When is the last time you took a personal day? Mine was yesterday. I had just come off a few stunningly wonderful days in San Francisco doing readings. Readings are intense, especially with a memoir. People are hungry for messages of empowerment and appreciate vulnerability. So there is much sharing-- something that I love and …
When is the last time you took a personal day? Mine was yesterday. I had just come off a few stunningly wonderful days in San Francisco doing readings. Readings are intense, especially with a memoir. People are hungry for messages of empowerment and appreciate vulnerability. So there is much sharing– something that I love and am deeply grateful for. But there’s so much pain in the world that I don’t see in my life spent here at my writing desk. In this time of sharing my book with people, I have found that I need to let that pain move through me as part of the collective We. To not let it get stuck. I don’t know how doctors and nurses and therapists and teachers do it, or anyone in any field where they are daily looking at pain. I have learned that pain can be our guide. My book is all about this. Thanks to people being so willing to share their own stories of pain and transformation, I’m reminded over and over of the freedom found in the present moment. That we need to breathe away thoughts of the past and the future and receive life moment by moment. That’s where the fear goes away. That’s where the freedom is.
To that end, the other night when my flight from San Francisco landed in Seattle, I did not get on my connecting flight home. Instead, my trusty little green roller suitcase and I marched right out of the airport, grabbed a cab, and checked into a hotel. It was like I was being pulled by something magnetic– as if I had no control. I simply needed to spend a day alone, and I did. I slept until ten am, and then roamed around Seattle for hours and hours– a city I love and one in which I lived a long time ago for some of the most inspiring years of my life. It feels like a city that is constantly in a state of expression, holding out its palms, full of gems. Here are some of them. And yes, I gave and received that free hug. Thank you, Seattle. I’m home now, better for having had a day with you. yrs. Laura
