Pretty/Quiet Things, Vol. 8
go to the woods!!
In what is typically a season of grief for me, I’ve been trying to shift towards gratitude to offset the Bad Stuff. Much of that practice includes recognizing, especially, the Pretty/Quiet Things that have crossed my path lately.
A senior student of mine walked into my office with her laptop. She was smiling wide, yet anxiously, the mix of emotions one feels when about to take a major step in the next direction spreading across her face. “I want to share this moment with you,” she said. “I’m going to apply to my first college!” I shot up out of my seat. “Let’s do this, girl!!”
We went into the adjacent room (my office was full) and took a quick glance over her materials. Her essay was pristine. Her extracurriculars stood out in a crowd that typically does all the same things. She is different, electric. I knew she would be just fine.
She pressed submit. We jumped up and down and squealed. To share that moment with her has been one of the highlights of my career.
A few weeks ago my apartment flooded. I wrote a Substack about it. In the weeks since, when telling the story, what surprises people most is actually not the flooding—it’s that I had five friends show up for me, no questions asked, no hesitation, within 15 minutes. It’s the reason I moved to the neighborhood. To be able to walk to my friends’ houses in five minutes or less is a gift of the highest magnitude, one that I don’t take for granted. Even my landlord, at the end of our clean-up, said, You have really good friends.
I know.
The grief of this timeframe always catches me off-guard. I forget that it’s coming every year, the way our brains push back the most painful thing so we can go on with the living. I’ve been sick for most of the last few weeks in the most painful of ways, my body reacting to the onslaught of resurfaced trauma even when my mind is actively aware of it. It physically hurt to speak. So to combat it, I decided to rent a cabin amidst the trees and drive up into the mountains to be by myself. I deleted social media from my phone, put my friends on Do Not Disturb notice, and basked in the solitude of my own design. Hiking, doing embroidery like Grammy would do, napping, observing, reading—all with the peace inherit to the mountains. The last time I did a solo hiking trip was after my Long Term Ex left and I went to the Grand Canyon. This feels like that renewal. This feels like hope.
views from the cabin
I’m the absolute worst at cooking for myself. The act of preparing meals is something that often doesn’t even enter my mind and so my kitchen is always woefully understocked. But this week I made a meal from a recipe that I bought the ingredients for and cooked in my kitchen and ate leftovers of the next day. It wasn’t much, but it was a reminder that for everyone I take care of, I’m also allowed to take care of myself.
The glimmer of low tide on the beach at dusk. Feet and paws running through soft sand. No idea where the horizon begins or ends. The ability to touch this earth in this place. To know that I am good, despite. To know that I can love, despite.