Hey 👋🏽,

I’ll remember this month as the May it snowed upward.

Every escape to outside is marked by the dance of discarded dandelion buds blowing in the wind. Weeds are best stopped before they go to seed but our collective attention has been focused elsewhere this year.

We went for a walk/scoot through Narnia on Wednesday. 5yo pointed to the sky as we turned onto Sugarbush Lane.

Look, wishes! ✨

He let his scooter tip over, throwing open hands up and pogo sticking himself into the air.

I caught one! 🖐🏽

I smiled at his clamped hand. He ran off then kneeled down on the sidewalk. When he whirled around and up he started to blow.

I wished that you’d never pass away.

He took another flower out of his pocket and extended his arm.

🤲🏽What do you wish for?

I glanced at a snow bank of buds. For every 5yo with a wish, there are millions of weeds spreading bad buds - hateful actions, inactions words and thoughts. And roots run deep.

Mom?!
I wish the same.
The wishes don’t really come true, you know.

I tried to smile, holding back a nod despite the news this week. What change has to happen for my wish to come true? Noticing the weeds. Speaking up and out against bad buds. Asking questions to examine the roots of bias in ourselves and our loved ones. Spreading hope not hate. Remembering this wish for my 5yo mixed race kid whenever I see dancing dandelions instead of waiting for the next headline.

We make them come true. Let’s go have a popsicle.

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🧠 Sanctuaries of Silence Emergence Magazine, 7m

Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.

A beautifully narrated 360 exploration of Olympic National Park, one of the quietest places in North America

+ The 1619 Project NY Times, hours

+ Anti-racism resources, assorted

❤️ do it anyway

If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway.
All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Mother Teresa via Beartown via Mary Bowen

+ small kindnesses NYT, 2m

🚶🏽‍♀️write Reading Supply, 4m

A few people asked me how I was feeling this week and I didn’t know so I wrote. If you’re stuck, maybe writing will unstick you, too.

The secret to creative success is disequilibrium, which is to say noticing things in the world that confound you. When we pay attention, we see things that disturb our expectations of how life should be. Our surprise revises us.

+ writing is thinking, Mental Nodes 1m

I see you, I love you, be fearless with tough conversations this week,

P.S. HIIT + Stretch is back Monday 6:30P EDT and all proceeds will support communities of color via Loveland Foundation this week. Signup!