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

see the beauty first

January 6, 2015

See the beauty first. 

At the coffee shop, I noticed a man sitting with his son. Both wore expensive clothing but the kid's pants only came up as far as his upper thighs. It is embarrassing to admit but my first thought was judgmental. You know about those kids who won't pull their pants all the way up, right? Gangsters or wannabe gangsters. Troublemakers. That kid must have problems. 

That is when I caught myself. That is when I remembered what I learned in training to become a yoga teacher. "See the sri." It's the beauty. The inherent goodness. Yoga teachers are trained to look for it first in our students. Above all else. To look out at the bodies in front of us and notice what is beautiful about them, then let everything else flow from that perspective. We try to, anyway. We are human, too. 

I glanced around the coffee shop and saw it everywhere. In the light pouring through windows and from faces of people. I felt my heart expand and started to think about all of the good things being discussed, shared, worked on, created, collaborated...right there in the Starbucks on Madison Street. 

Looking again at the boy with half-pants and his well-suited dad, I smiled. They were talking. Having coffee together. Sharing something on an iPhone. Relating. Connecting. 

"Laura, how's your magazine coming? What Issue are you on?" I heard a voice from the barista making my coffee. It was Andrew, one of my favorites. He remembers things I tell him. 

"Issue Two," I said. "Still Issue Two. Everything is going more slowly that I originally planned, but it's designed and layout is done. I'm just waiting on one high-resolution logo thingy, then I can send it to the printer."

"That's so exciting," he said. "So many people quit when things don't go the way they planned. You keep going. I like that."

He was seeing the beauty first, too. And I felt grateful. It was the boost I needed.

Who will you see the beauty in today?

xo
laura