October Newsletter

Hi guys,

How are you? I am genuinely checking in, because I am sure this hasn’t been an easy month for any of you. The weight of the horror unfolding before our eyes is unbearable. This is the first time, in a long time, since I was 9 years old, that I fear for the world, that I fear the horrors of war. As a woman, I have feared what war brings to women since I was a child and didn’t yet know what women had to fear. 

This is a very challenging newsletter to write, one that I am writing the day before publication, Monday October 30^th, as a week of migraines has finally ended.

I few months ago, and I promise I will circle back to the opening paragraph, I began to pray my higher power to please remove my obsession with career. More specifically, with the identification I had of my worth with my career. I didn’t want healthy ambition and creativity wiped off, I wanted to stop obsessing over the results to the point of getting sick and placing “success” before anything else. 

While I prayed for that, in my morning meditation, I also prayed for my marriage, that had gone through some trouble, last winter. 

When I pray and meditate, I ask for guidance, I ask for the strength to accept things as they are meant to be, to fulfill not my will, but my purpose in this life, starting with my purpose each day. 

Yet, during those morning meditations and petitions, in a corner of my mind, I hoped that:

– Career obsession would be removed by something so spectacular happening, that I would never have to worry about it again.

– Ben would change all those things I wanted him to change about himself so that marriage would be “fixed”.

I know, I am laughing too. 

When we returned from our beautiful vacation in Parrot Cay, at the end of August, we learned that Ben had to have a procedure, the one he had a couple of weeks ago.

At first, fear was all I felt.

Weeks passed, while we prepared for the procedure, and I noticed how much my perception of him had rapidly, radically changed; I began to see his kindness as strength rather than weakness, as I had interpreted at times, mining our marriage, at least my part of it. I remembered the love, pure love. His courage and acceptance inspired me. 

“I want to be more like him,” I even remember saying to a friend. 

Weeks passed, while we prepared for the procedure, and I noticed I was not thinking about my career as much. Then surgery happened. I became busier and busier. My days became long drives to and from the hospital, no workouts, no time for self-pity and resentment, envy, or childish demands. 405 North, 134 East, 5 South, to finally take care of Catherine and give my mom a break. 

I kept working, doing farmers markets, finding homes for my cookie mixes, but it had stopped being an obsession that defined my worth. 

Nothing miraculous had happened to my business, and yet I felt fulfilled.

Nothing miraculous had apparently happened to our marriage, and yet I found myself watching The Great British Baking Show and Yellowstone in a hospital room knowing I would have to drive an hour to get home and put Catherine to bed yet being the happiest I had been in my marriage in years. 

I am sure Ben will read this and smile because he was the sick one, and likely remembering happier times on his end, but I know for a fact I speak for him, too. 

Maybe something miraculous had happened. 

This morning, as I prepared to get Catherine to school, I saw an empty glass bottle of face oil on my sink, and I tossed it in the trash. 

“Why do I even recycle?” I thought. I had nightmares of war all through the night. “This world is imploding anyway!” I drove her to school in profound sadness. 

When I returned home, I started to write this and remembered the miracles, the answers to my prayers in the most unexpected and undesirable way. 

I have always felt deeply the world around me. One of the reasons I drank and used drugs and hurt myself for many years, when I was younger, was to soothe and protect that 9-year-old me that felt the pain of war, of disaster, of abuse from far away. 

Today I can hold space for her, while feeling all the feelings she felt in 1991. 

Today I know that I never know where answers will come from. I never know where the needed strength will originate from; I never know what will make me happy and fulfilled again, what will give me new hope. I never know what will make me want to toss glass in the blue trashcan again. 

I like that.  

Updates:

– Profound gratitude to all of you who showed up, supported, and keep supporting my family during a challenging time. Your love, time, and help doesn’t go unnoticed.  

– As we approach the holiday season, please consider buying your presents from small businesses, rather than amazon and big corporations. 

I will be at the Hollywood Farmers Market on:

Sunday November 5^th,

Sunday December 3^rd,

Sunday December 10^th

You can always find my cookie mixes at Wine and Eggs, in Atwater, as well as Lost and Found Shop, in Hollywood. 

If you are not local, I ship on the same day freshly made small batches, and if it’s a present, I include bow and a note to the lucky recipient. 

– Because of hospital visits, bee stings, and me being sick, I haven’t been live for three weeks, but I will return next Monday, November 6^th at 5pm on Instagram. 

Feel the feelings, reach out to friends, find community and ways to be of service, and remember you are not alone. We are not alone. 

See you next month,

Love,

Alice