home-ish
30 july 2026
dear daughters (and granddaughters)
last night was a full moon in aquarius.
the buck moon.
when male deer (bucks) rapidly regrow their velvet covered antlers.
aquarius/capricorn influences, it highlights balancing personal independence with collective community duties. reflecting on our inner wisdom and decisive life shifts.
i looked around the room.
my journal was open. a basket of laundry waiting. my clothes laid out for work in the morning. shorts, tank top, bandana. ready for another shift in the kitchen.
all 58 years in me slapped all 58 years in me awake.
all my life has been cleaning, laundry, cooking.
if i can impart any wisdom to my daughters, it’s this: men liking you isn’t an accomplishment.
that was always the hmmm.
men at the center. god at the center. or religion. then children.
we, women, peripheral.
emotionally holding everything together. the trauma. the homes, the marriages, mine, theirs, yours, ours.
most women do.
i closed my eyes, imagining letting go of everything.
what i’m holding onto out of fear.
the role i’m clinging to that feels dead or dying.
even writing.
lately, i am obsessed with a new word, heimish.
heimish is something you feel not something you can define.
positive this makes me love the word even more!
it’s a yiddish word.
heimish comes from the word “heym” (“home”).
so the literal translation of heimish is “home-ish.
it means cozy, familiar, down-to-earth.
belonging to home or community.
nothing flashy or makes you say, “oh my god, it’s extravagant and crazy.”
familiar. nostalgic. comfortable.
like my grandma’s house.
i want everyone to experience heimish too.
girls, it feels like a bigger foundation has been forming in the dark.
i see it. i taste it. i feel it but i have no idea where to begin.
i cried with my heart knowing
we are losing our sense of community.
it’s disappearing from america.
what if we lose face to face.
well, maybe we lose our sense of community.
and then maybe you lose our country.
we almost always think money, don’t we?
if we have money, we can buy the land, get the building, the whatever.
yes, money helps. it definitely gives choices.
and agency. and power, if stewarded horizontally.
i’m always looking at empty land everywhere, dreaming of creating a gathering place. a community for misfits, matriarchs, and mavericks.
something in me cries out for time and freedom and something zesty and close to the ground.
i have a delicious, seditious idea.
“play hooky for a while from life as i know it. drop the things that seem so important. a job. a home. expectations. go off in search of what is actually more sustaining: adventure, restoration, and fun.”
yes, fun. i laughed
all this time i’ve been calling it longing. desire. exodus. threshold.
but maybe part of what i’m feeling is rebellion.
a new invitation to amble. zigzag where i want.
a topsy-turvy frolicsome pace.
maybe to suggest that every kind of order and ceremony must be turned on its head.
i’ve been waking up feeling i no longer choose to hand over the rest of my remaining life to what no longer sustains me. to a version of myself i’ve already outgrown.
everywhere i look, we perform.
maybe that is another thing to add to the list to play hooky from.
performing.
i made coffee and walked outside barefoot.
the cicadas have taken over the neighborhood. our neighbor’s black cat was eating a rotting tomato in my garden bed. ben (my dog boy, a dachshund) was barking, losing his mind.
i still i desire. i desire a fenced yard for chickens. let my grass grow tall with wildflowers. mow paths through them. find a small house. curate it heimish.
one that doesn’t require so much energy to clean and space to fill with more stuff.
we rent.
i bought a sample of paint yesterday.
benjamin moore baby fawn. for the kitchen.
a lot of the furniture is not mine. not what i would choose. yet, i sense it is creating space for possibility to be creative.
and thrift.
i have a few garden beds. two made from railroad ties. three metal ones from home depot.
they aren’t much to look at.
they aren’t beautiful in the way i feel neighborhoods, gardens, and life ought to be.
but it’s a beginning.
girls, begin where you are with what you have in your hands, heart and imagination.
last year i planted one bed of zinnias and cosmos.
i got to cut flowers that i grew!
and have them in my house.
i could bang on of the joy they gave me.
this year i did it again.
i picked up a book instead of my phone.
matt haig, the midnight library.
and read.
keep couraging,
gram