Homefries

I woke up a few mornings ago with a clear message from my dream: homefries.

I saw them on the checkered red and white paper. From somewhere. From some table in my mind I didn't know I had a reservation at. But where? In what room of my own castle does this come from?

I am excited to report that adulthood has mystery. It really does. Mystery that shows up in odd packages, exciting packages, packages you didn't order and can't return.

Mystery that turns into awe when community truly comes together. And the wrapping is the thing: collaboration, people, showing up.

This is the life I want to be living. And it's the life I'm privileged to be living. Mysterious, blessed, beloved community.

And so it is.

Little loops

Perhaps the most useful thing I can offer today — most days, really — is to light a candle for the endless team working behind the scenes of my own consciousness.

I realized this yesterday, drinking coffee with my niece at the mall. There I was, fifteen again. That's all it took.

There's a candle burning quietly in my apartment most of the time. That must be why I light it day after day.

The hands-stretched-in-prayer is a good stretch for textile artists. It brings me back to the quiet center line of years of yoga practice and teaching.

The pink satin pillowcase my partner's mom just fixed is the same kind my own mom gifted me. It's the color of a kid who is cared for.

Little loops want to close. Things tend toward their own full circle.

Let them.

Sightlines

There are lines around what we see and what we don't. This has nothing to do with whether it exists.

Whether or not the cat took up space on the sidewalk didn't determine whether we saw her. The human, either.

Really seeing something implicates us in it. Another word for this is witnessing.

Seeing throws coins into the situation. Often more than we'd like.

It asks us to have a small shelf somewhere — a place where the existence of the other can go.

The street cat. The person sleeping in a doorway. The thing we walked past yesterday.

This just happened to me. A kitty on my block who seemed to see me back.

My gaze shifted. Now she's sitting next to me.

But I keep thinking about all the other homeless cats.