See The Sky

Fear lives in me. I’m trying to blockade the couch. Hide the snacks. Open the door. Point out the sky. Can you hear the crows? You could be the warning within their caw. Go, fear go. Oh, my fear, you aren’t so easily removed. My couch so worn. My dog, so warm. I get it, […]

Pushing Forward

Lately I‘m pushing forward toward what I want to be doing more of in my life. I don’t think I realized how vulnerable that would make me feel. I guess maybe that’s why some people say it’s easier to not follow your passion for work. I mean I know this. I know following writing where […]

With Joy

The grey is back. It’s the backdrop I need for my waiting to hit the stage of my own classroom tonight. I’m teaching adults for the first time. A few adults. I’m leaving out the words only or just even as I hear them in my head. But it’s powerful, deciding to show up for […]

Slow Learning

I am having a hard time learning to be slow. To wait for what shows up. To think that if I haven’t arrived already: my time has passed. That word: arrival. I know there isn’t one moment of arrival. And arriving at the big time: a billion clicks: that’s only one kind of arrival. Every […]

This Resting Place

This Resting Place  by Nancy Schatz Alton It’s possible to know what I want: a long walk warm coffee fresh expensive pastries cut & shared a weekend spent with intention: walk, coffee, eat write, yoga, no shopping, a little sorting reading.   It’s possible to relish where I’m at now: a long way into parenthood […]

The days shorten, the deadlines thicken.

The days shorten, the deadlines thicken. Make haste while it doesn’t rain. Relish the crush of the leaves underneath feet. The days shorten, the deadlines thicken. A crash: the shower curtain gives up its elasticity forever. The leaves ground into carpet, the vacuum cleaner waiting. The days shorten, the deadlines thicken. I wake early, write […]

The Whole World

Whole World by Hsueh-Feng The whole world is you. Yet you keep thinking there is something else.   Yesterday I made a protective cone around my center of strength and propelled myself through the day. The memory of the last election taught me that I needed a plan. A plan like a salve: self-care so […]

The Letting Go

The Letting Go  by Nancy Schatz Alton   This morning she drove away in the dark, headlights off. Forgotten headlights lighting up my worry. The monster comes roaring back: The one I left behind after her first year. Her neck will snap! The other driver won’t see her! Will they find my contact on the […]

Fire

Tell me, why does this one precious life feel hard? Even as my mind plays with the word hard. Is it the right word? Is hard allowed when so many have it worse? Why is my mind a trap that cycles me like a washing machine stuck in the spin cycle? Has that metaphor already […]

Not Sleeping

The endings pile up and I lay awake at night and think about faith. Not faith in a specific God, but faith that all will be well enough. That I will let go of the outcomes for my kids and they will fly well enough, fly away from me. My oldest stretches and leans away […]