my life is a mess
but this moment is perfect
my life is perfect
adversity
Beautiful & unfair
Life is not always fair — sometimes you get a splinter sliding down
Abrupt
When you’re used to seeing someone day after day, for years on end, and then suddenly they’re gone, you
Scoresheet
No volume of history is insignificant, even the worst chapters. Especially the worst chapters.
Ever finding
Always remember lost, so that you don’t take for granted found.
Pain & struggle
We can’t always see the scatters and tatters of a broken heart. Kindness is due to all fellow beings — we never know the invisible hurts they’re enduring.
How to shine
it’s not that the people
with nice shiny attitudes
haven’t been banged up —
but they buff out their
dings and scratches with
gratitude and positivity
perspective and grace
resilience and courage
with purpose and faith
May you
May you lose a lot that matters to you
a few times in your life—
May you make and remake and
remake yourself over and again
and burn yourself right down
to ashen smoking embers
of bone and grit and soul—
So that you may always know
the pain of rock bottom
the freedom of rebirth
the hope of revival
the gift of perspective
the awareness of your strength—
May you lose but live again.
Death lights heavy
Hummingbird mama
abandons her nonviable eggs —
but keeps checking back
a few more times, just to be sure.
An arm falls from a sickly saguaro
and breaks open on the ground
like a prickly green eggshell —
after decades of desert still-life
a few seconds of death-motion.
But the night breeze is so beautiful
those breezes are — so beautiful
it’s hard not to get swept away.
Memorial
Grieving makes us stronger
it gives us a spirit of grace
and the grace of spirit —
Our hearts feel weaker
but living past loss is
the ultimate courage —
We honor our loved ones
by living on despite,
and all the more because.
Stop to smell the goodness
Life. — Enjoy whatever flowers come with the manure.
Mind own secrets
Frustration is nothing more than letting your own mind bully you.
Don’t just sit there
If life is good, don’t just sit there — dance!
If life’s not so good — dance even more.