1. Flowers. Especially this time of year when my garden is hibernating. One of my not so secret dreams is to turn our garden, front and back, into a tiny flower farm. Places like Floret Flower Farm are so dreamy — fields of flowers covered in bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds.
2. Good food. The nice thing about cooking a special seasonal meal for just the two of us is we have food for the next three days, don’t have to worry about cooking and get to eat some of our favorite things, like apple pie and stuffing. I made bran muffins with dried raspberries this morning, which are one of Ringo’s favorites.
3. Four day weekend. In particular, one like this where not only does Eric get to be home from work, but those last four days of his break, there’s NOTHING on our schedule, nothing extra that has to be done.
4. Good content. Books, magazines, TV, films, podcasts, music, comedy, and art. And I’m also grateful for all the makers.
5. Morning walk. It looks so different out there now, full winter.
6. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. I am so lucky, so grateful.
Bonus joy: lots of naps, drinking green tea in the morning in the dark while sitting in my practice room, my aunt’s quilts (a long time ago, on a completely different website, I did a tour of my house and all the quilts of hers I have — I need to do that again), watching true crime with Eric, being retired, writing in the morning with a cup of coffee, a warm shower, grapefruit bubbly water, raspberries, apple pie oatmeal (one part oatmeal, one part apple pie), poetry, blankets (in this regard, I may have a problem, kind of like I have with books — there can never be enough!), birds in the feeder, dreaming about Sam, all the things Ringo does that drive me crazy but also mean he’s happy and healthy, walking with Eric and Ringo at City Park, hanging out and making art with Mikalina, texting with my brother, neighbors putting up their Christmas lights and decorations, the hydromassage chair, the pool, sitting in the sauna with Eric and Janice, making art with Janice, training with Shelby and the gang (which one day this week included Eric), realizing I’m getting physically stronger, dog rescue, snow tires, a washer and dryer inside my own house, hot water right out of the tap, sunshine, electricity, the internet, clean water, kitchen towels, blank journals, purple highlighters, baby chickens, snail mail, yoga, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
Rebecca Solnit said of the recent shooting in Colorado Springs that it was “both the act of an individual and the culmination of a broad campaign of hate, lies, and othering.”
And also worth considering, from Rabbi Abraham Heschel: “there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
2. Quitting Can Be Fun. “I’m still on social media. But years ago, before I was sober or had an idea that alcohol was bad for me, I realized Facebook was bad for me. So I stopped. And today I stopped being on Twitter, too.”
11. Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. “Poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado.”
14. What Does Rest Look Like in a Climate Crisis?“Minimum Viable Planet is a weeklyish newsletter about climateish stuff, and how to keep it together in a world gone mad. This week, we look into the restless mind, kept awake by the climate crisis.”
16. You’re Allowed To Be Ready To Heal And Restfrom Morgan Harper Nichols. “In whatever way you have had to learn to be resilient in your life, I hope that you can find room to also nurture the parts of you that need care. You are not frail for needing rest, and you are not selfish for taking time to fill yourself up. There is nothing wrong with craving a steady pace that doesn’t call for constant resilience.”
22. The Visions of Octavia Butleron The New York Times. “As a science fiction writer, Butler forged a new path and envisioned bold possibilities. On the eve of a major revival of her work, this is the story of how she came to see a future that is now our present.” Seriously, go now and read everything she’s ever written — so good.
24. Healing Hurts, a new EP from BLÜ EYES. You can also listen to most of the tracks and her other music on her YouTube channel.
25. Listen to Maya Stein’s latest 10-Line Tuesday poem, in praise of i don’t know. I love the final lines: “But look how, against the late season light, a filmy beauty descends, nearly silencing the clamor of what pulls at our sleeves to solve. What if we could let ourselves rest for a little while in this halo of I don’t know, feel its soft touch against our urgent skin. What if the thing in our hands, and every fractured remainder, is its own answer. What if leaning into the wobbly shapes of our lives is another kind of sweetness and gold.”
26. Wisdom from L.R. Knost: “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
30. How to Be Bored, and What You Can Learn From Iton The New York Times. “Figuring out the root cause of our lack of inspiration can help us make better choices in how we spend our time, experts say.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 