Quarterly Holidays

March 15 was one of my quarterly holidays, Day of Blooms. There are three parts to the Day of Blooms:

1. Serving Nature: Doing something to serve the world around us, whether it's planting a tree or picking up trash.

2. Recording Joys and Successes: Writing down all the little (and big) happy or rewarding moments from the last three months.

3. Setting Goals: Setting your goals for the next three months with your themes from the joys and successes in mind.

The next quarterly holiday is Ray Day on June 15. It is celebrated by:

1. Doing Something Kind: Spread kindness in the world, whether through donating to people or a cause you believe in, or volunteering your time, or some other means entirely.

2. Recording Joys and Successes: Writing down all the little (and big) happy or rewarding moments from the last three months.

3. Setting Goals: Setting your goals for the next three months with your themes from the joys and successes in mind.

After that comes my favorite, the Day of Leafs, on September 15. It is celebrated through:

1. Leaving What No Longer Serves You: Whether through a chant, burning a letter, or some other means, ritualistically saying goodbye to an item, person, or belief that no longer serves you.

2. Recording Joys and Successes: Writing down all the little (and big) happy or rewarding moments from the last three months.

3. Setting Goals: Setting your goals for the next three months with your themes from the joys and successes in mind.

The final quarterly holiday is Evergreen Day on December 15. Celebrating it involves:

1. Giving with intention: Giving a gift, whether an item, time, or experience, to someone you care about that will bring them joy.

2. Recording Joys and Successes: Writing down all the little (and big) happy or rewarding moments you can remember from the last three months.

3. Setting Goals: Setting your goals for the next three months with your themes from the joys and successes in mind.

Do you have any holidays you've created?

The Weight of a Phone

My phone weighs 143 grams. I keep it in my pocket when I'm not using it, which means it's almost never in my pocket. When I click it on, sometimes I wait to unlock it just so I can gaze into my fiancé's eyes on the screen. They're blue, highlighted by his glasses, which darken when the sun shines against them. In the photo on the lock screen, his face holds a soft smile. As I type in my passcode, I can see that smile widening in my mind's eye.

On the home screen, our cats are curled up on my old heated blanket, the warmth of my phone mimicking the warmth of the throw. I imagine Casper purring me to sleep, his soft belly under my ear, and blink my eyes clear from a tired blur.

Under the images of cats sit five folders, each with a variety of applications. In one, there are 11 chat programs, each holding words from friends and family and people who fall somewhere in between. The messages come in from around the world. On one chat program, I talk mainly to a cousin in Dubai. In another, I reach out each day to a few people to tell them I love them, and a few reasons why. I don't want anyone I love to feel alone.

I know what it's like to feel alone. It spills out in text apps, in journal entries and memoirs and odes to the healing journey. Last year, I submitted one of them to a contest. A story of trauma, survival, and how my mind stitched itself back together from the bleakest of nightmares, "My Brain: A Love Story" won first place.

My phone's case weighs 20 grams. In the past, my phones have ended their lives battered; screens cracked, stories faded. Over time, I learned from those dents and fissures. More than bruises that phone and body grew all too familiar with in younger years, though, I've learned from the books my phone holds. When I was a child, paper and ink pulled me to safety. Now that I'm grown, the LEDs behind my screen spell out words and worlds of healing.

I open the camera app. I may be tired, but I am alive, and glad to be. I snap a photo, looking up at the lens with eyes that have seen both joy and pain in equal measure. As a smile crooks one corner of my mouth, I'm proud of the smile lines faint around my eyes. I had so many reasons to lack them. But there they shine, just like the light from my phone. Just like the light in my grin. I am alive, and I feel alive.

A Poem of Hope and Connection in the Midst of Chaos

I put out a new poem on Bandcamp today called Diagnosis: Pandemic. It's a bit of hope for a time of chaos, and it's pay what you will. I hope you enjoy.

Joy and Loneliness

I've forgotten much of my childhood, but I remember lunches in eighth grade clearly. A pack of us ate together, sprawling across sidewalks and tables, discussing manga and classes and life. We were the misfits, the kids with hard home lives that pooled together in that concrete wasteland to form our own community. I remember laughing a lot, but also the deep loneliness that gripped so many of us. Jokes mixed with self-deprecation, blurred into talk of suicide, and then something made us laugh again.

For so many years, I wondered how even amidst the laughter, we all felt lonely. We were a community. We were friends. But we still felt deeply, achingly alone. Then, while listening to Unlocking Us with Brené Brown recently, I finally found an answer.

As Brené talked to Dr. Vivek Murthy, he mentioned three types of loneliness:

1. Lack of intimate, close connections, like best friends or partners or family you can be yourself fully with.

2. Lack of friendships, the people you spend your time with and feel connected to.

3. Lack of community, a bigger group and purpose you feel a part of.

Crucially, he pointed out that it's still possible to feel lonely, even if you only have one of those types of loneliness, and even in moments that are also ones of great joy.

I thought back on those lunchtime sprawls. We were a community, we were friends, but most of us were too afraid to trust each other, or lacked models of healthy vulnerability, and couldn't become truly close. I remember reaching out again and again to lackluster or lacking reciprocity outside of the space of lunch hours. I had friends. I had community. But my life lacked closeness, as so many of ours did.

Still, looking back, those lunch gatherings hold a sacred space in my heart despite it all. We built our own joy amidst loneliness and pain, and even if things still hurt while we laughed, we laughed amidst tragedy. And we laughed together.