Hello lovelies,

For the better part of the last seven or eight years I have often found myself thinking, people are the worst.

But lately, people have been the absolute best.

The last six weeks or so have been some of the very hardest of my life. I’m sure when I get through it a ways, far enough to gain a bit of perspective, I’ll write about some of it. But for right now my focus is just on wading through the depths. My sister told me yesterday that she is genuinely concerned for how much I am carrying right now, and it is a lot. So my answer back to her kind of surprised even me: “You know, it feels so heavy. And yet, so far I’ve not once questioned whether I will make it through. Mostly I just find myself occasionally thinking, I don't know how I’ll make it through. But then the answer always comes…”

A thoughtful text just to check in. A kind email from a far away friend to share the things that have helped navigate difficult times. My longest friend sending me a funny song that sums up our thirty years of friendship. A morning spent in beautiful conversation while driving through the country. My favorite human passing along some wise words and a recipe, nourishing soul and body. A friend who’s been where I am simply saying, “This sucks.” A hilarious video. So many hilarious videos. And those who listen and say, “Thank you for sharing your life with me.” Three people have said these words to me in the last two weeks, told me that my trusting them with my pain and sharing myself was a gift to them. You want to be brought to your knees in tears of relief and gratitude faster than you can imagine, have those kinds of friends. The kind who know that the sharing of our true and full unfiltered, unedited, messy selves is the greatest thing we can ever offer to each other.

I don’t have much to say this month, but I thought I would share below some of the things I’ve loved lately; the things that have brought beauty and levity and space to breathe. Maybe they will do the same for you.

I always love to hear from you, so write me back!

kg

THINGS I’VE LOVED

Some things I’ve loved this month, in no particular order…

This absolutely fantastic should-be-required-listneing podcast interview with Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry on rest as resistance.

The work of photographers Evelyn Dragan and India Hobson (be sure and check out some of India’s beautiful still life images too; I adore the ones that play with textured glass, like this one and this one.)

Reading The Wild Robot Protects to my children.

This quote from Ella Frances Sanders:

“I’m not sure whether the kind of beauty that exists in the midst of tragedy needs much in the way of an introduction, because you’ll know about it, but it is certainly deserving of discussion and a looking into— the way you might peer into a small, curled flower, wishing to see further but not wanting to damage it in any way.

One of the hardest things we can choose to practice is finding beauty within the more difficult and unravelling parts of life. It is not always possible, and there should be no pressure (we shouldn’t feel that we must find beauty in these things), but the relationship between beautiful and awful can be astonishing, and with some noticing and some tenderness, we can grow in expansive and thoughtful ways as we live through the awful. I’m talking about the beauty that never leaves, even within the confines of grief or illness or hardships too hard to name. When we are consumed—partially or wholly—by the dark, it may be that we need to squint or use a magnifying lens to see the small pins of light, but they are there.

Finding beauty within the darker, damaging things does not alter the weight of them, but it can, if only for a second, provide reflection, provide breath, provide safe pockets in which to shed tears or fury or terror, glimmers to hang our hopes on like coat hooks in a hallway.”

(You can find this excerpt from her book Everything, Beautiful in issue #215 of her Sometimes Newsletter.)

Videos, such as this one, from Matt Eicheldinger, a guy who has become one of my favorite Instagram finds of all time.

Also pretty much everything that Elle Cordova posts, but especially this beautiful little poem about the moon.

And lastly, this piece from poet Whitney Hansen.

That’s all for this month. Thanks for being here.