Yesterday, a woman with two wiener dogs made me cry. This is notable primarily because I rarely cry out in the wild because someone did something to upset me. Not anymore, at least. Here's what happened: I was trying to deliver a book to a customer that lives in an apartment on the second floor... Continue Reading →
Impermanence, Presence, and Peanut Butter & Jelly
I'm on Day 16 of a 30 Day (online) Yoga Camp. This isn't the first time I've committed to a daily yoga practice. I think the longest I did was 90 days or so. Every time I commit to sustained daily practice, I learn something new. Yoga tends to meet you where you are. Which... Continue Reading →
Grace & Ease
When I signed up for AA*, it was with the understanding that they were going to fix me. Although I'd mostly pulled my shit together from the outside, on the inside I was a mess. I felt suffocated by shame, terrified of actually experiencing real emotion, and mostly just broken. Oh, and I was completely... Continue Reading →
Inner Voices are Bananas
Folks used to say AA would completely ruin drinking for you. Obvi, right? But here's a truth you have to understand before that statement can make one iota of sense to you: addiction is based on lies. In active addiction, you lie to yourself. To other people. To the Universe. And the lie that keeps... Continue Reading →
But Is It SPIRITUAL Enough?
Since I started writing every weekday, my meditation practice has gotten bumped. Which, you know, is about the worst idea ever. But I've got this idea that all the "for me" things have to be done before 8 a.m.* Except running. Which I'm willing to fit in whenever--because I need people to like me, and... Continue Reading →
Secrets Are Small Soul-Deaths
A woman who carries a secret is an exhausted woman.Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés I gave up being exhausted in late 2008. For 33 years, I'd been collecting secrets (big and utterly minuscule) and stacking them precariously in various corners of my soul. Which meant I couldn't round a corner without... Continue Reading →
Confidential to New(ish) AntiRacists: Get a Life Raft
I don't know everything. Hell, I don't know most things. But here's one thing I'm sure of: if you are a white person getting down to the hard, soul-searching work of becoming anti-racist, you're going to need a life raft. Because there's a tidal wave of rage, grief, regret, and full-blown horror headed your way.... Continue Reading →
It’s Funny. And It’s Not.
When quarantine feels a little too weighty for me--when the stark gravity of living in a horror-filmesque world puts me right on the razor's edge of true terror--I pause and think how much worse it would be if I was still drinking. And it always makes me laugh. Because holy mother of pearl, I was... Continue Reading →
High Horses
I've got a long history of martyrdom. Not in the heroic, up-in-flames kind, either. Nope. Just the kind that chooses misery and suffers (mostly) silently for it. What the hell, right? It's a bit murky, even for me. But I think it goes something like this: If I choose to do something that I don't... Continue Reading →
Wolfy Wisdom: Home
If there is but one force which feeds the root of pain, it is the refusal to learn beyond this moment.Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves I left Florida because I couldn't live my life on cruise control anymore. Yeah yeah. I know: palm trees and beachy breezes. But, enticing as they... Continue Reading →