Sat Nam. WordPress just congratulated me on four years of blogging but it’s actually been twelve years. Many blogs. This one is simply the most recent at four years old. I thought I’d celebrate with one of my TINAS because it’s been so long since I made one. Sat Nam. Because I love them.

This Is Not A Selfie. Get it? The scripture is not a filter. It’s one of two shots; a spontaneous double exposure taken in the Temple of the Cleanse before washing away a couple of hours of tennis. The scripture hangs on the wall. I lean against the wall. And look. Together they become a Hallelujah. An Amen. A Hare Hare. A Hell Yeah.

I worried all week — during the work-week part of the week — that I might be done blogging. Sat Nam. I don’t feel like a wellness blogger anymore but I can’t be alive and not write about something. Sat Nam. The end of the work week was not conducive to clarity; only the swirl of my weariness and fear of being irrelevant. Then I woke up Saturday morning and Hester’s prayer came out of me. Not done. Not yet. Not even close. Wellness blogging may have stalled but soulful creativity is still aflow. Scroll back to yesterday if you missed it.

Before I forget, The Temple of the Cleanse is my bathroom. I changed the name because it is more edifying to tell myself I must clean a temple than it is to clean a bathroom. It’s a life hack. Get to versus have to. My sacred skin deserves a clean bathing place. I want to give myself a nice place to self-soothe. A temple to my needs. Get it? I highly recommend it. I feel I must have surely recommended this before at some point over the last four years.

I started this blog as a wellness outreach and thought of it as a gift I’d give to others. I wanted to help others get well and be well. Promote wellness as a practice. Use writing about wellness as part of the practice. Share as part of the practice. The daily grit and grease as well as the glow and glory. After four years this is changing back into a gift I give myself, as writing was when I started twelve years ago. It is still wellness work for me but it feels like less of an outreach now. Sat Nam. Like the TINAS, I’m doing now because I love it and because it feels good.

The shift may be a byproduct of working service-oriented (as in serving-oriented) day jobs. I’ve been doing that for a while but now it is high volume service. Higher intensity. Higher stakes. Deeper involvement. Last week a man broke down crying to me. He’s so tired he doesn’t know how to go on. Another man told me he is afraid of dying. Another is days away from homelessness. People tell me their pain every day. Multiple times per day. I listen. I speak. I help as I am able. I’m tapped at the end of every day. I come home with very little to give. Very little to say. I usually have only enough juice to cook dinner and load the dishwasher.

Writing in this blog has become my solace again. My antidote. My joy. A way to serve my own needs. Sat Nam. You may have noticed my About page came down a while back. It didn’t feel authentic anymore and I didn’t replace it with anything. There’s no page to tell you (or random visitors) why this space exists and what I am doing with it. That’s a cardinal sin in the blogging world. I’m deliberately neglecting to announce this blog’s identity and purpose. I have no plans to change it any time soon. I’m not the least bit sorry. I’m evolving.

When structure and definition emerges I’ll consider it. Until then I’m writing what feels good. Another life hack. My sacred soul deserves an unrestricted creative space. Get it?

— Mercy