This short piece is the result of a thank you letter writing exercise at a writer's club meeting I so joyously facilitated this week. More to come. 

I saw you standing there again today. In the same place as all the days before since the moment of your creation. There's something comforting about your uniformity, something I can count on even when the world around us is in a constant flurry of change and evolution. Yesterday, for example, when the rain came and the sky grew dark, in the middle of the afternoon. Everything felt heavy, like the bottom of the sea or my legs trying to walk through a dreamscape. I felt a fear rising in me as though I, along with all I knew to be, might be swept away. Carried off into the cosmic abyss. But then I peeked outside through the blinds, and I saw you there, wavering something fierce, branches piercing the shadows and the swarms of earth and leaves. I felt as if your roots had reached up through the floor of my living room and wrapped themselves around my cold, bare feet. I felt my mind come back down from that place of turbulence and sense my connection to the ground, and I could breathe again. Do you remember it? Doing that for me? Or is grounding just so embedded in your essence that you had no choice? I guess it doesn't matter, really. That moment has tumbled into this one, the now in which the storm has passed. But I remember it, and I will remember it for all my time to come. So I want to thank you. I thank you for being and for showing me how to plant myself into this great, green earth.  

Dear Anna,

​    I’ve never met you, but I figure you must be wise if everyone is writing to you. I find myself in a situation that I can’t seem to wrap my head around, and I’d like your counsel. You see, my suitcase is packed, yet again, and I’ve told myself I’m leaving, yet again. But I don’t know where it is I’m going. And this time especially, I’m not sure why it is I’m walking away. So far, it’s just been something I do, every now and then, when the place I’m in starts to feel familiar and my every move predictable. I’ve thrown myself into new situations, struggled to find my footing, until I have, and proceeded to build a life around it - friends that feel like family, like lovers, like life.

This is another piece that came out of our February writing retreat in Khanom. It's a bit more personal than the things I normally post, but sharing is caring, right? So here's the deal with this letter. The activity was a "movement and writing" exercise. We all went our separate ways for a 20 minute walk, and during the walk made note of (or photographed) three things that stood out to us. After we all returned we pulled a letter prompt and incorporated the three things we recorded into the letter. My prompt was to write a letter to my passion, and the three things I noted on my walk were:

1) Road safety mirror (that helps you see around a curved road)