362/365

playing lawn games
at the park
the sun playing
hide and seek
with the clouds.
casting shadows
to cool us down.
families eating
and drinking
flying kites,
kids in the sand  love
with buckets and shovels.
she slides over
for a few stealth hugs,
i want to swallow her whole
to prove unconditional love.
why do we find it so
hard to communicate?
she points out an
old shirtless man
dismounting his bike
to listen to heavy metal.
she finds his actions cool-
every one of us perpetually
looking to build from fragile
to strength and back again.

341/365

when you love it
all you can do
is commit to it
for its own sake.
no amount of
ambition or praise
titles or roles
are needed to justify
your love of it.

323/365

there’s a shitty old fashion
on the table and worse chips and salsa.
we’re drunk and sweaty
reminiscing about the shows we  
saw in ninety ninety two.
we want to be sexy, young and relevant,
no one noticed us in our prime
and now it’s even worse.

i play taylor swift on the cab ride home,
making more sense at forty eight
then at eighteen. you bought me cool water
and that gap sweater, trying to change me into
who you wanted me to be. we explored our bodies
in the back of my car behind santa vencia
and china camp. i wanted to love you how you wanted, but
i broke you in ways i couldn’t recognise until
your sister told richard years later. boys are sharp knives
no one can wield properly. your green eyes piercing me still.

afternoons at the ice cream shop when we
melted into each other. flittering smiles more pure
than love we’d ever know. i cried your name for years
in lonely drunken dorm rooms. wanting to say i’m sorry-
remember that day at samual p taylor park. you a sacrifice.
me a hungry devouring force. i see your grandchildren
and hope you made it into the clear where you see me
the way i always wanted to be seen.

enamoured by you.
needing to be loved.

314/365

it’s hard to name what matters
when the cup floats aimlessly
in its own turbulence. reading their poems
each timid night, hungry for an infection
that will ignite this fever: let’s call it a tepid inferno.
if you invite me into your house
i’ll loiter. this idle passion spilling around
us like a sticky syrup stain. sweet but vexing.
you want to lower your face to lick it clean
but we all know your action will only make it worse.
how can you tell- in an hourglass- if you are
draining or being buried? every mountain
is the midst of crumbling as soon as it is born.
all we’re doing here is stealing fireflies to set them free.
look what we can do together. what we have done.
so much of boredom is love. why else are you here
with me until the last line?

284/365

sunday afternoon
at fifteen seventy six.
ninteen ninety six?
the algebra of memory
rarely solved. laying
in the back yard,
under tender sun,
the three of us.
hair golden.
skin bronzed
lost in blades of grass
and dead lyrics:

please don't
be surprised
when you find
me dreaming too.

we’ll ride wild
horses in the hills.
i’ll clumsily take you
to that spinning restaurant
in the city. driving
across the bridge.
scratched cds
the soundtrack
of youth.

i’ll profess a love
i’ll never be capable
of delivering-
i want them if they want me-
is the saddest lyric i whisper
at dawn. the sun coming up
from the couch. the iron woodstove
burns quietly. bodies scattered
in aftermath.
 
soon i’ll head south and this
tiny spark will flicker and fade
like a firefly dying in a jar.
an ember floating too high
embraced by enough
oxygen to obliterate us.

223/265

how did we become
so jumbled in each others lives?
getting under skin. in between teeth,
don’t get me wrong, these images don’t
have to carry negative connotations.
our entanglements
pushing and pulling.
ebbing and flowing.
can be good. productive.
intimate. professional
friends. family.
colleagues. students
children. parents,
are meant to be a series of
knots we cannot untangle
each other from.
where can we learn to listen
and not step on toes
and wield words to be clear
and precise and connecting.
how might we name the different
textures of love, so that we’re
all speaking the same language?

207/365

are people who own convertibles,
and drive them on perfectly beautiful sunny days
without the top down, unable to feel joy like rest of us?

i’ve never owned a convertible,
but of given the choice on a day like today,
i’m quite certain i’d push the button to get the top down,
blast the le tigre song that pops up on my playlist
and let kathleen hannah remind me that
it’s never a good idea to take the safest path,
let the wind swirl in the cockpit and the sun
toast my forearms. get the music just loud enough
to be too loud, pushing the edge of the speed limit.

i remember renting that mustang from the garage
near our apartment in the tenderloin for the day,
because we both had off work and driving to big sur
in the white machine seemed the best way to cure
our collective hangover. we played wilco and
didn’t talk much, the splendour of the pacific ocean
rendering us speechless, until we arrived at the
henry miller museum. i had read most of his books
and felt important for having done so.

we were young and calling what we had love.

returning the car just before five
and back to days in a series of days
after that. maybe it was the novelty
of the experience. the extravagance of freedom,
but i’ll never understand people with convertibles
who drive with the top up.

186/365

somehow we have collected
nearly forty birthdays
between the two of us.

this morning at breakfast
discussing the raising of our kids

later a quick tea, a few errands,
a bike ride, a sunset, a gentle tropical breeze,
wine, pizza, making funny voices,
watching the kids bicker and pout
and hoping we are getting it right.

love is so much more than the
fumbling in the dark they show in movies
or the fire of passion in love songs,

a consistent commitment  
to the promise of partnership.
i can tell you i love you
i just hope it means
the same thing to you
as it does to me

173/365

started a novel about dysfunctional young love
            -couldn’t put it down-
it felt all too familiar, what with the destruction caused
and the fumbling through insecurity and self-absorption.
it’s a miracle anyone survives the carnage of adolescent adoration.  
difficult to asses the damage caused and the damage taken:
just wanting to be wanted,
doing our best to avoid the voluptuous panic
that comes from being ignored, unattractive, unloved.
for all the education that’s on the table
no one teaches anyone how to love each other
without some form of mutilation.

135/365

the only reason
your pets love you
is because you feed them.
the same can probably
be said about your children.

it takes so much to mask
weakness and doubt
and appear put together
enough for them—
the indiscriminate
burdens you juggle
each day in your mind
feel threatening
in this tempest:

will we go back into lock down?
will the palestinians survive genocide?
is midlife crisis real? is this it?
what’s on the other side?
what’s happening to fred hampton’s revolution?
are the kids getting enough access to nature?
will the raiders defence be good this year?  
do i sound okay on stage?
will i get back into shape?
where did all these insecurities come from?
am i doing enough?
am i enough?

that octopus loved that guy
and he never fed her.

intent is no
substitute for action,
but the love for the world
and everything in it,
includes ourselves,
is a sufficient start.

perhaps
we’re
loved
most
when
we love
most.

41/365

we’re living in new york
at the turn of the century
doesn’t quiet yet feel like history

i feel smart with you,
cultured.  
watching french movies
at the theater
near lincoln center
walking all the way
down broadway-
our bed with satin sheets
the two kittens
still fit
in the palm of our hands.

tonight
a life time later,
we watched the same film—

set in paris
exploding with colors
reminding us to enjoy
the little things—

with our kids.
they no longer
fit in the palm of our hands.
the oldest on her first date.

feels impossible to fit
these lives into these words.

i wish i knew how to
write love poems for you,
or to say i’m sorry earlier
when i hold onto a grudge.

we went to the canals that
are in the movie
when we were in paris
the second time.

feels impossible to fit
these lives into these words.

Tender Act

Instilling confidence in a 12 year old girl is a tender, intricate and vital act. It is not easy, but everyday we work at it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

You were at your desk drawing tonight frustrated because the drawing wasn’t perfect, and you said, “if it wasn’t perfect nobody would like it,” and although you didn’t say it, I have been teaching long enough and alive long enough to know that your statement actually meant, “if I’m not perfect, no one will like me.”

I am not sure how to prove to you that this thinking is false. Maybe some part of it is is true, there will be people who will not like you. They’ll have a litany of reasons and few of them will have anything to do with you. I know what it’s like to be in seventh grade and want to be noticed, accepted, liked. The alternative feels so lonely. But what other people think matters much less than who you think about yourself.

Everyone else seems so much more beautiful and smart and talented and athletic and artistic. How do they do it? How does the world seem so well put together and you feel so raw and broken and unfinished?

You ready for the secret? The truth?

The answer beyond the cliche bullshit of 10,000 hours of practice and growth mindset?

The answer is that they are not.

The world is a mess and so is everyone in it. We are all riddled with anxiety and insecurity and feeling small and inadequate and imperfect. We all just have different ways of masking it.

The first step is not to care too much what everyone thinks. Then maybe you can move onto not caring what anyone thinks. You are in a state of flux, of growth, of change, of evolution. We all are. All the time. Forever.

You cannot be overly concerned with how you appear to be in the eyes of others, until you learn to love the person you are becoming when you look in the mirror. This is no easy task, but you need to dedicate your life to loving yourself.

I can tell you that you are beautiful and perfect and smart and wonderful and the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I can hope that you will believe me and trust me and love me for loving you, but the road forward can be a lonely one. You will need to find yourself by yourself. I am here to help you and guide you and share my wisdom and experience, and I will never leave you alone or abandon you, but there is only so much I can tell you or show you, before you need to face yourself and accept and love what you see.

You might not draw the way you want. Or look the way you want. Or be as popular as you want. Or have that one true friend, but this too shall all pass. I was a scrawny, lonely, miserable little dude when I was your age, but there was a fire in my belly. I’m not sure where that fire came from or who put it there, but once I felt it’s heat I fanned those flames to see me through the hard times. Even now, as an adult there are days when loving myself is not so easy, but despite my own constant evolution, I am here to help you find a way to recognise your flame and learn how to blow it into an inferno.

I think we both need to be patient. A few things that I hope you keep in mind- the advice that I give you is not nagging or judging or criticism of who you are.  My wisdom is born of experience and delivered from love. From the second you were born, all I have wanted was for you to be who you were meant to be. Lately, I feel that I am letting you down. Every parenting move feels like a misstep, but we are a team and this phase of your life shall blend into the next, and we will work through it together.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Be kind and patient with yourself. 
• Becoming you takes time and can sometimes hurt. 
• Everyone carries a heavy load be nice to them. 
• As soon as you figure one thing out there are a million news things begging to be explored.  
• Music cures most things and what it doesn’t that’s what books are for.
• Most of confidence is just pretending to be confident. 
• No one knows what they’re doing and most people are terrified most of the time. 
• Envision who you want to be and walk toward that person. 
• It’s okay to feel anxious. 
• You are not alone.
• You can always talk to me. 
• I will never judge you. 
• I love you. 

Scabs and Brusies

Listening to Leonard Cohen’s The Stranger Song from the Isle of Wright show in 1970, missing my guitar, nearing midnight in a hotel room in Jakarta, thankful for each word that soothes the gaping wounds, the blood drying up and clotting into convenient scabs, hiding the bruises caused by this collective anger; the tears have dried up leaving empty pockets of sarcasm and mean comments about things I don’t understand over wine and cocktail parties.


The simple rippling strings of his guitar and that monk-like voice the only thing that makes sense in this tired loneliness. His poetry like comfortable prayers reminding me not to worry so much.


I’ve always been this melodramatic, so please don’t say that I’ve changed. It’s all theatrics these words and these moods:


Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter
When he talks like this
you don't know what he's after…


I gave a talk today. People said they liked it. That’s always nice. It felt repetitive and incoherent to me, but what I do know- I only saw it from the inside out. We talked about the necessity of non-fiction and critical thinking for a healthy democracy, which all felt pretty timely.


"I really like reading your writing."


The only words I have ever wanted to hear.


I met new people I respected. I drank wine. We ate pizza. I am grateful for my blessings and now I will sleep.

True Colors

Saw The Trolls movie today and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great music, cute, funny and a nice message about happiness and how and where to find it. Don’t want to give too much away, but the bad guys-The Bergens reminded me of Trump supporters. Just throwing that out there for when/if you see it.


Came home starting learning True Colors with Skye and Kaia. It is in a key scene in the movie and feels nice to sing with the girls.


Despite the joyfulness of said film, the Raisdana house was doused with a smidge of funk today. Not sure why, but we were all a bit tired and snappy.


Basketball, some time outdoors, Veganberg lunch, movie, a quick lesson in Poker and Black Jack, a few Skye melt down tantrums, some Supergirl and finally the deep deep sleep. We were functioning but not really feeling it. That’s the case some days- Families just misfire and sputter and fall.


This election is rotting my soul piece-by-piece and I don’t know if the climate of the country will change anytime soon. Either way is a bad case scenario. Trump wins will….I don’t need to say anything about that, but this vitriol will not dissipate much even if Clinton wins. Trump supports are just hearing their voices for the first time, I am afraid they will not shut up any time soon. I am not sure if my day-to-day life can handle much more of bleating.


I guess we must all have faith in the work toward peace. Focusing on the daily ways we try and teach a new generation to care and feel and love and move forward. Part of this work, must involve loving those who spew hate.


It can be difficult to do this work with our own hearts filled with hate, and Trump is so good at filling hearts with hate, regardless of whether or not you support him. Like an infection he burrows into your system and tears you apart. But we must internalize it and learn to transform it back into love to guide us.


I hope to wake up tomorrow, put on my clothes, sculpt the mustache, and help the people in my life live their true colors.

Kids

What a day to spend with kids today. It’s days like this that I feel so lucky to do what I do. Started the day at 7:30 in the Sports Hall where we organized a Nuke’m Ball tournament for 201 sixth graders. The game is like a stripped down version of volleyball with giant balls. We blasted music, laughed, cheered, and had a great time bonding with our mentor groups. They were excited, but listened to instruction when they needed to.


Then I attended to some administrative stuff, meetings and emails mostly before my Daraja meeting at lunch. Twenty plus kids, mostly girls and three boys. Mostly sixth graders ready to work toward achieving the UN sustainability goals and learning about Daraja, Kenya and Gender Equality issues. Light conversations, collaboration and food. We have only met three times, but it is already starting to feel like a family. We are brought together for a common cause and that is awesome.


Then I taught two classes. We talked about reading habits and self-assessment. The power of a great reading partner and critical thinking. They worked hard with focus and determination. I spoke openly and honestly with some kids having relationship issues. We shook hands and spoke about how to move forward. I reminded myself how hard it is to be 12 years old or 42 years old. The path to a better world starts and ends with these kids.


Then after school it was Off Tangent- our literary magazine. Again another group of twenty plus kids. Mostly girls. Three boys. Working together to create a magazine that showcases art and writing. We wrote at the start and then Paula and I watched our student leaders take over and run the show. We already have a design team working on our new look. An editing team preparing for submissions and the social media team finding ways to hype the project. The time flew by and the kids did most of the work. Looking forward to sharing their story next week at Learning 2.0.


Came home for a mediocre run, a tea party with the girls, some more work and time on The Cyber watching youtube.


Tomorrow is Friday. A two week break is looming and I am off to Vietnam in less than a week. Life is good. Life is really good.

Hateful

The thing about hateful people is that they are full of hate. They are so full of hate that it spills out of them and seeps into the atmosphere, so much so that sometimes you can’t help but breathe it in and become filled with hate yourself. These kinds of people bring out the worst in everyone. Their level of baseness is so despicable that you will find yourself expanding with rage and anger, fuming and wanting to lash out and insult them and call them nasty names. In short, hateful people like Donald Trump lower the bar so low that you find yourself wallowing in the blood and mud, wanting them humiliated and destroyed.


Donald Trump makes me a bad person.


I try and remain calm and rational and empathetic and loving, but just looking at his face and hearing the gibberish come out of his big mouth makes me want to break something or punch myself in the face or take a fork to my eyes. Is this how Trump supporters feel all the time? Does his orange glow force even his followers into a state of near demonic rage? Do they see the world through the lens of loathing? How could anyone listen to this lame excuse for a human being talk and not want the world to end? Even if you agree with whatever you can decipher from the bullshit that he claims as the “truth” just the sound of voice, the smirks and now the sniffs, the shrugs, the smug elitist chauvinistic little hand gestures are enough to make even the Dali Lama make fun of him.


This is not a person I can handle for four more years. For my own sanity and the sanity of the world, for all the peace loving and kind people, if Trump wins, he will bring us down too. The world will simmer in ignorant hate filled masochism. We cannot afford to watch this troll of a man on our little screens, making mistake after mistake for four more years.


We need him gone. Loser. Lose. Go home. Return to your gold laden cave, roll the boulder back in front of the door and disappear forever. We still have two more debates and countless more rallies, so the anger, like a fog, still sits over our collective consciousnesses, but after November 8th we can finally blow it away. Never to be seen again. Until next time he or some other GOP yokel comes looking for our blood.


…


I can’t stop watching that Shaq/Hillary .gif. I’m not sure what it is saying, but at the moment it is speaking to my soul. I never thought that I would find Hillary so endearing, but I guess when you put a fake doll next to a piece of shit and ask to choose, the doll has to win. She is killing it at the moment. Hope it can last. I can't believe this is even close.


…


Sorry I needed to get that off my chest. This is all too insane. I need some time in the woods or the ocean or somewhere away this election. Maybe Vietnam will help clear my head next week.


...


I had a nice evening skating session today The sun was low; the heat dissipating. Tried a few new things and I'm feeling more comfortable on the board. I might need a teacher/mentor soon. Perhaps after the break. I want feedback and things to work on.


And now....Atlanta.

A Fulfilled Promise

After a relatively uneventful day at school, I shredded and I burned with some people from school. I was tired. I had a head ache and was not in the mood; I would have preferred a drink in the lounge, but I changed my clothes and did my sets of “plank-jacks.” My groin now hurts something fierce, but I’m glad I did it. I need some kind of routine back in my life. I have to start running next week, please hold me accountable. I am signing up for a half marathon in December and I can barely run six km at this point.


After the exercise, Kaia and I decided to have a daddy Kaia date and we made our way to Universal Studios. Thanks to all your wonderful advice we had a great conversation. I did some apologizing about how I might have reacted and we just chatted like two human beings. It was a beautiful thing.


I also felt a bit weird sharing so much information about her on Facebook, especially since so many of my friends know her and are her teachers and stuff, so I told her what I had done and asked her what she thought. She said that this story wasn't too personal and she wasn’t embarrassed by it, and that she was over it anyway, and that it was fine to share.


I mentioned that the reason I like to share her stories with my friends is because you are all amazing parents and teachers and human beings and sometimes it is nice to get other people’s advice. She seemed to understand that it takes a village and that maybe you can help her too.


I mentioned that we write and share stories because we want to engage with the world and normalise the things that we might feel should be private, because it is in that privacy that we dwell in shame. And for most things, there is nothing to be ashamed about. e are human, like so many other humans.


She said that she will trust me not to post anything that might make her feel bad if people knew. I asked her how I would know where the line is and she said that she trusts me. I told her that next time I might run things by her first and she said that was a good idea. “If you think it might upset me than just show it to me first.”


We thought Universal was open till seven, but it is only open till six, so we only got one ride on the blue roller coaster, but it was worth looking over and seeing her hair wild, face a glow in the evening sun and screaming like fulfilled promise.


We had a a quiet dinner just the two of us and polished it off with donuts and candy. On the way home we listen to some shared tunes and now home and exhausted.


At one point after our talk in the car, when we first arrived, I held her close and said that no matter how I might mess things up, or say the wrong thing, or make her feel bad, that I am doing it all out of love. I told her that I can’t imagine loving someone more than I love her and I always will, no matter what.


It felt pretty good to hold my girl and say these things to her. It felt better than anything else has in a few weeks.

The Day After

It’s Saturday morning. 7:46am and I woke up to a stunning view of Mt. Tampalpais from Jason’s childhood bedroom. The same room that as teenagers we would fill with laughter and farts. The same room we would fill with adolescence and misdirected testosterone, playing video games, “giving each other shit,” being boys pretending to be men.


I am alone in this room and fear that it might be too early to rouse Jason and his dad from their slumber. I slept soundly and completely last night. After the service Jason and I came home and watched some of the Raider preseason game. We chatted about this and that and then this again, never dwelling too much on the events of the day or the loss of his mother. We both needed some space to simply be for a few hours.


The service was beautiful and perfect and necessary. 300+ friends and family and ice and cream and memories. I am too cotton headed at the moment with fatigue to do it any justice with words. We laughed together and cried and shared memories about a women who people described as “a force of a nature, courageous, generous, funny, kind, and loving.”


The house is quiet and empty without her. This house that holds so many memories and fingerprints of her chaos and tenderness. I keep expecting her to yell out, you awake yet? Let me get you something to eat. But the sound of traffic beyond the hill is all I can hear.


We will find something to do with our day in her empty house. She is still here in every sense, but the one we cherish the most.


My daily posts are as discombobulated as I am, so I am going to crawl back under the warm covers and try to get a few more hours of sleep, or at least some quiet under the cover of darkness.

Chapter One for Twinkle

I was never an orphan, but when I was fifteen year’s old I clearly needed to be adopted. I was a shy awkward kid who wanted to be accepted, loved and noticed. I had spent most of middle school on the periphery of a Marin world I didn’t really understand, and to tell the truth I didn’t really understand what it meant to be an American. I was an only child in an household filled with love, but also many silences and empty spaces. I needed more family than our three-member unit was providing.


It was summer before sophomore year and I had started hanging out with a little freckled kid named Anthony. Even now thirty years later, I can’t recall what brought us together, but we used to ride our bikes to Derek Thornhill's house to play football. This was a new world of mansions and country clubs for me. After several visits to the Thornhill place, we started going up to Margarita Drive to Jason’s house. We played hoops. Swam in the pool. Built friendships that would last for decades.


But this is not a post about friendship, it is a story about family. As soon as it became apparent that our visits were becoming more and more regular, often turning into weekend long sleep-overs, I was adopted by the Dohertys, and no one was more accepting, generous, hospitable and loving that Jason’s mom Karen “Twinkle” Doherty.


Twinkle passed away this weekend, and many of you have been so kind as to ask about the allusions I have been making to a special person in my life who has been suffering. Karen was like a mother to me. I often said that she was my second mom. From those early days of making us breakfast, making sure we were safe and making us laugh with her infectious and highly inappropriate sense of humour, to the last time I saw her looking weak and frail in the hospital, Karen has been a constant source of light in my life.


In life Karen was the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Her kindness and ability to transmit joy to everyone around her, were only surpassed by her unflagging strength and selflessness. She was a mother to all, not just me. She was a true matriarch. I have countless stories to share about her love of life and her ability to overcome obstacles, each one bringing me to tears at odd parts of my day, so I cannot write them all tonight.


I just needed this first post to announce her passing and make it real. To open the first chapter, so as to let the healing, grieving, honouring and celebrating to begin. At first I was nervous to write these words or even mentioned her name at all, because this is not my story alone to tell, but as I mentioned above, she adopted me and made me feel part of her beautiful and complex family. She gave me Christmas and Thanksgiving. Sunday night football. Nieces and Nephews. She gave me full access to her son and her family and their home and her heart. And for all of this I will be eternally grateful.


By being my mother and mentor and guide and role model, she has shaped who I am more than any other person in my life. I will miss her so much and it is simply too soon to understand what her loss will mean to my life, our family and the hundreds of lives she touched throughout her life. There is so much more to say, but tonight is not the time.


All I needed to say tonight was, "We miss you already Twink. I love you so much and thank you. I hope you are free of pain and resting. I will always carry you in my heart. I like you there to keep me balanced.

Celebrate

I don’t want to overstate how good this wine tastes or how good this loud music sounds. The combination at 9:51 on a Wednesday night during the first week of school is extremely satisfying.

I am listening to the Neon Lights playlist on Spotify and the band Foals is pretty damn good. Neon Lights is a two day music festival here in Singapore and Foals along with Sigur Ros is a headlining band. Lee and I went last year and loved the festival and will be going again this year for sure. I recommend you join us.


This is sounding like a trend, but today was another fast paced day. Lot’s of thinking, meeting, writing, teaching, discussing, negotiating, problem solving and running up and down the stairs. It’s days like this that make me feel grateful that I have job that puts me in contact with so many dedicated and amazing people. From the little grade 6 girl telling me about how she uses writing to push her thinking about books, to the team members who will passionately discuss assessment and conceptual learning for hours. There is no one I deal with on a daily basis who is phoning it in.

It can be exhausting to work in such a place, but I wouldn’t trade it in for anything. We run. We work hard. But at the end of the day, the quiet and the wine and the music wash it all away. The to-do lists are cleared. The plans are set. The issues resolved. The eBriefs written. The emails answered. And on some nights they must be left for the next day. And this is okay too.

I am thinking back to a night walking around lake WhatCom with Ari. The sun was low and peach and the lake was filled with wind and energy. We spoke about a lot of things, but celebration was the topic we landed on.

We shared the idea of living a life of celebration. Not in the cliche way with balloons and parties, but looking at celebrating as a reflection of awareness and gratitude. Celebration is the promise you make to yourself to be awake and grateful. We talked about living lives of perpetual celebration. Even the grief and ache and tiredness we encounter deserves it’s own quiet celebration. Even in death, a life deserves celebration.

So cheers everyone. The summer is over and the work has begun, but remember this is the work of the heart. It is the work we have chosen and we are lucky to do it. Celebrate it however you can.

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. "

Uncle Walt