This is why I wrote you poetry
and sprinkled your chest with rose petals.
This is why I kissed you in public.
This is why I made time to meet your parents.
This is why I listened.
This is also why I left.
As I learn to fill my own cup, I realize why it was so empty.
I don’t remember when it happened exactly, but it did. I was probably really young and impressionable at the time and I drank it in: The criticism and judgments of others, the conditional acceptance that comes with colonizing. I heard things like: Be like me and I’ll like you. Don’t be too much of…
Life is complicated, isn’t it? Recently, I was working at the front desk at work, a co-working space in Seattle. An elderly lady was sitting in stillness for almost two hours in the sunlight, her veined hands endlessly turning a brochure over and over. A half hour before closing, I decided to check on her….
pre·cious /ˈprɛʃəs/ [presh-uhs] –adjective 1. of high price or great value; very valuable or costly: precious metals. 2. highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial, or moral quality: precious memories. 3. dear; beloved: a precious child. 4. affectedly or excessively delicate, refined, or nice: precious manners. 5. a dearly beloved person; darling. Yes, I am. But…
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move. Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down…
The two things I want to impart to my daughters that I never saw modeled and am still learning are this: #1 Follow your joy. Always. #2 Walk away from things that hurt or don’t feel good. I wish someone had taught me to say: “I don’t like the way you treat me (or how…