Hi! It’s me, Kira, in your inbox again, after all this time. I hope 2021 has brought you sweetness and rest along with its unfailing ability to make us confront our mortality (LOL, yikes).
If May 2020 Kira could stretch through time and see me now, I’d like to her to know: I’m good. I’m wiser and more resilient for all that’s happened since I last wrote a newsletter. Learning the same lessons with every season, getting a little smarter every time the trees change. My heart’s homework is practice. I practice my boundaries, my art-making, my ability to be in relationship with others.
A tough thing I’ve been practicing? Honoring, and feeling, my grief. A year ago, within the span of a few months, my grandfather passed away, along with my childhood dog and cat. Coping with those losses alongside the absolute mess of COVID and climate change and our absurdist dystopia (like, we’re definitely in The Hunger Games when Sarah Palin is on The Masked Singer) has been a process. At first, I was pushing my grief down into a little box, because once I let it out, it was big! I was crying every time I saw a black cat or put sugar in my tea or found a dog hair in an old shirt. These days, I’m inviting my grief in, becoming more familiar with its shape. Letting it be a teacher.
One of my favorite quotes this year is “Grief and love are sisters” (Francis Weller). It’s true. I’m writing this from a coffee shop. At the next table, two old British men are having an animated conversation, speaking in the accent of my grandpa, who grew up in Croydon, England. When I first heard their voices, my eyes welled and chest warmed. Hi Grandpa, I thought. Thanks for coming to visit me today through these men beside me. I believe with so much certainty that those we have lost are still around, in everyday coincidences and smells on the wind and little shivers. In grief, I find clarity, noticing, connection.
The world’s big grief leads me to turn over my own, again and again. I tell my therapist: I think I’m reading too many sad things. I find myself Googling missing hikers and reading about loss, and I can’t stop. Am I doing something wrong?
She says: Have you ever considered that maybe you need this? That you’re seeking out these stories for a reason?
She’s right, of course. Those stories let me touch this well of grief inside me - one we all have - with enough distance to feel safe. When I let myself go there, eyes leaking, reading about widowhood in the pandemic and a terminally ill man who chose assisted suicide and a family mourning their son who died in 9/11, I process my year. I open my heart. Grief is something we share, and that makes it less scary. A door to community, to love.
Reading…
The best infographic about wealth I’ve ever seen. “We have so little of each other, now.” Wait, is Shrek Jewish? The Food Psych newsletter, for “breaking free from diet culture.” Short comics about friendship, hope, hugs. “It is hard, as a Black person and a journalist, not to be deeply, deeply skeptical of mea culpas from powerful people, and to question if the resignations will enact any meaningful change.” Dwight Schrute was a warning. An experiment about how we view history. Books I LOVED: One Last Stop. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers. In the Dream House. The Great Believers.
Watching and listening…
Trigonometry (pretending I was in London). Vivian (for when you need a good cry). A Mess to Be Reckoned With. Off the Record. WandaVision!!! This video makes me crack up every time I watch it.
Recommending…
Coloring. Pomegranate seeds. Telling a trans person you love them. Getting your inbox to zero (breathtaking). Looking through someone else’s window. Petting a neighborhood cat.
I’m challenging myself to write these without making every sentence perfect. The joy is in the process. Thanks for being here with me.
Glad to be back,
Kira