March 9th, 2026
I have not been writing as much lately. I feel a little muted, a little distant and removed from the world right now. The media has become a toxic relationship that I keep trying to break up with but keep bumping into at a bar. I keep looking over at it, hoping my love will change it, reform it, turn the story around.
But alas, it f*ks with me.
The truth is that when I walk away and look around, all is well, everyone is good. This past weekend we visited Maya at Duke for the infamous Duke vs. North Carolina game. In Durham the cherry blossoms are budding, the daffodils are waving with full faces. For today I am still safe. I am still loving. I am still very loved.
These past few months, Maya participated in a scavenger hunt and several weeks of tenting to earn her a seat at the big game. Scott and I went down to sit in a bar and celebrate the day by going around with her to frat parties and taking her friends out to as many meals as allowed.
While waiting for the game to start in the bar on campus, we realized the tickets were dropping in price. Suddenly it seemed perfectly reasonable to drop some cash. Before I knew it, I was part of the crowd being pushed in waves toward my seat in the rafters with an incredible view of a tradition that has been carefully crafted and handed down for years.
When the lights lowered to a dark humming blue, the student section erupted. On cue, their voices called out. This was their turf, their house, and their intensity makes it one of the most difficult arenas to win in if you are a visitor. (They have currently won 32 games in a row on their home court.)
When the “Star-Spangled Banner” began, we all turned to face the flag as a single man sang a cappella. When he came to the word “Free,” I realized that along with my voice, the whole stadium was holding the note — a scrappy, desperate grab at the energy of hope. The crowd slowly lost its stamina, but the singer kept holding it…..
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I must have taken at least four deep breaths during his hold, and then it broke me. Tears started flowing. The word was like a cool drink in a desert of despair. It seemed as if everyone needed to have that word held for them, everyone needed to let it sink deep into their being.
My bones rattled….It is time for that word to become non-negotiable.
I learned recently that in Ayurveda, tears fall from three different places in your eyes. Tears that come from the inner corner are vata and are caused by sadness. Tears that come from the middle are pitta and are from rage and terror, and tears that come from the outer corner are kapha and are from love, gratitude, and awe.
My tears clearly came from a full heart, from the outer corners that override sadness and rage, from a place that stepped out of her little safe world into Cameron Indoor Arena, which holds only 9,000 people. From a place that is tired of hearing how awful people are.
I know everything feels broken, I know the world is deconstructing, I know we are at war. I know I am in a bubble. But here is the thing — maybe those of us who have distance right now are holding the note. Maybe those of us who can stay in gratitude, love, and awe must do that so we can return our world in time to one that is safe and peaceful. For what is our other option? Despair, powerlessness, fear?
Everyone who knows me knows that I am super sensitive but also I have learned to be super discerning. I have trained myself to open my sensitivity fully to experiences that are highly charged with love and pure, divinely sourced energy. I shelter and cloak myself from ignorance and manipulative traps set to trigger my fears. So I will tell you this: I opened myself wide open in that arena. I opened my heart and my field as far and as wide as I could and took in all the love and hope available, and then I blasted it right back out. I blessed as many people as I could with the depths of my love for humanity and my belief that we are all evolving to a whole new level of consciousness.
When the game ended, we moved through the crowds again to stand around two large benches, carefully set on fire in the main quad to honor yet another tradition of victory, and what I witnessed was this: hundreds of kids standing around this great fire in an inherent tribal roar. While sparks flew up toward the looming and steady chapel, the flames illuminated their blue-painted faces, confirming for me that a prophecy was coming true. Deeply loving, highly evolved, wise warriors of the galaxy will take the realm soon. And in their brilliant eyes, sobering from warm beer, gallon jugs of a weird juice they dub a borg, and a winning crowd mania, I saw it…. Freedom… Freedom, and I believe, even though you may not yet, that it will hold. It will hold.
