I am always amazed at how children teach us so much about life, and remembering who we are. “We have so much to learn from them. We have so much to remember. … Perhaps we scream at birth because we’re homesick.” I’ve been sitting with thoughts this season of how we must go back to our roots - to our core - like the trees in winter. To remember our source, our truth. May we all be like babes as one season closes and another opens, shouting out until we find our way back home. Thank you for your beautiful reflections, as always, Kendall. I imagine your substack is in the best hands with you 💖.
Thank you so much for the gift that this comment is, Sabrina. I do love the image of the trees in winter as a metaphor for going back to our roots. And I've been talking to so many people who want to enter this year naked, so to speak, so I think this powerful urge is flowing right through the collective. YES! I'm so happy to be on this journey of remembering with you. xx
Kendall, here is what rises in me as I sit with your poem and the way your words land inside my day. I follow the threads you open, and I move through each layer with my own life humming underneath it. I already knew your river-note from last week, and I watched how people gathered around it. Something in us leans toward that kind of ease, the way water leans toward gravity. I felt this ache for rest, and at the same time a recognition of how much turbulence lives inside me this season. Christmas carries a long sediment of memory for me, and this year everything stirs at once.I move through these rooms and feel the endings in their corners. This is my final Christmas in a place that shaped me for decades, and I feel the echo of that truth in my chest. I keep sensing the threshold. I sense my body remembering a lifetime of loneliness, and the ways I tried to run from it earlier in my life. Your poem touches that memory gently. It reminds me of my canyon explorations and this slow rewilding I began in 2021, a return to something unconditioned inside me. Light entered the room as I am writing this. Actual light. The clouds thinned for a moment, and the living room shifted from its winter dimness into a kind of soft radiance. It arrived as if the day wanted to underline what your poem evokes: everything alive moves in currents, everything breathes in cycles. Shadows appear because something shines. Light appears because something deep and fertile surrounds it. I experience myself exactly in that in-between right now. Darkness carries my memories, and light carries my hope for the year ahead. I sense how impermanent the whole thing is, every hour a small rearrangement of weather and emotion. Water in all its forms keeps teaching me something: the flow shifts, the ground moves, the next shape arrives when it is ready.
Your poem nudges me toward an older truth I had not touched for a while. The undivided source you write about echoes through my own story. It reminds me that every fracture I lived through grew from a longing for belonging, and every experience of exclusion shaped my understanding of dignity. I felt that very clearly while reading your lines about birth and remembering.
Christmas arrives as a solitary experience for me this year. A chosen presence, not an illness-imposed one. I still feel the desire for company. I sense how much I would have cherished one last familiar Christmas before these rooms become guest rooms for me, before the house becomes a place I visit rather than inhabit. This is a gentle grief, and it moves freely.
Your poem opened a doorway into all of this. And I cherish you for offering it with such clarity and curiosity. Thank you for the river, and for the way your words allowed everything in me to rise at once.
Love and Merry Everything to you and your loved ones Kendall, xo Jay
"The way water leans toward gravity." This, my dear friend, is just how I feel when I receive YOUR words. Thank you for opening the door to the room you are sitting in, with all of its echoes and endings, and also with the light that has bathed you through the window. it gives me goosebumps just to think of it. "Everything breathes and cycles...." Yes, it does, doesn't it? This is the hope that we have this Christmas.
Thank you for telling me about the fractures in your past that grew from longing, and the exclusion that birthed dignity. Wow, that is so powerful.
I am so glad that the solitude is chosen this year, and the grief is soft. Still, I wish that we could share a meal and the warmth of a fire together. Alas, we can still do that through poetry and words and the unbroken thread that connects us. I am so grateful this season to be spinning on this same planet with you. Sending you peace and light on this holy day. xo, Kendall
Kendall, your words always shine as inspiration. They wander through my heart and often bring a quiet shimmer to my eyes. I wish I could sit with you at that fireplace, since Germany carries a sharp winter chill now. I receive your peace and your light with gratitude. Merry Everything, Kendall.
Thank you Kendall. I believe that I restacked your dear child's wisdom because I loved it so much. Happy and love-full Holidays to you and your family. 💕
A really touching poem, Kendall. I loved how it connected to what you wrote about in the intro. And I love the idea of kids having easier access to that deeper wisdom that for some of us feels harder to reach. Merry everything! :)
Beautifully written, Kendall. You’re one of my fave writers on Substack to follow. I am one of those adoring fans of your daughter’s metaphor. Merry everything to you and yours also.
PS I’ve started writing more notes because of you and am starting to enjoy writing them more than the actual posts. As a newbie to Substack, what helps you determine note vs post? Simply the word count?
Thank you so much for this lovely comment! I'm always so happy to meet new friends here. You know, I wish I had some kind of calculous for the notes and posts I could share with you. My posts tend to be thematic and predictable (I did a memoir series, and now I alternate between poems and essays here while I finish the book), and the notes are a fun sandbox to play in, and only when something bubbles up that feels worth sharing. I'm glad you're having fun, though. That's really the whole point, right?
Some of my faves from you dear Kendall included the hilarious one on the surfing show. And I adored (and read three times) the post on locking your ex up in the bathroom on Christmas Day and taking away the keys. Phenomenal writing. Oof.
I am delighted to share this letters of sea creatures and beyond! Would you enjoy exchanging actual letters on stationary with cool stamps? Keep writing!
Undivided. Uninterrupted. Beautiful “uns” for this season of darkness in full-bodied embrace of our seeds of light. Maybe Christ’s undivided self was simply this: an unwavering acknowledgement of duality, not needing more of this, less of that, and letting opposites tumble us like stone until we become the uninterrupted river from which it was born.
I had to read this twice-- the second time after a long pause. I love that last line so much, Kimberly. The opposites tumble us like stone. Oof. Thank you for this beautiful Christmas offering!
Your dear Finley. So wise and a teacher for us all. I too have felt lit up reading Meggan. My heart is taking copious notes. A blessed Christmas to you, Kendall, and yours. Xo❤️🎄❤️
Thank you for this sweet gift of a poem on Christmas Eve, friend. Interestingly, I just woke up after one of the best nights of sleep I have had in over a week and Finley’s words feel delightfully relevant this morning. Merry Christmas to your family ♥️
“We have so much to learn from them. We have so much to remember.” Amen.
I took a class on the Gospel of Thomas taught by Cynthia Bourgeault; it’s part of my canon now. The Gospel of Mary, too. So much to collectively remember. Peace on earth eventually, or maybe not; maybe time is a construct and this is heaven, albeit shrouded.
That class must have been wonderful, Robert. Everything I've read of Cynthia's is just gold. I'm just beginning to dip into these lost gospels, and I feel so incredibly nourished by them (and a bit angry- they would have been so beloved to me when I was younger, wishing this wisdom existed in the Christian tradition). Alas, sometimes these things find us right when we are ready for them. And you are probably right about heaven. ;)
I wanted to thank you for your footnote mention of Meggan Watterson. I looked her up and, oh my! So happy to now be a subscriber to her. We live in a world where women’s voices are ascending. Merry Christmas!
I took her class on Mary Magdalene as well, which was the most my mind has ever been blown theologically; gave me hope for the Christian tradition. I’m reading her book on Mary Magdalene now as a result.
Coming from a place undivided- this is such a balm. Thank you for the softest Christmas gift in the form of your words. Cheers to Finley and please tell her to keep sleeping with ease and writing!!
I am always amazed at how children teach us so much about life, and remembering who we are. “We have so much to learn from them. We have so much to remember. … Perhaps we scream at birth because we’re homesick.” I’ve been sitting with thoughts this season of how we must go back to our roots - to our core - like the trees in winter. To remember our source, our truth. May we all be like babes as one season closes and another opens, shouting out until we find our way back home. Thank you for your beautiful reflections, as always, Kendall. I imagine your substack is in the best hands with you 💖.
Thank you so much for the gift that this comment is, Sabrina. I do love the image of the trees in winter as a metaphor for going back to our roots. And I've been talking to so many people who want to enter this year naked, so to speak, so I think this powerful urge is flowing right through the collective. YES! I'm so happy to be on this journey of remembering with you. xx
Kendall, here is what rises in me as I sit with your poem and the way your words land inside my day. I follow the threads you open, and I move through each layer with my own life humming underneath it. I already knew your river-note from last week, and I watched how people gathered around it. Something in us leans toward that kind of ease, the way water leans toward gravity. I felt this ache for rest, and at the same time a recognition of how much turbulence lives inside me this season. Christmas carries a long sediment of memory for me, and this year everything stirs at once.I move through these rooms and feel the endings in their corners. This is my final Christmas in a place that shaped me for decades, and I feel the echo of that truth in my chest. I keep sensing the threshold. I sense my body remembering a lifetime of loneliness, and the ways I tried to run from it earlier in my life. Your poem touches that memory gently. It reminds me of my canyon explorations and this slow rewilding I began in 2021, a return to something unconditioned inside me. Light entered the room as I am writing this. Actual light. The clouds thinned for a moment, and the living room shifted from its winter dimness into a kind of soft radiance. It arrived as if the day wanted to underline what your poem evokes: everything alive moves in currents, everything breathes in cycles. Shadows appear because something shines. Light appears because something deep and fertile surrounds it. I experience myself exactly in that in-between right now. Darkness carries my memories, and light carries my hope for the year ahead. I sense how impermanent the whole thing is, every hour a small rearrangement of weather and emotion. Water in all its forms keeps teaching me something: the flow shifts, the ground moves, the next shape arrives when it is ready.
Your poem nudges me toward an older truth I had not touched for a while. The undivided source you write about echoes through my own story. It reminds me that every fracture I lived through grew from a longing for belonging, and every experience of exclusion shaped my understanding of dignity. I felt that very clearly while reading your lines about birth and remembering.
Christmas arrives as a solitary experience for me this year. A chosen presence, not an illness-imposed one. I still feel the desire for company. I sense how much I would have cherished one last familiar Christmas before these rooms become guest rooms for me, before the house becomes a place I visit rather than inhabit. This is a gentle grief, and it moves freely.
Your poem opened a doorway into all of this. And I cherish you for offering it with such clarity and curiosity. Thank you for the river, and for the way your words allowed everything in me to rise at once.
Love and Merry Everything to you and your loved ones Kendall, xo Jay
"The way water leans toward gravity." This, my dear friend, is just how I feel when I receive YOUR words. Thank you for opening the door to the room you are sitting in, with all of its echoes and endings, and also with the light that has bathed you through the window. it gives me goosebumps just to think of it. "Everything breathes and cycles...." Yes, it does, doesn't it? This is the hope that we have this Christmas.
Thank you for telling me about the fractures in your past that grew from longing, and the exclusion that birthed dignity. Wow, that is so powerful.
I am so glad that the solitude is chosen this year, and the grief is soft. Still, I wish that we could share a meal and the warmth of a fire together. Alas, we can still do that through poetry and words and the unbroken thread that connects us. I am so grateful this season to be spinning on this same planet with you. Sending you peace and light on this holy day. xo, Kendall
Kendall, your words always shine as inspiration. They wander through my heart and often bring a quiet shimmer to my eyes. I wish I could sit with you at that fireplace, since Germany carries a sharp winter chill now. I receive your peace and your light with gratitude. Merry Everything, Kendall.
“Truth that rushes in,”
“so much to learn... remember.”
“Minds bowing to... hearts”
...
Undividedness...
uninterrupted flow, wild~~~
Mom-child co-authors*
Oh, how I love to receive the lines that moved you in the form of a poem. It is always a bit of magic in my day. So much love to you, Marisol!
Thank you Kendall. I believe that I restacked your dear child's wisdom because I loved it so much. Happy and love-full Holidays to you and your family. 💕
Thank you, Danni! I love that those words reached you! Happy holidays to you and yours as well. ✨❤
A really touching poem, Kendall. I loved how it connected to what you wrote about in the intro. And I love the idea of kids having easier access to that deeper wisdom that for some of us feels harder to reach. Merry everything! :)
I love that idea as well! I mean, half the time she's a little sage, and the other half she's singing about poop, so, you know. 😂
Hahaha a nice balance :)
Beautifully written, Kendall. You’re one of my fave writers on Substack to follow. I am one of those adoring fans of your daughter’s metaphor. Merry everything to you and yours also.
PS I’ve started writing more notes because of you and am starting to enjoy writing them more than the actual posts. As a newbie to Substack, what helps you determine note vs post? Simply the word count?
Thank you so much for this lovely comment! I'm always so happy to meet new friends here. You know, I wish I had some kind of calculous for the notes and posts I could share with you. My posts tend to be thematic and predictable (I did a memoir series, and now I alternate between poems and essays here while I finish the book), and the notes are a fun sandbox to play in, and only when something bubbles up that feels worth sharing. I'm glad you're having fun, though. That's really the whole point, right?
Thanks for that insight. I’m with you. Thematic and with the notes it’s whatever bubbles up.
Some of my faves from you dear Kendall included the hilarious one on the surfing show. And I adored (and read three times) the post on locking your ex up in the bathroom on Christmas Day and taking away the keys. Phenomenal writing. Oof.
Also, here's a link to the whole story of that night on Christmas if you'd like to dive in: https://open.substack.com/pub/touchingtheelephant/p/white-funeral?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
I've never received feedback on my notes like this, DG, and it's so lovely to hear! Thank you!
And plumeria blooms!!!
Gorgeous, Kendall!! So much sweet ness and joy and grace.
Thank you, friend!
Mon Amie, fromage and baguette?
I am delighted to share this letters of sea creatures and beyond! Would you enjoy exchanging actual letters on stationary with cool stamps? Keep writing!
Thank sweet Finley for us. This was perfect. Merry everything, dear Kendall.
I will pass along the love, thank you Mary Beth! ❄️
Undivided. Uninterrupted. Beautiful “uns” for this season of darkness in full-bodied embrace of our seeds of light. Maybe Christ’s undivided self was simply this: an unwavering acknowledgement of duality, not needing more of this, less of that, and letting opposites tumble us like stone until we become the uninterrupted river from which it was born.
I had to read this twice-- the second time after a long pause. I love that last line so much, Kimberly. The opposites tumble us like stone. Oof. Thank you for this beautiful Christmas offering!
Your dear Finley. So wise and a teacher for us all. I too have felt lit up reading Meggan. My heart is taking copious notes. A blessed Christmas to you, Kendall, and yours. Xo❤️🎄❤️
What incredible humans we get to do this life with, right? I'm so glad you're one of mine as well. ;) Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Well, my friend, it is certainly clear where your little one gets her poetic heart from. 💕
Thank you, sister! So much love to you this Christmas. xoxo
Thank you for this sweet gift of a poem on Christmas Eve, friend. Interestingly, I just woke up after one of the best nights of sleep I have had in over a week and Finley’s words feel delightfully relevant this morning. Merry Christmas to your family ♥️
What a Christmas miracle! I love that you read this after such a sleep, Suzanne. Merry, merry Christmas to you and your family as well. xoxo
“We have so much to learn from them. We have so much to remember.” Amen.
I took a class on the Gospel of Thomas taught by Cynthia Bourgeault; it’s part of my canon now. The Gospel of Mary, too. So much to collectively remember. Peace on earth eventually, or maybe not; maybe time is a construct and this is heaven, albeit shrouded.
That class must have been wonderful, Robert. Everything I've read of Cynthia's is just gold. I'm just beginning to dip into these lost gospels, and I feel so incredibly nourished by them (and a bit angry- they would have been so beloved to me when I was younger, wishing this wisdom existed in the Christian tradition). Alas, sometimes these things find us right when we are ready for them. And you are probably right about heaven. ;)
I wanted to thank you for your footnote mention of Meggan Watterson. I looked her up and, oh my! So happy to now be a subscriber to her. We live in a world where women’s voices are ascending. Merry Christmas!
I took her class on Mary Magdalene as well, which was the most my mind has ever been blown theologically; gave me hope for the Christian tradition. I’m reading her book on Mary Magdalene now as a result.
Peace and joy to you and all those you love.
Kudos to you and your daughter! I definitely feel in good hands. 💖
Aw, thanks Bonnie! ❤
Coming from a place undivided- this is such a balm. Thank you for the softest Christmas gift in the form of your words. Cheers to Finley and please tell her to keep sleeping with ease and writing!!
Xx
I'm so glad it landed softly today! And I will pass the message along to Finley. She's already asked to write to you all. xoxo