1. Poetry: I Tell My Friends Overseas That Living in the U.S. Right Now Is Like Playing Whack a Mole at Gunpoint by Abby E. Murray and Primer by Jessica Jacobs and El Paso East by Mary Fontana on Rattle, It’s My 53rd Birthday and Three Kingfisher Day by Julie Barton, how it works by Maya Stein, Rain by Kazim Ali, Kotodama and Hidden Branch by James Crews, Letter to the Man with a Beard Down the Beach and The Choosing and For Your Birthday by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, I Have to Write the Book You’ll Burn by Vievee Francis on poets.org, Crossing the Line by E. Ethelbert Miller on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, Sabbaths 1998, VII by Wendell Berry on Heart Poems, and Hokkaido by Kit Fan shared by Patti Digh.
2. Comedy wildlife photography award finalists 2026.
3. Trying to Love the Whole World from The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. “Jenny Browne on love as care, grief, and witness.”
4. I hear you are leaving soon, the origin story of a gorgeous new piece of art from Britchida.
4. What sort of fuel? by Seth Godin.
5. My 33-Item Wardrobe Experiment 16 years Later by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.
6. Before we leave the garden gate, “on longing to begin” by Alix on Earth & Verse.
7. The last thing I will say about Francis Weller. In related news, Accountability Beyond Banishment (“Navigating Abuse of Power, Harm, and Betrayal”), and A Statement of Clarification Regarding My Disclosure About Francis Weller, and When Trust is Broken: Grief, Power, Betrayal, and Accountability, and One Of My Favorite Spiritual Teachers, Francis Weller, Abused His Power Sexually. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to face is that wisdom teachers can disappoint us. And in other related news is this by Erin Geesaman Rabke, because even if she isn’t talking about the same topic (but I kind of think she is), it’s worth reading in tandem with all the other posts: Not Knowing “is the most intimate (and also sometimes quite uncomfortable).”
8. The Phone Addiction Loop, & How to Break It by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits.
10. Are Micro Social Interactions the Antidote to Loneliness?
11. How To Make Something Happen, “Plot and the Bad Decision Olympics” by Alexander Chee.
12. Losing My Religion by Elissa Altman on Poor Man’s Feast.
13. Object-ives #54: Left Holding All the Marbles, “a collection of my family history” by Michele Peters on Open Secrets Magazine.
14. I am a resting beast by Patti Digh.
15. Making Friends In Your 40’s by Ijeoma Oluo. “I’m getting better at it.”
16. On Productive Struggle by Jena Schwartz. “On Jane Doe and being a child of the 80s and not being able to fix anything.”
17. 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century on The New York Times. (gift link)
18. This American Life 897: Intergenerational Space Travel Prologue. “Last fall, some NPR podcasts started getting mysterious comments on Spotify. They made no sense to the staff reading them – until someone from a younger generation cracked the code.”
19. Just in case from Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project. “Sometimes our things end up in the lost and found.”
20. Free Phone & Desktop Calendar Wallpapers from Audrey Kuether on her Oh So Lovely blog. At the beginning of every new month, one of my favorite things to do is pick a new calendar wallpaper for my desktop computer from Audrey’s collection.
21. A Full Life and an Unhealed Heart, at the Same Time, Indefinitely by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. “On grief that doesn’t resolve, gratitude that doesn’t cancel out the wanting, and learning to live with a permanent roommate.”
22. Charlotte’s Web Revisited by Ira Sukrungruang on Short Reads. “This lovely world, these precious days.”
23. Not nothing: from Kilauea to Cornell, “and why we have to enter the story earlier” by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.
24. Beyond ‘good men’ by Garrett Bucks on The White Pages. “On Cornell, and why the same old question isn’t helping.”
25. A writer who can’t write, “a collection of now” by Lisa Olivera on Human Stuff.
26. How We Are Combatting the Literacy Crisis, more good work from Frederick Joseph. This time it is donating books to educators to provide more access for young people to combat the literacy crisis. I gave in honor of my mom, who loved books and wanted that particular access, education and joy to belong to every kid.
27. Little Free Library World Map.
28. And finally, this random collection of things I saved to my phone this week.
