It snowed like it meant it again here in WNC. Temps no higher than 18 degrees for days, I can’t believe there are still snowy patches around after weeks.
The dahlia tubers I left in the ground are totally not coming back from that…
Married to a human working on climate change, I know that this isn’t the sign of a climate change reversal, but instead the sign of erratic weather patterns due to that climate problem.
Last week we met another human who lost their home due to the floods of Hurricane Helene. She’s staying in cottage while she gets back on her feet for the next couple of months.
Meanwhile
My good friend Ruth, of FAIRE Press Magazine has just hosted her Wintering Retreat, and we’re working on our 2nd Queen Robe Project + The Fabrics of France Retreat.1 This might be our last for years, and I’ve heard from a lot of folks saying, I wish and I’d planned to, but I can’t because -the world-. And then they shake their hands at it in exasperation.
I’ve been watching so many friends start that turn inwards thing. Changing plans, hunkering down, holding off on hopes and dreams. It doesn’t feel like a good time -they tell me.
I know. I’m waffling on the edge of all my plans and all my worries too, but I got a call today that smacked me upside the head, more on that later…
And then there’s my friend Lynda from the other side of the world.
She’s not immune from the world’s ache and sorrows, just the opposite, she writes me and we sit together across oceans and continents and we grieve the loss of humanity in our world leaders
and we notice all the humans doing good and lending help in our communities. We send each other cards.
She tells me about the next round of art retreats, or music festivals, or incredible travel she’s about to embark on and I laugh and cheer, and eventually I ask her,
”How are you still taking part in it all?”
And she sends me a photo of her ankle with the tattoo reminder to Run.
She says, Run for your life, not to survive it, but to celebrate it.
She tells me about losing her dear brother and she talks about that age old truth of thinking you have so much time and the reality of having not nearly enough.
She’s not getting caught out in having waited. She’s running towards all the things she always said she’d do, One Day -she’s running towards them now.
We can all get caught up in keening and waiting. Playing it properly, safely, until we have just a little more covered in case of——-
What we worry about rarely happens. Sometimes instead storms cleave off mountains, I have too many neighbors that know that now.
Sometimes we’re left to hold the tatters and tell the tales and hopefully help folks that have need of it. But listen, we can also care for our lives. We can run towards our joys, if not now, when?
I think about that in subtle ways, when I put on my best coat, or my favorite blouse. When I step away from my mending pile and go for a walk with our new doufus of a big old dog.
Say hello to Luey y’all, if you haven’t already been inundated by his mug on instagram:
I go to choir on Monday nights no matter the state of my work & household & it means asking my spouse to cut out of work a bit early. Choir isn’t for performing, it’s just a group of folks singing together for the joy of it. And it’s good, even when my voice is flat.
My buddy Lynda is in a group of ballet dancers called the Silver Swans- and if you’ve never seen bodacious women with silver hair dancing in tutus, you are missing out. It is a thing of raucous beauty.
I think about running towards my life when I take off a day when I “should” do all my piling up adulting & instead go play and look my kid in the eye. She’s 5 & 1/2.
5.5 is turning out to be an incredibly amazing age of fun and precocious sayings that trill out her mouth (and her mumbly cussing to herself, oh mon dieu, her little ways are hilarious). She hums and sings constantly and I’m not going to miss it when I remember not to, because let’s be honest I’m totally going to miss out on so much; kids fly into becoming adults.
I hear women time and again tell me about all the enriching things they are driving their kids around to, and I think about all the dreams I’ve heard them put down for themselves.
And I’m here telling you that I think maybe we thrive through the struggle by being a little more selfish when it comes to what brings us joy.
Wear all the dresses
My buddy Sarah got married recently. She got a hold of me way back asking me to make her a little something for part of her celebrations based off an old bedsheet shirt I’d made and I said, “For you? Anything.”
When the flood disaster happened in our part of the world she reached out and said, “Priorities have changed for you, don’t worry about my gown.”
-but making her gown(s) gave me joy.
And then she kept delighting - she had a gown for every part of her dinners and celebrations and I just kept thinking: Good for you!!! Yes!! More!
Let’s draw out the time we spend celebrating love and friendship and family.
Let’s wear a dozen dresses and light all the best beeswax candles all the time.
Sarah & Mimi running towards their joy
Thriving instead of surviving
*Trigger warning- sexual battery
This afternoon I was on the phone with my best friend going over if it was ok that I put in the rental listing that I would be coming round (with advanced warning) to weed the exquisite front perennial garden of our sweet little rental house. I say “our” because this sweet home and garden has been the refuge for me + all my besties and my brother for the last couple decades, and that wasn’t a southernism, my brother lived with us all too at one point…
I got a call that I assumed was a potential renter, so we hung up and I answered. But it wasn’t a renter, it was the DA, calling to tell me that the ancient acupuncturist who put his hands on me over a year and a half ago is set to be sentenced this week, did I want to make a statement or attend?
It was a cold douse of water on a typical January day. I hadn’t forgotten, but I had moved on.
When I asked about the other survivors, because there were many of us, the DA informed me that the human that had been all over the news relocated far away and was very happy & living joyfully. I can’t tell you what that did for me to hear about her. That felt like a needed triumph.
I hadn’t forgotten, but I had been to therapy. I hadn’t forgotten but I did let it fall to the bottom of the forest floor on many hikes, and under my feet through tons of kitchen night dances and it was no where near me last year when I flew to France and met the most amazing women and taught my heart out. I didn’t think of him -I thrived and I helped out in my community. We put on concerts, and hosted a big old market. We adopted the biggest dog our county’s shelter has had in years and we are thinking about our summer garden. I’m buying local dahlia tubers for my bad choices made last fall.
I don’t think of myself as a survivor because I’m too busy spinning the life I want and loving my people to smithereens and crafting special gowns for special muses, and thinking about what pieces I want to make to traipse down cobblestone streets in France wearing, and cajoling my friends to come too (and if they do I’m thinking about what special lil something I’m going to make them that they don’t know about…)
I don’t necessarily know the secret of surviving but I do know something about thriving in the face of hardship and pain.
I do know that the biggest bit of healing in my world has come from how damn happy I am. How much fuller my world has grown from leaning in and helping folks during these last hard months in our hard-hit region and how the song that we sing at choir, “We are the light, I see it in your eyes” is pretty much everyone’s favorite. Not just because it’s fun to sing, (and it’s really fun to sing) -but because it’s so damn true.
Grab your dancing shoes my babes, it’s time to dance/run towards that golden valley of the time we’ve got and the ones we love. Do it now, please don’t wait on that mythical someday. You are worth your most fulfilling hopes & joys.
We still have a couple places for the Fabrics of France x Queen Robe Retreat. Join us, and pass it along to that incredible friend you hope comes too
Damn girl! You are good! I see a book of essays coming