1. Fall color. There’s all kinds of talk this time of year about going up into the mountains to see the aspens turn colors, and I agree, they are gorgeous. And yet, I don’t feel the need to travel to see the beautiful color because the cottonwoods and ash trees right in my own neighborhood are glorious.
2. Morning walks. I took so many pictures this week that I’m only sharing my most favorite ones here, and it’s still about 100 pictures. It’s just so pretty out right now. It has been taking Ringo and I two hours to walk the same routes that were taking an hour and a half because I stop so much. He doesn’t seem to mind, as long as I don’t make him be in the picture all the time.
3. The internet. When it works, the access it gives me is essential, especially as a highly sensitive introvert who spends a lot of time alone, a lot of time at home, communicates more effectively through writing, and dislikes talking on the phone. I recognize that it is also fraught with a tinge of the awful too, as those with bad intentions have the same access I do, but I’d say it’s mostly good and I am grateful for it.
4. Flowers. This has been a lifelong love of mine, (maybe an obsession?). I didn’t have many in the house over the summer, which is unusual for me, so I was so happy Eric brought some home for me this week.
5. My tiny family, tiny house, tiny life. I feel a bit like I’ve earned but also just lucky and so grateful.
Bonus joy: constant streaming access to all the content (TV, movies, videos, pictures, music, books, articles, yoga classes, guided meditations, and podcasts), other people’s dogs, other people’s kids and babies, strawberries, green tea, hanging out with Mikalina, texting with Chloe’, writing with my Wild Writing group, meeting new people, the hydromassage chair, the pool, the sauna, small group training with Shelby and the gang, making each other laugh, playing the same song on repeat because I love it so much, that corner of the couch, hoodies and wool socks, down pillows and blankets, my weighted blanket, cuddling with Ringo, “singing” with Ringo, clean sheets, laundry, grocery shopping, being able to rest, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.
7. Brute Forcefrom Summer Brennan, because this, “writing, especially something like a book, takes actual physical stamina. It is not some delicate thing that happens up in the mind and nowhere else. It requires actual brute force. Brute force. The brute force of writing a book. Anyone who has written a halfway decent book knows this, but it is good to be reminded.”
8. Fifty Years of Song on the Smarty Pants Podcast. “Joy Harjo celebrates her life in poetry.”
11. A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolouson The New York Times, an interview with cartoonist Lynda Barry — “when it comes to self-expression, to making art, it’s fair to say that she’s an expert. But in many ways, not nearly as much of an expert as your average little kid, which is something Barry has been thinking about a lot lately. ‘Adults think that kids playing is some nothing thing,’ she says. ‘But play is a different state of mind, and it can help us do so many things if we just allow ourselves to get back to it.'”
13. Stamps & Stamps design portfolio. In general I’m a bit sloppy and lazy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate and aspire to this sort of beautiful design.
17. ‘Grey rocking’ – how to bore a toxic narcissist out of your life. “Psychologists have suggested imagining yourself as an impenetrable grey rock when confronted with overbearing and manipulative people. The trick is to appear as uninterested, and uninteresting, as humanly possible.”
18. Medical Care Alone Won’t Halt the Spread of Diabetes, Scientists Sayon The New York Times. “Researchers who study Type 2 diabetes have reached a stark conclusion: There is no device, no drug powerful enough to counter the effects of poverty, pollution, stress, a broken food system, cities that are hard to navigate on foot and inequitable access to health care, particularly in minority communities.” Amen.
19. Wisdom from bell hooks: “I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.”
21. For Her Swan Song, Linda Ronstadt Turns to Recipeson The New York Times. “In ‘Feels Like Home,’ the singer, her voice taken by a form of Parkinson’s, tells her story through the border dishes of her Arizona youth.”
22. Recipe I want to try: focaccia onion board, “The pletzel is an Eastern European savory flatbread smothered in onions and poppy seeds with a chew similar to focaccia, but usually thinner and more crisp.”
27. Spirit Rangers | Official Trailer. Now streaming on Netflix, “Native American siblings and Junior Park Rangers Kodi, Summer and Eddy have a secret — they’re ‘Spirit Rangers’ who can transform into their own super-powered spirits to help protect the national park that they call home!”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 