Watching the lettuce grow
and some of what I'm sitting with
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A song I’m loving:
1 — The sweetness of watching the lettuce grow & grow & grow in our newest garden bed; grabbing a leaf of arugula and tasting its bright peppery life on my tongue; feeling the gifts we are given from the earth every single day.
2 — The tenderness of sitting with my manuscript day after day: moving through edits, moving through perfectionism, moving through how much has changed within me even in the last year of writing this book, moving through surrendering the outcome and external to the wind and air, moving through layers to get to the core.
3 — The loud urge to rush toward something next, to get somewhere else, to move onto the future quickly, even as I am mindful of being where I am… this seemingly built-in mechanism of leaving the present moment so easily, and the effort required to come back, again and again… the relief that comes when I remember there are so many things that will require lifelong practice, things that won’t ever be mastered because the practice is part of what they ask of us.
4 — My annoyance with em-dashes being associated with AI as someone who has long used em-dashes and never used AI, and especially not for my writing; my discomfort seeing obvious AI writing being praised and popularized; my discomfort with change and my tendency to dig my heels deeper, rather than go along with it; my wondering of what this technology will do to our brains, to our planet.
5 — The reality that sometimes, when our worst fears come true, we might still somehow be okay — that some of the things we assume will break us actually don’t; the way I’ve lived this truth quietly the last year and a half; the power in this, even amid the grief.
6 — The hurricanes and floods, the bombs and non-beautiful bills being passed, the dismay at what is unfolding, paired with somehow knowing it was coming in some way, the ways my rage is instantly softened at the sight of generosity and kindness, the remembrance of how many people want something more beautiful for all.
7 — The delight of a good baguette and good cheese; the way something so simple can bring so much pleasure.; the desire to keep finding simple pleasures.
8 — A mama turkey and her two babies visiting our backyard every morning lately; sitting on the bench outside with my daughter and hearing her say, “it’s so wonderful sitting in our backyard, watching the turkeys”, letting my cells absorb the wonderfulness.
9 — Trying to push past my distaste for summer; how even already, I’m ready for fall to take root; wondering how I can turn toward what summer might have to offer me that I haven’t let myself learn to receive yet, what I can see with more light.
10 — These words from one of my personal heroes, Carl Rogers:
“A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”
11 — The gift of knowing where validation actually seeps in, which can only be an internally-directed process if it is to be real, felt, and genuine; the gift of knowing validation from the outside will only matter if we already allow it to be true on the inside.
12 — What the world I want for everyone requires of me — what I might need to bolster and build within myself in order to show up in all the ways I want to.
13 — The way A.J Muste stood outside the white house with a lit candle many nights during the Vietnam War and, when a reporter asked him, “Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?” he replied: “Oh I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.”
14 — That being lost feels scary sometimes, but only from unfamiliar places can we truly let ourselves step into new ways of being; the ways lostness can be a doorway of its own, perhaps the place presence is most available.
15 — A repeated reminder: It’s safe to soften. It’s safe to soften. It’s safe to soften.
16 — The vulnerability, the sweetness, the discomfort, the true gift of friendship.
17 — How there will always be unanswered questions we’ll have to sit with, and what not always having the answers can provide in its own way; how not knowing might widen the aperture of mystery, of possibility, of deepening our ability to sit with the great unknown in ways we weren’t sure we could.
18 — These words from Joanna Macy in a conversation she had for On Being (more on her in the links below that I highly suggest looking through):
“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you're worrying about whether you're hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you're showing up, that you're here and that you're finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”
19 — Those moments where you suddenly notice what used to torment you no longer does; the moments you feel the devotion you’ve had to growth and healing becoming lived in, becoming worn in your own life; the moments you recognize how tending to yourself has morphed into fuel for being the person you want to be in the mundane day-to-day; the moments you feel yourself living what you’ve learned in ways you were once waiting for, in ways past you might have never known you’d be able to.
20 — Letting myself be flawed, hold contradictions, have so much to learn, be messier than people might know, and still choosing compassion for those very parts of me it might be easier to hate or banish or push away; letting compassion become the thing that gets you through, in all the ways you thought control or force or judgment or criticism would; letting compassion be the guide, the starting place, a home to grow in, an offering that, once fully received, can be given widely.
Thank you, as always, for being here.
△ A beloved teacher and elder of so many — Joanna Macy — is dying. Her family and dear friends are generous enough to be sharing updates from the portal, and people from all over the world are offering reflections, comments of gratitude, stories, prayers, tenderness. It is something sacred to get to behold from afar. I’ve been lighting a candle for Joanna, keeping my favorite books of hers nearby, reflecting on all I’ve learned from her and the way she models how I want to be on this earth, and feeling connected to the thousands upon thousands who are woven through her beingness. What a life she has led; what a gift she has given. I will carry her wisdom with me always. I am imagining her awash with peace.
△ More of Joanna’s precious wisdom
△ Okay, here’s what we’re going to do
△ The beauty of comfortable clothes (and Lindsay Mack)
△ Forever recommending Jacqueline’s books
△ Cannot stop thinking about this novel after finishing it weeks ago
△ I rarely share photos of myself anymore — hello from a sunny spot in my office earlier this week
With care,
Lisa
Gorgeous, every inch of this. Thank you Lisa. Love the "not alone" painting on your wall. <3
Oh, yes. I, too, love fall and em-dashes. And I need to hear "It’s safe to soften. It’s safe to soften. It’s safe to soften." It's hard to soften sometimes, especially in this world which feels so hard sometimes. Thanks for the poetic reminder.