This afternoon, after I made and ate my collards and blackeye peas (vegan! delicious!) I sat down to write to you, because it’s a new year and I am re-intending to do this frequently, as daily as I can, for the purpose of something: A record? An invitation? A practice not a perfect?
It’s been a minute and it feels at times like things are going through me as though I am sand or rocks on a beach that the tide washes over, disrupting, slurping away some grains and depositing others. Things are revealed. Are these things important? Idols and ambergris. And yet I am here, and you are, for this strange and beautiful day, pink and sunshine that has faded into cold and grey. We are here. Alive.
How will a year go?
The last one contained multitudes. Kernels popping.
A few days ago a harbour seal said hello to me on the Seawall. A month ago I was petting a baby elephant outside Nairobi, another before that wandering NYC with new Fellow friends from the Integrity Institute. There were sunshine coffees in California. Wanders in Portland. It’s actually hard to catalogue all the things that happened or didn’t so much happen as became part of me, or I became a part, not apart. Dancing with mountains. Collective process. A lot of people to love.
My musings are often some attempt to capture learning, lessons, some whiff of meaning that drifts through as I write in the morning, they are not ‘about me’ and what me is can be elusive. Who are you? I don’t know if there are really more than questions, but I love a rich, gooey, chewy, brownie question.
In 2023, I read 101 books, not counting the ones I abandoned. That might be approaching a limit. I’m down to discuss any of them.
In 2024, I have a few intentions:
- Develop more containers of belonging
- Choose freedom
- Physically become stronger
- Act from love, not fear
This little place where I am putting words down may become more fragmented, perhaps some kind of rubble pile for you to find rare and unexpected treasures. Let’s be on a scavenger hunt together this year. I expect grief. I invite joy. I welcome it all.