Starting to LEAP

Self-Care & Self-Compassion Abound

My photo of the beach in Rogers Park, on the north end of Chicago

I wrote the article that follows in July 2021, and it’s been hard to wait all this time to bring it into the light. But NOW is the time, finally! It’s the beginning of April, with its promise of green, warmer days, and lighter hearts. For me this month represents a new project, a fresh start, and yet unknown possibilities.

For the next 30 days I will show up here and post what I wrote July 9 through August 7, last summer. Part of what started as a simple project, a LEAP, these words now reflect the essence of a life-altering experience that was 25 years in the making.

I will do my best to present the words as written. I hesitate to edit, craft, refine, or delete; there is just something about stream-of-consciousness writing that tugs at the soul.

So, please excuse the occasional profanity, disconnection, melodrama, and run-on sentence. That said, we’ll see if I am as brave as I hope to be…

Today I begin a 30-day journey, a project to bring wholeness and wellness into my life. But the project began before I named it — before I saw it in totality. Even now it is too big for me to see the whole thing. This project chose me, similar to how Elizabeth Gilbert describes ideas coming to her in Big Magic.