jillsalahub

1. Poetry: The Peach by James Crews on The Weekly Pause, In the Airport I Wonder about Enough and Perspective and After a Day in the Garden by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and Things I Did Not Google Today and Such Suffering and Niksen by Julie Barton.

2. Our Last Conversation Was A Song, “What Andrea left me on their way out of this world” from Megan Falley, song by Andrea Gibson.

3. Drawing Is A Relief. “When I’m overwhelmed, I reach for pen and paper” on CartoonCoonie Comics Blog by Connie Sun.

4. The Goodbye Line, “a public art project that invites people to say the goodbyes they never got to say.” You can listen to some messages on their Instagram page.

5. Mini 1000, hosted by Jamie Attenberg. “And a lot can be accomplished in three days. You can experiment with something you’ve been meaning to try for a while. Maybe you’ll be able to push yourself across that finish line at last. Or you can even just check in with yourself in a personal way by regularly journaling each day—I find this a refreshing way to use my time during these writing spurts. And I like to look at all that I’ve accomplished over the past few months and make plans for the future. Whatever you use it for, I truly believe this will be a great way to insert some momentum into our projects during those hazy August days.”

6. This line from Anna Guest-Jelley‘s recent newsletter: “It’s easy to not just push your yoga practice to the back burner right now but to forget you have a body entirely.” *sigh*

7. “How Can I Write At A Time Like This?” Some thoughts on writing at a time like this from Alexander Chee.

8. You Must Learn One Thing. “What might be today’s answer to this inquiry for you?” from Erin Geesaman Rabke.

9. How to prioritize better mental health. “Experiment with these 9 suggestions and trust yourself to know what works best for you.” from Courtney Carver on Little Saturday — “I created this space, Little Saturday, as your cozy corner of the internet, to share what I’ve learned (and what I’m still learning) about living a gentle, simple, beautifully slow (joyful) life, and to help you do the same.”

10. Families in Gaza Are Starving. What Can We Do?

11. 6 Things People Do Differently In Finland, The Happiest Country In The World.

12. 7 Wake-up Calls You Can’t Ignore Anymore from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

13. What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom. “Piers Gelly on a Semester-Long Dive into the AI Discourse.”

14. marie howe + sleep + kitchen + garden + guitar + love + ocean = Attempts at Staying Sane at This Moment in Time by Elissa Altman.

15. An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days by Maria Popova.

16. “I don’t know how to make other people care…” On lamentations (of powerlessness, of isolation, of overwhelm) from Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.

17. Society Makes Caregiving Harder Than It Has to Be, “With apologies to my late husband” from Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

18. Permission To Write About Your Family. “Permission to write about anything in your life, really” from Jami Attenberg.

19. How to love people, a partial list by Jen Lemen.

20. The transformative power of keeping a daily journal.

21. The Complete Epiphanies by Brian Doyle. “A blog about the stories that nourish and sustain us, and the small miracles of everyday life.”

22. Tim Dowling: the old dog snorted with delight – and then she was gone. “Our short stay in the country ended in heartbreak. If there’s a best way for an animal to die, I can’t say I’ve found it.”

23. Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig Go from The L Word to Authors. “Real-life besties Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig sit down with Janelle Beck to discuss their joint memoir So Gay for You, which is a New York Times bestseller—and the phenomenon that was the groundbreaking and yet to be equaled show The L Word, which ushered in a new era of lesbian visibility.”

24. And finally, this collection of things I saved to my phone this week.

1. Morning walks. Even though we’ve got more heat ahead, there’s a subtle shift you can feel when we start to move towards fall — my favorite season in Colorado.

2. Healthcare. I had to go to urgent care this week for a dumb uti, and even though that sounds like complaining and I had to cancel my yoga class because it left me feeling yucky and grumpy and that’s not a good place to teach from, I feel so lucky that I have access, can go to a location close by without much of a wait (because you can get online and make an appointment) and get a test whose results come back right away and I get the medicine I need and everyone is very helpful from the front desk person to the pharmacist and I’m back home and feeling better in no time at all. It’s kind of a miracle. I’m also grateful for the care my mom is getting and in particular the care my cousin, who is in the hospital with a broken stressed out heart, is getting. I wish that every person who needed it could get it, that they could get in where they need to and be seen by who can help and never had to chose to not go because of the cost or time off work or the fact that a system is overwhelmed by the need and unable to meet it. I wish that those who have the most power over the financing and access were devoted to caring for ALL the people, regardless of their circumstances or need.

3. Hummingbirds. We have a much bigger population this summer. Typically they congregate about half a mile from here, but we’ve been hearing and seeing a bunch in our backyard this summer, in the morning and the evening mostly, and we aren’t even feeding them, unless there are some flowers in front they like. Hummingbirds always make me think of this essay by Brian Doyle, Joyas Voladoras. I’m currently finishing a collection of essays he knew was being put together but didn’t live to see published, One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder. It’s SO good.

4. Peach and corn season. Yum. Eric made me a peach tart. I think it’s my favorite of all the pie he makes, although his apple and strawberry cream are delicious too.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I’ve run out of new ways to say it and I know it might be boring or even irritating to hear it week after week, but I love it here, with them. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and experienced a lot of really hard things, but this…this I got right.

Bonus joy: my Friday morning writing sangha, bird feeders, afternoon storms, streaming on demand content, watching good TV, listening to podcasts, finding new music, making myself mix tapes, listening to my favorite songs on repeat, a plain cheese pizza, family group texts, therapy, acupuncture, massage, down blankets and pillows, being able to check out books from the library for my Kindle without ever leaving the house, being able to keep those books past their due date without keeping them from other borrowers by changing my Kindle to airplane mode (best life hack ever), libraries and librarians, poets and poetry, comedy and comedians, music and musicians, cheese, the way when you cut up a peach or peel an orange that smell stays on your hands even sometimes after you wash them, a warm shower, clean laundry, clean sheets, being able to see the sun come up, other people’s dogs and kids and gardens, the smell and warm breath of horses, the way cats purr and make biscuits, the way a dog will circle around before resting and as soon as they land they sigh, the river, the sound of the ocean, texting with Chris and Chloe’, sharing reels with Carrie and Shellie and Kari, reading Julie’s poems, naps, reading on my Kindle in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.