2018
this year, i danced around my kitchen in my underwear often. i knit a sweater and wove a shawl and started stitching a quilt. i sang a lot of bollywood and a bit of bright eyes in my car in between the mountains. i slept under the stars, baked cupcakes, made limoncello to toast in a yurt at 10k feet. i brewed a few hundred cups of chai. i made some rose + calendula oil and some beautiful friends. i ate a lot of eggs and avocados, in true millennial form. i panicked and started meditating and quit meditating and went to therapy and quit therapy and dragged myself back again.
i cried on the loneliest nights and also on the nights when i felt so held by the love in my life. i taught an abortion doula training and hosted the revolution in my living room. also diwali. i got whiskey-drunk and smoked on my porch and had a weed-induced panic attack and swore *never again*. i flew to greece via finland and the netherlands and qatar. i left a boy who loved me and dated some girls who didn't. i felt very brown and very crippled and very queer and very privileged. i hiked a few miles alone in a canyon and a few more with my sister in moab and came out feeling like a bionic badass. i soaked in some hot springs and counted meteors with someone i love. i called my senators. i soapboxed on maternal and child health in colorado and in the west, learned about black maternal health in atlanta. i got rejected from midwifery school, again. i tended some sourdough and mended some clothes. i bought myself a box full of scraps of silk & lace and a secondhand linen jumpsuit. i made my home in indigo and candlelight.
i like to be reflective, at beginnings and endings. they can happen as often as you like. i do mine seasonally, quarterly, on birthdays and anniversaries and solstices and equinoxes.
a few healing practices for winter, for a new year, for anytime and always:
call home. say "i love you."
blend jojoba, rosehip seed, argan, and apricot kernel seed oils in equal parts. add rose and calendula. apply liberally. anoint yourself.
in the words of @ninii_honey: "meditate - hydrate - masturbate (not necessarily in that order)"
scrub your skin with charcoal and salt. rinse the grime and the thoughts that no longer serve you down the drain.
get your genitals checked. even if calling your doctor for an appointment is just too hard because we're all burned out.
meditate, every day, before you leave your bed.
put in the work. be shamelessly ambitious.
make something beautiful. cook something delicious.
until next time.