I will survive

At what age did you finally realize that “It’s not like it’s going to kill me” and “I’ll survive” were bullshit metrics for your decision making?

When did it occur to you that “I’m fine” depends very much on what one’s definition of “fine” is.

When did you decide that you might be interested in living in such a way that didn’t require actual imminent death for you to make changes, to seek help, support and resources?

When did you start boldly prioritizing your needs?

When did you begin to feel your worth?

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Spring cleaning

Spring came early to California which seems to be the trend of late, with a loving reminder to take out the trash.

This applies to all manner of rubbish in our lives. It’s spring cleaning. A time to clear any and all basura that could cause incontrollable and devastating wildfires in our vicinity.

The fire will come. This we know. The dead excess will burn and turn to ash, providing the ground we stand on with nutrients for the next cycle of life.

In the meantime, the soil is still somewhat damp and the immediate threat of wildfires less imminent. Let’s use this time wisely. We can leave the trash where it is, taking up space in our home, our yard, our heart, our life, where it will crowd and clutter and distract and cause chaos and overwhelm until it catches fire and takes down everything in its path. Your home, your neighbors’ homes, your life even. Or you can clear out the fire’s fuel now.

Open your eyes. See what’s coming. Feel the lightness of letting go. Clear space for fresh sprouting things to grow. There are seeds of life under all that decaying refuse that might like to be given a chance.

Another way to think about it is this: Today I let go of part of my face. There were all these growths that had been spreading and that I’d been humorously calling my barnacles for a long while. I have the wonderful superpower/coping mechanism of finding humor in almost anything. Until the day when it dawned on me that these growths could be cancerous or pre-cancerous and I spend 85% of the year in the sun. It took several phone calls and 4 appointments to get to today, the day I had my barnacles removed. Nobody, not a stranger or friend or family member or any of the many doctors I’ve seen over the years, has ever said to me, "You might want to get those growths on your face looked at.” And I’m not mad at them in the slightest. That’s the thing about what we need to clear from our lives. Even the things that are right in front of us, staring back at us in the mirror. It’s up to us and only us to recognize what it is that needs to get gone, and to take action. It was quite painful, took a lot of my time, and a lot of my money, because I wanted the growths gone before they turned into cancer. I opened my eyes. I trusted my instincts. I did what was necessary to clear what I could have lived with, but for how long, and at what cost?

Let the light in. Take out the trash. Make that appointment. Water your garden. Pray for rain.

Give thanks for the sun.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

I do what I want

I do what I want

Because I trust me

To do right by me

I do what I want

Because I’ve healed myself enough

To know 

That I’m only dangerous/in danger

When I’m doing 

What I’m told

I do what I want

Because nobody else

Knows 

What they’re doing 

Any more 

Than I do

I do what I want

Because I’m the one inside 

This body

I’m the one in this place

At this moment

I’m the one with these passions and 

Gifts and ideas and aches and longings

I do what I want

Because I’m the one with these 

Wounds these scars these memories

These needs these sensitivities 

These superpowers

I do what I want 

Because I’m the one 

I’m the one

To do right by me

So I will do 

What I want

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Thirst traps + toxic boyfriends

Like the toxic boyfriend he is, IG shuts me out the more I engage, and showers me with attention and adoration when I pull away. He doesn’t love me for me. I am just a means to an end. He will use me for his egoic purposes, to assuage his insecurities, until I no longer play by his rules or decide to leave the game altogether. 

He tries to convince me I’d be nothing and go nowhere without him, but I’ve been me and I’ve been going places all along. I was there before he lost his soul, before he got obsessed with money and success and fame at whatever cost. I could have lost mine too. But instead I found it. 

My more *mature* (with a hard “t”) lover is my website, where I have freedom, autonomy, and spaciousness to express the fullness of me. Where there are no trolls or ads or marketing hooks. Where I am free to bring all of me, and find myself held and embraced, seen and witnessed. My website lover just holds space, and can handle anything I bring or reveal. They aren’t threatened by my fullness. They want to see me radiant with light and burning with passion for my own sake and for all who feel my heat. 

Toxic IG boyfriend had me on edge, watching my every step, afraid of doing too much or not enough. Never knowing where the bar was, because it was constantly moving, by design. It was never enough with IG bf. 

With website boo, it’s whatever and whenever, anything and everything. I am welcomed and embraced. Which makes me open up even more. There are no red hearts of approval or blue stars of hierarchy and importance- just honesty. 

Honesty is the reward itself.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Tantric Flower Arranging 101

I was shaping pizza dough tonight and took my time coaxing it, letting it warm up, soften and expand in my hands, and it made me think of the flowers.

I have about 300 friends in common with Max Gill and we've been circling each other for years but have never met. He taught a floral design workshop for some of our employees at Front Porch Farm last year, right around the time that my life was falling apart, and I couldn't make it to the workshop. The following week I asked Zoe about Max's workshop, and what I remember her saying, in addition to how lovely and what a beautiful person he is, was how he taught floral design to the group with theatre language and metaphor. Apparently he used to be pretty heavy into theatre, so he would say things like, "I'm going to move this ranunculus stage right" or "we really need the lead peony in the spotlight, and the sweet peas in the chorusline."

As a musical theater lover, I was smitten with this way of thinking about floral design, or about anything we create or design.

Every so often I think about how in high school I turned down an opportunity to train with the Junior Olympic volleyball team, because it would've prevented me from being in the spring high school musical. It was Little Shop of Horrors for Pete's sake!

I've had a few fleeting moments of wistful regret, (oh the glory I could’ve basked in with my incredible athletic prowess!), but nah...

Ain't no party like a high school musical theater cast party amiright??

Thinking of where Max naturally goes in his head when designing with flowers (the stage), and turning the pizza dough patiently round and round tonight, made me wonder about where I naturally go in my head with the flowers.

I immediately think of very loving consensual sex. Lol.

I know! It's fine. Call me a freak or whatever. Please see my previous post on how many fucks I have left to give.

But seriously though, if we could just be mature adults here for a hot minute.. are we ok?

I like to approach my flowers (I consider them mine once they're in my care) with reverence, tenderness, lots of listening and responding to what they need and what feels best for them. I don't ever force my flowers into anything they're not feeling. It's very obvious when flowers have been coerced into a position or vessel or color combo that isn't working for them, or when their conditions and environment haven't been well considered. What people don't see when they sit in front of an artful, vibrant, lush flower arrangement, is how much tenderness and caretaking, sweat and muscle and tedious labor goes into growing and prepping each stem before they have their moment to shine. If the flowers don't receive this tender care before being arranged and presented, they tend to go limp, they'll lose their vigor, or they'll look stiff and uncomfortable and awkward. Some are so bedazzled and dyed and manipulated with toxic shit that their natural beauty is hardly recognizable. Although, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and maybe they find pleasure in this shape shifting. Maybe some basic ass conventional roses have loads of fun getting wild with their rainbow tie dye treatments. Who am I to judge?

Flowers are as varied as lovers. Some are shockingly sturdy and need a confident, sure hand, while others are incredibly sensitive and need a light touch. Flowers like tulips don't mind being massaged and kneaded into a particular shape or line. The soft stemmed bulb flowers of spring are more or less submissive like that. Roses of course are thorny. The wild rambling ones will cut you and leave you throbbing long after they're gone, but you’ll never forget their intoxicating fragrance.

Dance is also an apt metaphor for describing the art of floral arranging. But at their core I think, sex and dance and floral design are about a wordless communication and attentiveness. They're about making a composition from joining disparate things. They're about the organic, animal, and spirit realms more than the intellectual. They're about physical matter and energy colliding with mysterious spiritual energies. As soon as overthinking and analyzing creep onto the scene, the magic is dead. Whether in the bedroom, on the dance floor, or in the vase. Flowers shine when their opening is timed perfectly for their big moment, when they have the right partners to dance with, and when their environment supports their particular needs.

So, in conclusion, my advice for those interested in flower arranging or floristry is this: Make love to the flowers. Make them purr, make them sing, make them dance. Let them show off for you, in the way they want to. You’ll be surprised how much they give back.

Tantric Flower Arranging 101 coming soon. (jk jk but, could be fun?)

Adjustments

Two isn’t much less than three. Except when it is. 

Cooking for this version of us looks different from the version which is no longer and I’m still adjusting. For a long time I kept cooking too much oatmeal, too much pasta, and buying too many groceries. 

This morning I cooked the perfect portion of Irish oats and allowed the bliss of that to accompany each spoonful, lightly drizzled with maple syrup, a pinch of salt. 

I still sleep all the way on one side of the bed, which I believe is to better reach my books, my daughter’s books, my glasses and phone and water and hand balm and lip balm and lamp and essential oils- you know, the essential bedtime everythings. 

It also leaves room for my sleepy star to climb in at twilight.

The space that’s created with loss can feel agonizing, and did, but not always or in every way. Not now. 

There are pangs. But they were there before too, to some extent. So many of my most painful losses have been about what I’d hoped to have, what I’d convinced myself I did have, what I’d hoped something would become, and then finally facing what it presently was and making a choice. This is a particular kind of loss I think- not better or worse than any other- just particular. 

Letting go has been the bravest, most awful, and truest thing I’ve maybe ever done. It has taken at least a year and I’m still adjusting to the negative spaces- some of which felt like an immediate relief and others that still squinch my face with pain. Still others are revealing themselves over time. Like a butterfly cracking open its cocoon, discovering the strength of its own wings to break through the shell, which now needs to be left behind, back to the earth. 

A time will come for stepping lightly forward, with wonder, curiosity, and courage, toward the edge of the branch, looking out at an expansive, mysterious sky, rather than the solid ground it had known. 

How does it know how to fly?

The butterfly doesn’t stop then, at the branch’s edge, to weigh all of its possible future outcomes. She doesn’t walk back down to the dirt to find caterpillars to consult with, or creep to the next branch over to ask another butterfly for advice.

She is quiet. Still. Then she feels, she senses, she hears from some internal place that it is time. She trusts that she will know what to do next because in fact her body is already leading her forward. Her wings are already softly opening, then closing. Opening, closing, feeling the sensation of the air, feeling the momentum she creates with her own energy, with what she already has within her. 

She steps off the branch now, trusting in nothing but what she feels in her own depths, and in an instant her wings meet the air and she is gliding. It’s as if everything that’s happened in her insect life up until now was preparing her for this moment. She is serene, exultant, and splendorous. 

Those still on the ground look up at her with awe and admiration, witnessing her flight, unaware of the slog through the dark that preceded it. She will glide, dance, and twirl a while, learning the ways of her new wings as well as a brand new environment, the sky. Eventually the wind will pick up, the rain will come, the sun will beat down, a chill will pierce her body, and with these challenges she’ll once again adjust, sensing into what she needs, for rest, for protection, for sustenance, for which way to go next. 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022

Jigsaw

7-year-old me is thrilled and proud to know that I stayed up until 11:30pm on a school night to complete a jigsaw puzzle.

17-year-old me is puzzled but assumes that's what old people do in 2022. *returning to craft her witty away message on AIM*

27-year-old-me feels self-conscious and wonders what went wrong for me to be involved in a late-night-solo-fireside-puzzling, emphasis on the solo, at this stage in our life.

37-year-old me went to bed with satisfaction in her ability to put some pieces back together into something beautiful and whole.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | 2.2.2022

Love

I love falling in love with people.

Isn't it marvelous??

Not romantically necessarily, but people. People who leave you with that warm glowy feeling, the feeling of connection; of sharing a wavelength and energy field.

I've always loved people. Tonight I was reminded of that, after spending time with a group of really lovely people. I felt this way last weekend too, after going away with 4 close friends for two days. I came back so refreshed, so energized, and I felt like I fell in love with each of them all over again, even though we've been friends for years.

Given all of the challenges and stresses of my current particular circumstances, which I won't get into with any specificity, but include a traumatic divorce and becoming a single mom smack dab in the middle of global pandemic and economic shit storm, it is such a relief to know that there are still people out there who can fill my heartank, people I admire and trust, who care and feel deeply but don't take themselves too seriously.

It feels like a divine gift, that in the wake of my marriage ending, the death of one love would be followed by falling even more head over heels in love with my daughter, and falling in love anew with friends and family and even some strangers, some new some old, but truly falling in love.. like butterflies in the tummy and grinning ear to ear kind of love.

People are amazing. Their ideas! Their histories! Their humor! Their knowledge! Their idiosyncrasies! Their beautiful hearts and ability to care about others, our planet, our children and children's children. God I love people.

People are also the very absolute worst. But that's for another day. Today I celebrate the good stuff of life.

Driving to SF to get together with friends tonight I felt super stressed. I felt like a stressed out failure, a frazzled failure who is always late to everything and can't seem to ever make enough money to survive in this world and can't seem to work enough to make the money but can't keep up with the work, because there's the work work, and then there's the work of parenting a five year old and the housework and the running a household work and there's the personal mental health and wellness work and the part time job work that is keeping up with all the doctors appointments and covid tests and logging in and logging out and I haven't called my mom and I still haven't called my step-dad, and I missed my step-mom's birthday and I owe my sister a call and I need to start my taxes but they're going to be such a cluster after the last year I've had and I'm still not legally divorced for a number of reasons outside of my control and how am I supposed to do all of this??

This was the dialogue in my mind on my way to see friends in the city. And now, home on my cozy couch I am glowing from their good company. Spending time with decent, smart, funny, caring, thoughtful, fun, creative and loving people, has been the best medicine for my heart, (Zoloft for my brain), since leaving my marriage.

I can honestly say that I'm sort of terrified and not sure I'll ever be ready to fall in love romantically again, but my friends show me what good love feels like, and as a result I not only feel less afraid, I know I'll never settle for anything less again.

That half-folded pile of laundry and dwindling bank account no longer feel urgent or looming.

I feel only gratitude for this moment: the love glow from time with friends, my daughter sleeping peacefully in her own afterglow from being loved on by those friends, our health, and enough resources to get through another winter's month.

I hope you fall in love with someone this week, yourself even, and that it helps you get through your days. I hope you remember that these connections with people and ourselves are all we'll consider worth any of it in the end.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January still, 2022

Not giving a fuck

The thing about not giving a fuck, is that people don't tend to distinguish which type they mean when they say, "I don't give a fuck", or "she gives no fucks". The words mostly stay the same, but the tone of voice and facial expression tend to give it away.

There are at least 3 types of not giving a fuck, and I've experienced them all. You probably have too. But there's one that I prefer by a longshot.

The first way to not give a fuck is active and at least a little aggressive and is usually a rebellion against someone or some entity that is oppressive or perceived to be oppressive.

Ex. 1: "I don't give a FUCK", emphasis on the fuck.

The second way to not give a fuck is passive and comes from utter exhaustion, physical or emotional or both.

Ex. 2: "Idontgivafuck" said with resignation and maybe some exhausted annoyance or an eye roll.

The above have their time and place for sure, but this third way to not give a fuck is giving me life. This not giving of fucks comes from experience and maturity and self-acceptance. These fucks that are not given were earned from years and years of giving all the fucks, until one day, it became crystal clear that giving all the fucks is a prison of one's own creation, is helping no one, and giving no fucks is the key to freedom. Not giving a fuck, in this third way, is not to be confused with not giving a damn. I do give a damn. I give a lot of damns about a lot of people and the issues that impact those people, about our planet and our ability to co-exist and freely thrive as one interconnected organism.

But fucks I will no longer give.

Ex. 3: "I don't give a fuck." Said simply, calmly and maybe even with a barely perceptible smile of serenity. Audible when necessary, but often internal. Translated it means: "I trust myself to know what is for me and what is not."

It's like a secret superpower.

Highly recommend.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | it's still January, 2022

Inside Out

What keeps me from publicly sharing my writing is the fear of being wrong. The only type of writing that I’m really interested in is completely honest writing. Words that express what’s really on the inside. I share to connect, to maybe help someone feel less alone, to feel less alone myself, and to explore my curiosities. 

But this kind of sharing is incredibly vulnerable and thus scary for me. 

The same issues I have in my personal life bleed all over every part of my life, of course. I want so badly to get it right, to be right, to be good, to be doing good and leaving people better than how I found them. I want to tell the truth. 

The problem is that I’m limited. I make mistakes. I’ve been hurt and disappointed and harmed and misunderstood and muffled and manipulated, and I’m still working to heal those wounds. Like you. Like all of us. I have limitations, blind spots. There are things I haven’t learned yet, there are experiences I haven’t yet had that will greatly shape me, there’s wisdom I haven’t yet earned. 

This is true for all of us, but some of us were convinced a long time ago that being imperfect was bad. So bad that some peace-loving man from the Middle East, a poor Jewish carpenter who only treated people with kindness and acceptance and love and radical inclusion, had to be flayed and tortured and crucified for my sake- that’s how bad I was. That’s how bad all people are, I was told. 

The sort of American Christianity that I was immersed in for the first twenty-five years of my life instilled shame and fear and judgement that I’m still un-teasing to this day. Coupled with the accomodating-people-pleasing sickness that almost all women I know inherited to some degree or another, and there’s no wonder any of us are skittish to share what’s really on our insides, on the outside. Tripled with the addition of social media to our everyday routines and consciousness with its built-in metrics of comparison and opportunity for public shaming, and it’s easy to understand why our words may stay in our throats and on the pages of our notebooks. It’s the same with love. It’s the same with trying anything that you have no control over, which is everything. 

Listen, the thing is, we all have to start somewhere, with whoever we are. Because that is all we have. We have now. We have ourselves and now. That is it. We don’t have who we used to be, we don’t have who we’d like to be, we don’t have a future version of us.. All of those may exist on some plane, but not right now, and right now is all we have. 

I’m already 37 years old. I don’t want to spend any more of this precious life on planet Earth holding back what I am, what I have to offer right now, just because it’s imperfect. 

I am imperfect. There, I said it, and there’s no date in the future when I’ll be less imperfect. Perfection is missing the point and is also a completely nebulous concept. I’m no longer striving for perfection or even goodness, because I believe in my inherent goodness, divinity, and worthiness and I believe in yours.

I’m flawed and I swear a lot and I have trust issues for lots and lots of really good reasons and for just about the majority of my life up until recently I’ve been holding back. I’ve held back for at least a dozen reasons. Most of them have to do with fear and oppression. That’s why one’s life falling apart is such a damn gift. The worst went ahead and happened. And God is it awful. But there’s a freedom to it as well. It’s honest. 

And I’m ok. I was really not ok, for a really long time, which is ok too. Day after day after day I couldn’t imagine ever being ok- like it was unfathomable, which was so scary. But I am ok. I’m alive. You are too. And I guess I’m here to say, dear reader, that I’m still scared and nervous, but I also have no will left for sharing anything from this body, this life, this heart and mind of mine, that isn’t honest and true. What is honest and true for me may not be well-received, may be clumsy, and will likely be verbose because I have a complex about being misunderstood so overcompensate by being long-winded. I’m working on it. 

On that note, I will commence writing, and sharing. I’m not going to ask anything of you, my reader. It is a gift to have your attention and consideration, and I hope what I offer here is of some value to you.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Voices

"There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it."

- Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Never have I heard the voice of my mind louder than now. Once the voices of external bullies are finally, finally out of your ear, then the bullying voice of the mind takes over and can be even more incessant.

The onion is peeled back, and at its core is quiet and tranquil, but those layers must be peeled off and thrown on the compost pile or it will never be reached.

Every time Michael A. Singer asks which of the voices in your head are you? I cry out, "All of them!" and he says, "None of them!" at the same time and my mind is obliterated in the best way possible.

Letting Go

We were in the garage today, and I found a parasol. I'd kept it in the car for Penelope to use on our sunny picnic days, but on one of many occasions of unloading the car into the garage to make room for flowers, I'd forgotten it there and it grew moldy in the dampness. 

I explained that we'd have to get rid of it because of the mold, and had a hard time explaining what mold is. Still don't really know. 

I brought it inside and laid it on the hearth to burn, agreeing with Penelope that the ashes from the parasol could be sprinkled into our garden's soil, making it healthy and happy for future flowers to grow. 

When she was busy on the other side of the room, I sat down to have a quiet moment with the parasol before lighting it. Then I heard her tender voice, all of a sudden right next to me saying, "Mom, I know it's hard to let go of the special parasol because it's from your wedding day, but it's ok to say goodbye."

We hadn't spoken of it being from my wedding day, but she remembers the photos of me in my tiered lace and dupioni handmade dress holding the parasol. It seems so cheesy now, after all the hundreds of weddings I've worked in the decade since my own with ubiquitous baskets of parasols for guests. This one was vintage though, made of crinkly yellowing paper and bamboo. It sat in a corner or shelf of every home I made these past ten years, from San Francisco to Santa Rosa to Vallejo to Petaluma, its final resting place. 

It burned beautifully, the paper first, then the skeleton bamboo frame. Penelope sat next to me and we squeezed hands as the flames turned the parasol to ash. 

Tomorrow we'll sprinkle it over our garden. Our garden, whose soil was parched, crusty and baked from heat and drought those first few months, and is now deliciously damp from recent rains. Our garden which harbors dozens of seeds invisible to any eye. I have no idea which ones will take root and blossom into maturity. But I wonder if this ash will balance the substance of the soil in the exact way that even just one seed will thrive from. What a miracle that would be. 

November 17, 2021 | Jaclyn Edds Konczal

Making Space | a late night fantasy

Let's teach our children that it's good and right for them to take up space, to be heard and seen, to have what they need. Children are fully human, even if they are small humans.

Let's also teach them that if the space they're taking up is causing someone else to become smaller, unheard, unseen, disrespected, dismissed, or lacking what they need, then they might be taking up more than their fair share of space.

The next time I walk down a sidewalk, on one side, in my lane, and some fool comes barreling down the middle of the sidewalk towards me with no intention of leaving space for me to continue walking straight forward on a public sidewalk, expecting me to fully step aside and stop in my tracks until he has passed, I will continue forward and fully shoulder-check him instead, and my shoulders are pointy and strong. Then when he exclaims in indignation, "Hey! What the fuck?!" and gets in my face, I will smile sweetly and say, "Stay in your lane, bro."

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Ukulele Playlist 2021

I strummed and sang myself through the worst year of my life, which had followed the worst year of many of our recent lives.

The following are the songs that got me through. Maybe I’ll play them for you sometime.

The Breaking Up

Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You | Julia Jacklin

Skinny Love | Bon Iver

Say Something | A Great Big World

Foolish Games | Jewel

Poison and Wine | The Civil Wars

Driver’s License | Olivia Rodrigo

LA Dream | Julia Jacklin

Nothing Compares to You | Sinead O’Connor

Water Runs Dry | Boyz II Men

I Will Always Love You | Whitney Houston

Comfort | Julia Jacklin

The Purgatory

When the Family Flies In | Julia Jacklin

Who Will Save Your Soul | Jewel

Shadowboxer | Fiona Apple

Toxic | Brittney Spears

Summertime Sadness | Lana Del Rey

Stormy Weather | Etta James

After the Storm | Shovels + Rope

Good Guy | Julia Jacklin

Mary | Big Thief

The Healing

Every Time I Hear That Song | Brandi Carlisle

Dancing On My Own | Robyn

Easy On Me | Adele

Like I Used To | Sharon Van Etten x Angel Olsen

Seventeen | Sharon Van Etten

To Be Loved | Adele

Beginning To Feel the Years | Brandi Carlisle

The Story | Brandi Carlisle

What A Wonderful World | Louis Armstrong

Sexy Mermaids

I’ve been doing some comprehensive budgeting- a personal audit of sorts, and I would like to say, that as long as the prevailing cultural beauty standard, or appearance standard, requires and expects smooth, poreless, hairless, dimple-pimple-scar-wrinkle-mole-less skin, 

impeccable hair that looks half “I couldn’t care less”, half “I care the most”,

eyelashes to the moon but brows that are somehow supposed to say “boy” but pits that say “little baby”, not to mention the hair down there.

As long as my actual bare naked toenails must never be seen unpolished and un-pedicured, as long as I’m expected to smell like a sexualized mermaid lying on a bed of rose-infused cotton candy, 

as long as my eyes are never to look tired even two years into a global pandemic and almost one year into a gnarly divorce,

as long as I’m expected to walk through the world with a smile always on my face but no trace of smile lines,

as long as all of this and more is expected of me and all women and femmes,

I will be expecting the government of these United States, founded by the colonizers who invented “beauty standards” and metrics and “ideal” noses and weights and hair textures and complexions,

to provide us with a monthly stipend to cover the expense of a hair and makeup team including all products and tools required to achieve this great task, in addition to an hourly allotment for the time it takes to transform into this most ubiquitously palatable version of ourselves. 

Then there will be the therapist fees (they’ll need to be good) to help us cope and deal and survive this pressure on top of daily life and responsibilities.

Additionally, we’ll need expenses reimbursed for the semi-annual spiritual retreats that will be necessary in order to retrieve our souls from the clutches of superficiality and the illusion of superiority. 

Whatever that $ amount comes to, multiply it by 300 for all Black, Indigenous, women and femmes of color.

So yeah. That’s all I’ll need going forward, thanks. 

Otherwise, I’ll just continue to pocket the $1300/month it would cost me in beauty services, products, and treatments. I’ll no longer need extra therapy or retreats because I’ll be chillin’ and my soul will be shining bright through not one layer of goop or false eyelash. 

A recurring lesson of my life is that when I sense myself feeling envious, or saying things like, “must be nice..”, it usually means that the person or people I envy are living in a way that I’d like for myself but feel blocked from. 

Once I realize where all the irritation and surliness is coming from, I’ve begun asking myself, “What is it about them? What do they have or embody that I would like for myself? Is it really unreachable for me? Why?”. Sometimes it really is unreachable, and the lesson is contentment with what is, and patience for what is still developing. 

Sometimes, though, I realize that I’m not actually as blocked as I assumed I was- that the only one preventing me from having what I need or desire, is me. 

In this case, I’ve been jealous of the men. 

The men who wake up, throw on some jeans and a t-shirt like every other day, pee, splash their face, brush their teeth (on an overachieving day), and out the door they go, from bed to car in 5 minutes tops. 

They look how they look, and that is fine with everyone. Of course, this is not all men. There are unachievable asinine beauty and body standards for men too- but nobody really expects Jerry or Brandon to show up to work looking like a GQ model, at least no where I’ve ever worked.

Regardless, I’ve secretly wanted what the men have had this whole time: permission to exist just as they are, with just the basic, bare minimum of hygiene practices. 

The money it would save. 

The time. 

The energy. 

The worry and anxiety: “Is there lipstick on my teeth? Did I forget to pluck my eyebrows and everyone’s disgusted? Do I look like I’m trying too hard? Do I look like I’m not trying hard enough?”.

So instead of being jealous or waiting for the government to subsidize my physical appearance maintenance in order to meet impossible and stupid beauty standards that mostly apply to the women, 

I’ve been experimenting with even more bare minimum effort than I was already making: which was just mascara. 

I brush, floss, splash water and moisturize, keep my nails short and bare and spend less than 5 minutes on my hair which lately just gets covered by a beanie or hat anyway. 

It’s fabulous. I love it. 

I feel amazing. 

Light. Free. Honest. 

I actually feel kind of badass. 

My leg and pit hair grown out is particularly freeing and fabulous-feeling. It’s not the rebellious, symbolic stance of my adolescence. I just really don’t need anyone to tell me who I am anymore; to validate my sex appeal or give their stamp of approval on some narrowly defined passport of womanhood and femininity. Of course, I get to define who I am and how I look. We all should have that right without it being some political statement.

And tomorrow I may well decide to wear my favorite coral red lipstick and shave my legs smooth and put on mascara. I may even spritz myself with my favorite perfume-less sexy mermaid, more sultry earth goddess- but it won’t be for any goddamned person other than me- 

which is a delicious feeling. 

Here’s to the many beautiful faces and looks that will shine in 2022. May it be our radiant and free spirits, our hearts full of love and acceptance, that exude the kind of beauty we’re really after. 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Lovers

I have taken a lover. 

I’ve known them since kindergarten, in fact, it feels like we’ve known one another forever, even in a previous life. We've been circling each other for years, checking in, catching up, but I’ve been attached and unavailable until recently. 

Maybe it’s age, experience, or how long we’ve known one another, but my lover is so in tune, in touch, and perceptive that they anticipate my needs and tend to them; so full of warmth and compassion and acceptance that I feel secure and held, even in my worst moments. 

My lover is tender and also strong; generous and fun, quirky and playful. They make space for me and take time to listen with a desire to really understand the fullness of me. My lover is trustworthy and full of integrity, the truest friend. 

My lover is sexy and sensual, loves to delight and bring me pleasure, knows my body and appreciates every curve, wrinkle, bend, and dimple. They tend to my body with pleasure, skill, and careful attention. They see my beauty and embrace what others may criticize or shame. My lover knows that the scar above my clavicle came from the bike accident in college that hospitalized me. My lover knows about the many more layers of scarring on my knees from years of soccer, then volleyball, trail running and mountain biking, and more recently roller skating. My lover knows that I’m the only one of my siblings with black hair and hazel eyes, which I inherited from my father, but that I’m also the one who looks most like my mother, especially as I age. 

My lover and I have fascinating conversations; we giggle and crack each other up, and we can sit in comfortable silence together for hours, even days. 

My lover takes exquisite care of me, and signals to me, a secret, wordless communication that only we share, when they sense I’m in danger of abandoning myself or putting myself in harm’s way. 

They cheer me on and remind me that I’m capable of so much more than I’m prone to believe, and that even if I accomplished nothing and just existed they’d still choose me and delight in my presence forever. 

My lover, of course, is me, and this love is the deepest, truest love I’ve ever experienced..

My daughter is only a hair’s width away and in a category and universe all her own. 

She actually gives me butterflies in my belly- you know, that intense-almost-panicked-can’t-believe-love-like-this-is-even-possible-much-less-for-you-kind-of-love?? That’s how I feel with her- not always, but often. We’re five years and some change into our love- more really if you count my visions of her and pregnancy. 

I hope I live long enough to know her and love her when she’s 37. I hope we’ll stay up late, night after night on our visits with one another, way later than either of our bodies want to really, just to continue talking and being in each other’s presence by the warmth of the fire, three cups of tea deep, as my mom and I just did these last two weeks. 

The well of the heart never runs dry when those who draw from its waters spill their own back in with each encounter. 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Work in Progress

Untying knots, scheduling tests and appointments and check-ups and check-ins and servicing all the parts that need to be serviced in home, heart, and body. The stretchy pants are back. Cozy socks, beanie over unwashed hair, no makeup, hairy legs and pits, hot tea and soup game is solid, and when my brain can't handle another task that involves numbers and emails, I find a break in the rain to be with the garden, a garden that Penelope likes to call "a work in progress", and it is. The old house we have come to call home has our smell now, holds our laughter and tears and the loving energy of some of our most treasured people. There's a spot in the way back that was so overgrown and gnarly that nobody would've known there was anything there worth uncovering. 

One of my favorite childhood books, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, taught me what life has since confirmed: that what we're seeking cannot be created, invented, forced or found outside of us, but uncovered and resurrected within. I went to work digging, pruning, scraping, uprooting, wrestling and freeing something yet unknown from the invasive, suffocating ivy and thorny blackberry vines which put up an exhausting fight. The more I worked, the more dead branches I found, skeletons of former life that needed to be put in the compost pile, some fully dead trees. I found rusty bed frames, trash, broken pots, an entire set of weights, shards of glass, and an old fur hat- evidence of life that came before and has since passed along, leaving behind their junk for the next generation of inhabitants to unknowingly inherit. Still, digging deep into the dark wet underworld of composting leaves and plant debris, revealed rich black soil teeming with life.

There's still more work for me to do to uncover and liberate my overgrown place, but I'm already beginning to see the outline of my own secret garden. I witnessed its first relieved breaths of cool winter's air yesterday. I imagined the satisfaction it felt having access to nutrients and hydration from the ground again, stretching its legs into the spaces where invasive species and trash no longer dominated. There are quite a few spots left now ready for seed, and more will follow as I finish clearing. I have some beautiful heirloom seeds that I've been saving, seeds I'd intended to plant at a former home, a former beloved garden, but which have found their way here, patiently waiting for the right soil, safeguarded for the right time, the right conditions. And I'm dreaming of what seeds I'll seek out in the next few months while the soil is soft and wet. Weeds and returning vines are inevitable but can be fought back with diligence and an experienced eye that knows what’s what and acts swiftly. A hard baked crust comes eventually with the stress of rising temperatures, and I don't know how much watering I'll be able to do in drought conditions like we’ve been enduring for years. Resources like water, light, air, love, energy, time, space, are all precious, and I am learning to appreciate, nurture, conserve and protect these resources as such.

As I untie the knots, adjusting my daughter's mask from how I'd first tweaked it for my three-year-old, to now fit her five-year-old face, I bless the death, the leaving behind, the turning away, the no thank you's and goodbyes and never agains. I bless the adjustments and renegotiations, the hard conversations, even with oneself, and especially with oneself. I bless and thank what came before now, and I welcome all that is now with my loving attention, more ready than ever to tend the garden of today and witness it with wonder, acceptance, and gratitude, all the while my daughter's voice ringing in my ears, "we’re doing a lot of progress!".

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2022

Rest

Diet, hair product, pill
Power, position,
Ambition, and thrill

All the power and love
Is within her, you see
Enough to move mountains
Just let her be

Prince Charming's a farce
The true love to find
Is the one who's exhausted
And weary inside

"The one” is a lie
All packaged up neat
With the goal of making
Us feel incomplete

Let her rest
Give her space
To hear her own voice
Lend a hand, offer grace,
And turn down the noise

This world sells solutions
And fixes and creams
Programs, subscriptions,
Distressed mom jeans

Moms are in distress
Sleepless, anxious, wrung out
Told to lean in when we
Need to lean out

Let her rest
Let her be
Let her grieve, heal, and think
Let her stare at the ceiling
Instead of the sink

Let her sit on the
Couch devouring books
Without one single thought
About how she looks

Let her mother herself
Her own best friend forever
Let her truth and deep knowing
No longer be severed

Let her rest from producing,
Caretaking and giving

Hell hath no fury
Like a rested woman
Living

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | September 2021

Underground

The packet said

be sure to bury the seed

it needs darkness to

germinate

I breathed a deep sigh of relief

I’m not alone

this tiny seed too, which

came from a beautiful, flowering thing

the life that came before

blown to bits and pieces

by the howling wind and mournful

rain of yesterday

now composting

into this soil I’ve prepared

I don’t know how long I’ll be

down here

I’ve seen others with their faces toward

the sun

glowing, radiating, full of vitality

a new thing, dewy

supple flesh

bursting forth from the shell

which held them

they speak of hope and my aching

heart wants

to believe

but I can’t look at them too long

I’m going underground

where I need to be in

darkness

to germinate

or not

I’m not certain this

seed still has lifeforce within it

and yet, it’s a wonder that

any do

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | October 2021

Birth-days | October 2020

It's late, the night before my daughter's fourth birthday.

I'm on my period, having the kind of cramps that remind me of the first contractions I began to feel four years ago, contractions that kept me up all night, leaning my weight against the kitchen stool. I remember at 2 am I started to enter another dimension mentally and needed my husband to time my contractions.

Tonight I'm up late baking her the cake she specifically requested: a decadent vanilla cake with green frosting, raspberries around the bottom and strawberries on top. The oven beeps at me but the cake is raw in the middle; it needs more time. The pain of my menstrual cramps is pressing intensely on my pelvic floor in a way that again reminds me of childbirth. 

I remember the car ride to the hospital, during which I held my entire weight above the passenger seat, gripping and pulling up on the handle above me as the pain pierced through my tailbone and pelvic floor. I didn't know at that point that my baby was coming down the birth passage sunnyside up, her tiny spine which would normally be up against my soft belly, instead pressing tortuously against my spine and tailbone. That unbearable pain which had me convinced my skeleton was shattering, wouldn't let up throughout the entire labor until she fully emerged from her cocoon, at 12:53 pm the following day. The hot shower in my hospital room was supposed to be my best friend for this labor, but as soon as I got under the water I started to feel light-headed and nearly passed out. I sat naked on the end of the hospital bed to steady myself, and vomited in between contractions. I lost all of my strength at that point, but at 5 am, still had hours to go. The pain in my lower back and tailbone was so severe that I crawled pitifully onto the hospital bed and clung to the side. 

And that is how I labored. No birthing pool or yoga ball or birthing stool or leaning adorably against the strength of my husband. I settled in with the hard plastic arm of that hospital bed and held on with all my strength, pulling my body almost up onto it to try to relieve some pain from my lower back. 

In the last hour, after eleven hours of labor and already one hour of pushing, my baby's heart rate dropped, and my midwife sternly told me we needed to get the baby out. Her voice let me know that she was concerned, but was keeping calm for my sake. I felt I couldn't bare even one more contraction. I've been told that my guttural, animal screams were heard in the waiting room clear across the hospital floor. My eyes squeezed shut, I was not talking to anyone or hearing much. I felt like I was floating above the room in a dimension outside of time and space. Each enormous wave of pain crashed through me and left me winded, only to have another one lined up right behind it before I could come up for air. I was exhausted and felt my bones and sinew were tearing and shattering. My body had gradually expanded for 41 weeks to accommodate the fledgling life within, and was now going through its most painful expansion, an expansion which would take me to the very edge, where death and new life sat patiently, waiting. I couldn't imagine what would be left of me. 

And so it's been for many of us this year, and for our nation. Contraction after painful contraction, hitting us in consecutive waves, our sense of time gone. It's just today. It's just this moment. And the next. Contractions of loss, of trauma, of grief, of fear, of lack of control, of painful realization. How many times have I heard, "it's all just too much."

My midwife spoke to me. I met her calm eyes that had a terrifying warning behind them, and decided that for my baby to live I'd have to break myself and probably die. I couldn't imagine any other way, and a switch flipped. 

In an instant, the image of a magnificent and ferocious mother Tyrannosaurus Rex overcame and possessed me. (I'm not a big dinosaur fanatic, but this is what happened.) With each fearsome roar, I fought to defend and protect and give my baby life, knowing it might be the end of mine. I wept and wailed and roared with pain. My child emerged so slowly, another entire hour of pushing every thirty seconds, but I had no concept of time, it was just me and my pain and the possibility of life on the other side. 

There is a reckoning happening and it is relentless. There are painful truths that must be fully felt. And still we survive, clutching and gripping whatever is within our reach, to help us through this terrible labor. When we're brave, we let it crash into us, the tears hot and wet. We feel each new wave of pain, and struggle, hoping and believing that something better is trying to emerge. 

Our nation is throbbing from the painful but necessary contractions that could lead to new life. It is tender and fragile, but it must be born, just as necessary as what must die: the poisonous ideas and oppressive systems of white supremacy which birthed our nation and keep corrupting us to this day. Capitalism, classism and elitism, misogyny and able-ism, homophobia and religious bigotry, slavery masquerading as incarceration, surveillance, voter suppression, police brutality, detention centers, deportation. All of this must die so that people may live and be free, so that oppressors may regain their humanity.

After my daughter did finally emerge, slippery and tiny and nothing like I'd imagined she'd be, she had to spend the night in the NICU due to fluid in her lungs which caused an accelerated breathing rate and the risk of pneumonia. I hadn't slept in two days, had just labored to the edge of my life, and now, in order to breastfeed her like I wanted to, I had to leave my hospital bed every hour through the night, make my way to the NICU, nurse her, make my way back to my room, pump, sleep for 15-30 minutes, and then repeat all night so that my milk would come in, we would establish that brand new bond, and she'd get accustomed to my breast instead of a bottle. 

It is now four years later and my Penelope Rose is strong, healthy, fierce, hilarious, creative, curious, interesting, sharp, and tender. The labor of bringing her into this world was only the beginning of the longer labor of raising her, which has daily, sometimes hourly peaks of utter joy and transformational love, and also daily, sometimes hourly lows of frustration and exhaustion. 

And so it goes. 

Life and expansion and death and reckoning. And we grow. We leave some things behind to rot and compost and feed the next version of ourselves. 

We labor and endure and allow new life to emerge when it's ripe and ready.

May we all find the mama T-Rex within us in our greatest time of need. May we release what brings about suffering for ourselves and others, and fight like hell to usher in new life that will bring us deeper connection, more expansive love, and truer freedom. 

Happy birth-days to us all. God help us.