Mindfulness Feb 12, 2019
Thailand Feb 11, 2019
Motherhood Oct 17, 2018
Code Jul 25, 2018
Teenagers Feb 11, 2018
I have no idea what I'm doing Jan 19, 2018
Best Of Jan 19, 2018
Working Mom Jan 10, 2018
Bucket-list Jan 10, 2018
Italy Jan 10, 2018
Suicide Aug 03, 2017
Conscious Parenting Aug 03, 2017
Depression Jun 07, 2017
Resources May 20, 2017
I grew up listening to the bedtime story of The Three Southern Bears. Have you heard the story? Something about Goldilocks being naughty and runnin' out on her mamma and daddy and endin' up in some bears' house. She ate the grits and it was too hot. She ate the grits and they were too cold. She ate those grits and they were just right.
Mamma bear always said "Whah Ah Spah Someone In Mah Beyed. Yayus." (Yes has two syllables, y'all. Yayus.)
"Introduce yourself, say your name, say her name," the guide instructed. I touch her, the rescued, wrinkled giant. "Hi Mae Thai, I'm Leslie." Our guide voices my excitement, "See? She knows her name!" Mae flaps her ears and I find myself grinning as big as she is.
The first time I came home from an extended trip in Germany, my brain went sluggish reading posted signs. Everything felt easy all of a sudden. It's funny how you adjust to the constant struggle to understand where you are or what you're ordering. (Pig Knuckle? Again?)
I've been fortunate enough to find myself in countries that allow me to struggle through communication. I'm the sort of person who is ashamed of not knowing the local language, or even more than a spattering of words in any other language than my own. I've spent whole weeks nearly incapable of communication and exhausted by the idea of trying to ask for directions, so I just didn't. [Enter typical "like a male" joke here.] I went mute for my time there and avoided talking to anyone apart from people at work or others traveling with me.
Listening to "When things fall apart," while walking to Yoga in the sunny morning streets of Chiang Mai, feels completely right. Everything is falling apart, yes, but I'm told it's also exactly how it should be. I can't disagree given my surroundings.
Even here where sun beams pour out of the sky and people's faces, reality has a way of finding me. Even here, where my soul is happier than it has ever been, reality comes knocking with reminders of humanity and death and illness and impermanence.
I've finally arrived. Friends ask how I like it in Thailand on text messages. They don't see the wild grin as I pause to reflect before I answer, "My outsides finally match my insides."
There is another pause before they text back. I can not see the perplexity on their faces, but I hear it when they reply, "I'm glad you like it."
Sometimes it's better not to go hunting for old things. The buddhist have a great mindset about this. Essentially, Buddhist teachings say, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING YOU LOOKED AT OLD FLICKR PHOTOS? YOU BETTER MEDITATE NOW AND NOT TURN ON NETFLIX."
These buddhist are wise beyond their years.
When I’m feeling good about my job, I tell people I solve problems for a living. On the bad days, I tell people I type for a living. The reality is somewhere in between; I google for a living.
There’s a lot of conversation about diversity in the tech industry and I’m glad we’re having those conversations. There’s an uprising in awareness of the gender and minority pay gap, which is great. The first step to change is acknowledging there is a problem.
I've been looking through old Evernote notes that I saved in "blog drafts".
I found this from October 12th, 2014. It still seems appropriate.
I've heard you groan when you were prompted to download Xcode. We all do it. It's a 12.88GB monster of an application that brings even my "this-should-be-powerful-enough-to-create-a-small-planet" Macbook to its knees. But you REALLY want to test your website in the iOS simulator and get a more "virtually realistic" experience than just the chrome dev tools.
It's possible.
I wake up and step on the scale. My entire day depends on this moment. It’s not in line with the mindful living or buddhist ideals I’ve been trying to incorporate to my life, but it’s the most entrenched habit and judgement that remains.
Body dysmorphia is a tenacious bitch.