Sometime yesterday I wrote to myself that today’s post would be: Like a pomegranate. After the peeling, but before the seed gets stuck between your teeth. Stay in the pop.
Like most notes I leave myself, this is (quite obviously) not helpful. Try grocery shopping for a mouth couch or a freezer hug. Yesterday I had to suffocate the bathroom (deep clean) and make more floor (sweep the hardwood).
I’ve never been great about notes to myself. I favor quick, distracted laps of the pens instead of slow-scribed details. I often write my notes without looking. I try to capture the why or the how, rather than the what– because if I write “ice cream sandwich” on my grocery list, I’ll simply move on if I don’t find them. If I say “freezer hug”, I understand that I want something that can remain frozen until comfort is needed. There are options.
StrokeBrain has left me without a reasonable arsenal of words, but I wield my leftovers equally unafraid. If I must go to metaphorical-war with an armful of carrots and a vague sense of the game of pinochle, so be it. If I must write — and I must— I’ll do what I can with what I have.
All this misplaced bravery.
It microseisms in me: small pulses that shake me like maracas, and all the hopes I’ve stockpiled over the years dance on top.
In prison, I used to make lists of things I would do when I got home, things I would have. I called those lists: This, or something better. I like that title because it speaks to how dreams can be bigger than the biggest thing we can imagine.
I mean, if the sun were the size of the period at the end of this sentence, the nearest star would be over four miles away. If today were the size of the period at the end of this sentence, how far would all the tomorrows go?
What could we do today to make them great?
Or, better, what could we do today to make them good?
Kind?
Safe?
Sometimes it’s easier to just think of the next one. It’s easier to only love the neighbor that is our immediate tomorrow, the one most like us. But the nearest star is still our neighbor, even if it does stretch farther than we can even really imagine. There are infinite ways to connect to it, even if the steps necessary are tiny.
Baby steps don’t mean we can’t look forward, that there isn’t a path, that the path is set in stone. There’s so much space for trying.
Between the peeling of the pomegranate and the seed that gets stuck in your teeth is a universe of happenings, a million opportunities for stain and pop alike.
Just think of the squirrel.
The tiny squirrel who does the work, who collects the nuts for the tomorrow at the end of this blog post, and accidentally grows a tree that feeds the squirrels who are so many tomorrows away that they might as well be stars.
They say millions of trees around our globe were planted by squirrels.
Imagine all the good we could grow, if we keep planting our hopes for our biggest dreams.
Our biggest dreams– or–
something even better.
Day 3 of 30.
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rarasaur 
Really glad to come across this “sunshine” of a post! š
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*hugs* thank you for being here
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Love the freezer hug, and the acorns of today are the trees of tomorrow….nice thoughts.
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Freezer hugs are necessary for days like this, ha! š Thanks for reading!
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What an incredibly talented writer you are! I inhaled every word, thank you ā¤
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Thank you for reading, Nadia š ā¤
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I wish I could sew- I would make you a cape bc all super heroes should have a cape. SUPER RA!! Leaps tall buildings spreading hope, love and bravery everywhere she goes! ā¤
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Ha! I wish I were better at all of those things, but I would certainly wear a cape. In hopes I would grow into it. š Thank you for reading!
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There’s something about the imagery of squirrels accidentally planting trees that just makes me smile. I love that I now know that squirrels are the planters if millions of trees, even if it wasn’t their plan at all. That they going around living their lives accidentally doing good. š
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I’ve always loved the imagery of it. They say it happens because they forget where they’ve buried extra stock, but I like to think it’s a tiny rebellious act of hope or maybe a prayer of giving back. “Hi earth, thank you for this manna, here is a piece for you. May you live long and grow forever.” š
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This is a gorgeous post. Thank you for giving me something bigger to dwell on and appreciate when I next watch the squirrels. ā¤
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Thank you, š Another thing I think of is how squirrels aren’t native to most of the lands where they run rampant now, so we call them an invasive species– pests. Meanwhile, they do the work anyway. And we all breathe better because of it. I guess it just reminds me again that humans have much to learn. ā¤
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Another beautiful thought of yours that I love, and it will give me even more to ponder. We do, we have so much to learn, but I am so grateful for kind, open-hearted people, like you! ā¤
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As a writer for whom the space outside this planet is a favorite thing, the fact that you tied fruit, squirrels, trees, punctuation, and stars into this post makes my heart dance. Thank you ā¤
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š the metaphor got a bit unwieldy but Iām so glad you enjoyed it and that we share a love of these things. ā¤ļø
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You paint such beautiful pictures with words! I love this š¹
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Such lovely images! Just right for a day when we really need to imagine something better. And, a “mouth couch” made sense to me as a grocery list item. Tasty (and healthy) comfort food to enjoy while sitting peacefully on the couch, letting all the stress melt away. š
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Nope still nothing. Please re-send.
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Freezer hug and the bit about squirrels. I love the way your mind works.
Alison xo
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That thing where you leave little notes for yourself and then puzzle over what they could possibly mean later on? That’s not exclusive to strokebrain. I do that ALL THE TIME.
About two thirds of the time, I can work my way back, step by step, to what Past Steven was attempting to say to Future Steven.
The other third… I just have to let them go.
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It happened again. I just got back from the grocery store, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out what the item on my shopping list was that had been autocorrected to “pencils.” I definitely don’t want to eat pencils.
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Very nice write up š
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maravilhoso…
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