podcast

Box Topsin It

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(or listen here)

Looking for ways to help as you walk through the stresses of the everyday? I do as well.

The Insight Timer (John Siddique, Pablo Arellano…), Audible (Stephen Fry, massive amounts of biographies etc all the things up), Asana Rebel,

YouTubes (Yo-Yo Ma, Vinnay Thomas, Middleagedminx, Kylie Brakeman, John Butler etc),

and the Podcasts (Poetry Plain and Simple, Glennon Doyle, You’re Dead to Me, Sarah Silverman, Oprah, The Froth, NPR various shows, and more… btw podcast world- please get Sue Perkins back, thank you).

Nothing matches here, I’m well aware. My brain brainiacing all over the place.

I listen in the car, chore time, wishful treadmilling, boxing up items to give away/donate/sell/recycle, walking about the park around the hilltop encircling the fields and playspaces below where SonHerisme and his Merry Montessori Mafia Crew do their childhood freedom-in-the-great-outdoors things.

This week, I felt compelled to write a letter to podcaster Katherine Ryan:

Dear Lovely Entertaining Katherine Ryan,
    Thank you oodles for being willing to be the "Out Loud" for many topics we collectively somehow decided are hush hush, despite them being quite human-normative.

I have felt the KimK/Kanye flashback vibes for years due to my own domestic violence marriage with an abusive mentally ill spouse. Of course, not all mentally ill people are abusive - however in my case this was true, as seems to be the case for KimK.

I am not, we were not, will not ever be, bajillionaire K/K people, yet the patterns are eerily similar. Recognizing the signs, I found myself wanting to reach out to Kim over the years and give her reassuring {{{hugs}}}. Those of us in the unfortunate know, know that she is trying her very best to maintain in the swirl of crazy controlling narcissistic abuse.

It is frighteningly shocking how quickly things can spin out of control. Locally we have tragically lost community members to domestic violence with the same patterns.

My sweet son and I are part of the lucky group who were able to find and receive the right help at just the right time, and we are alive by sheer luck plus fortunate circumstances. I wish the same for KimK, the children, her MrexH, and all of us who find ourselves in these vortexes.

Thank you for listening and bringing a voice to the everyday things we pretend are not everyday things (to our own detriment). I appreciate you. (Hello to Violet, BobbyK and Baby Fred too!)

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo
herisme.org

ps. If you want to know more about the effects of domestic violence in my story, a brief picture is here:  When you Run My 5K (along with general life ramblings, natch)

I do truly appreciate people speaking out loud about the regular human things which we all somehow have agreed not to speak about despite those silences or whispers being extraordinarily harmful to ourselves. Katherine Ryan is a gorgeous brave weirdo.

I hope that we all find places to embrace our gorgeous brave weirdo-nesses as well! Thank you for holding this space for me (an acquired gorgeous-on-the-deep-inside, massive weirdo-on-the-outside)

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo

When You Run My 5K

The Box Tops video is midweek mirror inspiration for you

also, MrexH just reached out after 4-5 months requesting to re-establish contact with SonHerisme AGAIN. Back to the weekly updates for this person. Way to pop my happy bubble moment – on brand with the swirl of crazy that is my life. Still, there’s a spinach lunch waiting for me… so there’s that!

Poet Tree

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or listen here

Welcome to the first full day of Spring and World Poetry day!

I do not know very much about poetry, but I do read it/listen to it on occasion. There is a podcast I use to help quiet my brain and body when they become too resistant to relaxation (a flowery version of anxiety, perhaps? Fuck it – it’s anxiety). I love this one particular podcast so very much because there aren’t any introductions, salutations, explanations, goodbyes, gongs, bells, monk chants, piano, raindrops etc, it is purely some guy reading poems – one poem per post. Sometimes they are very short 20 second reads, sometimes 3-4 minute reads. Because his voice is so sing-songy full of inflection with his Scottish accent, his voice and the chosen works are enough to make the listening inviting. He reads everything from Rumi to Blake to Whitman to Oliver to Sassoon to whomever. There is no bio on the applepodcast page, and I’m not sure what’s on his soundcloud page. It’s glorious – just a voice and poems. No other expectations. Perfect for me. Oh shoot! What podcast? Looking it up now – Poetry Plain and Simple by Brendan Ghazavi-Gill. Dang it. Now we know his name which takes up space. I’ll forget it in an hour. Blessed sieve brain.

Okay. I probably read or listen to some poetry every day. You probably do as well. And yes, I am going to count the Screaming Sonnets Sessions with SonHerisme as reading poetry. Screaming Sonnets Sessions (SSS – but you don’t say each letter, just ssssss like a snake) consist of taking our pocket Shakespeare sonnets outside, choosing one at random, and full-on anger screaming it into the woods like crazy. SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY!!!!? THOU ART MORE LOVELY AND TEMPERATE…!!!! Sonnet 18, I believe. Anyway, I encourage you to try it because it is funsies. Be sure to have some hot tea ready because it does scratch the throat a bit. Also, I told SonHerisme that giant fluffy roasted marshmallows also soothe a sore throat, so if you see him, just go with me on this. Please and thank you. I like the vegan marshmallows because they have so much more flavor and a more densely luxurious texture. SonHerisme prefers the super duper ridiculous giant only-in-America marshmallows. You can get a great sparkly woodsy flavor on the outside of your marshmallow if you throw sage into your fire. Sage sparkles up like magic!

Back in the times of engagement and working outside of the home, I used to create a poet-tree every year with branches for kids to hang their favorite poems on, or pluck one off to read and share. The tree was most often made of found sticks stuck into clay in a vase – basic, easy to replenish and using already on-hand resources (as we do in these environments – if you know, you know. If you don’t know, please venmo generously to a local school/library/childcare center asap).

A favorite Lewis Carroll poem often recited (with gestures!) to children, including my own, at anytime:

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail

And pour the waters

Of the Nile

On every golden scale

How cheerfully he seems to grin

How neatly spread his claws

And welcomes little fishies in

With gently smiling jaws

A favorite by Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Happy World Poetry Day!

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo

ps I recently began following Harry Baker, poet. He is clever and has a wonderful maths poem. Google him – you’re welcome!