If today feels hard for you
If today feels hard for you, you’re not alone.
Mother’s Day can bring up so many different feelings and stories and longings.
Maybe your mother has passed away.
Maybe you’ve longed to be a mother.
Maybe your relationship with your mother or your children isn’t what you hoped it would be.
Maybe you’re grieving a child.
Maybe you want to live in a world that meaningfully honors and supports caregiving and mothering every day.
For me, Mother’s Day has been tender for a long time.
I remember working in a small retail shop in Portland 12 years ago while customers smiled and asked if I was a mom myself. Even then, in my early 30s, I felt the ache in my heart answering no.
And all these years later, after a multi-year fertility journey and two pregnancy losses, I still feel sadness and uncertainty and tenderness around it.
I’m doing my best to hold myself gently with that truth today.
Maybe that’s what many of us could use right now: a little more gentleness with ourselves and each other.
So if today feels complicated or lonely or tender for you too, I wanted to send a small note to say: However you feel makes perfect sense. You don’t need to push through it. And you don’t have to carry it alone.
I also wanted to share a few resources that might give you a little support today.
1) A gentle walk with us through nature 🌿
After almost a year away from podcasting, I’m introducing a new mini-series called Rootward: Letters from the Senses, an intimate audio exchange and co-creation between me and my dear friend and colleague, Seema Sodha.
Each episode explores one of our five senses through voice notes we’ve sent each other while out in nature. This first episode is about the sense of sight. 👀
It’s 22 minutes long, and I’d love to invite you to take a walk with it.
In this episode, Seema shares observations from a favorite forest in the Netherlands while I reflect from the botanical garden here in Athens, Georgia.
Together, we explore what becomes possible when we slow down enough to see what’s around us and what’s being reflected back within us.
This series is intentionally imperfect. We didn’t wait for the perfect logo or polished production. Not gonna lie, I patched together the audio clips on Friday using iMovie on my laptop!
We wanted to create something grounding, human, and connected during a time that feels overwhelming.
My hope is that listening to it feels a bit like walking alongside us.
Maybe you listen while taking your dog out.
On your next hike.
Or when you need a small moment to reconnect with yourself.
And maybe, by the end, you’ll find yourself noticing the world around you a little differently.
You can listen to the episode here:
Rootward: Letters from the Senses — Sight
2) A beautiful conversation with Valarie Kaur about motherhood, love, and hope
Activist and author Valarie Kaur was recently interviewed by The Mother Chapter from Mila and Jo Media for their Motherhood Identity Series.
It’s a conversation about how motherhood reshaped Valarie’s understanding of love, why she embraced harmony over balance, and what it means to stay in the long labor of hope even when it seems out of reach.
One question especially stayed with me:
“Was I brave with my love today?”
3) Anne Lamott on Mother’s Day
I adore Anne Lamott’s raw reverence and humor. I read her Mother’s Day essay every year.
Her newest piece is called:
“Oy veh, Mother’s Day”
One excerpt I especially loved:
“My main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them, including aunties and brothers; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat.”
I'm sending love to those of you celebrating today.
And extra tenderness to those of you just making it through.
With love,
Stacy
