@therealkimsmith

There were no white flashes of light or great shifting in the cosmos or my immediate environment. NO-thing happened.

The day started unlike any other of the past decade. I was sober, well rested, cradled by 3000 count sheets at the L’Auberge Del Mar. The white down and my daughter’s body created a warm, fluffy nest of hope and gratitude. Thirteen days earlier I had attended an AA meeting in Phoenix. I sat in a grey plastic folding chair with a cup of bad coffee. I listened. I judged. After the meeting a stranger approached me. “You belong here. Do 90 in 90. Get a sponsor. Work the steps.”

The world can be a heavy dark place. Every day we turn on the news to hear stories of inequality, sexual assault, political clusterfuckedness, global warming, threats of war, shootings, you name it. It’s all out. THere’s no hiding anymore. Our skeletons are being laundered and it’s the fucking spin cycle. Add Scorpio season (10/23-11/21) and you’ve got a recipe for everything you have ever wanted to ignore right in your face. I’m feeling it. The dense, shadowed energy of the

Some people get energy from being around people, getting all social up in their lives. I am not one of those people. I need downtime. I need to be alone to regroup and recoup my energy. As a mom and writer a lot of my energy is directed at what I give to others. I’ll never grow tired of hearing “I love you mama." Or having a stranger tell me that something I wrote has helped them. But today nothing sounds better than spending the day alone, in my room, with the blinds closed.

I started practicing yoga at a small, one room studio in Johnson City, New York in 2002. I was charmed by the word yoga, it contained mystery and magic and unanswered questions that beckoned my attention. I was back living with my mom undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, “The most curable kind of cancer” they said. “This will be easy” they said. They were full of shit. The cancer and chemotherapy reducing my once young and abled body to a still young but definitely no

Humility has many faces. Sometimes, it’s an epic addiction hellbent on destroying every part of your existence. Other times, it's a roomful of five-year-olds high on Red Bull on Kindergarten Career Day. “You should have been a kindergarten teacher, Kim,” my husband said one night after I told him how much fun I had volunteering in our daughter’s classroom. “You missed your calling.” He’s right. I love those little fuckers. They are my people. Curious, excited about life, mess

Well, there was a lot of alcohol involved. Words my sister, then steeped in her own wounds said to me when I told her I was raped at 24 by a guy I was dating. I wasn’t the victim of a violent crime in a dark alleyway. I’m what you might call “one of the lucky ones.” And yes. A lot of alcohol was involved. We were out getting drunk on Mill Ave. in Tempe AZ. The last thing I remember is saying “I need to go home and go to bed now.” I did not say, “Take me home and have sex with

Hey Human, You think I’d be getting tired of having this conversation with you. Being You would be a lot easier if you chose to believe me the first time, all those years ago, all those lives ago, when we first had this conversation. And I’ll admit, the conversation is becoming redundant, and I am tired. But it’s not bad. Nothing is really. Do you remember when your children were tiny? They couldn’t do anything for themselves. They relied on you for everything. You were fucki

I’m not really what you would call a “people person.” Most days I prefer books, baths, and solitude to the company of humans. One on one I thrive. I hold my own in small groups. I can command a crowd as the speaker. But the dynamics of the large group is something that I usually try to avoid. I get along easier with members of the opposite sex. In my herstory different girls with different faces have played different villains, evil stepsisters, and wicked witches. All with th

I recently had my wisdom teeth removed. During my drinking days I had no time or concern for dentists or physicians. I only saw the eye doctor because driving a motor vehicle blind is frowned upon and losing a digit while cutting the carrots for dinner would be a huge bummer. I got sober and my teeth just started aching. I oil pulled, water picked and clove oiled my way through the days until the pain became unbearable. It’s entirely possible and probable that the pain was al