December, Memory, and Making Room for What’s Returning

December has always been a strange month for me.

There’s the cultural version of Christmas, the lights, the music, the expectation of cheer, and then there’s the quieter, heavier undercurrent that doesn’t always fit neatly into wrapping paper and playlists. December asks us to remember. Sometimes whether we want to or not.

This year, December was less about doing and more about gathering. I spent time revisiting older poems and pieces written years ago, sometimes decades ago, work that came from earlier versions of me. Some of those pieces were raw. Some were angry. Some were grieving in ways I didn’t yet have language for when I first wrote them. Posting them wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about continuity. About honoring the fact that I’ve been writing my way through things for a very long time, even when I didn’t yet know what I was surviving.

Christmas itself was quiet. Intentionally so. No grand revelations, no forced joy. Just space. Rest. And a surprising amount of listening.

And in that quiet, something old started knocking again.

A Gentle Return

I was raised Catholic, but like many people, I was raised more in the motions than in the meaning. Faith, for a long time, felt like something that had rules but no language for pain. And for many years, I set it aside, not out of rebellion, but out of necessity. I didn’t have room for anything that couldn’t sit honestly with grief, anger, or unanswered questions.

What I didn’t expect was that faith, real faith, not performative faith, would begin to reappear later in life, not as certainty, but as curiosity.

Not as doctrine, but as texture.

Over the past months, I’ve found myself drawn back to scripture, contemplative writing, mysticism, saints who wrestled instead of obeyed neatly, and the kind of faith that makes room for doubt, exhaustion, and humanity. It hasn’t been loud. It hasn’t been linear. It’s been personal, slow, and surprisingly gentle.

So I want to name this clearly:

Some of my writing moving forward will begin to reflect that return.

Not exclusively. Not constantly. But intentionally.

What That Means for This Space

Ink Blots and Teapots has always been a mixed table.

Poetry lives here.

Kitchen Chronicles silliness lives here.

Confessional writing, grief work, myth, humor, anger, tenderness: they all coexist.

That isn’t changing.

What is changing is that you may begin to see:
• poems that lean explicitly toward faith or prayer,
• reflections rooted in scripture or spiritual practice,
• writing that engages with God, saints, or belief in a personal, not prescriptive, way.

These pieces will be clearly labeled. If faith-leaning content isn’t something you wish to engage with, you’ll always have the option to scroll past, skip, or stay with the parts of this space that resonate more closely with you.

No one is being preached at.
No one is being recruited.
No one is being tested.

This is simply me being honest about where some of my writing is headed.

Why Now?

Because writing has always been how I metabolize experience.

And right now, part of my lived experience includes:
• grief that has softened into memory,
• anger that is learning how to rest,
• and a quiet, persistent question about what it means to belong — to myself, to a story larger than me, to something sacred without being small.

I don’t have answers. I have words.

And sometimes that’s enough to begin.

Looking Ahead

As we move into the new year, you’ll continue to see:
• poetry (old and new),
• scheduled posts that give me breathing room,
• the return of Kitchen Chronicles,
• and reflections that don’t fit neatly into any single category.

This space will remain what it has always been:

a place to think out loud, to remember honestly, and to write without sanding down the edges.

If you’ve been here for the poems – thank you.
If you’re here for the humor – stay.
If you’re curious about the faith pieces – welcome.
And if some of it isn’t for you, that’s okay too.

There’s room here for all of it.

And for now, that feels like exactly the right way to begin.