Our friend and trip planner chose our hotel because this specific boulangerie was so good. I’ll admit that I figured this would be like a bakery as we know it here in America: cupcakes, cakes, and cookies. All giant, all too sweet and sugary and paired with mugs of hot coco that are the size of my children’s heads topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Not only do I think this is entirely too much sugar for a person to consume, I also find no enjoyment in this. My personal opinion is that an overly sweet item, or a portion that is huge, is often designed to mask the lack of craft that a baker or cook has. A lack of skill is covered up by size and sugar. Most people, or at least, most Americans, tend to be enamored with large portions and extremely sweet items, but I am not one of them.

So on our first morning in Paris, I was skeptical about going to the boulangerie for breakfast. We were headed to Disneyland Paris and did not want my children to have a ton of sweets and then a sugar crash in the middle of the Peter Pan ride. But I did not know where else to go for breakfast, so we walked into the neighborhood establishment.

A boulangerie, if you have not been, is the exact opposite of a bakery that exists here in America. Yes, there are a few sweets, but it is also overloaded with fresh baguettes, the flakiest croissants, sandwiches you can take for later, a simple espresso machine, and boules on repeat. And as if I already wasn’t shocked by the array of breads and normalcy of choices, the taste was even better.

Feeding the 5,000

I had long heard from others that the bread in France was different, than the wheat was better and would not leave us with the unwanted effects of bloating, headaches, sluggishness and would leave us feeling satisfied. And it was all correct. We not only ate here the morning that we went to Disneyland, and were satisfied all the way until lunch, but it became our daily routine the week we were in Paris.

Over the course of a few days frequenting the boulangerie, and after one day that I spilled my espresso all over the floor, we became friends with the people working there. We talked weather and what it was like in Texas, we discussed how everyone in France takes the month of August off, and learned something about boulangeries that have stuck with me:

they are the heart of the neighborhood.

Boulangeries are not just bakeries that you go to for sweets, they are where you get your daily bread for your home and your meals and your kids’ lunches. But they also supply the bread for every restaurant in the neighborhood.

The boulangerie is the beginning and end of the supply chain. It is not a factory somewhere else in the city. It is not a big box brand that is shipped across the country, caked with preservatives and gums and grains that sacrifice health and taste for cost.

Everyone and every restaurant gets their bread from this local bakery. There is a reciprocity involved, and this is why there are so many across Paris; because fresh-baked bread is thought to be a human right, not a luxury. In fact, the bread is priced in such a way that everyone can afford it.

To me, the boulangerie is the living embodiment of feeding the 5,000. All are fed.

This is the exact opposite experience as it is here in America. We rely on big companies to give us bread that sits in a plastic bag for weeks on the shelves in the store. Sometimes, they don’t even get moldy or go bad. As Nate Bargetze says, it’s “farm to factory to table”. There are lots of hands and machines and sprays and additives before they reach our tables.

But not only is this a health concern, I also was astounded by how much the craft of bread baking is such a lost art, and that how the convenience of something trumps the support of a locally owned business.

Becoming a little more French

Upon our return from Paris, I wanted things we had learned on our travels to change our way of life. So we sought out to find a local boulangerie, or the closest American version that we could find. We wanted something that was fresh baked daily, no preservatives, locally owned, and good wheat.

Over the past two years, we have fully switched and get every single piece of bread from this “boulangerie”. And in this effort, we have found a mill that we get all our flour from and try and eat at places that make their breads from this locally milled flour as well. This is not easy; the bakery is about an hour from our house, as is the mill and the restaurants that use their flour are also not close. Austin is not a walkable city like Paris. We end up buying more than we need on each visit and then freezing it until we are ready to eat it.

But for us, it’s worth it.

We want to support local farmers, local business, and we also see a difference in our health after switching to eating these flours and breads exclusively. And while it’s not the same model as the French boulangerie offers, it is the closest we can get here in Texas, and we feel really good about it.

I took a bite…and cried

I know that Austin is a destination city for lots of people so I don’t want to keep this information to myself. I will do a write up on the mill and bakery each because there is lots to say about them, but for now I will leave you with a recommendation of a pizza place we found that uses the mill’s flours and was maybe the best pizza I’ve had in Austin.

Located in the fun and hip Hyde Park neighborhood you’ll find Allday pizza. It also happens to be located next to my favorite independent bookstore, First Light Books. And while I have seen the sign many times, I assumed it was an over-priced brunch restaurant and never went in.

My mistake!

The great thing about Allday, besides their dough, is that you can buy a whole pie, or mix and match six slices to make a pie of your own! The slices were absolutely HUGE and I could only manage to eat two.

We tried the Cheese, Sweet Sausage, Stracciatella, Pepperoni, and then, Dill Pickle.

I only got once piece of the Dill Pickle because I was hesitant, but my curiosity got the best of me. It was ricotta cheese instead of red sauce, thinly slicked dill pickles with lemon breadcrumbs and fresh dill.

I actually cried when I took a bite. It was fab-u-lous! My only regret is that I didn’t get a whole Dill Pickle pie.

Oh and did I mention they also homemade soft serve? And yes, I’m so glad you asked, that is salted Carmel that was the actual, real, homemade deal.

Yes, it took 30 or so minutes to get there. Yes, it was more expensive than ordering from the pizza chain, but it upholds the concept of the boulangerie that we learned from the Parisians as part of the vital ecosystem of a city.

Oh, and, right when you walk in there is a great little shelf with tons of notes and drawings from people coming to the pizza shop.

Which, was also present at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris. Coincidence? I think not! Even the Universe is confirming I am becoming more French. Little by little, day by day, I mean as much as you can in Texas.

xoxo,

B.

And while there are many non-authors who follow me on here, I also have a few authors who do, not to mention the fact that everything I write about writing is about writing and it’s not about writing at all.

So, I think I’ll take you through an actual timeline of this book and what it’s like to write a novel. Or at least, what it’s like for me to write a novel. A good friend of mine wrote me today to tell me that she was incorporating her research into her timeline and then was almost at the point where she could begin writing.

And honestly, I was so shocked. That is another way to do the thing. I hadn’t considered this.

This is about writing and it’s not about writing.

I don’t use an outline.

My research is on small notecards or sticky notes that are kind of strewn all over the places.

I sit down and I just begin.

Recently, I had a friend ask, “Do you take writing courses or is it just you alone with your candles and typewriter in the corner?”

It is unequivocally the latter.

So for this book, which is actually a fictional food memoir (I don’t know if that is a real genre or not, but we are sticking to it) I have written the first chapter three different times and this week I am working on finishing up the third draft.

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But I want to be clear on the actual timeline here:

• July 2025: Idea for a food memoir

• September 2025: Roped my sister and mom into coming with me to Europe so I could take a class at Le Cordon Bleu on how to make a Beef Wellington

• December 2025: took said course in London

• February 2026: Wrote the first chapter, hated it, and scrapped it

• March 2026: Wrote the first chapter again, hated it, and scrapped it

• May 2026: Life took over

• June 2026: Attempt number three at the first chapter, loved it. Ready to proceed.

One of the most important decisions you can make as a writer is the tone in which you want people to read it. All three versions of my first chapters are completely different and actually could be turned into three different novels. But for me, I have to try them out by writing them before I know how I want to continue.

Here are the three versions I have messed around with so far:

• Heartfelt, deep, and emotional out of the gates.

• Tongue in cheek, abrasive, and a bit bitchy

• Humorous, technical, and deep with metaphor

After writing all three, I decided to go with the third one. The third option is actually going to be the hardest for me to write, because metaphors are hard to do well without being cheesy or outright, and I need to get my technical cooking terminology down. The second version of the story, where I can be a bitch about a topic and hide under the fact that it’s a fictional character, and even the first option of heart bleeding on the page were not the right fit.

But here’s the question that demands an answer: how did I know?

Well, how do you know when something isn’t the right choice? How do you decide what to do next, or what to make or create, or who to hire, or where to move?

The answer for me is that I feel it.

I don’t necessarily feel that something is right, but I feel that the others are not. If it is not the right direction, I feel:

• claustrophobic inside, like I have nowhere to go from here

• like I am forcing the words and tone out of me

• like I am trying too hard to say what I should just say to someone’s face

• a true boredom, that I could write it with my eyes closed and half asleep

• and that I know where the story will end up.

While all these points are valid and worthy of consideration, it is the last one that I hang my hat on.

When I write, I want to be totally and utterly surprised about where the book is going, who the characters are, and what it is they will do in the end. I literally do not know these things when I begin to write. I have a vague idea of what the book will be about, but the rest? I count on being surprised by. For me, this is the absolutely fun of writing a novel, and if I am not having fun, then I wont be doing it.

Almost every time I finish a chapter, I walk out of my office and say, “Wow! I didn’t see that coming!”

I never want to believe that I know the trajectory of a story. My job is not to direct the story but to receive it and to stay open enough that whatever it wants to be has a chance to be just that.

This is about writing. And it’s not about writing.

xoxo,

B.

We are so connected in the digital world, but in my heart I know there is a better way. One that gets you and I off our screens and into our own thoughts and bodies and then in the world. So, I had this idea and decided to run with it.

It’s called: like butter. Poems for melting rumination

It’s a monthly mailer that has a poem from an awesome poet and a little remedy/prescription/usage instructions.

It came to me through three main loves:

• Poetry

• Meditation

• and butter.

There is a great Zen meditation called Soft Butter. Originating from Zen Master Hakuin (1686-1768), this meditation was said to heal all ailments inside of him.

And of course, because I find butter and meditation to be healing as well. I use both of these remedies on a daily basis. And the only other thing that heals my soul as these two do is: poetry.

The world is full of news and stories and worries and fears, and sometimes we can carry all of this inside of us plus those unending thoughts and anxieties and we end up just ruminating^.. My hope is that this monthly poetry prescription will help you deal with the ruminating in a way that only butter can teach us:

• melting

• churning

• softening

• chilling

• or resting

So if you are a paid subscriber do you not only get access to all of my paid content, but you will get a butter recipe card that gives you instructions on how to use the poem and when to use it.

I hope it brings you joy,

and comfort

and may it make you feel a little more at peace.

If you haven’t signed up to be a paid subscriber, and this sounds fun to you, please do so below.

I am grateful we get to do this.

xoxo,

B.

Mostly, this has been fine. My son really loves sports and he’s very disciplined in practicing and teaching himself the skills he wants to know. When he played basketball, he would go outside and practice free throws until he hit 100 of them successfully. Then, this past year, he decided he wanted to try out for soccer so he taught himself the ball skills he needed to make the team (which he did!) and built a soccer goal himself (with a little help with my husband) right in the back yard.

And while it may feel like this post is simply about how great I think my son is, which I dooooo, I am telling you all of this to let you know that he’s had his moments where he wished he was playing video games like his friends, but mostly not.

Until about a month ago.

He came home asking if he would be allowed to please join the rest of the 9th grade boys in playing a video game on the server. (You need to know that I typed these words but never being a video game or computer game person myself, I don’t know if I said it right or what these words actually mean.)

Being Included

When I was a Junior in high school we moved form Arizona to Colorado. A whole new state, a new school, new house, new everything. The first year was rough. I spent the first few weeks of school eating lunch by myself in the bathroom stall, like some sort of 90’s rom com. But it was anything but romantic. I had a hard time making friends for that first year, was alone for the greater part of it, and therefore have a little PTSD about my kids being left out.

I really, really don’t want my kids to be left out. I know I’m not alone in this; no one does. But I think I have an irrational response to it because of my high school experience, and so my gut reaction was to just throw everything we had decided about video games out the window in the name of not being excluded.

But the thing is, is that when we stopped played video games a few years ago we sat and discussed it together. We told him what we were thinking, he said what he was and we came to the decision together. We also have checked in every so often and he voiced many times how much he felt his life had expanded since not playing video games. Once when we were on a run together, he described it like someone had taken off blinders and he felt like he had space to think and talk about creative things again.

And so, we decided we’d approach this question of the video game on the server the same way. We’d sit and talk about it, the why of wanting to play, and if we thought it was a good idea to re-introduce the video games again.

At the end of the day, it wasn’t really about the video games, it was about being a part of something that everyone was in on. The hive mind of it all. The group-think.

And I completely get that.

We agreed together that it wasn’t the right time to re-introduce video games, again for a number of reasons. I watched him the next couple of days, gently asking questions if the server was all anyone asked about, and he said yes it was. He didn’t complain, but I could tell he was bummed.

And of course he was.

It’s not fun to be on the outside, to be left out. And, as I reminded him: there is a big difference of not being able to participate in something than there is in not being invited to participate in something.

The big things

And then one night, when I was on Instagram (I know! the irony!) I saw a post about a guy saying that when he was in high school him and his friends created a buzz about a certain date but kept the reason secret. And then on that date, a few of them brought cake for lunch and it became a yearly tradition.

What my son really wants, is not to play video games. What he wants is what we all wanted at that age, and maybe now, too: to be invited into something exciting that creates some buzz, be a part of the conversation, and have some fun while doing it.

And I realized that in a world where you have your own thoughts and ideas, you have your own ideals and moral and things you think are right, then you have to learn to keep standing in that and then changing the conversation to something you care about. The art of rallying people around a different cause is a learned behavior.

What I am really talking about here are things like equal rights and gun control, like environmental issues and how we never are not a Christian Nation. But when I first became a mother, I read a quote that has stuck with me and I have applied to almost every area of parenting:

If you listen to the little things when they are young, then when they are older they will tell you the big things. Because to them, it’s always been the big things.

And so not only have I done my best to listen to all the little (big) things, but I also know that if I want them to care about their convictions with the big things later in life, then it always starts with the little(r) things. The things that are in their world, because the things of right now are always the big things.

And so, I knew I needed to teach him to change the conversation and to get people to rally around something new. And with that to learn that what other people are into or choose to do is completely fine. They don’t need to stop doing that in order for you to connect with them.

May 19th

So of course, I introduced the idea of Cake Day.

I told him all about the post. I told him he could rally everyone together, that the video game was the most exciting thing, but maybe, they could start talking about something else too.

He was half in for the first week or two of me bringing it up:

“Did you tell others about cake day?”

“No, I forgot.”

etc.

So this went on for a week or two, and then one night at the school art show, I saw his friend. All these Texas kids have such great manners:

“Hi Jim” (His name has been changed here)

“Hello "Miss Bonnie.” ( I’ve asked all the kids to call me ‘Bonnie’ because otherwise I feel like Mrs___ is my mother in law and not me, but because they all have manners they say ‘Miss’ Bonnie and so I now feel like a preschool teacher.)

“Did you hear what is happening on in like 12 or so days?”

And so he went to find my son and ask; and the ball was set into motion. One thing to know about me is that I really believe in some good clean fun, some good-natured rebellion and independence for these kids and so I will always create spaces and opportunities for this to occur.

I am so proud to tell you that over the next three weeks, the ninth grade boys created a huge buzz amongst themselves about Cake Day. My son personally invited every single boy in the 9th grade because what I said about not being invited to things stuck with him.

They got my good friend who works at the school on board to house the cakes until lunch time so that they didn’t melt or go bad in their one hundred degree lockers. They refused to tell any other teacher and definitely not the girls.

“10 days until May 19th” my son said they would say to one another and high five in the halls.

“7 days until May 19th” they whispered to the girls then shrugged with glee.

There were group texts about what cakes people were bringing and what sizes.

Was anyone else’s mom making them bring protein?

Who would bring the plates?

Would a cake server be allowed?

My son opted for a homemade from scratch, New York Times recipe Strawberry Lemonade cake that he made himself. He FaceTimed his friends while he was making it.

The whole thing was so thrilling, I honestly could barely sleep the night before.

I put the idea in his ear, egged him on, but he did the rest. I knew he was excited and I admit I was so afraid no one would bring the cakes.

I waited the whole next day, I texted my friend for an update and finally, when it was time for lunch, she texted me.

The result? Like 15 full-sized cakes in a class of only 25 boys!

The pictures and video revealed that the smiles were huge, the grabbing of cake pieces and shoving them in their mouths in only a way a teenage boy can do was everything.

The tables were lined with cakes and it was a giant party, right there in the middle of the cafeteria. Just on a Tuesday.

He got in the car that afternoon his smile huge and cake completely gone.

“It was epic!” he said. “Not everyone brought one, but everyone ate cake. Even the kids who normally don’t sit with anyone, we all sat together and it was the best.”

He said his cake was devoured very quickly and when I asked if he got a piece of it, he nodded slowly and said with a crooked smile, “I gave myself a very generous portion.”

Cake Day will absolutely be repeated, and they decided, in the fall, they would do a BBQ day. All of them.

xo

B.

I have never been a fast runner. I am long runner, but I prefer to go slow for a long distance than I do fast for a short distance. But also, I have never been fast enough to win anything. And this is what field day is for: the fastest and most athletic. Joy it turns out, is not a category that wins you a ribbon.

But regardless of if you want to be there or not, if you are fast or slow, it was part of your physical education grade to participate. And so I did.

I didn’t do well; in fact I think that year (honestly we could be talking about any year at all) I got last place in every event I attempted.

I have never once gotten a blue first place ribbon, I used to long for that bright red second place, I think once I got the white third, and a few purple fifth places over the years became mine; but I absolutely got a lot of participation ribbons.

You know the one. The one everyone gets? Just for doing the sporting event that we were forced to do? I hated the participation ribbon. I thought it was putting on display what a failure I was. How slow I was. How just inadequate I would be in the job market or really anything else I would ever attempt; that somehow it was all written in the cards on those field days.

And so last week, after my daughter had her first swim meet, she went to check her box that held any ribbons she had won. It is her first time swimming besides a few safety lessons when was five, and I knew that she didn’t place.

I fiddled with the swim bag, rearranging things that didn’t need to be rearranged because watching her going through her folder, I was anxious and nervous about how she would feel with no ribbon; no matter how far she reached her arm into that file folder.

I looked down for a moment, only to hear her running towards me calling my name: “Mom! Mom!” I looked up, and she was standing in front of me holding it: a navy blue ribbon with the words “Participant” embossed in gold at the bottom.

I flashed back. I sucked in my breath, and I looked at her face: eyes wide, and the biggest smile I have ever seen is spread across it. She is absolutely, positively beaming.

Record scratch.

There’s another way to look at this entire thing and I didn’t realize it until this moment.

What if, participating was absolutely the only thing that ever actually mattered? What if everyone getting the participation ribbon was always the point?

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For decades male birth control has been tested and found about 96% effective but stopped due to unwanted side effects like mood changes, acne and depression.

I’ll pause.

Today, I had a mammogram. Well actually, I had a callback from a routine mammogram. My first report was a bit obscure to say the least. I have gotten two call backs before (I’m batting a thousand) for “two unidentified masses”that turned out to be cysts. This time, the report did not say anything about masses, but that based on my family history I needed more imaging. Spoiler alert: everything was fine.

I’d like to take a minute to discuss the mammogram experience. If you haven’t had one, the truth is that we all know that it is the gold standard for preventing breast cancer and every woman should do it, and I also want you to know that it’s brutal. The machines are square and boobs are not; which maybe is how the saying “fitting a round peg into a square hole” came to be . It doesn’t quite fit and so they must prod and shove and handle and squeeze in order to get them to fit. And yes, these boobs are attached to our bodies still, but they are moved and manipulated as if they are not.

in this photo, my hand looks like that orange you see in the store that no one buys

Today I had contrast injected into my arm, followed by two images taken on each breast. The machine which smashes your boobs, tells you a little number on the top which is the “compression force”. The first four images were around 17 pounds of pressure each.

That’s your set of dumbbells getting dusty in the garage being placed on your boobs and it feels exactly as you think it would. You breathe through it, and then you’re done, right? But then, the image sometimes is not clear, so they have to redo it. It was my left breast that needed additional imaging, and this time (if you are keeping count, that will be the 5th image on the left breast in the past 30 days), I guess to make sure they got a clear reading, they really shoved my boob into the machine, and as it pressed down, they adjusted and readjusted, so much so that I could feel my sternum or breast bone (?) under the weight of the machine. I cried out in pain. I literally yelped, “that really hurts!” I looked, and we were now at 30 pounds of pressure.

It’s ok she said. Can you hang tight for a few moments?

UM, sure.

Guess what though? Still not a clear image, so then, I got an ultrasound.

Don’t get me wrong. I am really thankful for early detection. I know that it saves lives and it has saved the lives of people that I love. I am thankful for a team of people that care very much about about my dense breast tissue, that take every 30 pound measure and IV contrast and very long ultrasound in which I was contorted into a very awkward position to make sure that I do not have cancer. And while it’s very uncomfortable and also very anxiety inducing; I will always go back for my yearly appointments. The family tree has too many diagnoses to skip it.

What I do want to discuss is the amount of pain involved in this process. I feel as though we should be more evolved than this. I also feel this way about that orange drink you have to gulp for your glucose test when pregnant. Fun fact, I was very allergic to corn when I was pregnant with my daughter and since I could not have corn syrup, my doctor and I figured out how many ounces of ginger ale I would need to drink in order to consume the same amount of sugar as is in the standard glucose test. I gulped a bottle and then, when I needed a little more, I poured myself a few shots of it into an actual shot glass in the waiting room.

But as I sit here, hours later, my chest still sore and my shoulder now hurting from the contortion it went through, I can’t help but wonder this very real and poignant question: if this were a man, and the best they could come up with was to smash a penis with 30 pounds of pressure, how long would it go on before they found a new technology? Because when males experienced the unwanted side effects of birth control that women are just expected to live with, guess what happened? They dropped out of the trials. They just didn’t do it. Mood changes? Nah, we good.

And so here we are, with woman being the ones who take the birth control despite the fact that we can’t get anyone pregnant. Read that again. No, women can’t get anyone pregnant.

My mammogram experience today hurt like hell. It was also a huge sigh of relief. I also got fully undressed under my gown as instructed. I’ve always thought it was odd that we are just walking around in our underwear and a very thin sheet. The room is decorated like a TJ Maxx catalog has thrown up all over it, and I feel as though it’s some mind fuckery that we are in “robes” so our brains think we are at the spa.

But then guess what I saw?

I saw every other woman in the waiting room and they all had kept their pants and shoes on? Like they just undressed up top, and the rest stayed put. So apparently, I did that wrong. And have three times in a row now. Which means that when I am having to get the mammogram and take off the robe, or lie on the table and do the same, and I feel that everyone in this space is having the same experience I am in which the techs are seeing us in our underwear? Nope, turns out that’s a unique experience I am having.

Also, while we are on the topic, as I was waiting in the room, I looked and saw a small, eraser-type, Jesus figure who had that brown sash that feels a little like a beauty pageant situation that read, Jesus loves you-an inscription I could only make out because of my reading glasses.

And I was very annoyed.

Because here, in this room, where 30 lbs of pressure was applied to my breasts, with my face smashed against a metal tube and my glasses lopsided on my nose fogging up from my deep breathing to get through the pain, not to mention the overwhelming anxiety I have about the situation, I do not want another male figure, even if it is Jesus, to give me any consolation.

I need the Divine Feminine here; the one who is depicted in Isaiah to comfort Her children like a nursing mother. That is a picture of God who has breasts and understands the very weird feeling that you get in these rooms: that your breasts have kept children alive and also, may one day, kill you. Give me Her comfort, please.

I need the Patron Saint of Mammograms to step in and lift up prayers for my health and every other woman in this world who will be affected by breast cancer in one way or another. I want Her to tell us that she sees us, because she was us, and that she is working her tail off to get something new in place and that yeah, fuck this shit. If it were a man, it would have already been solved.

XO,

B.

He wore the same belt every day, the same type of “uniform”: khaki shorts, flip flops or reebok tennis shoes (depending on the weather) and a polo shirt with a pocket. He preferred no air conditioning, like solitaire with actual cards, wrote checks in the grocery store line, paid with exact change, and one time bemoaned to me that the art gallery he loved was hosting an art show and they forgot to include the city and state in the address. Upon further investigation, I had to explain to him it was a web address that was listed.

He just preferred things simple as they used to be in the good ol’ days.

And his old fashioned sentiments did not stop there. He was a gentleman through and through; offering a handshake to any and every one. One of his best friends he’d known since college commented that they shook hands every time they saw each other; even the last time-only three days before he died. It was this friend’s son, who is like a brother to me, that once had come over during his college days and discussing the girl he was dating.

All of us were sitting on the porch, and I recall marveling that my brother figure was old enough to not only be in college but have a real, big-time, girlfriend. My dad inquired how she was doing and he replied something like, “She’s good. But she always wants to hold my hand.” It was something that I did not understand at the time as a teenage girl that wanted nothing more than the thrill of holding a boy’s hand. Now, with a fifteen year old boy in my home, I understand completely the mindset of it all. You can’t properly kick a soccer ball if you are holding a girl’s hand.

My dad laughed, throwing his head back because he, too had walked this road. And he said, “Just tell her you have your own body.” And we all howled. He offered no explanation. Just this gem of advice. Absolute gold.

And it stuck. We all said it over the years again and again anytime someone hugged you and you didn’t want it, when my mom would bombard my dad’s cheeks with kisses, when a boy eventually did ask me out and I really didn’t want to date him. We have our own bodies, y’all. It became an inside joke to all of us on the inside of my Dad’s sense of humor.

His humor is one of the things I miss most about him. He had this way of being able to say a good one liner and lighten the whole mood. We all called him Kramer because he was like that: eclectic, funny, always a surprise what he would say next and most of the time he wasn’t trying, but sometimes, his joke was waiting in the wings and he waited until the perfect time to deliver it.

Two days before he died, I sat in front of him while he slept, and I just watched him. He was in and out of sleep and when he would wake up, he would look at me and smile. I smiled back, quickly looking up and down, pretended to be reading as not to freak him out that I was just wide-eye staring at him and watching his every breath. On one of the wake-ups, he pointed to a deck of cards that was sitting on the table next to me. His hospice nurse had brought them the day before, and they had Dolly Parton on the front. She had visited Dollywood, a place we went as kids, and brought the deck to my mom, which was such a sweet and kind thing to do.

“How old is she anyway?” He asks, motioning to the Dolly deck.

“She’s mom’s age.” I say, holding up the deck for him to get a better look.

“She’s your mother’s age? Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” He smiled and fell back asleep.

He always loved to bring a smile to our faces and like the I have my own body comment, we have so many of these one-liners that are keeping his legacy alive.

A few days later, his humor and breaths were gone, and all that was left were these memories that we started blurting out whenever we thought of them as if to claim each one as ours before they could be taken from us. It was like if we just recalled enough of them, there would be enough laughter to bring him back, that he’d walk around the corner and tell us he was kidding and he was here and did anyone want to get ice cream?

Our dear friend came to be with us after he passed, and she was one of the ones that has always been on the inside. As sister to us, she had grown accustomed to all of my Dad’s one-liners and also used the I have my own body with a laugh on occasion. After my mother, sister, she and I had said all we could and cried the tears we had at the moment; the four of us agreed we’d go on a walk. My mom retreated to her room, our friend was in the living room, I was on the stair landing by the door, and my sister was down stairs. We all were putting on shoes, sweatshirt or bra and trying to remember what it was like to move. I personally was wondering if was ok to walk around the block, to leave the place that he took his last breath. Even if it was for only 20 minutes. Would what remain of him still be there when we got back?

I knew he wasn’t there anymore. We had been there when he died and after his soul had left, and we had seen them take his body to be cremated. I saw it with my own eyes. I felt his chest stop rising and the warmth of his body leave. And I was made aware very moment that I keep not seeing him; that I could not hug him and I would not see him walk up the stairs again. And I was putting on my shoes and wondering how I could ever leave this place, that how it could be true for a person’s body to be right in front of you one minute and then gone forever the next? Do we survive on to the other side? Can you actually feel someone’s presence if they aren’t physically there? Will I ever feel my Dad again? Will I ever hear from him again?

While these loudly ruminated in my mind, my anxiety building at the thought of facing this life without him, we were all completely silent. We moved slow, like molasses dripping out of a jar. There was no place for small talk or music. We were content to be quiet.

And then, out of the silence, are an ethereal voice from the HomePod. Siri herself broke the silence without any prompting from voice, phone or touch, no one was near her or talking to her, and she said loud and clear:

“I do not have a body.”

We all froze. A million goosebumps; my hair standing on edge. The phrase hung in the air. Making our way to where we could all look at once another, we searched each other’s faces for an explanation. We gasped. We stared at one another our mouths hanging open.

And then we howled.

My Dad, from the other side, was once again cracking a joke at the exact moment we needed his humor. He knew we’d all understand this one specifically. It was his way of telling us he had made it safely to the other side, and was still, absolutely and completely his full, gloriously hilarious self.

We may have our own bodies now, and we accomplish lists and master techniques, we learn new skills, and we laugh and tell jokes and sing and dance and I’ve always thought that one day we wont.

But maybe it’s the opposite, maybe when we don’t have a body, the evolution is just beginning. I never would have guessed that my Dad would learn how to use Siri on the other side, but I sure am glad he didn’t leave his humor behind.

XOXO,

B.

This public form of punishment was when members of a town, religious group or city surrounded the person who committed a crime (or was thought to have done so) and throw rocks at them until they died. It’s horrific that these form of punishment still happen in many countries around the world. There are many human rights groups advocate to abolish this practice world wide.

This form of punishment is horrible in and of itself, and with it comes the public humiliation of it occurring for all to see. Today, in America, we no longer stone people as punishment, but growing up in the Church I was often taught that “stoning” could be taken metaphorically as well.

“Whoever has not sinned throw the first stone” is Jesus’ famous quote when he was said to have stopped the stoning of a woman who was accused of committing adultery. Growing up, it was a phrase often used in Church about not judging your neighbor for things they had done or had happened to them. As time has gone on, the idea of stoning as a metaphor has gone beyond simply judging your neighbor, and the term is used to discuss severe and collective condemnation, any form of scapegoating, and mob mentality in order to preserve a tradition or cultural norm.

The Mob Mentality of Social Media

I pride myself on having really good boundaries with my phone, and I am not a huge social media person, and certainly am not an influencer by any means. However, I must admit that I do love to scroll through my feed as an attempt to distract my mind or see the celebrity gossip. I was glued to the updates on the Blake and Justin fiasco, the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and Taylor Frankie Paul, and of course, Tay Tay Swift.

But every time I see it happen, every time I see a post from a someone formerly known as a journalist, I have such a gross and tough-to-swallow feeling in my chest. To explain it in descriptive words is the best I can do: sticky, tar-like, foul, and invasive. I can’t look for long and then I must turn away, because it all feels so wrong.

The current state of social media is the perfect breeding ground for our palatable, non-violent, version of stoning that is now psychological instead of physical. I am in no way saying that ridicule on social media is the same as a physical stoning; but I am saying that we have taken something that was once done in our country as a physical, public punishment and made it psychological while acting as if we are better than we used to be. Psychological stones are our new weapon of choice.

When it comes to the Internet, literally no one is safe. Even typing this I can feel my nervous system telling me to run and hide from the proverbial tiger known as strangers on the internet.

Photo taken at women’s rights parade. Also another, needed post, on the this truth.

We call it “Cancelled”

It honestly doesn’t matter who you are, or who you aren’t, the Internet has a way of bringing out people’s opinions of you. With a screen in-between, it is hard to remember the is an actual, flesh and blood, human on the other side and we often share opinions, rude comments, an unsolicited advice to an Instagram or Tick-Tock account as a knee jerk reaction.

In his book, Anxious Generation, Haidt argues that a phone-based childhood is a huge driving force of the mental health crisis among the youth today. Cyberbullying, he cites, is the culprit for anxiety, depression, and social comparison among the youth. Instead of leaving school where adolescence encounter many social experiences that are not always pleasant, the continual access to social media and text messaging follows a child home and the space that was once safe and free from the pressures of all fitting in, is gone.

But I don’t think it’s just the teenagers.

Celebrities are one thing, and we could debate if we think they have set themselves up for scrutiny, but we could make the same argument for anyone who is now putting themselves out there with new thoughts and ideas. Social media has made way for mini-celebrities all over the world, but usually they aren’t making movies or singing songs, and instead they are making coffee drinks at work, recording what they are eating, painting, writing, sewing, or how they spend their night as a friendless 30 year-old in her sky rise apartment. Ask me how I know.

The problem, of course is that everything in the news, on social media, and the Internet is just a snippet of someone’s life. But because we are all constantly consuming so much, or binging these little moments from a stranger’s life, then we forget this important fact. And it wont take long for someone to do something that people don’t agree with and then comes the repercussions.

For every big and egregious misstep, there is almost no thought of things like the mental health of a person, or what they have been through before the shaming begins. Even for little things like accidentally buying a drink that has too many ingredients for someone’s liking; stones are thrown. In Biblical times, if a woman was caught in a transgression her husband or father could speak up for her to either deny or affirm the accusations against her. And while this is very misogynistic, we don’t even have that anymore. No one actually wants to believe in another’s humanity anymore. We’d much rather point out one another’s flaws and perform public humiliation.

The “like” button bumps a post up in the algorithm, increases views. The “share”button allows for a post to be seen by thousands within seconds. The mob-mentality is ever-present on social media, and soon, verbal stones are thrown at a person, but we simply call it cancelled.

Cancel culture is one of the biggest threats to free speech, social advancement and change, cultivating good and healthy dialogue, and of course, accessing peace in ourselves, our communities, and countries.

The Middle Ground is where we will go to die

I’ll admit that I have steered towards the middle ground in most of my online presence until recently. I’ve had a long-time anxiety watching Cancel Culture go down that I was afraid I was next. I kid you not that I have brought this up in therapy. Perhaps this because I have been actually cancelled at churches for being a woman pastor and being too inclusive, but that is a different post.

But for me, what would that mean? What in the world would I be canceled from? Why is this even a worry? According to research, Cancel Culture causes emotional distress for the person cancelled, but also the ones witnessing these events. I guess because the more afraid we are that this could happen to us then the less we will share our convictions or opinions and the more we will build our homes on the very crowded landscape called the middle ground. And this, this is where society goes to die.

But shame is powerful, and I think most of us would do absolutely anything to avoid shame. Especially if you were brought up in a religious system that used shame to motivate you to not sin, and so the thought of it as an adult is now a source of PTSD. But for public retribution of any kind, the crux of the punishment is always to make the individual to feel ashamed of not only what they have done, but who they are. There exists almost zero psychological safety on the Internet and any opinion you or I may have is subject to someone picking it apart or disagreeing about it. The large majority of the “someones'“ being strangers. Who knows nothing about us. Or our lives. Or anything we’ve ever been through.

And I am the first to admit I know nothing about the celebrities and the gossip and the drama, nor about literally anyone that I see online. I can honestly say I haven’t written a rude comment before and always try to understand, but when I consume this public shaming, I am part of the problem.

Studies show that people that do the shaming, the social ostracism, and the verbal stoning actually feel a sense of accomplishment and pride, a sense of belonging. We are so separate as a society that one of the main ways we can feel connected is by shaming others.

If that doesn’t break your heart I don’t know what will.

But I do know that Cancel Culture has to go. It is ruining our ability to progress forward. We give way too much attention to the mob mentality, to protecting the self instead of defending the other. We focus more on who wore what and was that ok than the fact that actual, dangerous mob mentalities are occurring in this country and harming people both here and overseas.

Peace and compassion, equal rights and kindness, are the types of things we should be spending our time defending and fighting for. But, if we all got off our phones and into the world then maybe some of the mental health issues wouldn’t be as prominent.

A case for Blockbuster

I don’t have all the answers here besides the suggestions I’ve already made. And the following list of further suggestions are thoughts I have and no skills or ability to implement them, but if this sounds like you, please raise your hand:

I think it would be best if we learned the social skills it takes to be on the Internet. We were all sort of dumped here before we knew any better and now we are desperately trying to paddle upstream so that the onslaught of shame and comparison and anxiety and depression that haunts us wont find the next generation.

Or, maybe we need a cotillion but for how to go out into the Society of the Internet. Discussion, after all, can be more like dancing.

We could also all collectively promise that the only mob mentality we will be a part of it is the one that does not ostracize, shame, ridicule or spread hate. That like those in another century turned their backs and put their stones down, we vow to scroll on past those who are being shamed. We don’t read the comments. We don’t contribute. We don’t “like”. We move on. Maybe we can make our algorithms not only full things we agree with, but a healthy level of challenging thoughts and opinions and only promising to engage with those that are also acting as wise adults.

But maybe, just maybe, we need someone to bring back a Blockbuster video.

We could all use a little dose of having to stare eat each other in the eye, across the isle from one another, knowing we were basically up to the same thing that night: a movie, a pizza and popcorn. We all have chosen to show up in a public place to decide our entertainment, to hem and haw over movies, to touch an actual box and rattle it to be sure your VHS was inside. We need to wait in more lines and make small talk, to test our voices in real time and watch people react and remember that our words have power. We need a dose of offering advice so others wouldn’t pick a bad movie or definitely pick a good one, and remember that at the end of the night, we all had one common thing we were committed to:

that we would absolutely, be kind, and rewind.

I know I will. I will try and rewind this horrible thing we have made and do better. For myself. For you. For the next generation.

Xo,

B.

Another amazing professor was Dr. Marvin Meyer, who was a renowned scholar in the Gnostic gospels, which if you aren’t familiar are a group of texts that were written account of Jesus but because of politics and interpretation and Empire, were left out of of the New Testament as we know it. Dr. Meyer was a huge authoritative voice in this space and was on National Geographic, the History Channel, and numerous publications, but was most known for his modern translation of one of the Gnostic texts, The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Judas.

To put this into perspective, this book was found in Egypt and was originally written in Coptic which is a mixture of the Coptic dialect in Egypt and other languages. It was tattered and old and barely legible. The number of people who can translate these texts and do a good job taking into account the culture and the beliefs and doing a good job at that, are few and far between.

I took a class on the Gnostic Gospels from him and I had the opportunity to do my senior thesis on these texts which would have been an entire semester learning from a world-renowned expert.

I didn’t do it.

Fear is a tool of Empire

At the time I truly thought I was making the right choice-making the choice God wanted me to make because I was very Evangelical and I was under the belief that anything outside of that, anything outside of the canon and anything outside of the Church was a sin. I wasn’t so afraid of sinning, but I absolutely was afraid of God and going to hell, and so I am so very embarrassed to say that I rolled my eyes all the way through my class, and passed up the opportunity to study with him for my senior thesis.

I missed it. It was right in front of me-not only the opportunity to learn from someone brilliant but to open a door that maybe could have saved me from many, many years of fear, shame, and anxiety. Not to mention poor theology and anyone whom I hurt when I held these beliefs with such a closed fist.

Richard Rohr talks about the importance of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. He says it’s the path to enlightenment. The container is small at first, as it must be because we ourselves are small.

But then one day, life becomes big and all the laws the prayers and the things that held us up don’t seem to do it anymore and God, who once felt close or at least as close as our minds made Him be, was down the street, and now He resembles more of a She or an Energy or a thought and we had to squint to see them because they were talking with everyone we were told to be afraid of.

I mean for me, one day, somewhere in between delivering a stillborn and all the men pushing me out of church, I looked to God as I was taught and I saw him laughing with the Buddha and they were joking around and having tea and cookies and I was like, “How did you know that the Buddha liked tea and cookies?” and he was like “I didn’t, but I like tea and cookies.” and then I said, “Are you going to tell him that he’s going to hell?” and he said, “Hell doesn’t exist” and with nothing left to say, but everything to learn, I pulled up a seat.

The joke is on me as I have re-purchased every single one of these books that I begrudgingly skimmed twice since college. Once because I thought I was ready to dive in again and then I’ll admit I got afraid again, and then a second time when I knew it was actually the time. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the time, but it is now, and I used my better judgment and held on to them until this moment.

Has this ever happened to you? Something just keeps circling, again and again with a different perspective, until it finds you at exactly the right time? And when it does, the puzzle piece finally clicks and it’s familiar enough because you’ve seen it, and you realize there was a lot of kindness in the circling; of the Universal hawks that scoured the skies until the sun was exactly in the right place.

Inner Light

Emily Dickinson has never been so real than when she was writing a letter complaining about moving of all things.

“I can not tell you how we moved. I had rather not remember. I believe my “effects” were brought in a bandbox, and the “deathless me” on foot, not many moments after. I took at the time a memorandum of my several senses, and also of my hat and coat, and my best shoes but it was lost in the melee, and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

Did you catch that last line? She is out there with lanterns looking for herself.

The Gospel of Thomas has this great line that maybe was the nail in the coffin of being excluded from the canon and it goes like this:

There is a light within a man of light, and he lights the whole world. If he does not shine, there is no darkness. (Saying 24)

This is in contrast with the book of John where Jesus says he is the light of the world, and there is much to say about the context that John was writing in, but as I return to the Gospel of Thomas I have to admit I am wondering if Emily Dickinson also read the Gospel of Thomas and if the whole time we’ve been so busy carrying lanterns looking for doctrines and laws and rules and rights and wrongs; for God and Jesus among the church pews and walls, for heaven and hell, that we forgot to look for ourselves.

Xo,

B.

Share B.Coil

This is hard for for me to admit because I have been a pastor for over a decade but more importantly because being certain of my faith was something that I always thought was the biggest part of having a faith.

No rooms for doubts.

Historically, the emphasis on the last weekend of Jesus’ life has eclipsed the words of his whole life. I know that there is not one person on this earth that would wish that their dying moments become their biggest legacy.

As Richard Rohr puts it so poignantly and beautifully: “Salvation became a one-time transactional affair between Jesus and his Father, instead of an ongoing transformational lesson for the human soul and for all of history.”

I haven’t had trouble believing in the resurrection as a cosmic event that compounded the freedom and grace and love that was already there; that it opened our eyes and hearts to a path of freedom. For me, it’s not about believing in something I can’t see; I think that faith and spirituality are experiential and my experience informs my faith.

I know I’m not the only one who can honestly say I haven’t had any experience with a resurrection.

Until recently.

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In the book, character Jane works as a manager of an upscale grocery store in Big Bear, California. We meet her at a point in her life where she is struggling and wondering; hoping and afraid. Recently finding out she is pregnant and will be a single mother, her trauma from losing her own mother resurfaces. Tender memories of her and her mother churning butter together on the farm where she grew up, she finds deep comfort in the butter delivery that happens in her job, every Monday.

So sometimes on Mondays, I try and talk about the good things in life that keep coming around again and bring us glimpses of joy. Here’s a Butter Monday with a good meditation and also an excerpt from The Spark of My Womb.

That post is simply me reading the Butter Monday mention aloud, which I guess, is very serendipitous because, I have been holding something close to my heart for quite sometime and I am so excited to share it with you all!

The Spark of My Womb is going to be an audiobook!

I am so thrilled I can barely stand it! This has only happened because so many of you have supported my work and made it possible for me to hire a professional narrator and get this story from the paper pages and into your ears! So, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! my dear readers.

The thought of turning this book into audio format was something I never really considered as an independent author and how it went down is how most of my life unfolds: taking seemingly random clues from the Universe, acting on them, and then waiting to see if the door opens.

I have included the an excerpt from the first chapter of the book, “Fire” below. Feel free to skip to the end if you’d like!

Horse

Last August we were in our favorite beach town for my Dad’s celebration of life, and one night we were standing in line to get ice cream and a dear friend asked me if I had ever read the book Horse by Geraldine Brooks. I had not, and since my Dad was a huge fan of horses, I decided I would listen to the audiobook on the drive home.

Until then, I was not a huge fan of audiobooks because I really like to make up the characters voices as I hear them in my head, but this book was done so very well. Listening actually changed the way I thought about audiobooks because I realized that when done well, audiobooks are the domino effect of art.

Ms. Brooks wrote the book and then professional actors and narrators depicted her artful words into audio and you get this beautiful combination of writing and acting and dialect and I just loved it.

So one day, I’m at my desk and my best friend who has two toddlers texted me saying she was getting through my book slowly because of the aforementioned children and life, I realized I needed to make it an audiobook so she could listen.

How does one do this? I had no idea.

Following the Signs

A few weeks later I went into my audiobook app to find something new to listen to and one of the best audiobooks of the season was Wild Dark Shore by Charolette McConaghy. Under the list of names of narrators, I saw one that looked familiar: Katherine Littrell. Who is that? Why do I know that name? A little google search told me she also was one of the narrators for, you guess it, Horse.

And because I am who I am, I decided that this was a sign from the Universe. A “yes” to audiobook being the next step, a “yes” that my Dad was cheering me on, and a “yes” to cold-calling Katherine and asking her to consider narrating my book. I think most signs are like that: they are always around, but what makes them powerful is if we decide to act on them, and then the ball is in the court of the Universe.

If she said no, that would be a disappointment, but I would go forth, knowing I was supported and supposed to go this route.

So, I wrote her, and she said…yes.

I could not believe it. She read the manuscript and it aligned and the rest is history.

She is an incredible artist and voice actor, her books have been nominated for audiobook of the year (Wild Dark Shore, Horse, and Burnt Tongues) and an eight-time AudioFile Earphone Award. She is the real-deal and I am beyond thrilled she is narrating The Spark of My Womb.

So without further ado, here is a sample of the first chapter she sent me. As it comes out, I will let you know where you can order it or check it out at your library, etc.

I hope you enjoy! I am so grateful we get to hear her art.

xo

B.

or it should change.

or it must.

It’s my opinion that if you are a growing human being who is allowing experiences to change you; for the ocean to melt your need for headphones, or love to soften your inclination to hate, or curiosity to invite you into new caves and depths; then your view of faith and spirituality will naturally change.

It’s impossible that it wouldn’t. Because if faith and spirituality (note: I am not using the world religion) is anything at all, it is energy.

Moldable. Malleable. Its impermanence is what makes it permanent. Because for centuries spirituality, faith, mysticism, devotion…what ever you want to call it, has always been a part of what it means to be human.

Even believing in nothing is believing in the something that is nothing. So here we are.

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My sister, mom and I all went to London and Paris last December to celebrate my mother being 79 years young and to avoid the utter sadness that was lingering because it was the first birthday my mom would spend without her husband.

And there is a time for grieving and feeling it all and then there is a time for doing that very same thing, but together, and in Paris.

We wandered around the entire day which is such a luxury. The first time we went to Paris we were there to be tourists and see everything. We also had three kids with us and kids don’t really mosey. But on this trip, we did. We walked slowly for miles and hours around Paris. We got out of bed at 11 am and returned to our hotel at 1 am, like a couple of teenagers on summer vacation. We looked in every cafe that smelled delicious, we went to Christmas markets, bookstores, boutiques, and hit spots we didn’t get to see the first time around.

And so this one night, we wandered around the city acting as though it would never go to sleep if we didn’t. Like we had some sort of deal going: we would walk peacefully through her streets if she would just keep her lights on for us. If you haven’t ever been to Paris, and especially experienced it at night, you absolutely have to. There is something about the way the air hangs, no dances around you, the way the lights seem to stand still and the quiet footsteps all around you until the wee hours of the morning that make it every bit as magical as they all say it is.

And walking in a city is a marvel to me anyway. My sister is used to it as she is from New York, but here in Texas, the closest grocery store is over two miles from me, and the walk is marked by stretches of land, cows that graze, golf courses, and of course, a busy street.

Because its was Christmas, lights were hung all over the city and on this one particular cobblestone street, they were draped like curtains. And to our right, on the beautiful street, in the best city in the world, we saw it: the cutest handmade soap shop.

We went in, and immediately were enamored with all the colors and fragrances of the soap, but also equally, the owner. A woman, about our age who spoke better English than we did French, told us proudly all about her soaps that her and husband made, the sushi-dinner party that her son was throwing for himself the next day, and that yes, they did ship to the United States. Called, La Folie Savon, with the tagline “soaps by the slice”.

And when I found out she was the owner of the shop, I complimented her on how lovely it was and she smiled and said, “Thank you. We aren’t rich, but we are happy.”

And I have thought about it ever since.

There is a happiness tax that we pay when we chose it to be our life’s goal. If being happy is the main prerogative, the lens with which we chose over anything else, then we most certainly will have to give up a few things along the way.

It might not be money, but it also very well could be.

We may also need to give up toxic relationships, addictions, ambition, small waist sizes, or perhaps anything that we’ve held on to for too long that is actually not contributing to our happiness.

I think of the life that has chosen me, but that I have chosen it right back. And as I have gotten older, these choices have gotten more and more solid. I know that choices we have made means we have said “no” to a list of other things. And remembering this, I believe, is the key to gratitude.

I think of this when I am standing in my small kitchen emptying the dishwasher and someone opens the pantry and the two doors hit each other with a bang. We live in a small house, but I can hear the laughter from any room.

I think of this when I see someone performing better in our shared line of work than me, and then see the amount of time, money, and effort away from their family they had to do to get there. I may not be a New York Times bestseller, but I am proud of my work and that my kids get to see it all.

I think of this when I grieve people that are no longer in my life because of a million different and heartbreaking reasons. Because I chose to brave and happy, even thought it took awhile. I may not be accepted in crowds x,y,or z, but I am fully me.

I think of this every time I let the soft animal of my body love what it loves. I may not be a million things that the world says I should, but I certainly am, very happy.

If you were to fill in this sentence, how would you? “ I am not _____ but I am happy.”

I would love to hear what you have given up for the sake of your happiness.

XOXO

B.

It’s not often I put on my Pastor’s Hat. While it’s true I have a higher education degree in Theology, have been a pastor for around 12 years, and even wrote an idiomatic Bible translation, I don’t discuss Christianity that much.

Partly because my faith is so very different than it once was, and I don't like saying what I believe as it ebbs and flows, it’s full of nuance and core things and then not-so-core things and I’m not afraid of exploring. I still preach monthly at a small church that feels more like a family. And I would have called myself an Evangelical up until I translated the Bible and honestly it broke the whole thing open for me. When you get into the languages and the literary framework, plus the history and the nuance of the text, well you realize how much of what you had believed it said was a product of Evangelicalism and not Christianity. I’m not an Evangelical anymore and while I do believe in Jesus, it comes from years of turning the gem and figuring out what we mean when we talk about God and Jesus and everything in between. My definitions are probably not the same, but they are mine and that’s a beautiful thing to keep it close to my heart.

My faith is a very personal subject to me and I’ve accepted that on many levels, I will always be figuring it out. I’ve adopted so many practices and beliefs from other faith traditions over the years as I have opened my mind and heart to other cultures and texts. And to be clear, I think that mostly it’s the American Church who reads the Bible irresponsibly (more on that below). And a really good place to start if this feels like news to you, is Rob Bell’s What is the Bible?

But this post really isn’t about me and my beliefs, or really any one else’s belief system…except for when that belief system is actively harming others. And I happen to know a lot about that belief system, it’s my moral duty to speak up.

There was a time in my faith journey that I believed that Christians in America were the persecuted ones. That we were living holy and good lives and that we needed to be aware of everyone else that would try and take this away from us. Over time I have grown to understand that this is not the case, not even close. But recently, I watched a MAGA church pastor give a sermon (I use this word loosely here because that implies some integrity with the text) that someone sent to me. And I was horrified to learn that there is a whole group of people who believe this and are currently, voting and living by this very idea. The cliff notes are this: a joke that all democrats should be destroyed from “the face of the earth”, a blatant misunderstanding and dare I say uneducated understanding of the difference between radical Islam and Islam, a misuse of the Bible and the book of Revelation, and applause that the killing of innocent people was, in fact, ordained by God.

The current state of the Evangelical Church, specifically those that believe the current administration is sent by God and the war on Iran is ushering in the book of Revelation is not only unbiblical, has zero utterance of the Gospel behind it, but it is irresponsible and harmful.

It would be beneficial if we all were astute to understand that this is what is going on in a majority of big, Evangelical churches in America. And when the misreading of the book of Revelation has crossed from the pulpit into the government and back again; we are deeper trouble than we thought.

Here’s why.

Read more

Writing is something I know I must do to survive. It often feels like the air I breathe and the outlet to process; it feels like a good slice of pizza or an afternoon cortado.

And.

I don’t always feel like doing it. I am certain there is a prfound reason for this that certainly centers around my inability to get still or settle in my body, or maybe its a self sabotage thing, it could be perimenopause…or literally anything else I’ve heard my therapist say. But dare I say, at the risk of betraying the professionals, I think it may just be much simpler than that?

It’s my day off today and I knew I needed to write. It’s gloomy and my tortured poets department is to match my mood to the weather, but I knew if I started my next book I’d feel better, that I could overcome my Cranberries Zombie moment and remember that I am, in fact, a writer. I decided I just needed to move that cursor on the page forward even if nothing but bad writing was pushing its threshold.

So I got myself out to the coffee shop and before I began, with one last ditch effort to procrastinate and wallow with the greats like Plath, Hemingway, and Woolf, I pulled out my Poetry Pharmacy Prescription, A Room of One’s Own, and got this gem from Jane Austen herself:

“I am not at all in humour for writing. I must write on till I am.”

Oh yes she did.

From the grave, beyond the quill and ink, Jane Austen got into my head and revealed a secret we all know deep down: to get in the mood to do, well anything, you just have to start doing it. Then, the mood of it will follow.

Sure, there is the occasion that you do feel like working out, cleaning, or working on that report, art piece etc.

But mostly, I find I am just trying to get my head above water, treading to stay alive and doggy paddling to the edge of the pool on the days that feel so very Groundhog Day. And so when I am in a rut, I need a real kick in the pants to do the things I enjoy doing, that bring me joy and life, but can’t seem to get myself in the mood.

It’s my experience that getting in the mood to do something almost never works for me. The coercion of the psyche is a tough mistress. (I honestly don’t know if that metaphor fits here, but I just really wanted to say it.)

And we all heard her, (if not re-read the above): setting up the mood, lighting the candles and the slow music, putting on the playlist and pulling our new mop we bought because the floors are really that gross, is only part of the thing.

To get in the mood; you just gotta start doing the things and the mood to do it will follow.

Foreplay has a name because it works. For sex, yes, but I think for almost anything we wish to do but dont feel like doing. Seducing yourself into the art gives your mind space to let go of all that has piled up and slowly slink into the task at hand. You might need to splatter some paint on the canvas, type a bad chapter, dance on the sidewalk before you run, and get in the mood to do the thing by just doing the damn thing.

The secret to beating writers block, to calling in the muse, is to just start typing. The secret to taking a walk is to put one foot in front of the other, the secret to convincing ourselves we ought to do the thing is to just start doing it. The rest follows. Jane said so.

After the morning mayhem of shuffling everyone out the door with lunches, snacks, water bottles and homework folders signed, I went on my porch and enjoyed a huge cup of hot coffee.

I’ve re-found my way to the Plum Village meditations and I began one while watching the birds float from tree to tree, and sign a symphony of songs. The meditation, I guess, was recorded during COVID. The narrator didn’t say that outright and there was no date on the recording, but his opening words went something like this:

…finding peace in these turbulent times. Many of us are working from home, our kids may be home or homeschooled, we don’t have lots of social connections…”

This is most certainly COVID times, right?

Of course, yes. And also: this is my life right now.

I work from home.

My children have been sick, alternating who is home, the entire month.

I don’t have a lot of social connections.

I have friends, but we mostly text and my best friends live in places that are not close to me. I work full time so on my days off, I crave some quiet, some writing time, a long hike, and a good book. I am introvert at heart so it’s not one of my first thoughts to call someone to grab a bite to eat or a walk in the park.

And I think it’s wearing on me.

As I pressed pause on this meditation and contemplated how my life is not tons different than it was during COVID (actually less lonely as we were all home), I thought about where I live and what I do each day. It is not that I necessarily feel alone in my life, but I think I feel alone in this city. This state. This country.

In December I went to Paris with my mom and sister and we walked literally everywhere. Yes, we had one another, but we didn’t know the language nor do we know anyone in Paris. And yet, everyone is out and about. Everyone is walking. There was an aliveness that I don’t feel here. On the night of my mom’s birthday dinner, we walked home at one in the morning and the streets were still filled with people. laughing and talking and walking, drinking and eating and playing hacky sack in an alley dimly-lit with draping Christmas lights.

My town is not like that. My state is not like that. Most of America is not like that. We are a car-driving nation, everything is spread out, and walking is done for exercise not as a way of life. When night hits, we close up shop, our blinds shut and doors locked, only the lights of our nest cameras to be seen.

I try hard to replicate things I love about the European lifestyle into my life, like parking at one end of the shopping center and slowly walking to the groceries and back, but that can feel lonely when it’s so against the grain of what everyone else is doing.

I guess I have no real point here except to state the obvious: America is a very fast-paced, sprawled out, country. I crave wandering the streets that are full of other people and businesses and cafes. The liveliness of the city that is coupled with architecture and history and music; art for sale on the side walk. All coupled with nothing to prove and everything to just be.

I am not sure what that means for me and my life, I will need to figure out a way to make it what I need it to be; but also to accept what it is not.

And of course, plan more trips to Paris.

That’s how this one begins.

One foot in front of the other wearing whatever I could find because it was cold and Texas isn’t used to that, so we just sort of patchwork things together to make it work.

Never mind the very normal bathroom of a person who values other things over housework.

Side note before we begin: My friend Elyse and I sometimes send pictures of our outfits from our “weird little walks” to each other. I need you to know this because I am cringing at the thought that you might think that I take pictures of my self just because of me in the mirror. We can carry on now.

There’s a story my mom always tells about her and my dad, and sometimes with some of their other friends, in which they would go on a hikes (one of my dad’s favorite things to do) and the others in the group wanted to turn around faster than my dad did. While this was before my time, I can understand this feeling immensely.

I went on a million hikes with my dad over the years. We’ve done the Vultee Arch in Sedona, Squaw Peak, Camelback Mountain, Longs Peaks, The Grand Canyon, Torrey Pines, and countless other hikes all over the U.S. As I got older my stamina was better and the thrill of the view almost always was enough of a reward to push through. But when I was younger, I really hated hiking. I recall my dad carrying me on his back up Camelback Mountain, and if you know this hike, you’ll know that was no small feat.

Vultee Arch. Imagine my mother’s horrified scream when the film was developed and her two children were pictured on top of this arch in my dad’s lap.

But Dad always wanted to finish the hike and so he would leave my mom and their other friends candy along the way. He’d walk ahead and put candy bars or chocolate kisses on rocks and then they would find them and eat them as they went, laughing and ultimately continuing on the trail, because more chocolate was sure to be ahead.

Dad and Mom sometime in the 70’s.

And so, this cold day in January when I went walking, I saw something on the ground that I had seen days before but brushed off as a coincidence. Little candy hearts on the ground. You know the ones that people buy at Valentine’s Day? It was early January, so seemed early for these to be thrown about or dropped casually on the sidewalk as you might see when after a few weeks, everyone has a Halloween candy hangover.

But this day, the second day I saw them, I stopped and stared.

I wondered.

Two days in a row, on different paths, I’ve seen these hearts. Is this from my dad?

I have been doing a lot of soul searching on what I believe. Not only about the afterlife, but about consciousness in general and I am intrigued by the idea that we are all part of one consciousness and when someone is on the other side, the veil is very thin. I heard someone say that on the other side they can hear our thoughts and feel our emotions and that when a memory of them pops into our head suddenly, it actually is them reminding you of this moment. That they are always right there and communicating, and it’s them saying, remember when we…?

The memory of my dad leaving candy for my mom popped into my head when I saw these hearts as a fleeting reminder, but what stood out was a specific and special Valentine’s Day in which my Dad bought my mom, sister and I all chocolates, flowers and Valentine’s Cards. I can still remember waking up that morning, the sun coming in the picture windows and seeing the beautiful gifts. I remember what the carpet felt like under my bare feet, I recall my dad’s face as he was finishing setting them up and I was out of bed too early once again and caught him in the middle of it. I remember the absolute joy of having my very own box of chocolates. There were also many years he bought us candy hearts, and always, always wrote his three girls a card.

Yes, Dad. I remember. How could I ever forget?

But I always second guess myself. Was this really my dad? Was I reading into it? Making it something that it wasn’t?

Something I know about myself is that I can get lost in the ethereal, and while this often serves me, I also am aware it can take me out of feeling what I need to feel right now. So I snapped a picture and quietly contemplated these hearts, but ultimately tucked them away into a back corner of my mind, assuming that once again, my head was in the clouds. It was true that I felt connected to this particular moment, but maybe it’s because the grief is changing or maybe because I was cold, but I didn’t feel that feeling where my heart squeezes and the grief and the happy and the new connection and the loss all bubbled up at once, literally trying to all fit into that space at the same time.

I’ve been on many walks and runs since then, never seen any more hearts.

And then, as life goes, I started getting into this book called A La Maison where you can make your home more French, plus then some other things on Feng Shui, and I found myself today cleaning out my desk to make room for abundance. If this feels like a sharp left turn and doesn’t make a ton of sense: welcome to my brain. Come on in, the water’s fine.

In one of the many piles that was residing (read: cluttering) on my desk, was this tiny stamp book that my dad gave me years ago. Buried under other miscellaneous items, it has a bunch of stamps that he sad sent me over the years (he was a big collector!) and I would put them into the wax-paper sleeves to keep the stamps in mint condition. As he taught me to do.

I honestly had forgotten about it and had that nostalgic Oh yeah! moment when I saw it. As it had been a few years since I have added to it, or even opened it, I got curious as to what stamps I had stored there. Upon opening, I found this stamp, smiling right back up at me.

Not put into a sleeve like the others, but just right there waiting for me to find it. As if my dad was saying: Yes, that was me. And here’s how you know for sure.

I felt my heart squeeze in the way that it does.

I love you too, Dad.

My daughter and mom, who at 78, walked from the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower, all the way down, at 10 pm. #goals

Did y’all catch the Alex Honnald special on Netflix? He climbed a skyscraper with no ropes or parachute, just free solo.

And the thing that got me the most about it was when I watched him do his training. He does a very specific routine that is designed exactly for what he needs his body to do when he’s on the sky scraper: It was the usual cardio endurance, then a million pulls and push ups and rings, of course a ton of ab work and then also he hung on wooden bars from his fingertips.

It was wild.

And it got me thinking about all the people in the gym who are getting absolutely cut and fit and ripped and full of muscle: what exactly are they training for?

Sometimes we come across people who are using this training for their actual jobs or way of life. But mostly? I think it’s regular people, doing regular things whose arms are beyond fatigued and totally buff and then sit around all the day and the muscles are saying when are you ever going to actually use me? The ancestors eye roll is so proud I can barely stand it.

Hear me out. I get the cardiovascular health piece, and I understand (albeit can’t bring myself to do it) the benefits of doing weights and what it does for your bone density. I, myself, run and walk and do yoga. So I’m not here saying that we shouldn’t be working out, but I don’t think that the mass majority of fitness routines have anything to do with our actual lives.

When you are a farmer, you have muscles where you need them, same is true for a tennis player, a free solo climber, the mother who lifts her toddler, etc. But tell me, what in the universe do we need the six pack and all those abs and traps (I honestly don’t know where that muscle group is) if our lives consist of working at a computer and going out to eat?

I know it sounds like Im being very judgmental, and I am trying not to be, I just literally don’t understand becoming crazy strong or fit if all we are going to do with it is sit there.

As the 2026 fitness goals, weight loss peptides and GLP-1’s rolled in the collective psyche along with dry January and keto/paleo/reduced calorie diets took over America, I doubled down on the opposite. I literally went the other way.

I began my steady, but die-hard training for the life goals I have. Short term, these goals consist of going on a run when the weather is just right, learning to surf, and then more long-term, end-goal (stretch goal for all you business-minded people) is to walk slowly around European towns.

So my fitness routine consists of a daily practice of a little running and (sometimes thinking about doing) a little yoga, lots of slow walking, eating carbs, drinking red wine, and of course, a general feeling of letting my soft body loves what it loves.

And so here I am. You are welcome to steal my training regimen if you too are into joy, longevity, slow, calming walks, and just enough muscle to wander into every cobblestone street or across every pebble of sand that your heart desires.

xoxo

B.

But then once I noticed, I was able to consciously replace it with other things. Truth be told, I thought that I was bad at housework because I didn’t have the time. But, my smart phone screen-time counter once read 5-6 hours a day has now gone down to 1 hour a day (still use to text in morning or at night, some work authenticators, and yes, the occasional, IG recipe/book lookup) it turns out that time was not the problem.

Im not good at housework because I don’t do the housework. ha! Imagine that.

So what have I done with 4-5 hours of extra time a day? For one, ALL THE COOKING.

I have always loved to cook and little known fact is that I used to have a baking blog and actually got paid to do it! But then we got some food allergies and it fizzled into the abyss with all the sad gluten tears. Over the years I have just gotten out of the habit.

But now, with time to spare, I have found myself back in the kitchen cooking again and learning new skills and loving it. French cooking is by far my favorite thing to cook (and eat!) and I love cream and butter and herbs and the new term that I have learned, “mise en place”.

It’s a French culinary term, pronounced “meez-on plahs” in where the wisdom is to organize and arrange all the ingredients of a recipe, and read the recipe all the way through, before you begin to cook.

It’s an essential thing to do so that you don’t show up half way through the recipe and realize you don’t have “X” ingredient, or that it takes 3 hours instead of the 30 minutes you have, and other reasons you end up eating out.

I’ve thought so much about this practice and how it can transfer to life outside the kitchen as well. On a small scale I mean things like telling my kids to pack their lunches the night before, making sure my passport is in my bag and I have all my necessities for the flight.

But where this “miss en place” is really speaking to me is in the bigger things. The dreamer things of what we want to do with our lives and when we are at Point A and we need to get to Point P. They say that it’s one step at a time, and then you are one day there, and to be honest with you I haven’t always believed that. I tend to err on the side of *waves hand around in the air* magic, but then get bummed out when the things don’t happen the way I thought they would.

When people talk about manifesting they talk about thinking and feeling the thing that has happened like it’s happened, and then somehow, it happens?

Can I tell you how many vacations I’ve taken in my head?

How many books I’ve written and published in my mind?

The list is long, and it turns out that you can’t really manifest shit if you are just thinking about the thing and not actually doing the one hundred million tiny things that you need to get there.

Mise en place.

I have learned that in order for the recipe that I have mapped out in my head to get to the destination I hope for, or at least further down the road, then I must have all my shit together first.

Whatever the thing at the end of the line is, the only way that I, or you, will ever get there is mise en place, one day at a time, one step at a time. Having everything in place to take the next step, and to be ready when things start moving. I know there is great wisdom to not doing things like everyone else has done because the energy of the new comer can be magic, but there are also protocols and avenues and techniques that actually work and that will, when repeated over and over again, get you closer to the thing you are hoping to do or be or adventure or accomplish.

Much like cooking, living the life we want requires a mixture of methods, techniques, recipes and learning the craft; while adding some extra truffle oil of thoughts and rituals and hoping that it all turns out for the best.

But you can’t just wing that. It’s must also be mise en place.

And speaking of that, I flew all the way to London to take full day cooking class at Cordon Bleu for research for my next book. I can’t tell you what or when or why yet, but I will when the time comes.

Mise en place, bitches!

But the truth is is that I don’t have through thread for my life. The only thing I have that is consistent are the people I love, and even now in my 40s that list is not lower (I still love with abundance) but my interactions and types of love and safety are different.

I digress.

So I need you to know that I have thought through a few new personalities I could be here that would make me into someone.

And there is the rub.

I have spent so much of my adult life trying to be something or someone and it’s been a really rough path to follow. I have wondered often where this incessant need for defining my purpose has come from, and I’ve narrowed it down to a few things:

• the Evangelical Church

• Social Media

• America

ha.

That’s as narrow as my list is, but I can say that I think it’s true.

So in this great comeback of 2026, I would like to reveal to you the opposite of resolutions of which I list a bunch of things that I need to be different or better at, that will somehow improve my:

• posture

• skin

• body

• brain

• mood

• just general likability

• arm size

• smartness

• and a bunch of other nonsense that I have bought into over the years.

No, no. Worry not. I am not here to give you anything of the sort. Instead of resolutions, I give my list of absolutions in which I tell you how I am living with zero guilt attached to it. There are only two because that is all I know for now, and I’m so happy about it I could cry.

1. I absolve myself of my love for food

I hate to admit it, but this has been a long-time coming. I am a 41 year old woman who has dealt with the repercussions of 90’s diet culture for the past 30 years and it’s absolutely exhausting. I have spent the majority of my adult life hating what I was eating or only eating a little of it because I think that once a magazine told me I should. But the hard-earned truth of it is that I love food. I love eating it, I love love love cooking it and I love sharing it with others. I like the colors and the textures and the tastes and I am just no longer going to pretend anything otherwise.

We went to London and Paris this past month (more on this to come) and one of the things I did was take a class at Le Cordon Bleu. I learned how to make a Beef Wellington (and I have a certificate to prove it!) and I spent 6 hours of my vacation cooking and tasting and learning and then eating it on the Chunnel on my way to Paris with my mother and sister.

I signed myself up for this for a writing assignment and I could not be happier with the choice. I learned so much: how to make crepes, deglazing, reducing a huge pot of stock into a sauce, and a million more techniques. Again, this was for my next book, so I can’t get into the details now, but all I’m saying is that it reminded me of how much I love food and how much I needed to finally embrace it.

2. I absolve myself from the traditional publishing industry

I can’t believe I am saying this because it has been my goal to have a literary agent and my book in Barnes and Noble for as long as I can remember. But the more and more I learn about the industry, the more disillusioned I have become.

I tread lightly here because I will admit that my publishing career thus far has been non-traditional so I don’t know what I don’t know first hand, and to be honest, I would (at the very least) entertain the idea of taking on an agent should the idea present itself in the future. So I reserve the right to change my mind if the conditions were right and I chose to fuck around a bit and take new path. I’d obviously ask my psychic first.

However, the mindset of absolving myself from the publishing industry and not feeling bad about that is where I know my writing and my state of mind, are the most at peace and thus the most creative and fruitful.

Here are some crazy stats from the publishing world to consider:

• Literary agents only sign 1-2 authors a year so you have about a 1 in 500 chance of getting a deal

• 95% of the books in Barnes and Noble have sold less than 1,000 copies

I have self-published two books:

• Timshel

• The Spark of My Womb

The first was a Kickstarter and Indegogo Project and raised over 75K and sold 1,000 units before it was published and the second is well within shouting range of the goal.

The first book I didn’t even try to get it published traditionally. I knew that it wouldn’t get an agent or on the shelves because the Evnagelicals are real sticklers about who translates the Bible and spoiler alert: it is not a woman who veers left and also uses feminine pronouns for God.

The second book; I sent it out to a few agents because my editor encouraged me to do so, but the process was rushed along as I was trying to get it published to give to my dad on his 80th birthday. So I stopped sending queries to agents and self-published instead.

Here is something I didn’t know: when you get signed by a literary agent, you get an advance. Sometimes, this advance must be paid back in book sales or you have to pay the advance back out of pocket. Or, another thing is that if you don’t sell the amount of the advance then they tell you that you can’t publish another book. In addition, those book tours you see authors on? Those aren’t paid for, nor at they getting paid to go and do them. These tours are paid for out of pocket or out of their advance.

I recently purchased a beautiful and amazingly good cookbook I loved called Mostly French by Makenna Held. I loved it so much that I bought one for a friend and have told at least 5 others about it. Makenna is a trained chef who bought Julia Child’s old home in Provence and does a cooking camp out of the house and rents it on Air Bnb. I saw that her book was making some best-seller lists and I must confess to you that I went down a bit of a spiral about how it wasn’t fair that she got a publishing deal, and that of course she did cause of Julia Child’s house and that I needed to figure out something like this so my books could finally be on a top seller list and blah blah blah, get out my violin.

Well last night, I read her most recent substack and my heart broke. She detailed out her 2025 and the release of her book and you can read it for yourself but it was not all roses and champagne parties. She confesses that she hasn’t’ sold enough books yet in order to write another one. When I read that, I stopped in my tracks. I may not be on a best seller list or on shelves, but I do not live with the feeling that I can not write another book, and it makes me so sad that so many authors and aspiring authors do.

(Her cookbook is excellent so if you like cooking, you really should get it! And Makenna (Max!) if you are reading this, let me introduce you to my dear friend and editor who will help you publish on your own terms!)

For my last book, I had zero advance, zero marketing budget, although my friend Rob was so kind and invited me on his podcast which helped people even know the thing existed. I didn’t get any money to publish the book, in fact, I spent my own money for it to all happen.

It’s not on the shelves in Barnes and Noble and,…….yet.

It’s been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Why? In part, I think, because there is zero pressure attached. I don’t have a number I have to hit, I don’t have a storyline for the next one I must come up with or a timeline to do so.

The muse can have full reign in whatever timeframe she needs.

Do I want it to sell? Hell yeah. (If you haven’t bough it, consider doing so here! These sales help make it easier to edit and publish the next one.)

In fact, a thrilling fact is that I went to London last month and they have chain called “Waterstones.” Because I see all the sales, I knew that a large handful of books was purchased by the chain. I can only assume the book buyer is a RobCast fan!

Anyway, we walked past one and I popped in there and bought a few books for my kids and then asked them if they had the book in stock. They had SOLD OUT! I then asked if they had it at other locations and I am so flabbergasted to admit that it was SOLD OUT at all the locations across London! Woo-hoo!

Selling books is rad because I believe in my writing and my goal has always been to heal people with it. So to that end, I want to sell a million if it can help heal a million. I’ll sell 5 if it helps heal 5. I am not in charge of form or number, only the energy behind it.

All this to say, I have shifted into what makes me successful as a writer. It is no longer an agent deal, a best-seller list or on a display table at the bookstore. It is all the people that have left a review on Goodreads saying they loved it, or the ones that write me personally, or the fact that I get to watch her do whatever she wants to do in the world and cheer her on.

I refuse to ever feel bad again about self-publishing. I truly think it’s the future of publishing and I hope more writers absolve themselves of this so we can read more wonderful pieces in the future. Imagine all the stories we aren’t hearing because someone is believing the lie there is only one route to go and that it’s saved for the brilliant minds among us.

And that’s my list. I feel good I got this all out there and I have so many things to share with you about my trip to Europe, all the things I’ve been doing since I don’t have my smart phone, and a pretty big announcement about The Spark of My Womb I am excited about.

But in the mean time, I’d love to know what you are absolving yourself from. How are you living more freely without guilt because we only have this one, wild and precious life.

xoxo

B.

P.S.

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