I can. Because I have enough. This is enough.

If I am not good or bad, but enough, then I can write my book without worrying about perfection or the voices that shout at me to "mend their life". I can just do what I am called to do.

I can let go of my career if other opportunities arise. It is not my only path to peace and safety. It is here for me when I need it. But it's enough to worry about whether my writing will ever amount to anything; I don't need to worry that it WILL be successful, because I can handle that, too.

I fought so hard to fill up my closet with clothes that symbolized safety and security, but I can let many of them go, too... and maybe I can even open my heart to sharing some of that space with someone one day. Or maybe I can find a new closet one day, a his-and-hers, and move my clothes to a new bar that is abundant and safe even though it's new.

It's time to let go. If I unclench my fist, I can see what it is that I've been holding onto so tightly; I can let it see sunshine and rain so it can grow and flourish instead of hiding in the dark of my fingers and palm.

Enough? Yes.

Enough! It's time to move on.

Enough. I am.

I'm letting go of what doesn't fit, of spices that have lost their zing, of books I actually don't want to read no matter what the reviews say.

I am holding on to what serves me, to what feels right and true, to enough. 

I trust that I will know the difference, when to let go and when to hold on, like the old serenity prayer. I trust that I have all the tools I need, and I don't need to be perfect, and I will find my way despite imperfections or sometimes because of them.

Enough.