Hi Reader,

My mom sabotaged my brother’s wedding last week.

You see, my brother hates clowns. (This might have something to do with the fact we were subjected to sleeping in a room full of clown figurines when visiting my grandparents as kids).

If you're like, "that's creepy..." my brother and I both agree with you. 🤡

One day 13 years ago, my mom was rifling through a box of old things and happened to find a clown statue.

Naturally, knowing my brother's fear of clowns, she hid it in his room.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t home to be able to give you a play by play of his reaction which would have been great fodder for teasing him.

But it did start a 13 year long tradition of them taking turns hiding the clown, now named Clownie, back and forth.

Well, for the first time in his adult life, my brother was moving out of state, but not before his wedding day.

My mom being a better person than I, left Clownie at home during the wedding weekend despite having bought materials to make him a makeshift tuxedo.

Out of respect for my now sister-in-law on her big day, she thought she'd just hide Clownie in one of their cars before they made the drive to Washington.

But my sister-in-law is a gem of a human with a great sense of humor, so Geoff and I may have played a part in instigating my mom to go home and get Clownie.

But the tuxedo idea didn't work and there wasn't a great place to hide him at their sweetheart table.

And so, in an act my brother (jokingly?) referred to as sabotage, my mom wrote a creative speech in the voice of Clownie that she delivered on his behalf while he was presented to the newlyweds on a silver platter in front of all of their guests.

Then she proceeded to deliver her mother-of-the-groom speech.

The look on my brother's face was priceless. It was great fun.

And a reminder that taking life too seriously is seriously overrated.

While I'm not a direct participant in their shared tradition, I've loved hearing their Clownie shenanigans every time a swap has been made. It's unconventional traditions like this that can add layers of joy to life.

Do you have any traditions like this that I need to steal?

Now for the spiders…

I moved recently! A month before we headed back to the States for my brother's wedding, we sold our house in the historic center of Málaga and moved to what can only be described as our dream house. 😍

The house sits in a valley on 3.5 acres of land where I can see the sea in the distance. We have about 20 fruit trees, olive trees, and grapes. I'm learning how to avoid killing everything so we can have fresh fruit all year long.

We also see a lot of spiders.

One in particular took up residence in our entryway.

Since plopping ourselves down on more land than I've ever lived on, and waking up to the sound of birds every morning (my favorite), I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with nature. And more specifically at times, my relationship with insects.

It's so easy to fear them and want to kill them, but it's just as easy to grab a glass and relocate them outside. I seem to have taken to the latter and aligned myself with the energy of living.

Y'all I don't know who I am, I saved a mosquito last week. (Not sure that will be a repeat occurrence).

I also walked a bee that looked to be dying over to a flower so he could either dry off in the pollen and fly away, or die in a beautiful place. I was happy to report in voice memos to my friends that it dispelled itself of water and flew off to live another day!

I find I fear things less when I name them. This tracks given the name of this newsletter 😅. Any time we have a fear, when we make it mentionable and bring it to the light, it holds less grip over us.

When it comes to insects, I fear them less when I give them human names.

So I named the spider in the entryway Charlotta and left her to her post. Every time I leave the house I say “bye Charlotta” because yes, I am that person.

I swear I’m not insane.

Anyway, I’m glad I left her there because she recently taught me a lesson.

Her web got massive. Like borderline making me think I wanted to relocate her. But that was the lesson.

Charlotta attracts. She builds the web and waits for other bugs to come to it. Like the rather large moth that flew in and she proceeded to digest over a few days.

She does the work of taking aligned action that will help her get food—spinning a beautiful, albeit massive web—and then she trusts that said food will get trapped.

Charlotta offered me a reminder that I do my best when I lay the foundation and let it work for me instead of constantly hustling, ever avoiding any sort of foundation.

So that was the lesson for me from Charlotta. Maybe it resonates with you, too?
​
​Update: The lovely woman who cleans our house, not knowing my weird relationship with the entryway spider, cleared her web, and Charlotta is now starting over higher up on the ceiling. Maybe the next lesson she teaches me/us will be about resilience. 😂

I mentioned ghosts in the subject line…

Well the only ghost was me, not sending an email for a very long time. But one of you sent me a message on my birthday a couple weeks ago asking if I was still writing and that meant the world to me. Thank you, Erin! I had been hearing whispers about wanting to get back to this space and it felt like a sign.

So here I am.

Boo! 👻

xx,
Alyssa

P.S. I have been (slowly) writing a novel, but writing you here felt so good because novel writing is quite solitary and has very little interaction with the outside world at this point... except for when I literally sit outside to write it, but even then it's only me and the birds.

P.P.S. Will you do me a favor and tell me what music you're listening to right now? I’m in the process of overhauling the playlist we play around the house throughout the day and would love some inspiration!

Your reply will also help the Google gods know that I'm legit and help my emails stay in your inbox instead of getting sent to email hell since a few things have changed with email deliverability requirements since I last sent an email. Thank you in advance!

You're subscribed to Make it Mentionable, a punchy and practical column exploring self-awareness and how we relate to one another. Written by status-quo avoidant writer, communication nerd, and life coach, Alyssa Kulesa (formerly Alyssa Patmos).

Love this email? Forward it to a friend and wait for their thank you to roll in. 💌

Make it Mentionable: Fresh perspectives on the layers of life with Alyssa Kulesa.
​
You may have found me through one of my sites, social, or another creator generously recommending my words. However you landed here, I'm glad we found each other.
​
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​
1401 Lavaca St #674, Austin, TX 78701