love letters

January 10, 2016 - Daily Notes

When was the last time you received a love letter? When was the last time you wrote one?

I penned one last night. A reply, after having spent the entire day subconsciously preparing myself for the act. Truthfully, the last two weeks were spent preparing for it. Matters of the heart are often so tender every word feels potentially life-altering. The words we choose matter. And they don't. And they do.

First, a morning acupuncture appointment. "Yes, your pulse does feel a bit wiry," she agreed, showing me pressure points on my feet that would soothe this mysterious onset of edginess. Mysterious only if one does not happen to mention that she plans to respond to a heartfelt love letter later in the day.

Then procrastination--er, preparations--began in earnest. I stopped for my favorite coffee on the way home. I wrote a blog post about a new book of poetry. I looked around my house and decided I MUST CLEAN EVERYTHING before I can do anything. So I did. Everything includes the toilet, the shower, the refrigerator (eek!), the laundry (all items), and the vacuuming (all rooms). When those were done, I decided I must clean myself. Every candle in the house lit, all the lights off. I showered. I meditated. I called on angels, guardians, muses and guides...especially lighthearted ones...to come and help me.

At 8:30pm, I sat down to write.

A draft first. Short notes to guide writing the send-worthy version and make sure I say the most important things. I used a purple uniball because all of my black pens are out of ink. I did my best to write not too much, not too little. Each sentence was honest and true. I considered how it might be received. I made each word count. I asked a personal question without apologizing for it. I wrote from my heart. 

This feels alive, this willingness to be vulnerable (thoughtfully so). Maybe the objective is not to "make a relationship work." Maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe the higher aspiration when it comes to loving another person is to try to understand and then communicate what is in our own hearts and listen to what is in theirs. If we do this, over and over, and if we receive the same in return...well...that is what makes true love sustainable.

Meeting a soulmate, falling head over heels from the very first moment, it does happen. And it's beautiful. I've seen it, dozens of times. Living happily ever after? That's trickier. I think love letters may have something to do with it. 

Have you written one lately?

xo
laura

notes from the wildness of being

January 9, 2016, Daily Notes

"I think everyone should encourage everyone," she writes. "Encouragers build doors instead of walls just by believing."

I met Victoria Erickson over Skype last summer. Lucia had just launched and I was on the lookout for writers who give voice to their hearts. She was preparing to publish a new book of poetry, Edge of Wonder.

She asked if I would read her manuscript and consider writing early praise if it inspired me. Me! Little old me. Victoria may not have known, but no one had ever yet asked me to review a book in advance, let alone write a review. I was over the moon, ecstatic, and honored.

The manuscript file arrived in the way electronic things do. Computers reduce the magic of poetry a bit, I think because we remove the rest of our senses from the experience of reading...the feel of paper, the weight of it, the smell of binding, the looking up now and then, adjusting one's eyes at a different focal length for a pause to drink in the unique scene around us before going back to the page.

Through the soft glow of my laptop, though, her words moved and inspired me. Slowly, over the course of four nights, I read the entire book. I drank it, actually, like a bottle of red wine from which you allow yourself one glass each evening until it is gone, and you notice that it keeps getting richer and more flavorful so when you come to the very last glass, you savor it.

One of Victoria's poems will appear in Issue Two of Lucia, which will be out soon. You don't have to wait for us though, Edge of Wonder is available now in selected bookstores and online.

You can find Victoria on Facebook and Instagram where, true to the heart-centered writer she is, she shares her musings, poems and thoughts almost daily. 

xo,
laura

beginning again

January 8, 2016

Thresholds. 

A musician spoke of them on the radio the other night. She said they are the places where what is old has passed away but what is new has not arrived yet. So you stand there at the door. And there is longing, even though you may not be sure what the longing is, yet.

I feel this. Is it because...January? Or is it this new decade which suddenly has four in front of it? Maybe it is the mystery of what will happen with my heart. I've been changing. We all have. I am not done yet. Are you? Pausing feels vital. On the other side of this door is a new way of relating. I do not know myself there, yet.

A soft knob waits for my touch to turn and unlatch its metal tongue from a small groove in the frame where a one-inch opening holds what is known safely on this side. Here, I can tell you exactly what I would have said. Here, I can tell you exactly how you would have responded. But there? I don't know for sure. Anything could be.

It will be different. We are not the same anymore.

So we stand here at the door. And there is longing, even though we may not be sure what the longing is, yet.

xo
laura