I grew up in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, right under the flight pattern for LAX. Loud living. I spent thirty years there, and I still remember walking down the highway during my "hippie" years, and thinking, "I gotta get out of this place." I was nineteen. Now at seventy-three (how did that happen?) I live on a large patch of land overlooking a valley with the view of nothing but the Rocky Mountains in the distance. When I go out on my porch, there is silence. It almost sounds weird to me. I wake early because I go to bed early. Right now it's 4:15 am and I've been up for 1/2 hour. But the first thing I do in the morning is open my curtains, even though it's still dark. When the sun begins to rise, I get up and stop whatever I'm doing and walk to the window. Every morning the light will look different. Sometimes it makes a spectacular showing, some mornings it's more subtle. I don't want to miss a minute of it.
Oh, what beautiful and apposite words today, from both author and guest contributor!
Here in Aberystwyth, on the wild west coast of Wales (UK), the golden hour is particularly lovely...in the summer the very late sunset makes for meandering strolls along the prom, late sea-swimming, dogs and dolphins (if we are lucky). In the winter the golden hour if for a brisk walk to watch the starlings in their swoops of murmuration coming home to roost under the pier before darkness descends. And in the liminal times of year, the golden hour is the time to bring in the wind-blown sheets, fill the log-basket, and think about cooking, as the students and workers dally home...😊
Thank you, Suleika. I am craving a reset, too, but I find that sometimes resetting requires passing through a gauntlet of challenges (take the election, for example). Back where I live (in Lisbon), I have a new apartment waiting for me to move into it, but right now I am in Sweden, on a train on the way to see my ex-wife for the first time in ten years (!). I am hoping that this rapprochement will be a part of my reset. But I have to get through it first!
Wow, so many people liked my comment that I feel moved to get back to you about how my meeting with my ex-wife went.
What can I say? She is still the lovely and charming person I married twenty years ago, just a bit older and more worn by experience, like me. It was extraordinary how dozens of half-forgotten running jokes just sprang forth and caused us to laugh and laugh. Wandering around her house, I saw scores of books that used to belong to me, and furniture that used to grace our shared home, like the antique rocking chair that my mother gave her.
But the most intense part of the experience was meeting her daughter—a girl I have only ever seen in pictures. She is adorable, and an eerily perfect replica of her mother. We talked and played and looked at an atlas, where I showed her where I live now. We went to the park and rode the see-saw (boy, my knees have aged, too!). It was strange but amazing to get a glimpse of the life I might have had if things had gone differently.
In sum, it was wonderful, and I am hopeful that this will represent the healing of one of the oldest wounds in my adult life, and the resumption of a beautiful friendship. I wish everyone could have the experience of reclaiming a relationship that should never have been lost. Sometimes resets are hard, but worth it.
So happy to hear your rendezvous with your former wife went well! And thank you for posting the update,- which was thoughtful. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who could feel the bit of anxiety and hopeful anticipation of your first post!
Hello All. Thank you so much Suleika for your words of wisdom, truth and calm. I loved the quote “In many ways, you have to wait to become a different person with different concerns.”. And the “October Theory,” which is the idea that this month is energetically and temporally a great time for a reset. I continue to recover a month out from COVID ( not having it now more the havoc on my body). And continuing to find treatment for ongoing new medical diagnosis. And these words are beautiful. Great to be a part of this community.
Ditto!! Having left behind the dogma of a church I no longer believe in, - I find there is a kind of "Sunday" spiritual place here, - with a kinship of folks who provide such a deep connection, I would not have thought possible for an on-line forum. So very much appreciate the words of wisdom from Suleika and the guest essayist each week, and of course the fellow community of Isolation Journalists.
It's 5:58 and I have been up for a few hours. I read, snuggled with my kitty, made my bed, created the space, woke the pup for a brief one. This is to say---that I probably create my own dawn and dusk. This came to being from working in theater, night clubs and bars. Sometimes, we bed at dawn, sleep a few and nap. I love a world before dawn especially in small villages when others like me are preparing life...it is so quiet now- about to sweep the October leaves, walk the dogs and admire the Halloween decorations on Delancey, Good Morning from Ms Dawning.
Thank you for this beautiful thoughtful letter and prompt. Congratulations on your move to a farm. I’ve always dreamed of having a big barn close to my home … steps away … a place of creative refuge. And my barn always includes draped Tibetan prayer flags and beautiful stained glass tulip windows facing East and West. Thank you for reminding me of that dream. I have had to begin learning that (for myself) in a good number of cases, holding the dream may be as close to *having* the contents of that dream as I am going to be able to get. And to recognize that truth AND recognize that there is value in the dream itself. There is so much value in aspiration and in metaphor. Perhaps holding the dream of light streaming through my stained glass windows - the ones which I can see so vividly in my head - is as healing as having them in any kind of tactile sense. Maybe even more?
I think of you and hope that you are surrounded by color, light and love.
Thank you so much for having me again, Suleika! A beautiful letter (and Marie’s insights are so interesting). Wishing you a slow, nourishing season ahead. 🐌🌱🌞💙🍂☺️
My dear husband Frank died peacefully and without pain here in the front room of our house on September 24. He had 12 infusions of chemotherapy and 3 weeks of radiation and yet the pancreatic cancer progressed. I am so happy I was able to bring him home after a 5 day hospital stay. His death is light not dark because he was struggling so hard in a body that was devastated by the disease. Since he died I haven’t brought down the shades in the front room….our house is above the street so it is still private enough. I am safe in our home of 35 years here in the flatlands of Oakland. Thank you to this community. I shared the early days of his disease one year ago as we did not understand the persistent diarrhea. Frank wanted more time on this earth with me and our dog. His death was so peaceful and joyful. Hospice was wonderful. Two books to recommend: a beginners guide to the end and the five invitations. Read them. Give them to those you love. 🤟
My husband who had cancer was also named Frank. I have remarried years later but when reading your post I totally understand what you mean. After he suffered and passed away, as I walked out of the Veterans Hospital, it was like a bit of light was shining through the clouds. I wish you comfort and peace!
It’s been a tough time for me and my family. My cousin was crossing the street in a crosswalk, struck by a car. She was killed. A few days after that, my nephew and his wife’s 14 year old son was killed by a teen driver, who hit the small dirt bike he was riding. She turned right in front of him.
So I was definitely looking for some rays of light, lifting me and others out of the darkness all around us.
I think I saw some of the light yesterday. We drove to another town to watch our 10 year old grandson play in their last football game of the season. They had a terrible season, lost many of their games, but yesterday they won and my grandson got to play quite a bit for a change. Driving back home I received a text message that our little dog had been chosen to be on a 2025 calendar, along with 11 other dogs. I had sent in her picture just for fun, when they asked for some. She is going to be pictured in the March page.
Perhaps this is not the light you were referring to, but definitely it brought light in my life.
I realized, only recently, how much I'm intrigued by light; both its presence and its absence. I grew up on a farm and now live in a small upstate village in upstate NY on the VT border. Trees, forests, farmland and landscapes are my home. I react to the presence or absence of light differently; sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, sometimes indifferent, sometimes with simple acceptance. But always with gratitude. Thank you, Suleika for your words and images and for introducing us to so many artists and writers.
“I have to let go of the illusion of control and to sit with and accept the uncertainty.” Thank you, Suleika, for reminding me of this ongoing practice.
Right now my mind is a minefield of explosive fears and deep rabbit holes, waiting to hear from my husband’s doctor at Duke. Soon, we’ll learn if he has a good match for a blood donor and when he can be scheduled for a bone marrow transplant. Then we’ll wait some more until we have the green light to move there for the procedure.
My memoir “Craving Spring” was published exactly a year ago. I should still be pushing it into the world, but we live in Asheville. My husband’s diagnosis arrived six days after Helene. I am still numb from these external and internal hurricanes. I’m spent. The book will have to find its own wings. Mine are clipped for the foreseeable future.
Sometimes (all times?) we have no control, yet we can trust the passing seasons of our lives. What is now empty will become full again. This, I know. But it’s the waiting, the uncertainty, the transition that’s hard. It’s what I wrote about in my memoir from a mother’s perspective. It’s what I’m learning again now as a wife.
Dear Ann, So much to navigate at one time. Holding you, your husband and your community in my heart wishing some smoother sailing ahead. And perhaps this community could help push out “Craving Spring” in solidarity.
My favorite room in the house has windows framed out with thick beams on 3 sides. It sort of juts out over a downward slope so that when you look out the windows, you're looking into the middle of all the trees, flourishing after Jason released them from the overgrowth of bushes and vines that were dragging them down for years. The effect is that I can sit on my couch and feel like I'm sitting in the middle of the tree canopy. And even better if I open the widow so I can let more of nature seep into my conflicted soul. Fall is here - the relief that it's finally f'ing cooled off from inhumane humidity of the summer. Cool nights, cool enough where I can finally sleep through the night. And the awe of the late afternoon light. Reading, head down. I heard it first - the sound of dry leaves crackling on the wind. I looked up - almost like a sail a big gust of leaves sailed past the windows, big fat brown oak leaves turned goldensparkles by the golden afternoon light. Fleeting, lasting, momentary peace.
Beautiful writing today from both Suleika and Rachel, thank you.
I love to be surprised by light and its play on whatever landscape it touches.
Over the past week, I've been looking at/thinking about the painting "Walking" by Charles Alston. His use of color in painting shadows opened a fresh way to consider how light affects everything on contact.
Thank you for this beautiful post. I’m sitting in the Munich airport surrounded by a deep grey haze. I crave to see the golden light. To watch it move and shift in the sky. Hopefully soon it will reveal itself to me. ☀️❤️
I grew up in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, right under the flight pattern for LAX. Loud living. I spent thirty years there, and I still remember walking down the highway during my "hippie" years, and thinking, "I gotta get out of this place." I was nineteen. Now at seventy-three (how did that happen?) I live on a large patch of land overlooking a valley with the view of nothing but the Rocky Mountains in the distance. When I go out on my porch, there is silence. It almost sounds weird to me. I wake early because I go to bed early. Right now it's 4:15 am and I've been up for 1/2 hour. But the first thing I do in the morning is open my curtains, even though it's still dark. When the sun begins to rise, I get up and stop whatever I'm doing and walk to the window. Every morning the light will look different. Sometimes it makes a spectacular showing, some mornings it's more subtle. I don't want to miss a minute of it.
Oh, what beautiful and apposite words today, from both author and guest contributor!
Here in Aberystwyth, on the wild west coast of Wales (UK), the golden hour is particularly lovely...in the summer the very late sunset makes for meandering strolls along the prom, late sea-swimming, dogs and dolphins (if we are lucky). In the winter the golden hour if for a brisk walk to watch the starlings in their swoops of murmuration coming home to roost under the pier before darkness descends. And in the liminal times of year, the golden hour is the time to bring in the wind-blown sheets, fill the log-basket, and think about cooking, as the students and workers dally home...😊
Thank you, Suleika. I am craving a reset, too, but I find that sometimes resetting requires passing through a gauntlet of challenges (take the election, for example). Back where I live (in Lisbon), I have a new apartment waiting for me to move into it, but right now I am in Sweden, on a train on the way to see my ex-wife for the first time in ten years (!). I am hoping that this rapprochement will be a part of my reset. But I have to get through it first!
Wow, so many people liked my comment that I feel moved to get back to you about how my meeting with my ex-wife went.
What can I say? She is still the lovely and charming person I married twenty years ago, just a bit older and more worn by experience, like me. It was extraordinary how dozens of half-forgotten running jokes just sprang forth and caused us to laugh and laugh. Wandering around her house, I saw scores of books that used to belong to me, and furniture that used to grace our shared home, like the antique rocking chair that my mother gave her.
But the most intense part of the experience was meeting her daughter—a girl I have only ever seen in pictures. She is adorable, and an eerily perfect replica of her mother. We talked and played and looked at an atlas, where I showed her where I live now. We went to the park and rode the see-saw (boy, my knees have aged, too!). It was strange but amazing to get a glimpse of the life I might have had if things had gone differently.
In sum, it was wonderful, and I am hopeful that this will represent the healing of one of the oldest wounds in my adult life, and the resumption of a beautiful friendship. I wish everyone could have the experience of reclaiming a relationship that should never have been lost. Sometimes resets are hard, but worth it.
So happy to hear your rendezvous with your former wife went well! And thank you for posting the update,- which was thoughtful. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who could feel the bit of anxiety and hopeful anticipation of your first post!
Oh, would that I were not so transparent! But thank you, Nancy! 🙏
Hello All. Thank you so much Suleika for your words of wisdom, truth and calm. I loved the quote “In many ways, you have to wait to become a different person with different concerns.”. And the “October Theory,” which is the idea that this month is energetically and temporally a great time for a reset. I continue to recover a month out from COVID ( not having it now more the havoc on my body). And continuing to find treatment for ongoing new medical diagnosis. And these words are beautiful. Great to be a part of this community.
Thank you ! This email is always the best way for me to start my Sunday !!
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Sunday morning with Suleika is always a great reset
Ditto!! Having left behind the dogma of a church I no longer believe in, - I find there is a kind of "Sunday" spiritual place here, - with a kinship of folks who provide such a deep connection, I would not have thought possible for an on-line forum. So very much appreciate the words of wisdom from Suleika and the guest essayist each week, and of course the fellow community of Isolation Journalists.
Me too!!!
It's 5:58 and I have been up for a few hours. I read, snuggled with my kitty, made my bed, created the space, woke the pup for a brief one. This is to say---that I probably create my own dawn and dusk. This came to being from working in theater, night clubs and bars. Sometimes, we bed at dawn, sleep a few and nap. I love a world before dawn especially in small villages when others like me are preparing life...it is so quiet now- about to sweep the October leaves, walk the dogs and admire the Halloween decorations on Delancey, Good Morning from Ms Dawning.
Thank you for this beautiful thoughtful letter and prompt. Congratulations on your move to a farm. I’ve always dreamed of having a big barn close to my home … steps away … a place of creative refuge. And my barn always includes draped Tibetan prayer flags and beautiful stained glass tulip windows facing East and West. Thank you for reminding me of that dream. I have had to begin learning that (for myself) in a good number of cases, holding the dream may be as close to *having* the contents of that dream as I am going to be able to get. And to recognize that truth AND recognize that there is value in the dream itself. There is so much value in aspiration and in metaphor. Perhaps holding the dream of light streaming through my stained glass windows - the ones which I can see so vividly in my head - is as healing as having them in any kind of tactile sense. Maybe even more?
I think of you and hope that you are surrounded by color, light and love.
☮️❤️🌷
Thank you so much for having me again, Suleika! A beautiful letter (and Marie’s insights are so interesting). Wishing you a slow, nourishing season ahead. 🐌🌱🌞💙🍂☺️
My dear husband Frank died peacefully and without pain here in the front room of our house on September 24. He had 12 infusions of chemotherapy and 3 weeks of radiation and yet the pancreatic cancer progressed. I am so happy I was able to bring him home after a 5 day hospital stay. His death is light not dark because he was struggling so hard in a body that was devastated by the disease. Since he died I haven’t brought down the shades in the front room….our house is above the street so it is still private enough. I am safe in our home of 35 years here in the flatlands of Oakland. Thank you to this community. I shared the early days of his disease one year ago as we did not understand the persistent diarrhea. Frank wanted more time on this earth with me and our dog. His death was so peaceful and joyful. Hospice was wonderful. Two books to recommend: a beginners guide to the end and the five invitations. Read them. Give them to those you love. 🤟
Thinking of you as you move through the days ahead, hoping you will be cradled by the light and sweet memories.
My husband who had cancer was also named Frank. I have remarried years later but when reading your post I totally understand what you mean. After he suffered and passed away, as I walked out of the Veterans Hospital, it was like a bit of light was shining through the clouds. I wish you comfort and peace!
It’s been a tough time for me and my family. My cousin was crossing the street in a crosswalk, struck by a car. She was killed. A few days after that, my nephew and his wife’s 14 year old son was killed by a teen driver, who hit the small dirt bike he was riding. She turned right in front of him.
So I was definitely looking for some rays of light, lifting me and others out of the darkness all around us.
I think I saw some of the light yesterday. We drove to another town to watch our 10 year old grandson play in their last football game of the season. They had a terrible season, lost many of their games, but yesterday they won and my grandson got to play quite a bit for a change. Driving back home I received a text message that our little dog had been chosen to be on a 2025 calendar, along with 11 other dogs. I had sent in her picture just for fun, when they asked for some. She is going to be pictured in the March page.
Perhaps this is not the light you were referring to, but definitely it brought light in my life.
I realized, only recently, how much I'm intrigued by light; both its presence and its absence. I grew up on a farm and now live in a small upstate village in upstate NY on the VT border. Trees, forests, farmland and landscapes are my home. I react to the presence or absence of light differently; sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, sometimes indifferent, sometimes with simple acceptance. But always with gratitude. Thank you, Suleika for your words and images and for introducing us to so many artists and writers.
“I have to let go of the illusion of control and to sit with and accept the uncertainty.” Thank you, Suleika, for reminding me of this ongoing practice.
Right now my mind is a minefield of explosive fears and deep rabbit holes, waiting to hear from my husband’s doctor at Duke. Soon, we’ll learn if he has a good match for a blood donor and when he can be scheduled for a bone marrow transplant. Then we’ll wait some more until we have the green light to move there for the procedure.
My memoir “Craving Spring” was published exactly a year ago. I should still be pushing it into the world, but we live in Asheville. My husband’s diagnosis arrived six days after Helene. I am still numb from these external and internal hurricanes. I’m spent. The book will have to find its own wings. Mine are clipped for the foreseeable future.
Sometimes (all times?) we have no control, yet we can trust the passing seasons of our lives. What is now empty will become full again. This, I know. But it’s the waiting, the uncertainty, the transition that’s hard. It’s what I wrote about in my memoir from a mother’s perspective. It’s what I’m learning again now as a wife.
Dear Ann, So much to navigate at one time. Holding you, your husband and your community in my heart wishing some smoother sailing ahead. And perhaps this community could help push out “Craving Spring” in solidarity.
My favorite room in the house has windows framed out with thick beams on 3 sides. It sort of juts out over a downward slope so that when you look out the windows, you're looking into the middle of all the trees, flourishing after Jason released them from the overgrowth of bushes and vines that were dragging them down for years. The effect is that I can sit on my couch and feel like I'm sitting in the middle of the tree canopy. And even better if I open the widow so I can let more of nature seep into my conflicted soul. Fall is here - the relief that it's finally f'ing cooled off from inhumane humidity of the summer. Cool nights, cool enough where I can finally sleep through the night. And the awe of the late afternoon light. Reading, head down. I heard it first - the sound of dry leaves crackling on the wind. I looked up - almost like a sail a big gust of leaves sailed past the windows, big fat brown oak leaves turned goldensparkles by the golden afternoon light. Fleeting, lasting, momentary peace.
May the making of that farm your own be the peace, be the strength, be the someday start of your next beautiful thing.
Beautiful writing today from both Suleika and Rachel, thank you.
I love to be surprised by light and its play on whatever landscape it touches.
Over the past week, I've been looking at/thinking about the painting "Walking" by Charles Alston. His use of color in painting shadows opened a fresh way to consider how light affects everything on contact.
Thank you for this beautiful post. I’m sitting in the Munich airport surrounded by a deep grey haze. I crave to see the golden light. To watch it move and shift in the sky. Hopefully soon it will reveal itself to me. ☀️❤️