Blog: Shake Off The Snow

We’ve had a hard winter. There’s no denying that. Outside of my own personal rampant anxiety & seasonal depression, the geopolitical landscape is a cluster, The US is in the process of a full on hostile government takeover that nobody with the power to do so seems to want to stop, & I know a lot of us also went through dramatic moments around family, friends, & love. It was a long, cold couple of months but it seems to sun is finally peeking through.

Despite what the clairvoyant groundhog may have decided, it seems spring is gradually creeping in. I feel typically we have a little more ‘hard stop’ to winter, but this year it seems we’re just easing into spring. Honestly though, that makes sense to me. The sun is slowly hanging around longer, I think for the majority of The US we gained about 45 minutes more sunlight during the month of February, but it probably isn’t something that the majority of us noticed. I however have noticed the gradual return of my mental health, overall desire to live, & the steady dissipation of my ‘dark night of the soul.’

The world seems, quite literally, a little brighter, even though the news continues to grow more & more grave as each day passes. I think the reason for that is also a sense of the shifting energies. We as a society are upset, we’re anxious, we’re in distress but I think we’re also getting to a point where what was presenting as rage is now shifting to spite, to motion. You see rage is a very mobile emotion, it causes us to want to take action, to kick the door down, to scream & writhe & bear our teeth, & when aimed correctly, tuned, & distilled, rage can be an excellent tool & an excellent motivator. You see, I think a lot of us over the last couple of weeks have been riding the rage train out of the pits of despair into something more productive & proactive. We are beginning to see that the actions of those involved are not sustainable, nor are they backed by the populous & that shift in energy & the light screaming through the cracks feels like a weird shifting tide of hope.

I didn’t want to get overly political while writing this, I definitely have my share of blogs that veer heavily into that space, but I wanted to mention the above paragraph because it does play into this shift out of the cold into the warmth. Out of the darkness into the light. We are feeling the resurrection of the sun & the fires are starting to burn away the shadows that have drug us down & encased our hearts in fear & woe. I think that with the shift in the seasons, so too will we see a massive shift in the world & society around us.

So what are we to do? We’ve felt the call to emerge from our caves, to return to the world anew & grow once again towards the light, to unfurl our branches & put out new leaves & return from the ground where we’ve buried our necessities back to a place of expansion & vibrance. We embrace that. With every fiber of our beings we embrace it because that is where hope & change & progress are found. Not in the pitfalls of winter, but in the promise of brighter days to come. We crawl from our dins, shake off the snow, & give it permission to return to melt back into the earth so that it can be used to burst shining new fruits into existence. We continue the work, we adapt, & we continue chasing the sun because that is where our hope lies, in the promise of good conquering evil, of the many over the few, of life over decay. So hear the calling, shake off the snow, & answer with luminous hope radiating from your heart.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I Guess I Need To Learn To Shut My Damn Mouth

I am someone who is often outwardly opposed to the cold. I have stated many times in person & probably on this blog as well that I would be fine going the remainder of my life without seeing another “winter.” Sometimes that sentiment also takes the shape of “going the rest of my life without seeing snow” but it feels like a similar concept either way. I live in the upper end of the American South, & while winters are slightly less harsh here than they were growing up in Kansas where there is nothing to block the wind sweeping from The Rockies across the plains, we still get our share of winter weather, especially with the recent surge of Arctic blasts that climate change has seen fit to give us annually. Part of the one-sided contract that I have with mother nature is that “if it’s going to be cold, there might as well be snow.” Well, I guess this week I got my wish & I fear I may have second feelings about the contract I, undoubtable, am responsible for securing us all in.

It snowed eight inches here in Nashville this week, an amount that I have not seen annually since I moved to Nashville in 2010. In fact, upon a minor bit of googling, I have discovered the annual average snowfall for Nashville typically sits around 4.7 inches, so we basically doubled that in one sitting.

Now, since Nashville typically is a snowless place, we lack the infrastructure required for maintaining our roads & clearing them effectively during our winter storms. Add to that the fact that my HOA, a mindless bureaucracy that oversees the neighborhood I live is, has seen fit to not contract a plow company simply because there is typically not a need for it, & you get me being mostly sequester to my home on the outskirts of Nashville for the last week. I am, for all intents & purposes, sick of the snow.

Was it fun & cheeky at the beginning? Yeah, sure. Did I enjoy a day or two of making soups & trying to make my furnace get my house above 65º? Sure. But I am over it & I feel like that is the sentiment for most of the people on my social feeds dealing with the same cabin fever from the storm, even those that I know live in walkable parts of town. I am humbling regretting the statement “well if it’s going to be cold, it might as well snow.”

So what’s my solution? What’s my ideal outcome? Well my ideal outcome is that all the snow melts today & the temperature returns to an area at the very least above the freezing line. What is the point of this blog? I guess in some way it’s me apologizing to you all if this is something that I, & I alone, manifested. I was unaware my skills of conjuring were so powerful. I shall do my best to be better next time & understand the consequences for the simple words I say out loud.

If you too are stuck in this frozen hellscape, wishing desperately for a beach & 80º weather, take solace in the fact that you are not alone in that desire. In the interim make all of the soups, take all of the baths or hot showers, pull out all the blankets, embrace the hibernation that we as a species are supposed to participate in, but somehow feel we are above even though every other bit of nature observes it.

Stay warm in there!

As always, much love,

-C

Blog: Be Kind, Remind(er).

Tis the season once again, the holiday season & with it comes all the ingrained stress. Lines get longer, the gifts we wanted to give or the ingredients we needed to make that one special dish get more & more scarce. Tensions rise & often with it, so do tempers. We often get lost in the capitalistic frenzy of “I need, we need” that we forget about the people we interact with on the day to day basis. Having spent some time myself working in customer service space; from being a barista to driving ride share, I can personally tell you when the weather turns cold, so do the people, at least where November/December are concerned.

This blog actually came at the request of a dear friend of mine who basically wanted me to use this platform as a PSA. She works as a barista & for whatever reason people think it’s okay to treat those hand preparing a beverage for you like garbage. I know the feeling, I’ve been there. People can often make you feel dirt low simply for the dumbest of reasons. I don’t know what brings people to the point of being completely & utterly devoid of empathy but I guess that’s a question we try to answer each & every election cycle as well.

I guess the point of this PSA style blog is simply to remind you to be kind. I know for many of you that isn’t necessarily a problem, but I feel the point needs reiterating. You have to understand that the people preparing your coffee, ringing you up at the gas station, running around returning the mountains of clothes that have been tried on, restocking shelves, waiting your table, driving you home, etc. are exactly that, people. They are, as you are, flesh & bone. They have their own lives, their own desires, their own struggles, their own disappointments, & their own thoughts that are equally as valid as your own. You do not out rank them in humanity simply by being a customer.

I truly think one of the most harmful practices we as humans have engrained into the customer service space is that “the customer is always right.” The customer is most definitely not always right. Let me say that again. You, as the customer, are not always right. If you make the customer the one & only priority as an employer you completely negate & dehumanize the needs of your employees. In addition to being better people to one another in the customer exchange, I think the current state of The US in general is also emphasizing the need for employers to do better.

You don’t need to be an asshole to get your point across, if anything I’ve found that usually ends up getting you farther from your goal. If you treat people with the respect & dignity they deserve you are 1000% more likely to get what you want or need. And maybe that’s the key to my super power, maybe that’s the key to getting a reservation anywhere you go, not being an asshole about it & genuinely taking an interest in the wellbeing of the people you interact with.

This is all a long form way of saying, be kind. Tis the season of giving; thanks, gifts, love, so give kindness a shot. You may find it makes you feel better as well. To quote a dearly departed mentor of mine, Billy Block, “if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Are You There Seasonal Depression, It's Me, Charlie!

I’m going to try & keep this blog pretty light despite the subject matter at hand. This being September, it is also Suicide Awareness Month & as someone who has definitely looked my own existence in the eye & found myself wanting just to come out the other side of it, I like to touch on the topic at least once annually throughout the month. I don’t plan to expand upon the topic of the month in this blog but I felt the need to come on & talk a little about my on going battle with the root cause of my own past self harm thoughts.

If the title of this blog weren’t indicative enough, I struggle with seasonal depression. It’s the reason for my distain of fall & winter, it’s the reason I have a hard time with the holidays, it’s the reason I want nothing more than to be a snowbird. I was reminded yesterday of my biannual condition when, while running errands, I began to feel the pull of the sun drifting farther from this hemisphere of the earth.

It’s a weird feeling & kind of hard to describe to those of you who aren’t sensitive to energies. I know that comes across as leaning metaphysical but a lot of us roaming this earth are sensitive to those types of energies. I, personally, find it very difficult to sleep during a full moon. I don’t think it has anything to do with the light but instead has more to do with the gravitational pull. Think of it as being able to sense rain. A lot of animals can feel the barometric shift in the atmosphere, some people’s joints start to become sore right before a storm. That’s how my brain works when it comes to serotonin production during the colder months. I feel the departure of the sun usually before the rest of the populous does.

I was also presented with this prompt due to the change in month. A lot of people are under the false impression that September marks the beginning of “spooky season” with technically doesn’t begin until the latter half of the month. I tend to try & cling to summer with every fiber of my being simply for the fact that I want to cling to my natural serotonin production as long as I can. Autumn often marks the turn of my mental state & it is something I dread annually.

I had the unfortunate experience of my body sensing the shift yesterday & immediately, despite my best efforts, it sent me into a debilitating depressive episode. I say all of this to inform, to give you a lens into the mind & body of those like me who dread the cold season every year. Last night seasonal depression hit me over the head like a ton of bricks & has left me trying desperately all day to shake the feeling.

I take antidepressants throughout my year but usually end up having to vamp them up from October to March. Some years are worse than others. Last winter, with all the COVID mess, it was worse than it has been in a long time. I pray this year is different. I pray this year is different for all of you out there who live with the same prognosis.

All I’m here to do is offer insight, to show & tell exactly why I have such an aversion to Autumn & Winter, to why I welcome the return of summer so fervently. I’m not going to go into the fact it also plays host to the widest array of possible activities & foods, hence summer being the best of the seasons, I’ll simply leave it at the medical & bid you all a fond weekend.

I hope each of you knows that you have value on this planet & that you mean something to someone. I know there will be times where that doesn’t shine through the gloom but light can only shine in the dark. I love each of you dearly & am glad you exist. Have a fantastic week!