What are yours?
If any of the themes below resonate with you, I’d love to hear from you.
with love ✨, CATHERINE
Observations on moving, breathing and being. These are mine.
I’ve been writing them down since 2020.
I took a long pause. I’m back now.
On being perennial
I came home this week to a surprise. My neighbors on either side had gifted me peony-like roses from their gardens, gathered into a glass jar painted with a quiet geisha—graceful and elegant both—the breadth of life on one stoop.
On replanting
Home is where you lay your head. At least, that's what the military brat in me learned in my early years, moving around every two to three years. Not unlike Move Breathe Be's own mark, the dandelion, that scatters its seeds, not knowing where they'll land, trusting that they'll take hold, all in due time. I could learn a lot from the dandelion.
On beginning again
I woke up this morning, as did those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, to the Spring Equinox, the beginning of a new season and that which comes with it— light, energy, hope. We awaken from the months of the Winter prior, whereby we operated at a slower pace.
Yet we weren’t quiet. Underneath the surface, sometimes hidden from ourselves, seeds were being planted, preparing us for what’s to come.
On Spring cleaning
Tomorrow marks the Spring Equinox for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere—when day and night are of equal length with the sun crossing the equator, promising longer days and signaling rebirth all around us. In many ways, this time period feels like the beginning of the new year, providing an opportunity to reflect more so than the busy, distracting holiday season that is the end of the calendar year.
On the hills we climb
Inspiration can come at many different times and from many different sources. For me, most recently inspiration came on Inauguration Day from the steps of the United States Capitol by way of the words eloquently written and spoken by a young woman born in 1998 in Los Angeles, CA—now a household name, Amanda Gorman.
As did many of us, I found her poetry to be so moving and so in tune with the love and healing messages heard earlier that day from Vice President Harris and President Biden. Within her lines, the ideals of unity, of healing, of grief and of hope echoed loudly.
Beginnings (part 1)
Happy New Year!
I don’t know about you, but since Christmas Day, I’ve felt this tremendous pressure to be ready and able to leave all of 2020 behind as the calendar ushers us into 2021. Willing, yes! But ready? And able?
I’ve wrestled with thoughts such as, I haven’t done this yet or I haven’t solved for that yet or I haven’t come close to fixing that yet. I’ve especially wrangled with, but I don’t want to take this <<hurt, pain, ache, fear, dread>> with me into the next year—I need more time!.
Side note: don’t get me wrong. I’ve also had countless moments since early May all the way to as recently as yesterday when I've told 2020 to go f' itself, begging it to be 2021 already.
And then the clock struck 12. 2020 was over; 2021 had begun.
I let out an audible sigh of relief.
No longer was there this unrealistic pressure of out with the old, in with the new but rather an acknowledgement that there’re still things to be done, solved, “fixed”; that there’s still anguish and anxiety that came along with me into the new year; and that that’s all okay.
Another side note: don’t get me wrong here, either. I still opened my back doors at midnight to let out the old year and opened my front door to welcome in the new year. You can never be too sure…
It’s all about perspective…
A reflection on possibilities
It feels like it’s been awhile since I last shared my reflections of the week. I suppose it has—looking back, it’s been three weeks since my post on sadness. While those thoughts were specific…to the end of what I had thought was the beginning of a renewed commitment…, I suppose there’s been a layer of sadness enveloping me for awhile now. I’ve experienced a lot of loss, as have we all—my relationship (now twice), my job, my pet, my sense of normalcy, even my ability to travel as I otherwise might have with this “gifted” time.
But I’ve also felt sadness with respect to the state of discourse in our society today—the sheer divisiveness in language used seemingly at all levels, across all aisles, surrounding all topics—and our inability, or sometimes refusal, to recognize our shared commonalities. As like many of us, I’ve allowed myself to become distracted by much of this, which has hindered both my direction and my momentum.
Politics aside, this election cycle has renewed my hope and sparked an optimism within me that the future is bright…
A reflection on unplugging in order to work again
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. ~ Anne Lamott
When my employment unexpectedly ended two months ago, a near and dear friend implored me to unplug from my normal modus operandi and rather plug into a totally new way of being. She challenged me to do everything counter to what my hard wiring would otherwise have me do—such as immediately updating the resume, calling the headhunter, reaching out to my network, finding project-based work, etc. Instead, her challenge required an acknowledgement on my part that the only way to start back up was through a total system reboot.
