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 “is this living?”
I was untethered. Anxious. My emotions on the edge of my skin for all to see, or so it felt at least. Last Monday marked eight months unemployed, and somewhere during the day, I started asking a quiet, uncomfortable question—one a friend put into words before I could. Is this living? Am I living, or just getting through? Isn't there more?
I share this carefully. As mentioned earlier, not to hand over my mess, but because I suspect I'm not the only one asking it right now. If you are as well—hi. You're not alone in this.
On kindness
I woke up sweating. Not the typical 50-year-old-perimenopausal-woman sweats, nor the expected "it's a summer heat wave" sweats, but the "is my air conditioner working" sweats. And sure enough, my 1905 Victorian and its insufficient central HVAC system was, in fact, not working—in the middle of the 2026 heat wave, at the exact moment I happened to be a 50-year-old woman in perimenopause.
To say I was miserable would be an understatement.
On the motherland
I was born in Turkey, yet was only there for three months before moving back to the US through JFK Airport and New York City.
Perhaps this is why both places feel like home—the latter, New York, where I lived twice for nearly eight years in all. The former, less explicably, given I have no memory of it, somewhere in my bones.
On my island
I just returned from a week away up in Vermont. Including the retreat I'd been at, I was away for ten days. What a gift to be able to take the time for both solitude and solidarity in such a beautiful part of the country.
And...
On reviving
I drove through the country roads with a smile on my face. I can't easily verbalize the why behind it. Suffice to say—a short 48 hours on a sheep farm in Vermont revived more within me than I thought it might—or than I believed it needed to.
Six of us were brought together by one—the leader of the group. We started as strangers and left as friends.
On courting
Oh! I say to myself. Who's that?
She looks back at me with terrified yellow eyes and an expression that reads far more skepticism than I had...Ohhhh...who's that?
I open the door. She scatters away.
A few hours later...the courting begins again.
On connection
I often don't allow myself to lean into emotion the way I did last week. I tuned inward, into my body and its sensations. Into the heaviness and emptiness alike. My yard becoming my medicine, my solace.
This week, my yard remained my medicine, but in community. The weight was light, the space full.
On smiling
I’ve been smiling (and laughing) a lot lately. It’s been through connecting to people, places and activities that bring me joy. It’s been through releasing that which doesn’t through journalling, meditating and walking, e.g. Through it all, I’ve turned more inwards than ever before, noticing how “alive” I feel from allowing myself to be in the present moment—smiling and laughing and experiencing that which is around me.
