Hope Archives - Page 2 of 10

Grief and the Holidays

April 9, 2023

I’ve written before how death and divorce can make holidays especially piercing, seeing everyone with their loved ones when so many of mine are now gone.

This is the first Easter in 6 years that didn’t feel like I was being stabbed with 1,000 tiny pins all day long.
I wondered why the feelings changed. Was it time? People love to say, “time heals all wounds,” but I have not found that to be true for me. In my experience, some wounds never heal.

I miss my beloveds all day every day. The pain remains, as big and all-consuming as ever, but the more it tries to pull me down, to destroy me, the more ferociously I create: writing, dancing, filming, creating…

I have learned to live with loss and grief, it is a part of who I am, and though I wish this wasn’t true, it is: grief is also an integral part of my children, and I know they feel the loss a little extra on holidays too.

How Kerouac Taught Me to Love

January 14, 2023

“The only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”…

Which might explain my eclectic group of eccentric friends and why I was drawn into the theater and circus life, the type of life who attracts people who choose a life of freedom over a life of fancy cars and big houses…

Grief: 15 Ways to Process Pain and Start to Heal

December 21, 2022

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final…
Ranier Maria Rilke
This is the quote on the handmade cards I’m giving my kids for for Christmas this year. I want them to remember, as tragedy and sorrow swirls around us, to allow themselves to feel everything, even the sharp and jagged edges of pain, to allow it in, let it change you, invite the pain in to teach its lessons. It hurts to lose people we love, and what can this brutal lesson teach us? I’m still learning myself, but I have noticed a deep and abiding compassion growing in me, forged in the fire of loss and pain, that urges me to show up for others who are in pain.

Ode to Joy: The Cello

October 2, 2022

Today, without knowing why, I found myself driving to the cello store, then hiking around my backyard forest with it in my arms. I sat down on an ancient rock and moved the bow across the strings until it finally started to fill the air with its sumptuous sensual tones. I wanted to play it by the fire and by the waterfall. I wanted to play for my pink flowers, dripping ferns, and fairy rocks. This time the cello didn’t make me weep, it made me laugh in delight and skip back down the hill.

The Healing Properties of Dancing in the Rain

June 29, 2022

Then I thought, I wonder if Anger Gardening is a form of therapy?
If it’s not, it should be. It’s dazzling in its wildness and simplicity. I watered my soul garden with my tears and my rage, then lifted my face to the rain and felt my soul bloom into a thousand blossoms lit by fireflies.

Lighthouses: Keepers of the Flame

June 18, 2022

They’re just little bearded guys, but they are the keepers of the flame. They remind me that no matter how dark and treacherous a storm may seem, no matter how thick the fog of grief around me, when I don’t know which way to turn, I just need to keep my eyes open, watching for the light that will guide me home.

Rewoven: My Mom and Dementia

May 29, 2022

Then again, my Mom is still my Mom, whether she’s able to respond to us in way we understand or not. She is living in a spiritual tender world, a world that doesn’t make sense to me, or those of us currently anchored in the concrete world.

Poison

May 6, 2022

Will there ever be a time when talking to my ex-husband doesn’t feel like drinking poison?

The (Kind Of) Invisible Woman

April 27, 2022

As I sat alone at the bar at Chez Josephine, I hung my pink beach ball purse on the hook under the bar and ordered my favorite champagne. Before long, the bartender saw my purse and gasped, so I pushed it over to her. She slung it over her arm and paraded around the restaurant for people to admire her. The other women sitting at the bar began gushing about my feathered cape and entire ensemble. I was surrounded by red velvet walls, a blue tin ceiling, dripping chandeliers, and massive images of my favorite icon, Josephine Baker. Someone was singing boisterously in French, and the bar was lively with people shouting and laughing.
I sat quietly, bathed in the soft lights, and just… was.

A Pocket Full of Starlight

January 22, 2022

Is it strange that I want to shrink my Mom and carry her in my pocket so I can have her with me all the time, like a pocket full of starlight that I can throw up in the sky when it seems especially dark?

Category: Hope