Make something beautiful. Learn something.
—Wendy Videlock
She would not put on her resume, Dreamer of Spaces.
Encourager of Humans. Collaborator with Chaos.
Queen of the Incantation. The One Who Brings Drums.
Invoker of Imagination. Co-creator with Wildness.
One Who Lives on The Edge. Maker of Beauty.
But this how she changes the world every day—
with song. With paint. With poems. With trust.
In a time hellbent on hurt and destruction,
into every room, she brings love.
In a chapter defined by the most selfish of us,
she lives into how good humans can be
and invites anyone to join her.
Gives them a pen. A brush. A drum.
Gives them a nudge. A tarot card. An hour.
Feeds them poems. Feeds them dreams.
This, too, is our work in world, though
I doubt she would call it work:
To meet what aches. To do it together.
To open to hopelessness with wonder.
Like an artist. Like a mother.
Archive for March, 2025
Ode to the Woman of Odd Jobs
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart hero, maker, poet, Wendy Videlock on March 14, 2025| 6 Comments »
Meeting Intimidation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, intimidation on March 13, 2025| 4 Comments »
What if, in that moment when Wendy introduced us,
I had not been afraid to say more than hello?
What if I had not turned toward someone else
as if I had something I needed to say to them.
A week later, it’s so easy to see what I was doing
was turning away from the woman who,
through no fault of her own, daunted me.
What if I’d decided it was okay to feel afraid
and I invited myself to be uncomfortable
and stay with the interaction anyway?
What if I had asked her a question, any
open and honest question, such as,
“What felt good to you about tonight?”
Or, “How does it feel to be here?”
What if I had said nothing at all, and simply
offered her my awkward but honest attention?
How often do I let my fear make choices for me?
How much is lost in these moments of cowardice?
A chance for connection? A chance to meet
the small and uneasy parts of me that I would rather
hide from? A chance to see through my defenses?
A chance to be surprised by how generous
the world can be when I don’t turn away?
Where It Starts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged center, circle, pointing on March 12, 2025| 4 Comments »
In the onion sliced open, are the same
concentric circles I saw in the water today
when my nephew threw stones
into the pothole in the desert,
same as the circles on the topo map
that radiate from the earth’s highest points,
same as the rings that spread
across the world when I send love far away—
amazing how sometimes
we can point to the center
of a complex feeling
and say here, here is where it starts.
And the finger that points aims straight
to our own aching heart.
Navigating the Changing Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged red wing blackbird, spring on March 11, 2025| 6 Comments »
the day a river,
the moment a skiff
and the trill of the first
red-winged blackbird
both rapid and oar
Strange But True Ways We Connect, Part I
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, commerce, commercial, friendship, singing on March 10, 2025| 6 Comments »
It was Daiva, curled in the armchair like a cat,
who began to sing the seventies’ jingle for Meow Mix,
meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow,
and instantly we all joined her as if we were singing
the national anthem, or Happy Birthday, or Old Lang Syne—
simple joy in the simple tune that brought us back to,
what, Saturday morning cartoons? To a time when
life seemed playful as a tabby cat singing for its meal?
Such cheap joy in this one-word lyric, almost embarrassing,
really, the intense pleasure in this commercial riff
that somehow sewed itself into our memory,
so much joy we rolled on the floor in laughter,
holding our sides as if to keep all that pleasure
from spilling out, but spill out it did, innocent and silly,
as if we knew we were being played by ad men, but didn’t care,
as if laughter itself is the most potent of currencies
when shared, as if by singing a song together—
whether jingle or anthem—the singing itself is what
helps us come closer to each other’s humanity.
And so, days later, when Daiva sends a two-word email
that begins with, MEOW, my heart opens. And though she’s
far away, I hear her giggle and I sing along.
To the Bunny Who Lives Under the Porch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, elegy, fear, spring, vulnerability on March 9, 2025| 8 Comments »
Snug little lump of timid flesh
whose fur matches the brown
grass of late winter, silent
little being with your long
pointy ears twisted back,
oh, soft little wide-eyed prey,
thank you for returning
to the yard this morning.
After two weeks of not seeing
your fidgety-whiskered nose,
I met your apparent loss like an elegy
I didn’t want to write. I am tired
of writing elegies, though this
is what life asks us to do—
to meet the world of loss
and learn the beauty
that grows from it.
So imagine my joy today when
I was driving in a faraway town
and my husband sent me a photo
of your mild, quiet bunny-ness
nibbling grass beside the porch,
one shiny brown eye open
to the camera. A wild gratefulness
for life flooded me then, keen
as a pasqueflower, bright
as a globe willow greening
on the winter side of spring;
and my heart leapt out
from beneath its shelf of fear,
vulnerable as you, little bunny.
Living Dream
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Craig Childs, dream, self on March 9, 2025| 7 Comments »
A cool and sunlit morning at the edge
of a canyon with the sun slanting warm
on my bare arms, and Craig said, “Lately
I’ve been dreaming everyone in my dream
is me, and what happens to them happens
to me and what happens to me happens
to them,” and in that moment with the light
still soft, I was a barrel-chested man with
a silvering beard and a halting half chuckle
and a dream of being a woman in white t-shirt
sitting at the edge of a canyon with the sun
shining warm on her long bare arms and
I tell you, it took no effort from me at all
for the moment to lose its walls and for
the self to lose its frame and I became
whatever a slant of light is—
I don’t even remember taking it,
that first step over the edge.
Letter to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, empathy, heart, imitation, mockingbird, song on March 8, 2025| 6 Comments »
Once I was embarrassed
you were a mockingbird.
I wished you were more
hermit thrush, more meadowlark,
more cliff swallow in the canyon,
heck, even wished you were
robin or wren.
At last I’m coming to see
the gift of learning another’s song,
letting it pierce you, own you,
then braiding it with your own tune,
to sing back to the world
as one.
In the Fields of Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone, companioned, connected, grief on March 7, 2025| 5 Comments »
There are millions
of us here, billions,
all of us finding our way
on a different path,
as many paths as there
are griefs. But the field
is the same. Big enough
to hold us all. How is it
I sometimes feel alone,
when every other human
has gathered here
or will gather here
someday? How do I
sometimes fail to see
how grief connects us all,
even when we can’t
get ourselves out of bed,
even when we wonder
why grief looks so different
from the way we thought it would.
Even when we’re breaking down
in a room that looks empty,
even then we are companioned.
Even when we’re most alone,
we are never alone.
Letter to My Son, Over Three Years Since He’s Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, grief, love, memory, mother, siblings, son on March 5, 2025| 9 Comments »
You would be jealous, I think,
of how your sister is learning trig,
speaking Spanish, playing bridge.
You’d probably tease her, but really,
what you’d be thinking is, She is so cool.
And she is, sweetheart. She’s fun
and silly. Like you. Only like her.
We talk about you, of course.
Just this weekend, we remembered
how once you said if a 99-pound person
ate a one-pound burger, they
would be one percent burger.
I wonder what percent of your sister
is grief? And what percentage love?
Tonight a girl asked her if she had any siblings.
She said, yes, a brother. When the girl
asked her how old you were, she told her
the truth. That you were seventeen
when you died. What a terrible gift
to learn how to say the hardest things straight.
I can’t help but think if you are watching her,
you, too, must be in awe of who she’s becoming.
Oh, how we learn to grow from whatever soil
we’ve been given. I do not pretend to know
how this works. I only know she
is learning to transform ache into beauty,
nightmare into dream. I only know
I long for her to know love from you
the way a garden feels loved by sun, by rain.