Michelle’s note: This is a throw-back post, one featured on my old blog that, while long since deleted from the interwebs, I’ve brought back from my personal collection to share right now because it feels pretty darn fitting for several reasons. The Covid-induced crisis we’re currently in leaves the future largely unknown and the present painful for many; this is prime time for hope to step in, because it’s when what comes next is so uncertain that we can imagine better and feel like maybe it’s really possible. Also, I love seeing myself in the past and witnessing all the ways I’ve grown, sometimes without even knowing it. Enjoy!
I’m turning 28 tomorrow, which is full-fledged adult status. So in honor of that, let’s talk about my favorite fairytale and the princess I would most like to be like: Cinderella.
Now that we’re about six weeks into 2020, I thought it would be a good time to share my intentions for the year. Yep, it’s February and I’m still doing them. That’s the beauty of intentions—they’re not binary in the way resolutions are. For me, that means rejecting that mindset that inevitably sets you up to feel frustration and defeat, that sets the stakes at win-or-lose, succeed-or-fail, all-or-nothing.
As a child, I loved Halloween but as an adult my affections have shifted to another holiday: Dia de Los Muertos. Though I’ve long known what it was (we celebrated it in school every year, because Texas), it took years before I could truly appreciate it. As a kid, I mostly saw it as creepy but then again, I wasn’t familiar with loss. Most children aren’t. You have to grow up a little more to know that you, too, will lose someone you love. Sometimes—multiple times, in fact—the person you lose will be yourself.
There’s this story my mom used to tell about her grandfather, one that lives vividly in my memory. She’d grown up literally next door to him on the family farm and whenever she spoke about him, even decades after he’d died, her voice went thick with love and affection. You could hear how much he meant to her as she’d quip that he was “a bit of character; well, a bit of everything.” Continue Reading…
When last year began, I kicked my blog off with an entry on the nature of receiving. Though the words within it were public, they were still deeply personal; they revealed heart truth by being spoken in that voice that is just me being me– y’know, the same way Miley is just being Miley. Continue Reading…
Lately, it’s seemed like the whole world is in various states of chaos and upheaval. Beneath the shooting and hate crimes and terrorist attacks lies an overall uneasiness we all feel, and the constant barrage of trauma and tragedies can wear down even the most optimistic of souls. Continue Reading…
I’m a big believer in not talking unless you have something to say– and not in the ‘only if you have something nice to say’ way but in the Gandhi way: “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.” Continue Reading…
A long, long time ago (13 months ago), in a land far, far away (the Hollywood hills), I experienced one of the most common but nonetheless extraordinary forms of magic there is (having my very first conversation with a woman who was once a stranger but is now a good friend). Continue Reading…
So I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be seen, especially at a time when I feel so visible. Beyond the obvious being-out-there with my project, I’m also staying at my parents’ house in Dallas and I cannot go to the grocery store without running into someone I know. Continue Reading…
Confession: I have never seen the end of the circus, though I have been to the circus many times. Every year of my childhood, when the billboards came up and the radio ads started announcing that the circus was coming to town, I would beg my parents to take me and most years, they did. Continue Reading…
a tribute to Wallace Stevens
I*
Among all the callings in the world,
The one that spoke to me
Was that of storyteller.
It is the only frequency I vibrate in. Continue Reading…
Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my brothers’ sporting events. By some cruel twist of fate, out of all the other siblings dragged to these games, I was always, always the only girl. Continue Reading…
If I’m being fully honest, I’ve always been a bit of a loner. It’s just how I am. I’ve got this lone wolf thing and even when I find my way close to someone, I can be evasive. Even my very best friends know there is a part of me that is secretive and maybe always will be. Continue Reading…