death

A Potent Reflection & a Magical Book for You ⚡️

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At my mom’s house, I see her thoughts in what’s in the room and where it’s placed. It helps me feel closer to her. It’s healing to be surrounded by her evidence and decisions and her mind reflected in all of these details. The tangibility feels like a blessing during this confusing loss, while I try to understand her absence and this pivot to my life’s trajectory. I love seeing the big ceramic S on the kitchen counter next to her tea supplies, her crystal bowl full of Stevia packets, her pile of neatly folded linen dish towels with quaint patterns.

The main place to sit in the house is on her blue-and-white checkered couch, so while I sit here, I can imagine her seated countless days in that spot over the past almost-30 years, and imagine her taking so many naps with different sleeping bags and blankets, tucked in cozy with the TV on (maybe playing Out of Africa again or a British murder mystery).

In front of the couch, there’s a framed picture that hangs in the wall’s inset area that it fits perfectly, making the theme for the room. The frame holds an Impressionist print of two women reading a large book, sitting by a window, and the colors are pinks and maroon and emerald and moss green, and the light is shining through the window, and it totally shows my mom‘s vibe. My mom had another large framed print with three young girls looking down at a large open book, and one of them looked a lot like me, and I looked a lot like her when we were both young.

I love how she encouraged reading and learning in all of these subtle and overt ways. Now that I’ve become a person who’s devoted her entire life towards writing and words, I can really see my mom’s influence and encouragement and what a blessing that has been on me, and I love looking forward as I sit on this checkered couch and gaze at those two women reading the book by the window, and how one has her hand up to her chest like she is overtaken.

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#findingauthentichealingrituals

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It’s almost my birthday, and my birthday wish is that you buy my debut fiction chapbook, NOW, THAT’S A TRICK — available for preorder now. My preorder sales determine my royalty percentage, so if you want a copy, this is the perfect time to order yours! This chapbook of magical realism stories will ship August 26.

Thank you, and I hope your dreams are supported too.

Now, That’s a Trick by Dawn Sperber

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How to Turn Warmth and Light

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Here’s a little piece I wrote almost a month ago, April 28, 2015.  I just reread it and thought I’d share.  It reminds me of how wherever we’re at, we’re mid-transition, all the time.

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Isn’t it nuts that it’s almost Beltane? It’s fascinating to feel the seasons turn inside me, to feel my soil churning and warming and observe the new growth pushing past my surface, knowing what to do all on its own, how to turn warmth and light and nutrients into all these new aspects of me, growing and strengthening and one day able to bloom. I even have some small blooms opening on me now—like ground-cover plants with many tiny white blossoms—seemingly unscented till you bend way down, get your nose right in there, and then you can catch its small sweet whiff. That might not seem so impressive unless you knew how thoroughly never-ending-winter I’ve felt, how I was trying to be okay with being fallow, since I couldn’t find a choice in the condition, how I thought winter was how I’d stay, so I struggled to swallow the clay and call it water. But now, standing on the raised lip on the edge of May, I see and feel the new shoots growing through my inner compost, breaking up the old death and rot, combining ingredients, adding heat and energy to waste, until my humble opening blossoms release a breath fresh and sweet. Miracles of life. It’s in the live moment that I receive the world and myself.