Hope.

• Listening to Van Morrison singing “Wild Night” It lifts my feet and pushes up through my floating ribs. It reminds me, outside of consciousness, how I am still that same kid, back when hope was just part of my circulation, even when I had to learn the hard lessons.
• Even if love is withheld, used as a weapon, or indistinguishable from loss, a cool breeze lifts my hair and brings hope.
• Remembering to raise up my voice along with my eyes. I will be heard, and I will see you.
• Road trips.

Love.

• It is my superpower.
• It lives in my body and can’t be banished or defeated.
• Love built my babies, pushed them out, and grew them strong.
• Love hurt me, and healed me, and taught me how to be strong and soft all at the same time. You too, maybe.
• There is lots of it in the world. Do you think it’s hiding, or even gone forever? It isn’t. Look inside yourself and you’ll know I’m right.
• I love the me that loves the you.

Desire.

• Buddha said it is the root of suffering. Probably. But it fires me up. The wanting and the longing and the excitement. It’s kinda like being on a tall tower, knowing you can fly, and that as soon as you drift off to sleep… you will.
• I want to hold hands. Whisper into the ear of a lover. Lie on the floor to look up at the Sistine Chapel. Swing my hips. Breathe.
• Rare air—icy on the mountaintop, salty and soft from the bayou, or warm from the lips of someone who just kissed me for a long time.
• And then there’s desire for justice, equity, valor, and passion.

Righteousness.

• Because: it exists.
• It rolls like water. A mighty stream.

Joy.

• Hearing music. Let’s start here: STEVIE. Have you listened to “Do I Do” lately? It will make your synapses tingle with happiness. “Hey Nineteen” by Steely Dan. The lyrics really are sketchy but it just feels so good inside my body. What else feels good is “Love (Never Felt So Good)”—that thing Justin made with Michael after Michael was dead. (Must dance.) The Proclaimers proclaiming they’d walk 1000 miles to fall down at my door. (YES, thank you.) “Coyote” by Joni – especially the version from The Last Waltz. (The driving rhythms of this song and the voice—it is a truly flawless thing.) And so very very many more. As George Eliot said, “Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”
• Sexual abandon. Rare and exquisite. The certainty that every moment is, was, and will be delicious and full of tangles.
• The middle of the afternoon. Nowhere to be. A city street, the smell of food, rain, or a woman’s perfume: a faint whiff. Boots made for walking and maybe later I’ll meet up with a friend, a loved and precious friend.
• The unplanned for.
• Laughing till I pee my pants. Red faced and bleary teary I am at my best in these moments of helplessness.
• Road trips (reprise).

Activism.

• As much as backing into the cave of soft darkness and yellow firelight is a temptation of monumental proportions, being cold and wind-smacked outside the White House somehow feels better, in the end.
• Speaking my truth.
• Risking love on the rock-strewn mountainslope of truth.