I needed to be free, I think.

The older I get, the more I’m inclined to shrug and . . . → Read More: delulu til it’s trulu]]> There was a span of nearly 20 years where, if you had broached the topic of spiritualism with me, I’d have checked out immediately. Not because my own personal belief system didn’t have room for it. But having been raised in a stifling and controlling religion, spirituality, my spirituality was a thing that was policed by others (as was my body, my sexuality, my speech). Emerging from half a lifetime of experience in an organization that sought to weigh women down with responsibility while simultaneously separating them from power, I took a hard pivot in the opposite direction and kept anything but science-driven fact at arm’s length. Clearly, I had healing to do. Trust had to be restored between me and anything I couldn’t see with my own eyes or touch with my own hands.

I needed to be free, I think.

The older I get, the more I’m inclined to shrug and say, “it’s possible!” to all kinds of hard-to-understand things. And I don’t mean virgin birth or angry old men in the sky whose existence centers around creating and then punishing. But in the sense that I don’t require proof of any kind to tell me that I am connected to you and you are connected to me by invisible forces that are not measurable. I don’t need science to tell me that the earth isn’t simply a collection of living things (trees, bears, bugs, moss), it is a living thing. It simply is, because the truth of it echos around inside of me.

Other truths simply are.

And where I used to find so much comfort (and paradoxically, anxiety) in absolutes, I now take a certain amount of joy in the unknown. It’s full of possibility! Where my faith used to be directed at a bearded figure in a robe, it’s now directed at the idea of things simply working out. So long as my heart is pointed in the right direction, so long as I exercise self-awareness and do the work of repair (I can be a bit fiery and impulsive, so mistakes are part of the territory, I’m afraid), I don’t have to know what happens next. It’s gonna be okay.

The idea of manifestation might have gotten a few eye rolls from me in the past. But the power of words has always been one of those truths that I just felt. It is a certainty lodged in there, anchored permanently somewhere in my ribcage. It’s why I write. My soul, I think, is made up of words, a vocabulary I’m still and always learning.

“What we say, we bring into being.”

I was reading a book by Lyanda Haupt recently and the truth of that statement made me feel… buoyed. She was talking about our relationship with nature, but it had other meanings for me at that moment.

There are only a handful of people who would get my honest, or even complete, answer to the question, “What do you want?” I wouldn’t trust that many people with seeing me in that way. But just yesterday, when I was battling internally over what kind of future I needed for myself, and whether it was even practical or doable (this is what makes me roll my eyes now. Doable. Ha! Nothing is doable until you do it, Hunter), I told a friend, “this is what I want.” I didn’t worry if it sounded selfish. Or silly. Or And I didn’t describe a tangible things. Though, immediately, in my mind’s eye I could clearly see those things. A room. The weight and dimension of my body. The light.

Did I speak it into being? Who knows. But now it doesn’t have to live inside my head, undefined and trapped. And that, in itself, is a sort of freedom.

The impression I had of her father had always been that of this gentle, wise figure. The dependable sort that reminded me of a 1950’s sitcom. Ward Cleaver, in living color. Well, when I tell you I didn’t know the half of it.

Everyone spoke of an unyielding kindness and an endless patience. His son said he’d never seen his dad’s frustrations or emotions get the better of him. Can you imagine? He volunteered and contributed to his community. He wrote poetry and ran marathons. He poured love into his children and adored his wife. He left a legacy of goodness and humor.

My own experience was so different. . . . → Read More: a grief unencumbered]]> I just got back from a funeral of a dear friend’s father who died quite suddenly. Having lost my own dad a couple years ago, I knew that the only thing you can do after a tragic loss is show up. And so I did.

The impression I had of her father had always been that of this gentle, wise figure. The dependable sort that reminded me of a 1950’s sitcom. Ward Cleaver, in living color. Well, when I tell you I didn’t know the half of it.

Everyone spoke of an unyielding kindness and an endless patience. His son said he’d never seen his dad’s frustrations or emotions get the better of him. Can you imagine? He volunteered and contributed to his community. He wrote poetry and ran marathons. He poured love into his children and adored his wife. He left a legacy of goodness and humor.

My own experience was so different. My dad, a complicated, tortured soul was swallowed up by life and often self-pity. He never once called unless he wanted something from me. And yet his death hurt in my bones. I realized, as I sat in the hard-backed church pew, that what I was witnessing was a grief wholly unencumbered by resentments or regret. Profound in its reach. A staggering blow.

After the service, I sat myself at a table out of the way and sipped black coffee. I knew no one else there, but was soon book-ended by chatty, clever septuagenarian women. We talked books and travel, careers and children, art and the economy. The woman to my right was a clothing designer in her younger days, owned her own label. She wore her fierceness in her short hair, just growing back from cancer treatments.

“I can’t help but wonder what they’ll say about me at my own funeral,” I mused. “It’s never going to be like that.”
“Oh, god, no. He was a one-of-a-kind,” she said. He’d been her financial adviser for decades, and she respected him deeply.
“No one is going to accuse me of being patient,” I said, laughing. “Though, kind, yes. I do that one pretty well.”
“Well, good for you,” she said. “I think they’d say I was tough.”
“Obstinate, maybe? I’ve earned that one.”
“Bordering on terrifying.”
“A mama bear.”
“Oh, for sure.” She’d been called that many times. So had I.
“Opinionated,” we said in unison and then laughed like we’d been friends for half a lifetime.

When she left, I sat quietly for a minute and recommitted myself to patience. Of course I want my children to say I was coolheaded and calm. But if they also get up to that podium and talk about how I’d rip the flesh off the bones of anyone who came for them with my bare hands, well, that’s probably okay, too.

I have dreams. Weird, oddly detailed dreams about other people, usually not in my immediate circle, that reveal a certain amount of truth. Truths that I could not have otherwise known. They’re not predictions or future telling, so far as I can tell. They’re more like a reading of the undercurrent, the unspoken.

I think I’ve had these my whole life and brushed them off. Everybody dreams, right? In the last year, though, I’ve started paying more attention and when a dream stays with me a little longer than usual, or *feels* different, sometimes I’ll share it.

That’s where things get…unusual. When I share the details, dialogue, feelings or scene with the person I dreamed about, the first reaction is usually disbelief. . . . → Read More: what dreams]]> If you’re inclined to be cynical, this likely won’t land with you at all, but that’s okay. You have no reason to believe me, but you also have no reason not to.

I have dreams. Weird, oddly detailed dreams about other people, usually not in my immediate circle, that reveal a certain amount of truth. Truths that I could not have otherwise known. They’re not predictions or future telling, so far as I can tell. They’re more like a reading of the undercurrent, the unspoken.

I think I’ve had these my whole life and brushed them off. Everybody dreams, right? In the last year, though, I’ve started paying more attention and when a dream stays with me a little longer than usual, or *feels* different, sometimes I’ll share it.

That’s where things get…unusual. When I share the details, dialogue, feelings or scene with the person I dreamed about, the first reaction is usually disbelief. “How did you know?” Well, I didn’t. At least not consciously.

Yesterday morning, I woke from a particularly detailed dream, that on the surface seemed… absurd in the level of detail. The dream involved a man I only really know from short conversations at school pick up. I went to a yoga straight after dropping the kids at school, and during quiet moments in class, kept returning to the dream and the feeling it left me with. When I sat down late at my computer to work, I decided to shoot him a message. Something along the lines of, “Buckle up, big guy. I just had the strangest dream about you…”

They start like that. My communication with the subjects of my dreams. A sort of “ha ha, isn’t this wacky” opening salvo that I hope doesn’t freak them out.

I won’t share the particulars of this interaction, because the dream hit with such…bizarre accuracy at personal, private parts of this man’s life, I have no business knowing, let alone sharing them.

But the wildest part was not that what I dreamed was accurate. It was how he responded. He was not surprised. He was not taken aback. He welcomed it.

“I give you credit,” he said. “You saw into my energetic world and it was highly accurate. I respectfully bow.”

He said that he believes in intuition, that it behaves outside time and space, that we all have the ability to access that part of ourselves but most of us don’t choose to listen or to practice it. He validated that what I saw was, in fact, real, and encouraged me to seek stillness to tune in to more. That surprised the shit out of me, to be honest. I’m used to that kind of response from the women in my social circles – they tend to be thoughtful and wisened. Not many men I know interact with that kind of ‘shields down’ authenticity.

Of course I have, in the past, been fooled by those who speak the vocabulary of the healed and the wise but operate in disregard for others. I have, at times, not been nearly guarded enough. And just because I read someone doesn’t mean that message was even meant for me to intercept. Frankly, the last time this happened, I should have steered clear. Lessons were learned. This was also the first time that sharing a dream has left me exhausted. My thinking brain turned off and I spent the rest of the day busily going about my tasks on autopilot. Working, cooking, cleaning. It wasn’t until I had a moment of quiet before bed that it struck me how truly surreal the whole thing had been.

***

When I was about 11 years old, I was riding in the car with my dad. He must have been mad at me for something, because he looked over at me and said, “If you’re not careful, you’re going to grow up to be a bitch just like your mother.” He went on to predict I’d have multiple divorces because of how intolerable I was.

He was a deeply wounded individual, my dad. But I won’t make excuses for him. He chose to pass the hurt on.

And when I tell you that poison seeped into every aspect of my life over the years, I feel it with overwhelming regret. From the small things, like being unable to send back food at . . . → Read More: then i would matter]]> It was never a conscious thought
Instead a drive, a compulsion
To be good, useful and helpful
Because if I was more of those things
Maybe if I was the most!
Then I would matter

***

When I was about 11 years old, I was riding in the car with my dad. He must have been mad at me for something, because he looked over at me and said, “If you’re not careful, you’re going to grow up to be a bitch just like your mother.” He went on to predict I’d have multiple divorces because of how intolerable I was.

He was a deeply wounded individual, my dad. But I won’t make excuses for him. He chose to pass the hurt on.

And when I tell you that poison seeped into every aspect of my life over the years, I feel it with overwhelming regret. From the small things, like being unable to send back food at a restaurant when it was wrong. To the big things, like the number of relationships I stayed in for too long, because I felt so much shame in failing. The number of times I stayed quiet when something wasn’t right at work or in a friendship. When I have felt deep anger and been so paralyzed by it, because speaking it would mean I was a bitch. Or worse. The times I have been so disappointed by benign neglect but have known, deep down, that it was my fault. Because it must be.

The years I spent trying to be…unobjectionable. From my grades at school, to my appearance. It wasn’t perfectionism so much as it was self-protection. So no one would notice I wasn’t good enough.

I’ve learned to let go of so much of it. But the way it still screams inside my head at unexpected times stirs up an inner panic, that when the rest of world around me is so calm, shouts, ‘you must be doing this wrong.’ So I practice yoga and I climb mountains and whatever else I can to be taken so far away from my brain and so far into my body, there’s no room for the noise.

Thank god for friends who can hear me say, “I feel too many things right now” and know how to hold space for all of it when I’m just not able to.

Originally published on Instagram on January 15, 2025.

I told them that beauty industry would be horrified by me.

If you see me wearing mascara and it’s not currently like, mom’s night out, it’s from yesterday. Because I don’t wash my face. And it’s not like, Ohhhh, facial cleanser is so drying, it’s that face washing, outside of a full-blown shower, is a sensory NIGHTMARE. Get water all over the sink and in my hair and down my forearms and… no thank you. I’ll sleep in make up and SPF before I’ll make myself do something so offensive right before bed. Look at me, protecting my peace.

See? I’m a nightmare.

My skincare routine consists of a single product. OneSkin. There. No gatekeeping . . . → Read More: grwm]]> It was recently suggested to me that I could monetize my presence here by getting sponsored by brands I use. You know, share my beauty routine or anti-aging hacks and be a really-for-real influencer. And y’all the hilarity of that.

I told them that beauty industry would be horrified by me.

If you see me wearing mascara and it’s not currently like, mom’s night out, it’s from yesterday. Because I don’t wash my face. And it’s not like, Ohhhh, facial cleanser is so drying, it’s that face washing, outside of a full-blown shower, is a sensory NIGHTMARE. Get water all over the sink and in my hair and down my forearms and… no thank you. I’ll sleep in make up and SPF before I’ll make myself do something so offensive right before bed. Look at me, protecting my peace.

See? I’m a nightmare.

My skincare routine consists of a single product. OneSkin. There. No gatekeeping here.

I brush my hair 50 strokes every night. Just like Caroline Ingalls. I do have a fancy brush, but I mostly use one of these cheap Goody pics because it’s good for the scalp. I think. And I will sleep in a cap just like Ma, too. Only, mine’s silk and not cotton because when the same hairs have been on your head for like, a decade (how gross does that sound?), you gotta avoid friction.

I have an estrogen patch because I am not going gently into that good night, thank you very much. I think this helps my skin. I can’t prove it.

Also, I don’t drink alcohol anymore so do with that what you will.

But here’s my very best beauty hack for this middle age madness. That chin hair you can feel but can’t see it even in the school pick up line where the light is the best? Mascara. Give your chin a little swipey-swipe and you’ll see ALL the hairs, not just your tormentor. Pluck away, friend. I use tube mascara and it works great. But I can’t speak for traditional mascara.

***

But if you’ll allow me to share some beauty tips I’ve gleaned from women around me, I think you’ll find them beneficial.

Wanna glow like you just rolled in a meadow of fireflies? Be kind. I could not be more serious. The kindest most open-hearted people I know are also the ones who look like they’re lit up from the inside. I’ve learned that they’re not always happy. They’re not always performing. But they are always kind. The best part about this is how contagious it can be. Borrow someone’s light. Then let it change you and watch your light light up someone else. I do not care that this is cheesy because it is true.

Live authentically, even when it’s scary. Fear is not a sign that something is wrong, by the way. It’s a sign that it’s new. Do the new and do it scared. Stop playing roles just to make other people comfortable. Be so much yourself that when people come into your life who need you, they’ll find you (you probably need them, too). Bring your silly, your weird, your loving, your creative and open self to every interaction and let it sort the real ones from the rest.

Be invested in other people’s happiness. I don’t mean people-pleasing because lord knows, that was aging me faster than smoking ever could. I mean, chase joy and give joy. Be curious and engaged and interested in people. Strong community ties, by the way, are what’s going to keep us young. I mean, we’re probably still going to have crepey necks, but we’re going to have our pick of besties who will pull the skin back in photos for us.

Now, pretend I tapped my fingernails on some plastic jars and off you go.