Something Good

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.”

Gratitude

1. Morning walks. They might just stay at this shorter distance, which means I might have to start walking a bit further on my own, without my dog, and that’s just weird. Lilacs are starting to bloom so I think we might start seeing some baby geese soon. 

2. Medication, both over the counter and prescription. I had a biopsy this week that was pretty painful and a migraine ever single day since, so I’m feeling extra grateful for the help. Along with that, I’m grateful to myself for allowing the space and time to recover, even though it meant canceling my Thursday morning yoga class, and the knowing that I’m teaching them something about self-care when I do, and to my husband for helping take care of me when I’m “down.”

Mom asked Chris to take her picture so she could “see what she looks like”

3. Finding Mom a new place to stay. I am feeling really good about the situation we found for Mom, in a good location that’s close to Chris and fingers crossed her older sister ends up moving in just around the corner so they’ll be close too, in a room with a view of a garden that gets lots of birds and deer, and a TV with The Hallmark Channel, with the same sort of care and company she’s had this past year, and no need to ever relocate again. Now fingers crossed the move won’t be too disruptive or confusing for her, and she’ll be content and comfortable there.

4. Signs of spring. The trees are blooming and I bought myself a bunch of spring flowers. Tillamook also has my favorite limited availability ice cream back in stock and it was one sale, buy one get one free — although I told Eric no more for awhile because I was eating it like it was my job. 🙂 Chris and Lia have been riding their bikes at the park by the river, and Ringo and I have been spending some time every day sitting in the backyard, where the grass has filled in, soft and green.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. Comfortable, safe, and loved, hanging out together, making each other laugh. It’s everything I ever wanted. My practice room, a very small area even when empty, has been a disordered chaotic unusable space for the past few months. This week, I finally put it back together. My favorite lesson from my various practices and teachers is just this: you can try again, start over as many times as necessary, and things don’t have to be perfect in order to begin.

Bonus joy: onion buns, a big glass of clean cold water, our new futon, practicing with my Friday morning writing group, books from the library on my Kindle, turning over a new page on my calendar and picking a new image for my desktop calendar, texting with Chloe’ and Chris, Eric finishing the laundry for me, a warm shower, kind and caring medical professionals, being on Instagram again for a bit and sharing reels with Carrie and Kari and Shellie, YouTube shorts, listening to podcasts, my Shakti mat pillow (which it turns out is helpful for my migraines), other people’s pets and kids and gardens, Haflinger wool slippers, down blankets and pillows, the relationship my brother and I have as adults even after (or maybe because of) all the hard things we’ve been through, fruit, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.