Thanks Giving
Defiant Kindness, Grief, and a photo montage
Hello My Loves,
Welcome to Heart Hugs on this day of Thanks Giving.
I love you and am ever thankful for your presence here. For walking through life together in words and feelings, in fits and starts, in art.
First, a poem for you (aptly named “Thanks Giving”).
Now an introduction and review:
In response to the rise in public and private cruelty, meanness, and division, my friend Jasmine and I started a new experiment - Defiant Kindness - that currently exists as a Substack blog and YouTube page.
Two friends, imperfectly stumbling through life, practicing ways to defiantly choose kindness - no matter how much the world is throwing hands - and inviting you to practice with us.
No one person has a lock on how to navigate these times. We need each other. We feed each other. We can and will encourage each other to find and choose the Defiantly Kind ways of meeting all the moments (micro to macro) over and over again.
We’d love for you to join us there and share your own experiences. This world building thing takes all of us and we are better together.
“Defiance is Kindness when cruelty is the point”
Our most recent blog “Thanksgiving: The Ultimate Grief Holiday” is quite personal for me this year.
My sister died, very unexpectedly, on Halloween (my favorite holiday) and I have been in a sea of surreality ever since. I have not had the words to speak of it yet. I know they will come, as they always do, but that day is not today (nor any day since it happened).
I think it is because it’s still not quite real. I don’t think it will be until I go to her home and she’s not there (which is happening tomorrow, the day after Thanksgiving). When I see my brother-in-law and my nephew and not her (or her dog who passed on exactly three weeks later in very similar circumstances - the world echos with circumstance and absence).
I feel a hollowing out, an empty.
And, simultaneously, I am full.
An overwhelming sea of feeling all around and yet separate from me.
The waters flow and the moorings creak
And still
I speak.
I wake.
And soon, I bake :)
(My sense of humor has plenty of room for the mournful and macabre, so laughter is rarely far from me. This is a blessing.)
May we feed one another on all that we are and be content, nay, overflowing, with delight and gratitude for All That IS.
Happy Thanksgiving Loves
Love All Ways,
Jessi***
