cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I walk into the office, sit, and face my therapist. The books behind her chair are neatly arranged in their same places. We exchange our familiar greetings. I try to speak. Her face fades, and I see pink water dancing on broad palm leaves. Giggles from small children echo. I hear my wily brother. He…
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I was never a bandwagon football fan. I grew up on Sunday afternoons, as young as five years old, listening to my father tell me about the details of football plays and how it all worked. My favorite NFL team was the Chicago Bears, with its quarterback Jim McMahon. Their defense was incredible. Later, my…
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Like the air, dreams are thick. “Where do they come from?” Slowly moving through stories. Stories electrify my body and paralyze me, strung together much like an addict strings up a row of sober days and calls it enough. These are my sober days. I feel the buzz in my head grow louder, the words…
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“We will not end white-body supremacy—or any form of human evil—by trying to tear it to pieces. Instead, we can offer people better ways to belong and better things to belong to.” — Resmaa Menakem I step into my office almost daily. Candles line my windowsill, one too many mugs sit with various amounts of…
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I look down at my phone and see an Instagram story. It catches my eye. This is not very unique for me, but I get in these rabbit holes chasing interesting stories. Maybe because it’s fall 2021, and the kid’s schooling is back online. For me, meandering through other people’s vacations, or sipping extra coffee…
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“The biggest thing our heritage provides us, is that we don’t divorce our body from our emotions. The problem with that is that we also feel the weight of it in our body faster than our brains can process it.” – Dr. Eliza Bast, describing the Latinx experience I sit in Poulsbo, beside the bay, where Coastal…
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In the wilds of motherhood, professional work, and various other creative endeavors, as an Indigenous/Mexican/Spanish/German woman, I find the spaces shrinking in which I feel intuitively understood. In the ongoing pandemic integration into real-life realities, paired with friction-filled sociopolitical conversations and an ever-emerging mental health crisis, I often “turtle,” or go inward. A few weeks…
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“For the opposite of clinging is not letting go but cherishing. This is the goal of the practice of humility. That having a “light grasp” on life prepares the way for cherishing what is right in front of us.” ― Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, Gregory Boyle Dear Colleague, This year,…
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We rarely travel at Christmas time. The last time, in fact, was three years ago, pre-COVID. This year, our family of six will make two brief trips; one to spend time with family, and one to relax in the sun with dear friends. The pandemic took away our less-than-regular visits with family. We lost a…
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My heart races as I descend the stones thrown recklessly at the edges of the earth. These coastal boulders are mighty as they break the waves, which threaten to wash away the trees and green shrubs, homes of bears and cougars. Whoever tossed them aside was very angry.
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