Amanda Posa

I took a long walk this morning with my dogs to a state park near my house. The gravel trail winds in and out of trees adjacent to the hudson river. I've walked these very same steps in the past with many different loved ones who have come and gone. I’ve had picnics in the field with friends who have now moved away. I’ve done yoga near the weeping willow tree as my old dog who has since passed laid in the shade. On one of the benches facing the river, I shared a first date with someone who would later become my world. On another bench a bit further down, I wrote my dad's eulogy. 

After recently reading two pieces on deep listening written by someone in the community, I noticed a key theme in both: "Listening for what is being communicated but isn't being said." Then I thought more about what it looks like when I've felt someone do this well in my own life.

It took me back to a moment this summer, when I sat across the dinner table from a person I had only recently met. As we sipped our drinks waiting for the food to arrive, I started casually talking about work from the last week and some projects I’d been focusing on. But it took me by surprise when he looked me in the eyes, changed the topic and said, “So I just wanted to check in with you. When we had been messaging last week, I sensed something was bothering you, but I knew you weren’t ready to talk about it. I wanted to see if you were still in that headspace or if whatever it was wasn’t bleeding into this week. Did you want to talk about it?” 

During my sophomore year of college, I took a creative writing course that helped me grow on various levels. Throughout my schooling, I had always felt confident in the subject area of writing, but the professor I had shattered that confidence the first month of the semester... in a great and perhaps necessary way.

My boyfriend Oscar and I joined a soccer team a year ago with a group of about 25 other guys, and now we play pick-up every Sunday morning. Over time, I became close with a few players on the team. I was grateful for these new friendships. Not only did we share many talks and laughs throughout the games, but sharing conversation over cold beers at the local brewery in town post-game became part of our Sunday routine.

Today is a landmark for the CFC Writing Circle which started about five years ago.

I would like to express that with each passing year, I've felt it become a more prominent part of my life - It has truly brought me so much joy and inspiration reading others' writing pieces throughout the years. And it has also given me this creative platform to share my own words in an intimate and safe space where I can also commit to deeper reflection on the events that take place in my life, both big and small.

I had a last minute cancellation in a work agenda a few months back on a sunny Monday afternoon. Naturally, my next thought was: "Okay, now how can I fill that time? What should I get a head start on?"

I reluctantly pulled out my laptop and stared at my screen. I felt drained on this particular summer afternoon. But it was only 2pm, so I knew I needed to move past that feeling and not waste time. I had so much that still needed doing, and this was an opportunity to get it done.

But then I took a breath and sat still with my thoughts for a few seconds.

Someone recently asked me what I learned about humans in the last year. Maybe my response wasn’t something I necessarily “learned,” but it was something I more so felt about people and our existence side by side one another. 

I said how, despite us needing to stay physically apart the last eight months, and having to tighten up a mask and go out of our way to ensure we don’t cross paths with someone, ironically I’ve actually somehow felt a huge sense of togetherness. Not just in fighting this pandemic, but in getting through the little challenges and finding ways to help one another make life a bit brighter. Together. 

In a conversation with Srin Sridharan today during a breakout session of our Reflections Call, I mentioned how I’ve always been more of a writer rather than a speaker. Writing comes much easier to me than openly speaking does. Public speaking is actually one of my worst fears. And it’s most likely because I get caught up in my head and my own ideas and then freeze up or feel myself being pulled into a ridiculous internal tangent. Writing, on the other hand, gives me the time and headspace needed to reflect and collect my thoughts and articulate them how I actually intend. At the end of our conversation, Srin mentioned that writing and journaling could be used as a tool to crystallize one’s thoughts. 

The only thing better than my internship this past year was the person who led it. It has been over a month now, and I still find myself unable to process the tragic and unexpected passing of Mr. B - a person with an extraordinary soul, who inspired me since the first day I saw his radiant smile. 

The internship that I spontaneously decided to take on last semester was geared towards harnessing the therapeutic healing power of nature to support young adults with disabilities. My three co-interns and I planned an engaging activity at a different nature park once per week. The internship/program we were leading was titled Nature and Nurture and partnered with another incredible agency titled, “Life Transition Skills” (LTS). LTS has the “aim of developing and empowering youth & young adults with intellectual differences in achieving their full physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual potential, as individuals, and as independent, responsible citizens and members of their local communities” (LTS, 2017). The program is incredible because of its leader. 

I’ve had some rough days the last month - where I get home from my internship and unlock my door and just lay flat in bed, being weighed down by heavy thoughts and feelings that float around in my head as it rests on the pillow.  

The last month was my first month of graduate school. “It’s just the work load,” I’d repeat to myself each day after taking off my backpack and intern clothes. “I just have a lot on my plate so I’m stressed. Tomorrow will be better.”

Hi all, and Happy New Year! We are resending the anti pet peeve list in case you missed it from a week ago. I wish you all joy, positivity, and meaningful change for 2019! 

For the last six months, I have been meeting with an amazing life coach in-training via zoom every other week. During our last call, I communicated to her that, lately, I have been so stressed and overwhelmed that I have actively noticed myself getting more easily frustrated or upset over minor things that occur in my life on a daily basis. I told her that I had been feeling hypersensitive to trivial negative incidences… like when I got to Dunkin’ Donuts and realized I had forgotten my reusable plastic straw.. or when a driver didn't let me cross in the crosswalk.. and safe to say, I did not like this realization I was having.

This past Monday started as a typical one — backpack heavy and coffee hot. I left for class right on time, descended the flight of steps from my apartment, and stepped into the parking lot. To my joyful surprise, there was this little dog there. So of course, my immediate reaction was to call to the scraggly little pooch. And immediately he trotted over to me and let me pet him. His wiry hair felt really coarse and he honestly smelt like he had just been in the dumpster across the street.

A few weeks ago, my sisters and I spontaneously decided to hop on the NYC ferry to Rockaway Beach. It was our very first time on the ferry (some real New Yorkers we are!). After the beach and some very authentic New York deli sandwiches for dinner, we were a little sleepy. So we were a bit disgruntled when we got back to the ferry as the line to board wrapped around multiple blocks. 

I wouldn’t consider myself an angry or aggressive or confrontational person. I don’t think any one would. But it’s interesting to think that some of the best changes or accomplishments took place in my life only after the presence of extreme anger. And there’s one incident in my life that stands out most, where a boiling internal anger led me to one of the biggest changes I had wanted to make for years and years, and which inspired a domino effect for many more.

My sister took my awesome blender with her to her apartment in NYC while I was at college last year. She didn’t ask me if she could borrow it in the first place so I didn’t know she had it at all. The plan of leaving me out of the know would have worked out just fine for her had she not totally forgotten it under the train seat coming back from Manhattan. 

I recently told that disappointing occurrence to my boyfriend Chad. 

I wrote blog #27 about the kindergarten class I am interning with. As I mentioned, the kids don't have the widest selection of books, or the most pristine furniture, and they don't have perfect families or backgrounds and I worry about their life after school that I probably don't know enough about BUT… I do know one thing for sure. And that’s that they DO have an incredible teacher to learn with every day. 

Yesterday was the third day I spent pre-interning in an elementary school about thirty minutes from the University of Florida. I think I’m about as emotionally invested in these kindergartners as someone who’d worked with them for years. In fact, I’m almost 100% sure they are some of the sweetest little souls I’ve ever met. 

I’ve been home for three weeks on winter break from the University of Florida. It’s been a bit chillier than I expected. Brutally cold actually. Yet even though the skin on my face now feels like sandpaper and my chapped lips hurt and the top of my hands are cracking, even bleeding, I love going to Rockwood every chance I get. Rockwood is a state park near my house. The forty-minute loop I walk with my dog Sam is revitalizing.

Last week my best friend at college, Maureen, gave me a call and said with spontaneity in her voice, “What’s up? Wanna go to Micanopy and visit some antique shops?” Hmm… There were a lot of things on my to do list. I’ve been to Micanopy many times before because I’ve interned in that small town. And, well… I really don’t like antique shops very much.