Once in a blue moon, when I'm folding laundry, I sigh my grandmother’s sigh.
Self-pity rides through my cells — like a raft of storm clouds.
A mood that was modeled so exquisitely for many years.
It's the sigh of a brilliant young artist who got a full ride to Parsons School of Design. Then fell in love with a famous Italian piano player. And left New York to have nine babies, instead of nurturing her gifts.
It’s the sigh of another younger artist, my mom, who never painted.
“I always wanted to be a mother.” Like a religion, she says this.
“You are everything to me.”
Sometimes I wonder if that was for the best.
Her love was my bedrock.
Would it have set me free...
if she was in love with her life?
Bent over a pile of shirts and undies, twisted together.
I catch myself holding the unsatisfied desires of the women who came before me.
As if that’s what it means to be a good woman.
The energy of self-abandonment.
It's not my story.
I sigh their sigh out. For good.
~
And I remember.
My chaotic, uncontainable wildness matters. Its own kind of prayer.
~
Each one of us can wake up...
and unfurl from the molds that were handed down.
The best kind of bad fit.
We move at the pace of free-flowing inspiration rushing through.
Hang on for dear life and then let go — to where it takes us.
~
Now a hummingbird flies by (no joke). Or a moth.
I Google the meaning. One of my favorite rituals.
This. This is me.
~
I wish I could tell my grandmother what it means to see a moth on your window pane.
Allow yourself to be reborn.
I can undo the “good woman” stories passed through the generations.
I ask the Universe to help me catch myself, unaware, in the scaffolding I didn't construct.
To help me keep writing my own stories of freedom and bone-deep satisfaction.
For the ones who’ll come after me.
**
So here's a question: Do you ever find yourself in a mood that doesn't feel like you?
Whose story is it anyway?
With love,
C
P.S. I will be sharing a very special, limited availability private coaching offer in an upcoming email. If you're already curious, reply now and book yourself in for a call with me to explore how I can support you in this way in 2023.
🫶 FORWARD TO A FRIEND: SUBSCRIBE
FIND ME ON IG
Subscribe to hear about new offers and products I'm offering to the world.