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1. The Roots of Things from Jami Attenberg. In related news, For this poet, working on her garden is exploring history, race and sustainability, (“Poet Camille Dungy made her lawn into an eco-friendly pollinator’s paradise of native plants. Her memoir links diversifying the landscape and diversifying the voices who write about the natural world”), and Blooming How She Must: A Profile of Camille T. Dungy, and Soil Book Review, (“In her radical and vibrant memoir, Camille Dungy plants poems next to critical analysis next to environmental history next to African American history”).

2. The PEN Ten, PEN America’s weekly interview series. 10 questions asked of one writer a week. “PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.”

3. Let Your Heart Be Broken. “We spend our lives trying to anchor our transience in some illusion of permanence and stability. We lay plans, we make vows, we backbone the flow of uncertainty with habits and routines that lull us with the comforting dream of predictability and control, only to find ourselves again and again bent at the knees with surrender to forces and events vastly larger than us. In those moments, kneeling in a pool of the unknown, the heart breaks open and allows life — life itself, not the simulacrum of life that comes from control — to rush in.”

4. What Thieves Are Not Interested In from Robert Jones, Jr.

5. Why the Bud Light boycott represents a new phase in anti-brand protests. “The boycott has quickly morphed into a promotional event for ‘anti-woke’ brands.”

6. Kindergarten children dropped seeds in the crack of the sidewalk to see what would happen.

7. The One You Feed | Practical Wisdom for a Better Life: How to Embrace Life’s Paradoxes with Rosemerry Wahtola-Trommer. (podcast)

8. The Best Things I’ve Done to Cope With Anxiety.

9. 7 Simple Ways to Be Kinder to Yourself.

10. Creating a Culture of Slow: 8 Ways to Transform the Pace of your Home.

11. Study Tests the Validity of Weight Loss Research Claims from Ragen Chastain.

12. Social Media Report Card: Time To ReSkeet the Blooski, Apparently? from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

13. An Unwitting Consumer Finds Himself Out of His Depth in the Stop-Motion Animation ‘Five Cents’.

14. The Banana Diaries: Easy Vegan Recipes.

15. Love the child you have from Jena Schwartz.

16. Creative Peptalk 407 – Hit Creative Block Waiting for All The Answers? Listen to This Chat with Poet Maggie Smith. (podcast) “In this episode we will explore a different way to approach creative work, that by its very nature allows for creating in the space where yourself still confused and Maggie also delivers a creative career prompt at the end that is very useful for finding new opportunities to do more of what you do best!”

17. How to Have the Fat Talk. “Virginia Sole-Smith on the War on Juice, How Puberty Got So Anti-Fat, and Parental Terror.”

18. How to Be a Mindful Bodhisattva on Lion’s Roar. “Mindfulness is more than just a meditation practice. Mindfulness is life, and life is love. That’s why it’s the whole path of the bodhisattva, says Zen teacher Norman Fischer.”

19. The truth of where you are now.

20. Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills.

21. “Swedish Death Cleaning” comes to life in new series. What is it?

22. Comedian Matt Rife on Not Being Hot and Wearing Socks With Flip-Flops. “The popular performer opens up about his international tour, stage style, biggest insecurities, and more.”

23. No, Really, I’m Awful. “In John Mulaney’s new Netflix special, Baby J, the comedian brilliantly destroys his likable persona.”

24. My Husband Asked for a Divorce After His Dementia Diagnosis.

25. Ceramic ‘Curiosity Clouds’ by Manifesto Celebrate the Natural World in Functional Organic Forms.

26. Absolutely stunning dresses and corsets inspired by butterfly wings, designed by Bibian Blue.

27. Proof of Life, a new album from Joy Oladokun. In related news, Fuse, the new album from Everything But The Girl.

1. Morning walks. It was strange to walk again in the early morning after a three week break. It’s already getting light when I get up so to be at the river to catch the sunrise means leaving almost as soon as I get out of bed, which meant for my first week back by the time we got to the water the sun was already most of the way up. It also rained a few times this week, made a lot of our normal trails too muddy to walk. It was also so green and the river fast and full of snow melt.

We saw a new baby cow at The Farm which was scared but also very curious about Ringo. We walked through the corridor where the owls are nesting but didn’t hear or see anything and I’m not sure exactly where the nest is so didn’t really know where to look. Further down the trail we saw a wild turkey WAY up in a tree, all by itself.

When we crossed to the other side of the river, there was a heron fishing for breakfast. Ringo gets very mad when he smells or sees a heron, so we couldn’t get too close.

We smelled a fox (they can be so musky they almost smell like a skunk) but all three of the dens we passed were quiet and possibly empty. There was a “committee” of vultures (I looked it up, and if they are gathered somewhere just sitting around, that’s what they are called) sitting in a tree next to the trail.

2. Healing. I am so happy with my progress, with all the things I was able to do this week and how good I’m feeling.

3. Health Insurance. I had met my yearly deductible so my surgery and all related costs were covered, which is a really good thing. I was curious so I looked up the bill and just my two night private room stay was $55,000!!! That doesn’t include the surgery or anesthesia or pathology or prescriptions or all the preoperative tests and procedures necessary. This makes me feel so lucky but it’s bittersweet considering all the people who don’t have good or even any health insurance or access to that sort of care, who’d have to go broke to have the surgery or have to “beg” for help by setting up a GoFundMe campaign, or have to decide they can’t have it at all because they can’t take the time off work or don’t have anyone to help them as they recover.

4. The opportunity to opt out. I’m thinking today in particular of social media. Because I was recovering and had a lot of down time, I found myself slipping into a real funk because I was spending too much time scrolling. To have the whole world in your face all the time like that really isn’t healthy. For the weekend, I deleted my Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit apps off my phone (I never put Twitter back on after a longer break over the summer), and am only going to be on Facebook briefly to collect and share links for this post and my list tomorrow. Sometimes it starts to become too habitual and I need to take a break, and thankfully I can easily do that.

5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. No place I’d rather be, no one I’d rather be with.

Bonus joy: texting with my Mom and Chris and Chloe’, all the Instagram reels Shellie sends, some of the flowers Mikalina sent me at the hospital still going, making art with Janice, clean sheets, a warm shower, pay day, spinach and artichoke dip, the hydromassage chair, the pool, sitting in the sauna with Eric, naps, good books, good TV and movies, listening to podcasts, a new notebook which means picking out a sticker for the front cover, stickers, good neighbors, muffins, green grapes, how soft the new grass is (Ringo says it tastes really good too), other people’s dogs, down pillows and blankets, a good pair of scissors, spatulas, green tea, peanut butter, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.