The Wisdom of Hope, Renewal & A New Start
One morning this week, I walked out the front door to see a favorite tree that had fallen on the house. My eyes welled up with tears as I felt the shattering and longing for some of my favorite memories in the front yard of my family’s Portland home. You see, while my dad was…
Where the Water Runs Clear & the Sky is Blue
Some say that writing must come from sitting down and practicing, determined to make it happen. But mine has always come from nothingness. It has always come from a place of silence within myself. From this place, an idea, an inspiration–with a literal in breath–brings a burst of energy that gives me the strength to…
The Girl in the Coffee Shop
She sits on a small bench with a little patch of sunshine shining through. She sits with her journal, with her cup of chai — and she reflects. Thinking about her life, her loss, pondering all the moments gone by. Wondering about her future, wondering what it will be, what it will bring — more…
You Can Do Anything
You can do anything. And your life is divinely blessed, like a sunflower reaching up to allow the sunlight to grace her face. You can do anything. And all that you desire to create and be is for a reason. When you write, you let freedom flow through your fingertips. And that freedom has the…
A New Take on Ribbon Dancing
I woke up this morning with an old blog post on my mind…a draft from a few years ago about ribbon dancing in the chaos of life that never got published. February always feels like kind of a funky month. It has always felt like a strange limbo land to me…not quite spring, and often…
When You Just Need a Little Extra Space
As I stood in the yard with my sweet little Dino dog this morning, we wandered over to a different part of the yard–a spot we haven’t spent time in for awhile. And I got a new perspective. As I looked up at a most magnificent tree in the far corner, by the fence… I…
Caitlin Sanders
Celebrating the extraordinary treasures found in life's ordinary moments.
@caitlinmsanders
Where it began…
In 2012 I took a summer writing course for educators that changed my life.
Our final project was to share a narrative we’d written on a topic of our choice. I felt a pull to write mine about my dad, who I’d lost to cancer a few years before. (You can read the piece here.)
The creative process provided me refuge. Emotions erupting like lava from a volcano combined with the action of writing turned out to have serious healing power.
On the last day of class, as I read my narrative aloud, I saw the way my words stirred emotion in each of my classmates, several of them with tears filling and falling from their eyes.
I felt empowered to have created something that could authentically express a sliver of my experience. And in the end, I realized that it didn’t matter if anyone ever read what I’d written not, that going through the writing process had been just for me.
A couple years later I left my job as a classroom teacher to recover from a perfect storm of illness and injury. It was during that time away that I discovered what my cousin called my “gift” — writing.
I started a blog and wrote whenever inspiration struck. I followed the flow of everyday miracles as well as the inspiration provided by nature and my cute little dog, Dino. Many of the posts you’ll find here are from those years I spent dealing with debilitating illness. That time was the source of some of my deepest challenges and greatest treasure.
Now I’m a fifth grade teacher, teaching online, and loving every minute of it. But the wind still whispers songs of reassurance in my ears, and the brightly lit clouds sing of the hope of a new tomorrow.
So while my journey of writing, and life, have had many twists and turns and ups and downs, I’d love to continue to share some of the bits of inspiration that find their way to me and the everyday wisdom that seems to appear when I least expect it.
Taking the time to slow down, nourish ourselves, notice the joy and beauty around us, is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and others. It is through this presence that we can share the love that we are, and find the grace that lives within every heartbeat and every cell of our bodies.
So I hope you’ll join me on this adventure, and we’ll see where life & love lead!
Caitlin Sanders
Create. Heal. Inspire.