"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting." E. E. Cummings
One of my favorite things in life is to walk cities. There’s something indescribable that happens when you walk a city and take in its people, its lights, smells, restaurants, coffee shops, poster filled walls and subways. This website brings you that experience by inviting you to experience walking global cities in real-time on video.
Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” ― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
I recently gave a eulogy for a young friend who passed away. She was a poet, and her poetry was scattered through out her Facebook profile. Ten years worth of updates. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
To write her eulogy, I read her profile updates. I immersed in her words, and revisited her sense of humor.
Her words were inspiring and subtle. There were times where through her words she guided us on how to grieve and how to live.
I believe that when someone passes, the most beautiful tribe we can pay them is to find their own words, words they use, which are their essence, and speak those words as we lay them to rest.
This is what I did at her celebration of life.
I’ll leave you with her words:
“everyone is a gift and gifted; young people will save our souls and maybe even our soil; belonging is a being that we build together; communal ritual restores health; tell the truth and embody love; talk about and work to dismantle systems of oppressions in ways that generate connection and healing — read books by rabbis ; dance with men with soft hands… communities have nervous systems that we can hold and regulate play is a cure-all ; everything can heal”
The college admission essay is one of my favorite things on earth. It’s the first time many young people will reflect on what matters to them and have to express who they are not only to others, but to the blank page – a page that either embraces or judges them depending on what they project on to it. As someone who loves to tell and listen to stories, I think we need more opportunities as adults like the college essay: where we are invited to express ourselves to the world concisely when it really matters.
Tonight I guided a workshop that invited new and old friends to listen to one another with rare attention. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate deep connection, and we accomplished this through a series of intention activities. I most enjoyed seeing how what people yearned more for, and even named – the connection with other people – was the exact thing they were doing together.
A Life of Wonder 