Just Show Up: My Trip to the San Francisco Bay Area

Just showing up I got to see my friend Sharon, host extraordinaire, celebrate Shabbat with her lovely family. Her homemade challah (actually two of them), hearing her daughter say the hamotzi (the blessing over the bread), her gorgeous kiddush cups. Watching Sharon make us a delicious dinner with aplomb. Walking around her bountiful kitchen lined with dozens of cookbooks. Waking up to European-style coffee made on her fancy coffee maker with a million levers and tools that brought me back to a cafe I visited in Spain last spring.

Just showing up I got to hear my friend Julie tell us about her incredible labor of love—creating the organization Waste Free Greenwich. How she studies best practices and then creates them for her community. No fear, no fanfare, just a desire to make the world a little better.

Just showing up I got to witness my friend Sujatha lead an immersive meditation at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery where the room was quiet and still and pulsing with peace. I got to watch how Sujatha immediately put people at ease and welcomed them into the beautiful and vibrant space. I got to digest her words reminding us to have equanimity, to see the humanity in others and to have hope for a better world.

Just showing up I got to have a transformative experience at a Wild Writing Teacher Training. Our extraordinary teacher Laurie Wagner welcomed us into her sweet home. We were greeted with strong coffee and homemade muffins, given name tags and encouraged to settle in. We were all just where we were meant to be. Witnessing the exquisite writing of others; absorbing their truth. The room vibrated with warmth, grief, excitement, regret, ambition and love. My fingers were tingling just being in the presence of so much wisdom and vulnerability.

Where do you need to show up? Please do what you can to make it happen. It can be magical.