Dear ones,
May I show you a photo I treasure?
Let’s just sit with that cuteness for a second.
Besides the absolutely ICONIC outfit, I think my favorite thing about this photo is my expression. I look, as the British would say, a bit cheeky. There’s this little glint in my eyes that suggests I might be about to get into some trouble.
I probably was.
This pure sweet version of me was deeply curious. She loved climbing trees and making up stories and dancing around her living room. She was a dreamer, head in the clouds. She had an independent spirit, but loved being the center of attention. She loved coloring and making art. She loved fairytales. She wasn’t so sure about her baby sister, but she was coming to appreciate her, even if it was just because she now had someone to boss around.
When I was 8, my family moved from the idyllic countryside of England to Salt Lake City, Utah. Yes, that Salt Lake. A rather large culture shock, as you might imagine.
For the first time in my life, I remember the ice-cold feeling of being seen as an outsider. I learned quickly that “cool” was currency and “gullible” was a grave insult. Kids at that age can be cruel, and as a sensitive child I took it quite personally. I started to change myself to fit in. To fly under the radar. To survive the social jungle.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this part of me – the optimist, the dreamer, the naïve one, the one with her heart on her sleeve, the deep-feeler, the sensitive soul.
For many years, I thought I needed to keep her a secret. I resented her. I told her that she needed to toughen up.
“Get real,” I’d scoff. “We can’t live on rainbows and silver linings! No one likes a Pollyanna!”
I always felt that my sensitivity was a liability. Because that is what the world told me.
Stop crying!
Buck up!
Deal with it!
Don’t take things so personally!
You’re such a wuss!
We live in a world that does NOT like softness.
Just as COVID was beginning to make headlines, I was reading late at night when these words in Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed cracked me open: “Tish is sensitive, and that is her superpower…
Wait, her superpower?? Did I read that correctly? As I let that truth settle between my ribs, something began to blossom in me.
Glennon goes on to say, “It is easier to call us broken and dismiss us than to consider that we are responding appropriately to a broken world.”
Whewww. Read that again.
Over the past several years, I have to come to find a deep love for this sensitive, heart-on-her-sleeve part of me.
She has the deepest capacity for wonder and awe. She delights in the light through the leaves and the petals unfurling toward the sun. She savors the sweet tender moments of presence and stillness. She is the one who seeks out beauty like a treasure-hunt and loves the sensual joys of taste and touch and smell. She remembers how to play and experiment and make a mess. She is an artist, a lover, an observer, a poet.
She is, quite simply, the heart of me.
Last week, as I cried and prayed and meditated and grieved and raged and asked my guides over and over again what I could do to help end the violence in Palestine and across the world, a knowing bubbled up from deep inside me.
It said, “This part you once dismissed and shamed is POWERFUL beyond measure. This part you condemn as naïve has the power to imagine WHOLE NEW WORLDS. Will you let her lead you?”
In honor of my Dreamer, here is an original piece she and I created last summer. I hope it brings you closer to the Dreamer in you.
When I am struggling to reconnect to my inner dreamer, there are a few resources I consistently go to:
The poetry and prose of
. Just TRY not to let this reading melt your heart. Or this post.This song by Tish Melton and Brandi Carlisle. (Yes, this is the Tish mentioned above.)
Honestly, anything Adrienne Maree Brown is involved in. Whenever I cannot see my way, I turn to their wisdom. This video of theirs inspired this post in part.
Mary Oliver. Always.
This beautiful soul:
Wishing you all a wonderful week. Next week I’m looking forward to sharing a really special piece with you in honor of Pride month. Stay cool and Happy Solstice!
Thank you for this, Sara; it resonated greatly. I also love Andrea & Mary's pieces. 🩵