Two mornings ago I dreamed that the stars had jostled from their normal places, and some had turned red or yellow. They were vibrating ominously, and I felt alone in my concerns, trudging across a shaky bridge through a dark crumbling cityscape to check in on friends who, when I found them, seemed unphased.
I scrolled the internet for many jetlagged hours, and disliked myself for it, and prayed, if that’s what you call it, that I’d find a way out of this passive numbed-out passtime and back to feeling, creating, communing.
Please appreciate that now, after a couple days with Effie and Julia, friends I have known their entire lives and almost all of mine, and the rest of Julia’s Bachelorette party, I’m writing an appreciation.
Appreciate Julia’s unrelenting positive energy, enthusiastic and somewhat mischievious, sharply intelligent, overflowing with kindness, no nonsense, but somehow still all the nonsense, that extends to everything from tidal pool creatures to wedding plans to her work on climate justice. Appreciate that this is the energy of the women and girls (and some men and boys) I grew up around, and appreciate that I realize I am still of and a part of this expanding community.
We talked about how we’d rejected some of the values from our childhoods. Appreciate that, beneath the competitive illusions of meritocracy, beneath the push to show you’re special by moving far away, beneath the fear of being boring, there’s a lot of love and desire to be of service and in community, as well as competence, general and specific.
Appreciate our urge to share our new crafts, coding, perfumery, bird identification, mechanical piano upkeep, pizza making, and the ancient power of this craft circle I’m reminded I’ve always been part of.