Hi Darling Ones,

Like a good GenXer Sister #2’s laptop is filled with personality-defining stickers. The one I’m most envious of is the duck-duck-grey duck one.

Like a total ding dong who lacks any real, concrete spirituality I get a lot of life guidance from those stickers.

One of her stickers is a the James Baldwin quote “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” It’s a bit from his 1966 essay “A Report from Occupied Territory” that ran in The Nation.

I love this quote. I love it because it goes really well with my favorite piece of writing advice that also works well as a principle to use in guiding your life, “Show don’t tell.”

The Baldwin quote is always rattling around inside me, but today it’s a little louder because it’s his 100th birthday and the Internet is filled with celebrations of his genius.

It’s also giving me some peace around a decision I made recently about the end of a twenty-two-year friendship.

After months of abusive texts and the return of gifts disguised as a belated birthday present I got a very generic “I’m sorry” text. Every bone in my body melted and as I deflated something in my soul shouted “NOPE!”

Even though I hadn’t responded to any of her attempts to bait me into drama, I was still giving her so much of my brain real estate. As they say, she was living rent free in my head. But after that limp apology I was done.

As soon as I had the inner moment of nope I felt good, resolved, at peace. Yet, despite the feeling of resolution I had a small, nagging worry that I was not approaching life with joy and love whenever I could. I was worried I was being cold and unforgiving, that my icy robot heart was taking over.

But then James Baldwin turned 100 and I spent some time reflecting on his words and boy, howdy, I feel totally at peace with my decision.

I can’t believe she’s sorry because I saw her give me zero grace for making a mistake five months after a life-altering stroke. I saw her continue to make baseless accusations throughout the year, and most damningly when I told her I loved her and missed her she said, “thank you.”

Thanks, James. Happy Birthday.

Showing instead of telling, hopefully,
Jodi