1. Morning walks. The rabbitbrush is starting to bloom, a definite sign of fall. We saw our owl friend again and watched a heron catching some breakfast.
RabbitbrushImage by Eric
2. Texting. As a highly sensitive introvert who likes to stay home and doesn’t like to talk on the phone and whose best friends are also introverted and family lives 1200 miles away, it literally is a lifeline to be able to communicate through text.
3. The turn towards fall. It’s just beginning here, the summer fading and turning to fall — my favorite Colorado season.
4. Reading. Although it never stopped, never truly left me, my relationship with books and reading has returned to a level of joy it hasn’t been in some time, and I am loving it.
“Can I haz some?”
5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. Lately Ringo has been reminding me so much of Dexter — the way he gets a toy and brings it to me, the way he comes into my office when I’m writing and naps on the floor next to me, the way he lounges on the step of the back patio in the morning, the way he rolls in the grass of our backyard. Having three dogs gone — one just before he turned eight, one right after he turned ten, and one at ten and a half — makes this time of Ringo’s life (he’ll be nine in November) very tender. I hope he lives to be an old dog, but the knowing that no matter how old, it will still be too soon makes me think of what Jeff Foster said, “Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.”
Bonus joy: hanging out with Calyx, watching good TV and movies, listening to podcasts, writing at my desk in the morning with a cup of coffee, protein bars for when I just can’t manage to cook or make something but I need to feed myself, my compression gloves and thc/cbd creme and hand massager, the hydromassage chair, the pool, the sauna, being able to cry, a big glass of cold clean water, massage, a warm shower, clean sheets, clean laundry, having enough, having a “support team” of various wellness professionals, computer glasses, other people’s dogs, flowers, honey bees, antihistamines, trees, the river, the Pacific ocean, bats, sunrise/sunset, stars, naps, reading in bed while Eric and Ringo sleep.
2. 10 ways to have a better conversation, from TEDx. “When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations — and that most of us don’t converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. ‘Go out, talk to people, listen to people,’ she says. ‘And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed.'” In what seems like related news from Seth Godin, Naysayers (and the grifters).
3. Wisdom from David Whyte: “We often hate ourselves for our procrastination, when it is often only the deeply disguised need to rest deeply enough to reconstitute and reimagine our approach.” In related news, wisdom from Traci Skuce, “Procrastination is not laziness. It’s often your nervous system’s reaction to OVERWHELM.”
4. A Tall Glass of Anxietyon Instagram. “Stuffed Animal/Puppet Restoration, Mending Fabric and Hearts.” This video is how I first found her work.
7. Melissa & Doug co-founder opens up about her secret struggleon CBS Sunday Morning. “Despite the trappings of success, Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of the iconic toy company, Melissa & Doug, still experienced a lifelong depression. Now she’s created a mental health hub LifeLines to help others.”
17. Wilderness First Aid: Colorado, a really cool course that I need to take which “includes the live or recorded session, exam, three-year certification, and 40+ hours of wilderness medicine podcasts,” all for only $35!
18. How to Fall Out of Love With Your Lawnon The New York Times. “In this video essay we argue that it’s time to kill your lawn, not just to save the planet, but for your own health and sanity too. And while the idea of euthanizing such a beloved member of the family might seem harsh, we show the alternatives that could make the loss more bearable.”
19. Extra-special: Ryan O’Connell’s ‘Just By Looking At Him.’“2022 has been a triumphant year for Ryan O’Connell. The gay writer/actor/director/disability advocate is not only one of the stars of Peacock’s reimagining of ‘Queer as Folk,’ but he wrote the best episode of the series, ‘F—Disabled People,’ which featured a disabled sex party orgy or crip rave. Now he’s penned his debut novel, scoring another home run.”
20. Subverting a Preppy Classicon The New York Times. “Customized L.L. Bean tote bags have become blank canvases for a contemporary sense of humor.”
21. People shared the important lessons of the pandemic. Here are 21 of the most cathartic. “It changed how we worked, socialized and saw humanity.” Some of these are really good, but #14 is petty af, implying that while parents were home with their kids during the pandemic, they had “time off” with their kids and should have been teaching them all the things so the kids were more “advanced” when they returned. Um, that’s not how it worked, in particular for working parents who were still actively working.
22. Jo Koy on Comedy They Told Him Wouldn’t Workon The New York Times. “The standup’s breakthrough film, ‘Easter Sunday,’ focuses on Filipino family themes dear to him, especially after naysayers said audiences couldn’t relate.” If going to a movie theater were a thing I still did, I’d want to see his new flick.
23. Mark Manson, the Self-Help Guru Who Burned Outon New York Magazine. “Mark Manson sold 12 million copies of his self-help hit, ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.’ Then he started taking his own advice.”
29. Two Years from Anne Helen Petersen on Culture Study. I love how she talks about her work and the community that’s formed around it, and I ADORE this sentiment in particular, “You all help me see the stars as constellations, to continue to seek meaning and narrative amidst that vast, swallowing unknown.” Also from Anne, Inside the Complex “Social Lab” of PE Class: An interview with Sherri Spelic.
30. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön, “The innocent mistake that keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and shut-downness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead, there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent, naive misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.”
32. What is Mutual Aid?“While folks from neighborhoods that have faced social and environmental injustices or climate disasters may already be quite familiar with mutual aid, for some of us, this is a new term.”
33. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: May You Be Safe (“As Barbara Gates struggles to protect her adventurous dog Tony from danger, she contemplates the deep aspiration at the heart of loving-kindness practice—may all beings be safe and protected—and wonders what real safety means in this world”) and All Alone or One With Everything? (“Are we all alone in this world or at one with everything? Nick Walser shines a spotlight on the paradoxical nature of loneliness”).
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 