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.
Image by Eric (there were three babies)
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.
“It was 2021, and for some reason, I stumbled upon Button Poetry’s website and found Andrea Gibson. I ordered four copies of You Better Be Lightning and waited for them to arrive. I knew I would give one copy to my brother-in-law and keep one for myself. The other two copies would find homes with friends. I didn’t know anything about Andrea at that time, and while I waited for the books to arrive, I did a deep dive into their stories, writings, life, and journey. I was obsessed. I resonate with people who navigate life with such heart and truth. Such rawness and care. Such connection with the more-than-human world. Such wisdom. Since 2021, I followed their journey through newsletters, interviews, and on social media. I watched their squirrel videos. I listened to their voice share about the Earth. I read about magical pumpkins that unexpectedly grew. I soaked in as much of their medicine as I could.
As most of you know, Andrea transitioned on July 14th, just a little more than a month shy of their 50th birthday. I will turn fifty in August, just as they would have, but life and death had other plans for Andrea. In the wake of their transition, their life has come alive in a different way through the innumerable shares everywhere about their life and work, about their way of living and dying. So much of what they have left us with is about loving life—the ugly and beautiful unexpected things. The wonder. The mystery. The web of connection.
So maybe when we die, and leave our bodies in physical form, we don’t lose everything we’ve had; maybe our lives expand. Maybe our relationship with everything we’ve ever loved deepens. Maybe.”
6. Quietly Wild, Alix Klingenberg’s new poetry collection is available for preorder. I love what she has to say about writing a poetry collection in these current challenging times, one that is “about the importance of the natural world and the rhythms of the seasons.” She says it “feels like an act of resistance and hope right now, even as it feels a bit like sounding an alarm on a kazoo in a maelstrom of trumpets.”
7. Instructions for Living a Life on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. “A Japanese hardware store, a fistful of pens, and a new way of seeing.”
14. Little Truths Studio. I ADORE everything she makes, but the STICKERS?! Love.
15. Never Stop Learning, “A comic about my relationship to climbing (and making art)” from Connie Sun.
16. Journaler’s Routine No. 4: Debbie Millman. “I realized these weren’t just diary entries. They were witnesses to living and persevering.” On The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.
17. Every Feeling Fully Felt, “Fifteen hours driving, two blissful days, one wondrous life” from Jena Schwartz.
20. A Cup of Soft Fruit, “On the joy of articulating grief” from Satya Robyn.
21. Alchemizing Evil from Julie Colwell. “Repeatedly applying these processes will alchemize the human instinct to blame – the real demon – into the gold of realignment to one’s truth and discovery of the next creative action. As we do this collectively, we have an unprecedented opportunity to shift this time from one of recycling through our worst human tendencies, to creating a new world of heart, vulnerability, and heaven on earth.”
22. the parting glass, “Coming clean on coming clean” from Elissa Altman.
26. Unbecoming from Jenny Lawson. “This week’s doodle is dedicated to everyone who is still figuring out who they are, instead of being who the world insists that you should be.”
28. Emerging Form Episode 143: Shelley Read on Becoming a Novelist in Midlife. “In this conversation, Shelley shares with us how her journey from poet and non-fiction writer shifted into fiction with a single moment of observation and wonder. She shares with us how she crafts scenes, her penchant for playing with language, why she didn’t share with anyone about what she was doing for many years, how a love affair with her main character drove the whole novel, and what she has learned about her own creative process along the way.”
29. The Age of Incarceration. Reflections from the last survivors, reporting and visuals by Morgan Lieberman, and calligraphy by Chiyo Sanada. “During World War II, the U.S. government invoked the Alien Enemies Act, ultimately incarcerating more than 125,000 people of Japanese descent — including many American citizens. The act uprooted and split families, causing them to abandon their homes, businesses, and communities. It has been 80 years since the war ended and they were released. In these testimonies, nine of the last survivors of Japanese American incarceration reflect on their stolen youth and how this injustice impacted the rest of their lives.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 