Chugging along.

I think we have a consensus: this year has been a doozie.

Loss, change, uncertainty, and pressure—everyone I know is constantly going through something significant. Perhaps that’s simply life or growing older, but I know I feel dragged by the current of rapidly passing time, feeling like there isn’t enough of it to process any of it fully.

Being alive, figuring it out, and making it all mean something is neverending and exhausting work.

Here are some small things I’ve been keeping in an open drawer in my mind—little items that have resonated and help me keep going:

this QUOTE

From a reel by Ryan Baron, known as American Baron, on Instagram :

“Moving to a pretty city won’t fix you. No matter where you go, you keep running into yourself. Escaping isn’t the crazy and brave thing to do. Staying and facing yourself is. And I know. I once said it, too: ‘You only live once. Don’t be a hero. Take the money and run.’ But geography won’t make the blank page go away. Every place I’ve lived, no matter how nice it is, you always wind up looking for Neverland again. Whether I wake up stateside or in an anonymous Dutch country town, I have to wake up as me, in this body, wearing this face, with the same questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? What will you do now?”

this POEM

From Morgan Harper Nichols’ Let July Be July

“Let July be July.

Let August be August.

And let yourself

just be

even in

the uncertainty.

You don’t have to fix

everything.

You don’t have to solve

everything.

And you can still

find peace

and grow

in the wild

of changing things.”

this WORD OF GUIDANCE

From my somatic coach, Aurora Allen, with Radical Wellness Collaborative:

“Difficult emotions won’t last forever, but they will return. Stay with them long enough for something to change. Attend to every ebb and flow.”

this SONG LYRIC

From Bruno Major’s Tears in Rain (For Granny)

I know it’s gonna be a little while before I hear your voice again

‘Til I can ask you all of the questions that I should have asked you then

Is it all a simulation? Can you win the human race?

Do you even hear me? Are you stardust lost in space?

And if I see you on the other side, will you look the same?

Because it’s all the little things that will be lost

It’s all the little things that will be lost, like tears in rain

this LINE

From Don Delillo’s White Noise:

“What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.”

What art anchors you?