Alana Sheeren, words + energy

Goodness Gathered: Feb-April

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I broke my ankle on my birthday in March, and the last two months have been filled with resting, healing and dealing with the emotional fallout of being back on the couch just as I was starting to feel good after the health challenges of 2022. Oof.

0/10 do not recommend broken bones. Especially your driving leg.

But I’m on the mend, seeing slow improvements every day and I’m back with a roundup of some of the good news I found over the last few months.

I don’t know about you, but the news filtering into my awareness is more heartbreaking every day, and finding the bright spots feels essential.

I hope there is something here that cheers you, gives you hope, or makes you smile.

I read about this “friendship bench” in Zimbabwe years ago and am delighted at how it has grown.

International Garden Photographer of the Year. oh. my. (sighs in delight)

Tiny homes for unhoused kids who’ve aged out of the foster care system. What an amazing org!

Stem cells grown from patient cells. Science is so cool.

A response to dream crushers.

This traveling vintage bus is a cafe and a fundraiser. I love it when people follow their passions and become agents of goodness.

These folks are turning used disposable chopsticks into the most incredible things. They’re on my “dream purchases” list.

It’s horrifying to realize how many mass shootings have occurred since this article was written in April. It’s not an easy read but it does offer hope. Pushing for reasonable gun control often feels like an impossibility and it helped me to read that some things are changing. We can’t give up. (Skip down to the 12th paragraph that starts “Still, to believe that nothing can be done…” if you already know the terrible statistics and don’t want to read them again.)

And finally, a list of young people fighting for climate change to be inspired by. (Thanks to bestselling author & writing coach Jen Louden for this link.)

If you have a favorite happy news – or personal – story to share, please add it in the comments!

On finding my way back

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my words have gone
maybe the cat
soft gray fur
sharp claws
grumpy meeps
took my tongue when he died
and an angel uses it now

maybe the pandemic
stole them with
isolation
division
exhaustion

maybe it was
my old friend
comparison
arm-in-arm with
smallness
laughing and whispering
not enough
not enough
never enough

perhaps it was Instagram
sucking me in and
spitting me out
head spun
neck in knots
mood blue-black
with the futility of it all

my inspiration dry
as a crow picked bone
bleached by sun and heat
on parched earth
instead of the rich loamy forest
floor it once was

I am quiet
years of letting my words
lay fallow
finding my way
in new ways

then a flood
walking the dog
spitting a poem
into my phone
anger forcing its way
through my lips

another flood
sadness this time
words the only
balm

and I return
slowly
so slowly
to myself

a new voice
an evolution
of love
of identity
of hope

a restoration of
goodness and
potential

no guarantees
no promises
just this
just now
just me

Goodness Gathered – January 2023

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The world feels like a lot these days. These last three years have been disorienting and like many of us, I am working to find my feet beneath me again.

One thing that has helped is to look for the helpers (to quote Mr. Rogers), to search out the good news instead of focusing on what the 24-hour news cycle feeds us in service of their clicks.

I wanted to share some of the stories I found helpful and hopeful in January of this year. I may turn it into a monthly post, mostly so I can remind myself that it matters. There are good things happening in the world and they’re worth paying attention to.

Image of an arrow sign with Goodness written on it, in front of a road and landscape

I loved this story about a furniture restorer who dedicated himself to decoding ice age art and actually did it! I think it’s vital to teach our kids that yes, you want to enjoy what you do for a living, but it doesn’t have to be your passion. Your day job doesn’t have to be your biggest contribution to the world. (And your biggest contribution doesn’t have to be on this scale – having a positive impact on your family, your community, your corner of the world is also IMPORTANT WORK).

These slow check-out lanes for folks who could use a chat in Dutch supermarkets are brilliant. They have a chat corner too, where customers can hang out a little longer.

RxWell is a new mental health support app that seems to be helping teens and young adults especially. According to an article on Nice News, “A study on the program, which looked at the effects of the app on young people between the agers of 16 to 22, found that 73% of users experienced reduced levels of anxiety and 57% experienced reduced levels of depression.”

The account @climate.psychology.alliance on Instagram has resources for dealing with climate anxiety. Find them here.

Amazing new research on endometriosis could lead to treatments for an incredibly painful, underresearched, and undersupported disease.

New uses for old hair. This blew my mind.

Check out the fourth annual Close-up Photography winners.

Patti Digh shared a link in one of her newsletters, to the story and works of artist and nun Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita). Talk about a creative force for love + good + justice in the world!

P.S. If you don’t know Patti, she’s worth checking out too. I’ve followed her for probably 13 years since finding her early books 37 Days and Life is a Verb. In addition to numerous books, she sends out daily writing prompts via text, hosts the annual Life is A Verb Camp, runs a Hard Conversations book club and so much more.

My brother is a professor in the School of Forestry at the University of British Columbia and he runs the Wildlife Coexistence lab, studying human–wildlife interaction, often through the use of camera traps. He and his students and research partners get great photos of passing wildlife. We were together recently when I saw the story about these bear selfies found on a camera trap in Colorado. It’s hilarious and so worth watching. You can also follow the WildCo lab on IG and Twitter to learn more about the vital work they are doing.

I hope you find something in this list that cheers you, makes you laugh, reminds you of the beauty in the world, inspires you, or gives you a moment of hope. Feel free to share any goodness you’ve discovered recently in the comments.

With love,
Alana

Thoughts on delight

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I have to confess, I forgot my word of the year for 2022.

For a long time, the practice of choosing a word of the year was a precious and closely held piece of magic, guiding me through darkness, through healing, through mothering a young child. Then I got…angry? Tired? Disillusioned? Whatever it was, I gave up. Lost interest. Found other guiding lights.

During the pandemic, I turned back toward choosing a word. But with all the disorientation, the obsession with the latest Covid stats and political nonsense, the months that felt like years, my word of the year tended to slip my mind mid-March.

As the conversations about choosing a new word picked up this past December, I wracked my brain, looking for some faint imprint left by the word I’d picked. Nothing. The fog of being riddled with mold, then surgery, then my first covid infection had obliterated all memory.

Just before the new year, I picked up my 2021-22 Year Compass (a sweet, free online download in a gazillion languages), and voila, there it was.

Delight.

A lovely word. A beacon I could have, maybe should have, held close. But I didn’t.

Or I thought I didn’t.

In late November, I happened to be going through pictures from the year as I put photo books together for our parents. Interspersed between Instagram story memes and photos of food, were pictures I had taken in moments of delight.

Some were big events – my fiftieth birthday weekend in Palm Desert, family trips, weddings, concerts, and outings to the theater. But many were quiet little moments, Mary Oliver moments, moments that add up to a life.

The heart rock on my lane that made me smile every time I passed by.

The cactus blooms I looked for as I walked my dog to the State Park.

Palm trees framed against the bluest sky.

The way my husband and daughter look at each other.

Ada’s carved pumpkin sinking into itself in the California autumn heat, looking more and more like a grumpy old man.

My feet in the water as I walked myself back to health after my surgery.

Turtle playing with his best friend, Moki.

Pretending to hold the moon while looking for shooting stars.

The pink California poppies that grew in the backyard.

Perfect latte art.

And of course, the daily delight of watching my daughter grow up.

Even though I’d forgotten my word, even though it was a year filled to the brim with intense health challenges, even though it often felt better summed up by words like “frustration”, or “damaged”, or “Are you kidding me?” the magic of the word of the year wormed its way into and through my world.

It was a year filled with delight.

It was a year that added up to a good, imperfect, hard, beautiful life.

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