Charlene Carr's Blog, page 14

Stories are powerful.

Stories are powerful.

This is a truth I’ve believed for years because I’ve experienced it. As a child, the books I read took me out of my own world, my own fears, my own pain, and allowed me to find myself in other worlds. Worlds that, despite their inherent dangers, were safe. I could explore what it was like to live a life different from my own—from the safety of my own home.

Other times, the stories were ones I could relate to powerfully, and through the characters I was able to navigate possible ways to interpret or live with the problems I was facing. These experiences are a large part of why I’ve always had the desire to write. I wanted to create worlds and opportunities to explore and think and navigate for my readers. But, as so often happens, sometimes when we focus so much on pursuing a dream we forget why we had that dream in the first place. And then life reminds us.

The past few months have been some of the most stressful, scary, and painful I’ve ever endured. The culmination of these stresses and struggles started taking a serious toll on my mind and body. Have you ever just felt raw? I mean really raw, like you’re walking around as this fragile person, in danger of falling apart at any moment? That was me.

I had so much negativity, fear, pain, and loss whirling around in my world and then, to top it all off, it seemed like all of that energy embodied itself in an actual person—a racist, angry, hot-tempered, and potentially violent person—who decided to take out his anger at his own crumbling life on me, and whose words and actions made me feel both terrorized and trapped in my own home. I feared for my life.

And because (thankfully) this person didn’t follow through on his threats there was nothing the authorities could do about the situation. And so I’ve had to live knowing this person is still out there, close at hand. Fear is a powerful thing. It affects the body in ways that are very real. It makes us sick. And so, trying to escape from the fear that gripped me, I spent several days lost in a book. And what medicine it was!

If you’ve read Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty, you know it is full of complex and strikingly honest characters. One character in particular, an abusive, violent, liar of a man reminded me very much of the real life person in my life. And seeing the way Moriarty portrayed this character—as a monster, but also just as a man, capable of goodness, love, laughter—helped to remind me that the person I feared is also not just a monster. He is a son, a friend (to someone, I’m sure!) and a person who is obviously struggling with his own demons. Seeing him as this took away a lot of his power.

The novel also reminded me that, partly because of this man and partly as a result of the other painful circumstances in my life right now, I’d written myself as a particular character—the victim. And books are full of victims, but how boring are they if that’s all they are? How weak and sad. That’s not who I am or who I want to be. That’s not the type of story I want my life to tell. I want to be the person who steps outside of her victim-hood and takes control of her life. So, thanks to the perspective gleaned from a good book, I’m back on the road to doing that.

I’m also experiencing new excitement and drive about the characters I create and the stories I tell. Ms. Moriarty had no idea her story would affect me the way it did—provide distraction, initially, and then perspective and courage and hope—and she probably never will. I may never know the way my characters help someone else. But I believe if I keep writing and putting my heart and soul and thought into my books, lives will be touched. Stories are powerful.

Do you have a story of how someone else’s story affected you? A novel, a memoir, or even a conversation? I’d love to hear about it! Scroll down to comment below.

Let Go of the Past

In life it’s so easy to let the past cripple and define us. We hold onto experiences, beliefs, and heartache, thinking those things are still real, that they have control over us. But they don’t, unless we let them.

Many readers of my novel, Skinny Me, focus on the main character’s weight loss journey and her issues with self-image and self-acceptance. In past posts I’ve focused on that too, but the story is about a lot more than those issues.

Jennifer, the narrator of the book, is a complex person with a history of hurt and misunderstanding. When the novel begins she’s at an all-time low. She’s out of work, her mother has recently died, and she’s less than close with the rest of her family. To make matters worse, she let’s herself fall into a habit of holding onto pain and letting her past determine her future.

I know I’ve also been guilty of this at times in my life and imagine many people reading this have as well.

Another character in the novel helps Jennifer realize what she’s doing and helps her see that when we hold onto a past that no longer exists, all it does is bring us pain.

Through Jennifer’s character, I wanted to explore how we can learn from our past and recognize its pain while realizing the only moment that ever defines us is the one we’re living right now. After that moment passes, we have the freedom to move on from it and live the present moment. Easy to say, and hard to do, but when we do—oh how beautiful life is!

Interested to see how Jennifer discovers this along her journey? From now until March 5th, 2015 Skinny Me (ebook version) is on sale for half of it’s regular price at Amazon and all other major online retailers.

Remember the ‘wonderful,’ and the road that got you to today

If you’re reading this, and if you’re an entrepreneur, at some point you had to make a choice.

Maybe you felt like you had no choices left.

Maybe you just decided you needed something more.

Maybe you knew you weren’t doing what made you excited to get out of bed in the morning, the type of work that doesn’t just feel like a job but that is an extension of yourself.

Or maybe, like me, you found yourself in a life or career that was draining you of everything you once thought you were.

Something made you decide to take that leap and whatever it was, never forget it. There will be days when you think—I’m crazy!—and days when you think that regular nine to five and working for someone else is what you really want. And maybe you do want that, but let it NOT be because you were afraid to follow your dream.

Being an entrepreneur is hard, it’s scary, but it’s also wonderful. Remembering the path that led you to this place you now live in is part of what’s going to keep you feeling alive.

For me the journey was a circuitous one, as I imagine yours was. I was reading by the time I was three years old, I was writing my own stories soon after that, and I knew—knew in the depths of my being—that I was meant to be a writer. But as the years piled on, I also came to learn that many writers starved, many writers never made it, and the world already had enough books anyway.

So I put that dream on the shelf. I didn’t throw it out exactly, I just told myself it could stay there, out of sight most of the time, but available, ready, and waiting for when I decided to pull it down, dust it off, and give it another look. Most likely, I thought, I wouldn’t be a writer. Instead, I’d be something else, a social worker perhaps, who wrote not for the world but for herself (when she could at last find the time!).

Many twists and turns later, I decided I wasn’t going to be a social worker or many of the other careers I’d considered. If I couldn’t live my dream, I decided I would study my dream and maybe one day teach it.

To make a long story short, although I’ve spent time teaching, I’m not a teacher. I’m also not a professor, or a project manager, or a journalist, or a full time Communications specialist. I’ve been all of those things in one form or another and still work at aspects of all of them, but they’re not who I am. I am a writer. The thing I labour at, not because anyone is telling me to, not for the money (although of course we all need the money!), is creating stories. That’s my job. I share with people the secrets of my soul—hoping they line up with the secrets of theirs—and through that, I live my dream.

Who are you?

If today is a day when you’re feeling charged up and inspired by this journey you’re on, seeing it as not just a career, but a life—yea!

If it’s one of those other days when you wonder what you’re doing or how you got here, take a moment and travel back over the route you took. Find that moment when something inside you said, ‘Yes!’ and then determine to continue on, because you’re not done yet.

Follow your passion. Do what you love, even if it means sometimes doing what you don’t. Accept that, just as the road map you first started out with probably looks entirely different than you once thought it would, in five years it could look completely different again—in a way that makes you smile.

Focus on today, on doing what your gut tells you matters. The road may take you exactly where you intend to go or it may not, but if you’re travelling with the right mindset it will be a place you are meant to be.

Originally posted February 18, 2015 on Around and About with NLOWE

Fiction Friday: The Thrum of Life

This isn’t exactly a short story … well, it’s not. For Fiction Friday I’m posting a Fiction Thought, which is essentially the glimmer of a potential story.

One such glimmer (even shorter than this), which I wrote about eleven years ago after a walk through the woods, has grown in the past decade from about five sentences to a 100 000 word novel I hope to release in the next few months! Its working title is The Corners of the Evening, though I’ve had much debate from beta readers on what the best title would be. I’m planning to send out a survey in the next few days to followers of my newsletter with other potential titles. If you would like a say, sign up at the bottom of this post!

And onto …

Genevieve sat on the back porch, sunlight slowly roasting her. The sound of cars on the distant highway raced in and out of her existence, mixing with the sweet, disjointed sounds of someone from within practising Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. The birds seemed to revel in the sound, chirping along and tweeting indignantly whenever the player paused or had to replay a certain section to get it just right.

A cheap, old, blue and white flowered tablecloth gently lifted in the breeze, drawing Genevieve’s attention away from the rapidly flowing chocolate river she’d been gazing at as in a trance. This near forgotten sheet, cast from the house to catch any overflow of rain water and prevent it from damaging the shelves beneath, seemed enchanted. It undulated as the wind caressed it. An angel dancing couldn’t have been more graceful.

“That’s what I want,” she whispered, only loud enough for the flies to hear. The cloth rose and fell, rose and fell, the motion syncing with her own breath. Peace. Simplicity. That’s what she needed.

The wind picked up and the sheet danced, the Canon grew in intensity, fingers flying over porcelain keys. The player was doubling the tempo now. The birds met the energy with a chorus of their own and amazement filled Genevieve’s lungs. This was what life was supposed to be. She’d gotten it all wrong. For years, she’d made the wrong choices, followed the wrong dreams, when all along the answer was here, waiting in the place she’d begun—at home.

She knew, though, the answer could have been anywhere. She just hadn’t seen it. She saw it now. This was what mattered, the ability to be present, to see. To recognize she, in all her tumultuousness, was part of a universal dance and meant to glean joy from the song. This was life. But how could she hold this truth? It’s a lesson she must have known at some point. Babies knew it. Birds knew it.

As the wind settled, as the player stretched her fingers or rose from the stool, letting only the memory of the music linger in the air, Genevieve felt lost, or knew that she soon would. Silence floated around her as she sat, staring at the now inanimate sheet, hearing nothing but the gentle whoosh of the river and the more pronounced zoom of the cars.

She let her eyelids close and sensed the weight of them. If she focused, she could sense other parts as well, along with the thrum of life within her, ensuring that she was indeed alive. She was indeed alive. In this one moment she was okay, had everything she needed to exist. This, she thought, is life too. This is peace. The Canon began once more. Genevieve breathed, because she could.

Did you enjoy this edition of Fiction Friday? The more I hear from readers, the more regularly I’ll post! Suggest a word, an image, or an idea in the comments below and I’ll use it to write another Fiction Friday piece in the weeks to come! (And reference your suggestion.)

If a spider can do it …

My husband and I took a walk through the woods. As we travelled deeper the snow fell harder, eventually turning into ice pellets that stung our faces and clung to our coats. The world around us was beautiful, but also a little cruel.

Then my husband, ever the observer, stopped and pointed out a spider in the picture. He marvelled at it, while I, a little perturbed by the wet and cold, took a moment longer to be impressed. He had me take a picture, and seeing that tiny fleck on my screen, barely recognizable in the middle of all that snow, crawling through a path wide enough that it probably had at least four feet to travel in either direction – which to me, would have been kilometres – I was amazed.

When I got home and looked at the picture again, zoomed in so I could see the spider more clearly, my amazement turned to humility. That spider was the embodiment of resilience. Why it was in the path, I’ll never know. Did it survive? Probably, because this wasn’t the first snow and there it was, alive, battling through a snowfall that to me was uncomfortable, and to it, must have been a raging storm. It pressed on, it had a destination in mind, and was resolved to reach it.

Resilience.

It makes me think, how often have I felt like the path ahead of me was too hard? How many times have I let myself get discouraged because the future seems too undetermined and I fear failure? Too many.

But now when it seems overwhelming to trudge along the path I’ve set out upon I will think – if a spider can do it …

 

Can happiness be measured on a scale?

It’s January—new beginnings, new goals, and for many, myself included, the need for a new pair of jeans. If you’re like me though, you don’t want to buy that new pair of jeans, rather, you want to fit back into your old pairs!

I may be exaggerating a bit … this year at least. I can still fit into my old jeans, just not comfortably. Last year, however, I was ignoring my expanding waist and able to do so thanks to the oh so forgiving fashion of the day—tights! I became a tight enthusiast. Tights with skirts, with sweaters, with cute boots and even, a time or two, with leg warmers. Then on a date night with my husband I decided to slip into my most forgiving pair of jeans. Half way through the movie, after some popcorn and chocolate covered almonds, the jeans became far too unforgiving. In the sheltering darkness of the theatre I undid the button and yes, I admit it, slid down the zipper. Ahhhhh. No one could see, no one would know … except me of course, but that knowing, it hurt!

A host of negative thoughts sailed through my mind—you’re so fat, how did you get here? Why are you eating all this popcorn? Do you have no self-control?

The thing is, I do have self-control. I’m an active person who eats fairly healthy most of the time, but if I slip up with that for even a few weeks, allowing myself to eat cookies and birthday cake and all the wonderful delights of the holiday season, it’s like my body says, YES! Let’s pound on those pounds! Seriously, I can eat the exact same items as my metabolically blessed partner and gain eight pounds while he loses two.

In my book, Skinny Me, the protagonist’s (Jennifer’s) wake up call that she needs to make a change to improve her life also involves a pair of pants. For me, undoing that button got me 100% back on the road to NOT having to buy new jeans. See, I’ve been down the road of obesity before, and I have no intention of travelling there again. It doesn’t line up with my goal of living a long, healthy, and active life.

It took four to five months but I undid two months of stress-of-moving and holiday eating and now, a year later, I’ve found myself scared of another undo-the-button type of day.

A few posts ago I wrote about how for an author, more than art imitating life, often, life imitates art. My current situation is one where both statements are true. In no way is Jennifer’s story my story, not at all, but some of her feelings and experiences surrounding weight loss, gain, and self-image are ones we’ve shared. Some of the lessons she learns are ones I’ve learned as well and, apparently, that I needed to learn again.

Noticing new holiday pounds, I found myself using language about myself I KNOW I shouldn’t use and judging aspects of my worth with the same scale I use to judge how much that big piece of ice-cream cake has impacted my weight. But I’m better than that. Smarter than that. And it took a message from one of my readers to remind me of this truth.

She told me how much she enjoyed following Jennifer’s story, how the way I portrayed Jennifer’s thought processes and struggles were spot-on to struggles she’s had, and, most importantly, that the story reminded her happiness comes from within no matter your size or other physical traits.

Let me just write that again.

Happiness comes from within, no matter your size or other physical traits. 

It’s moments like the one above that remind me why I write, to understand the world, to learn and pass on that knowledge, to understand myself, and to help others understand themselves as well. So in answer to the question in the post’s title. Can happiness be measured on a scale? Absolutely not.

Have you been battling with your own issues of self-image? What helps you know the truth that you’re great and wonderful and health is what matters? Share below.

So you mean Communication is more than just words?

Not many people would argue against clear communication being an essential part of any business.

We go to workshops, take seminars, and pride ourselves on our ability to communicate clearly. Still, we sometimes forget that communication is a lot more than our ability to say the right words, use the right body language, or actively listen.

When it comes to business, writing is the form of communication many of us engage in the most, yet we often give it the least attention.

How many times have you jotted off a quick email without double checking to make sure your message was clear and said exactly what you intended it to say?

Or perhaps you can recall that horrible story of an advertisement, newsletter, or proposal that went out with some tiny little mistake—a misplaced comma perhaps—that changed the entire meaning of your message.

In a world of text messaging, tweets, and status updates, where ‘communication’ involves using the least characters possible to get the quickest message across, it’s easy to let bad habits and lack of attention to detail carry over to all forms of written communication.

Believe it or not, people do notice and care when that tweet you just posted for your business doesn’t make sense. When lack of clarity reigns king in an email, proposal, or companywide notice, you’ve got a real problem.

Miscommunication can be frustrating and time consuming at best—at its worst, it can destroy your business and the key relationships that keep that business thriving.

So, what are some key habits to develop to ensure the message you want to send is the message that is actually received?

 

Think before you print … or write, or type, or swype

Take a moment to think about what you want to say, who you want to say it to, and what you want your readers to take away from your message. Sometimes this is VERY obvious, and sometimes not. Taking time to think about your message (maybe even outline?) can completely transform your writing.

Write in a way that will appeal to your reader and his or her perspective, rather than your own.

Ask yourself, why am I writing this? And be sure by the time your message is written there is no way your readers will be asking you the same question.

 

Assess your address … or more simply put, consider the style and tone—is the voice you’re writing in the right one?

In written communication we don’t have body language to help deliver the message. So while you may think your writing is clear, direct, and succinct, your readers may think it is abrupt, aloof, or downright rude.
Be conscious of the words you choose and how your reader is likely to interpret them. You don’t need to be paranoid, just take a moment to consider:

Are you using such academic or complicated language that your readers will feel confused or even offended?
Is your speaking voice friendly and casual whereas your written voice sounds like a political address—what message does this send?
Have you tried so hard to explain yourself clearly that your writing is now wordy and repetitive? –Cut it out! (literally)

 

Review, Revise, Review!

It’s what your grade school teacher told you to do and a practice that you never need to outgrow. Even if you’re sending out a one-line email, take a few seconds to look it over.

Sometimes the quickest note is the most likely to have a simple error that twists or changes the whole message.

When you’re reviewing, check to make sure you’ve written your message clearly, concisely, and with power. Of course, edit for spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, but also make sure your words say exactly what you want them to say.


After you’ve revised your message and gotten rid of any pesky little typos or writing faux pas, review once more to make sure you didn’t add new mistakes.

 

So, dear reader, next time you’re in front of your desk, tablet, phone, or even a note pad, take a few extra minutes to think about your message, your audience, and what it means to communicate in the best way you can. Schedule some additional time to review your writing and prevent miscommunication mix-ups.

If you’re interested in learning about what communications services I offer-please visit Communications or email charlene[@]charlenecarr.com.

Originally posted on AWENS.ca Dec. 11, 2014

What’s the big fixation? New Year’s Resolutions or Old Year’s lessons

If you could go back over your year and get one do-over, just one, would you?
If you would, what would it be?

This is the time of year when people determine to look toward the future, to think about the goals and resolutions they want to make for a new year. We view it as a time to strive to be better, slimmer, healthier, kinder, richer … and the list could go on. Many of our resolutions may be about our future, what we want to see ourselves become or achieve, but I also think a lot of the time they’re also about our past. We see the shining New Year as a chance to wipe the slate clean, to be the person we’ve always wanted to be, to change.

For very specific reasons, I’ve never been a person to make New Year’s resolutions. This year, however, after deciding to view my writing as a business and put myself wholeheartedly into letting my stories build a career, I’ve realized that part of having a business is having a sound business plan and part of having a business plan is having goals or, by another name, resolutions.

It’s been interesting trying to decide the achievements I want to be able to call mine by this time next year. I don’t want to set my goals so high that I’ll run myself ragged, but I also want to set them high enough that I’ll be motivated and never let myself get complacent.

In thinking about these goals I have also thought about where I was at this time last year. The transformation is amazing. At this time last year I knew I was going to devote the new year to writing. I thought that in having a whole year to write I would probably be able to write one more novel manuscript and, hopefully, shape up the two manuscripts I had already written so I could send them off to publishers. At that time the idea of independent publishing was something I had barely considered and when I did consider it, I thought it was something I would never do.

Last year, my goals were clearly too small. I didn’t write one more novel manuscript, I wrote three and published two! I also spent a lot of time researching the publishing industry. My mindset was transformed and a new trajectory for my life unfolded—publish my own books, have creative control, not wait for someone else to determine my future!

So back to my initial question—if you could have one do-over, would you take it? Or, better yet, would you learn from it?

If your answer is the second one, guess what, learning from our choices and experiences is something we can always do and it’s so empowering. It means we never have to feel regret over how we’ve ‘failed,’ how we didn’t live up to expectations, or how we were just less than we could have been. It means we can just be better, almost instantaneously, no matter the time of year.

In the novel I’m editing right now, the main character is in the midst of one of those ‘if only’ moments. Her life is not where she wants it to be. She has her low, contemplating how things could have been different, but the thing is, they’re not.

Eventually, she realizes this and focuses instead on how awesome it is that she’s made it to where she is. The mistakes and bad choices that were a part of getting her there were just that—PART OF GETTING HER THERE. We can’t fix the past so why view it as something that needs to be fixed? Rather, let’s see it as an opportunity to define our future.

If you have a list of resolutions set out for your New Year, great! Either way, I encourage you to think about your past year. First focus on the way you’ve grown and the successes you’ve had. This may feel tricky. Often our successes are harder to see because at first glance they may seem small or even insignificant, but they’re not.

Next, once you’re feeling all swell and thankful for your life, take some moments to think about the choices you wish you hadn’t made (or, perhaps, some of the choices you did make) and view them as beautiful. They’re not failures. They’re lessons that will give you the opportunity to excel next time around.

There’s a good chance this will be difficult or more complex than this post implies. So what?  Give it a go. You just may be surprised.

And, as always, I’d love to hear about what you come up with in the comments below.

Oh, the cycles of life!

Have you ever noticed how full of cycles life is?

It seems time and time again we learn the same lessons, we make the same mistakes, or different mistakes in similar ways, and then, again and again, we have the opportunity to grow, to become this better, stronger person.

If you’re in one of the less pleasant phases of a cycle it could be easy to let that bring you down, think—what’s the point of it all?!? Or cry out, ‘life’s not FAIR!’ And it’s not. And that’s okay. Because if it were fair we’d probably never appreciate those days when the good does come our way.

As much as the holiday season is about love and joy and being thankful for all  you have in life, it’s also a time when it’s very easy to feel down. Maybe you can’t afford to get your family all you’d want to get them. Maybe you’re far away from your loved ones and seeing all those social media pics of people having fun with family and friends is sending you into states of loneliness or even resentment. Maybe just when you’re thinking life is supposed to get easy and relaxing you’ve been hit with some news or situation that is anything but.

Kind of steals away from the holiday cheer, doesn’t it? Well, maybe … but then again maybe not. What if we could really believe all of those inspirational quotes we see? What if we held onto truths that so many others have learned, that we’ve even learned ourselves in the past (back to those cycles, right?) and take whatever is threatening to steal from our joy and turn it into an even STRONGER reason to be happy, to be thankful, to be alive!

If this is a holiday season when everything is great and you couldn’t ask for anything more, wonderful—cherish that!

If it’s not …

I challenge you to transform your situation into something better by searching deep inside yourself to find that ability to see life—ridiculous, complicated, hard, scary, unbelievable life—for all it has to offer.

 

As a writer, people often assume aspects of our stories are taken from our life—sometimes this is true, sometimes it’s not. Often, I find it actually goes the other way around. Cycles again! Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?

In the past year I’ve seen time and time again how words of wisdom that were written for one of my characters were actually words I needed to hear myself. Maybe not at the moment of writing, but weeks or months later.

In my book Where There Is Life the main character (Autumn) has a huge loss in her life, and when we lose something—be it a person, a dream, a friendship, a future we’d envisioned for ourselves, or even a worldview—there’s always a time of grieving. We need that. But every loss brings with it the opportunity for something more. Autumn discovers this, just as I’m discovering it again, just as I hope anyone reading this who is having a hard time discovers.

Where there is life, there is hope. Where hope, life … and beauty and joy and the thankfulness of being alive!

 

Cycles of Life-And what we can get out of them!

Have you ever noticed how full of cycles life is?

It seems time and time again we learn the same lessons, we make the same mistakes, or different mistakes in similar ways, and then, again and again, we have the opportunity to grow, to become this better, stronger person.

If you’re in one of the less pleasant phases of a cycle it could be easy to let that bring you down, think—what’s the point of it all?!? Or cry out, ‘life’s not FAIR!’ And it’s not. And that’s okay. Because if it were fair we’d probably never appreciate those days when the good does come our way.

As much as the holiday season is about love and joy and being thankful for all  you have in life, it’s also a time when it’s very easy to feel down. Maybe you can’t afford to get your family all you’d want to get them. Maybe you’re far away from your loved ones and seeing all those social media pics of people having fun with family and friends is sending you into states of loneliness or even resentment. Maybe just when you’re thinking life is supposed to get easy and relaxing you’ve been hit with some news or situation that is anything but.

Kind of steals away from the holiday cheer, doesn’t it? Well, maybe … but then again maybe not. What if we could really believe all of those inspirational quotes we see? What if we held onto truths that so many others have learned, that we’ve even learned ourselves in the past (back to those cycles, right?) and take whatever is threatening to steal from our joy and turn it into an even STRONGER reason to be happy, to be thankful, to be alive!

If this is a season holiday when everything is great and you couldn’t ask for anything more, wonderful—cherish that!

If it’s not …

I challenge you to transform your situation into something better by searching deep inside yourself to find that ability to see life—ridiculous, complicated, hard, scary, unbelievable life—for all it has to offer.

 

As a writer, people often assume aspects of our stories are taken from our life—sometimes this is true, sometimes it’s not. Often, I find it actually goes the other way around. Cycles again! Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?

In the past year I’ve seen time and time again how words of wisdom that were written for one of my characters were actually words I needed to hear myself. Maybe not at the moment of writing, but weeks or months later.

In my book Where There Is Life the main character (Autumn) has a huge loss in her life, and when we lose something—be it a person, a dream, a friendship, a future we’d envisioned for ourselves, or even a worldview—there’s always a time of grieving. We need that. But every loss brings with it the opportunity for something more. Autumn discovers this, just as I’m discovering it again, just as I hope anyone reading this who is having a hard time discovers.

Where there is life, there is hope. Where hope, life … and beauty and joy and the thankfulness of being alive!