Hello, my beautiful friend. Happy Lunar New Year!

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This morning, I got an email alert that my name had shown up in a Youtube video. The internet is slop-py these days, so I clicked the link expecting some spam or a scam – but instead I was met with something delightful.

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Turns out a man named Jim had made a video reflecting on my first book Fifty Feminist Mantras. He lives in Sydney, Australia and recorded a ten minute chat while walking around the harbor. It's part of a series of over 2500 videos he's made on his 5am walks.

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I have no idea how he found my book or why he decided to share it. But with this simple video, I was reminded of the magic of the internet – how far it can connect us across space, time, and interpersonal distance, but only, of course, if we let it.

This moment of magic was especially welcome today, because yesterday my grandmother entered the hospital, and it seems like she probably won't come home again. 

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I've been down this path with beloveds before, and I'm always struck by the pace of dying. Sometimes it happens in an instant. Other times… it lingers. We wait hours, days, weeks at a deathbed. No longer asking ‘if?’ but 'when?'

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As I visited my grandmother this morning, I sat with my back to the clock and watched her spend an hour eating lunch from a stick hospital tray. 

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I chatted with my parents, my aunts, and the nurses. And I remembered something I'd written in Fifty Feminist Mantras years ago now: 
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Nurture your heart! But remember: many things must go slowly. So much has to take its time.

Tomorrow, I fly to Chicago for the first time in over a year. I'll be visiting some of my closest friends and carrying sweet memories of my grandmother and her fading heart with me. 

 

So much is happening in the world right now, and also in our personal lives. I hope that you're tending to your heart and taking things slowly this month, First name / my friend. Rest and resistance, joy and grief, side by side forever.

 

Sending you a big hug and so much love. ❤️‍🩹

xoxo, Amelia

 

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