those of us who have wintered know

life as a February forsythia + bunny energy

Good morning happy Monday

I'm here with a stuffed Bunny

and another stuffed Bunny

& it's because there have been some times recently where I have felt both hopping … a lot of energy …

& suddenly spooked and timid.

Last night, I had to slightly swerve to miss hitting a bunny on a state highway and I felt how so many of us feel this at times.

I wanted to speak to it.

Last night I was in a meeting of my Writers’ Room for 44.4 the Musical, this musical that I'm co-creating with friends, and I had five of the most brilliant creative minds that I've encountered in my lifetime …

four of them were physically present in the room,

one of them was in Seattle on zoom, Olivia Chorlian, across from me…

we had these four men flanking us

and it was a brain trust

and I was scared

Because this show and … scared might not be quite the right word …

but I had a little bit of bunny energy, this sense of like wanting to make sure I get what I need …which was their perspective, their insights, as I'm deep in the murky middle of this writing process …

& as my wise David said this morning, Most people don't send out save-the-dates for a show before writing the show, but I did…

because I have been working with following my intuition, my gut, for – well, a lifetime - but especially of late,

and things have just had to happen all out of order for this particular show.

I am so grateful that I so deeply trust and admire all of the people who were in that meeting and that I know in my bones that they love me. Most of them I've known for over a decade - I mean, John Hicks I just met December 31^st, and he's my music director, but everyone else in that room, we go back.

They've seen me in a lot of different circumstances, and they've seen me come through

& each of them has their own story of vulnerability of tenderness and also of the fact that

Time is short in this life and I could quote Ferris Bueller or I could quote the musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda … I could quote pretty much any great creator of all time and say that the order of things both matters but shouldn't be elevated as what matters most.

And I'm grateful not only for that experience but many experiences lately that have jostled and shaken me;
that have necessitated a little swerve to avoid calamity or even just to avoid hurting someone

& sometimes pain is inevitable but as the Buddhists say, generally speaking suffering is optional.

I had in my heart to take pictures of the forsythia outside our house. I have in earlier muses in the year 2024 (March & July) used this forsythia as muse and metaphor

& to be a forsythia bush in late February - this February, 2025 - in Amesbury, on the street corner…

that forsythia is well-insulated by snow right now: it's like a lot of snow and it doesn't on the outside appear to have a whole lot going on for it…

it's just a collection of sticks, what it looks like…

But we know better, those of us who have wintered,

those of us who have come out the other side.

& this morning, you can feel that Spring is coming.

Whatever the space is in your life right now that feels quavery or jumpy …

Oh, that's another thing. Well over a month ago, I had an important conversation with my first husband Jeff LaBonde, another brilliant mind, and I thought I would be posting that this morning until I really fully rewatched it late this week…

And was, you know, adding what all the different links will be, and sorting through that

& what I felt watching it was …

I remember exactly when I filmed it, I had just come from a long weekend away with friends, and I had barely slept while away, and my experience with myself as we filmed it was that I was making all these cool connections and like fun! and alive! and maybe that's how it will read to most people, and there is an element of that to the recording,

But also as I watched the recording a second time, watched/ listened as I was puttering in the kitchen getting work done,

I also felt a sense of melancholy: I could make 1000 excuses for why I was keeping it light and keeping it creative and fun in that conversation …

and I also watched it with the lens of like, “Oh, some people will watch this and be like, oh yeah, she's bipolar all right…”

So there was that sense of shakiness, like Have I become a trope?

But the melancholy was about …I'm not sure I showed up in that conversation with the fullness of who I am

& maybe that's because I was filming a public conversation with a person that I loved and lost and have re-found…

Maybe I don't even know how to be my full self with that person yet.

And as I articulated it now, what a beautiful melancholy.

And.

Whatever your space of melancholy or shakiness or jumpiness …

Today I watched a big trash truck go by as I did my qi gong on the corner, and there was a big picture of Roger Rabbit on it…

Yet another Bunny energy that in this case was the first PG-13 movie I ever saw, or maybe it was just PG? - in the theater with my dad and older brother when I was a little kid

& it was scary but it was so exciting, this cartoon …

& maybe in some ways we all can have all of those Bunny energies inside of us:

-the sweet ones that need to be swerved and protected

-the ones that entertain

-the ones that run like heck

-even the ones that run to the end of the finish line and look performative when they maybe would have been wiser to take it slow, like the tortoise and the hare

In any case, may you honor every last energy, bunny or otherwise… is that lupine? (I believe that’s the word that means bunny … lapine? someone's going to Fact Check me on that but it's not going to be me)

Whatever the energy is, if it feels tender or if it feels free

& if you like me are dancing between freedom, vulnerability, and moments of perplexation

Know you're not alone

Reach out to those around you

& Trust in Love, because that is the undergirding of forsythia and bunny alike …

You and me, too.