Hello faithful and most appreciated readers! This is part of a new format and series that debuted at the beginning of this month, thanks to a conversation I had with an Instagram acquaintance, actually (what happens when social media works!). I was reprising a project I started in 2020, writing monthly chapbooks based on a theme with one poem per day, to be used as an affirmation or mantra or inspiration as you walk through any given day. June’s theme is appreciation, and while I am sticking to the theme, the project seems to be evolving and I seem to be sticking less to the format. We’ll see where this leads, and regardless, paid subscribers will receive five posts a week, M-F, consisting of a poem and small essay, and free subscribers will receive two posts a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Thanks for reading, subscribing, and following! P.S. Would love to know if people are feeling like this is too much content or just the right amount. Please comment!
This is a season of becoming. I mean, they all are, we are always becoming, so maybe the better way to put it is that it’s an unfolding. Things are changing and I can see it. The hydrangeas are arriving. My daughter is eating cereal with a spoon and knows she is Eloise and remembers people’s names. Yesterday she was turning a light switch on and off and I could literally see the light switch of her mind go on as she began to understand cause and effect.
All of this makes me feel like there is an unfolding happening for me too, only one I can’t perhaps see. I can sense something, a shift, that’s on its way, and I think the key here is patience and also not taking things personally. If, let’s say, the shift moves me in a direction—for now—that’s not the one I think I want to be moving in, I have to see it as what’s happening today, not a predictor of what will be happening five years from now. Or even in August. Those kinds of powers are not powers that I happen to have.
I think I mentioned that I made a pack of cards for college students—a college survival kit of positive affirmations to look at in challenging moments. I am really proud of it, it looks fucking great. I made 25 of them and gave a few of them away to kids that I worked with in the past on college essays and sold a few. A couple of stores in the area are stocking them, and of course because none of them sold this weekend I am in a downward spiral about how the universe is trying to tell me that this idea is dumb and that I should let it go.
I am someone who looks for signs, and in moments of intense change and anxiety like the one I’m currently in, it’s just not that helpful. This is a faith exercise—I mean, all of it is a faith exercise, but sometime life feels like more of a faith exercise than others—and in trying to create explanations or somehow make it make sense or give it a narrative is just me trying to control it. Which is the opposite of faith. So I reach out to friends in moments of panic. I stop and I start and stop and start again. I was in a good place after a Pilates class and then found out there’s a typo in the deck and immediately plummeted. I’m pretty sure I need more sleep.
And I am doing the best that I can. I have to remember that. My daughter is healthy and I think I’m a pretty good mom to her, and that’s a lot. Ten years ago I was freezing my eggs and now here she is. There is a lot to be appreciative of AND grateful for. Including all of you. Thanks for reading.
I too, am doing my best to keep the faith. ;-)