1. Morning walks. Now that Eric’s on summer break, we get to do more family walks in the morning. In another few weeks, we’ll be on the Oregon Coast and get to walk there together. I spent the first 25 years of my life with easy access to the beach and it’s the one thing I don’t have in Colorado, so I visit when I can. When Eric went with us to the cement ponds on Friday morning, it was clear he’s a lucky charm because even though Ringo and I normally only see other dogs, some geese or a few ducks, maybe even a heron; with Eric, we saw a murder of crows chasing a giant owl, a blackbird eating a frog, and an osprey with a fish.
2. Raintree Athletic Club. Right now, it’s really the only place I ever go besides the grocery store or the doctor. There’s just so much good stuff there: a café, Pilates, yoga, small group HIIT training, a swimming pool, sauna, and hydromassage chair, etc., along with lots of good people — one who has a service dog, a gorgeous super mellow chocolate lab named Captain.
3. Wild writing with Laurie. We are on a break for the summer and I’m already missing it so much.
4. Both/And. Our good, good next door neighbors of the past 13 years moved to Ohio (grief), and they left us a bunch of stuff, including a striped spider plant, a fern, a lipstick plant, and a massive rosemary bush, along with a dog bed that Ringo does not understand at all (joy) — Both/And.
5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. Even at the end of the world in the middle of nowhere, I can stay because they are here.
Image by Eric (and Prisma)
Bonus joy: pay day, our whole house fan and a/c, being able to text and email instead of call, still thinking about the lasagna Eric made last week, crisp juicy gala apples, strawberries, granola, watching true crime with Eric, listening to podcasts, that not only did Barb give us plants but the pots they are in are gorgeous, our remodeled veterinary clinic, stickers, baby geese, the hydromassage chair, THC/CBD salve (the only thing that touches the pain in my hands from arthritis), citrus, patchouli, french toast, naps, blankets, down and wool, honey bees, birds at the feeder, smoothies, good dirt, trees, writing in the morning in front of my HappyLight with a cup of coffee with cocoa and tiny marshmallows, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
1. If you’ve ever wanted to take a break from the internet, try these tips. “If you ever feel nostalgic for the pre-internet era (or wonder what it was like), Pamela Paul, author of 100 Things We’ve Lost To The Internet, reveals a few ways you can reconnect with an analog way of life.”
2. How to overcome FOMO. “Worrying about whether we’re missing out on new experiences, content, trends and even investments can make us feel like we’re falling behind. But we can actually overcome that feeling and be present with what we have. Here’s why we experience FOMO in the first place, how to know when that feeling is serving us and how to move past it when it gets in the way.”
7. Trusting our Deepest Intuition in a Crisisfrom Jeff Foster on Facebook. “Let your own deepest inner wisdom be your guide. And you shall gather around you wise friends and healers, kind and skilled experts, and those who truly have your best interests at heart.”
8. Blue Atlasby Steven Church. A beautiful short piece about a tree (but so much more).
14. 20 of the coolest holiday cabins in Europe. “From Scandinavian rustic-luxe to floating eco-cabins in the south of France, we pick cosy and stylish hideaways in forests and lakeland.”
19. Karine Jean-Pierre’s Unlikely Rise to the White House Lecternon The New York Times. “The first Black and first openly gay press secretary was raised in an immigrant family with ‘so many secrets.’ Now she occupies one of the most scrutinized jobs in American politics.”
22. What Do Most Mass Shooters Have in Common? They Bought Their Guns Legally. on The New York Times. “From 1966 to 2019, 77 percent of mass shooters obtained the weapons they used in their crimes through legal purchases, according to a comprehensive survey of law enforcement data, academic papers and news accounts compiled by the National Institute of Justice, the research wing of the Justice Department.”
40. The Normalization of “Working Through Covid”.“We have worked through so much these last two years — intermittent or nonexistent childcare, abject terror, a contested election, an attempted coup, ongoing climate catastrophes that have made it dangerous to go outside, ongoing and targeted racial violence — that somehow working through fatigue, or brain fog, or what might initially feel like a mildly elevated cold feels….normal? Like the right thing to do? And that taking time off when so many others don’t have the ability to do so is somehow insulting? And I mean what else are you going to do?
But I am here to say — to myself as much as any of you faced with this decision — that this is line of thinking is morally bankrupt. It has productivity culture brainworms. It is evidence of the most toxic scarcity mindset, and one of the most pernicious side-effects of the spread of ‘flexible’ work. And if you’re reading these sentences and immediately coming up with justifications for why you worked or would work through Covid, it’s worth thinking about why.”
49. We need a hope machine. Anyone know how to build one?“Don’t kick yourself for feeling lousy. You have every right to feel that way. But let me say something else as clearly as I can. I’ve been at this fight a very long time, and right now I find lots of reasons for hope. Ten, to be exact.”
52. These 90-Year-Old Runners Have Some Advice for Youon The New York Times. “Runners at the National Senior Games in Miramar, Fla., competed in events ranging from the 50 meters to 1,500 meters. Their secret? ‘You’ve got to keep moving.'”
P.S. I know the last two lists have been LONG, kind and gentle readers, but I will be taking a break from making lists the first three Mondays of June, so take your time, pace yourself!
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 