A flume bridge built by a sugar beet company in Fort Collins to dump waste on the other side of the river, image by Eric

1. Truth: The Universe is pulling me in another direction. It’s the strangest thing to be living your life as usual, pretty much the same as it’s been for years, but to feel a change pulling at you like a strong wind or current in a river. Sure, you can try to go against it if you’d like, but it might pull you apart or even drown you if you do. And the moments that I give in to the pull, allow myself to be carried along by it, I feel a sense of ease I haven’t known in a really really really long time.

2. Truth: My Something Good lists are something else entirely to me. They are a record of all the things I want to dive into more deeply, research and think and write about, but because I don’t have the time or energy for that right now, I share the lists, save the rest for later.

3. Truth: I’m not going to focus on the positive. At a poetry reading I attended last week, poet Ross Gay described joy as something that allowed room for grief, and said it was a practice. I have very little patience right now for those who would have the rest of us ignore the brutal, the terrible in favor of sunshine and puppies. I love those last two things as much as the next person, maybe even more so, but I can’t ignore the suffering that exists. I can’t lie about it or look the other way. Even though it’s tempting, my goal isn’t to feel better or be more comfortable. My mission is to ease suffering, in myself and the world. For that, I have to keep my eyes and heart open, make room for all of it, and help when and where I can.

One wish: May we fully listen and be present for suffering, and do what we can to ease it.

From our walk this morning

1. Truth: Some days I’m worried, and it makes it hard to concentrate. Sam is getting an ultrasound today to see if we can get a clearer picture (literally) of what’s going on with him. He’ll have to be sedated and if they find what they expect, he’ll be getting a platelet injection. The sedation is what worries me, always does. No matter how careful everyone is, there’s risk involved, and it makes it hard to focus on anything else while I wait.

2. Truth: While big things matter, sometimes it’s the little things. I’m thinking in terms of the negatives here, how a collection of small things adds up to something. Like maybe it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal that we shifted from paper forms to an online timeclock for student workers, or because of ongoing construction the closest I can park to my office is half a mile away, or they added chicken to the ingredients of something labeled “Peanut Butter flavor,” or it was windy all night and this morning and will be the rest of the day and tomorrow. Any of those by itself is so small, almost irrelevant, but somehow together they add up to some sort of omen, message, sign.

3. Truth: I love surprising people more than almost anything. Yesterday my nieces were posting on Facebook about Ocean Spray Cran-Pineapple juice, how it sounded good but you could only get it on Amazon. I ordered two jugs and sent it to them. No worries that I’m spoiling the surprise by writing about it here. They don’t read my blog. Another time, a friend was telling me about this Mary Poppins spoon that she’d saved box tops from cereal boxes and sent away for when she was a kid. She ate her cereal with it every morning, but then lost it somehow. I got on Ebay and found one, ordered it and put it in her mailbox at work, anonymously. The surprise didn’t last because when she found it, I was the first person she told, and the joy on my face gave me away. I always eventually confess, just so the surprise doesn’t seem creepy.

One wish: May our worry be eased and our aching hearts soothed by the sweet surprise of love and friendship.