Tag: #sharingjourneys

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Sensitive is The New Strong, Dying to be Me.

“And you’ve come from a good place with a happy family, the only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. Find someone who plants flowers in the darkest parts of you.”ZB

As I sit here this morning, in my favorite window of me time in the morning. I am reveling in the notion that if you travel deeply, you keep returning to the same things again and again.

For example this morning I’m reading Anita Mooriani’s Sensitive is the new strong. It was around 2013, while working amidst the produce at Trader Joe’s in the wee hours of the morning I was listening to Dying to Be Me. It was with the first generation of Apple headphones and the iPhone with the button in the center, or earlier if I recall.

I resonated deeply with that book, though it was very hard to believe at the time, and my mind still tends towards skepticism, even as I am a believer.

I also listened to Paulo Coehlo books then, the Valkries, the Pilgrimage, etc.

A line: “you can’t unknow what you know” stands out to me, about any experience we have really.

I sit and think why didn’t I stand up for myself in so many ways, for so many things?!

When someone is actually telling you the truth to you, without being direct. I think of all I would have said. But I don’t think long on it now because there’s life to be lived and joy to be had, and of course because this is me, work to be done.

So I’m revisiting my birthright of sensitivity and the many resources needed to keep me in a good place with it. Very helpful. Also the highly sensitive person in love, by Dr Elaine Aron.

My traumatized mind grasping always to control its external environment, when the internal is so disorganized. Now I do the opposite.

I am building a home inside myself. A palace really.

Yesterday was the culmination of watching This is Us. It’s my new favorite written show. So much in there that makes you think, triggers and epiphanies alike. Of course because it’s tv if you let it, it could make you feel terrible about your life. All those warm and wise conversations about the important things between parents and children. I’m not naive to the knowledge without a written script many of us didn’t get that, or dole it out.

But it’s never too late to start.

Knowing who you want to be is as necessary as knowing who you are. I enjoy the journey of both. I am enjoying them.

I’m a UConn Husky Mom now! That’s exciting! I move a child into college for time number two in August. One more birdy out of the nest, and another migrating home for a few months before her next venture.

I will blink and the kids will have their own nests and flock home less, but still hopefully often. I have a wide open array of possibilities in life, still, always. I’m hopeful to rise to that occasion, even if that means allowing myself to sit and read a novel in an afternoon, without feeling I’ve missed a thing.

I don’t need to be in a hurry to capture everything. I just took a deep satisfying breath.

My window of time with the morning is closing soon. Everyone is buzzing about the eclipse. It’ll be time to walk the dogs, give Henri her medicine, carry her up and down the stairs, feed them. Take a walk and a shower. The shower is such a great part. All the thoughts gently cascading, all the recharge from the water….

And then to enter the day.

Taking twin A for blood work for her first time. She’s nervous. I know what that feels like, and usually I’m the last to say you’ll be fine, and to be reassuring. I’m more likely to be awkward and say something scary. My mind can be a delightful playground of deeply imprinted survival mechanics.

I’m just trying to take off the suit.

This is an homage to a dear friend. His is much cuter than mine of course. Mine is probably more like a Spartan, he the Pink Ranger.

Another day trying to connect with the humans and not be too sensitive to saying the wrong thing, as I often do in my real life, contrasted by often having exactly what someone needs in my professional one.

As I heal and create new comfort zones outside the walls of my original ones. As I build. I look forward to bridging those gaps. Filling the bullet holes inside myself with new skin, bone, flesh, and blood.

Less a project and more, perfection from birth that I wasn’t able to see.

With new mirrors and lenses I invite the day.

Hello world give me what you have for me, and I vow to show up with integrity, honor, and to be of service.

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Reading A Little Life, While Living A Big One

Willem and Jude

I am reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. As I continuously recognize the magnitude of trauma through the story of others, I close the distance gaps between mine and me.

There’s a line in the book about how a human being could be so thoroughly bifurcated, and that has haunted me ever since.

Is that what I was (am), bifurcated?

And much more specifically not just from my other half, an other half, but from my personality, my soul’s essence. It’s heartbreaking to even write. As the truth seeps inside my skin and takes root.

I recognize, that I recognize the magnitude and then it disappears before my very eyes like the proverbial bird in the magicians cage once the cloth has been drawn back.

Each day a blank canvas in the way that only a survivor can understand, as if nothing has ever existed before. The only thing holding a human life together at times is the glue of the people around them, who they hold shared experiences with. I’ve taken for granted that hallowed glue, and yet I haven’t.

I have known how important and this knowing led me to rush desperately, or maybe it was the trauma and not the knowing that caused that, and to create these unions out of a place of desperation.

See what I do there? How I take responsibility for things I couldn’t possibly be responsible for. But then how does one figure it all out anyway. What is theirs and what is not theirs and what is fair has no place in the realm of humanity. Because things are simply not fair.

Fair is a striving if anything, it is not granted by some mystical or even judicial force, and it’s certainly not a perfect system.

Rather these days I think what is the lesson, and the lesson is always love. Not in simply a romantic sense but an all encompassing one.

Is material like this this so relatable because of my many life experiences and similarity or some divine force that has me connect with exactly what is needed at the time?! Both.

Do I bore you going on and on and answering my own questions in your presence? I cannot attach to that it isn’t my business anyway if you’re bored or not. And besides what do I always say?! You’ll never be bored. I’m not boring and my life is certainly not, though it can be quiet and peaceful now.

I’m learning to allow that.

Anyway this book and watching This is Us for the first time, has me breaking open daily.

There’s something about watching two people sharing life together that want their children that work hard at loving them well, that well just flays me open.

No surprise there.

Watching a father love his children and do his best, and the same for a mother. And how they balance their dreams and their own desires with that.

And how fucked up my path looks in comparison, which is why we don’t do that.

If I look at my life individually the whole story it’s so much easier to see the beauty in it. Watching families who love each other and have traditions and traditional anything just sets my skin aflame like the emotional burn victim I am.

Do you see my scars?

This book though. This show though.

Piece by piece I’m collecting me and I’m putting together a self that has all her original essence, from all the shards.

It’s slow.

There is no longer a rush. It’s slow and beautiful. Everything is art. Every meal cooked and eaten. Every dark thought banished by compassion.

This book opens me. My clients open me. Life opens me. It’s exquisite and excruciating and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A continual surrender. A cease fire on myself. And finally burying my armor and replacing it with something realistic, something lighter…..

C

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Evermore this Love Affair with Me. Getting to Know her.

❤️💜 11:11 published

I’m having a mad love affair with the song evermore this morning. I want to touch the keys of my piano and tune my ear to the sounds. The ones that make people feel. Rhythm that can’t be ignored. A siren call. Satellite call.

So many empty hours before me wanting, needing.

No desperation,

only stillness.

I’m learning a course in miracles, lesson 8 this am is about how the egoic mind clings to the past and creates it to replay over into your present unless you become aware of this.

The only true thought is that the past is no longer present: makes room for new creation.

New lessons,

rather than loops of old ones,

chasing your tail.

I’m getting used to these orthotics. Right now arch support feels like arch assault. But I think ultimately the whole posture is positively impacted by the right nurturing. Isn’t that about right for a metaphor for life.

I saw killer of the flower moon yesterday. The new Scorsese film. Really eye opening. So much to unpack there about manipulation, privilege, and a whole variety of things.

I enjoy seeing movies in the theater. What I’m really finding important about this now is not multi tasking. Just being present and absorbed into someone’s creation. So many pieces went into it.

How good it feels to be with the present moment. And there are many ways that’s hard also. The losses creep up and haunt.

While what might have been no longer consumes me, it’s sometimes a bitter pill.

This is where faith is really important. And letting go of control.

Allowing

That’s my current mission.

Tonight is family time at the Figg cooking school.

A friend is visiting. I’ve known him since way back, he visits every year, and every year it’s a motivator to plan things together. Kinda sounds like family right ?! That elusive promised thing, that was so missing for so long.

But look at me I make one wherever I go. I create family easily, and that requires an open heart. Before it was at times a desperate act without enough thought to not also create harm. I’m sorry.

No

I’m really sorry.

Sorry doesn’t cover it. For irresponsible actions on my part that caused pain. And I’m also aware if we are going to risk anything in this lifetime hurt will happen. I will not use that as a justification, but I will use the understanding to allow healing.

That’s where I am right now.

I walk, I think, I read, I love, I understand…..

Funny Miley Cyrus is now singing I miss me more. May I everyone find that really important aspect of love.

In balance with one’s own desires and destiny if you will. If you won’t that’s ok too. My beliefs are solid and also open to modification as I understand more.

Two miles, that’s good for now. I have admin to enjoy doing, and some chores.

I love being in my office. It’s my own home within my home. Sacredness is in there. People come there to heal, to feel their hurts, and I do too. Beautiful love and life.

Tomorrow I write. I can’t wait. I’m waiting breathlessly for that ability to be fully me, to fully express everything anything I want.

Writing is safe.

It’s my constant loved one.

Consistency is so nice these days, but also not rigid or caged within it. Consistent forward movement come what may.

Maybe I will …….

All my love,

C

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Saturday Morning Conversations with God and Myself.

Lap one: My head is full and distracted. My body groans and rebels. I am preoccupied, filled also with all that isn’t mine.

Lap two: I begin to feel free. My muscles lubricate and begin to remember their innate abilities, outside of the domestication.

Lap three: the emotions, truth, and calm surface.

Lap four: at this point beyond my threshold so things begin to groan and grind.

I listen better to my body now. I listen better to you.

I’ll never scream my needs again, over and over making my throat raw.

Running ragged in bloody circles.

Out of my own bounds.

I can love you better like this.

When I meet my own needs.

For me being whole is a full time job. That’s not forever. It will settle into a natural rhythm, just as the tides and the seasons.

I’m enjoying my Dj feature on Spotify.

Posting the songs that resonate with my heart at this time.

Bliss

I won’t make promises I can’t know if I can keep. A promise to myself. Not selling some version of myself or seeking some magic panacea.

I have everything I need to live simply the rest of my life. I don’t need all I began to complicate my life, with when I got excited about abundance.

I am paring down to the essentials….

My idea of it now is simplicity, not being able to buy or do anything I want. That’s a perk of a hustle I call a passion, and it’s a natural side effect, not the compelling why.

Alignment

That’s what I’m focused on.

Me focused ?! Did you hear that right. Ha. I laugh at myself.

I used to take myself too seriously and everything felt like life and death. I’m happy to no longer be burning through the years I have like that.

No matter the feeling, if something is incongruent or you have to cross your own boundaries, it won’t work.

Real or unreal is an unnecessary question. The distracting one. The scaffolding. The illusion.

It’s all real and all part of my story. That’s what it is.

Now claim it Christina

Only reality is king, and when we argue with it we suffer tremendously.

I am devoutly interested in reality as it is. Not distracted with grandiose fantasies, thousands running through my brain to distract it from the pain in there.

I hold pain differently now. On my good days. On the bad ones I pray and I walk and I rest.

This is the first time I’ve done the third lap in a long time. Will there be a cost?! Who interested in a but I enjoy defying my own gravity when it’s not too harmful.

Walk the talk.

Working at staying humble.

That’s what works for me.

While still getting a little excited at the strength of my own voice.

I don’t want to be a star. I want to be a servant.

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Stephen King October’s and Writer’s Who Keep Getting Back up and Trying…..

Normalizing this 💜💜💜❤️❤️❤️

I realize it’s been too long since I’ve written in here. Beginning again requires no grand gesture, except to splay my words upon the page.

Life is so different now than it’s ever been for me.

The kitchen window is open. I can hear the cars splashing through the wet pavement on High st. There’s a bathroom window open, and it’s making a door creak slightly every so often.

I’m reading Stephen King’s Needful Things. Marveling at how he takes a concept and a belief of his, sets it to quirky characters. Creates a setting based on a place he loves, and takes his shot. His art. How small town washed up people become prone to obsession over items that bring them nostalgia or comfort. What they are willing to do to anyone, to be able to feel better.

In the movie, a young Ed Harris plays Alan Pangborn, the town sheriff. The book is better of course.

I marvel at how I can read a chilling description of two women killing each other and not be kept up at night. Perhaps my ability to find the art in this fiction stays my traumatized mind from its post. I typical do not like to fill it with horror. I have enough reels of my own, should I want a chill during spooky season.

I’m mostly focused on being present. And realizing how much I wasn’t. How unwell and dissociated I had been a lot of my life, without really being aware of it. That has been a slow burn. Burning off shame. Shedding self-consciousness ,and seeing what lies under all of that.

That’s where I am.

It’s a process that requires time and cultivating, and I’m committed.

I’m still figuring out balance with that regard.

Since I’m forty I moved wrong the other day. I am now on steroids and doing physical therapy two times weekly. Lol. So that’s happening. I used to freak at the smallest setback physically. So now I just allow life to pause me when needed.

I began working with a new client last night. They work in a profession I’m intrigued with. The person was very solid and grounded, and my energy matched suit during the session. The person is in their 60’s so that makes sense. Of course that’s not the only factor. But I really enjoyed holding space for their story, and having the privilege of them entrusting their heart and pain to me upon our first meeting.

People’s beautiful resilience and heart captivate me in such a way. I am starting to be able to believe I could be captivating too.

Without being constantly pushed by any force to get out into the world, I now believe it is beginning to happen naturally. And I believe those that have told me the world needs to hear what I have to say.

So I’m working on gaining security behind my voice. Peeling back layers of shame and trauma that attempt to sabotage my goals and dreams.

I read, I walk, I write, I counsel, I love, and therefore I am.

My relationships with my children are healing nicely. It’s still a lot to be with the ways I’ve caused them pain from my own ignorance and my own traumas. I have to continue to make amends and forgive myself, and that’s no easy feat.

I love my clients past and present. I think about them in my daily life and send them love and light.

I think about my life experiences and those I have loved deeply. With every part of me, and how those experiences have shaped me.

I’m doing a course in miracles.

I’m about to go on a cruise to Bermuda. Only slightly nervous about the possibility of motion sickness, as my body likes to feel firmly planted and in control. Ha, what an illusion. I don’t know if that, or the fact I won’t work for 8 ish days is the more frightening prospect. Both are uncharted territory.

Which is a theme lately in my personal counseling. I am in uncharted territory my counselor said to me the other day. Mostly outside my pattern in most way, maybe some days slipping inside it a little.

What can I say I’m a work in progress.

I’m really happy I wrote this post and I’m hopeful I’m ready to make this a weekly if not a daily practice.

Oh and I’m obsessed with learning Spanish on Duolingo. I marvel at how my brain can recall so much and it’s just there without even trying. I often struggled at age normative times to learn another language. And it’s thrilling to realize that was likely because so much space was taken in my brain by hyper vigilance.

I marvel at the gift of being able to be understanding of myself now, and to be able to communicate in a way I feel understood, which is the real magic.

My heart is continuing to open. I’m more consistent with so many things, and that’s a path I’m very grateful to be walking. No longer beating myself into submission. Less remissions, sparsely placed omissions. Oh there I go rhyming. Can’t help it.

All my love,

C

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Sometimes Love is Just Trying….

I’m listening to Zach Bryan.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll end up returning to my grocery store roots, due to the simplicity of it all. Or bookstore shelves and handing bags of dreams across the counter and smiling. The smell of coffee…. Casi Cielo season.

Another trip around the Sun.

A simple beautiful story. Nothing extraordinary. Everything extraordinary. Glorious contradictions. The story of a human life.

A simple life. A person I can be proud of, while also being real and human.

All of it.

One mile no matter what. No matter how cold, how hot, how wet, how tired.

Sometimes a human is a vessel that can hold tremendous amounts of suffering. They can hold more than it appears. We are all just walking around filled with ashes of our burned and dead things, and trying to still smile and function for our why’s.

The only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. That’s a sad lyric.

Covid in the rear view and also not, step on those lantern bugs, lions and tigers and masks and then there’s my past. A beast and demon I can never seem to get past.

So I sit and feed the monster all my parts. It stands over me smiling eating my heart.

Now that’s dark.

And there’s light too, and there’s always room.

All I need to do is write and walk.

It’s my life and my story and it’s big and beautiful and light and dark.

Unbroken

Remember that movie where his strength of mind carried his body through horrors.

Some humans have so much pain to hold.

Sometimes it’s too much to take.

All you can do is rest….

See I separated there. You can see the crack, feel the tear.

Try another day and time to do the repair….

All my love,

C

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There’s no Wrong way, There’s Nothing Wrong about me….

So I’m on a health kick, actually let’s call it a revolution because it’s a lifestyle change, it’s whole. Rarely in my lifetime have I lost weight in a healthy way. I’m just realizing that now. I’ve lost weight in being devastated or starving myself so I could feel more attractive to someone else but never for me.

I’m realizing how much effort I must put in to trust. To repair my relationship with my own trust. That’s what sobriety is about for me. Repairing my trust in myself. Which a) I don’t think I’ve had much in a consistent way, and b) there were some significant breaks in it that when misunderstood I used my own information against myself. Fell on my own sword.

So now I wield the thing a lot more mindfully.

I wouldn’t say carefully because I have that much self awareness. There’s an edge and a fierceness and a pace of me that I’d like to think is part of my authentic self and there for a reason rather than a set of symptoms. Sorting through my rubble and piecing together a self I want to leave as a legacy has been my life’s work, and I’m less ashamed of that and more proud these days.

A former partner’s spouse has reached out to me. They are moving far away for two years, they asked if we would come have dinner before they leave. I find myself thinking about it this morning. That some of my relationships yielded lifelong bonds where love still exists and is allowed. Nothing wrong about it. Those with healthy boundaries and senses of self are able to do that without there being anything dangerous present.

Clean. Clear. And I can receive that love. And not worry where I belong or drown in a pool or self made shame. We have moved on, we are all adults, and what’s beautiful is what we meant in one another’s lives.

What’s beautiful is the way her wife honors her connection with my children and is open.

I think about some of my pain at a past situation where my reaction appeared not supportive of family first and I almost gaslight myself in hindsight but then I don’t. These days I have my back vehemently. The difference is my feelings on the matter would have been considered as part of the equation.

My greatest work these days is being mindful beyond my trauma reflexes and responses, of how those things affect those I love. I am the worst with affect and effect. Why is that one so hard for me?!

Anyway this morning I’m marveling at how big my family is. Family defined as those that want to be near your energy simply because they appreciate what it brings to their life. That’s the ticket folks. Or it’s my ticket anyway to the show I want to be at.

I am a writer who is writing. I am a mom who is momming. I show the fuck up and I intend to be loud and proud about that without believing it to be grandiosity or demanding or something it’s not. Something I’m not.

Fear will not drive my car, bus, airstream, tank, nervous system, choices, anything. It’ll be buckled into the toddler seat.

We watched instant family last night and I recognize why I get so emotional at that movie now. I relate so much except I never got those parents who didn’t give up on me, and you know what?! I became one anyway, somehow, and I’ve traveled through my own hell to be on the path I am on now.

I’m proud every day of myself. I’ll shout it and fly my flag. So many types of pride for me, in everything I am and everything I will become.

Theories and dreams were always foreshadowing and I recognize that now.

So today I’m two weeks sober. Quitting all addictions that don’t serve me one step at a time. So there’s more room, for learning, for reading, for loving. More room to discover my gifts and to share them. How I want to be living my life.

Anyway I have a client walking down into my office very shortly….

So I’ll write more soon…

But for now you can find me getting consistent about movement, being joyfully in my body and reading and writing….

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Pondering My Own 365 Sober Adventure…..

Coming soon …….

Good morning ! It’s beautiful out. I’m here for it. My toes are itchy and uncomfortable due to the two giant water blisters that currently inhabit my pinky ones. Due to wearing the cool shoes to see Pink at Fenway this past week.

This didn’t stop me however from seeing her again at Citi Field two nights later. It’s Pink! And she’s every bit as infectious and enthusiastic about life and what she does as I thought. I’d like to catch this infection please.

I already have silly.

Anyway I’m groggy this morning. Very over-tired. Lots of late nights and events as I prepare to launch twin B into the world in a few short days.

I am blessed.

I couldn’t keep a pace like this for anything, nor would I want to. I love doing things and all, but I am someone who likes a lot of quiet contemplation and I’m finally allowing that to exist rather than making it mean something negative or wrong.

I’m always something negative or wrong or doing something wrong is the survivors general default setting.

This morning I’m reading Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington and being concerned about my elderly dog, and thinking about attachment and life in general. Henri may have suffered a stroke, or it may be an ear infection and clear up. The jury is still out. So I am carefully poised for a potential loss of my longest relationship with a pet and my constant office companion.

I am anyway, regardless of this situation, she’s thirteen years old. So that has been weighing heavily on my heart lately.

I have three clients today, for the first Saturday in what 9 of them or so?! This is because of a second Pink concert so I can’t be mad about it. I’m just not used to it.

I’m thinking about hiking at Southford Falls tomorrow morning and then maybe some writing at a little coffee shop nearby before my writing immersion from 12-3. My writing immersion is coming close to an end and I’m not sure what the heck I’m going to do after. I will have to set something similar up, because it’s a necessary way of life for me to regularly write and share my pieces and I’ve found my way further into that journey, and subsequently my body. Go figure.

I’ve got a million Pink lines in my head playing at random. Battling for space with all of the rest. Counseling theories. Memories. Dreams. My to do list: write my newly found Aunt back, practice Duolingo, connect with my cousin, and so many others….

Now that the heat waves aren’t as intense I’m eager to get back into my walking routine which is very comforting.

I snuggled a baby boy last night and spent time with friends.

I had therapy yesterday and still continue to turn corners and heal in ways I never imagined I could. I surprise myself often.

This morning I’m contemplating committing to a year without drinking and to write about it. Here of course. What I notice. It’s largely a decision for my health.

I just want to be fully awake and present and not tamp that down with anything. I prefer life that way, but it’s so easy to get caught up in social events and norms and to use it to lubricate my squeaky gears and self-conscious parts.

I think for me I’ll need to make it a project and document my emotions and make a commitment to it, or it will be so easy to just have a drink for this or that reason. The sober project? Will I give it a name ?! Hmmm.

I believe in being made more whole by any commitment undertaken in earnest that’s stuck too, and exploring the emotions it unearths. The archeologist of my own bones if you will.

I want a deeper commitment and attachment to myself and my own emotional process and to truly take the time to know her, inch by inch, inside and out.

I’m ready to really explore the role substance has in my life without using stories to absolve my discomfort etc.

I wonder how it will change my life? Now to pick a start date without doing well there’s this event or that event. There always is. Let me go think on this and see my clients before my massage. I can’t wait to relax today!

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Darken The City, Night is a Wire…. Do do do do do do dooooo do.

Do you believe in signs ?! …..

I’m at the New York Athletic Club, in the city that never sleeps. It doesn’t but believe me I do, or there is hell to pay. I’m old now 😉 I was old from the start, even when I was new.

I found out recently I was premature. 5 lbs 2 oz. I believe. I wonder what I was exposed to inside of her. From what I knew outside the odds aren’t in my favor.

I have these new connections with family that feel very grounding and positive and this morning I’m in awe and contemplation.

Is this what most of the other people I know have always had, just naturally. This feeling that they won’t just fly out into space at any moment.

A dear friend once said to me to keep defying gravity. Gravity I think. The invisible force that tethers one to earth. I was untethered and often unbridled and my defense system would shout that I wouldn’t change a thing. But now that I know what I know. You can’t unknow and all of that. I can’t even say that.

What is this feeling?

A feeling of solidness, inhabiting my body. Being at a dinner party with famous Broadway actors and actresses and not feeling less something, less anything.

Famous didn’t matter. It was an intimate gathering, natural. All people passionate about their arts. Some happy and fulfilled, some not as much. There were also wounds at that table. We all have them, some are just more apparent than others.

Yesterday we went to Westsider Rare and Used bookstore. I want to ravage every single one in this city. To touch every spine, cover, and page. To know which one I like best. To feel the knowledge pressing in around me, to hear all the voices of all of those brave writers that made it to the point where they were bound, gathered, and artfully decorated.

I’m ready for a cover and a title and a brand. Brand new. Look at you Christina. You can be and do anything. So what will it be? The crushing weight of possibility. No more crushing weight, only an unbearable lightness of being, he just died recently by the way.

One of the great loves of my life, very early on, came upon me reading Milan Kundera, the book of the very name of above, in a break room in a Trader Joe’s. I had a wedding ring on. I had more naïve enthusiasm than most would know what to do with at that time

All balls and no brain. Which is exactly what I needed to propel me out of a life I was not meant for.

I’ve been shot out of a cannon many times since so to speak. Jet propulsion. My swift expulsion from everything comforting. Including my self concept. Which is more than jarring, it’s actually quite alarming: disarming.

Apparently I’m a wrapper. Who knew. How much is channeled by my early days of resonance with Eminem’s music. Curtain Call. Relatable. It’s not debatable. My mind likes to rhyme.

One of my book store picks this time at random is Junot Diaz This is How You Lose Her. The cover looks interesting, actually not really so much. His name was in a compilation of writers on writing and this made me curious who he is as a writer.

I watched Ammonite the other day. I am haunted by it lately. Still sorting out what that is about. Can’t stop rhyming. Everything in divine timing….

A walk in the park and a stationary store before heading home on the train today. Muji…. I’m told the pages are creamy, buttery, gold.

I just sent out for my passport yesterday. And got two sheets of stamps. I love them. I got Toni Morrison ones and Love ones with puppy’s and hearts.

Here at the NYAC there’s an old fashioned looking letter drop. Between that and the stamps I want to write letters. The art of the letter is long lost.

I write letters that will never go to their recipients, ones only I will ever see. So many of the connections in my life are like that. Extinguished and never without good reason.

I spent so much time second guessing myself. Only to end up here where validation is around every corner and I am safely held.

I just put three new clients on the books yesterday morning. These are a little out of my comfort zone, something I haven’t done in awhile. Hopefully the freshness will be good for all involved.

Fresh eyes, no lies.

The truth will set you free. It always does. There are times I haven’t wanted to be free. I wanted to be held.

You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.

Ok for now back to writing and exploring this iron jungle melting pot, before it gets too hot.

Stay Tuned ….

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Learn From Everything… Heart Openings. Family Ties….

I choose to learn from those that are loving.

So it’s a Saturday morning. Most of the years of my life I would have been working right now. In fact I had been seeing the same client at that time for about 6 years now I believe. They are now in a different time slot.

This is maybe my seventh Saturday, but whose counting 😉 I now have two full real estate days to create, work, play, etc from…. I can see a favorite plant on the deck in my view right now. I’m a little chilly so before I continue I’ll put on my Untamed zip up and heat my coffee that I still haven’t drank yet.

How many times will I heat this thing up. And life isn’t even busy. Usually we make ourselves busy. Today I’m enjoying some love cleaning. Not to be confused by rage cleaning, neurotic cleaning, or any other variety. There are so many.

On my mind most lately is alone time. Lake house ? Maybe?! Monastery? Maybe. It feels so aggrandizing to speak of feeling closer to spiritual enlightenment and yet I think that’s true. It’s just pure peace. Knowing you can have all the knowledge but not a breathless need to practice it, especially on someone else.

On my mind lately is also the organization of finances and how the hell does anyone decide what to spend on and what not to if you’re being mindful.

I’m tired of mindless. And while most things in my life or not I fall into spending habits that are more behavioral and unconscious than I prefer. So I’m working on that. I’m sure any readers can relate to the amount of money spent on Amazon monthly. Even a business write off, because most are books, is not a justification I can endure any longer.

I crave moving towards minimalism and away from anything I don’t need. I crave to simplify stuff and amplify experiences. However I have a tendency to do the opposite.

I’m currently reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He wrote the legend of baggar Vance, which I actually don’t know much about. The book is about creativity and resistance. I’ve often said resistance takes many forms and he summarizes that in neat concepts in the book. An easy and powerful read!

I’m also reading The Inner Life of The Counselor by Robert Wicks. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, A Separate Peace, and about a million other things.

I’m taking many less baths, which is interesting. Hmmm I could take one now actually. Not a bad idea. I’m working my way through all or nothing behavior as well as thinking. Challenging it.

I tend to be all in my head and not in my body, and when I do get into my body all sorts of complications occur right now. So that’s something I’m being with and sorting through. There are wounds there. There is loss there. That sometimes I just cannot come to grips with.

Through that process I’m learning to be and accept myself and slowly ever so slowly eeking the poison out. The criticism, the gaslighting, the minimizing, the hyper vigilance. The judgment, the fear, the raw pain.

Healing for me, I am finding, is a lifetime art. It doesn’t have to be all dark and storms, even though yes those are there.

Anyway here I am, this is me, working to be wild and free while also contained in a safe land I’m building inside of me.

In the words of Emily Dickinson I’m out with Lanterns looking for myself.

Today’s agenda besides a lunch engagement is to clean my work desk and organize myself to focus on some of my tasks I’ve been procrastinating. An elaborate method of self-harm. But I’m so good at it. But I don’t want to be. Stop it kids. Everyone get along.

My to do list is massive it includes the next wave of changing my last name. All major tasks are done, but smaller ones, weeding out the old (and sacred), the weeds are magical too, the building blocks of my now self were nourished and founded on those.

It includes renewing my passport with my correct info, because I believe some travel is coming up soon. Positano maybe. Looking. Listening.

It includes finishing the process to become licensed in Florida. I will not ever be residing there, I can barely tolerate visiting. But when a beloved long time client relationship moves, you do what you must. And maybe there’s also another reason I don’t know yet.

Then mundane things like paying car taxes and bills, remembering to have the boiler serviced before the season this year etc.

We currently have no washer and dryer, and no flooring in the basement and a mess down there. So calls to the insurance company to follow up are also in order.

Breathe. Breathe is on the list.

And then next week my cousin is coming to visit. An honest to God blood relative that I have a few fond memories with and a felt connection that has spanned the years.

I have become sentimental. Some might say I always was, but I feel the variety maybe of it is different now.

I took a journey on 23 and me and now have three blood relatives I’m in contact with that in enthusiastic about and hold possibility not only for more knowledge about who and where I come from, but also warm, grounding, belonging in the realm of family.

It’s not desperate or seeking. It’s sturdy and profound.

I have also come into contact with my father’s sister and she seems amazing. She calls me niece and it feels nice. Simple and profound. She lives in Washington State near a state forest and that sounds amazing. I feel validated and loved and I never imagined I’d have family I could feel that way with.

Magic is happening. Loss still burns. There are still holidays and birthdays and memories that have left gaping holes. The story can be resolved, but the emotions are much different. They have a mind of their own.

Well that’s all I have for today. I want to KIS, keep it simple and in digestible amounts for now. I’m learning to do that with most things.

All my love,

C