About The Newsletter
The first story told about me was this – I was born way-skinny, six weeks early and cried for an entire year. My circumspection was sustained. If life were an appliance instead of a mysterious soul journey, I would have checked to see if it were under warranty.
In my late twenties I stumbled on the problem: I needed God. The incredible peace I experienced when I first believed that – well, it can’t be overstated. I was driving around Seattle in my tin-can Toyota and the whole world like woke up: every tree, rock and person was in a kind of unified rhapsody.
Eureka! Right? Wrong. It only lasted a couple weeks.
Years later, back in NYC for grad school, that earlier experience finally began to click --- explained to me as evidence of Grace. OK, I thought. Christians seemed suspiciously cheery, but I signed on. Then I married a lawyer and had three boys. I turned into a wife-mom and retired from my career in the performing arts.
But a period of trial came when my sister was diagnosed with stage-four cancer as my Mom was dying of Alzheimer’s. After two plus impossible years, they died six months apart.
I’d felt when they were dying as if I’d fallen down a hole and was exhausting myself trying to get out. But it finally occurred to me that I wasn’t really going anywhere and that I should just order a comfortable chair and some window treatments for my hole. Overtime, I began to realize a lot of life – and love and coffee and music and laughter and suffering --- could happen there.
So Hey. That’s this. Welcome to my hole.
This iteration is a cedar closet-turned office in my new home in the Sunshine State. I recently left New York City after nearly a lifetime and plunked myself down in a funky little beach town.
From here, I hope to Come to the Nuisance --- which phrase I borrowed from English common law. To me it means to come straight to the clear and present dangers in life, chiefly love and loss, and look for ways to ride the waves and live the lows ----- in truth and beauty, art and storytelling, witnessing and being, all the while searching out something Italian-made for our holes. You have one too. I’m wild-guessing.
Join me! (‘Cause we can’t return it!)
Why subscribe?
Stories Breathe: Subscribe because storytelling is at the heart of being being human. Homer, one of the first storytellers, said, “There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.” Wake up! This is the time for many words! Stories can shape us. They can make us. Some stories even save us.
Tangible Take-Aways: At the very end of each letter, I’ll offer some tangible take-aways: One Truth, One Tip and One thing for your Tote. Will they all be exactly from me? No, I’ll be ripping smarter people off, including God. But still, I promise to try my best to offer you a few practical things because I love you, dear reader.
An Eye Toward the Arts: My background is in the performing arts, specifically dance and choreography. I hope to include some links to great dances (you’ve never heard of them because modern dance is totally obscure…). But I’ll also include links to beautiful paintings and sculptures and photos whatever else catches my ADD eye.
Nature and Wonder: I love nature and the science that explains it. Whenever I come across something amazing or mind-boggling, I’ll link to it at the end of that newsletter. Wonder, plain and simple, is probably the least understood and most underrated antidote to numbness, indifference and grief.
Learn more about the creator at www.karacross.com
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