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 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 faith in a seed
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” ~Thoreau
On 50 and choosing
I turned 50. Not 50 laps in a row, not 50 pages at a time (though I am reading a good book)—50 years of age. WOW.
And you know what? I feel pretty dang good.
On what a few hundred carrots can teach you
I volunteered this week. Once chopping carrots at DC Central Kitchen; once playing with cats at the SPCA. Both brought me into the present moment and provided emotional connection to self, others, community, purpose. Both surfaced appreciation for current state, even in its highs and lows.
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 trust
I met a new friend this week. She and I didn't exchange a word. Well, that's not true. I spoke to her, but she didn't respond verbally herself. Rather, she relied on her instincts—tuning into my tone, my posture, my movements, my energy—to communicate with and respond to me. It was a short-lived friendship. I'll likely never see her again. Yet it stayed with me. It left me ruminating on the notion of trust, of what it takes to trust in someone or something else, on what it takes to trust oneself.
How did my newfound friend know that she could trust me?
On the unremarkable
I sat down this morning to write. (Yes, currently I write day-of. Perhaps that will change. For now…)
My mind was blank. Nothing stood out. No big insight, no big breakthrough, seemingly no big anything.
I thought to myself, “I have nothing to share”.
