Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Morning walks. Slower and shorter, but still one of my favorite things.

2. Mom’s birthday is tomorrow. They are going to attempt a party of sorts for her, a gathering in the main room with cake and singing, but there’s always a chance she’ll rather stay in bed. I’m glad she gets to spend her birthday at Tokarski, and hope it gives a chance for the people who’ve cared for her for the past year to have a more official “goodbye” and celebration with her before she moves. She’s already been getting visits and wishes from people who can’t make it on the actual day and the flowers I ordered her are supposed to get delivered today.

Chris showed up to visit but it was “nap time” 🙂

3. Friends. Writing with my Friday morning group, visiting with Chloe’ in person, brainstorming some ideas with her for more regular gatherings with bigger groups, and sharing Instagram reels with Carrie and Kari and Shellie, ordering a bunch of new cards from a smaller company to use to send some snail mail, texting with Chelsey and my cousin Christie.

4. Shipping success. The Ubox my brother packed with the things I’d saved from Mom and Dad’s house arrived with everything perfectly intact. My favorite thing about working with U-Haul is their obvious commitment to employing women (only one person during the entire process, on the phone or online or on site, was a man), in particular to drive the trucks that deliver and pickup the Uboxes (all the drivers were women, and when I mentioned it to one of them, she said, “yeah, U-Haul loves their female drivers”).

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. We’ve been doing lots of what feels like spring cleaning, partly because cleaning out Mom and Dad’s house made me want to do better in my own, to get rid of things we didn’t need anymore and organize what we keep, and because I knew I was collecting some of their stuff to bring here and needed to clear space for that. It’s comforting to have some of their things here with me. My favorite thing about that kind of cleaning and organizing is knowing what I have and where it is and choosing it, wanting it to be in my house and in my life. I’ve really been noticing lately how much more attached Ringo is to me as he ages. I never used to be his first choice, but now even when Eric is home, Ringo chooses to stick by me, always wants to know where I’m at and what I’m doing.

Ringo’s current location, under the desk next to where I’m sitting typing on my computer

Bonus joy: access to healthcare and the ability to afford it including extra things like MRIs (I’ve been having migraines almost daily for over a week, so my doctor is sending me in for a scan just to be safe), ibuprofen, the smell of lilacs, bees on the dandelions, down blankets and pillows, our new futon mattress, organizing my spices (y’all, I’ve got A LOT, and short of building a custom cabinet there are just no good options for keeping them clean and accessible, but I did my best and it’s better than it was), getting in the pool and the sauna, a good sleep mask, listening to podcasts, the show Shrinking (I just finished the third season, and really like it), cheese, oranges, green tea, hot coffee sweetened with hot cocoa powder, hugs, making each other laugh, Haflinger wool slippers, finding my missing headlamp at the bottom of an empty reusable grocery bag in the back of my car (too bad it wasn’t before Eric already ordered me a new one), one of my yoga students realizing she had COVID before we met for class, chewy crunchy foods, a big glass of cold clean water, rain in the forecast, sitting in the backyard with Eric and Ringo, canceled plans, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

1. Poetry: Destiny by Carolyn Chilton Casas and Submission by Homa Mojadidi on The Dewdrop, Sourdough and Seasons Care Nothing for War and A Girlhood by Julie Barton, The Reflection and Head Down by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Stones in My Pockets by Elizabeth Becker shared by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights, Whenever You Think There Is Nothing by Hannah Fries shared by Maria Popova on The Marginalian, Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins shared on Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama, How To Be Alone by Pádraig Ó Tuama shared on Heart Poems, Things to Do About Autocrats by Suzanne Edison (this whole Letter to America series is pretty great), Peonies by Danusha Laméris and The Little Boy by Lola Koundakjian on poets.org, A Working Class Villanelle by Rachel Custer and Decomposition by Christiana Doucette and What Growing Up Poor Taught Me by Daniel Donaghy on Rattle, The Opening by James Crews and a bonus post from James that includes the poems Notes by Moudi Sbeity and Tablet by James Crews, The Problem with Early Warnings by Charles Rafferty on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, and The rings inside you: What time leaves behind by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project.

2. Suleika Jaouad’s Love Letter to a Two-Hundred-Year-Old Farmhouse. “In an 1830s Delaware River Valley home, the writer and her husband, musician Jon Batiste, planted bulbs and blessings for the future.” In related news, The Best of the Isolation Journals, “Celebrating six years with a selection of our greatest hits” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

3. Plumbed by Seth Godin.

4. How Tender These Spring Days by Anne Marie Vivienne on The Wonder + The Haunting. “I shall be richer all my life for this sorrow.”

5. Nine Creative Blocks (and How to Move Through Them) on Earth & Verse. “The enneagram on creativity, patterns, and growth.”

6. I miss the pandemic by Danny Gregory. “We are so smart. We write everything down. We publish books, make films, hold memorials, build museums. We talk about never forgetting. And then, more or less on schedule, we forget — because remembering would require admitting that we are not exceptional. That we are just the latest version of the same animal, making the same mistakes, feeling the same dread, and somehow, improbably, carrying on. And yet — no matter how dark things get, no matter how many times we have to be dragged back to the same hard lessons — we can still see the mountain. We can still hear the birds. We can still draw the beauty of ordinary things. We can still float in a pool at night and look up and feel, for a moment, that it’s all somehow worth it. That’s not nothing. For a species as hopeless as ours, that might even be everything.”

7. All the Reasons by Laurie Wagner, inspired by the poem “Make No Apologies for Yourself” by Glenis Redmond.

8. 8 Things to Let Go of When You’re Craving a Simpler Life by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

9. 9 Things I’ve Learnt About Going Gently by Satya Robyn. “An updated list of the very best advice I have for you.”

10. Living Wonderfully Does Not Mean Living Perfectly, “Wisdom from my wife” by Jena Schwartz.

11. The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to Global Joy, “what the happiest places in the world can teach us about everyday living” by Brad Montague on The Enthusiast.

12. dressing who I am, going where I want, “Knowing Myself After a Lifetime of Enmeshment” by Elissa Altman.

13. Truck Full of Flowers, “Just working and thinking” by Jami Attenberg on Craft Talk. Also from Jamie, Pep Talk for Consuming The News, “(And still being able to write afterward).”

14. You’re Not Lazy. You’re Overwhelmed. “How we paralyze ourselves with thought” by Meg Josephson.

15. Extending Women’s History Month by Frederick Joseph. Whenever Frederick Joseph has a project and needs help with funding, I give, because I absolutely trust that he does the most good he can do directly when and where he is.

16. Who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance and why has it changed?

17. What SpongeBob Understands About Life (That You Don’t). (video) “SpongeBob seems an absurd character, a fool who makes us laugh. But could it be that, behind the ridiculousness, lies a hidden philosophy to living well?”

18. What Are the Routines of So-Called Super-Readers? “Kelsey Rexroat Investigates the Mindsets of People Who Read Hundreds of Books a Year.”

19. The 7 Types Of Rest You Need To Feel Your Best.

20. 6 Reasons We Ignore Our Needs and How to Stop by Lori Deschene on Tiny Buddha.

21. Seven ways to take back control of your digital life by Angela Garwood. “Addiction is a feature of social media platforms, not a bug, a US court has ruled in a globally significant case. Here’s how to take back control from the algorithm.”

22. 5 Years of Lessons From Running My Own Bookstore.

23. Lucy Sante on Collage: ‘You Have to Kill One Thing to Make Another’ on The New York Times. (gift link) “The visual historian and celebrated author of ‘Low Life’ has two shows of recent artwork made from decades of gathering materials, a trove she slices and glues.”

24. She Worked As A Janitor At Yale Hospital For 10 Years. Now She’s Returning As A Doctor.

25. How To Paint Protest Signs.

26. ‘As soon as I left the first session I felt taller’: is reformer pilates as amazing – or awful – as they say? on The Guardian. “One of the fastest-growing fitness trends is also one of the most divisive. To its fans, it promises a stronger, healthier body; to its critics, it’s another way to make women feel insecure. Time to sort fact from fiction.”

27. Less stuff, more joy: seven lessons from ‘enoughfluencers’ on how to live a happier, simpler life on The Guardian. “Meet the influencers encouraging us to stop buying new.”

28. Marriage over, €100,000 down the drain: the AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion on The Guardian. “One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He’s just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounter.”

29. David Morrison’s Alluring Drawings Spring from the Blank Page.

30. Infinite Versions of Success from Alexandra Franzen.

31. A Nature Almanac April 2026 / Rewild Your Garden & The Pink Moon on Looking for the Magic.

32. Texting a Random Stranger Better for Loneliness Than Talking to a Chatbot, Study Shows.

33. Change Doesn’t Happen the Way You Think on The New York Times. (gift link) “[A]fter decades of working to change myself, and nearly six years spent talking with changers and would-be changers — from personality reinventors and esoteric self-actualizers to name-swappers and ideological shape-shifters — I’ve come to believe that the ‘self’ in self-transformation is only half the story. Change is less about willpower than we imagine, more shaped by other people than we admit, and far more mysterious than the self-improvement industry can afford to sit with.”