So much loss

I stopped by The Farm to pick up a few things last night. I cried on the way back to the new place. Where is home?

Once again, Daily OM

Honoring the experiences we have in our lives is an invaluable way to communicate with life, our greatest teacher. We do this when we take time at night to say what we are thankful for about our day and also when we write in a journal. Both of these acts involve consciously acknowledging the events of our lives so that they deepen our relationship to our experiences. This is important because it brings us into closer connection with life, and with the moment. Only when we acknowledge what's happening to us can we truly benefit from life's teachings. 

It is especially important when pain comes our way to honor the experience, because our natural tendency is to push it away and move past it as quickly as possible. We tend to want to brush it under the rug. Yet, if we don't, it reveals itself to be a great friend and teacher. As counterintuitive as it seems, we can honor pain by thanking it and by welcoming it into the space of our lives. We all know that often the more we resist something, the longer it persists. When we honor our pain, we do just the opposite of resisting it, and as a result, we create a world in which we can own the fullness of what life has to offer. 

We can honor a painful experience by marking it in some way, bringing ourselves into a more conscious relationship with it. We might mark it by creating a work of art, performing a ritual, or undertaking some other significant act. Sometimes all we need to do is light a candle in honor of what we've gone through and what we've learned. No matter how small the gesture, it will be big enough to mark the ways in which our pain has transformed us, and to remind us to recognize and value all that comes our way in this life. 

Also

I was talking to Joseph about addressing what's inside yourself. I'm trying to do that, now and every day. It lightens the load I'm carrying, just as the fact that we took only maybe half (or perhaps a third) of what we own to the new place. Lightening the load. I like it.

Tackling the revise

In May, Miriam gave me edits on BEARDED LADY. They scared the hell out of me. I decided the book was a memoir, not a Young Adult novel, and basically ran screaming.

Last week I went back to her and asked to have another chance. She said yes.

Here we go.

An incredible read

"Sometimes, though, our struggle is not enough. ALS destroys my body, no matter how many medicines I take or exercises I do. Sometimes, oftentimes, white supremacy, violent misogyny, and rapacious capitalism rip apart our families and destroy lives, regardless of how well we organize. And sometimes, oftentimes, our stories are not powerful enough. Despite our best efforts, Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed, and will do lasting damage to America and its people.

"Yet it is in these moments of defeat that hopeful, collective struggle retains its greatest power. I can transcend my dying body by hitching my future to yours. We can transcend the darkness of this moment by joining the struggles of past and future freedom fighters. That is how, when we reach the end of our lives and look back on these heady moments, we will find peace in the knowledge that we did our best."

This.

My friend posted this on FB today

Doing my annual university mandated sexual harassment and assault training and it always pains me that we not only need training, but annual training, that if someone is unconscious and therefore can't say no to sex, then you can't have sex with them. Same if you have terrorized them to the point of paralysis. Seriously, we need to be regularly reminded of that. And yet, we as a society still can't seem to remember.

The electric fire at our new place

I've changed so much in the past few months. I feel like a new person, deeper and more cognizant. If 2018 has been a time of loss in certain regards, it has also been a period of recovery and renewal.