What I want to say most

The lingering threads of a year

Human Stuff is a weekly-ish newsletter. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or send to someone you love. Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, subscribing, for being here. It means something.

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A song I’m loving:

A portal into something, 35mm film

What I want to say most is that I am not an improved or better version of myself than I was a year ago because that is no longer a goal — but I am a truer version, a closer-in version, a more expansive and open version, a less clinging-to-certainty version, and that, to me, counts for a lot more than seeking to endlessly upgrade myself.

What I want to say most is that the practice of non-judgment, first with myself, has made so many hard things just a smidge less hard.

What I want to say most is that the ache might remain forever, and the pressure to get rid of it often hurts more than the ache itself, and the ache can become a companion instead of a nuisance, and the ache can teach us things joy can’t.

What I want to say most is that joy really isn’t made to be a crumb, and the quest to always feel it can keep us from really feeling it when it arrives, and joy might always be tethered to sorrow in some way, and the sorrow makes the joy that much brighter.

What I want to say most is that there is a weightlessness in letting go of someone else’s dreams for me, and instead looking toward my own richest desires as a map, a compass, a guide toward what’s next.

What I want to say most is that getting a fancy coffee and a pastry is no little thing.

What I want to say most is that art has carried me. Poems have carried me. Nature has carried me. My daughter telling her first knock-knock joke has carried me. A steaming bowl of soup has carried me. Walks on the earth’s edges have carried me. My favorite cup has carried me. Photography has carried me. New medicine has carried me. Beloved new places have carried me. Familiar places have carried me. Making this newsletter has carried me. Writing has carried me. Not writing has carried me. Friendship has carried me. My partnership has carried me. Long drives have carried me. Willingness has carried me. Patience has carried me. Forgiveness has carried me.

A mountain wave, 35mm film

What I want to say most is that living from love feels more important than ever, and harder than ever, and I want to build the muscles necessary to move from love instead of fear as often as I can.

What I want to say most is that grieving is perhaps the most human thing we can do, right after loving, and that grieving might actually be just another way of loving.

What I want to say most is that seeing the truth requires such an intense process of unwinding from what we thought we knew, which requires so much humility, which requires so much grace.

What I want to say most is that the practice of true grace requires us to let go of our stories about ourselves and others in order to see clearly what’s actually within and in front of us; we are so much more than the stories we carry.

What I want to say most is that more fully witnessing the hierarchies I’ve been conditioned to buy into outside of me has made me more open to ridding myself of them inside of me.

What I want to say most is that our breath really is an immense tool, a profound resource, something to lean on, something to be in relationship with.

What I want to say most is that we can be deep and silly, deep and absolutely ridiculous, deep and a fan of pop music, deep and able to enjoy things just for the sake of enjoying them, deep and vibrant, deep and goofy, deep and able to pull good puns out of our pocket in a snap.

What I want to say most is that we are so rarely just one thing, just one way, and embracing our multilayered selves feels like wholeness.

Nature’s curtains, 35mm film

What I want to say most is that I’ve never been more unsure of who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’ve never been more clear on how okay that is — how freeing that is — how much room that leaves to keep becoming.

What I want to say most is that the unbearable experience of witnessing atrocities, whether in our neighborhoods or across the world, can remind us of what really matters if we step out of our egos and into our humanity.

What I want to say most is that we can always return to our values; we can always return to what we know is true; we can always return to others who mirror to us the kind of world we want to live in; we can always start over when we need to.

What I want to say most is that when we let ourselves be imperfect, flawed, and able to make mistakes and still be worthy of care, we can also let others be their fully human selves, imperfect and flawed and still worthy of our care. That is the kind of world I want to live in.

What I want to say most is that a walk around the block might solve a lot more than intensely trying to Do The Inner Work seems to.

What I want to say most is that buying flowers is always a good idea, and drying them afterwards perhaps an even better one.

What I want to say most is that celebration can happen for no reason at all.

What I want to say most is that we don’t always have time to wait.

What I want to say most is that we don’t have as much time as we often think.

A place to pause, 35mm film

What I want to say most is that we get to change our mind, and perhaps this rearranging of the self isn’t flaky or noncommittal but is instead an honoring of our capacity to take in information, experience, and data in order to make ourselves new over and over again.

What I want to say most is that the metrics, outward success, markers of “making it”, numbers, likes, popularity, visibility, praise or criticism or being ignored, awards, highlights, or trajectory that might come from what we make don’t matter much if we aren’t enjoying the process of making what we make.

What I want to say most is that I could be wrong about all of this.

What I want to say most is that sometimes, all of this is so fucking hard. Sometimes, it all feels impossible — this weight, this violence, this grief, this confrontation. And, right alongside the hardness, there is the vision of what could be, and that vision becomes an anchor to turn toward when the hardness is too much to bear.

What I want to say most is that my god, some days I feel like I know nothing at all, like I’ve only discovered just a sliver of what it means to be a person, like I’m clamoring for more, and on those days I think I feel the most Here I ever have, biting at the heels of all of it, hungry for Everything, alive.

This will be my last newsletter of the year as I take the rest of 2023 to turn in, be with my family, rest, read, collect rocks on the coast, call my reps, grieve, love, eat soup, and gently dream up some ideas for next year — and to give your inbox a break, too.

So, with that, what I want to say most, with tears in my eyes, is thank you, reader, for being part of my year by reading my words here. Your presence and connection here has been felt, fortifying, and nourishing in ways I am only now really starting to integrate: your thoughtfulness, generosity, compassion, and willingness to engage has touched me in deep ways that I know I’ll carry into the writing I do in 2024. I don’t take your attention for granted, and I hope you’ve found yourself mirrored in some of what I’ve shared here this year. You make this little corner of the internet feel meaningful and hopeful at all the moments I need it most. I’m ever grateful for it all; here’s to more.

And above all, may you and your loved ones be safe, be warm, be free.

Instead of sharing what caught my eye and attention this week, I’d like to offer some ideas on ways to navigate and tend to your own sacred attention at the end of the year:

△ Go on a photo walk and take a photo of everything you see that’s Blue (or a color of your choosing). Print the photos out and make a color collage.

△ Dim the lights from dinnertime onward every evening until the new year (or forever). Use candles and table lamps instead of overhead lights. Notice how the low light shifts how you feel.

△ Make a cup of cacao slowly: Put 1 cup of milk (I use almond), 1 tablespoon cacao, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, a few drops of maple syrup, and a pinch of salt in a pot and heat on the stove until bubbling. Drink from your favorite mug.

△ Ponder a few pages of a book deeply instead of striving to read the most pages. See how doing so changes the way you experience what you read.

△ Listen to an album all the way through, while on a walk or a drive or a house cleaning session. I listened to this EP on a drive to Point Reyes and it held me.

△ Write a few longhand letters/postcards to people you love who don’t live nearby and send them in the mail, maybe with a picked flower or rock you find on a walk.

△ Do a Goodwill/thrift store clean-out/donation run. Connect to the things you own and ask yourself if you still need them; if not, make a ceremony of letting them go.

△ Put your phone in a drawer for the day and see what happens. Don’t set expectations; just let the day take you where it takes you when you’re unplugged.

△ Make a list of visions you’d like to see come to fruition in the world, whether in your small sphere or in the greater collective; notice if there are any pieces of that vision you’re already working toward; thank yourself for doing that work.

Wishing you pockets of ease and light as we enter the portal of Solstice and the slide into a new year.

With so much care,
Lisa