even if it seems impossible

 

June 5 • 2026

I put this in my wallet months ago. 

Each time I open it, this is what I see. 

trust. relax. breathe. everything is fine. really.

It helps. My shoulders drop. I exhale. 

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Every day is an avalanche of grifting, gaslighting, blatantly criminal, cruel behavior from our rogue government. This week, a row of white men in the Oval Office were chatting it up about coal, while the wannebe dictator slept in his swivel chair, head lolling to the side. They're standing right behind him! Meanwhile, Marco Rubio testifying in front of yet another committee, was shown a video of his sleeping boss. He adamantly refused to admit Trump was asleep. 

One of many WTF's 😳!

How do the gaslighters and liars look at themselves in the mirror? 

How do they look their kids in the eye? 

People are still refusing, doubling down even, that Jan. 6th was a pretty normal day. Nothing to see here, while a mob stormed the capitol, Nazi + Confederate flags, Trump flags, were used to beat police officers. Some of the mob were police officers. That was five years ago. So why does it feel like yesterday?  

Is anyone else feeling the exhaustion of staying up? 

Some days, I'm doggy paddling. A sad dog. The challenge is to not get stuck paddling but to remember that all this is fluid, constantly changing, impermanent. 

Some days, like yesterday, I went to the Y, jumped around in a cardio dance class, sang a rollicking Happy Birthday to our teacher, Ilene, and left feeling high, endorphins firing.

I'm deeply aware of my privilege as I write this in the quiet of my peaceful home, plants and birds outside the open window. A whisper of breeze.  I won't be swept up, locked up, taken from my family for months, possibly deported to a country that is not mine, because of my Spanish accent, immigration status, skin color ___________. 

Every day is an avalanche of fuckery. 

This morning I told myself, it's okay, be a sad dog, but not every day.

Keep swimming, paddling, jumping around. 

Speak up, call, write, protest, rage, fight the fascists.

Write yourself a note today.

What reminder does your spirit need?

trust. 

relax. 

breathe. 

everything is fine. 

really.

even if it seems impossible.

XO b 🐝

even the chairs feel alive

 

Sunday • April 19 • 2026

Daisy sleeping in the sun

blueberry skies

green mulberry tree, wide leaves

lemon trees + pots of succulents

birds + songs

bare feet on cool bricks

even the chairs feel alive. speak then.

• • • • • • • • • •

notice the peace here, woman.

notice how light hits the sunken brick by the rocking chair

notice the sounds of your husband in the kitchen

through the open door and scent of lemon

spoon drawer opens, shuts

stir the coffee, sugar, milk

hum of plane, bird chatter

lemons say, 

hang in

relax

you'll be picked 

or drop to the ground some day,

but not today.

namaste, lovelies.

xo B

still back there

 

February 27 • 2026

On the table are tulips, a gift from Jennifer, the cashier at Trader Joe's. 

Through the kitchen window, birds at the feeder.

finch 

wren. 

sometimes the woodpecker.

Fat squirrel watching from the tilted wooden fence. 

Beyond that Olivia and Makayla with their Dad, starting their morning walk to school, past the sage and cacti and pillowy lavender bushes in front of Anne's house.

Looking east, there's snow and mountains and Minnesota. There's Renee Good. Dead body slumped in the front seat of her car, shot by a rabid ICE thug. 

It was a Wednesday morning. She'd just dropped her six year old son at school.

She said, "It's okay, Dude. I'm not mad at you."

Renee was smiling.

He shot her in the face.

He said, "Fucking bitch." 

She was executed in broad daylight.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

I'm still back there. 

where's the f*cking portal?

 

September 12 • 2025

For the record, I'm coming off a minute of frothing over posts on Instagram about the murder of a racist purveyor of hate who is now the latest martyr for the cult. While doing laundry and emailing students, I'm intermittently scrolling and posting poems about guns in America and how maybe children should be honored for laying down their lives to protect the 2nd amendment. Emails about marches and protests and pleas for donations to fight fascism keep rolling in and then I remember I forgot to put fresh water in the dog's dish. Which is outside because that's the only place she'll drink water. I get it. 

Follow your weird, Daisy the dog.

I'm wondering where the f*ck is the portal which was all the rage this past Tuesday, September 9, which just happened to be my birthday. It was a 999 day with 2025 adding up to the final 9. Numerology is a thing in my family. It's how we deal with aging. I turned four this birthday which feels about right. I spent hours in the sandbox, spaced out, making roads for our collection of matchbox cars and giving zero thought to my thighs. It's feeling like a portal. 

 My four-year old sandbox self. 

Maybe the portal was me and Daisy walking on Topanga Boulevard this morning. Waiting for the light, I saw a West Hills Towing truck across the street. The driver was gazing at me. Yes, it was a gaze. In this tiny pocket of time, we had a gaze-fest, which prompted us to smile at each other which prompted him to open his window which prompted me to shout, "Have a great day," as the light turned green. He gave me a peace sign and drove away. 

Portal-like, right?

Bring on the portals. They're everywhere.

A doorway, a gate? A way in, way out? 

An entrance to more gazing and waving, more peace signs. 

 love, b xo

Note: Could be a portal in my back pocket where the very cool blue photo at the top of this page was taken. 🌀

we will not break

 

April 2 • 2025

At the end of last summer, it was discovered that my heart was broken. Meaning I had aortic stenosis and no way around it, would need to replace the valve. Or, in another year, maybe two tops, I'd die from heart failure. I had little to no symptoms, except for a slowing down of my usual energy, and sometimes shortness of breath when hoofing it up the hill with Daisy the dog. The steep hill that previously had been no big deal.

Fast forward to last Wednesday when I had what's called a TAVR, replacing the tired, constricted valve with a new one by snaking it up through my groin. Ten years ago, I'd have gone under the knife (or saw?) through open-heart surgery. Instead I came home the next day, resting and reading and a few days later walking Daisy. 

This is the miracle of science and medicine and research. 

Another heartbreak is where we are right now.

Every day, it gets worse and I wonder, how can we be here. 

A month ago, I hammered out a rough draft called: 

I ended up not sharing because of technical difficulties + also because the more I wrote, the more I wanted to break something. We are living in the middle of an active coup.  The current "administration" is dismantling every good thing.  MAGA foreheads remain on the floor, boot licking continues. It's shocking. The very people who get lifetime health benefits paid for by the American people are set on destroying our very way of life, as long as it's not theirs. 

This is not hyperbole. They are trying to break us.

But you know this. It's the cruelty that is killing me. Us. 

But we are not broken. And today, for the first time since I came home last week, I feel a sliver of hope. Besides the people protesting, marching, shutting down Tesla dealerships, I'm feeling the light from the amazing 25 hour and 4 minute filibuster by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. I am buoyed by his integrity, stamina, intellect, and huge heart. Compassionate heart. As my husband said this morning, Senator Booker put a boot on the neck of segregationists like the racist Strom Thurmond, who filibustered in 1957 trying to defeat the Civil Rights Act and "held the record" at 24 hours and 18 minutes. Thurmond had a bathroom break and read the encyclopedia.

Senator Booker never left the podium, never sat down. He read letters from Americans imploring him to bring the fight. One letter from a Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin voter.

Which brings me to Wisconsin. Despite spending millions of dollars and buying people off, and looking like the ignorant fool that he is, Elon Musk in a cheese head, Wisconsin voters did not bend the knee. The Honorable Susan Crawford will be seated on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This matters. 

Every ray, every sliver of light that we can bring to this fight, we must. 

After last week's procedure and all my fear around it, I thought I'd feel chipper, upbeat. But I felt low. Nervous with this new thing in my body, scared that I was going to break somehow. But I woke this morning and felt lifted. We will not break. 

all my love,

B 🐝

i didn't have to do anything

December 1 • 2024

I don't know what to write about except this surprising thing. I remember the sensation clearly. The parachute was tacked to the ground on the hill overlooking Plainfield. All I had to do was lay down on top of the white cloth and let it lift me in the air. The way it lifted me in the air, floating, flying, me doing nothing at all but giving into the softness of it all. A puff of wind lifted me high, a large hand holding this small human. 

Blue sky above me. 

It lay me down on the ground, a green leaf landing on the grass.

My beloved brother was there. 

I remember that too.

The miracle:

I didn't have to do anything to make it happen.

xo b

[There's a photo somewhere of that time in Vermont. I'll look for it]

we waved to everyone

 

Maybe it's September

maybe it's another birthday

maybe it's the full moon, gold coin in the night sky

tiny bats flitting overhead

bunnies still as statues near the Mexican sage

Waving to a dog walker across the street

I remembered the ride Jesse and I took down from Vermont.

We decided early on to wave to everyone:

People on front porches, at traffic lights, 

The whole way down the New York State Thruway,

truckers smiling back at us in their 18-wheelers,

Route 84 west into Pennsylvania, through historical Milford, and

the two-lane road surrounded by forest,

 and the Delaware River on our left,

we waved to everyone. 

xo b