I went for a walk one evening.

I didn’t really want to go for a walk – I was outside all afternoon at Silver Mountain watching my niece & nephews rock climb – but I usually feel good after I walk, even if I feel tired before I go, so I went anyway.

It wasn’t quite sunset when I finished walking around the block, so I decided to walk around the tiny lake too.

The tiny lake has a name, but I live near Lake Superior so I call Lake Superior my great lake and I call Calumet Lake my tiny lake. I say tiny with affection so I hope it doesn’t mind.

I saw birds flying south above me, black against the cloudy grey sky.

Delight.

The trees were full of bright red leaves, so bright that they stood out in the fading light.

Delight.

An almost full moon was low in the sky across the lake, just above the trees.

My cycle must be aligned with the full moon because every time I bleed, there is at least one night when I look out the bathroom window and say, “Oh! The moon is full!”

I love the idea of the moon tugging gently at my body, just as it tugs at the oceans to cause the tides.

Delight.

A memory popped into my head: We were walking down the trail to the car after rock climbing when one of my nephews slipped his hand into mine.

My heart felt so full – both in that moment and as I remembered it – and I let the sweetness spill up from my heart and out my eyes.

It reminded me of something I read that said to sit shoulder to shoulder with men and be their friend if you want them to share things with you. I wondered if that’s what I am doing with my nephews.

Delight.

As I walked along the street toward home, I saw a solitary blue wildflower almost hidden between the yellows and greens on the side of the road.

Delight.

I looked to the west where the sky turned from grey to lavender to yellow to orange. The trees were black beneath the grey lavender yellow orange striped sky.

Delight.

Delight.

Delight.

Let’s not begin
with snow.

I don’t want to begin
with snow.

I want to begin
with flowers
& spring green
& swollen rivers racing toward the sea.

I want to begin
after —
after everything begins.

Things mostly begin
underground —
in the damp
& the dirt
& the dark.

Underground —
where things are murky
& messy
& sometimes hard
& often tangled.

I want to begin
after that!

I want to begin
with hope
& promise
& softness
& color.

Haven’t we all had enough of hard?

Please
please
don’t misunderstand me.

I know
that suffering can be the beginning of
compassion
& character
& eyes that can see in the dark.

At least
if you allow it to be.

I am not discounting any of that.

But do we
always
have to get there
that way?

Can’t we
sometimes
take a
different path?

True, the new path might be hard in its own way.

Allowing pleasure
& generosity
& ease
& joy
feels vulnerable.

Vulnerability can be hard too.

But will we really be
any less
for not having suffered
even more?

I suspect not.

So that is what I wish for you today:
Even more.

Even more joy.
Even more rest.
Even more love.
Even more kindness.

One of my journal topics this morning was the idea of unfairness.

I am healing very old wounds and sometimes – usually in moments when I feel exhausted or helpless or hopeless – life seems so incredibly unfair.

Why am I responsible for healing wounds that were caused by others?!

Two thoughts made me feel lighter, and I thought I would share them.

First, it’s not just me.

We are all wounding and being wounded. Usually inadvertently – because a thing I do believe is that we are all doing the very best we can in every moment.

I believe that if we were able to, we would do better.

I believe this because I can follow the threads in my own life to see why I did not do better. There is always a reason. It appears to be the work of a lifetime to do better, and also to forgive myself for all the moments in which I didn’t do better.

Second, life isn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair, because fairness is a human concept.

People can be fair; life just is.

I am continually surprised by the opportunities life offers me for growth + change.

I may not be responsible for what happens to me along the way, but I am choosing to be responsible for how I receive it.

Even if I have (many) moments in which I forget this.

green smells like a bed of pine needles,
like a freshly mowed lawn,
like tiny birch leaves.

green smells like an unfurling fern –
stretching
reaching
opening to the light.

The back yard of my grandparents’ house was full of tiny flowers. I think they were a type of daisy.

I loved them.
I’ve always loved them.
(I remember being a child in their back yard; I loved them then too.)

When the grass hadn’t been mowed in a while, the daisies were everywhere.

I took care of my grandparents’ yard toward the end.

This was somewhat problematic because I did not like to mow my beloved flowers!

(As an aside, I discovered that my desire to do a good job was at odds with my desire to keep flowers alive. Have you ever tried to rake around a crocus? Spoiler alert: It’s impossible.)

I spent a good chunk of my mowing time apologizing. “Sorry little flowers! Sorry! So sorry.”

One day, I paused & spoke to the daisies directly.

“I’m so sorry that I have to mow you down,” I told them.

In reply, the yard filled with tiny peals of laughter. I felt the daisies throw their flowery hands up in the air in the most insouciant way imaginable.

They said, “It’s all good.”
They said, “Mow.”
They said, “We are here now & someday we will go & someday we will return. For us, the moment is all that matters.”

The sun is shining.
Surrounded by snow sparkle,
I feel cold and warm.

There is a thing I have tried to write about for years. I’ve started & stopped more times than you can possibly imagine.

The very short version is this: There was a time in my life when I wasn’t going to be here anymore.

(By here, I mean in this body, in this world, in this life. The only reason I am still here is because of my Atlas pup. When I say that he saved me, I mean it almost literally.)

Yesterday, I realized that I couldn’t write about it because I was making it too complicated.

I didn’t want to make anyone sad or cause them to worry.

I didn’t think all pain needed to be shared & I wondered if this particular pain did.

I thought I had to share more than I wanted to or needed to or possibly even could.

I thought there was no point in writing about it without including how I got from there to here. (Even if I thought it would add value, I can’t, because I don’t know how I got from there to here at all.)

When we are in darkness, there are so many thoughts that feel true.

I am alone.
I’m a burden.
I’m not needed.
I’m weak.
I should be ashamed.
No one will care.
No one has been here.
No one will understand.

These thoughts feel true, and yet I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.

I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.
Or are in darkness.
Or will be in darkness.

Darkness comes in so many forms & fashions.

How can we feel so alone, when there are so many people there with us?

It turns out that what I wanted to do was so much simpler than I imagined.

I just wanted to share a tiny piece of my story as my way of saying that I am there too.

Because maybe, just maybe, sharing that we’ve walked through darkness, or are walking through darkness – however or whenever or to whomever we share it – can be a tiny pinprick of light in someone else’s darkness.

Postscript: If you ever need someone to talk to, I am here.

Your darkness doesn’t scare me.

I can be with you in your darkness, because I have learned to be with me in mine.

I’m doing a thing! (The thing being a spring nature walk in Calumet.)

Do come join me!

One of the stories in my head is this: If I tell you that I want to spend time with you, you won’t want to spend time with me, even if you actually wanted to up until that moment.

I say it anyway. Because it is honest + true + real and I strive to be all of those things. But what I don’t say is that it takes all of my courage to do so, and I feel both scared and sick as I say it.

Sometimes, the response I get validates (or seems to validate) my story. I know the other person doesn’t know my story. I know my story may or may not be true. And yet it is still so incredibly hard to stay open + curious + vulnerable, to not withdraw, to not react from a place of fear – fear that is solely based on a story.

I was processing one of my stories in my journal and I thought: I would be so embarrassed if anyone read this.

My next thought: But why? Why would I be embarrassed?

I think everyone must tell themselves stories like this.

I am just naming them.

I think about shame a lot.

I used to think that shame was the least useful of our emotions.

The only value I saw in shame was that sometimes it tells us when we have behaved in a way that does not align with our values.

But only sometimes!

Most often, it seems to me, we feel ashamed of ourselves for things that do not warrant it.

We keep these things to ourself, sure that people won’t like us or love us or hire us or be friends with us .. if we are ever foolish enough to reveal them.

I saw no value in that kind of shame.

But after a conversation with a friend yesterday, I have revised my opinion.

I think maybe that kind of shame has the potential to connect us to other people, to our compassion, to our humanness.

When I feel embarrassed or ashamed of myself for something, it feels important to share it. That doesn’t mean I can share it, or do share it, or even want to share it. But there is always a part of me that thinks I need to, that thinks I need to say the thing out loud to someone.

There is something about the shame that pushes me toward truth, toward connection.

Because what I often find to be true is this: We need to know we’re not alone, and we might never know we’re not alone, unless one of us has the courage to be vulnerable first.

Shame thrives in secrecy, in isolation, in darkness.

I don’t want to spend my life there.

I want to live in the light.

I have felt very out-of-sorts lately. The reasons are not important. Suffice it to say: Even when you can recognize that the thoughts in your head are stories you are telling yourself that may or may not be true, that recognition doesn’t always make the thoughts smaller or more manageable. They can still shake your confidence, your worth, your behavior, your openness.

But I caught a cold over the weekend and felt so miserable by Sunday night that I decided to jump in the lake. I thought the shock would jolt me back to health.

As I sank beneath the icy water, it felt like I was being baptized anew. And, as I sat on a piece of driftwood in the warm golden light, I realized that the broken records in my head had finally stopped.

I felt like me again.

Going to the lake always feels like coming home.

Going under always feels like a benediction.