The STUFF Sisters -Posts from January 2018

Finding Signs

Thus far, it has been a calm that comes from seeing something with new eyes and in a new way.

Several weeks ago, a friend reached out and used the word I have come to despise.

Cancer.

I read a bit more of what was written, and I set the phone down, screen still bright. I was in a place packed with noise and strangers. A place I had visited only once before. A place where a path was not always apparent. The one thing in this large room that was a constant to me was my sister.

I had been silent for a few minutes, as we were both checking our phones and grabbing handheld lunches. My quiet must have touched her as different, as she asked, “What is it?”

I said, “Cancer.”

She knew it wasn’t a cancer of my own, and she knew to say little and to briefly touch my shoulder.

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Words & Boxes

I have been thinking often about writing and writing often about thinking.

I haven’t written a blog post in over a year. I stopped posting blogs because when I drafted something I felt uncomfortable. That is not to say I haven’t been posting or offered a public stream of content. I have been hanging out on the social media channels instead. And most of those posts have been on the store’s pages and feeds, not my own. My personal posting has been meager by comparison.

I want my posts to be authentic. And, all my drafts felt phony.

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For Six Nights

I do not make resolutions when calendar pages turn or on anniversaries or upon the arrival home after vacations.

The implementation was laughable and not at all picture perfect.

For six nights – randomly spaced from December 12th to December 29th – we sat in the dark and lit a candle. Each night, we chose a single word – I chose three of the nights, my husband chose twice, and, on the 29th, our son spoke the last one. The idea was to sit in silence and consider the word and the single flame. To think about the world. To think about us. To sit in quiet.

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