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Today is full of love.

Today starts with taking time to write before checking social media, and taking time to meditate when the anxiety got too restless-itchy, and taking time to eat before I got too shaky-hungry, and taking time to connect. Love. Self-love. Self-care.

Today includes working with narrative practices. And facilitating Possibilities. And writing. And talking about tarot as healing, metaphor as medicine. Work that I love. Work that allows me to share my love.

Today includes a love letter from a tarot deck I finally made friends with, thanks to the help of my tenderwitch beloveds.

Today, my love letter is this:

Dear Tiffany,

Sometimes there is abundance.

Joy is here, and there are joyful stories in this life. Even when everything is overwhelming and depression is present and fear is everywhere, there is joy. Abundance. Wisdom. Good work and old ways of knowing.

There are many projects coming up, and there is abundance with which to approach them.

Love,

Me

142/365

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Dear Tiffany,

You are at a coffee shop! You are writing! You are writing slowly, and you keep getting distracted by the internets, but you’re at a coffee shop to write! It’s been months.

Here is one thing that I love about you, Tiffany.

When you were 18, you went to the Starbucks on Centre, just before the bridge, every week to write. You did that for a year. You worked through The Artist’s Way, and The Path, and How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci, and you went every week to write – sometimes working through exercises in your self-improvement books, most times just to journal. The Year of Hazelnut Lattes (known in other contexts as The Year of Independence, but right now we’re in the coffee shop and it was a solid year of hazelnut lattes).

You discovered a love of writing in public spaces.

And you have lost, misplaced, temporarily abandoned, fractured, dismissed, grown out of, and moved away from so many of the things that marked that year. You’ve still got a camera but when was the last time you took it out, for serious? And you haven’t had a dog since Tasha died, Tasha who arrived in that year. And you don’t do any kind of needlework anymore. And you were just saying to a friend the other day about how you used to go out to eat at fancy restaurants by yourself, but you don’t do that either. You don’t volunteer at the Humane Society and you don’t live with your parents, and you aren’t single, and you haven’t had a hazelnut latte in… gods. Over a decade. I mean, there are many differences between then and now. And some things you’ll pick up again, I’m sure. The camera, probably. The needlework, maybe not. The hazelnut lattes… nah.

But this love of writing in coffee shops has been a constant through the last 18 years of your life. You have been writing in coffee shops for half your life. In paper notebooks (spiral bound, hardcover, 6×8 notebooks back then, Moleskines for a long time, and an eclectic assortment now), and on devices (the Palm Pilot with the folding keyboard back then, and various laptops and tablets since). Almost two decades of words spilled out onto coffee shop tables.

I love that strong and sparkling thread through your life.

I’m glad that you’re here now, tonight.

I appreciate the ongoingness of Tiffany-Writing-in-Coffee-Shops.

Come back soon.

Love,

Me

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Dear Tiffany,

I am thinking about what it means to “write a love letter” – I am thinking particularly about the fact that this prompt is the next one you’re “supposed” to tackle in the blog series about the Tender Year, and because of that, you haven’t written a blog post in that series in months, and you haven’t sent out an email to that email list in months either.

Because a love letter is so gentle, so nourishing, so loving. But it is also so fraught.

How do you write a good love letter? A good enough love letter? How do you talk about the practice of writing a love letter when you feel so disconnected from the kind of love that inspires love letters?

That’s the biggest thing, tonight. That’s the speed bump you slam into as if it were a wall, every time you come up to it.

You’ve been sick for months, you’ve been sad for months, and you’ve been stuck on this topic for months.

Coincidence? I think not.

But here’s a truth that runs slantwise to that not-a-coincidence – even in the middle of all this angst and stuckness, you have managed to write a love letter almost every Tuesday. Not write *about* love letters, but still, write a love letter.

You sit down and write, “Dear Tiffany, something something something, Love, me.”

Despite everything!

Despite the way you feel in your body right now.

Despite the way you wake up sad every morning right now.

Despite the way you lay down on your bed at least once every day and think “nope, I cannot” and then you get up and it turns out, you can (but maybe you should not? I don’t know).

Every week!

Anyway, you’re just kind of sad right now and your eyes are sawdusty dry and you’re feeling disconnected, but you’re also feeling proud of getting another resource pulled imperfectly together and shared, and events created, and a video recorded, and some time spent in giving and receiving care with people you love, and it’s very blendy. Good/bad, happy/sad, worried/confident-ish.

You’re doing a good job.

One of these Tuesdays, you’ll have that blog post ready and you’ll send it out to the email list and it’ll be great.

For now, just keep doing this little thing every week. It’s enough. You’re enough.

Love,
Me

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Love letters.

In that grey notebook, I am keeping track of my 100 love letters to my body (in actions, not words). There are two entries so far. They’re short. No analysis, just number, date, description. I’m trying to make it easy on myself. No obligation to write something shareable or meaningful. The meaning is in the action, and it’s just for me.

Also, I am giving myself permission to read sometimes. It is a loving act. I miss books. This book is heartbreaking and amazing. I’m also reading a few others. I bought Take Me With You by Andrea Gibson – their poetry speaks to my heart.

This afternoon, I wrote about swamps and resilience (the post is on my Patreon) rather than doing more of the work I need to catch up on. It was a loving and generous act, to let myself write in a non-productive way. To write what came instead of writing what was next on the list.

Today included both the panic hangover from yesterday and its own new panic attack this morning, and I felt angry and sad about that, but I am learning how to be loving even in these moments.

I was reminded that my body is doing its best, and trying to protect me. So often, I default to assuming the worst – that it’s punishing and betraying me. Charitable interpretation is an act of love.

Today included many small love letters, and I am proud of myself.

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Today is Day 100 in the Tender Year, and it is a Tuesday, a love letter day.

The Tender Year was created after the original 100 Love Letters project ended. That first project was life changing, and this project has been life changing, and that’s a lot of pressure on a day. As I thought about today and today’s contribution to the project, I really struggled. It feels so important. It felt like magic that Day 100 fell on a love letter day. And magic demands magic, right? The perfect love letter.

And I have another project happening – taking all of the writing I generated in that first project, and including interviews and other people’s love letters, and writing a book. I even bought a domain for it.

I thought the magic today could be finally setting that site up, spending some time on the book, writing a really good love letter and intro to the project. Officially announce the 100 Love Letters book project on Love Letter Day 100 of the Tender Year. That’s so good! Magic for magic.

But it didn’t work out.

It was messy, all the thoughts. I’m so irritated with myself lately. Hard to write a love letter from there.

And I couldn’t get logged into the domain, so that didn’t work.

And I’ve been sick for so long, I’m days behind on work, so I didn’t really have time to work on the book. Which is the case every day, and also, what kind of pretentious wank do I think I am, to write a book. Fuck.

But this project – I show up for it.

In whatever way that I can, even when it’s not magic. Even on Day 100 when none of the magic is working.

So I got out some chalk pastels. Messy and unfamiliar as a medium.

And I used my favourite drawing paper.

And I drew a thing.

And I labeled it 100 with my messy finger. Messy is welcome. Messy is uncomfortable, but it is okay.

Good job, me.

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Dear Tiffany,

On the fifth try, you are allowed to take a break.

It’s okay that this love letter is small and prefaced with a whole bunch of type-and-delete. Sometimes love is showing up, and sometimes love is permission to pause. You did show up, and now you have permission to pause. Whatever you were trying to say will be there to be said another time.

Go make some tea.

Love,
– Me

#tenderyear #100loveletters #dailypractices

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Dear Tiffany,

Oh, these love letters.

You’ve been thinking about gifts a lot this week. I mean, obviously. Christmas. But also more personally, your own history with gifts, with extravagent and thoughtful gifts. With deeply personal gifts.

Remember dozens and dozens and dozens of jars of jam?

Remember planning Mega Dates, and that very first one with the handmade scrapbooked invitation? (Oh my fucking word, you are such a dork.)

Before that, remember shopping with your ex-husband, even before you got married? That year you painted dozens of little jewelry boxes for everyone? Stencilled them and painted them and stamped them. And the year you made napkin holders, scroll-sawed a set of them? The embroidered tea towels?

You used to spend months making gifts.

The Christopher Radko santa ornament for dad, and then a wooden box designed and built and stained and personalized, made to fit it?

And then this year.

You did all of your shopping on December 23rd. You didn’t make a single gift. The one big idea that you had didn’t work out, and you didn’t have or even attempt to come up with a Plan B. You just… didn’t give that person a gift at all. Awkward.

You haven’t painted anything in years.

You haven’t touched embroidery thread, your canning gear, your scrapbooking supplies, or a woodworking tool in years. Years.

I mean, approximately exactly as many years as fibro has been in the picture, but still.

That used to be your thing.

Big, thoughtful, personal, customized gifts.

Anyway, that’s not your life anymore, and you bought yourself this chocolate even though you didn’t buy gifts for most of the people you would normally buy gifts for, and I just want to say, because this is a love letter and not a shame letter, that it is okay to be sad. No, my friend, my self, use the word that comes. It is okay to grieve. To *grieve* the time, the energy, the creativity that you no longer feel able to pour into your gift-giving. It is okay that you bought yourself chocolate, too. You are allowed to give yourself things, even when you are not giving things to other people in the ways and at the times that you want to.

I don’t know what next year will be like.

I do know that you are not useless. You don’t own a scrollsaw anymore, and you never actually did learn how to carve, and most of your crafting supplies are still at someone else’s house, but you are not useless.

This year, you wrote Patreon posts for a bunch of people and those people generally really liked their posts. Those weren’t exactly gifts, but they were something you made, that you put months of thought into, that you shared.

You created a bunch of online resources even if you didn’t create a bunch of delicious jam.

You relaunched Possibilities and maybe that counts as much as embroidering a bunch of tea towels. (Okay, let’s be real. Those tea towels looked TERRIBLE. But A for effort. Seriously. Also those napkin rings. Wow. You are just a very enthusiastic amateur without a lot of patience for becoming proficient and, well. Enthusiasm is not nothing. But I’m glad you stuck with jam for long enough to actually get good at it.)

I just want you to know that I am trying to forgive you for this Christmas. And I know that we will swim through this shame swamp and past the fear monsters and we will come out the other side muddy but whole.

I know that gifting is part of how you see yourself, and how you love yourself, and how you show love, and I know that you feel like a slimy jerkface for how gifting happened this year. And for the last few years.

I know.

But just… let’s just breathe. And be sad if we need to. And grieve what we’ve lost without catastrophizing out into a future where we never have anything that feels as good again. We can grieve and still have hope. We can feel sad and still feel hopeful.

So yeah.

Merry Christmas, chickadee.

You’re not as much of a fuck-up as you feel. People probably still know that you love them. I’m pretty sure. Maybe we’ll send some letters over the course of this year to make sure. But let’s just trust, for now. Let it sit.

And maybe someday you’ll have a scrollsaw again, or you’ll figure out the next crafty thing to be terrible at.

And either way you’re not a useless lump.

I love you.

– Me

#100loveletters #tenderyear #dailypractices

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cw – discussion of suicidality

Dear Tiffany,

You’re sick again.

I love you anyway.

This afternoon, when you settled into the pups’ place, you had such a strong body memory of other times you’ve been here. This house has held so much joy for you. These pups are so playful and snuggly and sweet – Herbie and his love of walks, Charlotte and her love of being burrito’d in a blanket. This house has held some pain for you, too. These good, sweet, perfect puppers have snuggled you through some bad days.

Scott has also been here, in this house, with you for those hard times – walking the pups when your fibro was so bad a few years ago and you weren’t really mobile. Splitting the time over longer stretches so you can be at home with the kids some of the time. Even after you moved out. Even after everything changed in ways you hadn’t planned for. Still, Scott has been here in this house, helping with this delightful work of caring for these pups.

And, the surge of memory that came this afternoon, while you were sitting across the table from Scott, eating the traditional Delicious Thai “first day at the puppers” meal (pad see ew, tofu for you, chicken for Scott) – that one terrible spring and summer when you were making plans.

You said, “I will give this three months of sincere effort, and if I don’t feel better by then, I am going to end it.” Sitting at that same table. Sitting across from Scott. And Scott nodded. They are a solid rock in your life. An anchor.

You did give it three months of sincere effort and you did start to feel better and you did not need to end it.

I am sorry that you have felt so lost in your own life, so many times.

I am sorry that the threads you hang on by are so thin sometimes, so ephemeral.

I am thankful that you have support, internally and externally. Scott wasn’t the only one you told. You have multiple people who can be trusted with the gloomiest bits of yourself. Lucky one.

I am thankful that you are so determined, and that when it gets bad enough that you’re making plans, you make plans that include the opportunity to change the plans.

I am thankful that, although many things in your life have changed in the last few years, your love of animals has not.

I am thankful for these pups, and for this house, and for safe spaces (physical and relational) to fall apart.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters #tenderyear #dailypractices