Need To Know

Tuesday Tidings #9

I walk along a new-to-me route. My hat rubs my forehead as it rides low to cover more than my ears. My scarf, tightly wrapped around my neck and past my chin is no match for the blistering wind as it blasts, headlong, into my face. And without gloves to insulate them, my fingers curl up to retain the little bit of heat as it pushes up against my skin on its way into the swirl of cold air that seeps in from the tips and runs all the way down into my palms.

This is winter on foot.

My teeth start to chatter, and I continue past walls covered in graffiti. They are the tell-tale signs that someone, for one reason or another, had something so fiercely on their mind or in their heart, they felt the need to spray paint it onto a wall of one kind of another. My version of that is writing here, in this space. Some days, those words come easily, almost effortlessly. Sometimes, I struggle to decipher, what if anything, I have to say and then clamor for the words to say it.

In the heart of winter, even with much on my plate, I find myself in a kind of hibernated state. Much like the grizzly bear, some part of me slumbers through the cold outside in order to keep my insides warm enough to hold the stores within me until the spring time.

It can feel solitary, barren even. Which is why this morning’s trek is one towards community. It is something I learned to do. It is something I get to go after. And some days, it is no easier to get out and do that than the first time I made a similar walk, in a similar kind of cold, surrounded by a similar kind of wind, many, many years ago.

I have no idea what exactly I will find when I arrive at my destination. All I know is that it is important for me to be with others, sit with others, listen to others. To get outside of the confines my mind and hear the contents of someone else’s heart. To be surrounded by a story that sounds different in the particular and also similar in the feelings to the one I have within me is the best way I know to find my way out of any internal stalemate.

Around the next corner, just off what is now a busy thoroughfare bustling with fruit vendors, nail salons, and hardware stores, a nondescript doorway next to a florist offers the way in. The steel door, slightly ajar, is ominous. Without any clear markings to guide me, I am not certain I am in the right place. Not only that, what if I am in the wrong place?

Suddenly, my determination fades and my fear rises up. It would make sense for me to turn around and walk away. It might even be prudent. But this is my second attempt today to find a place where I can sit with others. At the last place, the steel roll-up doors were not wide open. They were tightly shut down and secured with padlocks. That’s why I drove another thirty minutes in the other direction from home to come here, to this place. The whole way here, I came up with reasons to turn around and give up, to consider the effort of trying good enough. In some ways, it is. But in another way, it is not. That’s why, each time, I countered with as many reasons to keep going. Now that I am here, at the very least, I should do what I can before I give up.

Out of an abundance of caution, I open my phone, and look up the website to confirm the address. Reassured I am in the right place, I open the door and step inside. When I look up, the staircase looks as foreboding as the steel door through which I just walked. It seems to go nowhere. Or at least, nowhere good. One step at a time, almost without thinking, my feet carry me upwards. Even though I am technically indoors, the cold still covers me like shrink wrap. Tight and constricting, it keeps urging me to turn around and leave. But I push on.

All this feels a lot like everything else right now. Or, I should say, most everything else. No, a part of everything else. The part that is curling up through winter. This cold, empty hallway scuffed up with years of hardship and sometimes neglect has a clear direction. Beyond that, there is no real certainty. And yet, I keep going. I trust that in whatever room I find at the top of these stairs sits the promise for warmth and comfort even though I do not know exactly what shape it will take.

It is the best way I can find to articulate hope.

Please do me a small favor…

…and help me get the word out about the work I do here and in the podcast so I can continue to record and amplify more, different women’s voices. You can become a free or paid subscriber here, and you’re also invited to subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Or if you prefer to support my work in a different way, you can buy me a cup of coffee.

Meals Out: Ya’ll, for the past week plus, over the holidays, and in the every day, I have been cooking. Me. Cooking. Not just that. I have branched out into some serious cooking. Ribeye with baked potatoes, green beans and homemade compound butter. Goulash. French toast with bacon. Various kind of pastas (from cheesy bakes to creamy sauces), garlic bread, and copious simple green salads with homemade lemon-olive oil dressing. I did have meal out on New Year’s Day—a fancy burger at Le Crocodile, which I highly recommend any day of the year.

Listening (voice): Nothing, unless you include listening back to episodes I recorded for the podcast.

Listening (song most likely on repeat): Again, nothing, at least not on repeat. In fact, the only time I have really listened to music over the last two weeks was in the background on my drive to and then back from Connecticut. And on a few occasions, as background for dinner at home.

Watching: 1883 then 1923 and now Yellowstone (in that order). I resisted watching any and all of those, primarily because I refused to pay for yet another streamer. But, for the past two weeks, while staying elsewhere, I had access to whole range of streamers beyond BritBox, and enjoyed living vicariously through the trials and tribulations of one kind of pioneering rancher or another grappling with the search for freedom, the consequences of progress, and the loss of life and love in the Wild West. (This is very near and dear to my heart).

Most Hours Logged Doing: This past weekend was a mix of writing, walking, and whiling. Sunday was a true day off. So grateful I changed up my weekly posting schedule and moved my Monday Missives to Tuesday Tidings. That extra space is proving to be key. Which is why, this week, I am not posting a new video from the Discoball Tour to YouTube. I still need more time to work out how I want to tell part of the Santa Fe story and my re-experience of it not just while I was there in September but now, today, as I edit it. Really, I need to feel my way into feeling safe enough to put it out into the world in whatever form. It is good for me to know and respect my own sensitivities as much as I offer that to those who join me on my podcast. Such good practice for all the other things I am working on.

Tuesday Morning Meditation: 1.6.25

Hope does not need me to know. It wants me to trust.

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Is there a topic you would like me to write about in a Tuesday Tidings? Cover in a podcast episode? I am curious about what you are curious about and would love to hear from you so leave a comment below or drop me line.