November
Be light
Be the light
We are the light
December
2024 has been a year of abundance and a year of scarcity. Words cascade from my pen, my keyboard, my core. This was the year I decided to set them free, generating a bounty of possibility. The act of writing has opened my eyes to copious love within and around me. Not the romantic love I chased in my youth, but love as it is defined by Valerie Kaur in See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love: “Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects what is loved.” Each day is tinged with love.
And yes, 2024 has also been a year of scarcity. My husband and I live in a depleted home. Both of our children are building new nests in different cities, our house’s ample rooms lonesome for the days when they could barely contain the kids’ belongings, their vibrancy, the rhythm of their daily comings and goings. This is the price of love. 2024 was also the year we learned our dog’s heart is insufficient to sustain her without twice-a-day medication. People we love are ailing and dying, their time on this earth scarce, reminding us ours is too. Each day is tinged with loss.
In the world beyond my writing desk, I am bombarded by messages of want. Nobody seems to have enough. Wars rage around the world and in our own country, all of them fueled by fear, all of us refusing to acknowledge one another’s humanity, all of us crippled by scantness of connection, disappointment, rage.
What now? It feels like the end. Valerie Kaur urges us to consider it a beginning: “And when we have reached our limit,” Kaur writes, “wonder is the act that returns us to love.”
Writing leads me to wonder—about nature, history, relationships, and myself. I hope my words also stir something within my readers. In my most audacious moments, I dream of writing the exact book someone needs at a particular moment in their life. A book like See No Stranger and so many others have been for me.
I am closing 2024 with this dream. Thank you for walking alongside me.
I believe in sharing financial abundance. 100% of subscription payments will be donated to non-profit organizations. For a list of these organizations, visit Bare’s Community page.
Caitlin, I am proof that your words stir something within your readers! I was called to reach out to you after I read them in AWR Feedback Forum, the story about your elephant watering can. And as they say my friend, the rest is history! I believe you will write exact book someone needs at a particular moment in their life, even if that someone is YOU! Looking forward to walking even further down the path of our dreams this year! XO
It is one of my greatest gifts to have discovered the beautiful person that is YOU. Thank you for sharing of yourself, dear Caitlin. I have NO doubt your gifts to the world will include exactly what many “someones” need.