She's baaaaack .....

(Me, thinking deep thoughts)

Well, boys and girls, I'm back at La Bloga. And frankly, it isn't because I have a burning desire to write. The opposite, really.   It's been about six or seven years since I have done any concentrated work, although I contributed to two anthologies - one edited by Annie Finch, wrote an essay on Alfredo Arreguin for a collection of his paintings, and set up a website for poetry about jazz.

Which brings me to what the hell I'm doing here. I reached out to Em to get back onboard, writing  as a conversation with myself and with you.

I am interested now in two things: publishing segments of the online jazz anthology here and launching a discussion with writers and readers. What I am trying to keep front and center is gratitude and joy, the ways we say  "Basta ya!" without a clenched fist by nurturing ourselves and others. I'm not the first person to say that radical self-care is a revolutionary act. We are surrounded by so much that tries to erase us, displace us, confuse us, and negate us. Our happiness, in whatever form, however we make it work is supremely defiant.

I'm done with the self-consuming loop of focusing on the wound, the scar. I will never stop speaking my truth or speaking out, but I need a sacred place in myself that is untouchable, that I can allow to flourish. Maybe you do, too.

Some things I'm doing as radical self care.


Cooking - making sure I eat well, and that's meant the effort of cooking and saying no to quick fix purchases that don't leave me enough money to get the food I want to eat.

I'm also taking the time and making the effort to step out of my comfort zone.  I tend to hibernate in the winter and I  chose to bundle up and go to the ABQ Biopark for the light show. Budget-friendly, lots of families, and I was on the arm of John Baca-Saavedra, my other self.

I hope this is the beginning of an ongoing conversation...

Join me as a contributor to "The Poor Writer's Almanac" - and the focus is how you thrive, what you do to stay sane, and reasonably joyful.

My first question to all of you hardscrabble geniuses is this: What's something you stopped telling people as an act of self-care?

email your answers to lisa@lisaalvarado.net