atlas has friends everywhere. some of them have met him in person. some of them haven’t.

sometimes i wonder if people love atlas because of who he is, or if they love him because of how i write about him. i decided that it’s a little bit of both. of course atlas is wonderful – he’s atlas! but i also write about him in a way that lets other people get to know him.

i was thinking about this (while walking atlas, of course) when i realized something important.

dogs are experts at showing us who they are.

i don’t want to go swimming!

i ate that cat poop & it was delicious.

i don’t care if i’ve only walked five feet. i am hot & i am done walking & i want to lie down in the grass.

can i come? please?

i love you.

dogs always tell the truth about themselves – without apology or shame or hesitation.

i can think of so many times over the years when i didn’t tell the truth about myself.

i’d love to go out with you. but instead of meeting for drinks, i’d rather meet for coffee.

i agree with [those people you are currently ridiculing].

i like young adult fiction! in fact, i often prefer it to adult fiction.

i do want to come dancing this weekend. but i’ve never gone before – i wasn’t allowed to dance when i was growing up – so would you be willing to tell me what to wear & what to do?

i love you.

instead of telling the truth, i lied, or made excuses, or said nothing.

i was afraid that if i told the truth, i would be shamed or judged or rejected.

when i look back, i can see that it was just the opposite.

if i had told the truth, it would have deepened existing relationships, and it would have been easier for the right people to find me & love me.

yet another life lesson i could have learned from my dear wise atlas.

i took these photos one day last summer. every time i looked at them, they made me smile. one day, i started to share them with you, but voices in my head stopped me. you see, i had recently stumbled upon a photographer’s critique of photographers who deliberately take out-of-focus images. shortly after, i stumbled upon another one. for some reason, their harsh words stuck with me, and i tucked my images away for safekeeping.

when i tucked my images away for safekeeping, what i was really doing was protecting the tender part of me who loves her images and now felt wrong for loving them.

in my experience, other people’s words tend to pierce me when they agree with something part of me fears is true already. it seems there is a small part of me that thinks (worries) that in order to be a good photographer, in order to be a photographer, my flowers need to be in focus. (side note: this seems oddly specific.) those photographers were popular, or famous, and therefore their assessment of my photos (even though they were speaking generally, not specifically) must be right.

after i let all of this simmer, i remembered two things. the first was that while the other photographers’ words might be true for them, that doesn’t mean they are true for everyone. the second was that i take my photos for me, and the only thing that matters to me is how i feel about them. i think this is true of all art. it might even be true of everything.

today, i did something on my mental to-do list. it was one of those things that should have been done a while ago, but today was the very first day that it was possible for me to do it. as i was on my way to do the thing, i noticed that i was mentally berating myself for being unable to do it earlier.

when the voice in my head became conscious, the thought that popped into my head was this: why was i beating myself up for this one small part of the story of the thing, instead of giving myself credit for everything else?

what happened next surprised me.

i heard not-quite-a-voice in my head, more like a felt-sense in my body, and the message that landed was this: you went through something hard with grace & dignity. you are doing a good job and i am so so so proud of you.

the message brought me to tears because i could feel that it was the truth.

i am wont to wonder why: why do we pick ourselves apart in order to beat ourselves up?

instead, i think i am going to focus on the fact that patterns can be changed – that my pattern is changing – one moment of loving kindness at a time.

my nephew lars likes to do somersaults.

the first few times lars asked me to do a somersault, i tried – i really did – but then my head and feet were on the floor and my butt was in the air and i just didn’t have the nerve to lift my legs up and over. it seemed so far from here to there and i was afraid. after that, i said no whenever he asked me to do one. but i still wanted to do a somersault. i really did. (also, i wanted to not be afraid of them.)

finally, a few weeks ago – after my mom and my brother reminded me not to put my head on the floor – i crouched down and swayed back and forth a few times and then i flung myself forward and over. i rolled through the somersault and found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor – head and limbs intact, slightly dizzy.

i had done it! i had done a somersault! i was so delighted. now lars does a somersault and then i do a somersault and it is so much fun.

last weekend, i went cross-country skiing with my dad and my sister.

cross-country skiing is big here. there are a number of excellent trail systems in the area, including one less than a mile from my house. since i moved back, whenever anyone asked if i skied, or if i’d gone skiing, i’d explain that i didn’t ski because i didn’t enjoy it.

that story seemed true. it was formed during a cross-country ski outing when i was young that was pure drudgery.

if i paid close attention, i noticed that there was a tiny bit of excitement when i thought about trying it again – after all, i enjoy many things now that i disliked when i was young – but i ignored the excitement because i was locked into that old story.

until last weekend, when my dad and my sister decided to go cross-country skiing at night. night skiing sounded idyllic, so i decided to join them.

it was so. much. fun.

the black sky. the white snow on the dark green trees. the swish swish swish of my skis in the tracks. the welcoming glow of the lights on the trail. my shrieks as i sped down each hill. the whistle of the wind. my slightly numb fingers encased in a pair of gloves and a pair of mittens.

so. much. fun.

there is something important for me here.

i don’t know where it will lead, or why it is important, but i want to pay closer attention to what excites me, and follow the trail of that excitement.

do you do this already?

is it easy for you?

how are you at recognizing and following the trail of your excitement?

i can feel all the anger + frustration + anguish in the united states right now and my heart is breaking.

i don’t know what to say, for many reasons, but it feels important to say something.

here is what i know.

the civil rights movement occurred from 1954-1968.

1968 was less than 50 years ago.

no matter how much i might want to believe otherwise, i have heard enough + seen enough + read enough to know that racism is not dead, privilege does exist, and sometimes i am part of the problem.

i want to live in a world in which everyone feels seen + heard + valued.

i want to live in a world in which everyone truly feels free.

perhaps it sounds naive, but i believe that such a world is possible.

maybe not now. maybe not for generations. maybe systems will have to be dismantled.

still, i choose to believe it is possible.

as i sit with hard questions, i commit (again) to this.

i will check my privilege.

i will listen; i will learn; i will seek to understand.

i will notice the way i divide the world into us and them, and meet each person as an individual.

i will not fear my blind spots, my darkness, the many times i will fail at this. i will acknowledge them & do the work necessary & send love to myself through all of it.

above all, i commit to love.

i was wondering how this post connected to my mission – to remind you of beauty + wonder.

perhaps it doesn’t.

but i do know there is beauty in everything: beauty in rising up, beauty in coming together, beauty in what seems like darkness.

this part is for me, a reminder of my touchstones.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

~ Solzhenitsyn

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.

~ C.S. Lewis

dear friend,

hello. how are you? is it winter where you are?

here, the world is white. it’s been snowing for two weeks and there is probably three and a half feet of snow on the ground already. it is somewhat unbelievable. yesterday, i shoveled a path to the shed and retrieved my snowshoes; i am really looking forward to using them. (i was trying to get to the garden to pick my last two bunches of kale. when i realized how deep the kale was buried, i turned away from the garden and toward the shed.)

these days, i am delighting in the unexpected. i read one of my poems at an open-mic poetry reading. (i felt brave. even though the poem made me cry.) then, atlas ran through the deep snow – over & over & over. (last year, he refused.) then, i was hired unexpectedly by a local cafe & am now training to become a barista. (it is seriously the most fun thing ever.) then, i gave my nephew lars a glimpse of my digital photo albums & he gave me the most enthusiastic praise ever. (BRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

you know what i’ve been thinking about lately? truth and art and fiction. i like to find my truths, and sometimes i like to share them, but i’ve been wondering if the deepest truths are wordless – at least in a literal sense – and can only be expressed in feeling or image or metaphor or story. i started thinking about this when i gathered up a handful of my favorite story club stories to create a sampler. sharing it was one of the hardest things i’ve done thus far. upon reflection, i realized that it was because the stories give you a glimpse of me – the deeper me, the magical me, the me i don’t really know how to share at all. i didn’t realize this until i read them all together. the same is true of poetry; somehow it helps me convey the ineffable. i wonder if it’s because the deepest truths are qualities – a glimpse, a reminder of who we really really are.

i wish we could sit down together, perhaps with coffee and pie. i want to listen to your stories, and feel your truths, and convey just how wonder~full you are.

xo

p.s. i know. this is not a photo of winter. i am remembering the glory of autumn, for just a little while.

i’ve been thinking about worth, and how so many of us have trouble believing that we’re worthy.

what if worthy isn’t the right word at all?

i looked up worthy in the dictionary.

there are definitions like these:

deserving, or having sufficient worth.
honorable or admirable.
having adequate merit, character, or value.

deserving and good are its synonyms. no-good, undeserving, valueless & worthless are its antonyms.

we assign measures of worth in our daily lives.

it’s not worth it.
it is worth it.
s/he’s a worthy candidate.
it’s a worthy cause.

all of this is based on judgment or comparison.

we might want to believe (or remember) that we are inherently worthy, but we keep reminding ourselves there is an opposite.

it’s no wonder my default is (still) (often) to focus on what i’m doing, instead of who i’m being. i want to prove that i do have worth, that i do have value, even if i don’t always believe there is a judge.

i want to use a new word.

why do i try to believe (or remember) that i am worthy, when there is no possibility of my being unworthy at all?

maybe this:

i am just right.

(i was created like this, so there must be a purpose to it & it must be right.)

or this:

i am valued.

(i value myself, and i can believe that source does too.)

or maybe there is just this:

i am.

lately, more so than ever, my speech is halting. i’ve always been able to express myself better in writing than in speech, but this is different. when i try to speak, either i don’t have the words, or i use the wrong words, or the words won’t come to the surface.

a wise friend suggested that i am learning to live from my heart, that this occurs because our hearts are wordless.

perhaps this is so. there are moments when i have a sense of just how large i really am. it’s as if my eyes are turned inward and i can see that the space inside me is immense + limitless.

it would make sense that i am wordless there. no vocabulary, however large it may be, can convey the richness of the infinite. it is a place beyond language.

this is partly why i created 30 days of wonder. we can’t always get to wordlessness through words, but maybe we can get there through images.

nature knows immense. nature knows vast. nature knows infinite. just look at blades of grass or autumn leaves or drops of rain or grains of sand.

today, i feel moved to say this:

you matter.

a few weeks back, i watched an episode of the mindy project.

at one point in the episode, mindy says to danny, “i think the reason i tell everyone about us is because i want it to be real. the more real it seems, the less likely it is that it could all get taken away from me.”

this got me thinking about how we want to matter – to someone, to anyone.

we want to know that it matters that we were here, that we made a difference, that someone cares.

but here’s the thing: sometimes the moments we matter the most are the moments we aren’t aware of at all.

like the time you treated someone with respect + dignity. (you didn’t know they were judging themselves harshly for being in that particular situation at all.)

like the time you smiled and held open the door for someone. (you didn’t know they were feeling unseen.)

like the time you issued an invitation to someone. (you didn’t know they were feeling lonely and disconnected.)

like the time you sat and listened to someone. (you didn’t know they were feeling unheard and rejected.)

like the time you forgave your own self, or let yourself off the hook, or met yourself with love. (you didn’t know how much you needed it.)

this made me think of feathers.

i think of feathers as messages from the angels. when i am feeling small, or lost, or alone, i look for feathers; i always always find them.

you might be a feather in someone’s path right now.
you were certainly a feather in someone’s path in the past.
you will be a feather in someone’s path in the future.

most of the time, you will never know those moments happened.

whether they do, or whether they don’t, you always always matter.

you matter because you exist.

you truly truly matter.

while on a trail run this summer, i captured the trails and my thoughts with my iphone. my intention at the time was to transcribe the audio and share it with the photos.

as it happened, many of the things i wanted to share this spring-summer fell by the wayside. i enjoyed caring for my grandparents’ house and yard, and for my parents’ garden whenever they were away, so my summer was more physical than usual and i spent very little time at my computer.

today, while on another trail run, i took photos of the trails in autumn. they reminded me of that intention.

i am sharing my summer thoughts & photos here, now, as they were originally captured. because when i spoke into my iphone, i was speaking to you. because the trails of the keweenaw are beautiful, in each & every season.

 
(in case you don’t like audio, the essence of my thoughts is this: trail running is my moving meditation.)