An open letter to President Joe Biden (or, You’re Losing the Most Liberal of the Libs, Joe - but, There’s Hope!)

Dear President Joe Biden:

I campaigned for you. I voted for you. I sighed with relief when you won, and since then, we’ve never caught you Confusing 9/11 with 7 Eleven or calling the country the “United Stage.” So, thanks for that. 

But… but…. Israel. It’s obvious that Israel owns you / your folks, and no one can accuse you of leaving your family and friends high and dry. What we can accuse you of is approving of one madman’s actions when 34,000 human souls have passed. Because of land because of religion because of sand, because of...

War. 

And someone, somewhere, somehow has to end it. You know that. So yeah, you could stop reading, and that’s ok. But here’s the thing - I feel like you still don’t get it. Weird to say to one of the leaders of the free world, eh? But someone has to - apparently - spell it out for you - and your cohorts:

We are in a different age. A new age.

An age when people don’t have to die. People never did, of course - but you could understand that in the past, people had more food insecurity…but that’s not been a problem for most of us in our lives in the USA, has it? For many, yes, but PRECISELY BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT, the poor still stand a chance.

We need YOU to figure out a new way to wage war, and guess what? I’m like 99% sure that THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD will agree because WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO LIVE IN FEAR OF WAR? Who the fuck wants a leader who throws around nuclear war threats like that’s something you joke about?! 

There are certainly better, smarter ways to fight, better ways to disagree. Perhaps you and Netanyahu would be thinking twice if you were on that frontline

Facing down 34,000 dead Palestinians? 

babies, so many babies and innocent children 

and Netanyahu, friend to Trumpelstiltskin too, he is saying

I’ll go to Rafah no matter what, 

I’m gonna kill every last one of them, 

No matter what. 
So today, this moment is a turning point.
Do we stand with the madman who is calling for mass destruction? 

There’s already such a score to settle… 

So, President Biden, I’ll vote for you again, but you need to know - the most liberal among us are wavering. Can you believe it?!? Wavering between you and Trump! We make fun of Trumpism often, so it pains me to think that people like my fiancé’s mom, a retired university employee, is so disgusted by your alliance with Israel, she would rather not vote - a vote lost for you.

And I know this may sound like ageism, but she is 75. You can’t ignore these voices, and the truth is, everyone - including the libs - is understandably worried about your age. But here’s the thing, here’s the hope - let’s say you start to show signs of stress - tho it would be hard to tell b/c your new skincare regimen is making your skin TIIIIIGHT! - but let’s just say you needed to retire from your post early, hang with Jill and the kids…then Vice President Kamala Harris would step in.

And I’m just going to say what no one else seems to be saying but what we know will be true and what Trumpelstiltskin and all his Strumpets are really scared of: a black woman will be leading this country.

That’s right folks: a BLACK WOMAN. 

She snuck up on you, didn’t she? 

Good. It’s about time some stealth action happened in the Dem party - b/c right now, it’s like, “Hey, do you want to Tik Tok about it, or should we all send out text messages at the same time?”

But if, God forbid, something happened to you, President Biden, then…A black woman will be leading this United Stage, and it’s about damn time. I’m not black, and I don’t want to pretend to speak for anyone of color, or anyone but me, frankly. But on behalf of this woman, I am incredibly excited that we will have our first female president. And if anyone can get this country in shape it’s… a black woman. 
Vice President Harris will make sure we are all ok, Joe. So don’t fret your fine head of whiskers on that. I have faith in her. She has been through hell, and SHE HAS PERSEVERED! 

So really, I suppose, this is a letter to Kamala, too. We love and support you. And I thank you BOTH for your leadership in times of great change, innovation, and social justice. Much has been accomplished under your leadership, and peace here has been maintained. And so please know, I write with utmost respect, and all the best wishes. 

Now get us out of war. :) Peace is possible. We just have to keep it on the table as an option, and can never align ourselves with anyone who knowingly destroys the lives of innocent people.

Love and peace,

Rachael

slow burn at the core(azon) of the earth

i decided it was time. it was time to cut any and all codependent ties to my past, and the people who, quite frankly, didn't want to be tied codependently to me at this juncture.

i lit the sage. now more than a year old, it lit well, and i let the smoke billow over me, saying:

i am fine on my own. i am fine on my own. i am fine on my own.

an ember fell to the carpet and smoldered.

'i am fine on my own. i am fine on my own. i am fine on my own,' as i stamped it out quickly.

i am fine on my own.

i can put fires out.

i can start them... but who wants to hang out w/ a firestarter? thrilling but exhausting.

i'm here for the slow burn

and i can control it.

at least, that's what i'm starting to tell myself.

if other humans are mirrors to us, if they are all tentacles of the same mama octopus whose heart beats at the core(azon) of our earth, then my mirrors have been saying 'slow down' and my tentacles have been surrounding me with love, at just the right moments, often.

so maybe i can trust this process...of being...human?

painfully

beautifully

sadly

eloquently

brutally

human?

maybe i can trust

myself?

-rachael h.

photo by Natasha Komodo (ps this sounded break-uppy - it's not! more about self-acceptance, an ongoing process as relationships grow and change)

insomnia bird

insomnia bird

its a little after 5, still pitch-black out

i step out on the patio and hear this bird

tweet tweet tweat TWEEEET tweet

over and over

same same same

all alone

a solo 

i waited and waited.... no birds joined in. 

this wasn't the early bird this was... the 

insomniac bird

the bird that never sleeps 

who just keeps counting

one two-three FOUR five

one two-three FOUR five

one two-three FOUR five

the bird who has to stay awake

ready to alert the entire flock

with a single peep

that a predator is near

or new seed has been strewn

insomnia bird

me and you

i hear you

tweet tweet

my sweet

Absolutely Nothing

Absolutely nothing is hard for me to do. Want me to sit still? Why? 

It’s amazing to me how much we ask of children - goals we would never ever set for ourselves, or attempt reaching.

“Sit here in this chair and do not speak or move for 30 minutes.”

“Sit here in this chair and do not speak or move for 45 minutes.”

“Sit here in this chair and do not speak or move for 360 minutes of your day.”

We are throwing away joy and learning that could happen if kids could MOVE. 

I would love to see a study of adults forced to do what an average 1st grader has to do. A room full of adults who have to ask / tell someone when they use the bathroom, a room full of adults who could not doodle, could not move unless they were given permission.

I would love to see how many of them would last an hour. 

We expect too much of our kids and we need to change our schools.

But you would rather spend your time and money on guns and talking about a delusional narcissist addicted to power. 

There are a whole lot of us who care more about kids than we do about guns and the assholes who run them: we’re called teachers.

And teachers aren’t given the power to turn their classrooms into joyful laboratories of learning - because they teach to the test. 

I’ve spent decades now avoiding a full-time job in the public school system because I cannot stomach how children are treated in that system - a system i have fought for and will fight for anytime, because public schools are vital.

And, public schools also must learn best practices, and that often happens in other settings. Every elementary school teacher should be aware of and embracing project-based learning and the Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Waldorf approaches. All these educators have offered wonderful, non-traditional ways to reach children - but, at this point, they should be traditional.

And they’re not. Children are still learning on worksheets. Teachers are teaching to the test. 

And what are we doing about it? 

Absolutely nothing.

Ho Ho Oh, There’s No Santa? (Or, How I Came to Peace with My Complicated History with Saint Nick, Jesus, and Winter Souldrums )

By Rachael Himsel

For people like me who just want to curl up in a ball under a blanket and hibernate in the coldest months, it’s not about winter doldrums - it’s about winter SOULDRUMS. A deep exhaustion, sometimes with a side of dread - the souldrums. My skin changes, my joints hurt more than any other time of year… a coldness of the soul - the souldrums. And it’s not just middle age, because these feelings, these mental feelings have happened for years and years. I was initially diagnosed with major depressive disorder in my late 20s. I’d spent a lot of my life crying and feeling like I wasn’t good enough, that just about every other human being was better than I was in Some Important Way. 

This belief was solidified when I came to accept that most humans are better than - or at least, different than me - in Some Very Important Way, actually - in their ability to have children. Unlike the vast majority of humans (85%), I was not able to have kids, and also did not belong to the subset that did not want / chose not to have children. I wanted kids, but the universe said, nope. I look back at how depressed I was, and almost all of it was because I felt like others around me were easily falling in love, easily getting married, easily having kids. Though many in my family and friend circle have had losses, most have been able to eventually have children. Due to circumstance and genes, it never happened - even though I got to the point of really believing that miracles could happen and I could still get pregnant at 37…sure! 38, 39… 40? Mary was a virgin when she had Jesus! Miracles can happen! 41. 42. 43. Ok…44, 45, 46? Hmmm…Ok, closing shop! That’s a wrap! 

I like that I am able to talk about this with some humor, because the attachment I had for the life I wanted, the life I dreamt of, wasn't healthy. The attachment I had to those dreams come through to me as I work on a musical I started writing 20+ years ago with my best friend lisa. My fiance Vahan, a brilliant musician and composer, is helping us take the music across the finish line. As I read lyrics I wrote all those years ago, decades ago, I see the naivete… the hopefulness that can only exist in musicals, fairy tales, and bibles. 

Why am I able to see through these dreams, at last? How can I see through them? When others, for sure, tried to tell me in the past? Perhaps I had to grow up and fall in love with an atheist and end up at a state park with another best friend on Christmas day in a state thousands of miles away from where I was born.

As I sat at Silver Springs Lodge in Oregon’s largest state park, I sipped hot cocoa and playing bananagrams with my longtime friend Mel. Having bonded over our love of writing, volunteering, and the arts, we both wrote for the same arts magazine while living in Bloomington, Indiana, and danced, sang, and played together often. With both of us transplanted thousands of miles from where we met for totally different reasons, I looked at my dear friend, took a deep breath and  appreciated how far I'd come. Literally, figuratively. I had somehow, safely and on the backs and with the help and support of so many hands of humanity, hands of teachers and sisters and brothers and family and friends and some spirit that we keep trying to name, i’d come here, to oregon. Not only had I come to Oregon, I'd come here free of so much fear that had been instilled in me since childhood. 

‘Christmas is a pagan holiday’ I grew up hearing, in my doomsday cult that did not allow celebrations of Christmas, Easter, or most cool holidays. 

I remember standing in 6th grade and the teacher asking students to debate this question: 

Should people tell children Santa Claus is real or not?

Of course, I believed lying in any, way shape or form was a sin, so I knew where I landed on this one - easy, don’t tell them about that pagan god, Santa Claus aka St. Nick aka the Devil! 

So I was ready. Debates were my thing. Debates were when I really paid attention. I deeply wanted to hear what other people thought - I’d only heard the doctrine of the Worldwide Church of God every day of my life outside of school, so I needed these debates, I valued my classmates and their dissent - mostly gentle, occasionally derisive but mostly respectful, and often more respectful than I was in my smug knowledge that I was god’s chosen one, that my family and I would get to go the place of Safety when the end came, all for the low low price of 10% of my parents’ income! sorry you can’t come too, space is limited. 

I don’t remember if I lost the debate or not. I just remember that people felt strongly about this holiday, and I needed to pay attention - because people cared deeply about this Santa figure, and we all cared about Christ, so at least we had that in common. I focused on our common ground - Jesus - and went on to sing in madrigals and choirs in high school, and ‘Ave Maria’ even became my torch song. I learned that my mom had almost become a nun, so she loved my singing these songs. My dad, a Lutheran before he heard the radio ads for the cult he and my mom joined, also enjoyed the song and recorded me singing it at various concerts and competitions. 

I sang with my heart. I sang with my soul. I sang to keep the souldrums away. 

This winter, at Silver Springs Lodge, Mel and I walked out into the cold Oregon air. We walked behind a waterfall, and the rush and mist made us feel alive and small. We smiled, we hugged, and we breathed it all in. 

It was December 25th, and I marveled at the path that took me out of southern Indiana to the cold stones behind a waterfall in Oregon… a path paved in love and friendship. I didn’t think once about Santa or Jesus or anything other than the joy of that moment in nature with my friend. 

I don’t remember what we sang, as we walked down the path, but I'm fairly certain we sang. I sang with my heart, I sang with my soul.

And, together with my friend, we kept the souldrums away. 

Best Christmas ever. 

 Image via iFunny

On Gods & Guns

What am I glad I’ve lost?

A lot of fear. Some fear remains, but at least I’m not fearing the end of the world now. At least I’m not fearing God, and all his myriad ways to punish: flood, fire, disease, pestilence…

It’s a lot to blame on 3 letters, no? 

It sounds like God became the scapegoat and the eternal parent for us all… convenient, huh?

I don’t think I’ve lost God. I don’t think I’ve lost God, because I believe and understand that God is a construct humans made up to help us understand the inexplicable. Babies dying? God’s will. A fire that destroyed a town? They must have been sinners!

But THAT is the step that is not needed. That’s a step we could lose. I’m glad I’ve lost the belief that we bring all these things upon ourselves. Early humans even understood that we were so powerless over so much - so intensely connected and yet not - and they tried to chalk up what they had no power over to something…or someone… gods. Goddesses Yahweh. Devil. Good. Evil. Hell. Purgatory…

We made it all up. 

And yet some people cannot lose their religion.

I’m so glad I lost mine. 

I want to lose some of the anger though.

Because I am angry - I'm angry at the MILLIONS of people who use religious differences to score the physical shit they want.

Israel and Gaza? It’s not about religion. Please. It’s about land. It’s about made-up shit that a bunch of men decided was important. 

It’s not. 

And that makes me angry. It makes me angry because I see through them, so many of us do, and they make it seem like we’re wrong. 

These men with guns are trying to gaslight the world into thinking this is how humans should be co-existing. 

But men with guns can be very convincing, no? 

I’m ready to lose the guns. I’ve never owned a gun, never will, so i don’t have to worry about losing any. But I want the world to lose guns. And I haven't lost hope in that goal. I never will.

The Person with the Greatest Power to End Gun Violence in the United States

by Rachael Himsel

She’s not a politician, but she knows all the top ones. They can’t stop talking about her, in fact.

She married into the family that led a country fueled by brutal colonialism - and that is precisely why she is the perfect person: Meghan Markle.

While Meghan is a US resident, she married a prince! And not only a prince but PRINCESS DIANA’S SON, and we all know how Americans feel about Princess Di. 

If you were more than 6 when she died, you likely remember where you were when you heard the news. Children may only recall the crying and hours and hours of live TV coverage in a row which like, never happened, but this woman’s death was a big deal: the celebrities, the theories, the Queen in black… 

The world mourned for Diana, because Diana worked for the world, for greater good. 

Diana tried to change the status quo - and she did. Many say she had a magical ability to evoke compassion in others. 

She led with compassion- as does Meghan Markle.

This is Reason #1 why I believe Meghan Markle will emerge as a leading voice in gun control: she has a huge international platform - even if the powers that be have tried to splintered that platform, it’s nothing that can’t be glued back together! Meghan’s platform is one that so few in the world have, especially women, especially women of color. Which brings me to another reason I predict Meghan Markle will and can play a huge role in ending gun violence…

Reason #2 Meghan Markle will be the most powerful player in the world to end gun violence: She is part of the BIPOC community, and black people are 14x more likely to be wounded by a gun! And 2x more likely than white folk to die by gun. I believe Meghan can inspire generations of kids to PUT DOWN THEIR GUNS and pick up other hobbies - like theatre, film, art, philanthropy, as she models. Meghan herself built an incredible career in journalism and the arts, and she continues to model this dedication to helping others as she travels around the world and in her amazing series, in which she and her husband discuss what it was like to navigate the new waters of an American, biracial, feminist princess!

I can’t think of a better action figure, btw. 

When Harry & Meghan debuted, in its first week it broke all records for any Netflix documentary before - showing that, social media presence or not, Meghan - and Harry, of course - have incredible power.

Which brings me to #3: Meghan and Harry together can end gun violence. Would Harry have even tried to attack this giant epidemic if not for the strength of this american woman who was raised by a social-worker mom? I’m not sure. There is strength in teamwork, and I believe Harry and Meghan are a team that is not to be messed with.

Because if you can turn your back on Buckingham Palace, can’t you do anything? 

But if you were able to get the others in that Palace to hear you… then couldn’t just about *anything* be possible? We all have families - and we know that even after we have our arguments, even if we don’t speak for a while, we’re still thinking of them. 

We’re still listening.

You can bet your beautiful bootie that everyone in the UK is not only still listening to what Harry and Meghan are saying - they are waiting for it. I believe their production company, Archewell Productions has incredible power to produce profiles about families to show the impact of gun violence. 

Reason #4 Meghan Markle will end gun violence: She’s already doing it. 

After the terror, the grief, the loss of Uvalde, Meghan showed up. Just like Diana did - which is what we need. We need people to SHOW UP FOR KIDS. And that is what Diana and now Meghan have done. Like Diana, Meghan clearly adores children, and her heart hurts for those families. I believe Meghan will use her platform to continue talking about access to guns and mental health. If she continues this long battle, that groups like Moms Demand Action have been fighting for YEARS, then we can end gun violence. 

We just need more people to show up. Speak up. And do the work. 

Now, dear Meghan - this sounds like a lot of pressure, right? 

But we all know you can take it. 

And, we all know you can’t do it alone. That’s why there’s half a million people on the Mom’s Demand Actions Insta alone.

We got this. Together. Together, we can #EndGunViolence

Don’t make an Ass Out of Yourself (Or, What I Learned from Mr. Lewis in 8th Grade U.S. History)

When we walk into the first day of 8th grade US History, we see one word on the chalkboard:

ASSUME 

Mr. Lewis is a towering man, and when he underlines the word ASS, we are all hooked. Silent, we are wondering how this football coach is going to get away with UNDERLINING A BAD WORD in our class! I mean, clASS. 

Mr. Lewis explains that when you ASSUME things, it makes an ASS (underline underline underline!) out of U (underline!) and ME! (underline underline underline!)

He goes on to explain that we should never assume anything - in his classroom or in life. He tells us to ask questions if we have them, and that there are no bad questions. I’m digging this guy, even though he seems like he would be more comfortable on a football field than stuck inside this classroom with us. 

Every time I see, hear or write the word ‘assume,’ I think of Mr. Lewis. This is the power that a teacher has, the power that we all have over the children in our orbit. Children are always listening, we know. 

It turned out I also liked learning about history from Mr. Lewis, who was a pretty easy grader as I recall. 

But on the field - because Mr. Lewis was also an athletics coach - he expected the best of his teams. I wasn’t there in any practices, but I would imagine he was a little harder on the kids on his football team than his students in US history. But aren’t all of us harder on our team, when we know the field well? When we care deeply?

I think Mr. Lewis did care deeply about children, and I’m grateful that he taught us that important lesson on day one, that he understood the value of first impressions. His lesson was that it’s good to ask questions, it’s good to seek clarity - and isn’t that one of the most valuable lessons a teacher can provide? 

When someone walks into your classroom, what is the one lesson you want them to see on the chalkboard?

I am...

I am

Movement

I am strong

I am capable

I am learning 

I am always thinking

Except when I'm not.

I am at least 32 flavors and then some

I am really good at remembering song lines but not titles.

I belong.

I belong to Love

I belong to longing.

I belong among artists

I belong among dreamers

I belong in a safe space

I belong in music.

I know 

Life is hard

I know

Lots. 

I know how to laugh

I know so little. 

I know how to read. How to write. How to sing. How to act. How to direct. 

I know the sun. I know the trees.

I hope all my nephews and nieces are safe and feel happy 

I hope all children get to experience a place of safety and joy. 

I hope we figure out how to free ourselves of guns and weapons.

I hope for peace.

I hope for chocolate, lots of dark chocolate.

I hope the Amazon isn’t destroyed by pollution, because it's the Amazon, but also because, chocolate. 

I believe we are all filled with beautiful gifts

I believe we have to nurture and encourage each other’s gifts

I believe that is the greatest gift we can give

I believe in giving gifts

I believe in love

I believe in unicorn power

I believe in creativity

I believe in trees, the ancient wisdom of trees

I believe in the delicate life of flowers and bees and blades of grass

And I believe they are just as important as a mighty oak

I believe mountains are a little terrifying

I believe in the power of nature 

I believe in myself

I believe in others

I believe others - too quickly, sometimes.

I believe in love.

On God

I’ve decided to stop talking about God. well, after this. 

We’ve given the idea of god pages and pages and stages and stages, and to what end?

Religion has caused more wars than anything else on this entire planet.

Money, on the other hand, is the one thing that has somehow united us. We all agree we need money to survive, and most of us are attached to our physical vessels. 

One can see how some people choose to worship money over God.

Money is tangible. God is not. 

But there are so many more things that are tangible that we somehow forget about - a hug from your child, a flower, zucchini from the garden, the sun, moon, and stars, the ocean… 

I believe in these things. I’ve tasted a zucchini and the moon has been more predictable than any god or human I’ve seen. Every night, she is there, and every morning, the sun greets us.  I’ve felt hugs and kisses and found shoulders to cry upon. Real shoulders. Real pieces of god? 

Real. Tangible.

Worthy of worship?

Maybe that’s what we should be talking about: What is worthy of worship? 

Or maybe the bigger question is: Why worship?

Do we need to worship, or can we just live? Or can we worship creativity, patience, love, dedication, and bravery in our daily lives?

‘But all those lessons are in the Bible / Koran / Torah!’ you may be saying. 

Those were great tools for the times they were created. But seeing as we are living thousands of years later, one would think we could write new books. New plays. New movies.

And couldn’t we worship the ideas in them? 

Oh wait, we do. That’s why Hollywood makes so much money. 

And that’s what we should be talking about: the Hollywood machine, a machine that’s been guided by white men. Thankfully, they are giving up some control of this new deity, and more diverse voices are being given a chance.

But is it fast enough? 

And isn’t that where we should be spending our energy - in encouraging creativity in every corner of our towns and cities? We should be telling the stories that are so reminiscent of the biblical narratives - because god knows we have modern-day parables and gospels to live by! The Gospel of Greta, the 10 commandments of Oprah, the Song of Ani, the Proverbs of RuPaul. 

These are the gods and goddesses I want to talk about - because they are alive today, sharing messages and wisdom in ways we can understand. 

And isn’t that what god would want? 

What have I done to move past pain?

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

-Kahlil Gibran

What have I done to move past pain?

Drugs.

Nothing major, just the socially accepted ones like alcohol and weed… both of which make me forget my pain, at least for a while. 

But for long-term pain… I talk. I call my friends and family. I talk to my therapist.

And almost always, I am told: you have every right to feel sad or hurt about X or Y or Z or your crazy ex trying to insert himself into your new and improved life.

While talking about my brain pain, my lifelong dance with depression, my wise friend Anna once shared a quote from her equally sage mother who was a pillar of our community: “If you’re not depressed, you’re not paying attention.” 

But paying attention to pain can suck. And moving through pain can feel like you are walking through taffy covered in manure while someone is pointing a blowtorch at you at the same time. You are white-knuckled, trying to stay whole, trying to keep your clothes and hair intact, knowing you will arrive at your destination with singed locks and smelling like shit nonetheless.

But you keep moving. I have always kept moving through pain because of my family. I know they would want me to rise above the pain, to want to stay here and keep going and be a part of their lives.

And then that awareness brings me more pain - because I know I am so lucky. I know I have brothers and sisters here on the planet to help me move through my pain. I know my parents gave me great tools and a legacy of resilience to draw upon that many do not have. I have learned to manage my pain.

Tho one is not supposed to compare pain, my pain doesn’t hold up against my father’s, for example, or like the pain of Princess Diana’s children. Those children grew up without their mom, knowing all the dirt of the royal house and their family. My father found his dad dead on the side of the road after he was hit by a drunk driver. Then he went to Germany in an engineering battalion in 1944, and spent a year facing the Nazis. He lost a daughter to a heart disease when she was just 13. 

So I do think of all my father went through, and my mom, whose kind but alcoholic father drove her and her siblings into the ditch from time to time, with icy cold water seeping into their car one winter nite, causing my mother to have a fear of the water ever after. 

And I realize, we compare pain to give ourselves some sense of scale, to remind ourselves we are not alone in it. And compared to many, my pain is not so much.

Pain is generational. 

Pain is sometimes sensational. 

The stuff of tabloids, the rhymes in songs, the headlines in magazines. 

Your pain is my pain is your pain is our pain.

We breathe through it.

I do a lot of breathing, a lot of sighing.

When I sigh, I am saying, I cannot do anything about this, so I am sighing instead. 

I have to let it out. Siiiiiigh. 

That’s how I move through pain. I let it out. In writing, in a song, in a conversation, in art, in helping others, in a sound, in a sigh. 

I walk through pain, too. I try hard to keep walking, to let my body try to reconcile what the brain cannot: a deep loss. One step in front of another, miles and miles. Looking for signs, smiling when they came, then crying and laughing at my superstitious self.

Helping others is a huge way I move through my pain. When I find someone who is struggling with the same things I have, when I meet someone who takes the words right outta my mouth, I feel a kinship in their pain, and want to help them navigate through it.

I think the biggest mistake we make is trying to move our pain on our own timeline. 

Pain doesn’t know schedules.

Grief does not give a shit about your Apple watch.

If grief were a better planner, it wouldn’t have made my parents die 11 days apart and my brother die one month later.

While some would argue this was likely the most efficient way of grieving the loss of three people I loved more than almost anyone else on the planet, post-funerals Rachael would disagree. The sleep. The tears. The efforts to make sense of it all. The guilt the guilt the guilt - not just with John, who took his life, but also with my parents, because I worried I hadn't spent enough time with them. Because I hadn't.

Sigh.

Big sigh. 

Deep acceptance.

Deep acceptance of my faults. Deep acceptance that I am human. That I didn't want to drive down and back home sometimes. That I didn't want to live in my hometown that had zero diversity when I left. 

Deep acceptance and TIME. 

Depth in relationships does not build up overnight, so there is no reason to expect deep acceptance of a deep loss to come quickly. 

Time does heal all wounds.

I would not have been able to write about this five years ago; I would have been hysterically crying instead. 

Time lets us talk about the past with a detachment only she provides. 

Time lets us move through the dangerous minefield of pain in a way that only she knows. 

December 28, January 8, February 21… that winter of grief was one I could not watch with serenity. It was all I could do to survive that winter…and spring, and summer. To wake up each day and drag my tired ass to work, come home and do all I could to keep myself busy and not cry for the 23rd or 76th night in a row… and that is OK. Because here I am, five years later, and winter is coming. It’s mid-September in Portland, but it feels like fall already. I have weathered winters of grief, and have learned: to watch with serenity through the winters of your grief is an ideal, but like most ideals, striving toward that ideal of serenity is just as important as arriving there. 

Striving toward serenity is sometimes all we can do.

*sigh* 

- Rachael Himsel 

9.18.22