Over the years, I’ve talked about the time my dark-skinned dad and I were fishing at a stream in New Hampshire and white men surrounded us, got aggressive, and called my dad the N-word. I was eight or so. I am very white and I had never seen overt racism before. When I was a couple years older, I volunteered for Jesse Jackson and saw it again and again and again, so much so that they wouldn’t let me do doors with the other workers because they were protecting me, the random, little, white kid.
I have always been shocked at my white friends’ shock that racism exists in big ways and small, in our society and ourselves.
That’s it. Because this is not about me and it damn well shouldn’t be. It’s about learning, growing, and doing what we can do to be active allies in making our communities and our selves better, united, equitable, and just.
It’s Be Brave Friday and here is a work in progress because aren’t we all works in progress?
Be brave, friends. I am so sorry when you are forced to be brave and proud of you when you choose to be.
Here are some links where you can help, many of which come from Inside the Kandish (linked below)
Admitting that your anxious, afraid, upset? That’s called being honest. Being honest isn’t weakness no matter how many people might try to deny your truths and tell you that it is.
Being honest is being brave.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines bravery as: “the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty; the quality or state of being brave; courage.”
I know you are all being brave in big a ways and small, facing danger, fear, difficulties and I so admire you.
Act with love not fear, okay?
Create safe spaces for yourself and for others. Be a warrior about it. Be a love warrior. A bravery warrior. You can do this.
Here is my painting for BE BRAVE FRIDAY. The oil is still wet. But you’ll forgive me, right? It is still terribly hard for me to share these whenever I do, I feel like I’m about to explode into flames.
<3 So much love to all of you.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Hey, it’s Be Brave Fridayover on my Facebook and now here too and I don’t have a finished painting to share, so you’ll have to see one that’s in progress. It’s garish and raw and not even cropped, which is how I feel at the moment.
But more important than that, in this time of COVID-19, in this week where I’ve seen one friend lose her young husband to a heart attack and another lose his family camp to a fire, I just want to tell you that there are so many levels of being brave.
And just continuing on? That’s tremendously brave.
To be human, to live, is to be brave.
Thank you all so much for being brave with me. I am so lucky to have you and know you. So much love to all of you.
Raw Exploration
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE
Over on Facebook, I do a think called BE BRAVE FRIDAY because I’m trying to be a human being who:
Evolves
Does things that I’m afraid to do (in little and big ways)
One of those things was podcasting and now we have over 202,000 downloads of our podcast, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE. I was afraid to do that because I have sloshy-s’s and have been tormented and bullied about my voice for a long, long time.
Another thing that I’m afraid to do is share my art. That’s for a bunch of complicated reasons, but it just makes me feel really vulnerable. So, now I’m sharing it.
Here’s today’s post.
It’s Be Brave Friday
Today, I watched many of my friends be brave and say that they’ve or their family has had Covid-19. They shouldn’t have to be brave to say that. Society needs to love instead of ostracize. We need to work together to build the communities we want to be a part to of. That building should be about love and access not shame and fear.
Today, I also chanted under my breath while I was working, “I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. I’m good.”
And I’m thinking this probably means that I’m not so good? But I am still lucky and blessed to be alive, to have shelter and food, to have people that I get to love. I hope you get those things to. I hope you hold them close to you – those blessings.
Here’s this week’s painting. I hope you are being brave and true. I hope you can chant to yourself the stories you want to hear and live the stories you want to inhabit. Love to all of you. <3
Dogs are Smarter Than People
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE
Direct Link to Fiona’s Interview! on DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE. She’s a poet, coach, and awesome human.
Last week’s interview with J.L. Delozier, a Pennsylvania doctor and writer who is on the CoVid-19 frontlines and her debut novel was about a virus killing half the planet.
With Carrie today is Dr. J.L Delozier who has the afternoon off and instead of resting, she was talking to us.
J.L. Delozier submitted her first story, handwritten in pencil on lined school paper, to Asimov’s magazine while still in junior high school. Several years later, she took a creative writing elective at Penn State University and was hooked. Thriller writer, physician, and cookie addict, we were so glad that she didn’t rest and spent some time with us.
How cool is she?
Dr. Delozier’s first thriller, Type & Cross, debuted in April, 2016 and was nominated for a “Best First Novel” award by the International Thriller Writers
Type & Cross, is about a virus that starts in China and kills half the world’s population.
If you listen to the podcast, you’ll find out that Dr. Delozier has the writing chops and the medical knowledge to write that book. She worked for the federal government about disaster preparedness and now she’s working at a Pennsylvania hospital dealing with Covid-19 and trying to lift the spirits of both her patients and the staff.
Listen, and you’ll realize that you might want to move to Pennsylvania and have her be your doctor, too.
Two years ago, on the last day of 2017 (the no-good, terrible year), I was in the grocery store line and the cashier said something nice about me making a good meal for my man and how cute we are together and then she said, “You’re best buddies. Best buddies forever. Me and my — ” Her voice caught on grief. “We were like that.”
And my heart broke right there.
And I said, “C–, you’re breaking my heart and you’re working and I can’t get over there on the other side of the grocery belt thingy and hug you because you’re working.”
The bagger girl at the end of the lane looked away. I don’t think she’s good with emotion.
But C– just smiled at me and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I have a new man in my life and he’s so sweet to me and he showed up just when I needed him and my J–, I think he sent him to me.”
Her J — is her long-time, forever buddy, her husband who died.
So, I basically emoted all over the place while she rung up my crackers and I was like, “C–! You are killing me. I’m crying because I’m sad. I’m crying because I’m happy for you. I’m crying because you’re so beautiful. And this is all… it’s all so… It’s poignant.”
She laughed.
The bagger kept looking away.
And when I walked out of the grocery store, this person I don’t know, he touched my elbow to make me stop my mad-fast hustle to the car. It was -2 out. It was cold.
The guy who was all bundled up and wearing some Carhartt’s said, “You know. When you have a heart as open as yours, it’s going to hurt sometimes.”
And I said, brilliantly, “Oh.”
“It’s worth it,” he said. “Do good out there, Carrie. Do good.”
I was a little freaked out, but I thanked him, got to my car and sat there, and I just stared at this cold, Maine, parking lot and the people rushing through the grayness that seems to sometimes overwhelm everything during winter and my heart got so full that I started emoting everywhere again because that random Carhartt-wearing man took time out of his day to talk to me. He stopped in the cold to talk to me.
This guy knew my name somehow, but bigger than that? This guy knows about hearts.
Gifts Out There
So, here’s the thing – there are gifts out there (big gifts and little ones) and they can come from the weirdest places. They’re connections. They’re motivations. They are these tiny times where you get to see inside other people’s minds and hearts.
Savor them this year. Try to dwell on those good things as much as we all dwell on the bad.
And let both the good and the bad inspire you to make a difference in your own life and maybe even other people’s lives (big ways and little ways).
cat, cat wisdom, catandkitten, kitten, Maine cat, maine
Thank You
Thank you all for everything you’ve done for me this year. You’ve listened to me worry about things like suddenly being a full-time mom again. You’ve celebrated with me about book stuff and podcast stuff. You’ve mourned with me when Charlene died.
You haven’t mocked me too hard because Grover (the muppet) is my internal cheerleader and John Wayne (dead cowboy movie star) is my internal editor. You’ve been brave with me on Be Brave Fridays when I shared my art, which is still scary by the way.
Some of you have bought my books and become my patrons. On social media, so many of you have been so kind over and over. And you haven’t unsubscribed to my newsletter. That’s such a big deal to me.
Thank you.
I really appreciate how kind and giving you’ve all been and if I write any more I’ll start crying. And there’s no random stranger guy here to make me feel better.
But there is Gabby….
Gabby’s New Year Wisdom
Love is being right in the moment. It’s about enjoying everything around you. And really feeling it, being open to it.
This includes the couch.
It even includes squirrels.
It’s not giving or taking, but who you are in relationship to all else (especially the couch) at that moment.
