1. Our garden, still producing even as it starts to fade.
2. A mostly Turkish breakfast, hosted by one of our friends who came back last year after teaching in Turkey for a few years. It was delicious.
3. These two, and their sweet little morning routine.
4. These two, and the very best dog trainer who is helping me recommit to giving them the best life ever.
5. A new book from Pema. It’s the speech she gave at Naropa when her granddaughter graduated, and it’s amazing. I want to give a copy to every single person embarking on some new thing.
Bonus joy: Late summer dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, Hulu with no commercials and binge watching Catfish, good health insurance that allows for inexpensive physical therapy (after my deductible was met, that is), Wild Writing class, rest, getting clear about where I want to focus my energy and time, smart creative funny friends.
“The time to heed the critics and the cynics and the deniers is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past. Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone. They’re on their own shrinking island.”
When Willie Baronet went on a cross-country adventure collecting cardboard signs made by the homeless, he never expected to eliminate his apprehension and discomfort with seeing them on the street. As an artist and professor in Dallas, Texas, Willie created the ‘We Are All Homeless Project’ to raise awareness and learn more about each person he interacted with. Throughout his trip, he bonded with the homeless by taking time to sit down and learn their stories. This project has shocked thousands of people who have gone to see it, with hundreds of signs in one place, each telling their own story. Willie’s mission is to help others understand that humanity is so important and everyone’s story is unique.
8. Elise Andrew F*cking Loves Science, “she’s young, she’s a woman, and she f*cking loves science. So much so that she created a Facebook page that now boasts an audience of over 7 million.”
12. Your Baby’s Ugly. I’m not sure how to describe this other than to say if you like radio storytelling and find the process of editing fascinating, this is just for you.
24. This great quote from Joseph Luzzi, “I hope you’ll discover, as I have, that it’s not what lands you in the dark woods that defines you, but what you do to make it out.” (thanks for sharing, Lindsey).
Beautiful friend, you are wonderful in your purest, deepest, truest form. You don’t have to change to be loved. Sometimes it’s tempting to bend and twist and stand on our toes to change enough for certain others to like us, for us to be able to ‘fit in’. Self betrayal doesn’t ever lead to happiness, however, and doing things that we know in our gut are not right for us, bending our values, those things just lead us down a really tricky path — a path that often leads us to places that are so far from where we wanted to end up that we just can’t figure out how we ever got there.
29. The Mindfulness Summit, “The summit is a beautiful, comprehensive and practical online guide to mindfulness and it’s all for free! We’ve gathered the leading teachers and experts around the world to share their wisdom with you and it’s all going to be free for the whole month of October. Each day of October one speaker will be live for you to access. 31 speakers in 31 days for you to enjoy.”
33. Note from the Universe, “I’d say the biggest decision of your life, Jill, was not your career, your marital status, or your home… it was choosing to love as often as you have.”
I’ve known it for a long, long time, but I am only just now getting the ability to articulate it in words and confront the truth. It’s not courage, and I’m not brave. I’m just too exhausted to pretend any longer that everything is ok.
37. Cockatoo running around yelling absolute nonsense. This has been making me laugh so hard I cry, can barely breathe. I so get how this bird feels, and watching him run around and rant makes me feel so much better, about all of it.
We can’t do everything. We can’t say yes to everything. We especially can’t have zero boundaries if we want to have the mental space needed to create things.