I work in healthcare and your barnacles comment had me laughing. We all develop new arms at some point, luckily they aren't dangerous! Also I love the idea of aligning activities - I find mine while running outside, especially if there is nice light falling through the trees or a moon to guide the way.
um, if I heard the sound of those javelinas while sitting around a campfire I don't know if I'd ever feel comfortable sitting around a campfire again. Yikes.
I also have barnacles (red dots appeared after pregnancies and now I look like my father. Not sure how he got his…). I feel the way you describe about therapy! About hosting that process for others, and when I’m “in it” myself in my own group therapy. Like tuning a bell or throwing a pot, searching for the experience of “quality” (as Pirsig talked about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); also in yoga, simply gifting the body with loving attention and awareness. I feel like yoga takes place on the inside, an intimate and private journey (although I’m often crying my way through classes), and group therapy gets me messy and horribly uncomfortable before the loving eyes of the group; integrating my best and worst (simply “other”?) selves together.
The more I live and grow the more I feel that all paths of deep art take us to this place, and everything is everything. (Like planets, neurons, eyeballs, egg and sperm coming together—does anyone else think about the similarity of all of these forms and how there must be a one-ness to the universe??).
But yes, okay, therapy for me, and also barnacles.
“It’s like using a magnet to pull a pile of iron filings into a straight line. Or, as I’ve been thinking since I listened to that Garth Greenwell reading, it’s like ringing a bell, which is really nothing more than molecules being pushed into a form of alignment that we call a sound wave. I am the bell, ringing and being rung.” 😭😭
Beautiful, thank you. January has really been Januarying this year, huh.
I have barnacles too and have for many years…I just turned 46. I enjoy scratching them off, but they just grow back, the buggers!
Aside from writing and art therapy, the activity that most gives me a sense of alignment (purpose) is doing something kind for somebody else…making soup for a friend, giving money to a homeless person on the street, complimenting strangers or loved ones, etc.
Thank you, Molly, for this very thoughtful and thought-provoking post! You are a treasure!
Here's some information I bet nobody needed- I don't have barnacles (yet) but I sure as hell have a million skin tags! What's with those ugly little suckers!!!!? I hit my 40's & suddenly a new one pops up every week!
This struck a chord / rang my bell / made me thankful to read your writing and your thinking. xo
I work in healthcare and your barnacles comment had me laughing. We all develop new arms at some point, luckily they aren't dangerous! Also I love the idea of aligning activities - I find mine while running outside, especially if there is nice light falling through the trees or a moon to guide the way.
um, if I heard the sound of those javelinas while sitting around a campfire I don't know if I'd ever feel comfortable sitting around a campfire again. Yikes.
Oh my, and thank you so much for sharing the Garth Greenwell reading. In tears at dawn at my kitchen table this morning listening 🙏❤️
I also have barnacles (red dots appeared after pregnancies and now I look like my father. Not sure how he got his…). I feel the way you describe about therapy! About hosting that process for others, and when I’m “in it” myself in my own group therapy. Like tuning a bell or throwing a pot, searching for the experience of “quality” (as Pirsig talked about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); also in yoga, simply gifting the body with loving attention and awareness. I feel like yoga takes place on the inside, an intimate and private journey (although I’m often crying my way through classes), and group therapy gets me messy and horribly uncomfortable before the loving eyes of the group; integrating my best and worst (simply “other”?) selves together.
The more I live and grow the more I feel that all paths of deep art take us to this place, and everything is everything. (Like planets, neurons, eyeballs, egg and sperm coming together—does anyone else think about the similarity of all of these forms and how there must be a one-ness to the universe??).
But yes, okay, therapy for me, and also barnacles.
“It’s like using a magnet to pull a pile of iron filings into a straight line. Or, as I’ve been thinking since I listened to that Garth Greenwell reading, it’s like ringing a bell, which is really nothing more than molecules being pushed into a form of alignment that we call a sound wave. I am the bell, ringing and being rung.” 😭😭
Beautiful, thank you. January has really been Januarying this year, huh.
I have barnacles too and have for many years…I just turned 46. I enjoy scratching them off, but they just grow back, the buggers!
Aside from writing and art therapy, the activity that most gives me a sense of alignment (purpose) is doing something kind for somebody else…making soup for a friend, giving money to a homeless person on the street, complimenting strangers or loved ones, etc.
Thank you, Molly, for this very thoughtful and thought-provoking post! You are a treasure!
Here's some information I bet nobody needed- I don't have barnacles (yet) but I sure as hell have a million skin tags! What's with those ugly little suckers!!!!? I hit my 40's & suddenly a new one pops up every week!