When you’re done chucking at that Seinfeld reference, here’s a prayer:

May I be an easy vehicle for laughter

May I be smooth passage for tears

May my heart beat with all that is

I have a lot on my plate this week.

Looking at my calendar, my shoulders start climbing toward my ears and my chest tightens.

I’m tensing up because I assume it’s going to be hard. 

What I see is that it’s going to be full. 

Hard is not actually a requirement. (Unless I’m trying to PROVE I’m good enough because someone modeled an idea of “hard work” that I’m trying to live up to [cough] Dad…)

I’m done prioritizing some dumb Dad story over enjoying my life.

I want ease.

I feel the power of just speaking this into existence. But, how do I actually live it?

Create ease in my body and mind right now.

Create ease in my body and mind while I work.

Since I’m writing this blog now, I’m going to start with ‘while I work.’

I decided that what will best support my ease is to dive into this blog, so I dove into this blog. I started by telling myself, “let it be easy.” It does not have to be grueling or self-punishing. Let me repeat that. It DOES NOT have to be grueling or self-punishing.

As I sit here and type, I’m going slow, breathing, and staying with my body. I’m noticing when tension creeps in, and relaxing BEFORE I continue. 

I also notice my desire to be perfect and sit here until every word is right. My perfectionism won’t rest (ever) and wants me ground down into a pulverized piece of dust, water-deprived and head aching. Thing is, I don’t want that. And I’m the big boss. I wear the leopard print shorts around here.

So I’m just going to witness that part of me and let it sit next to me while I do things differently. 

I write down what’s coming, let it flow “good” or “bad,” and trust that time will be my friend and collaborator and when I come back to edit. (I’m here in the future, editing, and I was right.) It will be clear what is important and what is not.

When I feel complete, I soothe that perfectionistic part of me and tell it, “You can trust me. We’re done for now. We’re going for a walk and we’ll come back later.”

So that’s bringing ease into doing the work. Now for the right now. This one’s for you, version of me looking ahead at the calendar.

I’m often tempted to cover all my bases and prepare and think of every possible thing that might happen or what I might need or what that person might say, or, or, or….

But when the moment actually comes, it never feels like I predicted. Something I was excited about disappoints me. Something I was anxious about actually felt okay. Some random thing I could never have anticipated changes how I see and do everything anyway.

It’s not useful to spend the currency of the present trying to predict the future. 

Part of making things harder than they need to be is drawing the “hard” toward us, into the present moment.

Why do we try to predict the future anyway? Because WE WANT TO FEEL EASE NOW. The irony! (Go ahead, let yourself laugh at how silly our minds are sometimes.)

The more I focus on the future and try to pin my security to that, the more I’m actually pushing my security away. The emotion I want to feel, can only ever be felt NOW! When I’m feeling it! 

So, instead of trying to feel ease by fixating on the future, I have to relax and allow ease. Right, the fuck, now.

Here’s one way. I name something in my life that I trust. (I am a creative person. I have things to say. I have done hard things. There are people who love me. I am safe to sit here and just breathe.) These things aren’t going away. I let myself relax into them.

How does trust feel? 

I can exhale. My focus comes back to my body, in the present. My shoulders start to drop. I feel solid. I’m breathing more easily.

So when I notice my body start to get tense or anxious, I practice feeling trust. I bring that into right now. That way, when life comes, I can meet it with ease.

The future will come in its own time.

It’s okay to feel good now. 

It’s December 27th. Which means a lot of conversations about the NEW year. What do I want? Who do I want to be? What are my goals?

I like self-reflecting and setting intentions. It’s clarifying, organizing and empowering.

AND, it can be a lot of pressure. To wrap up the past, leave old ways behind and write the future.

A fresh start is REALLY appealing. Like peace and satisfaction are on the other side of a comprehensive list, or a perfectly worded intention. And hey, sometimes, they is.

Personally, I visualize myself meditating on a mountainside like a little Buddha. Nothing bothers me because I’ve found the solution to all my problems. “This year, I’m going to be completely present and stop setting impossible expectations I can’t meet.”

. . . mmkay

How do I observe the new year as a marker of change, without the pressure to magically be perfect?

After asking a big, honking question I don’t have the answer to yet, I’ll start with, “What’s true?”

It’s winter. It’s cold and dark out. It’s ‘the holidays.’ We might be on break, traveling or outside our normal routine. Some of us are with people that stress us out. I’m going to take a big swing and say, some of us are tired. There’s a lot going on.

I’m struggling to generalize about who you are, what you’re experiencing, what I’m experiencing and offer answers.

I want to be able to tell you one thing. I want to give you whatever you’re here hoping to get. And yet, I’m just another human person on the other side of a screen riding the waves of whatever the hell this all is.

There is no ‘one way.’ No new year’s resolution to save us all. No permanent arrival. There are moments of clarity. There are moments of connection. There are moments when we recognize the absurd truth and just laugh.

That feels good.

To open up and let all the messiness, imperfection and incompleteness breathe.

There’s no one way. But there is a little freedom at the bottom of the truth.

More of that, please. More laughter. More truth. More closeness. Okay?

Yesterday was the new moon. This is the phase when the moon is completely in shadow, invisible from Earth. So it’s darker out, which means a time for going inward and letting the inner voice speak.

I love noticing nature’s rhythms. It’s freeing to let go of my agenda and lean into this larger force.

So I did a little ceremony to invite in the energy of the new moon. First, I prepared my space. I turned off most of the lights and lit candles. I put this song on repeat. I tidied up anything that caught my attention. I got myself a glass of water. I made a little altar. A quartz crystal (representing air), a candle (fire), an abalone shell (water) and a lemon (earth).

Curating the environment gave me time to ease in and go deeper. (Like setting context before sharing a poem.)

I did all of this prep, not knowing what would happen. I didn’t set out to write a poem. I just got in the zone, and trusted. Sometimes, I get nervous without a plan or a structure. Okay. That’s there. But I just leaned in - that’s the essence of the new moon. And this came out. And it felt really good.

savor this frequency

the space between

being

hearts silent

connected

retrain my diaphragm

to breathe smooth 

to hold steady

when it wants to slip away

to sip slowly

when it wants to grasp for air

the other muscles

iron out their nervous wrinkles

clear

the darkness

lights a new path

hovering over the old

free to make a different choice

can it be easier?

can I let myself be led

by a softer voice?

one that can’t be heard over the din

of traffic

or reality tv

one that can’t compete

with jagged self-doubt

finer than the comb of “what should I do?”

grander than what’s possible to understand

sometimes

the curtain just opens

and the nakedness of now is center stage

every other voice falls away

nothingness

embrace

Last week, I wrote about slowing down and hibernating during the winter. Allowing life to be more…less. 

This week, I’m sick and work is slow. AKA I’m being forced to practice what I preach.

I feel like shit, I’m bored, and I’m asking myself, “why is it so hard to just BE?”

And guys, trust me, I’m doing all the things. I meditate. I journal. I spend time outside. I stretch. I exercise. I am in touch with myself. (Like, REALLY in touch with myself.) I’m super comfortable being alone. And I have great friends and a loving relationship. I love what I do and it feels important.

And yet, I can’t escape the tedium of existence. 

So this week, I’m going to write as raw as possible. Because life isn’t a tidy blog post about how I’ve figured everything out and here are 10 ways to everlasting peace.

I always get to the bottom of posts like that and feel…well, nothing. I want to feel closer to the person that wrote it. I want to experience their mushy center. I want to know there’s another vulnerable human out there, trying. Being real, not perfect.

It’s soooo tempting though. I catch myself ALL THE TIME. Thinking I have to have it all figured out, presenting a shiny shell and thinking that’s what makes me “good.” 

But that’s how we miss what’s really there. I think what makes me good is my humanness, my energy, my presence. Being and listening with my whole heart.

When I listen like that, the path reveals itself. 

Listening to myself right now, I’m tired. My face hurts from holding in the contents of my brain. My throat feels dry and scorched. I want to feel “complete,” but there is no complete. Life just keeps going. Maybe I wrote something that will touch someone. Maybe I didn’t. But my body says, “I’m done and I’m thirsty.” So I’m going to post what I’ve got, put my laptop away and drink a glass of water. See you next week!

In fourth grade, we took our first overnight class trip to Colonial Williamsburg Virginia. When I look back on that year, it feels like the last sunlit spot of my childhood. 

I was still a candidate for popularity and I loved my teacher, Mr Carollan. He was fun and engaging and made it seem cool to care about school. 

And I cared about school. A LOT. It was my whole identity.

Everything was about getting an A and being the best. Because if I wasn’t, who was I? How would I earn love and attention?

I won the class spelling bee twice that year, which I’m still proud to report. But I came in second place to Aaron Chennault in memorizing the state capitals. A devastating blow.

I was sensitive and intensely perfectionistic.

I was also lonely and not well socialized, an only child to older, emotionally unavailable parents.

When I look back on that trip to Williamsburg, I see flashes of funny moments with the kids in my class and remember feeling excited to be in the mix. But I also remember something sad. Something I was ashamed and embarrassed by, and kept tucked away until a few months ago, when I told my partner Ike.

I remember it vividly. 1999. A hot day in Colonial Williamsburg. We were given a couple hours to wander freely. Alone, I stumbled into a highly sought after attraction. I went to the back of a long line of people waiting to have their photo taken in the old-timey stockade. (I did not know what a stockade was. I stuck my neck out, held up limp wrists on either side, and said, “the thing they put you in when you’re in jail.” “Stockade,” Ike said.)

That day in 1999, we could hardly wait to wriggle our body parts between those slabs of wood and pretend we’d been captured for our heinous crimes.

In the beating sun, I sweat and waited patiently for what seemed like an eternity, trading my precious free time for a turn to have this sensational experience. I inched forward, clutching my disposable camera, watching person after person wedge their arms and head in, smile for a photo, then bounce off contentedly.

I was finally next. I looked down at my disposable camera, and after all that waiting, realized there were no pictures left. And no one I knew was around to take it. I looked around, helpless and ashamed. I wondered if it was still worth wedging my arms and head in. That was the part I was excited about anyway. But I was too embarrassed. So I just walked away. 

That memory sat frozen in my mind for over 20 years, coated in the sinking loneliness I felt that day. A feeling I knew well.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we’re currently traveling the East coast. Last Saturday, Ike and I had some time to kill before we had to be in Maryland.

“…We could go to Colonial Williamsburg and get that photo of you in the stockade.” We erupted into laughter. 

To drive all the way to there to redo that moment from 1999 was absurd. But it also meant the world. To reach our arms back in time and hug that lonely 9 year old I’d given up on all those years ago. Laughing and crying, I agreed.

2023. A crisp day in Colonial Williamsburg. There was no line outside the courthouse, no swarm of sweaty kids waiting to be publicly arrested. Just me. A 33-year-old woman, standing exactly where I stood 24 years ago, looking at those same pieces of wood. Everything around me snapped into place. I was there, in the past and the present. Standing with my child self. Waiting. Not for one click of a disposable camera, but for 24 years to pass, so I could show her how worthy she was. Show her the person we’d become. 

When I got in the stockade, I told Ike to hold his phone up like he was taking a picture, but never tell me whether he took it or not. The mystery seemed more fun. Because it isn’t about a picture, or a spelling bee, or an A. It’s about going on absurd adventures, revealing your vulnerablest parts, and walking yourself through becoming cooler than you could have ever imagined in your wildest, 9-year-old dreams.

I had a dream the other night where some lines of a poem came through. One of the characters said them to me right before I woke up. This happens sometimes and it’s very exciting. It feels like someone or something is speaking to you through your own subconscious. 

I try to be available to receive inspiration as often as I can. I use meditation, visualization, writing and talking to people to keep myself clear and open. I believe we can all use these tools to plug into the Universe.

But sometimes, life piles up and my pipe gets clogged. I sit down to write and everything feels lame and overthought. Or I lay down to meditate and my brain keeps pulling me out.

I’m currently on the East coast where I grew up, visiting people and places from my past. This triggers ALLL these old versions of myself, and A LOT of interference. I’m trying to keep my channel clear and stay present, but I’m experiencing an avalanche of old thoughts and feelings threatening to bury me. It’s been really frustrating, and sad. 

Before this trip, I felt so strong. I had tasted the next version of myself coming down the pipeline. She felt SO GOOD. Clear, grounded, and easily in flow. Now, it feels like I’m falling back into old patterns and losing touch with the person I’m becoming.

In retrospect, these moments of regression always precede a big leap forward. I know it. I’ve seen it a million times, in myself and others. It’s almost as if they were the necessary pulling back of the slingshot before we launch forward. Still, it is hard to weather these feelings as they are happening. I keep meditating, I keep visualizing, I keep writing and talking, and it’s still hard.

Sometimes, that’s all you can do. To just allow it to be hard and stop trying to force yourself to feel different.

And so I tell myself, as if I’m that new version of myself from the future, “It’s okay. I love you. I’m coming.”

I woke up today with a plan for what I was going to write. I made myself breakfast and sat down at the table. Looking at the computer, my stomach dropped. My plan didn’t match what I felt.

When I came up with it, I was excited. But now, it feels like a chore. And forcing myself into a cage is not why I write poetry. I write poetry to find magic in the truth.

I write poetry to guide me toward flow, even when it isn’t what I expected when I turned on the tap.

This morning, turning on the tap, I am in an apartment I’m moving out of, surrounded by objects I have to get rid of in the next ten days. I am overwhelmed by the life my past self created. I’m ready for what’s next. Pero bueno…

I had a whole plan

for what I would write.

But now I feel, “fuck it.”

I’m less than alright.

I don’t want to make something

that misses my pain.

I don’t want to ignore

my stress and my strain.

My stomach feels icky,

my head is a mess.

I’m doubting myself.

I’m afraid and depressed.

I want to write freely,

from the nowest of nows.

And in this very moment,

it just feels like “ow.”

I could push it aside.

I could press on instead.

But that’s what I used to do.

I ended up dead.