I’ve done it again.
I’ve pressed delete.
Any words that might hurt another, even if they are my truth, cannot stay here.
And though the post I’ve just deleted feels right from my perspective…there is the potential that it may hurt certain people either close to the story or who have opposing views.
And so it is: delete.
It’s my way.
To care.
So let this truth be for my heart only.
And I will send love into the world, to take its place.
Unity is the magic pill.
But unity
does not look like
shaming the broken.
Hear it.
It is this,
my truth,
I speak.
I only have to give
this love that I have.
I only have to give it,
and cherish the way it feels
to know I have loved.
It started with the Fathers of the Fathers.
Each ache, each man left broken
by the one who came before him:
not his fault,
that pain, continued.
But an unwanted gift, often unseen,
too often delivered.
It must now be seen.
It must now stop,
to break the rusty chain.
I send my heart
to those in pain.
Let me sit beside you in the dark.
Let me remind you:
darkness is the ship
to a bright new day.
I had to write. With my heart open wide and my energy flowing, I had to write because writing is what my soul does when it needs to breathe.
My soul needs to breathe.
I stood beneath a tree in my front yard the other day. I was gardening, but gardening has become so much more than just a word, to me. How about caring for, nurturing gently, cherishing life as it grows beneath my hands? That sounds about right.
I was always going to love like this. Always going to be the one to love that little bit more. And where it often hurts a great deal to live with my heart wide open, I can’t imagine any other way of being.
A bug caught my eye as it crept up a branch. It was my baby daughter. Of course, it wasn’t my actual baby daughter, that would be insane of me to consider. But I knew in that moment that I loved this little beetle. That I would protect it. That I cared so much more deeply for this little life than I ever thought I could.
I have only just allowed myself to feel this deeply again. It was often unsafe to be my fullest self in this world, and many have hardened beneath the hardness of generations before them. My culture was not built to tolerate a soft heart. It is a culture of jokes at people’s expense and arguments over petty things. I reject it entirely. And it rejects me.
But I stand under trees and I love them with all that I am.
And I write.
Because my soul asks me to write. So I do.
I write.
A little story. A lovely one.
While standing in line at the shop, today, holding a baby in one arm and a pram in the other, the lady in front of me turned.
‘Please go ahead of us. I see you have two little ones and a baby. Please go ahead.’
I could have kissed her beauty.
I could have held her love in the air and said out loud for all to hear, ‘this is the kindness I choose.’
Instead, I said thank you.
Once. And once again.
True sunshine.
The end.
Love
the word
is not enough.
Love
the feeling
is infinite.
Kindness is everywhere if we look hard enough.
And you’ll know how it feels, because you’ll know how it looks.
And if you know how it looks…
you’ll know your most important identity.
You’ll know how to be beautiful you.
Kindness is beautiful.
See it, feel it, know it kind of beautiful.
Or…not know it.
Kindness is kindness, either way.
Kindness isn’t something we need to think to life.
It is not a plan, it is not an order.
It’s a heart thing.
Our job is just to listen.
And breathe.
So, don’t try to be kindness.
Just move over.
To the left of the Sun, to the right of the moon.
And I promise you,
I promise.
Kindness will be there soon.
The horrible beautiful: it is the ache our soul knows and understands as our connected truth.
What could be beautiful about war, you might ask? I ask the same question myself, every single day. It is beyond painful what is occurring in the world at this time, and so many of us would do just about anything to take the pain away from our beautiful Ukrainian friends.
Ah. You saw it there, didn’t you. The beautiful part? You saw it right there in the love.
And that is what I mean about war, how it’s both beautiful and horrible at the same time. War opens hearts by breaking them. It shows us just how important we are to each other, and it shows us just how deep our human connection goes. We grow more beautiful as a collective in times of pain.
I know few would ever ever choose war.
I would never ever choose war.
But I absolutely choose the togetherness. The signs I’ve seen all over the world declaring:
My goodness, I choose that kind of beautiful.
My goodness, I choose that for humanity.
Shine on, beautiful humanity.
We are with you, darling Ukraine.
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