Lisa, I have been reading your work for years. I thank you so much for sharing your inner world with us. I love writing and poetry because as you said- it helps me navigate my own experience. I think to be able to engineer sentences together to make some sense of this human existence is a gift. You are a gift to me. Your words have resonated deeply- and have been a compass for me. I too was a therapist in private practice and have decided to step away, giving myself the biggest permission slip to not have all the answers and timelines. I’ve been writing more and more- poems fill my notes app. Language can be so limiting at times & also so encompassing. Thank you for your offerings and for your gift to us. Sending much love 🤍
This is so kind, thank you. "So limiting at times and also so encompassing" -- this is the truth! It both limits and opens. Sometimes at once. I so feel and appreciate your reflections here and am grateful for your sharing <3
Loved and needed this. The detail about never laying a finger on your daughter’s journals particularly touched me. Some girls read my diary when I was in the shower on a church field trip once as a middle schooler, and I haven’t thought of this incident in years and years - but it instantly bubbled up when reading about how much you respect your daughter’s privacy. I can still feel the scar left behind by that betrayal and embarrassment to this day.
It really reminds me of how sacred our words are, even if they aren't meant for anyone else -- they are something we get to choose what we do with, and the privacy of that feels so, so important. Notebooks and journals felt like secret doors for me as a child and I truly believe everyone deserves access to their own private sanctuaries than can exist within the pages of a notebook. Thank you for sharing. <3
Yes. Our words, voices, experiences... are sacred. Sacred is a word holding simple expression of immeasurable value - precious, delightful, connective, expansive...
I hear you Alexa. I had to hide mine from my dad when I was a child. It feels so good to leave then around the house now, knowing that my spouse would never dream of opening them. X
Thanks so much for your words, Lisa. Long-time-reader, first-time-commenter. Your writing, your honesty, and your vulnerability have all been so inspiring to me.
Lisa, I love your take on words, knowing they will only reach a small corner of the world. Hoping they might be of benefit to someone who needs that hug in that moment. D
This makes me think about how deeply *hurt* we can be by words. And so it only makes sense that words can also do the opposite - and how important that can truly be. 💚
“ I think about how words weave us together, how they stitch us back up when we feel entirely split down the middle, how they offer an outreached hand and an offering of companionship, how they sustain and support. I think about how what we might assume isn’t anything important or significant ends up being a lighthouse in someone’s day, even if only our own, and what else is more important than that? To turn on the light for one another by way of choosing to say what we have to say? To read the flicker, the glimmer, the words others choose to shine out into the world, becoming more ourselves for their having said what they have to say?” This is really beautiful Lisa. I find myself now that I have started publishing weekly getting caught up in likes and comments and things that are small- and I appreciate when I read something that reminds me of what my intentions in writing are. Since I have started writing in February, I have put some pretty big truths on the page. Even if this light of the truth is only for me to guide my way through the darkness, that is enough.
Writing really does connect people, especially when we stand against the ever-shorter-form of communication desired by today's mainstream social media. Way to stand against it here!
What a fabulous and inspiring read. Thoroughly enjoyed it. There’s certainly a lot there to read and digest so I will definitely be reading it again. Thank you. Ruth😊
I love the Ocean Vuong quote, have not seen it before :-)
Just recently I've been struggling with a deep need for authentic expression/living - contrasting with a subliminal contract I must have signed while being molded into this socially structured existence.
As a human, I want/need to be loved and I need to participate, so I take steps to ensure this happens, and am willing to kill a part of myself in the process.
This is possibly the most challenging, painful, frustrating part of being human, and I'll most likely die still wrestling with it.
However, this is also the ultimate question, puzzle, mystery, and educator I may ever know. Looking deeply and openly into the way I show up, and noticing how it impacts both the way I feel about being alive and how it impacts others and their interest in me is some sort of ultimate razor's edge to walk. Fine edges to existence seem to expose so much... maybe because they are something like a perfect boundary that can define opposites to their finest, subtlest degree.
Your writing, Lisa, exposes us to these opposites, and takes us to the razor's edge - to see the true conflict in greater detail so that we might, finally, understand what we are.
Lisa, I have been reading your work for years. I thank you so much for sharing your inner world with us. I love writing and poetry because as you said- it helps me navigate my own experience. I think to be able to engineer sentences together to make some sense of this human existence is a gift. You are a gift to me. Your words have resonated deeply- and have been a compass for me. I too was a therapist in private practice and have decided to step away, giving myself the biggest permission slip to not have all the answers and timelines. I’ve been writing more and more- poems fill my notes app. Language can be so limiting at times & also so encompassing. Thank you for your offerings and for your gift to us. Sending much love 🤍
This is so kind, thank you. "So limiting at times and also so encompassing" -- this is the truth! It both limits and opens. Sometimes at once. I so feel and appreciate your reflections here and am grateful for your sharing <3
Loved and needed this. The detail about never laying a finger on your daughter’s journals particularly touched me. Some girls read my diary when I was in the shower on a church field trip once as a middle schooler, and I haven’t thought of this incident in years and years - but it instantly bubbled up when reading about how much you respect your daughter’s privacy. I can still feel the scar left behind by that betrayal and embarrassment to this day.
It really reminds me of how sacred our words are, even if they aren't meant for anyone else -- they are something we get to choose what we do with, and the privacy of that feels so, so important. Notebooks and journals felt like secret doors for me as a child and I truly believe everyone deserves access to their own private sanctuaries than can exist within the pages of a notebook. Thank you for sharing. <3
Yes. Our words, voices, experiences... are sacred. Sacred is a word holding simple expression of immeasurable value - precious, delightful, connective, expansive...
I hear you Alexa. I had to hide mine from my dad when I was a child. It feels so good to leave then around the house now, knowing that my spouse would never dream of opening them. X
Ah thank you you for sharing this. So glad that you have that trust and respect with your spouse now.❤️
Thanks so much for your words, Lisa. Long-time-reader, first-time-commenter. Your writing, your honesty, and your vulnerability have all been so inspiring to me.
So grateful for that, thank you 🤍
Lisa, I love your take on words, knowing they will only reach a small corner of the world. Hoping they might be of benefit to someone who needs that hug in that moment. D
Thank you, Dave!
This makes me think about how deeply *hurt* we can be by words. And so it only makes sense that words can also do the opposite - and how important that can truly be. 💚
Thank you for doing what you were made to do. Never stop. Never be turned aside. Eye on the prize.
omg your about the author from your first book is so precious 😭💖
💯 and I forgot to mention that in my comment. Priceless!
“ I think about how words weave us together, how they stitch us back up when we feel entirely split down the middle, how they offer an outreached hand and an offering of companionship, how they sustain and support. I think about how what we might assume isn’t anything important or significant ends up being a lighthouse in someone’s day, even if only our own, and what else is more important than that? To turn on the light for one another by way of choosing to say what we have to say? To read the flicker, the glimmer, the words others choose to shine out into the world, becoming more ourselves for their having said what they have to say?” This is really beautiful Lisa. I find myself now that I have started publishing weekly getting caught up in likes and comments and things that are small- and I appreciate when I read something that reminds me of what my intentions in writing are. Since I have started writing in February, I have put some pretty big truths on the page. Even if this light of the truth is only for me to guide my way through the darkness, that is enough.
jesus how GOOD is this?!!!
I love all of your letters, but this one in particular made me smile more than usual. 💘
Writing really does connect people, especially when we stand against the ever-shorter-form of communication desired by today's mainstream social media. Way to stand against it here!
This is so so gorgeous, you are so talented with words and such an inspiration x
Thank you.
What a fabulous and inspiring read. Thoroughly enjoyed it. There’s certainly a lot there to read and digest so I will definitely be reading it again. Thank you. Ruth😊
I love the Ocean Vuong quote, have not seen it before :-)
Just recently I've been struggling with a deep need for authentic expression/living - contrasting with a subliminal contract I must have signed while being molded into this socially structured existence.
As a human, I want/need to be loved and I need to participate, so I take steps to ensure this happens, and am willing to kill a part of myself in the process.
This is possibly the most challenging, painful, frustrating part of being human, and I'll most likely die still wrestling with it.
However, this is also the ultimate question, puzzle, mystery, and educator I may ever know. Looking deeply and openly into the way I show up, and noticing how it impacts both the way I feel about being alive and how it impacts others and their interest in me is some sort of ultimate razor's edge to walk. Fine edges to existence seem to expose so much... maybe because they are something like a perfect boundary that can define opposites to their finest, subtlest degree.
Your writing, Lisa, exposes us to these opposites, and takes us to the razor's edge - to see the true conflict in greater detail so that we might, finally, understand what we are.
thank you for this fire escape, huddling here, warm