July | 2019 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Forgetting what day of the week it is. I talked to my mom yesterday and she mentioned she’d looked for my Friday post and hadn’t seen it. I told her I’d forgotten it was Friday, thinking I’d do the post later in the day. Then I took a nap and when I got up, I went to see The Last Black Man in San Francisco with a friend, came home and went to bed — totally forgetting to write this post!

2. Morning walks. When Eric was gone, I did ALL the walking, and was pretty happy I could do it and still feel good. Out of all the things I do to move, walking dogs is my favorite but it also unfortunately makes my knees hurt. Even so, I’m never giving it up.

3. Being “on vacation”…permanently. This is just my life now, and I couldn’t be happier. Eventually I’ll be more rested and have more to offer, but for now, I’m okay with just this.

4. Eric is back. While he was gone, I was so happy to be able to text and video chat with him. He came home a day late after a flight cancellation, but he brought me tarts!

Some of the selfies we sent each other while he was gone:

5. My tiny family. I’m glad to have them all back together again.

Bonus joy: the big hailstorm last night missing our house (although I’m sad for all the people it hit and hurt), good TV (watched Gentleman Jack and Chernobyl on HBO), good movies (saw Yesterday with Eric, at the end of which most of the audience clapped), the Lyric Cinema and Cafe, long naps for no reason other than I want to, aqua aerobics, Pilates, sitting in the sauna with Eric, teaching yoga, finally getting my insurance claim for the MRI I got processed and approved, the cool and quiet after a storm, hanging out with Mikalina, meditation and morning pages before I check my phone, good books (Bearing the Body by my teacher Ehud Havazelet, who sadly passed away a few years ago, and Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon), a massage.

1. 12 Ideas For Sensitive Introverts To Make A Difference In The World (Without Getting Overwhelmed), which reminds me of a post I wrote, Activism for Introverts and Highly Sensitive People.

2. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön, “The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises. Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.”

3. 3-year-old makes cupcakes. (video) Happy Birthday, Roman!

4. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: A bag of words and Life on Creativity, a Good Life podcast interview.

5. Health At Every Size (HAES): A Guide for Binge Eating Recovery.

6. “Sandman”: Netflix Orders Neil Gaiman Comic Book Adaptation Straight to Series. This series was my introduction to graphic novels. So good.

7. Border Control agents have a secret Facebook group that’s full of racist, sexist memes. In related news, Taking Migrant Children From Parents Is Illegal, U.N. Tells U.S. on The New York Times, and How Regular Americans Can Help Reunite Migrant Families, also on The New York Times, and Highlights magazine denounces family separations in a blistering new editorial, and Taking Action on Immigrant Detention a summary of reported recommendations (Google doc), and This furniture company is facing backlash over its business ties to migrant child detention centers — now its employees are walking out in protest (video), and These Are The Companies Profiting From Detaining Migrants At Border Concentration Camps, and The Youngest Known Child Separated From His Family at the U.S. Border Under Trump on The New York Times.

8. American Border Study: Two Bodies in a River, a poem by Jed Myers.

9. F.D.A. Names 16 Brands of Dog Food That May Be Linked to Canine Heart Disease on The New York Times. We recently switched our dogs off a grain-free food. We had to go with Purina, because it’s the only one we could find with salmon as a protein source that wasn’t also grain-free (Sam is allergic to chicken), and our vet said Purina is one of the only companies who has a canine nutritionist on staff to help formulate their foods.

10. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: ‘Hope is contagious.’

11. Open Letter: To my Trump-supporting family. “So now, two and half years into the alternative reality, I’ve come to grips that this isn’t some insane nightmare. This is reality. And seeing how Trump supporters (yourselves included) have behaved since then, I really was a fool for ever believing America stood for anything else.”

12. Navajo Artist Creates ‘Make America Native Again’ Hats to Critique Donald Trump’s Campaign Slogan.

13. When Other White People Attack You.

14. The Playboy Interview With Tarana Burke. “A candid conversation with the activist who launched Me Too more than a decade before Weinsteingate.”

15. ‘I Carry It Within Me.’ Novelist Colson Whitehead Reminds Us How America’s Racist History Lives On. In related news, This Death Row Lawyer Says Americans Won’t Be Free Until We Face Our Racist History. “An HBO documentary about Bryan Stevenson sounds an urgent call to examine the nation’s past, from slavery to lynching.”

16. This school sends students to yoga class instead of detention, and the results are incredible. (video)

17. The Free Black Women’s Library amplifies the voices of female African American writers.

18. Beautiful, Never-Before-Seen Photos of New York City’s 1977 Pride March.

19. 24 Memoirs from Plus-Size Writers for Your Summer Reading List.

20. Murderous White Supremacist Sentenced to Life in Prison for Charlottesville Attack.

21. “One Day at a Time” Will Get a Season 4 on CBS’s Pop After Being Cancelled By Netflix.

22. Wyclef teaches Tig Notaro to dap with the help of #AskAlexa. (video)

23. NYPD: It’s Not Racist When a Cop Calls You the N-Word.

24. Redemption After #MeToo? In related news, Comedy clubs that book Louis C.K. don’t care about their staff’s safety.

25. Photographer Helps Save Lives of Pit Bulls With Adorable Flower Crown Portraits.

26. 8 Must-Reads by Women Who Take on White Supremacy and Patriarchal Power.

27. Why Narcissists And Gaslighters Blatantly Lie — And Get Away With It.

28. ‘She’s Not My Type’: Accused Again of Sexual Assault, Trump Resorts to Old Insult on The New York Times. “E. Jean Carroll, a columnist for Elle magazine, said in a CNN interview on Monday that she fought back when Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room.”