beautiful things

Coffee Ground Sweet

I’m not a morning person. I prefer staying up late and sleeping late. But as my child grows with each early wake, I’m finding myself in a necessary shift. A relative bought me a coffee cup when she was born that says, “In memory of sleeping in.” I sip my caffeine from it most mornings.

Today, I woke before the rest of my family did. Laying in the silence for just a moment longer, fans whirred, trying to gulp in the cold morning air into our bedroom. I shuffled down the stairs, putting on water to boil for coffee. I collected yesterday’s grounds into an old mason jar, and stepped out onto the porch to pour the extras onto our grass.

Looking towards the mountains, I swirled the remnants, and sprinkled them across our dying lawn. They’ve been giving citations to homeowners for dead grass, and as I poured, I found myself wondering if we’d be next.

Most mornings, I’m too busy to muse about these things. I’ve got a calculated routine that if we knock off just five minutes, everyone ends up late. But this morning, I was able to swirl grounds and stop to stand on a stoop, while sprinkling sustenance back into our little lawn. Neighbors were walking their dogs. Joggers waved hello as I sat for just a moment. Our little community was buzzing outside. I’m usually frantically trying to get everyone moving, just to get out of the house.

They say living in the suburbs can be mundane. There are thousands of memes about millennials aging, as they appreciate cucumbers growing at eight am instead of staying out all hours of the night. This morning, I want to bask in the glory of summer light, the swirl of grounds, the space and extra moments to pour hot coffee into my remembrance mug.

Life changes. Stillness too. And in these spaces of ordinary, I see a new sweetness.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

A Desire For Certain Things to Happen

Heading towards the park for my afternoon loop, I let my shoes clack against the warming pavement. As I approached the parking lot I have to cross before reaching the trail, I noticed a black SUV with all the windows down. The back of the large car was full of life being lived – piles of clothes, pots and pans, and belongings were stuffed to the top of the roof. It was clear the owner was in a rough patch, or choosing to live out of their car for whatever reason. And on top of all of the things was a throw pillow with the word “Hope” scrawled across the top. Underneath, the definition: desire for a certain thing to happen.

Curious, I thought to myself, as I wandered from asphalt to gravel, letting my arms soak in a tiny bit of early summer sun.

As I walked, I noticed the green grass, and the thistles, poking their arms through the green with bursts of purple blossom. I’ve always loved thistles – they shouldn’t be beautiful. Their exterior exudes protection and leave-me-alone energy. Yet, for just a few weeks, they invite you in with color and beauty, perhaps suggesting, it’s not all that bad, if you’re observant enough to notice.

A family member is getting surgery this week and I’m nervous. Any time someone I love is at risk, I can feel my heart quake. And I’ve learned the poky energy doesn’t always keep me safe – it just keeps others out. As I watch horrific headlines pour in, and see neighbors needing help, I’m reminded that we need to say aloud – I am scared. We are scared. Help me remember that even thistles bloom. And that hope exists atop the remnants, where the broken belongings are still stacked. We are sacred.

Gratitude oozes from the same place where our bodies need repair – hips or hearts or hands. May we open them and be curious, inviting hope to grace our open fingers. Beautiful things.

Slowed

I stood in the famous valley, my toes coated with sand, as I watched my daughter and her small friend learn how to wade into winter run off just barely melted. As the sun kissed my shoulders, and my back rounded forward to support her tiny hands, I thought to myself, these are the moments I need to be present for.

We traveled this weekend, to Yosemite Valley, and visited friends who have walked with me for over fifteen years. Now, their daughter, too, will walk with mine, as we figure out how to be together as small families. Our days started early with cups brimming full of dark coffee, avocado smeared on the floor and on faces, and we fell into a rhythm of watching our small people while passing cutting boards and tortillas to nourish us. Nap time was a must, and in the afternoon siestas, I snuggled with my daughter while also allowing myself time to rest.

I didn’t realize Ansel Adams spent much of his time at Yosemite, and while I strolled at the foot of waterfalls, I let the mist kiss my pale ankles, again wondering how different things look as artists if we slow to see them. Toddlers have a way of speeding us up, and slowing us down. While we wanted to “hike”, instead I held hands and helped climb logs and jump off rocks that seemed small to me, but surely were mountains to our little girls.

They say Americans are bad at taking vacation. We know, even with allotted PTO, we don’t step away from our work. While we were only gone for a few days, I could feel my brain slowing as my feet sunk into mountain meadows. I woke and saw flowers on trees and I took cuttings from lilacs, bringing the outdoors in. In the process, I turned down the volume, and allowed my to-do list to shrink. I let others drive me around for four days, friends planned meals, and laundry got mysteriously completed as we threw our dirties in with their loads. To be in shared space, being nurtured, and nurturing is a beautiful thing. We all were in bed by nine. In this allowing, I welcomed presence.

Now, please hold my hand as I climb back in the seat, responding to emails, planning to-do lists, tackling mountains of laundry. Presence is what matters here, not the rushing. I hope I’m not ramping up too quickly.

Shifting sizes, watching us all grow, perspective, slowing, angles, flowing water, wild flowers. The gifts of this weekend allowed me to slow. And those are beautiful things.

Unfurl

The sky is gray and the trees are budding green. The tiny leaves pop against the dark sky, bravely unfurling as they return to the familiar way of becoming again. Nature seems to say, I’m ready for what’s coming next. And perhaps I am too.

I’ve been reminded about the myth of arrival this week and new guides are instead offering the truth that with every new answer, comes new questions to live into. As I continue to grow, this answering of questions offers an invitation. How can I unfurl, just like the trees, against dark skies, with an inner knowing? I’ve done this before – the world has changed in the off season, and still there’s a power within me, trusting DNA and a swirl of interests, passions, and opportunities for what this season is calling for next. Sure, it’s trite to say the journey is the destination, and in all of these mixed metaphors lies the possibility that perhaps I don’t have to work so hard.

Perhaps my body and my heart already know what to do. It’s my mind that gets in the way.

The man next to me at the coffee shop is chuckling as he listens to a podcast, ear buds tucked in tight. I look around and watch us all immersed in our screens and our keyboards, eyes down so we don’t have to look at one another, I think about the way we come together, just to be alone. We consume, we scroll, we create, we connect. We sip and we stumble and we stutter, finding ways to either get louder or drown out the noise. What if we didn’t have to work so hard?

And this week, I want to instead rest in a different way of being. The leaves know what to do. They just unfurl, emerging into a world that has already changed. Unfurling alongside others. A beautiful thing.

In My Own Little Home

I recently had a coach ask me the question, “Seven years from now, how will you know the choices you made reflect the social change you want to be a part of?”

You can’t answer a question like that in one sitting. There are so many layers to my answers as I think about the next seven years. In seven years I’ll have a third grader. Hopefully there will be a president with a name we have only barely heard of today. Hopefully, we’ll have better care for children and the cost of groceries will go down. It is so easy for me to spin into possibilities of what might be that I miss what is, right now.

What I liked about the question, as mind-blowing as it was, is the reminder that the choices we make today also matter in the large scope of social change. As I spend my Friday afternoons with my daughter, I’m choosing to honor caregiving in a different way. I highlight the myth of work-life balance and sit in the truth that our choices reflect how we want to be in the world. I type. Baby naps. I feel guilty for being away from the office.

A follow up question the coach asked was, “What will you gain by making this sacrifice?” At first, I was angry. I don’t want to have to sacrifice. I want to “have it all” or at least be proud of what I’m giving up, which I think was the intention behind her question. After further reflection I’ve come to my answer – I’m gaining the freedom to live into the social change I want to see.

I want my choices to build spaces where mothers are welcomed and given space to nurture their children and also be valued as employees. Spaces where rest is valued and treasured as much as outcomes and outputs. Spaces where grief and loss and uncomfortable, hard realities are named and held with compassion. Spaces where we hold one another with tenderness and then get back up again, holding hands, to face whatever comes next.

I’ve spent a lot of this week angry at the system – the motherhood tax, the war overseas, the scary political situation that still exists here in the idealized version of America. I get frustrated at a lack of empathy or care for one another. And my anger has told me that, again, it is in our choices where we get to make change.

So, for those of you wondering how to make sense of what’s unfolding for you, I hope you remember you have power in what you say yes to. And power in what you say no to. And power in holding dear the change you are trying to make in your own little world, on your own little street, in your own little home.

And those choices are beautiful things.

Constant Companion

We were driving from story time to get lunch when my mom said, “Grief’s a pretty constant companion these days. I’m no longer afraid of her showing up.” I inhaled deeply as she spoke, integrating the power and the truth of this realization. I call my grief a gremlin. She lives in my heart pocket and has wings like a crow and claws she keeps trimmed, though they come out every so often. Her big eyes are round and deep blue, and when I’m hurting, they look deep into me with a knowing so profound. This little gremlin sees me, if I let her.

We lost another matriarch last week. Dylan’s grandmother passed at the age of 94. Her decline was quick, perhaps it always is. Though we knew the end was coming, I’m always sensitive to the sucking away of air leaving the room when you get the news. When I received the text, it was early. We held hands and in the pause, welcomed again the little gremlin as she crawled out of the warm place where she lives. I wept when making travel arrangements, and again in bedrooms when we went back to her home.

Grief, if we let it, is a constant companion. March is coming and I miss my dad ever so much. When telling baby of the loss, she repeated me saying, “Grandma died.” Then, after her pause, said, “She went home with Papa.” Perhaps the children know more than we do.

And as grief walks alongside, life still happens. Emails pile in. To-do lists loom. The text messages buzz, reminding me of connection and purpose and pull my brain in perpendicular directions. After a busy weekend, and snacks for dinner, I found a rare moment of rest on the couch Sunday evening. At 8:30 pm, after the bedtime routine, I was scrounging in the pantry for a little something. I filled a pot, watched water boil, and made pasta, letting the steam reach my face for just a few moments. I melted butter, sizzled garlic, and pulled together a silky sauce to coat my carbs. I poured myself a glass of wine, and at a time too late for supper, sank into the couch to nourish myself. I patted the seat next to me, inviting the gremlin onto the cushions.

Turning to the episode of “The Crown” where the Queen loses her sister, I let the waves of tenderness wash over me. Relationships are complicated. We try to connect, we miss, we try again. We anger and we make-up. And in the end, we lose. And we love. Bowls of pasta help. The welcoming, again, of our grief as friend, is a beautiful thing.

I Contain

I’ve been paying attention to how frequently the notifications on my phone go off. I’m addicted to the dopamine hits and I know I’m not alone in this. We’re trained to be responsive, and my phone and its algorithms keep me going in a Pavlov’s dog-type way of being – always curious, lurking, waiting for the next notification to roll in. I’m guilty of checking in at stop lights and being distracted while my toddler pulls on my legs asking to be lifted up. And this week, after very full days with many meetings, and many other forces metaphorically asking to be cared for while I was also distracted, I wonder, who is training who?

The world asks us to move at an incredible pace. And the speed is making me grumpy, feeling like I’m less than, and that if I could type just a little bit faster on my phone then all of my dreams could come true. I made a shift at work recently, attempting to go down in hours. The demands stayed. I haven’t been very successful with my boundaries. The hours still fill. And I’m still split in the disappointing of family, my employer, or myself. Again, this juggling is not a unique problem, but I ask myself, who is leading whom?

This week, we partnered with a client on a one-day workshop to build team trust and improve how they work together. Part of the work requires participants to share their backstories. We sat together in a worn room, with posters teenagers created on the walls. Their hand done drawings of wildflowers drew me in as I listened to tender stories of pain, resilience, coping, and recovery. Gut wrenching examples of what being human calls us to go through. And then, we put the lid back on, and went about our agenda. I think the exercise was successful, revealing new truths about each of the team members in the room. And I find myself wondering, do the humans lead the work, or do the organizations dictate, leaving all the pieces we are often told to keep to ourselves in the dark?

There was one drawing in particular, done in colored pencil shades of yellow and white, of a coned daisy at the end of the season. The petals dipped down, angled away from a source of light. As I sat and listened, I thought, we all contain multitudes. Flowers do too. I tend to think in black and white, in binaries, and make choices on either a or b. And kind coaches remind me, usually, some third option exists. Perhaps this is where the yellow pencil comes in.

I contain multitudes. And perhaps these big questions I’m asking in this season of life will also reveal multiple options. Not just A or B, but some combo in between. And if you can help me put my phone down and choose to exercise instead, maybe i’ll have another epiphany while I let the emails roll in unnoticed. Big questions. Unclear answers. Beautiful things.

Mama Loves You

Last night I put an overtired toddler to bed. We asked too much of her – dinner was late, there was a tich too much t.v. while we cooked said dinner. I insisted on a bath. The offer of picking out a book pushed her over the threshold, and her tears started to flow. I’m learning to respond with more kindness when these moments happen, rather than pushing through, and as we closed the books, and turned out the lights, baby continued to cry.

Luckily, I wasn’t pushed past my limit just yet and I was prepared to sit with the tears for as long as it took. However, her distress is also distressing, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I started rubbing her back and singing a tune, listing out all of the people that I know to love her.

Mama loves you and Daddy loves you.
Pop Pop loves you and Gigi too.
Nahna loves you and Sam loves you.
Gaga loves you and M&M too.

Over and over I sang the made up rhymes until eventually, baby began to calm down. Her breathing slowed, eyes drooped and she fell asleep, awash with words of love.

I’ve been having so many conversations with hurting people lately. We’re tired, scared, nervous for another tumultuous election year. Layoffs are happening. The need for collective exhales seems to persist. And in those moments of distress, I’m realizing I’m gifted at being grounded, unafraid to sit in the dark. However, in order to do so well, I believe we need to be awash in words of love.

In a recent conversation with a wise friend, he encouraged me again with the invitation to stop and remember how incredible it is just to be alive. To sit in a warm coffee shop, with gloves on my cold fingers, and have intelligent, heart-warming conversation is a miracle in times like this. We woke up today. The cars started. The coffee brewed. How many things had to go right just to get us to this point, wherever you are now, reading these words.

Yes, there are a million stimuli, and the desire to melt down like an over-tired toddler is an active one. At times, we may need to let the tears flow. And when they do, for whatever reason, may you start to make your own version of the song.

You may not know Nahna or Gaga, but I’m sending love to you. Be awash in words of love. A beautiful thing.

And …

“What’s with the ampersands?” I asked our client as she sat across from us at a high-top table. After a successful client engagement, this leader told me about her small earrings in the shape of an “And” symbol.

She shared about how in leadership, particularly in public service, we have to live in AND spaces. Choices we make help some AND may harm others. We want communities to thrive AND we don’t have infinite resources to do so. We plan for the future AND respond to the present. She said the symbol has become her mantra, a constant reminder that we often live in the gray.

I’ve been thinking about AND spaces for myself lately. The suffering AND the beauty. Straddling a fence of understanding business needs AND wanting, deep within, to change our environments so humans can be seen and heard. When sharing this frustration with my boss today, he shared, “Maybe we can get off the fence, and find somewhere else to sit instead.”

This week a friend lost a baby. I watched and I prayed with hope and can’t begin to understand why something like that happens. We watched horrible headlines and numb ourselves from the suffering across the world.

AND

I stuffed my kiddo into a puffy pink snowsuit as she ate snow for the first time. Snowflakes fell, flirting with orange pumpkins, and we make plans for costumes, and candy and community gatherings.

We suffer AND we celebrate. We plan AND we respond.

To move beyond survival, and towards thriving, I’m embracing the AND. Both are true.

And this week, the AND space is a beautiful thing.

PS. If you’re wondering how to explore your own AND space, let’s have a conversation. For a limited time I’m offering two coaching sessions for $75 as I work towards my ICF coaching certification. These spots will fill quickly.

43 Months Ago

March 2020 was 43 months ago. We’re all impacted by the countless events that have happened since, and the fear of a virus rooted deep in me. The tendrils started with rumors of China, and I vividly remember the security agent trying to ask me if I’d traveled there when I was trying to get into Cuba. I didn’t understand her English, nor really, the impact of the question.

For 43 months, I avoided the virus, until this week, when I tested positive. I took three tests, just to be sure. When I called my mom to tell her, I started crying. I’m in quarantine, and I’m going to be fine. Sniffles and body aches are the result of vaccines and perhaps blind luck. I don’t know, trying to make since of why things unfold the way they do doesn’t really give me much to go on. My tears were out of fear for others, my baby, my mother, my husband. But too, for the 46 months worth of fear that layered inside of me in the shape of headlines, and collective loss, and a culture that makes sickness our own individual problems to be mended in literal isolation.

I hesitated to write about my experience because most of you, most of us, have already experienced this virus intimately. You’ve had the bug once or twice, or perhaps would rather forget about the terror when we watched Italy shut down, hospitals filled up, schools closed, people died. We all want to move on. But these markers of trauma linger, and in my facing a 43-month old fear, I had to weep.

It’s tempting to switch to platitudes, to the cliche phrases we use when life keeps happening. And a transition to hope or beauty feels weak here, like the wobbly little legs running around my house. With all of this found time, I’m discovering the old way of being in the world isn’t as satisfactory as it once was. Pre-baby, and during the years from 2020-2022, every week brought the choice to read all day, to binge watch some tv, to paint my nails without disruption, to write every week. And then, along came a baby and everything changed.

As the world moved forward, I turned inwards, moving to care taking, and with the pivot, came an elevated pace of tending to the needs of others. I haven’t read a book in months. But, on this bedspread in the upper corner of my house, I’m finishing novels. I’m painting my nails. I’m binge watching hours of television. While I isolate, I hear little steps and giggles, and a man I loved turned into a father attempting bedtime solo. I hear a toddler falling off beds and shouts of hooray and watch the lights turn on and off as days turn into nights. Friends are dropping soup on the stoop and texts come in and my husband I talked on the phone last night, like we did when we were dating. Perhaps the prior years taught me how to be alone. And these recent months, taught me I don’t have to be.

While reading a book all day will continue to be missed, mostly I just want to hug my little one. The old years are gone, and new ones unfold.

To hear little noises of family life, receive help, and let fears release, especially while in quarantine, are beautiful things.