Good enough.

The Daffodils are here.

Things are new. Fresh again. The spring is bringing me messages more clear than a sunny winter sky these days…sunshiney as the daffodils peeking out at me with their bright happy faces.

I am now focused on what matters most. You see, I have spent the better part of my life focused on the wrong stuff. Things like what I look like. Or how much I weigh. Or how many calories I have consumed on any given day.

Our society counts on us not feeling like we are enough as we are. Because if we were enough, what would happen? If you weighed enough and your teeth were white enough and your pants were a perfect size…what would happen?

Or rather, what COULD happen?

For starters, I think we’d be content with what is in front of us and focus in on the things that matter to us most. Things like sunrises and sunsets, flowers and new foliage blooming in our own back yards, or food and fellowship with those we love most. The little things. The beautiful things.

We would be less focused on our aging faces or those big bellies we acquired somewhere along the way. We would be content to be as we are…as things are…as life is.

I am all for improving ourselves. But I think I got lost somewhere on this path thinking the improvements had to be external. Or visible to anyone. The changes have to come more with the reality of life…the reality of how small we really are. The reality that right here, right now is good enough.

The flowers don’t feel like they aren’t doing enough. They know they are okay. They live for each moment. They go dormant when they need rest and thrive when the conditions are good enough.

Not perfect. But good enough.

And so here we all are. Standing on the precipice of change, evolution, and everything that happens and has been happening. And it’s all been good enough.

So this spring. I beg of you - of me - to let this all just be good enough…as it is.

Sunrise, Sunset.

I feel the sun setting on this phase of my life recently.

I have felt it before. But maybe at the time it felt more like a storm passing through - grey clouds overhead, darkness creeping in. I have also felt it in ways that felt bright and new.

That’s what I feel this time. It feels more colorful…golden…hopeful.

I am not great with change (Is anyone, really?). I fight against it’s current even when it’s the best of circumstances. But right now, I am sort of letting this tide take me where it needs to because at the end, all I can see ahead are calm waters and golden rays.

Is it rose colored glasses? Maybe. Is it just that I am finally making changes on my terms? Most likely. Am I still fearful? Not really. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Most of all, I can’t wait to see the sun rise on the other side.

Heart Space.

There was heaviness in the air that morning. So many things felt unsettled. It was the morning after the riots following the tragic death of George Floyd. I couldn’t sit still. I felt uneasy. Sad. Worried. So many things were on my mind and heavy on my heart. Nothing felt right.

“I’m going outside…”

“Okay…let me know if you need anything,” he said, quietly and respectfully understanding my that my heart needed space.

I walked around the yard with my phone, looking at it, looking away. I cried every time I opened social media. I still cry…there is so much hate and I am not sure how to stop it all. So I don’t look as much. It seems so unbearable to me. So heavy.

But this is the problem, right? Looking away isn’t helping. My tears aren’t working. This isn’t about me right now…it’s about changing the world.

If I feel this way, I cannot imagine how my friends of color feel right now…or how they feel all the time. The injustices they experience. The micro aggressions. The blatant racism that they experience every day.

All I could think that day was “How could we do this? How can we STILL BE DOING THIS? How have we come this far to come back to this point?”

I used to think love was enough. I used to think love could wipe out anything…sadness, darkness, evil, pain. I know that love is part of it. But I see now that action - real involvement from everyone - is what it will take.

I am not sure how to start, but I will stand and support the cause however I can. I will start at home and with me, changing thoughts and patterns as I can. I will start with friends and family who say inappropriate things as disguised as jokes. I will continue to support my friends of color in their businesses and endeavors as best I can.

I never wanted to acknowledge the racism that STILL seeps through our country, our very bones that this land was built on, or the fact that being white gives me an immediate head start. It’s so unfair. Yet, it runs deep in our land, in our blood. It’s time to clean it up. It’s time to do the work.

I don’t know how to fix it all, but I am here…listening with heart, helping with hands. I might not get it right. Hell…I might now have gotten this post right. But I can promise, I will do what I can to help facilitate the change we need.

Tiny Changes

These little flowers changed my day in a big way today.

This morning I sat waiting for a client in a sweet, local cafe. It’s raining and the temperature has dropped a good 20 degrees over the past 24-hours. It’s gloomy, grey and wet… a mirror of my heavy heart these days. Between saying goodbye to our family dog a few short weeks ago and dealing with the rest of regular life like taxes, prom planning, bills and laundry, I just feel like I am moored to Life.

As I sat there, I looked down at the clean, marbled table and paused to notice this tiny vase and these little perfect flowers curling and weaving around each other. I was baffled at their delicate strength. I was consumed by their simplicity for a moment. I became curious about their unassuming gentleness and forgiving nature. They made me stop my train of though for a brief a minute…to pause, to breathe. To remember to forget and to let go.

Life can be altered in these little moments. They are the moments that encourage us to lean in. They are the moments that encourage us to breath, pause, remember or forget. They can be transitional and transformative. But mostly, they are when we can learn to tolerate ourselves, our stories, our lives, and all the things that wait for us beyond their delicate and perfect features.

Changes usually come to us when we are ready. But sometimes, I think the biggest changes can come to us in the tiniest moments, bravely weaving and curling their way gently into our tender, aching hearts.

The tides of change

A Full moon high tide at Shem Creek. Taken with my iPhone 6.

There are things I know for certain.

One of the things I know is that change will come, regardless of whether I want it to or not. And no matter how predictable that change, it still can catch me a little off guard. I know the seasons change, but when that happens is never determined perfectly on a calendar or clock. I know, too, that the tides will come and go, but the size of those tides is sometimes a little unpredictable and leaves behind flood waters so deep, I am not quite sure how to navigate them.

I find the best way to get through change - whether wanted or not - is be fluid. Change always seems to happen on its own terms. When I am anticipating it and wishing for it, it takes it's time getting to me. And when I begrudge it, it seems to happen more swiftly than I would have hoped for, ignorant to my pleas of mercy.

I find that the more I fight change, the less energy I have for the important things - like puzzles and beach walks and sunset chats. So now when change comes my way, I just try take a deep breath and close my eyes and remember - This, too, shall pass.

I have been here before...standing in these flood waters. So now, when the change comes again, I will be more prepared to breathe into those heavy currents.