[04.01.25]
Pulsing through me today is Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day, published in 1992.
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
[03.29.25]
The header of this website used to say The Joy of Curiosity. After 3 weeks when it was obvious that joy wasn’t the overarching emotion I was experiencing, I renamed it to #CuriosityTour2025 to help better reflect the journey of it all.
Then sometime in the last week or so I found myself staring a little sign I’d made for myself and tacked to the wall next to my in the space I use for an office and workshop: …at least she was brave.
Before my grandmother (mom’s side) passed I’d recorded several interviews with her. In it she revealed that she’d wished she hadn’t been so scared throughout her life. She wished she’d had been more brave and pursued what she really wanted to try. I told her I saw her as brave. She laughed it off.
I think about this a lot. And I think about my other grandmother (dad’s side) who was quite brave, leaving her home country of France, married to a GI (my grandfather), with my eldest aunt just born to come to Eastern Kentucky and then northwest Ohio.
I actually deep down believe, know, that all the women in my family have been brave. I know that all women are brave - and please know that I mean anyone who identifies as a woman or non-binary. Because quite frankly its easier to not exist. Yes this got dark.
You know that question about once you’ve died what do you want people to say about you? …at least I was brave.
[03.28.25]
Some days you just need Jameson, nachos, and conversations with a friend who also doesn’t have it all figured out.
[03.27.25]
I’m taking life advice from Pitbull now: “Short steps, long vision.”
In retrospect I may have told myself I was doing that, but after a lot of reality and reflection, it’s been more like my life’s been a practice in: “Give my all, rest later, hope for the best.”
That super didn’t work.
Today is another day of short steps. Visible short steps.
“Courage is the cure.” - Viola Davis, Finding Me
[03.26.25]
One of the more interesting experiences so far, and also frustrating, is that in this year-long focus on curiosity, it is actually hard to remain focused. Let me rephrase: I’m really good at being curious and can solidly entertain and captivate myself for hours upon hours with all sorts of pursuits. So perhaps my curiosity-focused-year is actually a long lesson in prioritization and boundary setting.
No shortage of ideas here. But, curiously, what will be like when I focus on less in quantity but focus more intensely, more consistently on a very small, well defined few?
[03.25.25]
Last night I was working a bit. Attempting to work towards items on my ever growing to do list. I give it a 5 out of 10. “Projects got moved along”, as I imagine actors playing consultants on a tv show saying, and yes with the same amount of emotion that I feel right now. Think, “eh, fine, whatever.” Perhaps it’s because I slept like shit, I knew I didn’t take the advil pm!, and I’m only 2/3rds of my way through my first cup of coffee.
I have the urge this morning to become a painter of large canvases. Think Jackson Pollock. I splatter paint. With the same rage and emotion I once threw my keys towards a then-boyfriend.
I got on Instagram yesterday after my ‘official-I-get-paid-for-it-work’ and a good run and shower. I ran fast (for me) yesterday. It felt good. Then I saw the news headlines shared by reputable news outlets and shared by folks I trust - yes, mostly artists.
There are folks on this planet that remember quite frequently that this is all made up. All of it. If you’re thinking an existential mind fuck, you’d be right. I’m one of those people.
All we really have are our relationships, health, and what helps us feel joy. Of course - we have the opposite of all that too.
And then like a never ending Monopoly game that we never wanted to play, we are moving our piece along a board that doesn’t give a shit about you.
And here it comes up again: How does one exercise their agency within this structure if the desire is to get enough resources to help change the structure?
(but you know, to center human rights and anchor into justice, not the dominant approach that’s shaped this land since the late 1400s.)
But I digress. Usually.
I suppose I’m drawn so intensely to the arts because the arts help me feel through all of that. And I’m drawn to science because it helps me understand the phenomenon behind all of it.
And then I suppose it’s up to me, what do I do with all that?
03.24.25
Can I start a year long daily writing habit, that other folks can see, on the 24th of March?
Even if I conceived of this idea back in November, pseudo (?) launched the project in January. I think they call it soft launch, but in retrospect, I’d call it timid launch. And appropriately so, it’s received timid response. Minus a few kind folks who have kept me encouraged by participating. And I admit it’s not like I asked and followed through with people I knew really well. There was something about the unfamiliarity to it that made it feel safer. Does that make sense? But I’m damn grateful for these new friends.
There isn’t much my parents see eye to eye (they divorced when I was 8) but they both hold the phrase, “shit or get off the pot” at the top of their toolbox of advice.
All the things I’ve wanted to do, create, share. Yet most of it remains hidden away in Google Docs, a physical journal, and my mind. Dare I say, soul? Is that too cheesy? What is it about the lived experience in this society, at least for me, that has me terrified to just f’ing create and share out loud?
When I ask it like that, that answer feels clear: rejection. Either through ridicule or being ignored. Nope, it’s ridicule. What if what I have to offer, no one wants? No one likes? No one gets?
Then I think of all the times in my 46 years so far when rejection and ridicule have been the response. I survived. And even as I say that to myself, my mouth turns up in a little smile. Maybe I can do this, again, too, now.
With a different level of me. Perhaps the truest form yet.