My best writing might land in someone's inbox. I send "epic" emails, I'm told, and texts as long as letters. Befriending a writer in love with words – and all the ways they connect us – means you'll get some heartfelt messages. Finding one 2015 note to an old, long-distance friend last week, pasted into a journal, uplifted me. The backstory: We'd both been through recent breakups, and I wanted to encourage him. May you also be encouraged. * * * It's not a new lesson, to be with someone … [Read more...] about Something Beautiful Grows
Healing
How to Walk a Labyrinth
As I walk, someone is watching. He is working, and so am I, stepping in circles and following loops of patterned brick. I'm focused on my feet and my feelings instead of the cold breeze. Twenty minutes later – when I'm finished – he stops grooming shrubs and asks what I was doing, what it all meant. This is the heart of that conversation. A labyrinth is not the same thing as a maze. There's one way in and one way out, but the shared goal of labyrinth and maze is reaching the … [Read more...] about How to Walk a Labyrinth
After I Fell
When I sat up, I was bleeding, but I didn't know that yet. "I could care less what ANYONE thinks of me." As I regained consciousness, I emphasized my first thought as if speaking it aloud on a stage into an audience of strangers. I touched the pain across my forehead. Blood on my fingers inspired two new thoughts: "Am I having an aneurysm?" and "Thank God for the neuroplasticity of the brain." Then, with that self-coaching voice that seems installed in our humanity like hardware, "Candace, … [Read more...] about After I Fell