ALL THOSE "MERYL STREEP MOMENTS"
Reflecting on dramas past, missing the Northern Lights, and a few quiet days with an Oscar all my own. Plus: write with me 1:1, special promo through October!
Welcome to all the new Resilience subscribers! With so much to read out there, and so much going on in our world, I am deeply touched that you’re here, however it works for you. Click here for more about me and what to expect. I hope this week’s tiny, meditative tale brings you some stillness, perhaps a laugh (at my expense!), and some fuel to meet the moment—whatever this moment looks like for you. Keep going! xx Alexa
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I was alone for a few days with Oscar Wilding, my rescue poodle, while my husband and the boys were on a camping trip. On one of our walks into town, we passed a couple having a rather dramatic argument. I couldn’t make out what they were fighting about, but at one point, the woman stepped into a kind of spotlight. A power came over her as she began to emote, expressing her needs right there on the street. I watched his face soften as she spoke her truth, fierce and raw. I half expected us both to give her a round of applause. But they collapsed into each other’s arms, reconciled on the stoop.
As Oscar and I continued into the park, I thought about the times in my life I’d had moments like these. Like when I was fifteen, and I told my much-older first boyfriend I wanted to break up.
"It’s all too much—I just want to play field hockey and write my Hamlet paper!"
What a mess that was.
Or, years later, as a grown-up, when my son Lou was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. I sat the boys down on our colorful Moroccan rug, took a deep breath, and told them we were going on an adventure. After, I texted my mom and sister a GIF of Meryl Streep accepting an Oscar to a standing ovation.
Thus, "the Meryl Streep moment" was born in our family’s vernacular.
Now, I’m at a point in my life where there’s no big moment, no speech to deliver. After so many emergencies, these quiet moments feel foreign.
How do you speak the language of just living? How would Meryl Streep work a scene like this?
At the park, I threw a ball for Oscar. I was nervous to let him off-leash—it’s all so new. He jumped and spun like a circus dog, while I sat on the old bleachers. The sun was setting, and the sky held faint echoes of the Northern Lights I’d missed the night before. Or was I just hoping there was something left over, that I hadn’t missed the magic?
As I pondered this, I realized my next Meryl Streep moment was to meet this one. To watch the dramas recede into the pink and purple sunset, or whatever was making the sky look so wild, so free.
I saw the now-made-up couple from town cross the park. For a moment, Oscar considered running toward them.
"Oscar!" I called, ready to panic, ready for an emergency.
But he reconsidered and ran back to me, into my arms, joining me on the bleachers, beside the sleepy, overgrown field.
A meditation.
May I meet this moment.
Please feel free to share your thoughts, what’s in your heart, or a time you gave an Oscar-winning speech! Or just where you are, right now, at this difficult moment in our world. If personal dramas have settled down for now, may we show up for those in the thick of it, and for ourselves in the recovery.
Clapping for YOU!
xx Alexa
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I can appreciate this and will adopt your Meryl mantra of meeting this time as it is now. After years of caregiving for parents and raising sons to adulthood it’s a good reminder to sit firmly, and intentionally, in the peace.
This reminds me of the day I sat my kids down on our red rug to tell them my mother had passed away. Not the kind of red carpet moment we usually have in mind - but when you're able to look back on those terrible moments with a touch of humor, does it mean we have healed, somehow, or at least moved beyond the trauma? Anyhow, my heart goes out to all the mothers in the world who have had and who will have to sit their kids down to deliver terrible news. May we all find quiet moments to recover <3