Last weekend, my friends Darla and Phylis and I (not a typo—her nickname is Lone L) headed to Arlington, Texas, to see BTS. And if you’re reading this thinking, Wait. BTS? Mary? then perhaps we haven’t known each other long enough. 😂

We came ready for BTS and somehow ended up with matching pajamas, bunny hats, sailor outfits, new ARMY (fanbase) friends, VIP wristbands, very tired feet, and memories I’m pretty sure we’ll be talking about forever.

There is a much longer story here.

It includes Darla and me seeing Jin—one of the seven members of BTS—during his solo tour in Korea last summer. It includes the three of us sitting at our computers in January, frantically trying to get tickets when the BTS presale opened. And then all the anticipation that accumulated between We got tickets! and finally walking into that stadium.

But that story can wait.

For now, I just want to share the joy.

Night One was incredible.

Night Two, we went ALL IN—VIP, the floor, ridiculously close to the stage, and yes...

Jimin. 😭💜

Sound on for this one. ( Version with music on my INSTAGRAM).

There are experiences that seem to ask you to explain them—to find the lesson, make the connection, figure out what it all meant.

I’m not doing that with this one. At least not yet.

Right now, I’m still enjoying the ridiculousness of three grown women in matching pajamas and giddy like teenagers. I’m thinking about the people we met and the instant camaraderie of ARMY. And I’m remembering what it felt like when the lights went down, when thousands of light sticks illuminated the stadium, and when the seven people we’d waited so long to see were suddenly right there in front of us.

And maybe my favorite part of the whole thing was getting to experience it with these two.

There will probably come a time when I want to write about why this weekend affected me the way it did. About friendship. About music. About fandom. About getting older and discovering that there are still entirely new ways to be delighted by your own life.

But not today.

Today, I don’t need to make anything of it.

The concert ended.

The joy came home with us.

Turns out, joy makes a pretty good souvenir. 💜

P.S. My youngest daughter is getting married in just over two weeks! Until then, I’ll keep in touch via NOTES here, as I am able. Busy, beautiful days!

3 Things Worth Sharing:

1. Listening to: ( obviously)

2. Also in my ears:
   I’ve been listening to New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton and Waiting for God by Simone Weil on Audible.

3. Watching:
   Ron and I have been watching Lucky and Your Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV. And I’ve actually taken a break from K-drama (shocking, I know) and am watching Season One of Bad Sisters. I recommend them all.

   So there you have it: BTS, Thomas Merton, Simone Weil, and Bad Sisters.

   Don’t try to pigeonhole humans. We contain multitudes. :)

   Until next time, friends!

   XO,
   Mary

   

Hi, Friends:

Last week, the moon woke me in the middle of the night. I just felt pulled outside, and stood there in her light like she had something to say to me. A few days later, I found this poem, and it was a reminder: the sacred isn’t rare. Maybe we just need more practice paying attention.

xo Mary

"I Think Every Human Being Eventually Has a Moment" (untitled poem)

I think every human being

eventually has a moment

where they are standing outside in sweatpants

that have lost the will to be pants,

holding a trash bag, a divorce, a parking ticket,

or some other receipt from the universe

that says, “surprise, this too is part of it.”

And then the sky bruises purple.

And the air touches your face

like it knows your whole story.

And suddenly you realize:

all the real is actually unreal.

The dirt.

The breath.

The weird little bones in your hands.

The fact that we are here,

on a floating rock with pollen counts,

paying bills,

missing dead people,

loving living people

who say “leaving now”

while still fully naked and looking for socks.

And still,

the moon clocks in.

No applause.

No benefits.

No note from management saying,

“Great work being ancient and luminous again.”

Just the moon,

working nights

like a single mother with no applause,

packing silver lunches

for every dark thing

that still has to rise.

Tell me that isn’t holy.

Tell me there is a better word

than sacred

for the way light keeps returning

with no guarantee

we will actually stop and take note.

I know people who believe in therapy,

probiotics,

tarot,

twelve-step meetings,

manifestation journals,

and waiting exactly eleven minutes

before texting back

so they do not appear emotionally available,

even though their whole nervous system

is standing in the driveway holding flowers.

And underneath all of it,

every ritual,

every doctrine,

every smoothie with chia seeds,

the prayer is the same:

Please let me be loved.

Please let me be forgiven.

Please let this strange little life

mean something

before my lower back

submits its formal resignation.

What is going on?

For real tho—What is this place?

This unbearable tenderness

of being alive long enough

to watch steam lift from coffee in winter

like a soul practicing leaving.

To see your friend laugh so hard

they slap the table

as if joy is a mosquito

they are trying to kill.

To hear a child say “pisghetti”

and, for one shining second,

realize language

has finally been improved.

I know I already noted this in the first piece,

but the older I get,

the less use I have for certainty.

Certainty has never made me pull over

because the sunset looked like God

dropped a jar of peach jam

across the whole midwestern sky

and decided to be lazy

and not clean up.

Certainty has never made me gasp

at rain on hot pavement.

Certainty has never found me

in the cereal aisle,

holding Captain Crunch,

suddenly remembering

that everyone I have ever loved

was made from stardust,

hunger,

and a series of decisions

we probably should have slept on.

No.

It has always been awe.

Awe was the first church.

Before steeples.

Before committees.

Before men got involved

and started making rules about skirts.

Awe was there

with its wild hair

and muddy feet,

saying:

Look.

Look again.

Look until looking

becomes love.

Awe, and soup.

Awe, and someone rubbing your back

when you are sick.

Awe, and old couples at Target

arguing gently about avocados,

as if marriage is not one vow

but ten thousand errands

performed beside the person

who knows exactly

how you like the cart pushed.

Maybe gratitude

was never meant to sound elegant.

Maybe gratitude sounds like:

“Damn.

That woodpecker is trying

to beat that tree from itself.”

Maybe gratitude sounds like:

“Thank you, body,

for continuing to drag me through this world

despite the many slim jims

I have done to you

at gas stations.”

Maybe gratitude sounds like:

“Thank you to the dogs

who lose their entire minds

when we come home

as if we have returned from war

and not Walgreens.”

For me, that might be my gospel.

That joy that does not wait for us

to be impressive but only needs us

to come through the door.

Because the truth is,

this life is devastating.

And ridiculous.

One minute you are 22 and invincible,

driving too fast,

eating gas station nachos

with the confidence of a Greek god.

The next minute you are googling,

“Can sneezing cause a hamstring injury?”

and the answer is,

apparently,

“Welcome to the second half of your life.”

But even now—

even tired,

even grieving,

even emotionally held together

by iced coffee, playlists,

and one very specific wolves hoodie—

we keep finding reasons

to stay soft.

We plant tomatoes

even though grief is real.

We bake bread

even though the news is on fire.

We send photos of the sky

to people we love

with captions like,

“LOOK,”

as if beauty is an emergency

and we are all volunteer firefighters.

We keep saying,

“You have to see this,”

because wonder

is the oldest form

of resurrection.

So here’s to the believers

and the atheists

and the agnostics

and the people whose entire theology

is just trying not to cry

in the DMV line.

Here’s to the people clinging to faith.

Here’s to the people clinging to Xanax

and oat milk

and the one group chat

where nobody pretends to be okay.

Here’s to the tender-hearted weirdos.

The accidental mystics.

The ones who can contemplate mortality

for six straight hours

and then become emotionally attached

to a perfect peach.

The ones who know

despair has a mouth,

but so does laughter.

May we never stop being drop-kicked by beauty

in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

May we never become so polished

that we forget how to stand

in the Starbucks line of existence

with our dumb, gorgeous hearts open,

feeling the enormity of it all

rattle around in our bones

like thunder

looking for somewhere to laugh.

And may we remember:

whatever else this is,

whatever mess,

whatever miracle,

whatever cosmic group project

no one was prepped for—

all’ve it is astonishing.

that we are here.

that we have loved enough to be ruined.

that the moon keeps showing up.

that bread exists.

So pass it on.

Tear off a piece

with your bare hands.

Take it in as you take it down.

And then go outside and look at that moon.

—Matt Moberg

Matt Moberg

Matt Moberg is an American writer and chaplain whose work centers on spirituality, grief, suffering, hope, and pastoral care. He is known for writing from the perspective of someone engaged in chaplaincy, blending personal reflection, theology, and practical wisdom for people navigating difficult life experiences. Find more of his writing and painting here.

Yesterday I wandered into a bookstore and passed a display of summer reading. Instantly, I was ten years old again.

I remembered the library’s summer reading program, the stack of books beside my bed, and those long afternoons with nowhere I had to be. Back then, summer seemed to stretch out endlessly before me. I woke up each morning wondering what adventures the day might hold.

Standing there among the brightly colored paperbacks, I realized it wasn’t the books I was remembering. It was the feeling of spaciousness. The feeling that there was enough time, enough daylight, enough room in the day for wandering outside, reading, drawing, making up stories, daydreaming, and discovery.

As I left the store, I found myself thinking about this summer in a different light.

How might I embrace summer more fully?

The question stayed with me.

This morning, while writing my morning pages, it returned in a different form:

What are the gifts only summer can give?

I paused and stared out the window, then started making a list: swimming in a warm lake, walking barefoot in the grass, watermelon, hammock reading, and sun tea. Long hikes and lingering evenings when the light refuses to leave. One memory led to another until I found myself smiling.

What struck me was how seasonal these pleasures are. Eating a perfectly ripe peach over the kitchen sink. A warm tomato fresh from the garden. Even the quality of evening light. These gifts arrive for a brief visit and then disappear again until next year.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about living close to nature and the seasons, not just the seasons outside my window, but the seasons of a life.

I think I may be in the summer of my life, not just my calendar.

Something is ripening and producing fruit.

The writing of the memoir is nearly complete. For years, it has been my faithful companion and my taskmaster both. It has asked for early mornings and late nights, memories I wasn’t sure I wanted to revisit, and the courage to put private things into sentences.

Now, for the first time, it feels done. Done enough, anyway. Complete in the way a season is complete. When I placed it in a trusted reader’s hands, I felt something I didn’t expect. Not relief exactly, but a lightness and an ease I hadn’t felt in a long time. As though I had been carrying something for so long I’d forgotten I was carrying it. As though the fruit of all those years of effort is not accomplishment alone, but the freedom to stop striving quite so hard.

Recently, I let the people closest to me know that I would no longer be responding to texts before noon. If someone truly needed me, of course they could call. But the steady stream of funny memes, quick questions, and non-urgent chit-chat could wait.

At first it felt almost indulgent.

Then it felt necessary.

I hadn’t realized how much the constant ping of incoming texts was fragmenting my attention. Every message pulled me away from my writing, my thoughts, my prayers, and my morning rhythm. Before I had even settled into my own day, I was responding to everyone else’s.

My mornings became quieter, less fragmented, and more my own.

Spaciousness.

Just this morning, a phrase arrived that I can’t seem to shake:

Don’t schedule the activity. Schedule the opening.

The more I sit with it, the wiser it feels. Protect a morning. Leave room in the day. Then let life and inspiration meet you there.

Summer, it seems, has much to teach me.

One of my favorite ways to spend such an opening is to sit quietly in nature and allow the world to come to me rather than going out in search of it.

This morning I took myself for a walk across the butte. At first, my mind was everywhere except where my feet were. Song lyrics floated through my head. Conversations replayed themselves. Relationships, plans, and random thoughts all competed for attention.

Again and again, I gently brought myself back.

Pay attention.

Notice.

Be here.

As I slowed down, the world began to emerge. Wildflowers were blooming everywhere, patches of purple, white, and pink scattered across the hillside. The cactus looked ready to burst into bloom at any moment. Rabbits darted in and out of the brush, and overhead a hawk circled effortlessly in the morning air.

Eventually I found my way to a marble overlook bench and sat down. The clouds were moving toward the mountains so slowly that the movement was almost imperceptible. The kind of thing you only notice if you’ve been still for a while.

And suddenly I felt tears rising.

Nothing had happened.

Quite the opposite.

I was simply there.

Present to a summer morning.

Present to the beauty around me.

Present to my own life.

It felt like prayer.

Summer is here.

I want to pay attention and receive it.

xo Mary

Don’t we all want to be known on a soul level? Not by everyone, not by the world, but by those we are closest to?

I said something to my therapist recently that surprised me. I told her that I am lonely for more spiritual conversation. About my deep interior questions. About what I believe and what I long for and what I’m still trying to understand.

She asked me to say more. And as I did, I realized this: I am surrounded by friends who love me — and still, there is a particular kind of conversation I almost never have with any of them. There’s an old saying — never discuss politics, religion, or money in polite company. We absorbed that rule somewhere along the way, all of us. Nobody wants to be preached at, and I have no desire to preach. I am not trying to convert anyone to my beliefs. Truth be told, my beliefs are still evolving. So no one brings it up and we leave it alone. The social contract holds, unspoken and unexamined.

My friends are good people — genuinely, profoundly good people — who would say they believe in kindness, in love, in showing up. But many aren’t part of any kind of faith community, don’t use the language of the interior life, aren’t particularly drawn to theological questions. We go deep together — into grief, into relationships, into the full complexity of being human. That depth is real and I treasure it. But there is a whole dimension of me that doesn’t come along. At least not explicitly. The theological, the mystical, the explicitly spiritual. Of course it’s always there, but doesn’t get full expression. That part sort of waits outside. And so I don’t bring it up. Not really. It leaks out here and there. But I don’t dive in.

Though I should be honest with myself about why. Because they don’t bring it up, I’ve decided they aren’t interested. I’ve never actually asked. I’ve just decided. And then kept that door closed, wondering why I feel lonely for that kind of soul conversation with them.

What makes this particularly strange to sit with: I am a spiritual companion to women as part of my own soul work. I walk with people into exactly these questions — about meaning, about death, about what holds us. And yet with my closest friends, I often feel as if I must leave that part of myself quietly at the door. The irony is not lost on me.

And then I wonder — maybe it is there more than I realize? Spirituality can’t really be compartmentalized. It’s not a subject I take out and put away. It’s woven into how I see everything — grief, relationships, beauty, suffering, hope. Maybe it leaks through more than I think. Maybe my friends know this part of me better than I’m aware.

But still. I want to dive in. Not drip.

I know it’s not simple. You can’t exactly ambush someone over coffee with “tell me your deepest beliefs about life and death.” These conversations need a door — a small question that opens onto a larger one, a moment of enough trust that something real can surface. But I think I’ve been so afraid of getting that wrong that I haven’t tried at all. And not trying has its own cost.

A few years ago, I was part of something called The Living School, a two-year program rooted in contemplative Christianity, founded by the teacher Richard Rohr. For two years I was immersed in a community of people who spoke this language fluently — who wanted to talk about mystery and suffering and transformation and what it means to be human and held by something larger than ourselves. We developed, as they warned us we would, a kind of shared lexicon. Words and frameworks for the interior life that most people around us simply don’t have, or if they do, only discuss in certain circles.

And then we graduated. And we went home.

Nobody warned us quite how hard re-entry would be.

And if I’m being fully honest, it hasn’t just been difficult out there. Even within faith community, I haven’t been finding those conversations as much as I’d like. Which has made me sit with a harder question — not what is missing around me, but what am I willing to do about it? This writing is part of my answer. So is the decision to stop waiting for the right container and start asking the people already in my life.

I want to be known more deeply than my surface personality. And I want to know those I love more deeply than theirs.

I’ve been sitting with a question lately: why do we only have these conversations in crisis? When someone gets a diagnosis, or a marriage is fracturing, or someone we love dies — suddenly the deep questions surface. What do you believe? What happens when we die? What has mattered most? People say things in those moments they’ve never said before. And then the crisis passes and we go back to schedules and logistics and books and tv shows and what’s for dinner. Those conversations matter too — they are the weave of a shared life. But after a while, I grow hungry for something more.

So, what if we didn’t wait?

I’ve been thinking about what it would mean to be braver, on an ordinary afternoon, to ask the friends I love questions I’ve never asked them. What do you believe? What are your core values, the ones you’d fight for? What do you think happens when we die? Not to challenge them. Not to convert them. Just to see them. To know them at a level that goes beyond personality, beyond the comfortable roles we play with each other. And to listen to myself as I try to answer those same questions.

Because here is what I’ve come to understand about myself: I want to be seen as a soul, not just a personality. And I want to see the souls of the friends I love, not just their personalities. There’s a difference between knowing how someone shows up in a room and knowing what they carry inside it.

I haven’t been asking. I’ve been self-editing, managing the gap between my interior life and the conversations I actually have. And I think I’m tired of that.

So I’m going to try. I’m going to ask my closest friends what they actually believe, without needing the answer to look any particular way. I’m going to ask them, in whatever hour we can find, what they think holds the world together. I’m going to ask about death and meaning and love, even if it’s over wine and feels a little strange at first.

I suspect some of these conversations will surprise me. I suspect some friends will be more ready for them than I think. And I suspect that the asking itself — the willingness to go there — is its own kind of intimacy.

We don’t have to wait for crisis. We can choose depth in ordinary time. We can decide, quietly and without making a big announcement about it, to stop leaving any part of ourselves outside the door.

I know I could start another women’s circle, as I have before, and find that conversation there. But that’s not quite what I’m after. What I want is to be fully myself in the life I already have — with the friends already in it. I don’t want to keep holding part of myself back from the people I love most. That feels like its own kind of absence.

I want to know what’s inside the people who are inside my life.

That feels like the most loving thing I could want in a relationship.

And the most loving thing I can share.

xo Mary

In Progress

Ten years ago it seemed impossible

That she could ever grow as calm as this,

With self-remembrance in her warmest kiss

And dim dried eyes like an exhausted well.

Slow-speaking when she has some fact to tell,

Silent with long-unbroken silences,

Centred in self yet not unpleased to please,

Gravely monotonous like a passing bell.

Mindful of drudging daily common things,

Patient at pastime, patient at her work,

Wearied perhaps but strenuous certainly.

Sometimes I fancy we may one day see

Her head shoot forth seven stars from where they lurk

And her eyes lightning and her shoulders wings.

- Christina Rossetti

The poem is called “In Progress” by Christina Rossetti. Rossetti was a 19th-century English poet known for her deeply emotional, spiritual, and lyrical writing. She often explored themes of womanhood, longing, faith, suffering, and inner transformation. She also wrote the well-known poem “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

Lately, in my spiritual companionship work, many of the women I walk beside have been circling around this same quiet transformation — a softening into themselves. A deeper self-trust. A gentler way of living inside their own lives. We are all, in some way, still “in progress,” slowly evolving through the ordinary moments that shape us.

Www.marythoma.com

Lately, I’ve been noticing how much of my life is held together by small rhythms and steady circles of connection.

Coffee with my husband each morning and our daily shared rhythms. Tuesday recovery group, followed by choir. Wednesday nights, a regular gathering with a small group. Every Thursday, breakfast with a friend. Every Friday, a standing outing date with another. And on Sundays, my spiritual community, returning again to prayer, presence, and the quiet reminder that none of us are meant to walk alone.

None of these are major events. They are ordinary rhythms. Coffee. Eggs. A walk. Laughter. Stories repeated and stories still unfolding. Places where conversation stretches beyond surface things and into the real landscape of our lives.

Because somewhere between talking about our children, our marriages, our work, our griefs, and the strange surprises of getting older, something deeper happens: we witness one another.

There is such a gift in being with people who do not need you to be shinier, tidier, or more certain than you are. People who can hold your unfinished thoughts without rushing to fix them. People who remind you, simply by listening, that your life is worth paying attention to.

I am realizing that this may be one of the quiet gifts of friendship, to be with people who help you tell the truth by making it safe to do so.

Not because they need to fix anything. Not because they have answers. But because good friendships offer presence instead of judgment.

Maybe that is why writing matters so much to me too.

For years, I approached the blank page like a test I was failing before I even began, as if every sentence had to prove something.

But friendship has taught me differently.

The page, at its best, offers the same kind of mercy good friendship does: a place to tell the truth without performance. A place to arrive unfinished and still be received.

Recently, I came across a writer named Burghild Nina Holzer, and something in the way she saw the page stopped me cold.

“Talking to paper is talking to the Divine. It is talking to an ear that will understand even the most difficult things. Paper is infinitely patient... The white paper is waiting. Each time you scratch on it, you trace part of yourself, and thus part of the world, and thus part of the grammar of the universe.”

— Burghild Nina Holzer, A Walk Between Heaven and Earth

Part of the grammar of the universe.

I sat with that for a long time. Because if it’s true, if every sentence you scratch out is tracing something real, something that belongs to the fabric of things, then the blank page isn’t a threat. It’s an invitation. It’s been waiting for you, not judging you.

That reframe continues to change how I feel when I sit down at the blank page. I stopped thinking of writing as something I had to perform well and began seeing it as another place to be witnessed. A place where I could arrive unfinished, uncertain, and still be received.

The page doesn’t ask me to be wiser, clearer, or more polished. It simply waits. It holds the messy drafts, the false starts, the half-formed thoughts, and the truths I am still learning how to name. There is something almost startling about that kind of patience when you’ve spent years afraid to be truly seen.

And maybe that is the real gift of writing. Not that it helps us find our voice, but that it reminds us it was never lost.

Rabbi Naomi Levy puts it better than I ever could:

“Finding your way in life is not so much about choosing a direction. It’s about uncovering the voice of the soul, the call that is already imprinted inside you, and then finding the courage to face down your fears and let your true voice be heard.”

Already imprinted.

I keep returning to those two words. You were not born voiceless, waiting for someone to hand you something to say. The call is already there, underneath the self-doubt, underneath the years of shrinking or turning chameleon, underneath the habit of deciding in advance that what you have to say to stay in the circle.

The work, then, isn’t construction. It’s excavation. All those bad drafts and false starts and journal entries you never showed anyone, they weren’t failures. They were you with a shovel, digging toward something true.

And then comes the hard part. Because once you’ve uncovered something real, you still have to decide whether to let it be heard. That’s where courage comes in. And courage, I’ve learned, is almost impossible to manufacture alone.

Dave Chappelle, an unlikely companion in an essay about writing and the soul, and yet, said something that has stayed with me:

“It’s not always easy, but with a good family, and with good friends and a good community, I really feel like the whole world is less daunting and less scary.”

That’s what community really does. It doesn’t remove the fear of being seen. It doesn’t make the work easier or the truth less vulnerable. But it makes the fear more bearable. And bearable fear is the only kind you can actually write through.

Here is what I’ve come to believe, at least this week, at least right now: you already have a voice. The page is already patient enough to receive it. And somewhere in your life, in the person who checks in on you, in the group that keeps showing up, in the friend who listens without trying to rescue you, there is already a reminder that your truth belongs here.

Maybe that is what both friendship and writing offer us: not judgment, but witness. Not perfection, but presence. A place to arrive unfinished and still be received.

None of this is easy. But it is also not as lonely as it feels at six in the morning when the cursor is blinking and you’re convinced you have nothing to offer.

You are adding to the grammar of the universe. One sentence, one scratch, one act of courage at a time.

The page is waiting. It has been the whole time.

xo,
Mary

3 THINGS WORTH SHARING:

Listening to the book": My Friends by Fredrik Backman.

One of those books that quietly works its way into your heart. Fredrik Backman has a gift for writing about ordinary people carrying extraordinary grief, love, and longing. This story feels like a meditation on friendship, art, and the invisible ways we save one another. It reminded me that sometimes the people who shape us most are the ones who simply stay—who witness us, who hold our stories, who help us remember who we are. Tender, funny, and deeply human, it’s a book about the sacredness of being truly seen.

2. Re-Watched the Film: Fried Green Tomatoes 1991

One of my favorite films, Fried Green Tomatoes is full of fierce women, complicated love, deep friendship, and the kind of courage it takes to survive your own life. It reminds me that storytelling itself can be a form of salvation—that when we tell the truth about where we’ve been, we make room for someone else to find their way too. It’s funny, tender, heartbreaking, and full of the kind of Southern soul that lingers long after the credits roll. The main stars of Fried Green Tomatoes are Kathy Bates as Evelyn Couch, Jessica Tandy as Ninny Threadgoode, Mary Stuart Masterson as Idgie Threadgoode, and Mary-Louise Parker as Ruth Jamison. Also central to the story are Cicely Tyson as Sipsey and Chris O’Donnell as Buddy Threadgoode Jr. TRAILER

2. 

   3. World Labyrinth Day this weekend!

   Find a walk near you and join a rolling wave of peace around the world. World Labyrinth Day (WLD) 2026 is Saturday, May 2, 2026, marking the 17th annual international event where participants walk at 1:00 p.m. local time to create a “rolling wave of peaceful energy” across the globe. The event, organized by The Labyrinth Society and partners, encourages walking in person, using finger labyrinths, or attending online events.

   

   World Labyrinth Day 2026

   • Date: Saturday, May 2, 2026.

   • Time: 1:00 PM local time (”Walk as One at 1”).

   • Purpose: A meditative, global effort for peace and renewal.

   • Participation:

     Individuals and groups can host, attend, or find local/virtual events on an interactive global map.

Dear Friends,

I have spent this past week propped up in my bed with ten pillows — because anything remotely horizontal unleashed coughing fits that had no interest in stopping — and no, these are not exactly the creative conditions I would have chosen for myself. And yet, somewhere around mid-morning each day, when the coughing would ease for a stretch, I found myself migrating to my desk. Cozified in my robe, coffee on the warmer beside me, still in pajamas. More stubborn than heroic. Or maybe, drawn there.

There are days when the body says stop, the plans fall away, and you find yourself surrendered to something larger. I have come to trust those moments, even when I don’t always like them. There is something about being depleted that dissolves the usual guardedness. The inner critic gets drowsy. The protective layers soften. The manuscript was there, waiting, and somehow the coughing fits and the fatigue made it easier to slip back into the story — defenses down, just letting it spill out. And honestly? Some of it surprised me.

Somewhere in the middle of this week, I began to sense that these things were not separate — the depletion, the softening, the unexpected clarity — but part of the same quiet truth: the story is already there, and sometimes we only see it when we finally stop trying so hard to shape it.

And maybe that is why this particular week met me the way it did — right at the edge of finishing.

I am in the final stretch of what I am calling my part of this book. Not the part where it goes to an editor or out into the world — that is a different season entirely, and its time will come. But my part — the part nobody else can do — the stories that live in me, the arc of the narrative, the shape of the whole thing. I have a birthday coming in a few months, and I made myself a promise: by that day, my part would be done. The alternative? I could keep revising it for the rest of my life. I knew I needed to give myself a finish line, a place of closure, a gift to myself that only I could give. And this week, in between the cups of herbal tea and the tissues ( yes, I am an equal opportunity supporter of both coffee and tea) I had a moment of pure amazement.

The story is already there.

There have been other drafts where it felt oh so close — but something in me knew it wasn’t complete yet. I just had no idea what completion would actually feel like until now.

It has been written.

I began finding my way into these stories back in 2021, and the road has been long and sometimes bewildering.

Five years.

I remember reading once about a memoirist who took eight years to write her memoir, and thinking, Dear God, that is far too long. And now, here on the other side of my own long road, I get it completely. It takes what it takes. There is no shortcut through the material, and I have had to learn — slowly, sometimes miserably — to trust that. At the same time, there is a balance to find: between giving yourself and your work the time it truly needs, and knowing when it is time to release it. Because we could keep rewriting our stories for the rest of our lives, couldn’t we? At some point, the most loving thing we can do — for ourselves and for the work — is to release it.

And that time, for me, is coming.

These last few months of adding chapters and removing them, circling back and pushing forward, wrestling with structure and arc and the question of what stays and what goes — and now here I am, polishing transitions, smoothing the seams, doing the slow and loving work of making it the best I can make it given exactly who I am right now. And that phrase — given exactly who I am right now — feels important. Because this whole endeavor has been a learn-as-you-go process from the very beginning. It’s okay to learn as you go. Not only okay, it’s the only way.

It was the same when I made my film. I did not know how to make a film. I just knew I had to make it, so I jumped in and I learned each step as I took it, and something real got made. Something I am deeply proud of.

It was never about knowing how. It was about trusting that what needed to be made was already alive in me. The memoir has asked exactly the same thing of me — not mastery before I begin, but willingness to begin without mastery. To trust that the not-knowing is part of the process, not evidence that I am doing it wrong.

And sitting with that this week, sick and stubborn at my desk, I found myself wondering if this is true for you too.

Because what I’m noticing isn’t just about writing a book.

Whatever story you are living — the one about who you are, what you have survived, who you are slowly becoming — I would guess it is more written than you think. The chapters may feel incomplete, the transitions rough, the ending nowhere in sight. But the material is there. It has been accumulating in you for years. In every hard season you moved through. Every relationship that cracked you open. Every moment you chose to keep going.

You don’t need more raw material. You need to trust what’s already there.

And maybe that’s why the story became so clear this week — because I was too depleted to get in its way.

And here is the other thing this week taught me, the part I didn’t expect: being depleted — truly low, defenses down, too tired to be careful — turned out to be its own kind of grace. I couldn’t manage how I came to the page. I just came. And what arrived was somehow truer for it. I think that is what happens when we stop trying to control everything — something wiser steps in. Call it grace. Call it God. Call it Something Greater than yourself. I felt it this week, holding me when I could not hold myself.

So if you are in a season of depletion right now, I want to offer this gently: you don’t have to wait until you are rested and ready and running at full capacity to do your creative work, your healing work, your becoming work.

Often times, the most honest thing you will ever write, make, or say arrives precisely when you stop trying to control the way it arrives.

The story is already there, friend. And so are you.

I’ll leave you with this, to sit with in whatever way feels right — in writing, in prayer, or simply in your own heart:

What story have you been living that is waiting, not for more to happen, but simply to be seen?

And if you feel moved, try this practice this week: whether you are writing a memoir or writing the story of your own becoming — and really, aren’t we all doing both? — turn toward what is already there. Not to add, not to fix, not to figure out what is missing. Just to see it. Witness it. Acknowledge how much has already been written in you — by you — through every season you have survived. Then, if you feel moved, write one true sentence about it. Just one. That is where the story lives — not in what you have yet to do, but in what you have already lived.

The story is already there, friend — and so are you, ever in the process of becoming, but already carrying the life that is asking to be seen.

In the margins of all of this, life continues to show up in the most beautiful ways. I am still deep in the preparation for our World Labyrinth Day event — always a special day each year— and if you are local, I hope you will come walk with us. And I am supporting my daughter in planning her September wedding, which means that alongside the memoir and the labyrinths and the coughing fits, there is also joy bubbling up in the most ordinary and extraordinary ways. A wedding. A book. A birthday goal.

It is a lot. It is also, somehow, exactly, gloriously enough.

xo Mary

Three Things Worth Sharing:

1. Film: Project Hail Mary. — a compelling story with humor, heart, and an unexpectedly meaningful ride. What begins as a high-stakes mission unfolds into something much more human: connection, resilience, and finding your way through the unknown. Ryan Gosling at his best.

2. Event: World Labyrinth Day - More information and find an event near you. Help create a rolling wave of peace around the world. May 2- worldwide.

   

   3. 📚 Reading/Listening: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. Despite the title, this is not a productivity book — it's almost the opposite. Burkeman's premise is simple and a little startling: the average human life is roughly four thousand weeks long. Rather than teaching you how to squeeze more in, he makes a convincing case for embracing what you cannot do, choosing what truly matters, and making peace with the rest. It's a lesson I have been learning for a while now — that limits can be a blessing, because they force us to choose what matters most.

Until next time, friends. Take good care of yourselves — and if you’re also propped up with ten pillows somewhere, know that you are in good company.

xo Mary

Before I jump into today’s reflection, I wanted to begin with a little check-in from the weekend. This is not another post about BTS’ return, this is about my personal experience of waiting, learning to share what I love with people I love and the luminous light inside us all.

After four years of waiting, the Korean band BTS finally reunited for their comeback concert—and like so many others around the world, I found myself swept up in it. There was something electric about knowing millions who care about this band were tuning in at the same time. I read that it reached hundreds of millions of views, which somehow felt right. It wasn’t just a concert. It felt like a collective moment.

But part of what made it so meaningful was the waiting.

I’m beginning to see how hope and waiting are woven together. How hope is what makes the waiting bearable, and waiting is what gives hope its depth.

Over the past four years, each of the seven BTS members fulfilled their mandatory military service in South Korea. They went one by one, rotating in and out, and those of us who love them learned how to wait. There were moments along the way—solo projects, glimpses of their individual artistry. I was even able to see one of them perform in Goyang while I was in Korea this summer with Darla, which felt like such a gift.

Watching the seven of them back on stage—standing side by side again, whole in a way they hadn’t been in years—there was a kind of joy that’s hard to describe. Not just excitement, but something deeper. A sense of fulfillment. Of a promise kept. Of something long hoped for finally coming into being.

That morning, I FaceTimed my friend Phylis who introduced me to BTS, and we watched it live together at 5 a.m., still waking up, taking in this moment together. Then that night, I made a simple Korean meal—tteokbokki, jajangmyeon, kimbap, and little snacks inspired by the favorites of each BTS member—and shared it with my bestie Darla and my oldest daughter, Megan.

The three of us gathered in my family room, laughing, tasting, with me explaining things along the way since they’re newer to the band. ( I wish I’d taken more pictures.) I let myself fully enter into the celebration of their return. It felt like being part of something much bigger, while at the same time being held in the cozy intimacy of my own home.

And the older I get, the more I’m learning to notice what brings me joy—and not keep it to myself.

To let it be seen. To share it with the people I love, to invite them into it, even when they don’t fully understand it initially. Because something in the sharing matters just as much as the joy itself.

BTS has always carried a message of hope, but when they closed this concert with Mikrokosmos, one of their earlier songs, it felt like the most fitting ending they could have chosen.

A reminder that each of us carries light.

That even in dark times, that light matters.

So before we move on, I want to share that song with you.

Hearing Mikrokosmos at the end of this concert—after everything, after the waiting, after their return—felt different.

It felt like a reminder.

That even in the vastness of the world, even in the dark, each of us is carrying something luminous.

If you have a few minutes, I invite you to listen. Let it wash over you. Let it remind you of your own light.

And alongside it, I’ve been holding a blessing from Jan Richardson, “Those Stars That Turn in Us.”

There is something steadying in these words.

Because this is what I keep coming back to.

Hope is not naïve.

It is not a way of pretending everything is fine.

Hope is a steady refusal to let the darkness have the final word.

It is something we tend. Something we carry. Something we offer to one another.

THOSE STARS THAT TURN IN US

I do not know
how to keep it all together
or by what patterns
this world might
finally hold.

What I know is
our hearts are bigger
than this sky
that wheels above us

and what shines
through all this darkness
shines through us,
setting every shattered thing
into a new constellation,

and we can turn
our faces
to that light,
to the grace of
those stars
that turn in us.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

So wherever you find yourself today—whether you feel full of light or are still searching for it—may you remember:

It is still there.

Turning within you.

Waiting to be seen. And shared.

Let it shine,

xo Mary

If you’re new here, welcome! This is a space where I share reflections on story, healing, creativity, and the winding path toward becoming more fully ourselves.

Dear Friends,

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee, revising a chapter in the current draft of my memoir. It’s a chapter I once approached with deep dread and avoided writing altogether. The scene describes a painful betrayal involving my mother. For years, even approaching that memory tightened something inside me. I used to brace myself before opening those pages, knowing what emotions might be waiting there.

But recently I’ve been stunned by what has changed.

I know I’ve written to you about this before, but it feels important enough to say again.

When you are willing to face your story—truly face it and feel it—you will survive it, because you already have! You can return to the memory. You can feel what needs to be felt. And slowly, you can heal it.

Now, instead of feeling overwhelmed, I find myself calmly moving paragraphs, shaping sentences, making the scene clearer for the reader. The memories are still there, but they no longer have the same grip on me. A few years ago, this would have felt unimaginable.

That was when I realized something had truly shifted.

For most of my life, this story has lived inside me. The memories, the questions, the grief, and the confusion were always somewhere in the background of my days, like a bag of bricks I carried without fully realizing how heavy it was. I was terrified to look at any of it for very long, but it was always there, affecting me in ways I didn’t yet understand.

Writing the memoir has meant turning toward those stories again and again—sitting with them, listening to them, revisiting them emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and feeling them again in my body. It has not been easy work.

But something beautiful happens when you are willing to face yourself and your story honestly.

Slowly, the burden begins to move as the stories that once lived inside you begin to lose their power. What you carried alone becomes something you can see, hold, and understand. The pain moves from your body to the page.

What continues to surprise me most is the freedom on the other side of this work.

When you stop running from your story and finally turn to face it, something in you begins to breathe again. A kind of spaciousness opens up—a lightness, a sense that the past no longer owns so much of your present.

It’s not that the past disappears, but that it loosens its grip. You can hold the stories in your palm instead of squeezing them in a tight fist.

So the work moves forward slowly, in pockets of time that match my capacity. A morning here, a few focused hours there. Sometimes a whole week goes by when the manuscript barely gets touched because life is asking for my attention somewhere else.

And yet the story keeps growing. Deepening. Gainly clarity.

Not everyone is called to write a memoir. But each of us carries a story that deserves to be faced with honesty and compassion.

The more we are willing to tend to our own stories—however we do that—the more healing we bring into a hurting world.

None of us were meant to carry these things alone.

So if there is a part of your story you have been afraid to turn toward, I hope you will find the courage to do so, in whatever way is best for you. Maybe it begins with writing. Maybe it begins with sharing the truth with a trusted friend. Maybe it’s a recovery group or therapist, or both. Maybe it simply begins with allowing yourself to feel what you once had to push away.

However it begins, I hope you remember this: when we make our way from hesitation and fear toward deeper understanding and compassion for what we have lived, something inside us begins to loosen.

And that small act of healing, in one life at a time, becomes hope for the world.

xo Mary

THREE THINGS WORTH SHARING:

While I stay mostly tucked away with the manuscript for a bit longer, I thought I would share a few things that have recently strengthened my heart, encouraged my spirit, or quietly restored a little hope.

1. THIS POEM. My friend Gina passed along this poem to me this week. The timing could not have been more ideal.

Blessing of the Well

If you stand
at the edge
of this blessing
and call down
into it,
you will hear
your words
return to you.

If you lean in
and listen close,
you will hear
this blessing
give the story
of your life
back to you.

Quiet your voice.
Quiet your judgment.
Quiet the way
you always tell
your story
to yourself.

Quiet all these
and you will hear
the whole of it
and the hollows of it:
the spaces
in the telling,
the gaps
where you hesitate
to go.

Sit at the rim
of this blessing.
Press your ear
to its lip,
its sides,
its curves
that were carved out
long ago
by those whose thirst
drove them deep,
those who dug
into the layers
with only their hands
and hope.

Rest yourself
beside this blessing
and you will
begin to hear
the sound of water
entering the gaps.

Still yourself
and you will feel it
rising up within you,
filling every emptiness,
springing forth
anew.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace

2. TAKING ACTION IN COMMUNITY

   On International Women’s Day, I invited a handful of women to my house for something seemingly simple: writing postcards to our representatives and senators. Some of the women didn’t know each other yet, but we quickly found our way. We each shared about a woman who had made an impact on our lives, and then we got to work.

   We laughed. We talked. We snacked.

   In two hours, we wrote, addressed, and stamped 220 postcards. Proof that a few women around a table can do powerful things.

   Several people have asked where I found the postcards because they would like to organize their own gathering. So, here you go: Signs of Justice is a family-owned business that partners with communities and organizations to create meaningful signage and visual materials that help important messages be seen.

3. Two new-to-me MUSICAL DISCOVERIES:

   Jacob Collier, standing on the shoulders of Bobby McFerrin and other innovators, creates music in collaboration with orchestras and audiences alike. There are many magical videos of his performances online, but this was the one that first introduced me to his work—and I was mesmerized.

   Mon Rovia - When I couldn’t sleep last night, I was happy to discover Mon Rovia. His voice feels like a lullaby for adults. A Liberian-born singer-songwriter, his music blends folk, soul, and storytelling. His songs often reflect his journey across continents and cultures, exploring themes of belonging, resilience, and the search for home. One song that has encouraged me lately is “Crooked the Road.” It feels like a gentle reminder that life rarely follows the path we imagined. And yet, the winding road can still lead somewhere beautiful.

May you find moments of deep rest and peace in your week ahead.

A 40-Day Practice of Being the Good

For the next 40 days, I’m committing to something simple, intentional, and deeply human:

Being the Good I want to see in the world.

And I’d love for you to join me.

The seed for this practice came from a small moment. One of my spiritual companions, Abbie, showed up the other day wearing a hat that simply read: Be the Good. It’s been a quiet reminder that stayed with me.

It felt like an invitation. And now I am inviting you.

Not to do something grand.
But to be something — on purpose, again and again.

For me, this 40-day rhythm is shaped by Lent — a season of returning to what matters, of intentionally drawing nearer to the Goodness that holds us all. Some name that Goodness God. Others use different language, or none at all. What matters here is our shared desire to live it.

Today is Day One.

This isn’t about choosing one practice and repeating it every day.
It’s about choosing, each day, to act with intention —
toward ourselves, toward others, and toward the world we move through.

This is a practice of embodiment.
Of letting Love take shape in real, ordinary moments.

Being the Good might look like:

• Offering patience instead of reactivity

• Sending an encouraging message

• Taking a walk and noticing beauty

• Listening without fixing

• Standing in your truth

• Helping a neighbor or family member

• Showing up for someone who needs support

• Volunteering with an organization you care about

• Giving your time, presence, or resources where they’re needed

• Supporting a cause that aligns with your values

• Surprising someone by buying their coffee or meal or gorceries — or doing a dreaded chore at home

• Sitting in silence, prayer, or meditation, and remembering the Good is always there

• Feeding yourself well or napping so you have the capacity to give

Some acts of goodness take five minutes.
Some take planning.
Some take courage.
All of them matter.

Some days the goodness will be quiet and personal.
Other days, it will be visible and shared.
Both matter.

This isn’t about perfection or performance.
It’s about intention.
About choosing, again and again, to participate in the world with care.

Later today, I’ll post a simple check-in over on Substack Notes where you’re welcome to share one small way you practiced being the Good.

You can find the daily check-ins in the Notes section here on Substack — just click the “Notes” tab at the top of the page, or visit the Substack app if you use it.

You can comment a specific action you took or you can keep it simple.
You can even post something like:
“Shared an anonymous act of kindness today.”

Your goodness doesn’t have to be explained to be real.
And it doesn’t have to be public to matter. This is just an invitation.

For the next 40 days, let’s become a quiet, steady wave of embodied goodness — people choosing Love on purpose in small, intentional ways. Not waiting for the world to change, but helping change it by how we show up in it, together.

I’ll be practicing right alongside you.

xo Mary

I didn’t expect to cry.

I was standing on a Mardi Gras float for the very first time, beads looped over my wrist, a fabulous hot pink wig perched on my head, my heart thudding with anticipation and expectation. Around me, people laughed and chatted, their hands busy teasing apart tangled packets of shiny beads in preparation. Below us, the crowd gathered, faces lifted, open, waiting.

For more than twenty years, I had stood down there on the ground with them. In fact. just the day before, we watched the Gemini Parade from the ground.

I knew that place well. Street level. Shoulder to shoulder with friends. The long waiting, the sudden rush when the floats appear. I knew how the air itself shifts when the parade begins, how the music carries something ancient and electric. I was familiar with unreasonable joy of catching a plastic bead and lifting it like a small triumph. It is a feeling difficult to translate for anyone who has never stood there, looking up.

This weekend, I remembered something. Joy changes when you stop waiting for it and begin giving it away. It sharpens your attention and widens your heart.

The answer to how I got to ride this year is simple and generous. My friends Lynn and Brady knew this was something I had always wanted to do, and they made sure to save a spot for me this year on their float, the Krewe of Laissez les bon temps rouler, let the good times roll.

Sometimes dreams do not arrive through grand gestures.
They arrive through a text message.

“Hey, my sweet Mary! It’s Carnival time! The Krewe of Highland rides Sunday, February 15, and we would love to have you ride this year!”

And just like that, a bucket-list wish was fulfilled.

But before we ever stepped onto the float, there was the ritual of getting ready.

I wore a hot pink wig I had bought years earlier in New Orleans at Fifi’s, a legendary wig shop on Royal street devoted to spectacle and play. Darla and Wallace came over early, and together we transformed. We donned our wigs, wove shimmering tinsel through our hair, brushed on purple eye shadow that caught the light. We laughed as we helped one another settle into versions of ourselves that were brighter, bolder, and gloriously uncontained.

By the time we arrived, the celebration had already begun. Brady and the guys had parked our float in the parade’s prime gathering spot. Music blared from Marilyn’s, the restaurant. With about twenty of us packed onto the bus, hosted by Lynn, Brady, and their son Ryan, and surrounded by close friends and new ones, the party started early. The air itself seemed to tremble with excitement.

Darla and I carried oversized bags filled with ramen packets and Moon Pies onto the float and found our place to stand. My friend Eddie, who had been in the Highland Parade in previous years, had encouraged me to bring food to supplement the beads and toys, and to save it for the neighborhoods where abundance is thinner.

He also warned me, as another Enneagram 4, that this might feel like more than a fun ride. That it might feel transcendent.

He was right. But I will get to that.

The moment I stepped onto the Mardi Gras–converted school bus, it all became suddenly real.

You could barely find a place to stand due to the abundance supplied by our hosts. Oversized purple mesh bags bulged with beads. Clear bags of colorful balls and plush toys hung from the rafters. Everything shimmered, swayed, and rustled. The bus itself felt alive, like a moving altar to generosity and excess.

There was food everywhere. King cake passed from hand to hand. Boudin sandwiches. Kolaches. Coolers brimmed with beer and water, alongside jugs of frozen Cajun daiquiris in flavors like King Cake and Cajun Tea, the latter a spicy, Long Island tea–like concoction. It was more than enough to sustain us through the long day and the three-plus hours we would spend lined up with other floats, waiting for the parade to begin.

Mardi Gras takes its time.

Friends wandered up to the float. We laughed, danced, and hula-hooped in the street before ever moving an inch. It felt less like waiting and more like being held inside joy.

And then WE ROLLED!

Mardi Gras parades throughout Louisiana are not just spectacles. They are communal rituals. They belong to everyone. This is a call-and-response celebration, an exchange.

You throw. They catch.
They smile. You smile back.
You offer abundance, and it multiplies.

As a first-timer, I had not realized that once the parade begins, you never stop moving. You are either throwing or bending to lift packets of beads, breaking the paper seals, untangling them, and tossing again and again. You run out, reach down, and start all over. For two and a half hours, the ride was constant motion.

There were brief pauses. Moments when I turned to the friends beside me and exchanged a grin or a breathless laugh, silently acknowledging the happiness we were sharing. Then back to it. Bend. Lift. Untangle. Toss. Repeat.

And then there was the sweetness of recognition.

I saw so many familiar faces along the route. I do not live in Louisiana anymore. I moved to Colorado five years ago. So to look out over that sea of people and suddenly recognize someone I loved caught me completely off guard.

There was Jessica, my favorite hairdresser. I spotted her just in time and tossed a bead straight toward her, laughing as she reached up and caught it. I waved wildly to friends from my filmmaking days and the theater community, people from earlier chapters of my life who still live close to my heart. For a moment, the parade fell away and the distance between then and now collapsed. It was playful and loud and silly, and also deeply tender. A sweet remembering of the years I spent here, the communities that shaped me, and the friendships that endure even when our lives carry us far apart.

Then my gaze widened again.

Black, Brown, Asian, Caucasian. Faces of every shade lifted toward us. Children and elders. Families pressed shoulder to shoulder. Teenagers dancing without self-consciousness. Grandparents wrapped in blankets, waving from folding chairs. Parents lifting babies high. I was too busy being present to take photos.

There were many children with special needs too. Kids in wheelchairs. Kids with noise-canceling headphones. Kids whose joy showed up in their own beautiful ways. A little girl perched on her mama’s hip was in tears. She had not caught anything yet. I caught her mother’s eye, lifted a bead in question, and tossed it gently their way. The mother smiled and mouthed, thank you. And then I watched the little girl’s face change as she realized, suddenly and unmistakably, that she belonged. Over and over again, variations of this theme.

Hands reached up everywhere. Small hands. Weathered hands. Hands with painted nails and calloused palms. Open in the same gesture of hope and anticipation. Each toss an interaction. Each face a story. The exchange of joy flowing back and forth between us.

From the float, you do not see a crowd.

You see humanity.

So many different bodies. So many different abilities. So many cultures and stories. Not erased into sameness. Not separated by fear. Standing side by side in shared delight.

It was overwhelming in the best way.

Just minutes in, I felt tears well up. I could feel my Enneagram 4 heart opening wide, recognizing beauty, meaning, and belonging all at once. I had to turn away for a moment to let it pass through me. I was not sad. I was not overstimulated. I was undone by the beauty of joy moving freely across difference, unguarded and unashamed.

By the end of the route, our little gang on the bus danced and celebrated together. The music still blared. Bodies were tired but buoyant. We leaned into one another, laughing, savoring what we had shared, nearly losing our balance as the bus lurched forward mid-celebratory dance.

My hands were blackened from the beads, dusted with the same dark soot that coats everything inside those paper packets. My face was smudged too, mixed now with tears of appreciation. The grit and the grace were indistinguishable.

Joy, I learned, leaves traces. It sharpens attention. It widens the heart.

When the parade finally ended and the float came to a stop, my hands were empty. My arms and back were tired. My face was streaked, but my heart was full.

I had not expected to cry. I had not expected to be marked by joy. But there I was, soot-streaked, tear-filled, restored.

We headed back to Lynn and Brady’s house in celebration.

When I stepped off the bus, I climbed down differently than I had climbed up.

Some moments do not just entertain us.
They restore us.

This one did.

xo Mary

Happy Fat Tuesday, y’all! My heart is full.

Have you ever experienced a moment that unexpectedly widened your heart? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Leave a comment

Hey there, friends!

This month marks four years since I sent the first Heart’s Content out into the world. At the time, I really had no idea what it might become, or who might find their way here.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning, or have been here for a good long while, thank you. I don’t take your presence lightly. You’ve helped shape this space simply by showing up.

And because this has always been more of a gathering than a monologue—
hello, and welcome if you’re new. I’m really glad you found your way in.

We’ve had another gentle wave of new subscribers recently, and I keep finding myself a little amazed by that. I wish I could meet you all. Truly. When I imagine everyone who reads this in one room—people from different places and seasons of life—it fills me with a kind of wonder I don’t quite have words for. Writing can feel like sending words out into the dark. Knowing they land somewhere human matters more than I can say.

This space exists because of you.
Heart’s Content is a place for reflection, warmth, and the quiet work of becoming.

If you’re new, I hope you’ll make yourself at home.
If you’ve been here a while, thank you for walking alongside me.

For me, these first days of February hold a quiet hinge in the year.

Imbolc (February 1) and Candlemas (February 2) arrive side by side, each in their own language pointing toward the same truth: the light is returning, even if winter is not finished.

Imbolc comes from the old Celtic world and speaks to what is stirring beneath the surface. Seeds in the dark earth. Milk returning to the ewes. The sense, faint but real, that something has shifted, even if the landscape still looks the same.

Imbolc does not ask us to bloom.
It asks us to tend.

Candlemas, from the Christian tradition, names the light more directly. It remembers the moment when the infant Jesus is brought into the temple and recognized as a light for the world. On this day, candles are blessed for simple use, not for spectacle. Light meant to be carried into kitchens and sickrooms, into long evenings and ordinary days.

Not blazing light.
Steady, intentional light.
Light you can carry.

What I love is how these two days speak to one another across traditions. One says, something is awakening. The other says, carry the flame anyway.

But what do I mean by carry the flame anyway?

I mean this: carry it even when the days are still cold and the world doesn’t look much different yet. Carry it when the work feels small, or slow, or unseen. Carry it when you’re tired, when clarity hasn’t arrived, when hope feels more like a discipline than a feeling. When the world feels dark, uncertain, even dangerous.

Candlemas doesn’t promise that the darkness is over. It simply blesses the light we already have and asks us to use it. To bring it into ordinary spaces. To let it guide our next few steps. To trust that faithful light matters, even when it isn’t dramatic.

Carrying the flame anyway is a spiritual practice and a moral choice: to stay present, to act with care, and to refuse withdrawal even when the darkness has not lifted.

Carrying the flame anyway looks like:
showing up,
choosing community over withdrawal,
tenderness over cynicism,
steadiness over spectacle.

It means remembering that even a small light changes the room.

This is the season for both listening and for taking aligned action.
For trusting what is happening quietly.
For staying close to what is small but true.

And still, light is not meant to stay private.

So if you’re wondering how to tend that light in ways that matter right now, here are three gentle invitations. Not a checklist. Just places to rest your attention.

First, remember that you are not meant to do this alone.
If you are not already connected, consider joining or returning to a group or organization that reflects your values: justice, compassion, creativity, care for the earth, spiritual grounding, community healing. Especially in hard seasons, belonging matters. Shared work steadies us. Carrying light into darkness was never meant to be a solo endeavor.

Second, practice carrying light in ordinary, faithful ways.
This might look like showing up consistently in one small place, your neighborhood, a classroom, a circle, a sanctuary, a kitchen table. Candlemas reminds us that light doesn’t need to be loud to be real. It just needs to be tended.

Third, tend your inner light as carefully as your outer commitments.
Imbolc teaches us that what is forming in the dark needs protection. Make room for the practices that keep you rooted: writing, walking, prayer, silence, art, breath. This is not retreat from the world. It is how we remain able to meet it with clarity and compassion.

If you are tired, that makes sense.
If things feel unfinished, you are not behind.
If you can only name the light by the way you feel drawn toward it, that is enough.

So I’ll leave you with the same gentle question I’m holding myself:

What small light are you carrying right now?

You don’t have to explain it.
You don’t have to prove it.
Just notice it. And keep tending it.

With gratitude,
xo Mary

COMMUNITY CARE:

Getting involved doesn’t have to mean creating something new or knowing exactly what to do. Often, it’s simply a matter of noticing what’s already happening around you and allowing yourself to step a little closer.

Carrying the flame is both inward and outward. It shapes how we live, and how we belong.

Here are a few gentle ways that might look.

1. Attaching yourself to something that already exists.
This could be a local organization, a mutual-aid group, a faith community, an arts collective, or a justice-focused nonprofit. Showing up in whatever way feels sustainable is enough. Community care often deepens when we lend our presence to work that’s already unfolding.

2. Becoming a familiar face in one small place.
A neighborhood, a school, a library, a food pantry, a park clean-up, a community garden—any place where people already gather. Returning again and again is what allows relationships to form. Care grows through trust and familiarity.

3. Offering what you already have.
Time. Listening. A meal. A ride. Organizing skills. Creative gifts. Steady attention. Community care doesn’t require special expertise. It often begins with availability, with showing up just as you are.

3 SMALL THINGS WORTH SHARING:

1. I’ve started this series and am savoring it. Riot Women on BritBox. Smart, sharp, and gloriously unruly. Perfect if you like your television with a little anti-patriarchy bite.

2. I’m currently on a dance, dance, dance mission. So committed, in fact, that I turned a basement room into my own mini dance studio. But you don’t need one of those. Put on a favorite song and dance in your kitchen. Truly. Instant mood lifter. There’s something about moving the body that shifts the nervous system, releases endorphins, and brings us back into ourselves. You have full permission to dance. No witnesses or IG reels required.

3. And lastly, this yummy vegan chili recipe did not exaggerate its claim as the best vegan chili ever. You will not miss the meat. (I haven’t for decades, but even dedicated meat eaters will happily go back for seconds.) Cozy, hearty, and deeply satisfying.

Dear friends,

I want to pause and speak directly to you—the ones who chose to support my writing with your paid subscriptions over these past few years.

Thank you. Truly. Your presence, your trust, and your willingness to invest in my words have meant more to me than I can say. Knowing you were there—reading, responding, walking alongside me—has been a st…

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Hello, dear ones—

It’s truly good to be back with you. I’ve been holding you in mind and wondering how you are doing as we step into this new year together.

The start of this year has been woven with both the terrible and the beautiful here in the United States. I know that you—like me—are carrying a lot and longing for moments of respite from the struggle and the pain. There is grief in the air, and it asks something of us.

Consider this a small room of calm in the middle of everything else.

So let’s do this together. Let’s acknowledge that we are holding sorrow and sobriety for what is unfolding around us—and also give ourselves permission to pause. Just for a few minutes. To rest our nervous systems. To remember the love that surrounds us, even now.

If you’re willing, take a deep breath with me.
And another.
And one more.

Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw soften. Feel the place where you are sitting or standing. You are here. You are not alone. And you are held—by breath, by presence, by community, and by the quiet strength that lives beneath all the noise.

I’m grateful to be back in this space with you. What follows is a mix of personal updates and a few gentle self-care companions—shared in case they might help you too.

January Gifts

✨ BTS tickets secured! One of those pinch-me moments to start the year. With millions of people trying to get tickets during presale and stadiums selling out in minutes, I still can’t quite believe I managed to snag seats with two of my besties. The joy of it hasn’t worn off. There’s something about saying yes to delight—especially shared delight—in the middle of all the chaos that feels quietly radical right now. Music, friendship, anticipation. All of it medicine.

🩰 Permission To Dance A new dance studio (with a touch of sanctuary). Downstairs, a tired basement room has been slowly transformed into a space that makes me smile. It’s now a dance studio —a place to move my body, play with music, and feel joy again. It’s also become a small sanctuary, a quiet place to breathe and reset. Moving my body has been bringing me real happiness lately, and it turns out that making room for joy is its own kind of care.

❄️ Our first real snow weekend. We finally got our first honest weekend of snow, the kind that hushes everything and makes staying in feel like a gift instead of a retreat. It felt like an invitation into wintering—into rest, into pulling close, into letting the world be smaller for a while. I hope you stayed warm wherever you are, and that this season has offered you at least one moment of quiet beauty—a slower morning, a softened landscape, or the deep exhale that comes when we allow ourselves not to push.

January Companions:

Here are a few gentle companions that have been supporting me this month, in case they’re helpful to you too.

• Finch Self Care App

One thing that’s genuinely surprised me this month is the self-care app Finch Care.

It gamifies mental health by giving you a small virtual bird to care for through real-world self-care habits. It’s highly rated, but I still didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I do. I assumed it might feel a little silly—or like one more thing to keep up with—but instead it’s felt sweet and surprisingly grounding.

It’s free, which helps. And there’s something oddly encouraging about being gently “rewarded” for doing things I’m already trying to do anyway—drinking water, taking a few breaths, moving my body, checking in with myself. Nothing big. Nothing performative. Just small acts of daily care that add up.

What’s surprised me most is how much it’s helped with consistency. Sharing those small self-care moments with friends inside the app and cheering one another on feels genuinely fun and connective, especially in winter. It’s become a quiet companion—and I didn’t see that coming.

• Wintering by Katherine May

I’ve shared this before, but it’s worth circling back to Wintering. It’s a book that feels different each time you return to it—especially in seasons when rest, retreat, and self-care aren’t optional but necessary. A quiet, generous reminder that slowing down is not failure, but part of the natural cycle.

• Nervous System Regulators

• A 4-minute meditation. You Are Here: Become Present
  My friends often send me good stuff. This wonderful grounding meditation was shared by my friend, Gina. This 4-minute visualization invites you to become present to your life and remember what matters most.

An Update on the Memoir

Lately, I’ve felt myself drawn back into the presence of the little girl who tells these stories. What encourages me most is how different it feels now. The work no longer carries the sharp edge of pain or anxiety it once did. Instead, it feels spacious. Tender. Even welcoming.

I look forward to my writing time in a way I couldn’t before. The hardest part—the excavating, the breaking open, the naming—has mostly been done. What remains is a quieter, more attentive kind of work: listening closely to her voice, clarifying it, and honoring it with the care it deserves. Editing and polishing no longer feel like correction. They feel like devotion.

There is so much to work with now. And my hope, as I continue, is not just to tell these stories more clearly, but to take them deeper—to let them say what they were always trying to say, in their own time and in their own way.

A Closing Blessing

“The world is now too dangerous and too beautiful for anything but love.
Consciously, deliberately, to love everyone.” - James Baldwin

That last sentence is the part many people leave off, but it’s actually the heart of it. Baldwin wasn’t talking about sentimental love or vague goodwill. He meant love as a conscious, disciplined choice—something practiced on purpose, especially when it’s hard.

—-

As you return to your days,
may love be more than an idea you admire.
May it be a practice you choose,
again and again, in small and faithful ways.

May you be given what you need for this moment—
enough strength, enough rest, enough courage.
May you trust the pace of your own becoming,
and know that tending your heart
is not separate from tending the world.

Go gently.
Go rooted in love.
And may that love hold you,
even now.

xo Mary

This month a portion of your paid subscription benefitted: RED CROSS of Northern Colorado this month! Thank you!

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Hi, Friends. The plan was to send this out yesterday, but alas, today it is! Thank you for understanding as I find my way back to my regular rhythm here.

A note: These moments are not arranged by month or season, but gathered the way memory works—spontaneously, not by chronology. Big moments sit beside small ones. Some are expanded, others simply named. Together, these 100 moments tell the story of a year lived with intention, connection, and a growing willingness to notice what mattered as it was happening. Paying attention to the curriculum of life.

May these moments remind me that paying attention is a form of love—and that a life gathered this way is already enough.

xo Mary

1. The 2025 Winter Solstice Paper-Pulling Ritual: I wrote one goal on ten small slips of paper, drawing one each day and letting it go. On the final day, the last slip revealed my primary intention for the year. What did I pull? Learn Hangul. At the time, I had no idea I’d be traveling to Seoul that summer—or that those new skills would help me get by, conversationally, with Uber drivers and others along the way.

2. On that same trip, by sheer luck—and a big mistake calculating South Korean won into dollars—Darla and I ended up with VIP tickets in the second row at Jin’s opening weekend in Goyang. Jin, a member of the global phenomenon BTS—and there I was, seeing him in Korea. The night felt utterly magical and heart-filling, the kind of joy that lifts you out of yourself and leaves you glowing long after it’s over: hands down, the best concert experience of my life thus far.

3. Only love is real.
   Everything else is noise, fear, or forgetting.

4. Come into your heart first—then write.
   Creation follows presence, not pressure.

5. Create beyond your writing.
   Collage, movement, dance—let the body speak what words can’t yet hold.

6. Find playful ways to tell even the hardest stories.
   Tell the sad story as comedy. Tell it like you’re on The Tonight Show.
   You’re already trained in sorrow—what happens if you approach it sideways?

7. I purchased my first wooden puzzle from Liberty Puzzles in Boulder—a whale, chosen for its spiritual meaning and quiet presence. A small, meditative joy.

8. A beautiful Seder meal with friends

9. Crossed the line into “legal” elderhood - Medicare, and a lot of discounts, and even more gray hair. As Ron says, more trips now to the “parts” department!

10. In our third year in this house, I was finally able to turn more attention toward our home—remodeling my office, organizing our storage room, refurnishing the family room, and infusing our spaces with more color, creativity, and a sense of lived-in joy that feels like us.

11. Fill your soft sack with your medicine stories. Gather the moments that healed you.

12. Learning the hard, holy work of mothering grown children—holding space for their heartbreak without fixing or rescuing, trusting the Great Mother to hold them even when I cannot.

13. A girls’ trip to Sedona with The Six—a small group of women from many different places who have formed a committed circle of friendship. Watching our relationships deepen reminded me that women need other women, and that friendships—old and new—are essential and worth choosing again and again.

14. Watching the holiday lights come on in Old Town Square with friends, the night softening and brightening all at once.

15. Our daughter Aiyana got engaged. She said YES on a mountaintop, and our happiness is still echoing. It was a day for the books!

16. My first experience of the aurora borealis in Northern Colorado skies, driving through town in open-mouthed wonder as the lights danced over the mountains.

17. Binging The Summer I Turned Pretty with no shame and comparing notes with Megan.

18. A special night out with Aiyana—dinner and a play by a local playwright at the Denver Theatre Center. Time together that felt both ordinary and special

19. A fall road trip with friends to see the leaves in southern Colorado—windows down, color everywhere, the kind of beauty that asks nothing of you but attention.

20. An overnight at the YMCA of the Rockies with girlfriends, making crafts and walking the stone labyrinth there

21. We watched our daughter Megan face heartbreak—and then rise to meet it, choosing herself through a joyous month-long solo journey across Europe. At the same time, we were also proud of Aiyana, who spoke publicly and truthfully about her experience of being groomed by a once-famous band member, refusing silence and protecting her own integrity. In different ways, each of our daughters met harm with courage, and seeing their resilience and strength was profoundly moving.

22. The Deep Dive Writing Conference and additional writing workshops—being stretched, encouraged, and reminded that I am not alone in this work.

23. The Centering Prayer Summit weekend online, hosted by Closer Than Breath—a deepening of silence and trust.

24. A solo trip to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for the Women’s Dream Quest. Sleeping in the cathedral and walking the labyrinth by candlelight at 2 am.

25. Memoir Revision Bootcamp with Katie Bannon, and the courageous act of turning my manuscript over to her for a developmental edit

26. A Mardi Gras family meal, bringing a little Louisiana into our Colorado winter.

27. Creating a 90-minute labyrinth workshop with PowerPoint—shaping years of lived practice into something I can offer to many different communities.

28. A solo overnight retreat at the Abbey of St. Walburga in northern Colorado—quiet, rhythm, chant, and rest.

29. Dinner circles with friends from my spiritual community

30. Finding a new spiritual director—a quiet but significant turning point.

31. Walks with Java at River’s Edge

32. Maybe I should have been a therapist—but I chose acting instead.
    And acting became therapy.
    And storytelling became healing.
    And healing became the real work.

33. Heated yoga

34. Share more of your lived life, and do it courageously.
    Ordinary days already carry medicine.

35. Multiple family losses. Supporting my Aunt Sunny in Maine through her hospice journey as her medical POA and saying goodbye in April. Losing our sweet Bali, our 16-year-old Yorkie, in September—and being given an oil painting commissioned by our daughters as a Christmas gift. And then losing my dear brother-in-love Ross in December after a long illness. So much grief, and so much love.

36. Support of my Living School Writer’s Group—a steady circle holding this work with care.

37. First beta readers reading my full manuscript draft—vulnerable and affirming all at once

38. Aiyana and I visited a wedding venue together outside of Boulder—and it was perfect. The kind of place that feels right the moment you step into it. We booked it that day, and she went home with a happy heart, a bottle of champagne, and a wedding planning binder in hand.

39. Meeting new neighbors, Marsha and Yujin, at their open house—an immediate soul-level connection that later led to being hosted by Yujin in Seoul this summer. Soul friends, unmistakably.

40. Two of my oldest and dearest friends moved to my city this year—Linda from Shreveport and Darla from Japan. The extraordinary gift of having lifelong friends nearby in this season of life. Indescribable.

41. Being enriched by reading multiple books by Phil Cousineau, along with memoirs and non-fiction focused on trauma and healing.

42. Trust radically in the love within that guides you.

43. Call on the ancestors and Amma when you need help.
    I am never creating alone.

44. Sinners—my favorite film of the year. That ancestral music scene still lingers.

45. Rewatching every season of Stranger Things and diving wholeheartedly into the final season with my family. Decorating for a Christmas night viewing party, seeing the finale in the theater on New Year’s night, and being completely obsessed alongside Megan. A shared joy I will always treasure.

46. I learned a great deal about how I actually curate and tend knowledge for myself.

47. Monthly family meals- small rituals that matter

48. Lots of dental work - which is no fun- but I’m grateful to have it all behind me.

49. Welcoming several new creative-spiritual companions and walking closely with them through seasons of listening, healing, and becoming.

50. In a year of much loss, choosing joy through the holidays—Megan’s birthday and Spooky Food Night, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year’s Day Open House.

51. Our first New Year’s Day Open House in Colorado—Ron’s long-standing spaghetti and meatballs tradition, now at altitude, bringing together friends from afar, old friends now nearby, and new friends—our life finally gathered in one place.

52. Volunteering at Community Kitchen, preparing meals for the unhoused

53. Hand-painting watercolor note cards

54. Attended a Rick Springfield concert with my girlfriends and watched the sheer joy of my friend Melissa who is his number one fan.

55. Multiple trips to Shreveport—the long work of clearing Ron’s parents’ home, the estate sale, and the tender, final goodbye of letting the house go.

56. Writing a four-part Mother’s Day series that let me go deeper into the layered wounds of mothers and mothering.

57. Organized and facilitated a community-wide World Labyrinth Day event with my team at church

58. Love yourself with the unconditional love of the Great Mother.
    Begin there. Let that be the tone of all becoming.

59. Contemplative Enneagram Summit online

60. Weekly girlfriends date with The Six

61. Meeting my almost son-in-law Jordan’s family

62. Creating and co-facilitating the May retreat, Winding Path to the Center in Maine, with my dear friend Rachael Barham—women gathering for rest, contemplation, creativity, and labyrinth walks, held by a cozy cabin in the woods near the water.

63. Taking time away from my Substack rhythm to tend to family and grief, then returning to find the community still there—and growing.

64. Waking each morning to Ron’s “good morning,” sharing our first cups of coffee, and often talking for hours before the day begins.

65. Java sleeping in our bed after losing his brother Bali—comfort and shared warmth.

66. Realizing my life is no longer lived in compartments

67. Another year of returning to the healing work of my memoir, trusting its timing while continuing to move toward completion.

68. A 2023 post, A Letter to My Estranged Sisters, resurfaced this year and carried my words farther than I imagined—opening unexpected connections and community.

69. Thursday breakfasts with Linda - #1 and #4 please, with sourdough bread

70. Mani-pedis and coffee dates with Darla

71. Text threads that keep me tethered to people I love

72. Daytrips with Ron to Estes Park or just as far as the Colorado Cherry Company

73. Starting and forgetting my gratitude list, then falling asleep, naming ten things I’m grateful for from the day in my head.

74. Friday mornings with my ACA sponsor - real talk and loving support

75. Weekly 12-step recovery meetings - ACA and Alanon and the expereince, strength and hope I find there, again and again

76. The indescribable gift of watching your adult children love each other well

77. Hip Hop Fitness classes

78. In Shreveport, friends who have known and loved me through many seasons—bringing lunch when I couldn’t leave the house we were clearing, or meeting me when I could for heart-centered conversation.

79. In Sedona, I faced a physical fear and climbed slick red rock to a breathtaking vista. But the best part? Women helping women—friends and strangers reaching out a hand, cheering each other on. It reminded me how sacred it is to witness and support one another mid-climb.

80. In Tokyo, I tasted the fluffiest Japanese pancakes, visited gardens, temples and palaces, and dressed in a kimono for a tea ceremony with dear friends. I brought home a tiny bell from a temple that now jingles on my purse. Every time I hear it, I’m reminded to breathe—and to remember that I can choose peace of mind again and again.

81. And then there’s Korea. Visiting and sharing a meal with my friend, Yujin, trying every street food on my list (with joy), practicing Hangul with Uber drivers, and sitting in the second row at a BTS concert with my bestie to see Jin perform live. It was the concert of my life ( thus far).

82. What I bring home from travel isn’t just a story. It’s also joy. I travel for wonder, for beauty, for the quiet thrill of navigating another culture with reverence and curiosity. I love the challenge of a new language, the taste of something I’ve never tried, the shared laughter with strangers who feel like soul-kin. These moments—of delight, awe, connection, even the unexpected—soften me. They wake me up. They remind me who I am, and how I want to walk through the world: open-hearted, curious, and always willing to be transformed.

83. Having multiple safe spaces to speak honestly about what is unfolding in our country and the world—people I trust to hold my fears, questions, and confusion with care.

84. Feeling proud to belong to an open-hearted faith community that walks its talk, welcomes and loves all, and stands with the marginalized—where we remember who we are and encourage one another to live it out.

85. Five years in Colorado, and I still catch myself in awe.

86. Laughing with Ron. Again and again.

87. The cologne Ron wears for me. Best smelling man on the planet. #Confirmed

88. Not winning the Hay House publishing contest, but learning how the industry works—and feeling deeply proud of myself for putting my work forward.

89. Learning to step back from overcommitment and set boundaries, even with things I love.

90. Creating Your Creative-Spiritual Compass: The Heart’s Content Questionnaire—what began as personal curiosity became a way to foster deeper connection and shared wisdom.

91. Making a small piece of art for Ron’s kitchen—humor, love, and “Don’t stir the pot.”

92. Joining others in the community to peacefully protest government actions.

93. Going on creative outings with another large women’s group in town

94. Buying more writing books than I can keep up with—and loving the way they look on my shelves.

95. Tell the truth, and enjoy the process of telling it.

96. Realizing I’ll never be able to do it all—and that it’s okay. Curate.

97. Stretching more before bed

98. Being inspired by so many beautiful people and places

99. Trusting myself more—I trust my memory. I trust my intuition. I trust my body.

100. 2025 was overfull—sometimes in the best ways, sometimes to the point of overwhelm. My word for 2026 is spaciousness.

If you’re new to Heart’s Content, I’m really glad you found your way here. Welcome!

I write at the intersection of personal story, recovery, creativity, and spiritual life, with a deep affection for the slow, honest work of becoming more fully ourselves.

I’m grateful you’re here, and I trust you’ll settle in at your own pace. If you’d like to learn more about me and this space, the About Page is a good place to start.

Dear Friends,

Well, hey! I’ve got to admit, it’s a little challenging to step back into this space after being away from it for a few months. Not only away from writing here, but not hanging out here. Not sharing notes. Not reading much in the space.

It’s true what they say. When you break a rhythm, any rhythm, it can be hard to find your way back. But it’s January, and I noticed an inner voice piping up. You need to get back to Substack. C’mon, girl, it’s time.

And here’s the thing — I love it here. This is one of the healthiest online spaces I inhabit, filled with thoughtful, generous people and deeply nourishing writing.

Still, coming back after time away can feel a bit like shifting back to nutritious food after all the holiday splurges. Even when it’s what feeds and nourishes us, it can take a moment for the body to remember.

In October, I chose to pause my rhythm of posts here to give myself more breathing room. My youngest is planning a wedding, and we also lost my beloved brother-in-law just two months after losing our precious pup Bali of 16 years. I needed to hit the pause button and focus on presence. On grief. On just being and paying attention to what was right in front of me. The curriculum of life.

I didn’t do much reading. I didn’t watch much television — okay, except Stranger Things (can we talk sometime?!) and a smidge of K-drama. Ok Pluribus, too. Mostly, though, there was just more breathing room. More spaciousness to hold me. Because of this choice, I actually enjoyed the whole holiday season a lot more.

I was also more intentional about the news. I took in only what I could actually process, keeping my nervous system calmer in the process. This wasn’t avoidance, and it was more than self-care. It was learning what I had the capacity to could hold while staying connected to life, rather than numbing out or dissociating from it or being completely swept away in the cumulative grief of the world.

It was also a time for the slow, steady work of returning to my memoir revisions. I knew I needed to focus my writing energy, not scatter it. I wanted to stay with one thing and see it through. Honestly, when it comes to writing right now, a part of me wants to be focused on nothing but the memoir. I want to stay inside it. To keep listening. To follow it all the way to the end. And while this publication has always held more than my memoir writing process, it can feel hard to set my memoir work down and write about other things when the memoir writig is what has my full heart and attention.

That said, I have been struggling with completing the memoir. I hope your laughing. But a gentle laugh, please. After a session with my spiritual director — who also happens to be a published author — I made a pact with myself to have my draft completed before my birthday this July. I’m on Draft 5, but I could truly keep drafting this thing for the rest of my life. That is not the plan. My intention is to do everything I can within my current abilities to complete it by July 2. Then I will place it in the hands of an editor and take the next steps, but I will have completed my part.

So that’s where I’ve been. Not gone. Not checked out. Just deeply immersed.

And then, while I was turned inward, something unexpected happened.

A piece I wrote some time ago, A Letter to My Estranged Sisters, began to travel beyond this space. Quietly at first. Then more widely than I ever imagined. I didn’t write that letter for an audience. I wrote it to tell the truth as honestly as I could as it came through me one morning — to name something that had lived in my body for a long time, waiting for language. I shared it publicly because I intuitively knew I wasn’t alone, and because I couldn’t share it directly with my sisters. I trusted it would reach the people who might need it most, and maybe even my sisters, though the writing itself was primarily for myself.

I don’t think that this letter could have come through me without my willingness to face my own story, and without the grounding of my writing, spiritual and recovery paths, and community.

The letter is currently not a part of the memoir, but it grew from the same ground. It emerged from the healing that came with returning to my story. The memoir itself follows another thread - one that traces the enduring, complicated bond between my mother and me. My sisters are in the story of course, but not the focus.

As the letter found its way into the wider world, many new readers found their way here as well. Since then, I’ve been hearing from many of you. Through emails, messages, and comments, you’ve shared how deeply the letter resonated — how it touched your own experiences of estrangement, longing, silence, grief, and complicated love. I am moved by your honesty and by the care with which you’ve met my words.I’m taking it in slowly and letting myself be witnessed and witnessing your comments without rushing to respond. Staying rooted in the quieter, unfinished work of the memoir, even as this conversation unfolds around it. But I will indeed respond and your loving comments have been beautiful to read.

Your responses to the letter have reminded me of something I keep learning again and again. Even when we step back. Even when we go quiet. The work we’ve already offered can ripple outward. It finds its way. It finds its people.

So this is me, returning.

I’m holding both things at once — the inward devotion of finishing the memoir, and the outward conversation the letter and Heart’s Content have opened.

Thank you for being here. For your patience. And for the care you bring to this space.

xo
Mary

I’ve been working with Abbie as a creative-spiritual companion since last January. Over time, I’ve seen her grow more anchored in her own truth and more trusting of it. Her writing explores her journey through recovery and her disentangling from a fundamentalist faith, and I’m sharing her blog here in honor of the courage it takes to keep showing up to that work, especially when the way forward isn’t always clear. You can find and follow her work here:

A sister Living School graduate and creative-spiritual client companion, Diana Teeters, recently shared a short film she created as a lament for what is happening in our country right now. I’m sharing it here to support her use of creativity as part of her spiritual path, and to honor her voice during a time that calls for honest expression. You can follow her Substact here. Below is her short film.

Hi friends,

I want to share something with you as honestly as I can: my writing brain is asking for a shift.

For the last few years, I’ve been sending out three essays a month—two for everyone and an additional one for paid subscribers. It’s been a rhythm I’ve loved, because it’s kept me close to you and close to the page. But as I turn toward these next memoir revisions, I can feel how much I need to create more space.

Writing a book like this isn’t just about rearranging sentences.

It’s about returning to the deepest parts of my story with patience and courage. It asks for my whole attention, and to give it that, I need to step back a little here.

So through the end of this year, I’ll be setting aside my monthly three-essay rhythm. You may still hear from me now and then—a little note, a poem, or something I can’t resist sharing—but I’ll be holding most of my writing energy for the memoir.

Come January 2026, I’ll revisit my Substack rhythm and see what feels right for the season ahead. I imagine I’ll return with fresh words, clearer vision, and stories that have ripened during this quieter, focused time.

Thank you, as always, for walking with me. This community steadies me, and I don’t take it for granted. Even when I’m quiet, I’ll be holding the threads of connection that weave us together.

With gratitude,
xo Mary

P.S. for my dear paid subscribers:

Your support is helping me carve out the time and courage to give my memoir the deep attention it needs in this season. I won’t be sending the usual once-a-month community essay for now. Instead, I may drop in from time to time with something small—a poem that’s speaking to me, a snapshot from my writing desk, or even a single sentence that feels alive in the draft.

Think of your support right now as helping midwife this book into the world. I’m so grateful you’re here with me in this quieter stretch. I realize that most of you are here because you want to support this work. When January comes, I’ll revisit my rhythm and hopefully bring you something fresh for the new year.

Until then, may you find moments of stillness to steady you, beauty that surprises you, and words that feel like home.

With love,
xo Mary

Good Morning, Friends-

It’s 7:30 a.m. on September 30th, and I’m sitting at a wrought iron table on the upper deck of the Redstone Inn in Redstone, Colorado. The air is cool and still, carrying the scent of pine and the hush of the valley. Morning jaybirds call through the trees. Directly in front of me rises a towering blue spruce; behind it, the maroon…

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Hi, friends:

Sometimes life seems to knock the words right out of us.

There are days when the world feels especially heavy and unexpected sorrow or stress unsettles everything. I sit down with the best intentions — to keep working on my memoir, to show up here in this newsletter, to make art through it all — and yet I find myself staring off into space. Unable to think, unable to move forward, just caught in that fog where focus slips away.

This past week, we said goodbye to Bali, our little Yorkie and furry family member of sixteen years. If you’ve been through this, you know. It’s been a difficult week for our family, and Ron and I are carrying a heaviness that comes in waves. We hold each other. We cry. We grieve. One moment, we’re comforted by chatting with friends, even laughing; the next, I feel irritable with everyone and everything. Grief takes so many shapes.

As a longtime journaler, sometimes I can write through grief; other times it stuns me into silence.

And of course, private grief never happens in isolation. It gets braided together with all the other heartbreak in the world — the relentless news cycle, the violence and division, the ache of uncertainty that seems to hang in the air. It’s a lot to hold, and lately it feels like both my inner and outer worlds are shaking.

In seasons like this, it’s hard to pour out. What I can do is pour in. One of the ways I do this is by leaning on the words of others — from sacred scripture and poets. Their lines become a place to rest when my own won’t come. Sometimes I even begin to memorize them — slowly, one phrase at a time — not to perform, but to let the words live in me. To take root in me. It feels less like study and more like prayer.

Poet David Whyte once said that when we learn a poem by heart, we aren’t just recalling words — we’re stepping into a “primary experience.” The poem isn’t abstract anymore; it becomes a living presence inside us, echoing the rhythm of our own breath and heartbeat. That’s why a memorized poem can feel like company: it’s not just remembered, it’s embodied. It becomes a part of us.

This week, during a morning chat with my friend Gina, we were talking about her Wednesday support group she has organized and a poem that was shared there. The timing felt like a gift. Since then, I’ve been holding it close, repeating it under my breath, letting it steady me. I offer it to you now, in case you need it too.

When the World Goes Mad
by John Roedel

when the world goes mad
become wildly kind to everyone
everyone everyone everyone

my love,

~ you can’t control much
but you control how you treat others

in these breaking news heartbreaking times
when nothing feels certain
let your raw kindness be a certainty

allow your compassion to become a North Star
stamped up in the sky for
others to follow back home

I also attended a long-planned event this week with the Fort Collins Symphony. Being immersed in their artistry and live music allowed more tears to flow. One piece in particular was new to me — an unexpected work by George Gershwin entitled Lullaby. It was soothing, and it reminded me again how art in all its forms can reach places words alone cannot.

In times like these, art is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It reminds us of beauty, stirs our grief into motion, and helps us keep going when the weight of the world feels too much.

Not everything we write will be art. Art takes energy, focus, and desire — and some days, those qualities feel far away. But even then, we can show up to someone else’s words, or music, or art. We can pour their wisdom in until the well inside us begins to rise again. We can take comfort in the company of each other.

If you’re carrying heaviness too, know I’m right here alongside you. Maybe this poem can walk with both of us until our own words return.

With tenderness,
Mary

MY COURAGEOUS LIFE

has gone ahead

and is looking back,

calling me on.

My courageous life

has seen everything

I have been

and everything

I have not

and has

forgiven me,

day after day.

My courageous life

still wants

my company:

wants me to

understand

my life as witness

and thus

bequeath me

the way ahead.

My courageous life

has the patience

to keep teaching me,

how to invent

my own

disappearance,

and how

once gone,

to reappear again.

My courageous life

wants to stop

being ahead of me

so that it can lie

down and rest

deep inside the body

it has been

calling on.

My courageous life

wants to be

my foundation,

showing me

day after day

even against my will

how to undo myself,

how to surpass myself,

how to laugh as I go

in the face

of danger,

how to invite

the right kind

of perilous

love,

how to find

a way

to die

of generosity.

…

My Courageous Life

A new version of ‘Second Life’

in STILL POSSIBLE

Poems by David Whyte

© Many Rivers Press and David Whyte