Tiny Revolutions №108: Ever New

Spring tidings 🌱

Agnes Pelton, Departure, 1952

So you know how people do that thing where they pick a word for the year? The word I picked for 2024 was “action.” I didn’t spend a lot of time pondering it, I just felt strongly coming out of 2023, a year of big changes — the loss of my mom, the leaving of LA after 18 years, the (finally) letting go of my career in brand marketing — that it was time to buckle down and get some shit done.

I had a big winter mapped out, with one thing after another taking me through March. A weeklong retreat in Costa Rica retreat for Foster, two consecutive weekends in LA with ceremonies and a retreat at Angel City Zen Center, hosting workshops for The Fire Inside, my nascent coaching program, all the attendant travel for the trips, etc. Just a lot happening. I was doing ACTION, for sure.

And then a couple of things happened: I had a full week of the worst PMS I’ve had in a while, and then I got Covid, which, like the first time I had it, was not that bad symptom-wise but completely exhausted me for a couple of weeks. It was like the universe put a drain at the bottom of my life and sucked out all the energy for anything but the most essential things. A very on-the-nose demonstration of that old Woody Allen quote, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

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Lately I’ve been making the joke that I have two babies that are demanding all of my time and attention, and yet I never feel like I’m giving either one enough of either. One is an wily four year old (Foster), and the other is an infant who’s a pretty good sleeper but has her moments (that’s The Fire Inside). Having never had actual children, it is perhaps true that juggling these two has been a learning curve in its own right, which essentially means I have three big things happening in my life. And that doesn’t even count my involvement at the Zen Center, where I am on the board of directors. So maybe it’s more that I have two babies and a grown child who just needs some guidance here and there.

It’s a lot and I love it! But let’s be real. I’m old for a new mom.

Working on Foster, I am part of a larger team, which means I have deadlines. We work in a decentralized model where we all have ownership of what we’re doing, so I’m not accountable to a boss, per se, but we are accountable to each other.

With The Fire Inside, it’s different. It’s just me. And if we’re running with the parent metaphor, I’m a harried single mother who’s just trying to keep everyone, herself included, fed and clothed. I sneak in bits of time to work on it when I can, but during the Great Energy Apocalypse of March 2024, not much happened.

Which feels…bad. The Fire Inside is an idea that came to me while I was staring at a fire. It’s a heart-driven project, and I truly believe the universe gave it to me because I have everything needed to bring it into existence. I feel grateful and bound to it on a soul level.

But I am just not making a lot of progress on it at the moment. Frustrating! I’ve been low key mad at myself for not having done more. And yet, ironically, here’s what I said about bringing a new project into the world in the piece I linked to above:

For so long I labored under the illusion that everything significant that I admired about other people — their accomplishments, their relationships, their careers, their creative works — was the result of some grand maneuver. In actuality it’s a little bit every day over time. Imperfectly.  

Haha. It’s always funny when you realize how badly you need to take your own advice.

So that’s my invitation to you, my friends: Look for the places where you can take your own advice. And be kind to yourself when you realize you haven’t been doing a great job of it.

That’s the practice. We start again fresh every day. And then we do it again the next. And the next and the next and the next after that. This is how, over time, miracles happen.

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Coming back to the energy thing though, while I haven’t been doing much writing here (obviously), I have been experimenting with being real mouthy on Twitter. Just little things, having fun. Here’s a taste from the other day:

A couple of friends riffed in response:

Anyway: Fun! Experiments! That don’t take tons of energy! That’s the move for me right now. Also:

(And if you’re on there — it is a hellsite for sure but there’s also still a lot of gold in them there hills — join me.)

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Happy Easter, y’all, if you’re celebrating. Here’s a pretty song.

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I have a lot more to say, but I mostly just wanted to say hi. Readers have told me many times over the years that they don’t care how often I post, but I don’t like going too long without saying something.

I’m off to make the internet’s best carrot cake, so I’ll just leave you with this:

“A small act is worth a million thoughts.” - Ai Weiwei

Thanks for reading, as ever. See you soon!

😘

Sara

p.s. Tiny Revolutions is free to read but if you’d like to support my work, please share this with someone who’d appreciate it, or just like this post!