love & humans

Love, adventure, grief, and Willoughby

Shortly before he died, we said the name “Lincoln” again, not sure why. Willoughby’s head turned quickly. That’s my name. That was my name. Why did you say my old name? I don’t know what memories flooded Willoughby’s mind in that moment. Just that his head cocked differently. Maybe it brought him back one last…

But is it REALLY okay?

#makeitok is a hashtag for those of us who want to end the stigma around mental illness. For those of us who want talking about and attending to mental health to be a normal, accepted, an “ok” part of life. In the last few years I’ve been really impressed by the differences in the shapes…

Your imperfect help

It’s like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. You look over the edge, and it goes . . . down . . . and down . . . and it just keeps going. You try to follow it across to the other side, and there is just too much. It’s . . .…

Love is it.

It’s a new year, and I’m sitting at a coffee shop thinking about what I want to do as a writer this year. I want to grow. I want to get better at writing. I want to make more of an impact. I want to take it seriously. I want to chase the dreams I…

Deeper

Do you ever catch yourself looking into someone’s eyes just a little longer and thinking “holy **** there’s an actual person in there!” before quickly breaking eye contact and saying something like “ugh, winter” or “thank god it’s Friday” just to lighten the tension of the tangible spirituality you just experienced between two powerfully human…

The magic of conversation

How many unsaid things do you have simmering inside of you? Saying things out loud helps in so many ways. It helps us think through things, solidify things, feel things, get over things. Sometimes just letting out a frustration makes it stop hurting, or putting an anxiety into words suddenly reveals its harmlessness. Many of…

namaste

What if every time you spoke to someone, you first stopped to remind yourself that the person you’re about to speak to is a human, just like you? With feelings, with needs, with scars, with longings, with heart . . . And that to be human is a miracle. Sometimes a powerful miracle. Sometimes a…

Real People

Every person is a real person. Meaning they’ve got the inspiring, smiley parts and the sad, scary parts. The person you’re really close to, the person you’ve never met, and even the person you really look up to as a sort of superhuman. And even yourself. It’s good to just think about this every once…

Can you love humans AND cut people off?

How do you feel about these two “truths?” Deep down, everyone is just human, with their insecurities and feelings, needing love and, as a human, no matter how broken, worthy of love.Some people are toxic, narcissistic, cruel, and unloving, and permanently ending your relationship with them is the healthiest choice. I bet most of us…

Attention-seeking

What if half our problem is that we’re not asking for attention? Junko is a handful, but she’s not complicated. She is a 2-year-old very-puppy who has no qualms about putting her foot down (literally–like on top of us) when she needs . . . . . or even just “wants” attention. (Is there really…

No more looking the other way

A poetic quote has been making the rounds (not sure where it originated), relating to the pandemic: “We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat.” I think that’s as big as the rest of life, too, in every corner of the world. These words are not going to be…

From 1 to 92

and so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-twoThe Christmas Song One of my earliest vivid memories, marked by the musty smell of old books in the college library: Two fellow professors stopped my dad and struck up a conversation. They held their briefcases and said big sentences to each other…

We need you

What is waiting inside of you that the world needs? What love is waiting to be expressed? What music is waiting to be felt? What words are waiting to be heard? What art is waiting to move people? What stories are waiting to be told? What would be the harm in showing up for the…

Why not both?

“Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?”~ John Heywood, 1546, in his book, A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the english tongue “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” I’ve actually never appreciated this old proverb. It’s not that I think it’s wrong, just that…

Love

Love is not a finite resource. There isn’t a limited number of love things to pass around. Which means holding on tightly to the love inside you, instead of giving it away, isn’t the way to get love. At times I have felt like it is safest to not express all of the big love…

You’d be surprised how many of us are broken.

Hey friend, I’m asking you to take a closer look. The world asks us all to put our best foot forward. To be fun, to be chill, to be cool, to be strong, dependable, easy to get along with. Work demands our game face. We’re competing constantly. At all times on display, being assessed, critiqued,…

Are you really seeing them?

“Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn Have you ever found yourself looking back at old memories–photos, messages, etc–and realizing that your opinion now of an old friend is entirely different than it used to be? For example, I used…

What we got wrong about love

I don’t remember what game we were playing, or what this little boy was having a tough time with, but I remember like it was yesterday watching his father get more and more frustrated, eventually losing his temper and snapping at his sweet little boy. They were on a team and they were losing and…

Monsters until you flip the light switch on

~ Happy Halloween! What or who did you think was a monster until you flipped your light switch on? When we think that a thing is dangerous, unknowable, or scary, and we try to not look at it, it stays scary. It’s why, as kids, we think the stuffed animal under our bed or the…

Say your stuff, no matter how messy

I hope you find these words from Carl Jung as inspiring as I do. They resonate so deeply with me. This is so big. Say your stuff, the stuff that that means the world to you, that you need to say, that you feel deep down, that you have to get off your chest, that…

Would I still have been safe?

Oh hey my American friend. I wake up to the same headlines you do. I grew up on the same stories you did. I’ve learned roughly the same stuff as you about threats and expectations and stereotypes and all that jazz. You and I both have a general idea of what it means to live…

Merry Christmas 2019!

Merry Christmas friends! Christmas is my favorite holiday. Hands down. The tree goes up early and comes down late. All the tunes and the cozy hot drinks and the warm-fuzzy movies and the snowy walks. That’s not to say I’m never sad or stressed on Christmas. Christmas used to be sad and stressful for me, and…

Dare to connect

There are lots and lots of people in the world. And all of them want friends. Everybody wants the really good kind of friends–the kind that support. The kind you can be real around. The kind that smile and hug and laugh. The kind you can call when you need. You’re not the only one…

You may be the lighthouse they need

Have you seen Big Hero 6? If not, spoiler alert: So . . . Disney knows how to give us feelings. Oh man. To kick off the movie, the big brother runs into the burning building because he thinks someone is trapped inside it. And in a sudden explosion, he dies. Because that’s what happens…

Everybody is bad at something

Everybody is bad at something. I’m really bad at handyman stuff. I don’t know how to fix things or maintain things. Whenever something goes wrong with my car, or something breaks in the house, I feel totally lost. I feel overwhelmed when I have to take care of it. Like I’m out of my depth.…

They Have Feelings, Just Like You

There’s this one cashier at our grocery store that helps us sometimes. He’s disabled and has to sit on a stool while he slowly rings up our items. He’s very talkative and friendly, but his conversation is a little awkward. I’ve noticed a lot of people avoid him. They know checkout will take longer and…

Comfortable-to-Anti-Racist ratio

A lot of well-meaning Americans are scratching their heads and, their feelings a little hurt, saying “Hey wait, I’m not a racist!” And it’s true. Most Americans aren’t white supremacists. Most Americans think that being Black is as exactly, beautifully, perfectly human as being white. Sure, lots of us non-racists accidentally have some subconscious biases built…

What you focus on

For the first time when I was about seventeen, I noticed a Dodge Charger. Bright red, powerful looking, muscle from bumper to bumper. Wow, I thought, here is a unique and beautiful car. I must have one. Over the next couple weeks, half the population seemed to share my revelation and purchase their own Dodge…

Happy Thanksgiving 2019!

Happy Thanksgiving 2019! Last year I wrote that I thought that year was the oddest year of my life. I was wrong. This year. 100%. Odd isn’t bad, though. I have a lot to be thankful for. There’s all the usual, but there are some things I’m especially, newly thankful for this year. An odd…

You Have No Idea What’s Really Going On

I recently ran across a Yelp review from back when I managed a particular restaurant location. The review was scathing. And I agreed with pretty much all of it. What rubbed me the wrong way was that the critic ended with: “Let’s all boycott this location until they get a manager in there who actually…

Why Can’t You Talk About It?

Countless times, I’ve heard people say “I can’t say it” or “I can’t talk about it”–or worst of all, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.” Who says??? With a very few obvious exceptions (like corporate information that makes your company competitive or like national security and military secrets), you CAN talk about anything you feel you…

Do you need to do some scrubbing?

I’m going to have an embarrassing moment of honesty here and say I legit have had a really terrible grasp on American history for most of my life. To the point where I couldn’t tell you whether Martin Luther King Jr was an activist in the 1980s or the 1920s. Well actually, I had a…

Waking Up in Addis Ababa

I climbed down the stairs out of the plane and walked across a big runway and in through a little door into a big warehouse-like building. Mobs of people crowded the little airport, all speaking languages I didn’t understand. I had arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Scanning the crowds, I finally found my host. Accompanying…

When life gets normal again

I have an idea. Get a piece of paper and write down some of your deepest thoughts from these lonely, scary, inspiring, deeply humanizing coronavirus days. Thoughts about yourself, about the world, about your neighbors and friends, about hope and kindness and sacrifice. Thoughts about what matters. Then bury it somewhere in your closet with…

Who are you affecting today?

Think back to the last time someone ruined your day. How did it happen? There’s a good chance they were just being thoughtless, careless. Maybe they lost their temper. What they probably didn’t do is wake up that morning and think, “Man, I am going to RUIN so-and-so’s day!!!” You were just collateral damage. Unlucky. Wrong…

Wishes for 2021

My wish for 2021: That it will be a year of LOVE. In 2021, we will listen more. In 2021, we will surround ourselves with people who look and think and sound and live and celebrate and feel and act differently than we do. In 2021, we will work together with people who are not…

Tiny tiny tiny

Picture a map of the world. Do you see that tiny tiny tiny dot where you live? You and I are tiny tiny tiny creatures in a great big world. In August 2011, the Juno spacecraft, on its way to Jupiter, took pictures of the earth from one million miles away. Have you seen one…