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

1. Morning walks and fall color. I waited a bit one morning until it was closer to sunrise so we could see the turning leaves and rabbitbrush and I could get some pictures to share. This is my favorite time of year here. This year is a bit different because it was so dry, so there are some things that dried up before they had a chance to fully turn, but it’s still gorgeous. One morning Eric had one of those “wild kingdom” walks where it seemed like every time he turned around, there was another animal. Not pictured are the three beavers he saw swimming in the pond. It’s so weird how this particular generation of beavers doesn’t smack their tale to alert when they see us. Either no one taught them or they don’t think we represent any danger. Ringo has been around long enough to remember the beavers who did, and he seems to be a bit disappointed that these don’t.

2. Practice. There were only two who could write on Friday morning this week, but it’s a lovely and intimate practice with just two of us — especially after three years of writing together and knowing each other so well, trusting each other so completely, and a good chance to catch up, to linger a bit more than when all six of us are there and time is limited. Yoga with Red Sage where I managed to not do too much, to not wreck myself after spraining my SI joint a few weeks ago (after another situation where I did too much), and a lovely yoga class at the gym the day before to test if my body was up to teaching. I haven’t been meditating much recently, which seems to always happen after I’ve experienced a big loss, and as I’m telling you this now, I’m realizing it’s not that I avoid meditation during seasons of grief but rather every moment becomes an opportunity to be fully present and mindful with whatever is arising, which is practice of another flavor, another temperature, a different pace.

3. Mom and Dad’s “63rd” Anniversary. Yesterday was the third anniversary of Dad’s death. If he would have made it one more day, he and Mom would have reached their 60th anniversary together. This year, after a few years apart, wherever they are, they are spending their 63rd together.

4. Working on “The Book.” I have 20 years of journals, 15 years of blog posts (my 15 year “blogiversary” was on September 16th, but I missed it), and close to 1000 pages of typed work already written. Recently, after an understandable break due to life circumstances, I’ve returned to put in some real effort on turning some of what I’ve written into an actual book. Sometimes it is overwhelming, and other times I doubt myself, but there are moments where I feel content, even satisfied with what’s there, and confident that some day, some day, I’ll actually finish it.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. We often times get so caught up in looking and planning ahead, in what comes next or what we have planned, in our to-do list or our goals, that we forget this very moment, the laundry and the morning walk, is living — this IS life, right here and now. I’ve been trying to remember that as I move through my days, all the ones I have left, whatever that might mean.

Bonus joy: trying a new recipe, texting with Chris and Chloe’, getting the laundry done early, clean sheets, cooler temperatures, a new cooling blanket for Ringo’s crate, the Merlin app, getting in the pool, sitting in the sauna, working out at home, working out at the gym, making Eric and Chloe’ laugh with tales of the characters in my writing class, getting to finally see Kerri and Shawna, book club brunch, how well Ringo did at the vet, cinnamon and sugar toast, down blankets and pillows, napping on the couch with Ringo, listening to podcasts and music, watching TV, videos of people paying for other people’s groceries and gas, Sunday morning Pilates with Bea, sitting in the sun in the backyard, texting with neighbors old and new, finding more tiny brass crows Eric got and has been hiding for me in my office, the flowers Eric brought home for me from the grocery store, groceries, Autumn Crisp grapes, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, naps, libraries, poetry, comedy, grapefruit juice, a hot cup of coffee and warm mug of tea, good books, hospice care, pay day, a washer and dryer in my house so I don’t have to cart my laundry to a 2nd location or hoard quarters anymore (although, now you can use a credit card to pay), cheeseburgers and corndogs, a warm shower, wool slippers, weekends because Eric is home more often, being retired, trash service, wi-fi, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

1. Poetry: Instructions Included with Telescope by Jessica Young and Psalm 131 by George David Clark and On Rereading Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in the Age of Generative AI by Maryann Corbett and Arms by Mike White and In the Good Light by James Crews on Rattle, At the Bay of Fundy and Dear Heart and Go On by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Three Haiku by Matsuo Bashō and Fire Strike by Margaret Noodin and Starfish by Eleanor Lerman on poets.org, at the baggage claim in JFK by Lo Naylor and Hackberry by Cecily Parks on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, Teranga by James Crews, On Trying by Julie Barton, Poem for Grown Children by Kathleen Driskell shared by Patti Digh, when your children ask me what i did while the planet was burning by kai cheng thom, and Instructions by Sheri Hostetler on Heart Poems.

From Tools & Talismans by Liz Kalloch, my collection

2. The gorgeous, talented, wonderful Liz Kalloch died. One of the drawbacks of being gone from social media is that people you ADORE can be sick and even die, and you don’t find out about it until it’s too late to help, too late to say goodbye, too late to tell them how much you adored them. Liz included pieces of mine in three issues of Mabel Magazine, the publication she created with Stefanie Renée, and Liz also included me in her book Tools & Talismans: 100 Conversations in Watercolor. She was one of the most talented and generous humans I’d ever worked with, and I’m so sad she’s gone. I had always dreamed that when I finally published a print version of my next book, I’d ask her to design the cover. In related news, Maya Stein shared about Liz in a recent newsletter and her obituary was published this morning.

3. The Best of LIFE: 37 Years in Pictures. “Over several decades spanning the heart of the 20th century, one American magazine ― calling itself, plainly and boldly, LIFE ― published many of the most memorable photographs ever made. Driven by the certainty that the art of photojournalism could tell stories and move people in ways that traditional reporting simply could not, LIFE pursued a grand vision, articulated by the magazine’s co-founder, Henry Luce, that not only acknowledged the primacy of the picture, but enshrined it. ‘To see life,’ Luce wrote in a now-famous 1936 mission statement, delineating both his new venture’s workmanlike method and its lofty aims. ‘To see the world; to eyewitness great events . . . to see and be amazed.'”

4. you carry yourself by Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound. “We carry ourselves wherever we go, and we cannot escape temptation by mere flight.”

5. The Water I’m In on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. “There’s a discomfiting vulnerability to writing about illness while you’re still inside of it, before you know what it means, before you can shape it into a story with a beginning and middle and, most vexingly, an end. But if there is one thing I have come to understand about myself while living in the in-between place, it’s that survival and my creative work are interwoven.”

6. Good stuff from Patti Digh: Scrabble by Candlelight (“Two years after Helene”) and Door to Balloon (“Not today”).

7. An Existential Guide to: Forgiving Your Parents on The Shadowed Archive. “Congratulations. You are now the thing you swore you would never become.”

8. The suitcase on my bed by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project. “A suitcase full of guesses.”

9. Good stuff on The Guardian: Why you should quit and not look back: ‘Saying yes to everything is saying no to what matters’ (“In her new book, The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out, Lindsay Crouse discusses the costs and traps of never giving up – and how she set herself free”) and ‘My body is on fire!’: my perilous, painful, perfect month of pilates (“A growing number of men, including singers Shaggy and Harry Styles, are taking up pilates. When I realised I could no longer touch my toes, I decided to try it out”) and The viral Hyrox horror: is the ‘go hard or go home’ attitude to exercise finally over? (“When an athlete soiled herself at a hybrid fitness event, it sparked a debate about a culture that pushes people to ignore their body’s signals at real cost”) and ‘It’s the Bayeux tapestry of TV!’ After six decades, the seminal series bows out with 70 Up (“The ‘hugely important artefact’ that’s followed 14 children since they were seven is set to air its final instalment. The now-septuagenarians and director Asif Kapadia talk about breaking new ground for 63 years – and changing TV for ever”) and ‘I find myself weeping after almost every scene’: how seminal show 7 Up has touched your lives (“It’s inspired careers, moved you deeply and helped you reevaluate your own journeys. As the series that began in 1964 comes to an end with 70 Up, Guardian readers explain the impact of the decades-spanning tale”) and Previous winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart shortlisted for Booker prize (“The two authors are in the running for the £50,000 award alongside a Pulitzer winner, a science fiction legend, a comic writer and a debut novelist”).

10. A Meditation to Help Build Your Capacity to Navigate Difficulty. “In this extended mindfulness practice, Rich Fernandez walks us through a process to hone our capacity to shift, to take perspective, and in some ways, to subtract ourselves from our experiences, which can help us be in wise relationship as we navigate difficulty.”

11. Good stuff from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less: 7 Lovely Little Hacks to Simplify Life and 7 Simple Rules For Decluttering Clothes.

12. One of Our Greatest Writers Has Died. But Not for Me. on The New York Times Magazine. (gift link) “Annie Dillard died this week. But her voice — wild and holy and hilarious — continues to live in my head, my soul and, somehow, my dog.”

13. Winning Images of the 2026 European Photography Awards Will Make You Look at the World Differently.

14. What If Writers of Color Are Just Often Better? by Frederick Joseph. “In his New York Times opinion column ‘The Literary World’s D.E.I. Checklist,’ (which I’m not linking to, because I’m not going to give him or the New York Times any more clicks for that bullshit) Bret argues that major literary awards increasingly reward marginalized identities and subjects rather than literary merit. He takes inventory of the backgrounds of this year’s National Book Award nominees, identifies the racial backgrounds of Pulitzer-winners, and presents a list as evidence of a corrupted standard. He does acknowledge that some of the books are excellent. He doesn’t establish which supposedly better books were passed over, or how the winners’ identities helped the award committees. As a Black author reading his column, I was especially interested in a possibility he simply didn’t consider: what if writers of color are just often better?”

15. Scrapbook in Vignettes by Maggie Smith. “Things I might have tweeted back in the day.”

16. Sharon Horgan on Youth: Menopause, Divorce and Finding the Funny in Midlife on The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet.

17. The Basement That Holds Everything by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. “What I’ve learned about honesty from telling my father who has Alzheimer’s that his things are safe in my basement.” There’s a particular kind of sad when they stop asking altogether.

18. Wild Times, Humanity. “A comic about boring news days” by Connie Sun.

19. Enjoy Every Sandwich by Brad Montague on The Enthusiast.

20. Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story | Official Trailer | Netflix. “Beloved for blurring performance and personal crisis, Maria Bamford unpacks the mental health journey behind her fearless comedy in this documentary,” on Netflix starting October 23rd.

21. You beautiful beguiling things. ❤️