We were supposed to meet for dinner, but then I received his text: I have to cancel. I have to wind down the company as our funding got pulled tonight. He is my friend and the company is an extension of his deep belief that there is a better way to do X. He sees this possibility and so for the last four years has poured himself into making it exist in the world.
And now this. A kind of freedom. Continue reading “Taste freedom.”
Almost four years ago I went to a friend’s wedding, wearing a pink dress and white heels that had little flowers on them. I lived in San Francisco and the wedding was in Menlo Park, and I didn’t have a car. I took MUNI to the CalTrain station at Fourth and King, and because I had some extra time I stopped in the Safeway across the street and picked up some sushi to eat on the train ride down.
I was going to the wedding alone, even though I don’t like going to weddings alone. But, I thought, you never know who you’ll meet at a wedding. As it turned out, I met someone who gave me a ride back to the city, and became a boyfriend for the next 2 years. Continue reading “The doing is the finding out.”
You’re on a journey, and you will forget this. Sometimes you will feel disconnected, left behind, abandoned, lost, or unwanted. None of it is true. I want you to remember that there are more people than you know who are holding you with love in their thoughts and heart.
I’m one of them. Continue reading “I’m rooting for you.”
A man I didn’t know spoke to me as I waited to cross the street. “Great class, wasn’t it?” I looked to my left and he was looking ahead, and the light changed, and we began to walk together. We talked about yoga, which we had in common. I mentioned a recent break-up that had left me reeling. He said he understood. He’d had a similar experience last winter. I told him I was going to Bali in the fall. He stopped and pulled a Lonely Travel guide to Bali out of his backpack. He was going to Bali in 10 days. I started laughing. “It’s like you’re a different version of me!”
Kindred spirits. You know when you meet them. There’s a certain click Continue reading “Everyone is a different version of you.”
Write what wants to be written. When the words are knocking at the door, let them in and write them down. There is a story that wants to be told, and it’s whispering to you, so you are the one to release it onto the page, to free it from its formlessness. You don’t have to show anyone if you don’t want to. The value is in writing the words. Moreover, the act of writing changes the writer, and it may be that impulse that is seeking you out. Continue reading “Life wants to live through you.”
Today I feel overwhelmed with desire, happiness, and a sense of yearning. I remember my yoga and meditation training, and I try to simply soften and open to it. I relax the muscles in my face and belly and feel my breath slow deepen. I try to feel everything: the sun on my neck, the weight and texture of my sweater, that spark and flutter and reach in my heart. Continue reading “Fieldnotes and clues.”
I’ve started talking to myself. I go for a walk and pretend I’m on a call, bright white hands-free cord plugged into my iPhone. At first I felt tentative, but now I’m good at it.
I imagine I’m talking to a friend. Sometimes I imagine I am talking to you.
I allow all the words to come out. The tangled thoughts and circling questions, the major and minor emotional chords. Sometimes the words come out in a way that feels so unexpectedly right my breath catches with the discovery of some new insight. The pieces snap into focus. Continue reading “Practice saying the words.”
This was a big year for me, with many transitions. Some I never saw coming, and others I orchestrated with great care. I’m still in an in-between place and being at this cusp of year into year has me feeling wobbly. . . yet also held in love and inspired by each new day.
This year holds my broken heart. In February, the man I felt so certain of abruptly Continue reading “What the year held.”
There is always room for more love songs. Keep loving. Keep writing. Keep singing. Even though love songs have been around for centuries. Even though we’re all singing about the same thing: the hope, sweetness, bliss, and ache of love. It doesn’t matter. We want to hear your version. We want to hear your words, your tune, your voice, your arrangement.
Tell us how it is. We want to know. We can never get enough.
I am in wine country and it is winter. Brown vines twist up out of the ground, bare of fruit or leaves. They say there is something about the soil here that produces exceptional grapes for wine making. Art upon art: the tending to the plants, the harvest and crush of the fruit. And then the waiting. It takes time for wine to become itself. Continue reading “About Transformation.”
Kim Nicol 