September | 2016 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

ringoandpancho

1. Play date with Pancho. These two are such an odd couple, but since they’ve known each other since they were little, they play really well together. It doesn’t hurt that Pancho’s mom is one of my favorite people.

samposthike

2. Sweet Sam. He doesn’t take part in the play date because he doesn’t appreciate the rowdy play, but he’s such a good boy.

3. Tea with good women. One I’d never met before, and the other I’m getting to know better after a long time.

spicytacos

4. Good food. I always share recipes I want to try on my Something Good list, and lately we’ve actually made a couple of them. The above is the Oven Baked Spicy Chicken Tacos, (buried under there somewhere). They were delicious. The Cheesy Zucchini Rice was good too. We’ve also been making gratins with our tomatoes.

5. Eric. Last week when we were texting and sending each other pictures, he said some really sweet things. He’s also been making me laugh this week, even though we’ve been having some hard conversations.

One of the pictures I texted Eric

Bonus joy: clean water, a warm shower, sitting in the backyard with the dogs, grass under my bare feet, seeing an owl on our walk, Wild Writing class, sleeping in, reading, good TV, my new car, yogurt with granola and berries for breakfast, garlic bread, working from home, walking with the dogs, grasshoppers, tiny yellow birds eating the sunflowers, a watermelon from our garden, the weekend, coming home from work and taking off my bra.

cafeardourlight

1. Truth: Knowing what you want is just the first step. You can be so clear about what your destination is, about it being right for you, but that alone doesn’t get you there. It’s simply a good place to start, a beginning.

2. Truth: Even if you know where you intend to land, there are many tiny steps on the path to getting there. I know there’s a lot of encouragement to lean in, play big, take the leap, with the promise that you’ll magically land where you want, but I don’t think it happens just like that for most people. In fact, I’ve found that many who try to sell their story like it was that easy simply skip the middle, leave out the messy bits.

3. Truth: Patience is essential. Especially when you can see exactly where you want to go, it can be frustrating to wait, to do the small work of getting there, and yet it’s the only way to travel, the only way to get from here to there. And just know that even when it seems like you aren’t getting anywhere, more than likely something is shifting.

One wish: May we relax into the time and effort it takes, resting when we need to, taking it as slow as we need to go, working out one thing at a time, one step and then another, patient with the process and gentle with ourselves, trusting in our own knowing.