Light and shade. One can’t exist…
…without the other we’re told. We believe it. But detest it too.
Last week I shared the loss of my friend, Ray. And you sent your love in calls, texts, hugs and emails. Thank you.
One note came from a great lady I met a couple years ago at a silent meditation retreat.
“Glitter only works because there are shadows.” She wrote.
Wow. Sweet and bitter all at once. But Liz is right.
And I think of the sequinned garb in my wardrobe shooting sparks of light across the ceiling when the sun strikes it. But, at night, the tiny discs are dark.
As much as I love a showy sequin, the appeal is in its ephemeral nature. Would we love the sparkle as much if it never dulled? We’d need to look away sometimes.
I’m reading a beautiful book right now called, Sandwich by Catherine Newman. It’s essentially about loss – of youth, parents, rearing our young children.
One stunning sentence lights up a page,
“I’d even pick the way that pain has burnished me to brightness.” Newman writes.
And it felt like she’d reached into grief’s sludge and wrestled this gem to the surface.
Does pain polish us, not punish? The friction a blessing of sorts?
Kinda like a pearl exists because of a pissed off oyster.
Maybe, like the sequin, our power lies in the ability to catch light and go on shining in spite of the dark or… because of it.
© Phyllis Foundis 2026