offering care

Today I shirked off writing this newsletter, in the face of a pile of laundry, dust bunnies in the corners, the groceries only half put away. I’ve been sleeping many hours lately, catching up on the hours I missed after a few too many deadlines and cross-country flights and surprise road trips home in too few weeks.

This afternoon I threw open the windows, slipped outside to walk in the midday sunshine. My body craved the sunny warmth and the clean February air, and I listened. I have learned to listen, over the last few years.

What does it mean to accept care when it is offered, from others or from ourselves? Last month my therapist asked if he could read me a children’s book, and the tender offer caught me entirely off guard. This weekend I drove home for a few birthdays, and my mother sent me back to the city with a dozen plastic baggies full of lentils, my pantry stocked from hers. Last night, my phone lit up as my sister and friends and cousins sent me clips of Tracy Chapman performing live, my favorite artist since I was a little girl. Late at night, I stood barefoot in my kitchen, and listened, and wept.

This afternoon, I walked in the cold February sun and left voicenotes for friends navigating new diagnoses and new parenthood. They too, are learning to listen to their bodies. We name how infrequently that invitation comes with tenderness, and so we offer it to each other.

My midwife calls herself a “tender of tenderness,” and I felt my tenderness tended to, curled up on the couch in her office while the laundry ran in the background. I felt it again surrounded by a bevy of people in a beautiful home just across the bridge in San Francisco, talking about consent and bodies and power.

I write and teach about power and trauma because I believe it is some of the most human work we do — the work of humaning better. I believe the work of humaning better means tending gently to our collective tendernesses — bodily, relationally, societally.

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How are you offering yourself tenderness, this week? I’d love to hear, if you feel like sharing with me.

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until next time.

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