“Gratitude is a discipline. It’s a practice. It’s the art of taking full responsibility for your own life, without excuses or blame. This isn’t a spontaneous experience. It’s a choice.
And so today, I’m thankful for the moments I saw my pain, and took responsibility for my experience. I’m thankful for times I tapped into the suffering around me and realized how I was complicit with it.
I’m thankful for being loved, but I’m also thankful for those that left me–the ones that couldn’t make the journey with me.
They taught me much. I’m thankful for the challenges too. They’ve made me tough as nails and resilient.”
As the holidays arrive, one thing I know for certain— so many of us crave nostalgic vibes. We crave the safety and comfort of the past. Its simplicity and partnering maximalism.
Home Alone Christmas
Everything these days feels so minimalistic and beige. It lacks character. Everything ends up looking the same. But we want the festive mess. The lights and tinsel. A table cloth everyone signs. (Or at least one we can reuse for 20 years). Twinkle lights everywhere!!
The other day, we walked through an LL Bean pop-up and the Ralph Lauren stores, and it was a reminder of beauty that lasts. It was beautiful in a classic and quality sense. It had that charm of the past that endures. Story, nature and family at its center.
We want Snoopy, warmth and feeling alive. We want Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. We want a blanket fort and hot chocolate.
It’s about spending less on trendy stuff that doesn’t look lived in or alive. It’s about not giving into the tension of made up rules. It’s about gratitude and making magic with what you have (because I promise you it is enough. It was more than enough in the 90s, and it is abundance now).
It’s about being present, and staying in that soul posture. It’s about connecting with those you love, even if they are at a physical distance. There is no distance in love.
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu
I have memories of getting good grades and getting the Metamorphosis CD. I loved flipping through the booklet. It also came with a special DVD that had three music videos on it. There it was, spinning in my purple boombox while I would get ready for the school Christmas show. Curling iron on; glitter on the cheeks. What a time! I can still probably sing every lyric on this CD.
Hilary Duff is back, and she is saying the quiet part out loud in Mature. Her new album (and first in a decade) Luck… or Something is coming soon. First, Jessica Simpson, and now, Hilary Duff. Lindsay Lohan is on Verizon commercials. Is nature healing?
“There’s something very deep here. How do we endure pain? How do we transcend it?
We turn it into art.”
Steven Pressfield, Govt Cheese
By: Gabriela Yareliz
There is a book I have been thinking about since February 2023. I bought it, and it is filled with short standalone chapters that sort of build on each other but also not. I read it slowly and chewed on it. It stayed with me like the scent of a Charleston marsh.
I was cautious in my reading, trying to not miss a thing. Finally, today, I decided I needed to finish this book. I couldn’t carry it with me into another year. Deep inside, I knew the time had come. It was time to devour the remains. And I feasted.
Reading the last 60% of it felt different. It was almost as if I was finally ready for the rest of it. I felt I processed it differently. It rattled and inspired me.
It’s funny how things arrive to us when we are ready. I feel the same when I read a passage of scripture that cuts through me differently.
I feel like the book sat with me in so many seasons. Seasons where I felt the warmth of the sun on my face, where I felt the cold and quiet envelope me, where I waded through the bog of life and my own thoughts. Seeing the world as if I lost my glasses. And today, it was like in the middle of the swamp, a boat appeared. I came home, still gripping the soaked torn pages in my hand. I could see. Everything was clear.
There we were, J and me, memorizing Super Bass by Nicki Minaj for our law school clinic’s talent show/ karaoke night in this tiny basement establishment in Greenwich Village. I can still rap parts of it.
This week, I was heartened to see the greatest female rapper of our time address the international community on the targeting and murdering of Christians in Nigeria and the world at large.
Image via AP
So, Nicki was speaking truth to power, and Rep. Thomas Massie was keeping it #sassywithMassie in D.C. (iykyk) Massie is a figure I admire along with Rand Paul. Men who piss off both parties. That’s what makes them iconic. Bless these independent figures with a passion for truth.
I finished Margaret Atwood‘s fab course on writing. I am almost done with Aaron Sorkin’s. The wheels in my brain have been churning for days, at faster speeds. Don’t you just love the feeling of learning?
Thank God the nightmares have stopped. (Been laying off the melatonin).
As I write, I score a seat on the train, barreling toward Times Square, but before I got a seat, a little Asian girl was hugging the pole I was trying to grip. Aside from all of us being annoyed because anytime we grabbed the pole, we also inevitably grabbed a good handful of her staticky hair, her weird pole hug made me think.
As she hugged the cold metal rod, resting her face on it, I couldn’t help but wonder about how differently this girl sees this metal rod. The rest of us barely want to touch it and only grab onto it to avoid injury, meanwhile, she is resting her entire face on it. Kids believe anything. They disregard certain things that make us more apprehensive as adults. Now, I am not saying rub your face on every metal pole that at one point was enveloped by people’s nastiest parts on a NYC subway, but I am asking, what adult stiffness can we let go of and how can we adopt a more childlike carefree spirit where appropriate?
In my headphones, Candace Owens is reading off license plates and speaking like a car rental catalog (we are truly gripped— her latest phase of investigation is giving us life). And November feels like it’s officially winter. It has been a bucket hat week for me.
Ok, last thing… our Seven Days of Gratitude start tomorrow on Modern Witnesses. I love taking a pause to embrace gratitude. It’s a part of my daily routine, but to reflect on the entire last year is always special. What a year it has been. Crazily, it’s almost over.
The common theme in everything I see and listen to is— what are you doing that is life-giving? The world needs more people who are truly alive.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 