Even with the buffering of the return with a week in the mountains of Colorado and the stunning saguaro desert of Arizona, my return to the Bay after six months of travel has been jarring. A meeting back of two souls searching to see where and how the other has changed. The unspoken question of… Continue reading When Waiting for Gladioli to Bloom
"The secret of life is not only making lemonade out of lemons -- but it's understanding the benefits of the lemons. It's looking into the countless ways that lemons make us better." I've come to know my neighborhood well. As the days have gotten shorter and the skies more grey, I've taken to long, midday… Continue reading How to Sweeten Lemonade
If you come as softlyAs the wind within the treesYou may hear what I hearSee what sorrow sees. -from "If You Come Softly" by Audre Lorde Six months ago I wrote a piece about my corn plant that I had been slowly nursing back to health and how broken down things can be revived. Six… Continue reading Toward 34: “If You Come Softly”
The dracaena fragrans, or corn plant, is a popular house plant because of how tall it can grow and its relatively easy care routine. I got my first around 2020, a year that house plants would give many of us a much needed distraction in the face of shelter in place orders. At the time… Continue reading Some Leaves are Still Green
If there was a frequent flyer program for crying on airplanes, I would always fly first class. I can't remember when I first decided that these steel birds were the perfect environment for heart-wrenching tears, but they have been the primary setting for some of my deepest (and loudest) sobs in life. Perhaps it's because… Continue reading The Art of Plane Crying
Thirty-three. A year many refer to as your "Jesus Year." Scholars believe that 33 is the year that Jesus started a spiritual and political revolution that led to his crucifixion. It's a year meant to put you on a different path than the ones you were on before. The year you put the things together… Continue reading For 32: The Practice of Letting Go
Two weeks ago I walked into my hair salon and let my hairdresser Opal chop my hair off. Two weeks before that, I had been washing my hair and cried as clumps of it easily wound its way around my hand as I rinsed conditioner out of my hair. I'd been losing hair for more… Continue reading “Healing is a promise.”
I begin my days with the start of the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin: Above all, trust in the slow work of God. Time is something that moves slowly these days. Time between the next blood draw, the next doctor's visit, the next thing to change about my daily routine to adapt to new realities.… Continue reading Love notes to my body and the slow work of God
Breathe in. What do you do when the very thing that is meant to help you can also kill you? Breathe out. According to my nurse, about 15% of patients who get iron infusions react to them. A reaction can range from a tickle in the throat and rashes to more serious reactions. Breathe in.… Continue reading Breath
I have these tiny bumps, almost like a tiny plague of boils that started on my fingers and have now covered all of them and across my palms, crept up my wrists and have now appeared on the tops of my feet. I don't know if they're a type of rash, reaction to medicine, skin… Continue reading Skin
Odelia Younge 