christmas cuteness

Merry Christmas!

What is hope? It is the presentiment that imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. It is the suspicion that Reality is much more complex than realism wants us to believe; that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual, and that in a miraculous and unexpected way life is preparing the creative event which will open the way to freedom and resurrection ...

Tomorrow's Child, by Rubem Alves

zora had fun in the snow with her papa today

surrender

Love comes with a knife,

not some shy question.

And not with fears for its reputation!

Love is a madman working

his wild schemes,

tearing off his clothes,

running through the mountains

drinking poison and quietly choosing annihilation.

There are love stories and

there is obliteration into love.

You've been walking the ocean's edge

holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under,

and deeper under,

a thousand times deeper.

Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky

and suffers what comes.

Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?

Don't put blankets over the drum.

Open completely.

-Rumi

This Rumi poem has really been speaking to me lately. I included it in a blessing for some friends who are having a baby soon (hi Tim and Amy!) because one of the many lessons that Zora has taught me/is teaching me is how to surrender to whatever it is I'm feeling at any given moment - whether it's joy, frustration, awe, boredom, peace, exhaustion, or love.

some people i'm incredibly thankful for.

breastfeeding and fulfilling my civic duty

i had jury duty in district court yesterday. as a nursing mama, i certainly wondered how court staff were going to handle my pumping needs.

upon arrival, i was ushered into the security line and dutifully put my backpack on the security belt. the US marshall (they don't mess around in district court) had two things to question me about after my bag went through security. 1) the fork in my backpack. (me: sorry, sir, that's from lunch yesterday. US marshall: yes, well, m'am, you can't take a fork into the courthouse.) and 2) the "bag of electronics" at the bottom of my bag. (me, totally emboldened: that's my BREAST milk pump. do you want to see? US marshall, completely embarrassed: no, m'am, go right ahead, you're fine. i just need that fork, that's all.)

US Marshalls: 0 Nursing Mamas of the World: 1

whoever's taking notes: add federal courthouse to the list of unusual places susanna has pumped.

an important video about a vital labor struggle in philly

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