I planned to write this post on New Year’s Eve, then the day itself. Not with much to declare or resolve, at least in the way of the shiny pronouncements bandied about this time of year. Resolutions, for me, are a long-abandoned practice, though I do, annually in December, wait for a word of the year. Some small beacon or guidepost to steer me through the next 12 months. I wait for my word, because it comes not so much by effort and deliberate foraging for something meaningful but usually slips into the space I’m holding for it when it’s ripened enough to find me.
Here, I sit January 3, without a word. Which seems to be following the holiday season’s trend of little going how I imagined it. Hence, perhaps a little of the ennui that has stalled this post, though my body since well before the Winter Solstice has only been doing what this time of year calls us to: slow down and rest.
After an incredibly busy fall, once December hit, I found most of my energy going to the bare minimum of what had to be done and the rest splintered somewhere between joy and grief. Trying to be present to the moments of celebration and festive connection that came while making room for a continually leaking sorrow. I could not sit at my altar without being overcome by tears, many of them joining the collective rivers of weeping over the multiple genocides and other atrocities unfolding around the world — and just as many feeling ancient, working their way from old wounds and stories to a needed release. I knew this as part of the gift and challenge of slowing down:
When we allow ourselves to sink into deeper rest and release our grip on productivity, when we trust ourselves to be held by the darkness instead of reaching for distraction, the parts of us long wanting to speak begin to do so. The emotions waiting to surface, the vulnerability that wants witnessing, the neglected parts of ourselves that need our care — there’s an invitation to make room for all of it in paring back to stillness, silence, calm.
On Christmas Day, I was with my mom. After spending the morning and Christmas Eve with my brother and his family, the two of us usually lounge in our PJs all day and watch movies, while connecting with our family abroad. But my mom had the flu, and though we were physically in the same space, I mostly spent the day alone. I noodled with some poems, took a long walk, ate dinner quietly by myself. It was strange and sad and also beautifully fitting — to have a day trimmed from all the excessive cheer and brightness given the horrors we’re witnessing and the tender state of my own heart these last few weeks.
The new year rolled in just as uneventfully as I tested positive for Covid for the first time in almost four years. Here again came grief. As I’ve isolated, spending more time in my bed than I ever do, listless and achy and coughing, I’ve been surprised by how emotional I am — and yet it makes sense, as I host this virus that has caused mass death, alongside so much global pain and suffering, and is still taking a toll — albeit not as dramatically — away from the headlines. Having Covid is unnerving and scary and lonely, and makes me think, not for the first time, of all the unmetabolized grief we carry from the last few years…all we rushed to leave behind in the race back to “normal” that still lives in our bodies and our psyches.
And so here I am in this dawning year, sinking even more into the slow, still depths. Being called to rest deeply. To do less, or even nothing, which can be an edge of discomfort for me, as I tend toward fullness and motion.
But it is winter and the Earth, too, is in repose, tending regenerative dreams and possibilities. What awaits us in this womb-like state if we, too, allow ourselves to shed the frenzy of doing and planning and simply be? Where do we need to restore and nurture ourselves so that something new may seed and bloom? What might we discover about our capacity for collective compassion and care if we allow ourselves to enter the quiet dark and touch the depths of our grief, letting it move through us?
When I took my walk on Christmas Day, there was stream running through the park where I stopped. As I sat and listened to the waters, they began singing to me. And this is the song I repeated to myself over and over again that day, with grateful tears in my eyes:
“The waters are singing to me today. And they say, I'll wash this weight away. The waters are singing to me today. I’ll carry this pain away. The waters are singing to me today. Oh, Love. Oh, Love. Oh, Love, be here to stay.”
Wherever you find yourself in this unfolding year, whatever it is you’re carrying or longing to know or free within yourself, may it be met with love, dear hearts. Always with love.
And may that love liberate us all.
Some favorite moments from 2023
I keep thinking back to last February when my friend Oceana Sawyer and I hosted a workshop for a group of Black women psychiatry residents at Yale School of Medicine. Overwhelmed by their caseload at the mental health center where they worked, burned out by caring for others with so much in their own lives and hearts left unattended, they recognized the need to have even just a few hours for themselves — to rest and to grieve. It was an honor to hold space for their collective grief and to create a portal where they could step away from their demanding, and sometimes harrowing, everyday.
I remember how radical it felt to walk into the health center, to a room they’d chosen and tried to soften in their own way, knowing we’d be centering grief and nourishment. That these women who poured so much into their patients and loved ones every day had claimed this space for rest and for sharing and releasing their sorrows. They were so excited for the day, and their effervescence at the end of our time together reminded me again of how learning to befriend our grief breaks us open not just to the marrow of what aches, allowing us to hold ourselves with more compassion, but creates fertile ground for genuine connection and joy.
This photo captures one of my favorite moments this year. One I replay often because it never fails to make me smile. This is my mom and me sitting at a cafe in the village of Montmartre in Paris. My niece Josie took the photo. We traveled to Paris in the spring to celebrate milestone birthdays for both my mom and Josie. My mom and I have frequently traveled together, and for years, she talked about going to Paris. It was never on my list of places to go, but for this big birthday, she made it happen. And I was surprised how quickly I fell under the city’s spell. I was enchanted, as much by its art, beauty, panache and food as I was by the easy joy that carried us everywhere. “I’m so glad we came,” my mom said as we were sitting at this cafe for lunch. “Me, too,” I told her, echoing my niece’s refrain. To see her so elated, savoring one of her life dreams, is a memory I will treasure forever. Our trip also reminded me how short life is, how we often delay what we desire until the perfect moment, keep putting off plans for “later.” But all we have is now. Whether it’s the trip we’ve been wanting to take, the art we’ve been wanting to make, or even a question we’ve been wanting to ask, we shortchange ourselves the magic and possibilities that live on the other side of our longings when we leave them to the land of “someday.”
I am not a singer — so I often say. Songs come to me sometimes when I’m in nature that I may share on social media or with people close to me, but they feel more like mantras or blessings or medicine songs. This year when I met with Rachel Rainbow, co-founder of Rise Gatherings, to talk about co-facilitating the opening night for Rise’s annual Weekend Getaway in the Poconos, she asked me if I sang. Naturally, I demurred, yet in the course of us chatting and plotting and giggling, I offered up this song, which had come to me one morning as I sat at my altar. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d be singing it to a room of 100 women at the retreat. But that moment shifted something in me this year. I’m not saying I’m ready to grab a microphone and hit a stage anytime soon, but I do feel more open to receiving than I ever have been. And that’s been a lifelong lesson.
Of all the partnerships I’ve envisioned for myself in my grief work, I never saw goats in the picture. Yet collaborating with the Philly Goat Project for a grief walk in the fall of 2023 was one of the most fulfilling and delightful community offerings I experienced. I was moved by the number of people who came out and their openness to not only share their grief but try something new. PGP and I loved our partnership so much, we’ll be offering grief walks at Awbury Arboretum quarterly this year. Save the date of April 13, from noon to 2 p.m., for our spring walk (rain date April 14).
Upcoming offerings
I’ll be back with Mt. Airy Learning Tree in February for a single class, “Poeming Into Grief: A Writing Circle for Tender Hearts.”
In her poem, "Letter to My Sister," Philadelphia's former Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson writes:
"I have managed to poem all my pain;
tell me,
what do you do with yours?"
We’ll explore that question in this session. Through poetry, writing prompts and the witnessing of each other's stories, we'll make space for our grief ... and what it needs from us. No writing or poetry experience necessary. The focus here isn't on craft but on using poems as a place to access our grief...and then resting what's in our hearts on the page through guided writing prompts. Register here.