Ask yourself what you would do if you had an unlimited supply of both courage and hope. Now begin answering that question with action. Take one step today — then repeat, repeat, repeat.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 153
Photo: Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, March 29, 2024
We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused. Repentance — tshuvah — is like the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold. You can never unbreak what you have broken. But with the sincere and deep work of transformation, acts of repair have the potential to make something new.
— Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair, p. 45
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 22, 2023
Reflect on what loss has given you, as counterintuitive as that sounds. Think of the solitude, self-reflection, self-reliance as gifts. Of course they don’t weigh the same as the grief — they don’t balance the scales — but be grateful for them anyway.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 150
Photo: Oregon Coast, May 13, 2023
Consider what you’ve learned about yourself through grief: Now you know how strong you are. Now you know what you can bear. Think about this strange gift — being confident in what you are capable of. Go forward with that strength.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 113
Photo: Cooper’s Hawk, South Riding, Virginia, March 14, 2022
Post-traumatic stress is a familiar idea. We have come to accept, if not expect, that trauma results in psychological and physical damage. But what about post-traumatic growth, “the positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event”? Researchers have found that humans not only “bounce back” after traumatic events but actually push forward — taking professional risks, strengthening their relationships, and feeling a deeper sense of gratitude.
So often we think of loss as only destructive, but it is also generative — because every ending is also a beginning. When one thing vanishes, a space is created in its place. Of course, when we grieve, we are mourning a loss, but why not also ask what might grow in that barren place? Why not ask: What could I plant there?
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 94
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 1, 2021
Be brave enough to ask for help when you need it. There is no merit badge for Doing All the Hard Things Alone. Reach out.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 85
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, June 21, 2021
Fight the urge to withdraw, to fold in on yourself, as if your pain is contagious and might infect someone else. We are here to take care of one another; the care is what’s catching, spreading person to person to person. So take — and give — care.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 71
Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 8, 2021
Be thankful for your wounds, as strange as that sounds; the ways you’ve been hurt and the ways you’ve faltered make you useful to other people. Empathy is a kind of fellowship; be thankful that your wounds made this togetherness possible.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 70
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 6, 2021
It is not your job to make other people comfortable with who you are. Be wary of those who don’t want you to change or grow. Grow anyway — there is no alternative.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 66
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 30, 2021
I wish I could go back and tell the fearful young person I was what I know now about fire and growth. What would I say to her? Even if you do not feel brave, practice bravery. There will be times in your life when you feel as if life is burning down around you, but know that renewal is in its wake. Trust in what will open, what will grow, after something else has burned away, even when the landscape is charred black. And trust that one of the things guaranteed to grow — time after time, fire after fire — is you. Possibilities, like seeds, are being released into the air.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 94-95
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 6, 2015