Oh, my wild-hearted, blue-shovel-wielding snow queen—
I felt this in my ribs, in my own backyard, in my soggy socks by the radiator. Not because of healthcare, mind you, but because oh yes, I too have done the furious math of snowplows and disc slips and "just one more storm" and “maybe if I do it myself…”
My brother is doing it again too—shoveling in silence like a stoic monk, because paying someone just in case it snows seems ludicrous. And then it snows at 7:10, or 8:00 brings the ice rain, and you're stuck anyway with a sidewalk slicker than the smile of a condescending Tesla driver.
As for the braless shame? Oh honey. In Germany, we roam freely! Bare and bold. Braless is our birthright, especially when yelling across snowy driveways at pimple-patched beards in rust-red trucks. Next time? Whisper to yourself, “I’m European today.” Then lift your chin, let the cold kiss your collarbone, and smile like a duchess of defiance.
And if anyone dares smirk from their overpriced rolling fridge of a car? Let them. Because somewhere beneath their triple-insulated self-importance is someone who wishes they had your fire, your poetry, your wild, unapologetic grief turned into kindling.
You’ve done no wrong, my friend. Just lived bravely in this bone-cold world with your chest heaving and your heart wide open.
Twinkle firmly intact,
And glide smoothly into 2026 tomorrow, dearest Kendall.
Always yours,
xo Jay ✨🪵🧣
P.S. That wood box is not frivolous. It's a home for your dignity in plank form. Let’s build altars where we can.
Oh my god, Jay, this comment is like a big hug and a belly laugh afterwards. I shall burn the bra instead of the wood! I will be European every day!!!!
Honestly, you always know just what to say. Those amazing words, "You’ve done no wrong, my friend. Just lived bravely in this bone-cold world with your chest heaving and your heart wide open." phew. I needed to hear that more than I can say. Twinkle is re-ignited. Thank you, thank you.
Kendall, I’m glad my words brought a smile. And yes—maybe give “being European” a try now and then. It’s surprisingly liberating.
As for me, I haven’t worn one in so many years I’ve lost count. I don’t even own one anymore. In Germany, they’re called BH—short for Büstenhalter, which is already an antique of a word. I personally prefer Brusthaftanstalt—roughly translated as Breast Correctional Facility. Because really, weren’t they designed more for the pleasure of the male gaze than for comfort? I respectfully declined that entire proposition. It did not sit well with being an emancipated lesbian.
This was a really moving piece, and it made me uncomfortable, but in the way you feel when someone is being mean to your friend in primary school and you found out too late so you have to just tolerate that they felt hurt in that moment. It was moving, and had a universal ache to it.
Oh my gosh, this is the kindest, warmest comment, Sabrina. I would very much have been your faithful friend in primary school. I'm glad to call you one now.
My heart was racing a little as you were stumbling out of the house to meet this smirking boy with a patchy beard (that made me chuckle!) So recognisable in many ways... They better not charge you and I pray for a mild winter so that you can get that beautiful chest of yours. Next time, call us, we can bring our shovels! ;) (I do truly wish we could!)
This one hit different- in such a good way. You welcome us into your emotional arc so tenderly and I am fuming at the Tesla and the unanswered voicemail. Thank you for sharing your claws, you ignite a fire under my fingertips. Xx
Thank you, love! I’m over here second guessing my claws, because I was less angry with those men and more with the situation, but this just came out. Alas, here I am! xoxo
Artistically, that's a hard kind of poem to write. I know because I've written a few which failed - but this one doesn't, so good job.
I would consider it a "protest poem" rather than an "airing of grievances" poem. Grievances are personal. Protests are general.
Your specific situation is personal, of course, and you tell it in a typically Kendallish self deprecating way which makes the point better than outrage would - but behind the specifics of actual and metaphorical semi-nakedness your poem makes clear the wider issues faced by so many of your fellow Americans.
In one of the wealthiest countries in the world socio-economic inequality is not only growing but accelerating - hard.
The have much (in $ terms) seem to care minimally about the have little (in $ terms). The have most of anyone at all cares least of all.
Basic health care - which should be a human right as fundamental as adequate shelter - is impossibly expensive. For that matter so is basic shelter, and insurance to cover your health needs is about to become ridiculously expensive too.
Even widely experienced, well educated, essentially healthy and competent people are genuinely struggling to get by - so how hard is it for anyone else?
Your specific situation is an illustration of the general deplorable national condition - so for me it's a protest poem - rooted in personal experience.
I'm not saying things are perfect here in Australia - but a universal Government funded health care system including subsidised and capped price pharmaceuticals (maximum cost for a prescription medicine is now $25 AUD = $16.74 USD) puts us well ahead.
(Milder Winters help too, but that's just the good fortune of geography).
I can't send you wood for the fire but I am sending more than just moral and literary support.
First, thank you so much for the "more than just moral and literary support." I'm so grateful and I am absolutely buying that wood chest! I'll take a picture of it to share the great joy that it is sure to bring.
Second and third and fourth.... thank you for saying that this is a hard kind of poem to write (and that I did not fail!). I am not an experienced poet by any means, and the amount of tinkering and puzzling that this one brought about was pretty significant. It made me laugh out loud, actually, and it made me wonder why some things work and some don't. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery. It's like there's a poetic metronome buried under our skin, and we're just tuned into when we're hitting the beat and when we're off. Isn't that amazing?
As for the rest, everything that you said about healthcare and the have-much crowd versus the have-littles and the state of the grossly unbalanced economy here in the states was all too true. You really nailed it. Sick and injured people should not have to go bankrupt in order to be helped. How this is even a conversation in this country in 2025 is baffling. If I could move somewhere else-- somewhere with healthcare like you describe it-- I would do so in a heartbeat. As it is, we're about to face an $800 increase in our monthly rates if congress continues to fail us. That's more than our mortgage. One would also think that such an astronomical amount of money would give us amazing coverage (perhaps a limo to the hospital? Or weekly home checkups!) but we're still responsible for the first $6000 out of pocket, per person, before insurance pays for just 40% of our medical bills. So, if someone gets very sick under this plan, we still lose all of our money, no exaggeration. I just don't know how anyone is dealing, especially those less fortunate than us (although that is a whole different conversation, because below a certain income threshold, healthcare is totally free and amazing. Many people live below that line intentionally just for the health benefits, and I do not fault them one bit). This is why I find myself running panicked into the driveway, I guess.
That's a lot to unload in the comments section here, but it helps to talk about it. What strange times we find ourselves in.
Still, I am ever hopeful that the great crumbling that we find ourselves in will result in something new being built on the other side. So, we endure. And eat our vegetables, and exercise, and drive very carefully.
Hi my friend. We just hope your Winter gets better. (Insert group hug here...)
The border land between poetry and prose is a strange outlaw twilight zone where one thing can become another quite suddenly, without warning, and ragged metaphors loom up in the mist, shapeshifting even as you try to focus upon them.
Our minds shape the words but are in turn shaped by the words we use - the relationship is dynamic. That metronome under your skin can be switched on by your first sentence, and you find yourself plummeting into a pit of pulsating poetry after sitting down to write - as you had thought - a simple piece of prose.
Now every single word has a pulse, and a precise position to be found.
Yes - it's a mystery.
The cost of medical care in the USA is another kind of mystery to me. I had not realised just how large the gap is, even with insurance.
When we have travelled to your country - 5 or 6 times now - travel insurance has been a major expense, mainly because of the medical cost issue. It was far more expensive to insure a trip to the USA than - for example - a trip to Europe.
We only used it once - when Meg was unwell as we drove from Austin Texas to LA. We stopped in Amarillo and had an entertaining visit to a medical centre where, after filling in a 17 page form - a cheery MD with laugh lines round his hip pocket prescribed the wrong antibiotic but did at least pose for a photo.
We do have private medical insurance here - and it's a big advantage if you need elective surgery (because the wait list for publicly funded elective surgery is long) - but if you have a severe illness or an accident the public hospital system will take you in and give you very good care, including ICU and emergency surgery, at no cost.
Of course, we do also "eat our vegetables, and exercise, and drive very carefully" because prevention is better than cure.
The New Year is now 9 hours old here. I can report that it is peaceful - so far - but that's because we are fortunate to live in a peaceful place.... The news from elsewhere is not so good.
I hope you and the family do have a peaceful New Year also.
I feel the hug, thank you! And I've read and reread your description of the twilight zone. I think this deserves a whole essay, Dave. You say it so beautifully. I think I need to copy it down so I can revisit it often.
On the other note, I had never considered how expensive travel insurance to the states might be. Now that I think of it, I've often been floored at how cheap it is when we travel elsewhere. It's always so refreshing to be treated in other countries, though. Your chemists are far more helpful than most of our doctors here!
Alas, we soldier on with hopes that someday, someone sane will be elected with the vision and support needed to make universal healthcare a reality.
Thank you for your kind words, and all of your support. It means so very much to me.
I hope the memoirs are finding the form you seek. Memory folds itself around the convoluted inner contours of the mind, not all of them verbal.
Teasing it out to share with others is difficult because all you have is words, and maybe a few images. Without your living mind to give it structure and substance it can wilt, and flop, falling crumpled on the floor like a discarded dress.
Your language needs to resurrect it - a mannequin of words on which your memories can take a new shape outside of you, for us to see, and walk around, and gain a sense of the viivid and colourful life they represent.
The chapters you have published already do that extremely well, in small segments - each one a portion of something larger. You will need to add to them. The challenge then is to lash them together in a coherent way with stitches which show how each relates to the others, becoming three dimensional - and four including time - a shape, an arc, a life; the whole woman that you are.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
(PS I know you can do it. You write gorgeously. You communicate clearly. The hardest part will be finding the time and keeping your family included in the process, because they are part of it too).
Oh my gosh, Kendall. For some reason, that brought tears to my eyes... and I think it's because of all the times in my life I've had similar feelings. I was there in that driveway with you. I felt what you felt as that young man laughed. I thought what you thought, calculating the $$. Thank you for this. I hope you weren't charged.
Thank you, Linda! They say the specific stories are the universal ones, so this means the world. And TBD if we get charged- no one has responded yet. Fingers crossed!
Jeez Kendall! This makes me want to come over and give you a huge hug and listen to more grievances of yours and wish that I could do something about them !
You hit the core, and it smacks hard. Love your writing ! (Fingers crossed that there will be few snow storms !)
This so tangibly describes the way so many Americans are living, making difficult either/or choices of what to live without. I am sending you a big hug and wishes for a warm toasty wood-heated winter.💜
I can’t say it’s where I want it to be (yet!) but I’m pursuing some new treatments this year that I’m hopeful about. I’m also doing my best to try learn from and even appreciate riding this wave I’m on.
Thanks, a real gritty, heart warming example of honest poetry. Your shovel and struggle to heat your home hit me. And those medical bills. The NHS in the UK alleviates some of that fear.
"I can say that in a poem." I really relate to this sentence. My email is always full of Substacks these days, most of which I just delete. But I always stop to read your poetry.
This is your best line: "then I can close the lid on both
the wood pieces and my restless discontent."
If I may offer a tiny bit of advice: your last line falls flat for me. Imagining retribution might feel good personally, but I don't think it's what the poem needs. Just my 2 cents.
It means so much that you always stop to open my emails- that’s the biggest boost you could have given me, thank you. And the last line is a bit of a detour, I agree. I actually don’t ever imagine retribution, I’m the one who sends loving-kindness prayers to people who cut me off in traffic most of the time (this is no “flex,” just a practice I committed to years ago because being angry with people hurts)— I think I included it because my ego thought it was clever, so I kind of love that it fell flat. it tells me that your tapped into the emotional heartbeat of the piece. Anyway, workshop a better landing with me? ;) Love the feedback!
Kendall, you dear one, of course someone got you wood. It’s what should happen to people as lovely as you. Let the smirkers drive by, and as they do, remind yourself that we all know what a huge heart you have. (Which is worth far far more than any car from that idiot of a man’s company)
I raised my kids as a single Mom, and there were times I held three jobs at once to do it. There were times I had to calculate exactly how much gas I could buy according to how many miles I needed to drive until more money came in, because I needed to also buy groceries.
It’s not a bit of history I dredge up very often, but it is one I’m proud I lived thru, because now, I figure I can take care of myself thru pretty much anything. Just like you,
They had better not charge you for the plowing that wasn’t needed especially after you called to let them know.
Oh, Teyani. You're an incredible human, and an amazing mom. Three jobs while raising children as a single mom is INCREDIBLE. I am sending that woman heaps of love and encouragement backwards through time. You have every right to be proud of yourself. And to you, in this time right now, I am also giving you all the love in my heart. Thank you for being here, and for sharing yourself with me. xoxo
Dearest Kendall,
Oh, my wild-hearted, blue-shovel-wielding snow queen—
I felt this in my ribs, in my own backyard, in my soggy socks by the radiator. Not because of healthcare, mind you, but because oh yes, I too have done the furious math of snowplows and disc slips and "just one more storm" and “maybe if I do it myself…”
My brother is doing it again too—shoveling in silence like a stoic monk, because paying someone just in case it snows seems ludicrous. And then it snows at 7:10, or 8:00 brings the ice rain, and you're stuck anyway with a sidewalk slicker than the smile of a condescending Tesla driver.
As for the braless shame? Oh honey. In Germany, we roam freely! Bare and bold. Braless is our birthright, especially when yelling across snowy driveways at pimple-patched beards in rust-red trucks. Next time? Whisper to yourself, “I’m European today.” Then lift your chin, let the cold kiss your collarbone, and smile like a duchess of defiance.
And if anyone dares smirk from their overpriced rolling fridge of a car? Let them. Because somewhere beneath their triple-insulated self-importance is someone who wishes they had your fire, your poetry, your wild, unapologetic grief turned into kindling.
You’ve done no wrong, my friend. Just lived bravely in this bone-cold world with your chest heaving and your heart wide open.
Twinkle firmly intact,
And glide smoothly into 2026 tomorrow, dearest Kendall.
Always yours,
xo Jay ✨🪵🧣
P.S. That wood box is not frivolous. It's a home for your dignity in plank form. Let’s build altars where we can.
Oh my god, Jay, this comment is like a big hug and a belly laugh afterwards. I shall burn the bra instead of the wood! I will be European every day!!!!
Honestly, you always know just what to say. Those amazing words, "You’ve done no wrong, my friend. Just lived bravely in this bone-cold world with your chest heaving and your heart wide open." phew. I needed to hear that more than I can say. Twinkle is re-ignited. Thank you, thank you.
Kendall, I’m glad my words brought a smile. And yes—maybe give “being European” a try now and then. It’s surprisingly liberating.
As for me, I haven’t worn one in so many years I’ve lost count. I don’t even own one anymore. In Germany, they’re called BH—short for Büstenhalter, which is already an antique of a word. I personally prefer Brusthaftanstalt—roughly translated as Breast Correctional Facility. Because really, weren’t they designed more for the pleasure of the male gaze than for comfort? I respectfully declined that entire proposition. It did not sit well with being an emancipated lesbian.
This was a really moving piece, and it made me uncomfortable, but in the way you feel when someone is being mean to your friend in primary school and you found out too late so you have to just tolerate that they felt hurt in that moment. It was moving, and had a universal ache to it.
Oh my gosh, this is the kindest, warmest comment, Sabrina. I would very much have been your faithful friend in primary school. I'm glad to call you one now.
My heart was racing a little as you were stumbling out of the house to meet this smirking boy with a patchy beard (that made me chuckle!) So recognisable in many ways... They better not charge you and I pray for a mild winter so that you can get that beautiful chest of yours. Next time, call us, we can bring our shovels! ;) (I do truly wish we could!)
God, I wish I could call you over to help shovel! It's a great workout, at least! Thank you, my friend. xoxo
This one hit different- in such a good way. You welcome us into your emotional arc so tenderly and I am fuming at the Tesla and the unanswered voicemail. Thank you for sharing your claws, you ignite a fire under my fingertips. Xx
Thank you, love! I’m over here second guessing my claws, because I was less angry with those men and more with the situation, but this just came out. Alas, here I am! xoxo
Dear Kendall
Artistically, that's a hard kind of poem to write. I know because I've written a few which failed - but this one doesn't, so good job.
I would consider it a "protest poem" rather than an "airing of grievances" poem. Grievances are personal. Protests are general.
Your specific situation is personal, of course, and you tell it in a typically Kendallish self deprecating way which makes the point better than outrage would - but behind the specifics of actual and metaphorical semi-nakedness your poem makes clear the wider issues faced by so many of your fellow Americans.
In one of the wealthiest countries in the world socio-economic inequality is not only growing but accelerating - hard.
The have much (in $ terms) seem to care minimally about the have little (in $ terms). The have most of anyone at all cares least of all.
Basic health care - which should be a human right as fundamental as adequate shelter - is impossibly expensive. For that matter so is basic shelter, and insurance to cover your health needs is about to become ridiculously expensive too.
Even widely experienced, well educated, essentially healthy and competent people are genuinely struggling to get by - so how hard is it for anyone else?
Your specific situation is an illustration of the general deplorable national condition - so for me it's a protest poem - rooted in personal experience.
I'm not saying things are perfect here in Australia - but a universal Government funded health care system including subsidised and capped price pharmaceuticals (maximum cost for a prescription medicine is now $25 AUD = $16.74 USD) puts us well ahead.
(Milder Winters help too, but that's just the good fortune of geography).
I can't send you wood for the fire but I am sending more than just moral and literary support.
Best Wishes - Dave
Dear Dave,
First, thank you so much for the "more than just moral and literary support." I'm so grateful and I am absolutely buying that wood chest! I'll take a picture of it to share the great joy that it is sure to bring.
Second and third and fourth.... thank you for saying that this is a hard kind of poem to write (and that I did not fail!). I am not an experienced poet by any means, and the amount of tinkering and puzzling that this one brought about was pretty significant. It made me laugh out loud, actually, and it made me wonder why some things work and some don't. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery. It's like there's a poetic metronome buried under our skin, and we're just tuned into when we're hitting the beat and when we're off. Isn't that amazing?
As for the rest, everything that you said about healthcare and the have-much crowd versus the have-littles and the state of the grossly unbalanced economy here in the states was all too true. You really nailed it. Sick and injured people should not have to go bankrupt in order to be helped. How this is even a conversation in this country in 2025 is baffling. If I could move somewhere else-- somewhere with healthcare like you describe it-- I would do so in a heartbeat. As it is, we're about to face an $800 increase in our monthly rates if congress continues to fail us. That's more than our mortgage. One would also think that such an astronomical amount of money would give us amazing coverage (perhaps a limo to the hospital? Or weekly home checkups!) but we're still responsible for the first $6000 out of pocket, per person, before insurance pays for just 40% of our medical bills. So, if someone gets very sick under this plan, we still lose all of our money, no exaggeration. I just don't know how anyone is dealing, especially those less fortunate than us (although that is a whole different conversation, because below a certain income threshold, healthcare is totally free and amazing. Many people live below that line intentionally just for the health benefits, and I do not fault them one bit). This is why I find myself running panicked into the driveway, I guess.
That's a lot to unload in the comments section here, but it helps to talk about it. What strange times we find ourselves in.
Still, I am ever hopeful that the great crumbling that we find ourselves in will result in something new being built on the other side. So, we endure. And eat our vegetables, and exercise, and drive very carefully.
So much love, Kendall
Hi my friend. We just hope your Winter gets better. (Insert group hug here...)
The border land between poetry and prose is a strange outlaw twilight zone where one thing can become another quite suddenly, without warning, and ragged metaphors loom up in the mist, shapeshifting even as you try to focus upon them.
Our minds shape the words but are in turn shaped by the words we use - the relationship is dynamic. That metronome under your skin can be switched on by your first sentence, and you find yourself plummeting into a pit of pulsating poetry after sitting down to write - as you had thought - a simple piece of prose.
Now every single word has a pulse, and a precise position to be found.
Yes - it's a mystery.
The cost of medical care in the USA is another kind of mystery to me. I had not realised just how large the gap is, even with insurance.
When we have travelled to your country - 5 or 6 times now - travel insurance has been a major expense, mainly because of the medical cost issue. It was far more expensive to insure a trip to the USA than - for example - a trip to Europe.
We only used it once - when Meg was unwell as we drove from Austin Texas to LA. We stopped in Amarillo and had an entertaining visit to a medical centre where, after filling in a 17 page form - a cheery MD with laugh lines round his hip pocket prescribed the wrong antibiotic but did at least pose for a photo.
We do have private medical insurance here - and it's a big advantage if you need elective surgery (because the wait list for publicly funded elective surgery is long) - but if you have a severe illness or an accident the public hospital system will take you in and give you very good care, including ICU and emergency surgery, at no cost.
Of course, we do also "eat our vegetables, and exercise, and drive very carefully" because prevention is better than cure.
The New Year is now 9 hours old here. I can report that it is peaceful - so far - but that's because we are fortunate to live in a peaceful place.... The news from elsewhere is not so good.
I hope you and the family do have a peaceful New Year also.
Love from us
Dave (and Meg)
I feel the hug, thank you! And I've read and reread your description of the twilight zone. I think this deserves a whole essay, Dave. You say it so beautifully. I think I need to copy it down so I can revisit it often.
On the other note, I had never considered how expensive travel insurance to the states might be. Now that I think of it, I've often been floored at how cheap it is when we travel elsewhere. It's always so refreshing to be treated in other countries, though. Your chemists are far more helpful than most of our doctors here!
Alas, we soldier on with hopes that someday, someone sane will be elected with the vision and support needed to make universal healthcare a reality.
Thank you for your kind words, and all of your support. It means so very much to me.
Stay well, my friend.
I hope the memoirs are finding the form you seek. Memory folds itself around the convoluted inner contours of the mind, not all of them verbal.
Teasing it out to share with others is difficult because all you have is words, and maybe a few images. Without your living mind to give it structure and substance it can wilt, and flop, falling crumpled on the floor like a discarded dress.
Your language needs to resurrect it - a mannequin of words on which your memories can take a new shape outside of you, for us to see, and walk around, and gain a sense of the viivid and colourful life they represent.
The chapters you have published already do that extremely well, in small segments - each one a portion of something larger. You will need to add to them. The challenge then is to lash them together in a coherent way with stitches which show how each relates to the others, becoming three dimensional - and four including time - a shape, an arc, a life; the whole woman that you are.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
(PS I know you can do it. You write gorgeously. You communicate clearly. The hardest part will be finding the time and keeping your family included in the process, because they are part of it too).
Oh my gosh, Kendall. For some reason, that brought tears to my eyes... and I think it's because of all the times in my life I've had similar feelings. I was there in that driveway with you. I felt what you felt as that young man laughed. I thought what you thought, calculating the $$. Thank you for this. I hope you weren't charged.
Thank you, Linda! They say the specific stories are the universal ones, so this means the world. And TBD if we get charged- no one has responded yet. Fingers crossed!
Fingers crossed!
Jeez Kendall! This makes me want to come over and give you a huge hug and listen to more grievances of yours and wish that I could do something about them !
You hit the core, and it smacks hard. Love your writing ! (Fingers crossed that there will be few snow storms !)
Don't we all want a friend who willingly will listen to our grievances?? Thank you, Jeannine! Fingers crossed all around!
Oh, Kendall. You said this in a poem so well.
And I relate. Much love and few storms, my friend. 💕
So far so good, thank you, Holly! xoxo
This so tangibly describes the way so many Americans are living, making difficult either/or choices of what to live without. I am sending you a big hug and wishes for a warm toasty wood-heated winter.💜
Thank you, Mary Beth! I am sitting by the fire right now, sweating and happy. xoxo
Anything is worth protecting against another slipped disc!
A great poem, Kendall. You let us really see you, and it’s there that we’re able to relate. :)
We must be kind to our backs at all costs. How is yours, my friend?
You’re telling me! Hahaha.
I can’t say it’s where I want it to be (yet!) but I’m pursuing some new treatments this year that I’m hopeful about. I’m also doing my best to try learn from and even appreciate riding this wave I’m on.
Thanks for asking, friend. I appreciate you :)
Beautiful Kendall. Keep sharing; we need your voice, your truth.
Thank you, Amy, this means so much!
Thanks, a real gritty, heart warming example of honest poetry. Your shovel and struggle to heat your home hit me. And those medical bills. The NHS in the UK alleviates some of that fear.
Thank goodness for the NHS- I hope we can learn a thing or two from you across the pond! And thank you so much for your words.
Touching and true. Here’s to wood pile fund. May it grow to be sufficient.
Oh my goodness, thank you, Leah!!
"I can say that in a poem." I really relate to this sentence. My email is always full of Substacks these days, most of which I just delete. But I always stop to read your poetry.
This is your best line: "then I can close the lid on both
the wood pieces and my restless discontent."
If I may offer a tiny bit of advice: your last line falls flat for me. Imagining retribution might feel good personally, but I don't think it's what the poem needs. Just my 2 cents.
It means so much that you always stop to open my emails- that’s the biggest boost you could have given me, thank you. And the last line is a bit of a detour, I agree. I actually don’t ever imagine retribution, I’m the one who sends loving-kindness prayers to people who cut me off in traffic most of the time (this is no “flex,” just a practice I committed to years ago because being angry with people hurts)— I think I included it because my ego thought it was clever, so I kind of love that it fell flat. it tells me that your tapped into the emotional heartbeat of the piece. Anyway, workshop a better landing with me? ;) Love the feedback!
I fixed it and I feel much better about the whole thing! This is why I love this community so much-- having good readers is such a gift. xx
Hey, darling Kendall:
It's "calculus" and "cord", not "chord".
Love, Kate
Thanks for catching those! ❤️
Kendall, you dear one, of course someone got you wood. It’s what should happen to people as lovely as you. Let the smirkers drive by, and as they do, remind yourself that we all know what a huge heart you have. (Which is worth far far more than any car from that idiot of a man’s company)
I raised my kids as a single Mom, and there were times I held three jobs at once to do it. There were times I had to calculate exactly how much gas I could buy according to how many miles I needed to drive until more money came in, because I needed to also buy groceries.
It’s not a bit of history I dredge up very often, but it is one I’m proud I lived thru, because now, I figure I can take care of myself thru pretty much anything. Just like you,
They had better not charge you for the plowing that wasn’t needed especially after you called to let them know.
Oh, Teyani. You're an incredible human, and an amazing mom. Three jobs while raising children as a single mom is INCREDIBLE. I am sending that woman heaps of love and encouragement backwards through time. You have every right to be proud of yourself. And to you, in this time right now, I am also giving you all the love in my heart. Thank you for being here, and for sharing yourself with me. xoxo
You’re one of those folks who are easy to love.