Something we talked a lot about in my yoga teacher training is having a beginner’s mind. The art of putting all that you know or think you know about something you have a little or a lot of experience with to start anew, to bring to something an open mind and heart and begin again.

It’s tough to unsee something you already know. This is like having once been a server at a restaurant. As much as you try to unsee certain things when dining out when you’ve once been on the other side of table 61, you can’t. Soup spoon and steak knife are placed prior to the plate being set down, salt and pepper shakers are to be removed at the end of dining. A beginner’s mind requires we let all of that ‘knowing’, go.

I find yoga easier to capture a beginner’s mind. Maybe this results from having been taught from an early stage in my practice that there is no ‘right’ way to yoga. You come to you mat each time and re-evaluate based on how your body feels on that day, in that moment, in that breath. Beginning again is built into the practice of uniting our breath with movement, our disassociation with thoughts and our observance of the breath. We start again constantly in our practice and in the moment and practice non-judgement and coming back.

This unique time that we’re living in asks that we have a beginner’s mind. For one, we don’t really have a choice. This is something we have not lived through before, a pandemic is new and we have no choice but to begin to form our ways of being around this unprecedented global issue. Where the work lies in my mind’s eye these days is the ability we have to begin again in the familiar, the routine, the not-so-routine. To approach this new time with a beginner’s mind, open to what this time can be and the massive opportunity that lies in front of each of us and as a global community. We start anew each day, each moment — revisiting old patterns but having the space and time to really look at them. Evaluate their service in our lives and if they in fact serve us or don’t. We look at relationships, the ones that fuel us and the ones that don’t. We have space for new hobbies, picking up old ones, learning a new skill, nourishing our bodies and our minds.

This is also to say that’s it’s perfectly okay to not have had a COVID-life-crisis and uproot all of your old ways. Maybe you’ve been perfectly still and quiet. Watching movies, resting, reading, sitting in silence. Beautiful. This time doesn’t need to look any one certain way and it will look differently for every one. My hope is that a person gets out of this time exactly what they need — without the pressure and expectations of what social media tells you to do. Find out what feels good in this time and do just that. And if you don’t like it. Begin again.

I find myself less hurried, more space in the day, more space in the mind. I feel more mindful in my movements, mindful in my speech, mindful at mealtimes. My brain isn’t going 100mph so there’s room for gratitude, slowing down to see beauty in places I may have previously glossed over. I do find myself on my phone a lot more these days and that serves me at times and doesn’t at others so I will begin again, set it down and find something that fulfills that moment.

This time is scary, unsettling, new. It’s okay to feel scared, unsettled, and new, too. But in that newness is the opportunity to press restart. Over and over again. As much as you can, I encourage you to use the fear to find joy, use the unsettling to settle in and use this new and interesting time to begin.

Those who know me know that birthdays are (always have been and always will be) a big deal. With the shelter in place for all Aries this year, I rang in 33 not at Chez Panisse or at a trendy new plant-based restaurant serving turmeric tonic (I had reservation at both) but in quarantine. And it was the best quarantine day to date.

I’m absolutely a silver linings girl and count on myself to make things happen. This year though, I found my silver lining and my friends made it gold. I woke up to decorated bathroom mirrors that my amazing roommate must have done while I slept. He also baked a fun-fetti cake, candles arranged forming two 3s. Either he’s the stealthiest baker there ever was or I sleep like a rock or both. The best.

Digital Downward Dog

Digital Down and Dirty

I made coffee, rolled out my mat and joined in on a Zoom yoga class led by one of my favs where the morning mantra was a big warm Happy Birthday from 20 smiling strangers. I took my only window for getting outside and went for a jog around Stow Lake, keeping 6′ back from passer-bys though this was mostly unreciprocated. I did a little bit of work from my sweaty get-up — only an hour or so left until my girl was to lead a Taco Tuesday HIIT class I couldn’t turn down. Okay, enough of activity. It was time to feel like a human and take a shower. And it felt amazing. Clean, freshly-chopped hair that made me feel like a cool stay-at-home-mom.

I set in to work from the dining room, very distracted (in a very good way) by the birthday texts, calls, GIFs, FaceBook messages from old friends, new friends, family and current virtual dates. My heart was beating fast all day, overwhelmed by how creative and special the people in my life were making this unique situation for a birthday.

My roomie showed me the ropes on the Aeropress which wired my already fast-beating heart on a high from all the love. New favorite brewing method, watch out world.

I chatted with family, FaceTimed with my mom and opened my gifts from her (she nailed it). I received birthday cards, an Edible Arrangements treat complete with birthday balloon and a carrot cake with birthday signs and a dance by my girl in a cow costume (with appropriate PPE). Girlfriends ordered me dinner from a favorite restaurant (support small business, especially during this time!), I had a happy hour call for work, continued that nice glass of red into a happy hour clink with a friend who just returned from across the pond and then had a virtual dinner party with 12 of my girls.

I wrapped up the night putting my coffee sock feet up on the coffee table reveling the slight sugar and emotional high from the varied desserts that miraculously showed up in a big way from friends that showed up in an even bigger way.

Heart full, cheeks hurt, desk full of handwritten notes, my favorite. Despite the current state of things, and things are scary AF, I’m feeling so much gratitude for this day, this moment, this breath, this life. I’m a sucker for creativity and my people got creative even in these strange and unprecedented times. I am grateful for these souls in my life, this network of support, love, laughs, abundance and hope. I know I (as well as many) will come out of this stronger than ever, cherishing that human connection we had do without or just in a different capacity for an extended amount of time.

I’m a firm believer in not sharing my birthday candle wishes, but I can say that this year is going to be transformative. I’m feeling more comfortable in this skin, body, mind and soul than ever before. I know myself, I know what I want and I know that I’m grateful to have had experiences that have made this clear to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much a work in progress and hope to always be. But from where I sit in the lounge clothes I keep revisiting every day (don’t judge), messy hair and glasses still with sleep in my eyes and an Aeropress coffee laptop-side, I feel good about who I am today and even better about the woman I am becoming.

Among the many lessons I’ve learned in my 33 years and especially in the last two weeks, some keep coming back. Make someone’s day every day, even if that’s yours. Find a way to give. Acknowledge what you see around you. Seek and go after opportunities. Speak up. Slow down. Listen to your intuition, listen to others. Be okay not knowing. Lift up others. Find a new way, see what lessons it holds and be okay if it doesn’t work out. Be kind to yourself and others. Brew a second cup of coffee, dive into a book, try a new recipe, challenge your body. And the lessons keep coming.

Double digits are pretty cool looking and I’m a big fan for cool looking things. 33, let’s do this in a big way but also tuning in to the small things, little victories, small cues. We hear a lot about the “big picture” but also seek those Instax. Mini moments and captures that give us a glimpse of who we are, what matters and what’s around us in this current moment. The big picture is made of these smaller Polaroids.

My new sleeping in is 7:30pm which is about 2 hours later than the usual work week.

I’d normally feel like I was slacking but honestly, it feels good to get a solid 8 hours in each night and still wake up before the day needs to start now that there is no traffic to beat, no commute, no shower even. Okay kidding. But honestly…dry shampoo.

Morning Zoom HIIT class and coffee, duh.

Since everything has been cancelled, I suppose this includes my birthday which will no longer include embarrassing myself as I run into walls to stop my roller-skating feet and will now be a virtual hang with my girls in tiny squares on a screen. Such is the new normal. Though I have to say, I have the best friends who are taking social distancing and quarantine very seriously, something it’s taken me a bit longer to accept. You know something serious is up when your friends advise you not to get back out there in the dating world right now. “You know what, don’t put yourself out there, stay inside, all the cool kids are doing it.”

And it was tough to listen to this 180-degree advice. I had plans to meet up with someone I had a wonderful first date with just last Friday. With my friend living abroad being sent home and the severity of the Corona situation feeling like it amplified in the past 24 hours, I checked in with some friends on how they handled dating in these times. I came to the rough decision that where I could lower any sort of risk, I should — for me, for him, for the community. I hated making that decision as my heart wanted nothing more than to cook dinner with this great man and enjoy a glass of wine, some laughs and let the crazy world go on around us for a bit.

Before burning a new candle and pouring that glass of wine, I took a walk to the top of the Mosaic steps and then to Turtle Hill where everyone had the SAME idea. It’s a sad moment when your past happy places become places of new anxiety, keeping a safe distance between strangers you used to want to meet and strike up conversation with.

In the end, the virtual date felt like the right thing to do in this moment and I genuinely enjoyed getting to know this person more even if only divided by a few miles and two screens. If there’s one thing I can do in these times, it’s get creative and I’m happy he was willing to do the same. This feels like some weird blend of Love Is Blind and Survivor. At the end of this we’re all going to have painted faces on volleyballs huddled around our Amazon TV fireplaces.

Something I’ve come to realize about myself in the face of chaos, uncertainty and anxiety is that I turn to others I trust and look up to for advice on how they are handling the situation. I know there’s a lot of value in turning to each other in times like this but I feel like I missed a very crucial step in tuning-in and checking-in with that intuition piece that tends to leave just as quickly as it arrived. Funny what a mirror times like this are for how we deal with unchartered situations.

I’ve been very aware of this behavior as it pertains to relationship advice. I’ve grown to be okay sitting with the feels, maybe checking in with one person and trying to sort out where my feels really are before being inundated with advice and others’ experience. I’ve realized that though hearing others’ out can be a very crucial part in gaining perspective, I often become disassociated with my true feelings on the matter and that little voice in my head gets lost and I spend however long rationalizing myself back to that same voice who peace’d out when the other voices grew too loud. I’ve done the same in this critical time and perhaps Mother Nature’s shaking an even bigger finger at me to listen in first, then listen out.

We hear a lot in yoga (and I’ve been practicing a lot of yoga these days) to root to rise. It’s one of my favorite expressions and it holds meaning for a lot in my life right now. Gaining my own ground before I can rise up, reach-out and truly grow. All this quarantining has turned me into a tree.

Day 2 actually feels a bit easier in the sense that I think most people have settled (even if slightly) into this new reality and there’s a consistent network of checking-in.

Today started with a Bootcamp HIIT class (below, left), a Google Hangout with my boss in matching Patagonia gear, a FaceTime with my one of my girls (also in a similar role) where we chatted about work strategy, dating and tips and tricks for staying sane through Thursday all while fixing our top-knots and wiping away yesterday’s mascara.

There is a silver lining in all this somewhere and I think it’s going to take the form of deepening our value of human connection, treating ourselves right, being okay with slow and making an effort to reach out, to care, to love to check-in. No man is an island. And then when you’re seemingly on an island, you (at least I) quickly realize that you want to be off of it. I’m used to slow Sundays solo, a little self-care, a little yoga, a little trash TV. But I feel like I’ve had three Sundays in a row and I’m so ready for Monday.

Side note: I also realized my dislike for mugs with dark interiors (how do I know when my tea is steeped?!) and tuck jumps (thanks bodyweight exercises). Just sayin’

AM Laptop view: Bootcamp HIIT class via Zoom.

PM laptop view: Healthy lunch and social media strategy.

So this is life for right now. And my commitments to myself are as follows:

• Stay hydrated
• Daily cardio (running and virtual HIIT classes)
• Daily yoga and meditation
• Daily journaling or blogging (hi, guys)
• Slow and healthy meals
• Trying new meal prep recipes from my cookbooks or saved posts
• Picking one new area a week to organize, de-clutter (I’ve already done my dry goods in my kitchen because FRESH and finally taken a pile of clothes to the dry cleaner athankyou)
• Read a book (this one is big. I’m going to shut off social media and TV one hour before bed and read)

Shortly after slicing my thumb on an apple-corer (making texting, my main communication with the outside world very difficult), I hopped on another Zoom yoga class which really gave me the excuse to not wash my hair for a couple more hours. As much as I love a good dry shampoo, I decided to make the big girl choice and give my scalp a scrub before a virtual catch-up with my friend across the pond followed by my very first virtual date complete with a glass of wine and a houseplant tour (I showed him my puzzle of my houseplants). For that, I showered and put on mascara. Big. Day.

I ended the night sweetly with a virtual dinner party, 6 small squares of some of favorite faces, each with our respective dinners, bevy of choice and the best attitudes we knew how to muster talking about circumstances, Love is Blind, job searching in these COVID times.

What are you all doing to stay healthy/sane/invoke new habits for yourself? I’d love to hear in the comments below. Or text me. ‘Cause your homegirl needs some human connection ya feel?

Love and health always. And especially these days.

Nothing says early onset cabin fever like a day pacing around the house every hour to hit your stand goal.

We’re not even half a day into a 6-county wide lockdown here in the Bay Area where you’re only allowed to leave home for essential errands like food and medicine. You wouldn’t know those things were still to be accessible by the empty shelves and eyes-down of everyone in the store pillaging for toilet paper, rice and beans (thank GOODNESS I joined a bean club a few months back that has me well stocked with about 10 bags of dried beans that I half-regretted until last week). I’d share but, you know, quarantine.

It’s chaos. And I’m a part of the herd mentality. The hour I received news that there would be a lockdown, I too ran to the store to get who knows what. With a very vague and pretty normal shopping list, I got a lot of my usuals and not so usuals just to, what? Feel prepared? Feel like I was doing everything I could to better this situation? I’m well stocked on puzzles, books and wine, so at least there’s that.

Not wanting to go to the germ-infested gym (though I totally did yesterday, and the day before that, and…) but also wanting so badly to sleep in after a late night watching Book Smart with the new roomie (see it, worth it), I decided instead to go for a ‘Rona-free rainy run through the park which I have a feeling I will be doing a lot more of these days. In efforts to avoid the occasional puddle here and there, I’m pretty sure people just thought I was practicing social distancing so I’d say that was a win win. Dry shoes, socially distanced.

In all seriousness, I’ve read the articles about social distancing and moderate to extreme isolation and the benefits it has on slowing the spread of this pandemic. I don’t do idle well and my career and life thrives on being around people at closer distances than 6 feet away. This is going to be a struggle for a lot of us and I’m willing to step out of the first world mentality and step into doing my part to slow things down. It’s temporary. And we have to keep coming back to that. This whole situation is a gratitude, meditation, mindfulness and internal practice. An exercise in self-care, rest, perspective, patience, letting-go, surrendering and finding calm, peace and loving each other and ourselves more than ever.

Plus, it will make sipping wine with large groups of people crammed on a single sofa coughing all over one another (okay, kidding) that much more enjoyable again.

There are a lot of adulty things I’m running up against. Or more like I have been running up against since I was 27. Having had not one, but two heart-breaks with wonderful men who have chosen a different life path than me, I’ve had to face adulting head-on for half of a decade.

The decision to start the egg-freezing process comes with its fair share of emotions. I can’t believe I’m not with someone at this point. I’m lucky to have the technology at my fingertips to go through with this. I don’t want to use this science to make future babies. This might be my only chance. How unromantic. It’s just another way, it gives you options, flexibility, choice. In usual Jess-nature, I think a lot about it but push through fear anyway to go through with what my intuition knows is right for me.

This comes around the same time my mom and I had the most lovely getaway in SLO and she encouraged me to think about home buying. To be honest, it’s something I thought I would be doing with a partner, just like having babies ideally. I’m moving forward with all these badass woman things but feeling equally strong and independent as I am sad and hoping I’m not moving on without crucial pieces of my future.

It’s not to discount the fact that a partner can’t join along in my journey, and that what I want! It’s just that I didn’t quite think that at this age, I’d be diving into this things or getting the conversation going, solo. On the flip side, I am fortunate to be in a position where I can have these conversations. Where I can make things happen in my life from a financial, emotional, driven and informed place. I don’t want to take for granted the fact that I am a healthy and financially stable woman who can have home-buying conversations and give myself a bit more time and advantage to having children, something I have fought for internally in an in relationships to realize how much having a family matters to me.

I am a woman in my early 30s who has options and a bit of buying power. And that feels damn good but also scary. Beyond making some big decisions solo, without a romantic partner in my life at the moment, it’s a lot of big decisions for any one person to make in general. I’m trying to approach this chapter of my life with a lot of patience, grace and openness. I know a LOT can change in a short amount of time and to be honest, I hope it does and for the better. I am open to love and to sharing life and all its big decisions with a partner.

So what I’m trying to say is, if you know of any single men out there looking for girl who has traded up her ideas of freezing from Trader Joe’s Cauliflower Gnocchi to eggs, give a homegirl a shout, will ya?

Yellow is the new white. My neutral as of late and now the color of my nails.

Sunday was a really good day. For fear of feeling deeply-rooted FOMO for those friends who relished in a 3-day weekend, I was worried I would get stuck in the I’m-in-sweatpants-and-can’t-up-trap of your standard 2-day weekend. Unfortunately I don’t allow myself enough time to do this but the fear is real (do I even know me at all?!).

So, Sunday. Tired AF from dancing my toosh off during the Drake breaks for my man Genuwine, Jeremih and Chris Brown, I woke up with a cup of coffee, toast and and began my day. I’m going to break this down by time stamps so I can feel like a true influencer but more so I don’t fall into my other fear: the endless stream of conciousness trap. More for your sake than mine. I’m cool with them.

7:45am – French press, a toaster and some hipster hemp seeds do make a girl stoked on the hour of half open eyelids and hair pushed all to one side.

8:30am – Put on an episode of Schitt’s Creek (“Ewwwwww, David”). Instantly feel more grounded as a human and hopeful for love (CAN WE TALK ABOUT PERFECT PATRICK?!) I hate to do it but #goals.

9:30am – OOMMMM. Yoga teacher, practitioner, enthusiast, I don’t find myself carving out enough time to get on my mat. This morning’s practice felt particularly awesome, stretching out my tight and sore body from a week of boxing, lugging furniture, typing passionately and mentally burned out from thoughts about feelings (more on this later). Not to mention, the 6’4″ hunk of a human who teaches it gave me a shoulder rub during tadasana.

11:30am – treat myself to my favorite salad spot for lunch. I never. do. this. It was nice to not have to pack a lunch and hope it made it one piece only to scarf it down among the protein shakers and granola bar wrapper crinkles at the gym.

12:00pm – head to Vuori for the fist time to cash in on a gift card won in a boxing class. Scored two sweaters and a couple new sales associate friends.

12:30pm – it’s a real toss up whether this guy I’m about to meet for coffee looks like his profile picture. He does, and better. We have a good introductory conversation and shift from oat cappuccinos to a little spot down the way for a glass of wine. A nice hug to round it out with a gentle joke about my chipping nail polish. Which I’m just about to fix.

3:00pm – mani with my ladies! And I go yellow. Went in for white, came out with sunshine fingertips. It didn’t help that I was also wearing yellow pants.

The rest of the evening shapes up to be a delight. Golden hour in my bedroom putting away laundry at no risk (thanks, gel) and cooking a healthy meal at home, something I cherish more and more as I fill my plate with not veggies but Google Calendar reminders, evening happy hours and coffee dates.

It’s days like this that time slows down and I can appreciate what’s in front of me instead of looking so far ahead. And though this manicure is coming to the end of its run on these 10 fingers and I have since been on another date with oat-cappuccino-man and decided it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t hurt to reflect and still be thankful for moments, days like these. (Also a reminder to wrap the eff on these blog posts. I literally have 15 drafts. Get ready for some content overload or alternately, the beginning of the archives of unpublished material like Prince. Yes, I’m like Prince.)

Coming back into or really the start of a conscious gratitude practice, I’m thankful for easeful slow but purposeful days that unfold at the pace of a slow and content smile.

Had to share. Thanks for listening.

I’m stubborn AF when it comes to taking a sick day, part feeling guilty for missing key deadlines and meetings at work and part for not doing well idle. This time, I listened to my body and my promise “to check email intermittently” turned to “check email not once kthanks”. Sorry not sorry. And that’s how it should be.

I had planned to take a mental health day and just give myself time to sit, reflect and just be and then never did. Then, the big bad cold crept in and forced me to do that thing I said I would do and didn’t. For this, I am truly thankful for my body who knows me sometimes better than I know it.

A morning filled with Jada and Will Smith’s Red Table Talk (if you haven’t seen it, you must!) in my PJs sipping tea was magical. Then I got the idle bug and got showered and stepped out to a perfectly sunny crisp winter afternoon to go for a leisurely run around town for some treat-yo-self errands and to check off some to-dos taking full advantage of the quiet weekday streets in SF. I picked up some over-priced bone broth (again, sorry not sorry), popped into some boutique shops and then to Walgreens for a plunger and DayQuil (“nobagkthanks” then instantly regrets carrying this all in my hands back to the car). I then dropped some old clothes off at a second-hand shop, grocery shopped for homemade chicken soup ingredients and headed home just in time to ditch the sunglasses as the sun dipped down over the Pacific Ocean.

Oh I’m not done. I practiced some yoga, wrote a couple Christmas cards by the tree, cooked some soup and wrote this entry humming along to Christmas songs (anyone else on team Wham! for BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER?!). Basic, maybe. Nourishing, absolutely. I know most people on a sick day stay in, curled under the covers and sleeping. And I did that, don’t get me wrong. But having a surprise weekend day on a Tuesday was just as rewarding and good for my soul. It took every ounce of me to skip out on boxing with the guys tonight but as much as I winded me to muster up the energy to walk up and down a mild-grade SF hill, I knew my body would be cranky if I forced it to punch a bag in rapid succession.

It doesn’t take much to make a sickie feel good about herself. The grocery checker told me I had “great bangs” on not a particularly bangin’ day and getting my downward dog on with a pine scented candle sure can do wonders. I won’t dwell on the fact that my underwear line was visible through my leggings and I had  snot-streaked sleeves (you’re welcome).

I fight taking sick days. I fight them with all my might holidng out for that time when I’m really really sick. But that day never seems to come or at least I justify to myself that I’m just not sick enough. Kind of like holidng onto that nice bottle of wine for that really really special occasion, event or celebration. Why not take a mental health day every once in a while, open that bottle of wine on a Wednesday night to toast to those days when we are healthy and alive. Today’s culture seems to glorify the workaholic. If you didn’t slay a 12-hour day, did you even work, bro? Having work/life balance should never be translated to ‘lazy’. I don’t want to feel guilt for taking a sick day, especially when actually sick and I hope others can honor themselves and their health and actually take the time to slow down, rest, reset and get that expensive AF bone broth. And please, for the love of the travel gods, take that vacation. Take it ALL (this I have no problem with).

In sickness and in health, I gotchu.

Friday night haps.

Just a normal evening in the Mids universe. Nothing to see here except a stranger jumping out to scare me thinking I was his friend and perusing a coffee table book entitled Gay Men Draw Vaginas. Ahh, the sweet feeling of being scared AF post fringe trim from a doppleganger identity only to bond with women over cleverly drawn va-jay-jays before voluntarily putting myself through the tugging pain of sugaring. But hey – killed two birds with one stone as both salons are across the street from one another. Efficiency.

So yeah, I’m sitting here, decompressing from quite a week, ending it on a high with my Teakwood and Tobacco scented candle, Earl Grey tea (becuase since getting back from England I need my evening cuppa, dammit) watching shows on tiny houses and catching up wtih the family via facetime (quite a hoot, let me tell ya) and the bf (always a hoot). Between frames of mozarella stick and open mouth laughs, my family still thinks we’re all taking a group photo and pass me around in a fashion that resembles Blair Witch Project meets Arrested Development. Each has something different to say about my hair and the call usually ends in me taking a screenshot to savor this experience which is then followed post call by an actual group shot or selfie sent with a kissy face.

So Friday…you coo.

I needed a dose of strange after this week. Bring on the weird – it’s where I feel myself, where I am most comforted.

Sorry for the haius of writing and damn it feels back. If you’re one of my six readers, I missed you. I realized I need to get back to my creative endeavors. After a review at work this week, It got me thinking how I can best spend my week, my time and where I can draw more connection, creativity, people and purpose in my career. So it’s back into the weird and wild world that I find myself stumbling into again and again, back into where I feel I can unabashedly be myself and maybe get a chuckle or two from my mom who reads this from her iPad in her robe with coffee and cats.

In other breaking news, Justin Timberlake has a coffee table book too, bee tee dubs. Coffee table books are bringing sexy back. Yeah yeah.

I left my hometown with a lost manicure, a gained sense of clarity and a peeled avocado.

When my mom asked if I wanted to bring anything with me on my flight up to San Francisco, I replied that I’d happily take the rest of the avocado I cut into knowing my mom would leave it neatly on the top shelf of her fridge, untouched. I planned to throw the three-quarters remaining into a Ziplock and then throw that into my weekender bag for a nice addition to my already overpriced FiDi lunch later that day.

I run to the bedroom to get my always-forgotten charger and come back to the kitchen to find my mom hovering over the green fruit with a butter knife peeling the thick skin like it was a potato. My heart melted as I put my arms around her robed shoulders and told her it’s good to go as-is and that the pit keeps the fruit fresh. Bless. My mom looked defeated and I loved her even more (if that’s possible) in that moment because at 5am, pre-coffee and post-short night’s sleep, she was meal-prepping my avocado the best way she knew how. You damn-well bet that mashed up avocado went in my savory oatmeal and then later went on toast for my soup. It was magical and I smiled squeezing the now brown chunks from all sides of that Ziplock bag.

My short trip home for Mothers Day weekend was nothing short of moments like this. It’s always wonderful returning home to my family but this time especiallly. We lost a mother – my sister – last year and this year we felt her absence. More than ever, we needed each other and to be there for one another emotionally. My dad greeted my mom with a cinnamon basket – a beautiful container filled with all things her favorite spice and smell. We made cinnamon rolls together and took pictures with sticky fingers and smiling eyes. We talked about relationships and where our hearts are at and where we want them to be. We ate good food, laughed real hard and hugged tightly.

That weekend we remembered my maternal grandmother amid the spiraled dough and carmelized pan-scrapings. This wonderful woman who I never met gave me my mom – the strong, heart-driven survivor she shows me to be every day. I still think of my paternal grandmother with complete adoration and I’ve missed her since she lost a battle with Alzheimer’s when I was ten. This fiercely spirited giggler pinned her hair in curls in her 80s and touched her ten toes and recited the names of her ten children daily.

My parents have always been a prime example of heart and the importance of genuinely loving who you’re with and the proof is in the pudding – they laugh. A lot. I think my friends are more attune to my inherited laughter than I am. When I tell them how much my sister laughs, they ask if she got it from me when really – I think my sister has pretty much single-handedly taught the world how to laugh. Even if you have no clue what she’s laughing at, you can’t help but join in.

Laughter is important AF. To me it’s my way of introduction to people old and new, it’s bonding time, connection and just fun. There have been moments in my life where I have devalued this part of me – dismissing it being “silly” or simply extra credit. I’m choosing to embrace laughter as a pivotal part of who I am and who I want to surround myself with. Yes, it’s one part of what a person can bring to any relationship, but it’s an important one. My parents haven’t always had it easy, but they’ve had laughter and love to carry them through.

I’ve tried to think how this force impacts me – why is it that this simple action has such a profound impact? What about those squinty eyes and belly vibrations resonate deep within my soul? We laugh because something got to our core. Something proved to be true or its truth was brought to light in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious. Laughter uncovers something and tickles us in some way. Perspective is shifted, changed, or introduced. It makes me feel alive, free, open and truly me.

I’ve recently been super in-touch with this laughter and it’s felt great. Being home made me realize that this is what my family is good at and something I want more of in my life. My barista asked one morning, “do you smile this much at work?” to which I honestly replied…absolutely. It makes me think that if this lightness is really that infectious subconsciously, how infectious would it be to make a conscious effot to surround myself with people who make me feel in touch with this side of myself becuase they themselves contain that light and bring it out in me?

2017 was all about being light. And it’s taken me half of 2018 to figure out that this year, I want to invite the light in.