Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Struggling

 Today, life seems impossibly complicated. And hard. (Warning: whining ensues.)

While you would think that the awareness of good things happening in the world despite the tide of hate washing over the country from D.C. would buoy me, instead I feel overwhelmed with all that I seemingly don't have time for. 

There were a few weeks when I got to go to yoga Saturday and Sunday for double classes (read: "yoga retreat weekend!"), and that felt luxurious and expansive, as though I were already retired and living my best life. I felt centered and healthy and energetic.  

But I've remembered that I promised to help with a Religious Education curriculum for anti-racism at my UU church. So great! Yes, I say yes! (But also... there goes my yoga retreat.) So selfish. So Karen-ish! And yet, joy is also anti-racism, right? And we need to feel grounded and healthy and energetic to survive this tough time. I do. I know I will find a different kind of energy and health and groundedness contributing to my church community in this way. I know. And yet. Today, it feels sad. I feel sad. 

I got a newsletter from the city about all the events that I could volunteer to help support, one of them for Indigenous Heritage Celebration with Open Space. Yes! I want to say yes! I will help celebrate Indigenous Heritage! But it's this Saturday, and I have a date to puzzle with a good friend, which is grounding and nourishing and fun. 

Tonight, I could go to Vespers or play cards with good friends that I don't see very often.

This semester, I am teaching a class at UNM but want to spend my weekends playing instead of reading. 

I am gaining weight but want to eat candy corn like it's movie popcorn. 

I want to walk and run and yoga, but there's band concerts and sleep and work and class. 

Life is a lot. And I'm not sure I am navigating it well, for myself, for my community, or for the world. 

And maybe this is chemicals talking, and nothing is as bad or hard as it feels. And that's annoying, too. 

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Maple Seeds (poem) by Lynn Ungar

Most of the leaves are gone
from the maple. Other years
it's glowed with color but in drought
the leaves just turned brown
and dropped. Sometimes you just
can't afford that kind of gaudy joy.
But now there are seeds
by the tens of thousands,
the sidewalk heaped in
little brown wings, flocks
of seed angels come to earth.
I know I'll be grumbling
as I pull sprout after sprout
when the rains come. But for now
let me be a witness that letting go
is not the same as giving up,
that we could forego glamor
for the sake of the next generation,
that creation is the first principle,
to which we all belong.

10/18/2022