Where it Breaks Open

on May's embers

May’s embers have gathered, slower, quieter, drawn from the days that felt stretched thin. Held in the hush between what was said and what was left undone. Carried in the weight of unfinished thoughts, moments of almost, flickers of hope catching where resistance cracked. This is not a summary. Not a neat arrangement. A gathering of what hummed beneath the surface. A return to the light that refused to leave, even when the days grew long and my hands were too full to carry it all. Come see what stayed, what sparked, what is still burning.

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I didn’t begin this month with a detailed plan. I kept waiting for clarity to land, for the right words to slip through. But May didn’t bring clarity. It arrived as fog pressing down low against the mountains, thick and unmoving, each morning a little longer than the one before. Thoughts that circled louder than I wanted, spinning like the pesky wasps trying to get through the screen. 

There were days I laced up my shoes for a run, knowing each mile would argue with my body. I ran anyway, not to win against the ache, but to feel the ground beneath me, the earth steady on my soles, to let the rhythm of breath and step remind me I was in this.

Mothering this month wasn’t painted in soft light. It was the dropped glass of juice, the sharp tone I regretted, the small gestures of her leaving her drawing at my place at the table, his quiet glance as I passed that reminded me to slow down. It was my daughter tugging at my sleeve, her small hands insistent, pulling me back into the moment, reminding me to listen, to return, to show up even when I felt scattered.

Writing wasn’t a river this month. It was a breath caught mid-step, a half-formed thought blooming between the clang of dishes being put away, the shuffle of backpacks dropped by the door, the quiet space I caught between their voices rising in another room, a scrap of thought I pressed into the margin of a day already overflowing. It was a line forming between interruptions, a pulse of something true of me, even when I couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t write because the words were ready; I wrote because they weren’t, and I needed to begin anyway.

I’ve spent so long believing that resistance meant I wasn’t ready. That the things I pulled away from, the hard conversations, the unwritten pages, the silent prayers, were failures of will or discipline. But May taught me to see them in a different light. Resistance isn’t always a barrier. Sometimes it’s a signal. A tension, taut as the silence that gathers before a storm, waiting to crash on the roof. A subtle yielding, not a crack, but a loosening, where my grip on certainty finally slipped. Sometimes it’s an opening.

I thought of the long runs where my legs felt heavy, where every step became a negotiation between body and mind. Of the moments in therapy when I wanted to turn away from a question, when the weight of an unspoken truth felt too much to carry. And I realized that hope doesn’t arrive when everything feels easy. It comes in the staying.  In the breath between thoughts, in the decision to be present for whatever rises. In the decision to return, not to mastery, but to presence.

Somehow, amid all of this, hope reignited. Quietly. Like a flame catching on the edge of a damp log. A shaft of light slipping through a break in the clouds, brief but enough. A moment when the ache softened, and I caught the faintest pulse of something steady beneath it. Not a blinding, sweeping hope, but the kind that lives beneath persistence, the kind that heals in its own slow, steady way.

This month didn’t tie itself neatly. It left edges raw, questions open, and stories still unfolding. But it gave me this, a breath held longer than I meant to. A pause before speaking. The quiet decision to stay in the discomfort, to lean into the waiting, to let the resistance soften into something I could name.

The smallest spark of something new, hope reignited, not in triumph, but in tenderness.

I’m learning that hope isn’t what comes after the hard things. It lives inside them, scattered across the days, small stones marking where I almost stopped, through the words I almost swallowed, through the miles I almost didn’t finish.

It’s not a feeling I wait for.

It’s a discipline.

A decision.

A quiet persistence that breaks me open, not all at once, but gently, insistently, again and again.

A way of healing without fanfare, of believing again, even in the midst of the ache.

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May’s Embers

The uneven sound of my feet against gravel, each step a quiet act of staying.

The bathwater cooling as I lingered, not ready to leave.

My daughter’s face lit by the glow of the refrigerator light, her eyes meeting mine.

The sharp scent of rain hitting the dirt pulled me to a stillness mid-run.

The silence in the house after everyone slept, thick with presence, not planning.

The ache in my legs the morning after a long run, and the quiet strength in moving anyway.

A question left unanswered in therapy carried into the next day.

The sound of a spoon against a mug, the weight of quiet before dawn.

The cool sheets welcomed me when I finally allowed rest.

The feeling of sunlight on my face during a break I hadn’t planned, a reminder of warmth still available.

The moment I let myself cry and felt, for the first time in a while, that it was a beginning, not an end.

The spines of new poetry books lined along my desk, titles that made me pause and breathe deeper as I turned each page.

A fresh restock of my writing candles, the only ones I’ll light now are Golden Coast by P.F. Candle Co., their scent grounding me in the space I carve out for words.

The card with intricate moth drawings I picked up from my favorite coffee shop, not just decoration on my desk, but a reminder to notice the small, winged things.

The crackle of sourdough as I sliced through a fresh loaf, the air filling with a warmth I can’t quite name.

A single dried flower I pressed into the margin of my journal, its color fading but its presence still there.

A door unlocked at last, a light burning quietly inside—The House of Embers is open, and perhaps it’s calling to you, too.

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Kindling: A flicker of thought. A small moment waiting to catch light. A place to begin, not to rush past, but to rest within. This ember is here for pausing for warming your thinking, your noticing, your remembering.

Today’s Kindling: Break

Break the pattern of waiting for the perfect time.

Break the story that tells you you’re not ready.

Break into the silence you’ve held too long.

Break something small—your hesitation, your rhythm, your rules—and write from that fracture.

What small, hidden resistance could be your opening to something new?

Where do you feel the tension between holding back and breaking open, and what might shift if you leaned in?

Write from that place.

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If something surfaced as you sat with these words, you’re gently invited to share in the comments. A memory, a noticing, a sentence you’re still holding. Only if it feels right. There’s space here.

If you’re carrying your own small sparks, if you’re gathering the embers of your days and waiting for a place to set them down—The House of Embers is open.

It’s a place where we gather what glows quietly, where we write from the edges and from the heart. A space to notice what flickered and stayed.

Here, we name the things we’ve nearly forgotten, the stories we’ve held too tightly, the hopes we almost abandoned.

We gather around the warmth of shared words, a fire built from fragments and presence.

This isn’t a place for perfect stories. It’s a place for what’s real.

For what hums beneath the surface, for what’s waiting to be written.

I’ve left the door unlocked.

The light is spilling out.

Come inside.