73: Serve

Following a full weekend, I'm feeling quiet today.

Still, I want to share a brief note on something that's very important to me: service.

It's the backbone of my coaching work. It's the spirit that infuses every conversation I have with every client and prospective client. It's the subtext in nearly all of the emails I send, and it's the legacy I hope to leave behind when I'm gone.

In addition to being a source of meaning and purpose for me, service, generally speaking, is a thing that changes the world for good.

On the website of The King Center, Coretta Scott King writes of her husband:

Dr. King once said that we all have to decide whether we "will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. Life's most persistent and nagging question, he said, is 'what are you doing for others?'" he would quote Mark 9:35, the scripture in which Jesus of Nazareth tells James and John "…whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant; and whosoever among you will be the first shall be the servant of all." And when Martin talked about the end of his mortal life in one of his last sermons, on February 4, 1968 in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, even then he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of a full life. "I'd like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others," he said. "I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life…to love and serve humanity."

So, I ask you: What is the most powerful way I can be of service to you? (Not necessarily as a coach—though that's fine, too—but as a fellow human.)

Hit 'reply' and tell me what comes up for you. I know it can be hard to ask for help, but if I'm offering it first, before you have to ask, maybe you can imagine yourself accepting it.

With love,
Helen xx

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Fieldnotes

Devoured pizza with Kitty and Danny; made pretend salsa and guacamole with Zane, in his IKEA kitchen; gallivanted with Mom and Dana; found the shirts I'd been looking for; went to Taby's with Stacie; gave myself grace; reconnected with Holland; reconnected with Jenny, who's now a mom of two; visited with Lauren, Kelly, and Kitty, and met all the babies; ran into Connie at the train station; brunched with Kaylin and Rob, then gallivanted around the city; bought a new winter coat (30% off!) that fits my shoulders; cheered because the Packers won

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Links

Blooms in a box

Magic is something you make.

These stars at Descanso Gardens (a place I happened to learn about just recently via our friend, Wendy)

You can't accomplish anything without context.

MAV asks herself good questions. I plan to borrow them.

And, my favorite thing I read this week: "We often argue that we don’t choose our time obligations, so we’re stuck in a permanent time deficit and that’s just the way life is. Bills need to be paid. The body needs sleep. The dogs need walking. We don’t have time for all these obligations, yet we can’t get rid of them. But I think that’s mostly just a bad faith tactic we use to relieve ourselves from having to disappoint others, give up on dreams that aren’t working, and make other bold but nerve-wracking lifestyle moves. Besides, if we’re constantly failing to meet some of our obligations, it can’t be true that they must be done." (The whole piece is brilliant; click through and read it in its entirety.)

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Curios

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We had a light snow two nights ago, and this was what greeted me yesterday morning when I looked up through the skylights in my parents' living room. Snowy contrails. As though someone turned our roof into a zen garden and set about raking neat rows. It was wonderful.

72: Resist

This week, I'm thinking about resistance.

Resistance gets a bad rap in the personal development world, but only because there is a variety of resistance that's rooted in fear—fear of failure (even fear of success), fear of the unknown, fear of being seen.

The other kind of resistance is rooted in strength—strength of character, of conviction, of goodness and rightness. In a refusal to comply. In love and tolerance and protection. This resistance takes a stand for something bigger than itself—and often against something bigger than itself.

As January 20th approaches, I'm trying to figure out how I'm most needed to resist. How I can best contribute my unique brand of resistance to this movement.

I've called my senators and my congressman; I've signed the petitions; I've set up recurring donations; I've read and listened and watched; I've shown kindness and acceptance and generosity of spirit; I've worried and obsessed.

What's next?

No tidy answers here, just a few women who are resisting in ways that have inspired me this past week.

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Interviewed in Grace Bonney's In the Company of Women, photographer Matika Wilbur was asked to name a fear or professional challenge that keeps her up at night. Her response?

Fear does not keep me up at night. Sometimes I'll stay up for prayer. Or dancing. But never for fear. I'm too exhausted for fear.

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Artist Deb Stein (formerly of Bonbon Oiseau NYC) is shifting gears with her work, moving away from the jewelry-designing that first launched her career in favor of following some of her bigger dreams of art-making and activism. I've followed her on Instagram for a while now, and I've watched how her work has transformed into a moving thing, a rallying thing, a thing that's bigger than Deb, herself. Yesterday, amid hand-painted cardboard Lady Liberty torches, she shared the sign she made for the Women's March on Washington. Her caption reads:

My realization this afternoon after two amazing days of sign making with incredible groups of people of all ages and from different backgrounds is that resistance really is greater than fear. I was so hopeful I finally made my sign. 

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Last night, Tracee Ellis Ross accepted a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy; incidentally, she's the first black woman to win in that category since 1983. The sheer joy she brought to the stage gave me goosebumps, as did her life-affirming speech:

This is for all the women, women of color, and colorful people. Whose stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy and valid and important. But I want you to know that I see you; we see you. It is an honor to be on this show, Black-ish. To continue expanding the way we are seen and known. And to show the magic and the beauty and the sameness of a story and stories that are outside of where the industry usually looks.

As a side note: I've admired Tracee Ellis Ross for quite a while now. Something she said in a 2012 interview with Uptown Magazine has stuck with me: "I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me."

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In what ways are you resisting? What if, like the cactus, we were born to resist, to use resistance as a tool for protection—yours or someone else's? How would knowing that change this experience for you? Hit 'reply' and share with me.

With love,
Helen xx

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Fieldnotes

Said good-bye to Dave (then missed Dave); hung out with Kitty and Danny over Mexican food, then wandered around Sea Cliff until we decided to investigate a quaint townie bar; shoveled snow; watched birds at the feeder (could do this endlessly); counted 18 robins and three bluejays; 'met' Jaryn and was gifted a hearty laugh inspired by her experience with grits; picked out new glasses; opened envelopes, felt gratitude, and recorded it all on a spreadsheet; watched Sherlock; planned travel (we're staying in New York another week)

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Links

"You will have to let go of what has brought you this far. You will."

"It’s a puzzle to find a spot for everything, and the trick is to take pleasure in the solving of it." Also from Rachael (well, Rachael's Joan): Gingerbread men are real.

Some kind of special gallery

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Curios

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While we visited the gorgeous Planting Fields Arboretum yesterday, my mom spotted this elderly-looking cactus and its perfect name tag: Cephalocereus senilis! Literally (Latin-ally?), 'old man cactus.' I made my dad touch it to see if its hairs were sharp. (They weren't.)

71: The two-way street of celebration

Last Friday, my parents hosted a beautiful celebration for Dana and me and the fact of our quiet and intimate wedding in March.

(You might remember that this time last year, they threw a similar party for my brother and his wife, who were married several months prior on the west coast.)

Everyone seems surprised to learn this tidbit, but here it is: I struggle with crowds. Even crowds of people I know and love (though maybe a bit less so in those cases). Blame it on my introversion or my high sensitivity or my chemical composition, which has skewed toward anxiety since childhood. I struggle with crowds and I struggle with being the focus, the center of attention, in any situation.

Friday's party was a bit of a stretch for me in both regards.

Surrounded by close to 130 people, Dana and I were the guests of honor.

What shouldn't surprise you is that a person with a temperament such as mine wouldn't want a conventional wedding—in fact, would shy away from such an affair in favor of something small, quick, and low-key. I've joked that I'm missing the bride gene, but maybe what I've meant when I've said that is: I'm an intensely private person. (That might surprise you; after all, I do write a newsletter and use social media.) I like to have (the illusion of) control over what people know about me and what parts of me they can access and when. Marrying Dana felt like a thing that I wanted to keep for myself.

But celebration is a special thing, an important thing, I get it. Since I was a kid, my mom has always said we have to fill our happy banks whenever we can; when times get dark, as they invariably do at one point or another, we need to be able to draw on those happy memories to get ourselves through. Perhaps this is why I so love being a wedding guest: I get to stock up on celebration, on all that joy, but without having to navigate any of the attention and fanfare.

Our wedding, the actual day of it, was ours; we didn't have to split ourselves to circle a room and thank everyone. We kissed in a courtroom and held hands and our marriage certificate between us; we danced down the sidewalk and filed our paperwork; we took our families to eat our favorite nachos and tacos and get buzzy on margaritas; we wandered the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth and took silly pictures of each other with our phones; later that night, the small group of us sat in our wedding clothes on squeaky pleather-upholstered seats in a beer garden. It was our day, truly.

So, when my parents asked Dana and me if they could host a celebration in late December in our honor, we were nervous (my struggles aren't mine alone; Dana shares them) but we agreed. Social anxiety or not, it was impossible to view a party as anything other than a beautiful offering. There would be a banquet hall of people holding happy wishes in their hearts, hope and kindness and joy intended for us, specifically. There was also the part we would play in the offering, Dana and I: giving that roomful of people the opportunity to share their love with us. In fact, to love us.

An exchange. Co-creating a joyful memory that every single one of us could add to our own happy bank.

The celebration was amazing. I don't know that I've ever felt so cared for by so many people all at once.

If you've been married before, if you've had a wedding, perhaps this is nothing new to you; this is, maybe, the very reason you held a wedding. It's likely you arrived at my conclusion long before me. Even still, what a thing for me, for Dana, to have found in the last week of 2016.

I'd love to hear what you found in the last week of 2016 and what will come with you into 2017. Hit 'reply' and share with me.

With love,
Helen xx

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Fieldnotes

Walked all the way down to the beach with Dave and Sarah Jo; watched seagulls drop mussel shells on the concrete, then swoop in to pick out their meal; read one-third of the library's copy of In the Company of Women (still working my way through it; fabulous interviews); spent several days on Susannah Conway's Unravel Your Year workbook and got clear on what 2016 was and what 2017 might be; finished reading A Three Dog Life (it is such a beautifully written memoir, I have to recommend it); completed a surprisingly difficult 500-piece garden scene jigsaw puzzle with Dad, Mom, Dana, Dave, and Sarah Jo; learned to play Modern Art (and won!); hugged more good people than I can count

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Links

"It felt like a dead end, but a good dead end. It occurred to me that I didn’t actually have a problem. Reading their straightforward answers left me with the distinct sensation of reaching the end of a wrong path, free to head back to the main road and use it instead."

An elegy for everything

#20resistance20hope

Ann Wood on list-making: "I highly recommend closing out the year with a list of what you have accomplished—a thorough, searching inventory of all the big and little things that went by without properly congratulating yourself." (This was from her newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.)

“Every find is unique and I’m constantly aware that I’m probably the first person to touch it in centuries, since it was lost or thrown away." At some point in this lifetime, I'd like to go mudlarking on the Thames foreshore.

"In 2017, I want more you, please."

My internet friend, Kate McCombs, wrote a wonderful post about 20 things that happened to her in 2016 that she's decided to celebrate—including her divorce—because they brought her joy, growth, and gratitude.

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Curios

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One of my favorite things ever is goofing around in a photo booth and getting a strip of pictures as a souvenir. Lucky for us, my mom had the genius idea to rent one for the banquet hall. It was a huge hit. (Also: We get a digital copy of every strip. That's my kind of guest book.)

70: You're loved & whole

I'm dropping in briefly this evening (evening for me—we're still on New York time), after talking a meandering family walk through some wet woods and then feasting at our favorite Mexican restaurant, where, by some stroke of serendipity, the one big table was available for the six of us.

What do I want to say?

I want you to know you're loved (I love you) and whole (you need nothing; you're fine as you are; you couldn't be finer), and there is no particular way you're required to feel at this time of year, or anytime for that matter. Your inner landscape deserves to be honored whether or not it matches the season or makes sense to anyone.

A new year is coming.

There are things you might be reflecting on—things that live in the past and things that await you. Try to recognize how little control you have over either. What's done is done, and what's yet to be is largely unknowable.

In the countdown to the start of something big and new, try to fully inhabit each of the seconds ticking by—all the in-between, the throwaway moments, everything that leads up to the annual ritual of tossing out one calendar and hanging up another.

You don't need a January 1 to get what you want. There's time—an abundance of it—if you promise to stay right here, and sink into what's right now. There's hope; it lives absolutely everywhere (you might need to resolve to become better at locating it). There's you in all your you-ness.

If you believe you need something more than time, hope, and your you-ness, you're not taking small enough steps. Slow down. Breathe deeply. What's the tiniest forward-oriented action you could possibly take? Half it and start there.

Incidentally, my Madame Clairevoyant horoscope for this week is as follows:

It’s easy to think the answer to life is becoming a person other than the person you are. Like there’s a model of goodness somewhere, like if you kept traveling inward forever and ever, you’d eventually find the truth, small and smooth as a pebble. It’s a strange trap, this desire to polish yourself until you’re perfect. This week, turn your gaze outside your self, outside your windows, outside the familiar contours inside your own head.

When you turn away from regrets and resolutions, from polishing and perfecting, what do you see? What's asking for your attention and action? What half-step will you take to get closer to it? Hit 'reply' and share with me. Maybe I can help (at the very least, we could have some fun talking).

Happy New Moment,
Helen xx

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Fieldnotes

Hugged Dave, Sarah Jo, George Sr., Cindy, George Jr., James, Katie, Suzanne, Pat, Fred, Lorraine, Jack, Carolyn, Chris, Debbie, Mike, Kathy, Susan, Mary Ann, and Emelia; FaceTimed with Lucy in Cambodia; ate World Peace cookies and chocolate chip orange biscotti; walked to downtown Oyster Bay in the cold, three or four times; hung out with Kitty and Zane again, and then Kitty again; found and bought merino wool shoes for Dana; smelled the Christmas tree; played Settlers of Catan for the first time (and won!); stuffed boxes of Bon Bons Chocolatier chocolate into everyone's stockings; watched Florence Foster Jenkins and ate white cheddar popcorn

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Links

"Since the election, I've been struggling to process the results, and to scry out my responsibilities in a changing world. What I know is this—that I want to be on the side of the Light and the Truth, and that magic, true magic, is real. That's what I'm clinging to in this season of cold and turmoil."

"I know what I have, and I know what I have to do."

69: Exponential

This week, I'm all emotion.

I want to weep—for all that's beautiful and broken in the world; for the disappointments and the satisfactions, and how they rub together, wearing each other down, all day long; for the love and the contempt that exist like facts, even though each is a choice (like facts, choice feels like a funny, untenable thing these days)—because this year is ending and I feel an unspecific yet pervasive sadness.

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The mourning doves seem to understand something I've barely figured out for myself: how to spend these short, frozen days in the best, most deliberate way possible. Late morning and they're taking their turn at the feeder in my parents' backyard, sometimes relaxing into the catch dish as though nesting—until a couple chubby snow buntings flit about, anxious for breakfast, or the resident blue jay swoops in and everyone scatters. Once they've claimed their fill, the mourning doves are onto other things—specifically, sunning themselves in cozy groups of six or seven under the rhododendron. Like the shadow on a sundial, they move from one patch of the yard to the next as the hours pass, never looking like much more than round, speckled rocks in the garden bed...until they adjust their wings, edge purposefully to wherever is the new sunniest spot, or take another stab at the feeder.

Sustenance, light, and company. A winter survival guide.

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The writer, Steve Edwards, tweeted last week, "Taking care of each other is also subversive."

Subversive, not because it's disruptive or inflammatory; subversive because it's truly revolutionary. Because it's the least expected and most radical modus operandi in a divided country (which, by the day, is looking more and more like a divided world).

Taking care of each other.

If you google the phrase, you'll find a trove of thumbnails of people, even animals—all exhibiting some variation of holding hands, wrapping their arms around each other, leaning in so that their faces nearly touch.

'Taking care' looks different for different people. You can trust yourself to make the right call, to know what's needed for whom and when.

In the past week, I've noted a whole slew of ways that folks are taking care of each other. There's an annual baking bonanza in a Pacific Northwest home (flick through her feed; she made ALL OF THOSE in the span of, what? A week?!), a service project that involves celebrating the handiwork of local artisans, a meaningful conversation a mother has with her kids about a really abstract but important concept, and more. It's all lifting me up from my sadness, which makes me wonder if taking care of each other might actually be a beautifully (and rather unexpectedly) exponential action. If you take care of her or him—and seeing that heals my heart in some way—your decision to take care had a much greater impact than you could've imagined. Your taking care restored my faith in Goodness.

What I'm learning is that every act of love is part of social change. You are improving society by improving life for even one person. Don't undersell your heart's best work. (I promise I'll try not to undersell mine, either.)

With love,
Helen xx

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Curios

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If you follow me on Instagram, you'll already know this—but the past two weeks, I've been photographing my brother's old bedroom. I've always known this room; it's nothing new. And yet... These days, perhaps the difference is in not simply looking, but in actually seeing.