The Very Real Things

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone's soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
-Rumi

This morning in a fit of trying to figure out what the heck I can wear to work, I cut off the sleeves of a sweater I don't often wear and made this vest. This was my inspiration. I like it better, though I now realize why I didn't wear it that much--it's a funky fit. I want to shrink it down.

Both the neighbors beside us and above spend a good deal of their time yelling. The next door neighbors, a mother and her two grown sons communicate through screaming at eachother. Lately it's been worse. This morning on my way out the door, I took chalk and wrote in the walkway: KINDNESS. In New York sometimes saying "Good morning" to a stranger as you pass by feels like a RADICAL ACT. It's not often that I walk out into the world and am greeted by kindness. At least I can provide that for myself, if not my neighbors, who desperately need it.

I want to infuse my life with possability more directly. Lately my thinking has been on the inward negative side. I feel puckered. So I take pictures of shoes, make nourishing lunches for myself, write messages on the sidewalk, transform clothes. When I yearn and yearn and yearn for something I cannot name, I forget about the very real things I can do RIGHT NOW to not only feel better, but to SHIFT and CHANGE and to BELIEVE in something OUTSIDE of myself. Often, it doesn't take money or much risk. It just takes ACTION, the one gift we can give ourselves by getting up and out the door.