be the smiling dog

 

August 1, 2023

After last week's writing, Be Not Afraid (even though it's really hard), I decided to Google What to do when you're afraid of the world, something like that. 

Suggestions included: 

• learn more about your fears • breathe • keep a gratitude journal • assess the situation • talk to a trusted family member or friend • walk 

Nowhere was it mentioned to keep your eyes open for smiling dogs.

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When I look at this photo of the 2 dogs, taken in a coffee shop by my daughter, I see 2 me's. The dog holding back, not smiling, is my freaked out, wary, fearful self. The one who watched the news last week and got educated (again) about hate. On the anniversary of what would've been Emmet Till's eighty-second birthday, I learned that dumb f*cking people have used their precious life on this earth, to riddle the sign marking where young fourteen-year old Emmet's body was found, with bullets. The spot where his murdered body was left on the river bank. They shot the sign. The not smiling me needs to walk miles and miles to loosen my fear around that kind of hate. It's incomprehensible. I can't loosen it. 

The other dog, the smiling one, is hopeful, open-hearted, seeing the good. 

That riverbank has been turned into the Emmet Till and Mamie-Till Mobley National Monument. This doesn't change a thing about the history and story of Emmet's short life. It feels a feeble gesture in the push back against hate. But still, the smiling me is hopeful. Hopeful, in spite of the fact that Emmet's sign has been replaced multiple times due to being bullet-riddled. The new sign is ultra-bullet proof. 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

How do we turn our faces to the light with such terrible darkness? How do we be not afraid?

We open our eyes. We do not hide. We speak up. We help whenever + wherever we can to heal the broken parts of this sweet world. Of ourselves. Of others. One day at a time. We take very long walks, talk to trusted family or friends, practice gratitude, learn from our fears, be braver.

We write, paint, plant seeds, jump in the ocean. 

be the smiling dog.

love,

XO 

B

be not afraid (even though it's really hard)

 

July 25, 2023

Be Not Afraid is the card my husband picked this morning. This word card comes from a bag of words made for my mother, probably twenty-five years ago. I keep them on my desk and love the thought of her hands, Dorothy's hands, shuffling them. I miss my mother.

Be Not Afraid is a good one for today as I come back to this page after a year gone by. Why did I leave for so long? I'm a writer, always thinking, always stories swimming, a constant school of fish in my head. Why go silent? I can say the world is too noisy and I don't want to add to it. I can say I feel speechless with all that is going on in our country and globally. I am so f*cking angry at the cruelty and contraction of freedoms brought on by people in power to keep others down. Roe vs. Wade. Voting Rights. The Weaponization of Hate and White Nationalism and Fear. The clown show of Republicans who are soul-less + shameless. Clown show sounds funny. I mean, Donald Trump, still? 

This is an un-funny clown show. This is a very scary un-funny clown show. 

F*CK. 

Be Not Afraid reminds me that every voice pushing back from hate and chaos matters. Yours, mine. There are more of us all over the world who are saying no to this rise of frightening fascism. There are more of us. Fearless women in Iran, thousands in the streets of Jerusalem, in the streets of Hungary, and right here in the not so United States.  

People are in the streets for peace, justice, fairness, kindness, and yes, love. 

Be Not Afraid reminds me I cannot play small. Be silent. That if I can't march in the streets, I can connect to community from my chair. I long for community. Maybe because of the roaring noise, I need to return here. 

My sanctuary is writing. 

And books and plants and family. 

Fear is a daily companion. Am I getting this right? What's going to happen if I say, do, take action on. Fires, floods, Florida. Some days I can be the proverbial bad-ass. Others, like yesterday, I was convinced the sky was falling. It was a hard day. Mostly because I was hard on myself. That's usually the case. 

It's really hard to not be afraid. 😳

The remedies? 

Writing about the hard stuff. 

Tending (+ whispering to) my exhausted plants here in Southern California. 🪴

Talking to my daughters.

Making a simple dinner and watching a movie with Michael.

Reading (always)

...and so many simple moments of grace when we open to them.

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This is my offering. 

Our stories connect us. Silence and isolation, not so much. 

...and I've missed this and miss you, dear reader, even if it's just one of you. 

Just for today:

Be Not Afraid 

love and peace,

Betsy 🐝

A Small Thing

                  March 21 • 2022

It was a small thing, a moment. 

A red light, the car next to me. 

The man had his car window open. 

I rolled down my window. 

"Hi, just wishing you a good day, a nice day, I mean with the world being so nutty."

He smiled, surprised that someone was talking to him, then wished me the same. 

Light turned green. We drove off. 

That was it. 

A small thing. 

Praying for peace.

XO B 🐝

What's Here Now?

 

October 27 • 2021

This question came up in a short, simple meditation I was listening to ~ 

What's here now? 

Rather than feeling like this isn't it, isn't what you want or imagined life to be today, isn't what you're trying to make happen, maybe there's something already in your (our) experience right now that's:

peaceful

simple 

lovely 

gentle

relaxing

beautiful ...

Today I woke with a calm mind. I felt deeply at ease in my body too, which is not always the case for me. Making my tea I thought of Stephen, a small blonde-haired kid in one of my second grade classes from many years ago. I have never, ever and will hopefully, never forget Stephen and what he wrote in his journal one morning. Here he was - a little kid, tongue sticking out ever so slightly, head down,  concentrating on holding his pencil and the words he was writing. 

He wrote:

Today I am happy. I don't know why. 

Now that's a what's here now state of mind, body, spirit.  🍁

Can you stop right now and see what's already here for you? 

Notice the breeze

the bird

the sky

your strong body  

the tea

the plants

a loved one

a warm blanket

afternoon light

a beloved dog beneath your feet...

A friend said, 

I'm noticing the blessings flowing through me and to me. 

Me too.

xo b 🐝

What's Your Word?

    July 1 • 2021

The first day of a new month always feels like an opportunity to begin again, 

a fresh start. 🪴

Choose a word for yourself and take it with you into this new month. 

Or check in.  What word(s) are coming up for you. 

• Trust what arises. 

• Say it out loud. 

• Write it down. 

• Put it where you can see it.

• Let it be your mantra today, tomorrow, all month.

Maybe take your word and write about it. What I mean by ___________. 

flow, freedom, healing energy, gratitude, I'm enough, lighten up, self-care...

• Let yourself write (maybe ten minutes? More?) 

• Stay curious.

• Notice if anything surprises you.

Writing is a way into, and out of, the Self. 

Ah.

XO 🐝

And I love the rain

 

                         

 June 7 • 2021

It's raining today and I can't stop smiling.

I took Chewy for a walk this morning in the spritzing rain. He pinned his ears back to keep the rain out but it wasn't raining hard so I don't know what he was playing at. It wasn't raining that hard, but I used an umbrella anyway - funny since I have a thing for getting soaked in the rain.

It's not quite the kind of rain that I remember when Claire was five. We lived in Pennsylvania. The sky had been dark and threatening, then it burst open, yes like a bucket had been tilted, and we tore outside in our bare feet and ran screaming around the big green grassy yard. Puddles forming in the dips in the grass, we jumped and crashed in the water, big trees all around, so much green.

It's not quite the kind of rain storm that hit in an earlier house in Pennsylvania, on another June day. Michael and I had our friend, Penny over to the house. Her beloved husband, David, had died the week before and there were no words to hold the grief we all felt. Especially for Penny. That summer evening the rain clouds moved in quickly. Thunder claps rattled the house. There was lightning. And then, the rain came down, yes, in sheets. And the three of us ran out the back door, yelling and screaming down the sloping back yard, tall pine trees swaying in the wind, rain soaking us through our clothes. 

Oh, so many rain stories:

• Out on the Sunfish with Dad in a scary rain storm in Little Neck Bay, me thinking we were going to die. Yes, a tad dramatic, but it was a helluva storm to be in a tiny sailboat. 

• Camping with Claire and my brother, Rob, in a torrential rain storm out in Montauk, tent walls crashing on us in the middle of the night. 

• With our friend, Bill Paden, at the Jazz Festival in Delaware Water Gap, the rain hit so fast and hard, our jeans were soaked as if we'd stepped out of a shower.

• Jesse with her red wagon and a big umbrella out on the sidewalk - a kind of rain fort

... + so many more

When it rains, I hurry to bring my inside plants, outside.

May it rain all week, easy and gently, so the parched earth out here in California can lap it up.

It's June, and not April, but I love this poem and today made me think of it.

🐟

April Rain

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid

drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain.

- Langston Hughes

XO B 

I'll Start With Bear

 

                     June 1 • 2021

I'll start with the Bear.

Bear came walking out of the woods just as my brother Rob turned off the highway onto a country road in Pennsylvania. I've always loved bears. A favorite memory is seeing one in our back yard (we lived on two acres in Pennsylvania) scratching on the maple tree. As soon as my daughters spotted it, I flew outside in my bare feet and followed it from a good distance. It meandered through the yard, the tall trees, across the road into a more wooded place. My daughters thought I'd lost my mind. I needed the bear vibe.

Living in in Southern California, we don't have bears walking through the tiny back yard. But there's all kinds of other wildlife. At the ocean, whales, dolphins, seals. Out my desk window: lizards, birds, rabbits, squirrels, hawks, hummingbirds, chihuahaus in colorful vests,

 + the coyotes wandering the neighborhood at night. 

I saw one recently while walking Chewy, the big-eared dog around nine at night. They often travel in packs, but this one was standing under the street light. Seemingly alone.  Once Chewy got a sniff/look of Coyote, he started barking. Coyote stared, then took off. 

                  this is not a coyote

Today I went to my beloved library, recently opened after fourteen months with its doors shut. My return a few weeks ago to shelves of books is another conversation. But today's magic was when I saw Turtle staring at the wall outside the doors. Totally get that, Turtle. Later as I was leaving, Turtle was quietly on its way back to the pond where all the other turtles hang out. 

There's the May story about the mourning doves who built a nest on my friend's garage light. How Pink (that's the dove's name) sat and sat until two hungry chicks hatched. How I came to my desk every morning and watched her. 

sit.

See Pink (during her first nest-in) behind this napping squirrel? 

Mary Oliver wrote in her poem, When Death Comes:

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world in my arms." 

            the babies

        xo b 🐝