word of the day: assure

by erika

Hi Friends,

I’ve made a terrible cup of coffee this morning. Still, after months with this new scoop, I can’t get the right measure.

A wonderful colleague of mine gifted me this beautiful new Brazilian hand cream. It’s so delicious that I am already worried about running out.

This morning, I burnt the final stick of lavender incense given to me by a beloved. I tapped it off at half-mast, wanting to savor it, not use it all at once.

I have kept the last empty container of my protein powder (before Natures Plus changed the formula) on top of my fridge. Some mornings I open the lid, imagining there will be one last scoop.

The bamboo I have nursed since the day ez was born is yellowing. I do not know if I have under or over-watered, but I have failed her.

The scale I hide in my closet says .4 more than before. I quickly tell myself a story about that number and sigh, that after all these years, I still cannot feel my full weight.

Too much, too little. More. Enough.

word of the day: measure

no.

(look at the word, turn it around in your mouth, in your eye. see what it has to teach you besides judgement. me/a/sure. As(s)ure me.)

word of the day: assure

to make certain, to make safe

I want to make myself feel safe.

In this turning of the year,  I don’t want to be measured–by me or anyone else.  I want to be assured.  I want to know that everything will be ok. With this world, with this country, with all those I love, with my heart and its tiny, ferocious little drum line. And yet I know, there is no way to know and have heard it said (again and again) the only certainty is change (and death)…

And so, all I can do is trust. Trust that the change that is certain to come will bring lessons that make me stronger and softer, more broken/open and more compassionate–in ways beyond measure. Maybe this “safe” thing is over-rated…Maybe what I want really want is to be assured that I will different–that I will find news ways of being in this world–ways that don’t involve scales and fear and blame.

When so much has already changed in my life, I just cannot believe that there will be more–and what, what for god’s sake, will those storms bring? I’m still wading, daily, through the debris that has washed up on my shore. Casting off old pieces of lidless Tupperware, gasping at single earrings that have returned to their pair, rifling though books that used to hold words and pictures that meant something and now are silent to me. What is in all of this? What should I keep and what should I leave for the gulls?

And so here turns the year and I with it. I have no idea what 2018 will bring, but I will make small gestures that show my faith (and my foresight). I will not wait for my hands to be “dry enough” for cream; I will slather it on. I will not mourn the bamboo as a symbol of my failed parenting; I will let her go and get another–or not. I will commission a new scale from my friend Michelle and her team of imagine-making doctors, one that says, “Perfect,” and “Yes!” and “Have some more!” each time I step on it. I will buy lavender incense by the bundle, a better coffee scoop, and will continue to email the folks at Natures Plus until they change my protein powder back to the original formula. And I will write. To myself, to all of you, and to 60, 70, 80, and 90 year-old me who is out there waiting, having survived this storm and the next (and the next), and stands ready to welcome me with a smile and  glass of wine and these words: “Look at you, kid, you made it!”she says. assure.

 

Love to all,

not-so-silent e