By: Gabriela Yareliz
I am pretty sure someone got shot at the train station. They had it blocked off with caution tape, Citizen App is being cagey and there were bottles and bottles of purple cleaner and strawberry deodorizer. I have never been in a train or at a train station for that matter that smelled like strawberries– urine, yes, strawberries, no.
I’ll try to swing by again today and see if there are updates on the status and whether or not I smell strawberries (though I have a terrible sense of smell, so maybe I should have someone else do the sniff test).
I have a self-care appt today. Excited for that. It is my own version of back to school, minus school. But in all fairness, life is my school. Learning never stops.
This month kicked off The Arena, a learning/coaching platform by the legend Erwin R. McManus (happy birthday!!). I continued to work through my modules for the other course I am taking. I tried AG1, and it lives up to the supplement hype. I also fell victim to Armra ads (the Instagram famous colostrum). I have heard miracle stories of how it can fix the gut, immunity and even allergies. My human guinea pig mode is activated.
Life of the Beloved became my book of the month. I will finish it tonight. Nouwen writes letters to his secular Jewish friends in NYC, and it is a spiritual masterpiece. It moved me to my core. You will see quotes from it below.
I got black drawing pens that arrive soon to draw a little. (My inner Charlie Mackesy reborn). I went down a Charles Manson rabbit hole of research.
I felt a lot of growth this month. Like, I feel it in the way you feel you are taller when you are a kid. This brings to memory when I had leg aches as a kid. I distinctly recall lying on a couch at a church person’s house because my legs ached so much. I think in Spanish it was labeled calambre. A sort of cramping sensation with sting. But as most kids do, then you hop up and start playing with other kids, and the dull ache goes away (or gets ignored). Kids offer us so many lessons.
I ordered The Boxcar Children set from Ebay (90s edition, not whatever the hell covers they have now with shortened content inside). Turns out the person just threw a bunch of random books in there from the series; they are not in order. I don’t have 1-20. No, I have books 1, 4, 54, 17, 40– you get the idea. Proud owner, though.
School has started in most normal places. A hurricane the size of a beast is moving over my hometown right now. (Be safe, fellow Floridians). And here we are, at the end of August.
I am grateful for so much this month. My AC was MVP; I am grateful for the Seattle weather lately of rain and clouds. I am grateful for the massage(s) my fiance gifted me which relieved a massive headache that was lingering. I am grateful for the gift of movement, both the strenuous exercise but also the ability to walk and dress myself. There is so much we take for granted. The podcasts, books (even if mismatched and out of order), fun skincare products, the supplements, a steady paycheck, perfumes that don’t smell like deodorizer– life.
Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…” I love the idea of goodness following us. It will follow us as we continue to venture into the future. It says “all” days. Not a single day we face is devoid of goodness and mercy.
Someone in The Arena recently said they end each conversation with a saying that goes something like, “Every day is a gift.” I will leave you with that. Happy (almost) September. Cherish the gift.
Quotes
“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.” Dennis Gabor
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“What served as intolerable becomes a challenge. What seemed a reason for depression becomes a source of purification. What seemed punishment becomes gentle pruning. What seemed rejection becomes a way to a deeper communion.” Henri J.M. Nouwen
“Self-belief (no matter how crazily-founded or materially divorced from reality) plus instinct plus grit may be the most powerful antidote to self-doubt.” Steven Pressfield
“If someone has to ask you to do the small things, you will never be ready when the big thing comes.” Erwin R. McManus
“I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly.” Leonard Bernstein
“I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” Georgia O’Keeffe
“If you say the truth and nothing else, you will have an immense adventure as a consequence. You will not know what is going to happen to you, but you have to let go of clinging to the outcome. You have to let go. The truth will reveal the world the way it is intended to be revealed. The consequence for you will be that you will have the adventure of your life. The other part of that ethos—which makes perfect sense to me and I cannot see how it can be any other way—is that whatever makes itself manifest as a consequence of the truth is the best possible reality that could be manifest, even if you cannot see it.” Jordan B. Peterson
“It seems that all of us human beings have deep inner memories of the paradise that we have lost.” Henri J.M. Nouwen
“You know, I used to think that beauty equals youth. But today, I recognize that wellness equals beauty. And that’s a big shift.” Elle MacPherson
“Either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” Benjamin Franklin
“One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.” C.S. Lewis
“In the era of calamities, you’re a moment of peace.” The Unsaid Story
“But I was so sad that evening: I understood– as I have understood at different points in my life– that the childhood isolation of fear and loneliness would never leave me. My childhood had been a lockdown.” Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves– slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“Adulthood probably the worst hood I’ve ever lived in. Very ghetto here.” Drew Latner
“It’s a simple principle: We get of God what we desire. The more we desire, the wilder the journey becomes.” Dan Allender, Sabbath
“On the back of Satan’s neck is a nail scarred footprint.” C.S. Lewis
“He who loss wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses his courage loses all.” Miguel de Cervantes
“Machiavelli had his most productive period after being tortured on the rack then moving to the country side.” Ryan Peterson (Founder of Flexport) (Don’t let a good crisis go to waste) note from Zach Pogrob
“I found a voice years ago and I’ve realised I need and love to be heard.” Garance Doré
Articles+ Stuff
How Folks Become Millionaires with Ordinary Jobs
Totsquad– services for parents.
People Who Intrigue Me
Garance Doré
Henri Nouwen
GABRIELA YARELIZ 