How Did I Do on My 2022 Goals?! (4-6)

4. Festive self-date weekly, flirt all the time!

Heck yeah and heck yeah! Since I’m an Artist’s Way person, I’m supposed to be taking myself on dates once a week anyway, but I often will skate by on, like, going half a block down the street to smell the candles at the co-op annex. Those still count, but this year, I wanted the self-dates to be special.

At first, it was hard. I was still brokenhearted from a romance that ended in mid-November. But I did it. I drove to the OUTER suburbs to see a matinee of Nightmare Alley. It felt grim and lonely, not just because I’d chosen a superbleak movie!

But after a couple of months, I was driving along to wherever and I just thought “I love you.” In my head! TO MYSELF! I was dreamily stopping to take a sunset picture in the Movie Tavern parking lot on the way to see The Black Phone. Equally bleak movie, way-less-bleak heart!

Self-dates make the world feel more open, generous, and playful. One movie night even led to a second-chance love adventure! Two, actually, but those are stories for another blog.

I try to make fresh goals every year, but maybe this one needs to be every year, right underneath “Make stuff whenever I want.”

5. Cultivate my Mighty Writers relationships. This one backfired so badly that “Don’t go to the meet & greet” is one of my guidelines for 2023. Still a heartbreak I just can’t find words for.

6. Two hours Kahn Academy math weekly. Yep! I mastered 7^th grade math and I’m halfway through 8^th grade math! I got to change my car magnet tutoring ads from K-6 to K-7! Adding a math grade is a pretty big deal, actually! I’m pretty excited about it.

Poetic License Horoscopes for July 13-19 (Made Up and Always Taking Requests)

Cancer: “When I talk about owning eloquent rage as your superpower, it comes with a clear caveat that not everyone is worth your time or your rage.” --Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage (https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880) If you’ve already tried and tried, turn away from your sheltered and unwilling cousins, your lost-to-Russian-interference mom and give your ears to people who might actually listen. Or even better, turn to yourself, see what you can learn!

Leo: You’re already doing the best first step: See what you can grow. Admire the emphatic voices of the echinacea and bee balm, who put roots down in every single available sunny place. They’re reaching up, just like you. Taste the sweet savory of your own tomatoes and breathe in the spicy scent of the little marigolds whose roots are standing guard. Cultivate your team, tap deep into the soil, and grow wildly.

Virgo: When the time comes, you’ll remember how to person, I promise. Your fears and resentment won’t leave, don’t worry, but they will agree to pipe down for a few days. Then, there’ll be nothing but birdwatching, careful hugs, and precious confiding. You’ll leave with your inheritance of silk flowers ready for laundering, honey from your bee siblings, and the spoils of a Thrifty Shopper splurge. You didn’t forget how to accept love. You’ll never forget.

Libra: It’s there waiting for you, the farm in the hills. The peacocks stroll the grounds singing disco jams instead of screams. The strawberries grow as big as your head. The ground is gently watered by the healing tears of non-problematic Rose Quartzes. Assemble your plant march. Gather all the loud and loving seeds. Reuse everything you can and turn the rest into worms and butterflies. You’re already living according to the weather, so you’re doing just great.

Scorpio: The stars found an envelope of photos at the bottom of a pile of inherited silk flowers. There were pictures of two different exes at Grandmom’s house. (The stars have exes, obvs.) Miss your past characters but savor the connections, the warmth, the copious food they were fed. It’s amazing the number of friends, family, and loves who could inhabit one couch in a lifetime. They all came and went and you’re still here, even though that couch is gone. All the loves are still in your bloodstream, still with you, and they will never leave.

Sagittarius: The kids are doing ziplining for their birthdays because it’s possible to social distance while thrillingly distancing oneself from the ground. Find a similarly invigorating safe risk and put it on the calendar, just maybe not for today. You still need some kind of modified leaping, some bright-sky way to raise your pulse, but please, please, please make sure you land in pillows and safe hugs.

Capricorn: “Take a break! Get away with us for the summer, let’s go Upstate!” –from Hamilton. John Adams may not have a real job anyway, but you do! You’ve been doing so, so much! Maybe not fifty-one essays (Or maybe! The stars don’t know everything about your life!) but still, you’re so prolific in love, beauty, and forbearance. Count up all the ways you’ve sacrificed and then find a way to clock out. Your heart and sleep will thank you.

Aquarius: This week, the stars bought Aldi-roses that match my niece’s first set of D&D dice: the color of sunset. You too can build order out of beauty and random connections. Build serendipitous chimes of love and fate in the wilderness. Shae will dice with her friends and make stories that didn’t exist before and the roses will sit quietly on the home altar, telling me the world still sort of makes some kind of  sense.

Pisces: Writer, teacher, and certified non-humbug Shannon Maney asks: “Hey! What’s working really well for your survival right now? Businesses that are crushing contactless service? Humans that are linking you to great resources for concrete anti-racist work? Favorite mask patterns? I’ve been bringing the humbug on here lately, but there is so much good! What’s good?” Leave your answers in the comments here and everywhere. Good is real.

Aries: Watch the first season of the anthology series Cake and think about any of the following things: The varying textures of cake and frosting, as well as how those would feel if used as a pillow. The place of a sensitive person in the world. The wistfulness inherent in dating-app swiping. The motivational nature of dinosaurs. Binge if you can, then maybe write!

Taurus: “Part of my anger is always libation for my fallen sisters. Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.”-- Audre Lorde. The stars are always telling you, but it bears repeating: Your anger is sacred and worthy. It is yours to offer up to Sandra Bland and every other bright spirit we don’t get to share the planet with. Make it loud, make it bright, and broadcast it in every beautiful way. The stars promise, we’re practicing our listening.

Gemini:  Until she was murdered by police in her home, Corryn Gaines was a revolutionary artist-treasure. She rewrote the license plates on her car because she felt beautifully and rightly entitled to drive and speak. The front plate said “Free traveler” and the back said “Any government official who compromises this pursuit of happiness will be held criminally responsible and fined, as this is a natural right and freedom.” (Read more in Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper: (https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880) Honor Corryn by doing something 1/10 that courageous. (Paging Lin-Manuel Miranda! Corryn Gaines musical please!)

Poetic License Horoscopes for July 6-12

Cancer: Get all of your advice this week from Carly Rae Jepsen! Cut through the clouds, break the ceiling! Wake up in tangles, oh! You don’t have to avoid dizzy love or a hope-comedown, Cancer, just get some pretty craft scissors, the kind with fancy scalloped edges, and cut to the feeling.

Leo: “That strange feeling of being there and not being there came back. One line led to another and a story slowly formed under my hands.”—Lynda Barry in the amazing magical creativity book What It Is. Set a timer for 20 minutes and do the thing. Let the interruptions of your inner censors fall to the ground like seeds. Disregard their voices until the vines grow up though your feet, grow up your arms, and move whatever you make to (your) nature’s own whims.

Virgo:  Get you somebody who looks at you the way Christian Cooper listens to birds. Take everything else you need, heart, soul, and song, from this best piece of video ever recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qd2XyGFTzk

Libra: You’ve dedicated your art to helping repair the world, good! As you go into new clarity and purpose, take care of your best resource: you! What new flair can you bring to sleep? A couch nap for no reason? A dadlike snooze in the chair with the TV on? You must be able to get the sound of baseball somewhere! Practice hearing the thrum of the fan, the conversations of the birds, the dispatches from your very own overflowing heart. (See also: Leo)

Scorpio: Undistracted by footprints, the waves leave a beautiful, studied, regular pattern on the sand. With prisms in all the windows, the order of all things becomes clear: the rainbows swim and dance all around like a cosmic clock. (Because that’s what they are.) The angle of the sun is dependable. So are the tides! And so are you.

Sagittarius:  The stars chose “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo as our handwashing song and we sincerely regret it—it’s sad that such a good song just reminds us of soap! But on the other hand, let’s consider the MIRACLE of soap! What a gift that 20 seconds is! To have warm running water and a clean towel. Even in this new wave of pandemic, there are new ways to find the luxury! Unless today’s just not that kind of day for you, then fuck it!

Capricorn:  Remember your breath and praise it! Give it every reward for continuing to keep you alive. Guided meditations about rainbow chakras! (Trigger warning for pseudoscience though!) Smell the sweet smells of strawberries, lake water, green grass, and wine. Breathe the rhythm of the waves, the angle of the sun, the sound of your feet on the pavement and your fast songs turned all the way up and the sweat pouring down—your breath deserves every gift and luxury, every pretty, embroidered mask.

Aquarius:  After you’re done helping the stars throw all of the confederate statues in the river, let’s get the founding fathers next! One of the reasons the colonies declared independence was that they felt like England was getting too abolotiony! Be VERY abolitiony this week, Aquarius, both within and without. What symbols of terrifying old structures can you dismantle? Who is the real protagonist in the story? Not George Washington! Not Benjamin Franklin! Not even Alexander Hamilton! But probably Lin Manuel Miranda.

Pisces: Today is a good day to arrest the cops who murdered Breonna Taylor. Today’s a good day to say all the names. Write them on every light post, every dusty window, ever breath of condensation, ever sparkler trail, on every chalk-decorated sidewalk, across your own face. It won’t bring them back but it will honor them. Today’s a good day to honor them.

Aries: Duolingo, if you get behind on your language practice, will change all of your Level Five badges into golden little broken mirrors. It’s very sad. You have to fix them by practicing, but you don’t have to start all the way over, so that’s good! Take your time, Aries, but start repairing gently whatever it is you let fall away. A little green owl in a yellow tracksuit will praise you for your effort, and so will the stars.

Taurus: It’s a good week for mending. If you can’t figure out how to patch a given tear, sew on a little silk flower. Stitch the petals as much as you need and save a few extra, the way you might save the extra buttons that came with your favorite clothes. Give them their own little box marked “Special little things for mending.” Thread your needle, join an enriching Zoom, and get to work.

Gemini: “Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.” sings George Washington as he gets ready to resign in Hamilton. Give it a listen and think about saying goodbye, about peaceful transfer of power, and about what you can do today to teach the current monster-in-chief to say goodbye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEqnXNsAFL8

Wonderful September, Self-Care October

I can't BELIEVE how productive September was! My business calendar is full of clients and my neighborhood is full of art. Some of those "mini-workouts" were even snuggles! Gasp!!

I sometimes wonder if it would be better to dial out of the daily adventures of fellow American rape survivors, but I don't know if that's possible. So I'm piling on the self-care and hoping for the best. The OK Cupid checkmarks seem the most daunting, but I'm sure they'll be worth it. 

Why We Need Fat Liberation

Image Description: "Fat is Life" watercolored in pink, surrounded by orange stars, rainbow swirls, and blue sky.

While I’m well-versed in why other kinds of equality work is needed, I sometimes feel shy about activism on behalf of my fat self. With so much misery around us, with immigrant children in cages, with police being given more and more power to murder, with reproductive justice under constant attack, etc, etc, is this important enough to devote paragraphs to? Even if the topic weren’t ready to haunt me until I type it out, I would still say the answer is yes. Fat-phobia is part of how we got president Trump, both literally and figuratively.

Forty-Five has a lifetime of evil to brag about, but he first crossed my consciousness as a fat-shaming creep at the beginning of  his feud with Rosie O’Donnell.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e32EapqqutM This form of othering might seem more innocuous than other Trumpish horrors, but it’s really just part of a methodical, misogynist, white supremacist (https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/fat-shaming-heather-heyer-white-supremacy) abuse campaign meant to frighten and cow us into obedience, meant to undermine women’s power and at the same time, democracy itself.

But this isn’t really about the stupid, hateful MAGA-monster, it’s about, as sooooo many things in this blog are, a cute boy. Monday morning found me in tears when a new friend, who is generally not super-careful about his relationship to privilege and on whom I’d been having a big friend crush, said something casually fat-phobic after I had already mentioned it to him a couple of times. I tried woke-splaining but he said he didn’t want to be “schooled.” He said that what’s offensive is subjective, and I said no, respecting others’ bodies is not optional, especially among friends. He asked me to explain and I refused, sick of trying to convince him to treat me like an equal. It was bad enough I was worrying about what I was wearing whenever I knew I’d see him, putting aside my Lindy-West-approved tent dresses for more “flattering” things, now I was crying in front of him too?

He eventually relented and apologized, and has done much better. I know it’s all part of the process of getting to know someone, teaching people how to be kind and thoughtful in ways that might not have occurred to them before, it still hurts. The emotional labor has a cost, and I am supertired of paying it.

Part of the reason I was feeling jagged Monday morning is that among the tsunami of bad political news, there was one thing that might not have registered as bad news to most. One of my most treasured heroes had slid subtlly rightward, and on top of that I had to feel guilty for being mad about it. On the surface, it should be good news: Roxane Gay had weight-loss surgery and she had leveraged that into a piece for ESPN about how she now has hope of reclaiming her pre-sexual-assault status as an athlete.

Being angry at ROXANE GAY for how she chooses to care for her body feels disloyal in the extreme, but that’s where we are. I’m not mad at her for having surgery or for returning to activities that feel better in a more-mobile body. I am angry that she has written a piece that not only implies that athleticism is not available to fat women, but also gives the body-colonizing twin evils of diet culture and rape culture the only narrative they find acceptable for fat women.

1.      Recognize that fat is a pathology, a result of personal trauma, but that it must be fixed for the public good.

2.      Apologize for the mistake of taking up space.

3.      Put your female body through pain and deprivation so that people can approve of you and welcome you back into the straight-sized fold.

As much as I root for my lost hero to prove me wrong, to feel comfortable in her skin, to swim her lighter laps to freedom, the thing about diet/rape culture is that no amount of shrinking will ever be enough. No matter how much we try to conform to their sadistic, abusive demands, we can never please those who would objectify us. Roxane Gay may trade fat for more catcalling (not that fat women don’t get catcalled, we do and we’re supposed to feel grateful) and will be beholden to public for the size of her body. Although, the fact that I’m writing this means that I think she already is. There is really no way for anyone to win here, except that fucking weight-loss narrative.

Funnily enough, I remember having a similar (though far less verbose) reaction when the woman I’ve come to think of was Roxane Gay’s opposite, Roseanne Barr, got similar weight loss surgery. That felt like a loss too. Back then, it was extremely rare to see a fat person unapologetically in the public eye. In my pre-teen eyes, Roseanne was so beautiful, so funny, and so clearly fuck-you-if-you-don’t-approve-of-my-body that she was a comfort to me as I started the process of understanding the demands that the world would put on my young body. I didn’t understand why the woman who’d coined the phrase “domestic goddess” would go through so much trouble to be thinner. I remember reading about her new portion sizes in a magazine, feeling slightly hurt and bemused.

Of course, Roseanne turned out to be an evil MAGA-monster herself, letting down my young self more deeply than a surgery ever could, so maybe the point is moot. But surely my young self got a message of that surgery, that who I was was okay until I could afford to upgrade. I’m sure young feminists (or “bad feminists” as the case may be) are taking the same message from Roxane Gay’s new piece. Who knows what they’ll do with the message, but it surely adds to the toxic soup of self-hating nonsense that women always have to face. In my kid-brain, Roxane was here to help us, but then she left us.

It isn’t fair of me to think of Roxane Gay’s self-improvement as a betrayal. It’s not fair to colonize another woman’s body with my needs and expectations at all. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that I, as one of her fat readers, am part of what she sees as holding her back, more poundage to be lost so that she can be her shiny new hopeful self. She never said that, it’s just part of the patriarchy’s narrative, but it hurts anyway.

Though we have never met, Roxane Gay has been in my head a long time as a protector, as a big sister, a powerful thread in the tapestry of support and love and self-love that I wrap around myself to preserve my sense of worthiness amidst a culture that tells me I am a project at best and worthless at worst. There are many other threads, but this one will be missed.

If my sense of belonging and self-worth can be rocked by other people’s medical choices, I would say it needs some reinforcing. As I diverge from my hero’s bodily journey, I wonder how many ways I can be kinder to my own, how many ways I can reach out to young women and femmes, how much I can do to serve this weird fight we’re all in, the fight to be able to eat what we want, to take up space, and to no longer apologize for existing. No narrative can take me out of that fight, especially when Dietland is a show. https://www.amc.com/shows/dietland/full-episodes/season-01/episode-01/episodes-1-2

Maybe Spring is Real?! April Checkmarks and Lilac-y May Goals

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Happy May!

From “Bi” to “Pan”—Prefixes and Progress

I'm sorry her accent mark is missing!!!!!!!

 “(I) initially identified as bisexual, she clarifies, “but then later I read about pansexuality and was like, ‘Oh, these are things that I identify with, too.’ I’m open to learning more about who I am.” – Janelle Monàe comes out in Rolling Stone, as quoted in this article. https://www.colorlines.com/articles/fans-celebrate-janelle-monae-coming-out-pansexual

Janelle Monàe’s new album is so good I can barely listen to it. Coming from her, the sentiment “I’m not crazy, I’m American” is enough to start me car-sobbing. Hearing The Way You Make Me Feel on the way home from work the other night, on the day she came out and what felt like the first day of spring, led me to an epiphany—it’s way past time to change my prefix.

When I came out as bi (http://indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/jane-cassady-in-1992-all-of-a-sudden-it-got-better) TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO (!!!) (A whole Kurt Cobain lifetime ago!), it felt like such a freeing relief to my sixteen-year-old self. I couldn’t make heads or tails of men (Sorry, sixteen-year-old me, that hasn’t changed AT ALL.) and it made the world seem open and easier now that I had what I thought at the time was one other gender option.

One of the things that gives me the most hope for progress is the difference between my coming out in 1992 and the coming out of my present-day favorite pansexual middle-schooler, an honorary niece. The fact that her adolescence offers a spectrum of options, a vast catalog of identities, and a deeper (but by no means perfect) freedom from assigned gender roles fills me with joy. I think I’m ready to claim some of that freedom, both for my current self and for my sixteen-year-old self who is always still with me and always ready for more hope.

Technically, I could still be bi—by the current definition, it just means you’re attracted to more than one gender. I’ll still attend Bi Visibility Day, (Last year, the mayor came! Reason a million why Philly is the best!) I’ll still do my part to combat bi-erasure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure) in whatever ways I can, I’ll still be mad at Dan Savage for that time he said we’re the only sexual orientation he hates. (That’s when I’m not being mad at him for the hostile work environment he created for Lindy West… https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/02/11/hello-i-am-fat ) (Or being grateful for the beautifulness he created with It Gets Better, which seems to want to be a running theme here…)

ANYWAY, the “bi” prefix hasn’t been sitting right with me. Even though the word doesn’t want to, “bisexual” still sounds like “two” to me, and it’s been a long time since I A. Thought there were two genders or B. Was only attracted to two genders. About ten years ago, a crush on a handsome New York performance poet sent me down a giddy rabbit hole of trans-infatuation (I’m pretty sure I totally fetishized and objectified him, and I’m really, REALLY sorry.) that has lead me into some of my favorite friendships and communities. I am NEVER surprised when someone I am drawn to later transitions—even my favorite writer in the world is headed down that road. (https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/daniel-mallory-ortberg-interview-heather-havrilesky.html )

So it has felt increasingly weird to have a label that sounds like two, even though I know that isn’t what “bisexual” actually means.

I guess it’s total dork-o-rama to change my prefix because Dirty Computer was finally released, but it’s WAAAAY more dignified than choosing the name “Jane” because a character on Blossom said she thought it was cool. (Thanks Jane’s Addiction and Jane Eyre for providing cover all these years, it’s good to let the secret out!) I’m sad to (sort of) let my old category go—twenty-seven years of anything is a long time—but I want my prefix to reflect my heart. Though I tend to go for those who present as masculine these days, I’m not sure assigned gender is an important factor. I want my prefix to reflect the world I want to see, a gorgeous, free spectrum where self-expression and self-determination trump prefabricated roles and expectations.

There’s a mantra that often floats through my head when I’m uneasy, especially in spring: Let Things Change. It feels vulnerable and maybe even silly to have a new word, but I know it’s right.

Next in the process will be figuring out where I am on the asexual spectrum these days, and I expect there’s a prefix to contend with there too. One thing at a time though. One syllable at a time.

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March Checkmarks, Hopeful April Goals

A Million January Checkmarks, Easy February Goals

A Million October Checkmarks, Happy November Goals!

In a World That Didn't Hate Me or My Students

I just had to draw the ideal classroom for my Educational Research class, and I found myself wanting to share what I wrote:

The last classroom I had, in North Philadelphia in 2014, had all the technological advancements that grants could buy—we had a most-of-the-time working Smartboard, a cart of 30 up-to-date laptops shared between two classes, good, Common Core Aligned textbooks, a schedule built around formative assessment and teacher training, even an enrichment program. My grade partner and fellow teachers were incredibly big-hearted, knowledgeable, extremely hardworking and tough. Yet I was the third teacher that year to go out on FMLA leave (and later resign) due to Acute Stress Disorder. No matter how dedicated I or my students were (and those kids TRIED THEIR HEARTS OUT) we couldn’t keep violence, poverty, prejudice, shame, homophobia, or stress from derailing our beautifully planned and decorated classroom culture. Though we learned to line up perfectly and sang class songs about how “everybody has a seed to sow,” I couldn’t keep the children safe. I thought constantly about the School-to-Prison Pipeline, (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/538/is-this-working)  and the last week I was there, I dreamed that we were loading the children onto Holocaust trains, and that doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration.

I’m still not sure how to run a classroom without becoming part of the problem, but it was very healing to imagine what a classroom in a hospitable world would look like.

Theme and Wishes for Age 43

            I thought about going with “flawless,” but I just like flaws so much. For the past week or so, my intention in every meditation session has been “I’m celebrating my life,” and I have been. I’m so glad to be here. I woke up, in a healthy body and an often-happy heart. I’m here. Most of the time, I’m pretty sure that I exist, and that’s a big change for me. I want to keep being here wholeheartedly, keep celebrating. How lucky we are to be alive right now was another good option. I’m so thankful every day that I woke up like this.

            My political wishes for the coming year are many, of course, though right now DACAis heaviest on my heart. My personal wishes are simple: more money and more snuggles.  The money part seems less mystifying—as soon as I finish grad school in December, I’ll be free to build up my tutoring clientele. But the snuggle part, as always, is a mystery. I’ve written out my ideal mate a thousand times, but what I wish for is fairly simple: someone warm and funny to take walks with. If by some miracle he voted Hillary in the 2016 primary, all the better. I have some guilt about hoping to be with someone masculine-identified (this misguided ex-wife loyalty runs deep) but I do.

Birthday Heart Inventory: Thanks 42!

Surprisingly, 42 was one of my happiest years yet. Last year around this time, I wrote about depression as a weed killer and this year, my garden is thriving, both literally and figuratively. There’s a lot of pain in my heart and so much battle still ahead, but my goal of cultivating a life has been met and exceeded.

Mental Health: Like for a lot of women, particularly trauma survivors, the 2016 election season was wildly triggering. In my case, those triggers got me to an amazing place: Women Organized Against Rape. Not only did my (FREE!) therapist there stem the tide of sobbing and panicking to a manageable level, she has also steered me towards a calmer, warmer, more productive, and loving self—she is truly a brain artist. It’s hard work to focus on the trauma part of life every Monday, and it usually results in at least a day of catharsis hangover, but it’s 100% worth it. This year is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling truly worthy of love, especially my own.

Love: Every day I feel the gorgeous, generous, and powerful love of friends, family, and cats, but I could copy and paste the longing for romantic love that I’ve written nearly every year. Though I’ve finally attained the goal of self-containment to a level that seems magical, I dream about boyfriends nearly every night. I try to take loneliness as a sign of health, my heart telling me that it’s ready to open up again.

            This is a good place to confess that there are a couple of guys I haven’t gotten over. I still wish I could hear from them, even though I know they aren’t the right ones. I keep their nice notes and artwork in the Box of Things to Be Worked Out by Unseen Forces. They don’t read this, I don’t think, but I’ll tell them anyway:

Dear _______ and ________,

Thank you for being in my life, for loving me the best you could, for the snuggles, the music, the kindness. Thank you for your face, your kindness, your humor, your support. I’m sorry for the ways that I hurt you. You’ll always be a sparkly gem in my heart because you changed me for the better. I’ll always a little bit belong to you, and I hope that you remember the best parts.

Love, Jane

(With that, I hope I made a little room for some snuggle-able treasures to come aboard.)

Work: I love my tutoring work so, so much. Getting to work with kids one-on-one, getting to know their families, using my teaching skills organically and flexibly, I CAN’T BELIEVE I made it here from where I was three years ago. Even on my lost-est days, a tutoring session brings me back to myself, frees me to live in love and in the present.

            I have one more semester of grad school (I HATE being back in grad school!) and then my teacher certification will be permanent. I hope to build up to a full-time tutoring business—I LOVE being my own boss, and the joy of going to the bank to deposit cash has not diminished since my waitress years.

            Creative coaching is going beyond-well: Coachees tend to transform into friends who guide my creativity just as much as I cheerlead theirs.

Art: At an organizing meeting last November, I introduced myself as a “street artist” for the first time, and that title really does ring true. I love being able to share my work with the neighborhood, watching how well the paintings I staple to phone poles get curated—some of the pieces have been up for more than a year! It’s a way to give and get love every time I take a walk, and fulfills what I think are the deepest purposes of art: to give, to love, to connect. Sometimes a neighbor even thanks me, and it’s the warmest, most fulfilling, most enriching feeling.

Activism: Remember when we thought it was sometimes not an election year? Transitioning from activism being a once-once-in-a-while pursuit to being a Daily Action feels healthy and sane. I’m so inspired by those who stay engaged and also by the way that we’ve committed to self-care as part of the resistance.

Plus, it’s always a good time to remind myself that this happened:

Grief: Although the Rapist-in-Chief causes the most horror in my heart and worldwide, it’s the misogyny of the 2016 Democratic primary that has caused me the most personal day-to-day grief, including making me wonder if I can ever date a man again. I’m working on a separate post about the ongoing soul-rash that is The Bern, so I won’t spend any more of my birthday typing about him.

Family:  My family of origin seems to have forgiven me for my Thanksgiving-ruining, welcoming me back like a prodigal daughter. My poetry family is mostly not connected to me anymore, largely a casualty of the misogyny-storm of the primaries. My immediate family is my ex-wife/bff and my two cats, and that’s a really, really nice life.

Spirituality: I’m addicted to Insight Timer, going to yoga weekly, and I’m even getting monthly massages. Sometimes I think I might just float up off the earth.

It’s been, in many ways, a year of luxury, of radical self-care, and I hope I can continue that spirit through age 43 and beyond. Thank you for helping make my life so rich, complex, and loving—wishing you all of the healing and happiness.

May Checkmarks, Rainbowy June Goals

112 Ways to Be Soft with Myself

This post owes a lot to my favorite piece of street art from the DC Women's March (below) and to Elizabeth Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, and Elizabeth Craft, whose podcasts Magic Lessons and Happier  have been steering me back toward my happiness wheelhouse these past few weeks. 

            Last Monday in therapy, I got to a breakthrough point that was as relieving as an exhale. Closing a volume on a particularly ensnaring story, I felt space open up around me in a way that I haven’t felt in years. The urgency, defensiveness, and vigilance that has always fueled/plagued my life has, for the moment, receded.

            Friday afternoon, just before being let out of a phone session early (Because of happiness!) I told my wonderful therapist (SERIOUSLY. Call Women Organized Against Rape if you need help even a little. (215) 985-3333. https://www.woar.org/ ) that in order to preserve this lovely margin that has opened up for me, I want to make my life as soft as possible, to give myself every advantage over the harshness that is unavoidable both in my head and in the world. Here’s what I have so far, in no particular order:

1.      Be imperfect.

2.      Just sit for a minute.

3.      Take pictures of flowers and other beautiful things.

4.      Think about chakras.

5.      Plant things and see if they grow.

6.      Read chick-lit books and pretty magazines.

7.      Read in bed.

8.      Sit in the park.

9.      Treat the neighborhood mini-libraries as oracles.

10.  Write whenever and whatever I want.

11.  Build up my money cushion.

12.  Read children’s books, especially biographies of cool-as-heck ladies.

13.  Keep Hillary in my heart.

14.  Do yoga at home and in classes.

15.  Leave places whenever I want and then

16.  Go back whenever I’m ready.

17.  Never have a classroom again.

18.  Call a hotline whenever I need it even a little bit.

Women Organized Against Rape: (215) 985-3333

William Way LGBT Community Center Peer Counselling: (215) 732- 8255

19.  Always have a therapist.

20.  Keep taking Prozac.

21.  Give others margins too--be slower to judgement.

22.  Learn to distinguish between microaggressions and annoyances and then

23.  Push back as often as needed.

24.  Block any number I want to, for any reason.

25.  Date in real life, not online.

26.  Expect softness from partners, and give it.

27.  Continue to not watch Twin Peaks. Fuck off, Dead Girl Town!

28.  Sleep in.

29.  Go to bed early.

30.  Go back to bed.

31.  Take naps.

32.  Keep being addicted to Insight Timer and sending strangers around the world “Thanks for meditating with me” messages.

33.  Keep loving Yoga Nidra and other guided meditations.

34.  Keep swimming.

35.  Keep getting on the elliptical, even if it means sometimes having to watch the news.

36.  Be late for stuff.

37.  Or be early.

38.  Earn the amount I deserve to, which is at least $50 an hour for tutoring and creative coaching.

39.  Keep having jobs that allow me to regularly stop and put cash in the bank, I’ve loved that feeling since my waitress days.

40.  Look at baby animals.

41.  Walk in the woods and around my magical neighborhood (which has woods too).

42.  See my niece and nephews.

43.  See my siblings.

44.  Go to the beach, alone or with family.

45.  Get haircuts.

46.  Get my car washed.

47.  Canvass for candidates I believe in.

48.  Donate to good causes whenever I can.

49.  Call the government a few days a week.  (Daily Action and ResistBot really help with this!)

50.  Get in marches, protests, and demonstrations whenever I want to.

51.  Make, enjoy, and photograph street art.

52.  Use my art museum membership.

53.  Draw.

54.  Paint.

55.  Collage.

56.  Color.

57.  Bake.

58.  Make soup.

59.  Have breakfast for dinner.

60.  Look at gemstones.

61.  Visit the Hope Diamond, which I think is the most existing thing I’ve ever seen.

62.  Learn the names of birds, butterflies, flowers.

63.  Read Rumi every day.

64.  Listen to happy podcasts! (Right now I’m bingeing Magic Lessons.)

65.  Write a haiku sometimes.

66.  Wash the dishes and do the laundry.

67.  Enjoy my time working in the bookstore with Amy.

68.  Buy one feminist book per month.

69.  Watch movies.

70.  Accept invitations but

71.  Cancel plans whenever I need to.

72.  Ditto for calling in sick.

73.  Keep fresh flowers in the house.

74.  Send mail.

75.  List gratitudes and accomplishments daily.

76.  Say thank you, I love you, and I’m sorry easily.

77.  Be a guest house for emotions and other things recommended by Rumi.

78.  Go on mini-artist-dates whenever I get a little pocket or time.

79.  Or do nothing.

80.  Always be doing The Artist’s Way.

81.  Do self-help books, or “emotional sudoku” as Maria Bamford calls them.

82.  Watch, read, and listen to funny ladies. (And, okay, other funny folks too.)

83.  Honor my sacred alone times: Fridays after yoga, Sunday morning swimming, whatever else comes along.

84.  Make alone time on family visits.

85.  Always have good candles, notebooks, incense, and meditation stones.

86.  Goof around in thrift stores.

87.  Drink wine and watch Steven Universe.

88.  Believe that the Universe loves me and wants to shower me with gifts, blessings, and synchronicities.

89.  Admit to being a romantic.

90.  Have pretty clothes.

91.  Say yes to free stuff.

92.  Keep umbrellas, headphones, lipstick, cardigans, and chargers EVERYWHERE.

93.  Increase my IRA deposit whenever I can.

94.  Turn off the phone.

95.  Or just go ahead and scroll through Instagram.

96.  Play games.

97.  Watch sitcoms.

98.  Notice and enjoy silence.

99.  Celebrate having a body.

100. Say no to things I don’t like.

101.   Allow for the possibility of grey areas.

102.   Assume good intentions.

103.  Use and celebrate my voice.

104.  Treat everyone, especially myself, as if we were The Prodigal Son/Daughter/Non-Binary Child.

105.  Look at collections, varieties, arrays.

106.  Enjoy my friends.

107.  Have some tea.

108.  Believe fortune cookies, encouraging tea bags, and other messages from the Great Whatever.

109.  Keep a stock of tea lites.

110.  Notice magic every day.

111.  My neighbor once told me that “Living in a community is a constant state of forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

112.  Put loving myself first, always.

What are your ways? ❤ ❤ ❤