Just returning from vacation with my sweet family of four. It takes me a while to settle into vacation. Partly the self-employed gig (insert well-loved hustle) and I think also an unsettledness to letting go of the normal routine of everyday life.

I've spent years sharing my journey - the grief, the joy, the in-between places where most of life happens. I'm able to share in a way that is deeper than some I know. But there are even deeper parts I keep hidden. Locked away. An old survival trick for me that doesn't serve me so much. It lets me be just enough vulnerable. But not so much I risk anything.

This morning in my yoga class, I spoke about waking up with heartbeats and breath—the not-so-little things. I guided my students toward santosha—that beautiful Sanskrit term for contentment that's etched not just in my practice, but quite literally on my wrist. The tattoo serves as a daily reminder that contentment isn't something we chase after or achieve, but rather a quality we cultivate by noticing what's already here.

Sometimes offering a soft place to land it starts with a smile. Sometimes it starts with a thank you to a stranger. Sometimes it’s a yoga class, and letting people know that they are loved, sacred and needed on this earth. Not in spite of anything, but because of everything. They are everything – they offer all their thoughts, all their energy, all the messy, all the good, all the bad.

I have been noticing new friendships blossom and sweet check-ins with others. I have been counting the wake-ups until I join a dear friend and ex-pat in Mexico for a week or more. All this in the midst of terrible news and heart-wrenching current events.

I think about how important it is for humans to be included and belong. Sometimes, we find we belong in friendships and communities long before we realize we belong to ourselves. Some of us need to see and feel what being cared for is like before we can introduce it. The adage "You can't love another until you love yourself." I call bullshit (one of my late father's favorite words) on this. I have learned tenderness with myself from some of my most sacred friendships. I have learned to show up for myself and be a soft place to land in dark moments, craving someone else to pick up the pieces. I learned to pick myself up off the floor after being picked up, but loving others.

When a friend does know me well and I am surprised by a recent observation, I feel a few things, loved, seen and also terrified if just for a moment. At times I still want to jump in a bunker after admitting an emotion or a past mistake, perhaps admitting I do not know or that I may feel paralyzed in a moment over a decision.  Yet, those who have walked with me and stayed by me I am forever grateful.  

Midnight Blue

Mexican hot chocolate

Leopard print in moderation

Being able to remember my Dads voice, even though it has been 12 years

Giggles  I hear from the children who live next door

That really soft part of a horses nose

Balancing 1/2 Moon

The relationship with my mother we continue to learn and heal

A friend explained autumn is a season of death; we witness this with leaves falling, the grown getting colder, and the last of the blooms shriveling. We feel this in our sleep patterns, waking up in the dark before daylight savings sets in. Yet, this took me by surprise. I have been here before in October. This season can hit me with a sadness, a shift, and some bewilderment.

Like many, I have spent a great deal of time compartmentalizing for myself and others. The different hats we wear showing up only for those who can deal with that hat or the other. I admire those who seem to land on the planet fully understanding who they are, what they stand for, and how it will all play out.

A soft place to land is what I have wanted to show others. That’s what I want to offer them. In my own years of recovering from trauma and learning how to live with grief.  Offering a soft place to land took a little cultivating, I was able to do it without a plan in place. I didn’t know this was what I wanted until a few years ago. Out of frustration in my own relationships, or my own mind I would crave it. 

Years earlier before Suz and I were together, and we were beginning our friendship I remember being really uncomfortable in the divorce of the pressure of new kids and my new life without my Dad and Carol. I told her I wanted a soft place to land. She said “You can be your own soft place to land”. At first I felt dismissed and confused. It was empowering in hindsight and her advice led me to allow others or at least direct them how to find their own safe space. Their own solace. 

Sometimes offering a soft place to land starts with a smile sometimes it starts with, a thank you to a stranger, sometimes it’s a yoga class letting them know that they are love sacred and needed on this earth and not in spite of anything but because of everything they are everything they offer all their thoughts all their selves, all the messy, all the good all the bad.

A soft place to land may be in friendships. It may be in meditation. It may be on our yoga mats, it may be in true confessions, and late night truth serum to a friend, although I never find these easy. I don’t even find them easy now writing them out a soft place to land for me never comes in hurting another being hurt.

A soft place to land comes from an amazing sense of gratitude, even when our worlds are upside down, as my dear friend, Neill and I have joked for years a soft place to land is looking at our water faucet And having running water: the right side is cold the left side hot water, what a thing to have hot water within a moments notice. We turn the knob and we have hot clean-ish water.

Soft place to land is admitting our faults and having a friend that says “yeah, I already knew that about you and it’s okay. You try really hard or you love big or we already know your heart Emmy”. 

A soft place to land, as being honest with herself, not necessarily initially, but once we’ve settled into the truth of us once we’ve settled into the fact that we’re not too much and we’re more than enough.

A soft place to land is silver linings even in the midst of grief. 

A soft place to land is a moment of absolute joy like fire flies back east, watching children giggle as they play in the sprinklers.

A soft place to land is being present for sunrise or dusk.

A soft place to land is realizing your partners probably not going to change and then you realize her partner (me) is also probably not going to change and somehow making it work without snide comments, and a whole lot of acceptance.

A soft place to land is knowing it wasn’t so much that my dad left me, it was that he wanted to be with the love of his life. He wanted to make her his fruit plate to meet her every morning with a slice of raisin bread and some organic peanut butter on top.

A soft place to land is remembering my dad, rolling his eyes when your ex husband would sneak Carol (my stepmom) a Krispy Kreme doughnut, the sugar making him crazy because we knew that’s what could feed the cancer. And yet he had a Costco size bag of chocolate chips at my house. 

A soft place to land is realizing the most important person in my life was human. While he lived with angst and hurt, and that all his behavior the last 11 months of his life as fucked as it was really had nothing to do with me. That for years of control, compartmentalizing, people do have free will and people will do what they will do. Rarely having anything to do with us. 

 A soft place to land is knowing that my oldest for some reason when I kiss the top of his head when he’s sitting down because he’s so much taller than me smells like sawdust and woodshop and earth, just like my father did even though this kid makes music and beats. He hangs out with his friends and loves to cuddle his 13 1/2 pound dog. He is  nowhere near dirt, sawdust and yet he’s the sweetest reminder of my dad.

A soft place to land his learning that my 15 year old was greatly affected by my dad’s suicide, even though he says, he barely remembers him, and this sweet boy with his quick comebacks and often much older steadfast advice  makes me not feel so alone.

The soft place to land is showing up in a yoga class to teach something I’ve been doing for 13 years and having someone tell me that I made a difference or that they feel understood. Or when I look out at the students, everyone willing in a pose or moving through a flow as we do in the yoga community. I cherish that there is hope. There is community. Yes, a community is a soft place to land. 

A soft place to land is always always my head onto her chest even when I’m annoyed with her even when we’ve had a shit day and even when we’re at odds parenting together.

A soft place to land is that any night we go to sleep together she gives me a kiss on the shoulder, her hand on my hip. Always looking for a place where she can connect to me, knowing I tend to fade away, years of not feeling important and her overtures are simple, they are small and they work to keep me anchored to this earth. 

A soft place to land is my ex-husband’s, phone number still in my favorites, and slowly making their way back up to the top. 

A soft place to land is trusting my ex-husband, knowing he has integrity, and even though he gets a little shy and a little worried, because I am his ex-wife that he shows up more probably now more than he ever showed up before in parenting and sometimes friendship. We can have hard conversations about the kids and we can have hard conversations about the world.  And because he knew my dad so well he knows that once in a while I need to call him just for advice that I would have asked my Dad.  

A soft place to land is being able to write and hoping that your words make a difference. Hoping  people feel more included, less crazy that one more person decided to stay in this world and not take an early exit.

A soft place to land is living your life while finding yourself laughing at you,  finally learning to not take ourselves so seriously, no matter the trauma, the bonds, the friendships, and the craziness of this world.

A soft place to land is being able to be ourselves with no apology to be flooded to be loved, and to love others, like never before.

Our awareness comes on tiptoes.  My ability to decide to stay home as much as I can this cold fall week to garden, enjoy my dogs, and write.  My ability to stay close to the earth and my children and consciously decide to not drive where I do not absolutely need to.  I don’t take this for granted and certainly have even more appreciation as we come around the corner to  2021. 

The pressure to emerge with answers or somehow a new and improved version of us might come from our inherent need to be busy – to be accomplishing and to be doing. While this may change, I am keenly aware I secretly relish in my calendar becoming blank with canceling reoccurring commitments and other meetings. I feel a calm. I also am very aware I have the privilege right now of being okay. Of having food in my kitchen and a pillow to lay my head at night amongst those I greatly love.

Deep into a week of our version of isolation I have found more peace than angst. More relief than pressure. As 95 percent introvert I have been relieved deleting appointments from my calendar, some with a bit of sadness but not many. I have been relieved having less mom taxi time and more home with my boys time. I have not had any annoyance at filling up my gas tank - part guilt for my footprint in the past, part worry at the price of a tank gas and part suburban why cant we move to the mountains yet burnout. This has faded to quiet and observation. Of all things.

May we offer what is needed.  For we are them and they are us. 

A hand to hold, an ear to listen, a meal to feed.  

We find grace for those propelling our learning with hard lessons.

We find softness for those who cannot meet us where we are. 

What I realize more and more is my self-care is not so different than how I care for others. Last night I choose to put something down I wanted to do for me. To listen and help my son. He didn’t ask me for help but somehow I knew helping him would calm my nerves and soothe my heart. Similar to when I slow down for me - in my backyard or on my yoga mat. Self-care may be just a few moments in the sun on my face (with spf 50), or feeling the earth under my feet. 

I did not know I could lean in and still be all those things.  I am not sure I still do for I have been called out lovingly over the past few years by my closest friends and my partner.  I have an island that I quickly sail to emotionally.  It allows me to have a sea of water between me and being vulnerable.  Between me and asking for help.  The tides rise quickly if I dare to ask for help and do not get a response I expect or want. 

I wonder what it is like for those that have a path and stay on it--do they find contentment in life or yearn for different or more as I continue to? I know now that my yearning has very little to do about the others in my life and all about my make up - my psyche. I often feel that I am a late bloomer in choosing the right partner, finding the right career, and setting life goals. Never wavering. I wonder now if others feel like I do, choosing to take long mountain roads with the windows down to smell the forest and maybe even missing a planned event. A road with unexpected curves and sometimes takes as sharp of turns as I have. 

I came back to me, and my heart which felt selfish in the moment.  For I could linger from afar in these walls and observe.  Watching you comforted me and my own emotions to see you resting your head back in the chair.  Knowing you were inside and the fog was at bay in this coastal town. I wondered if this was good deep sleep and I still go back to the mismatch shoes the sparkle scarf wondering how you are.