1. Morning walks. It was pretty cold some mornings, so a few weren’t as early, and with lots of snow and ice still on the ground, we had to reroute from our usual spots. Eric was gone for a few days this week, and walking with Ringo is always such a comfort.
Image by Eric
2. More snow. It’s almost all gone now, but it made me so happy while it was here.
3. Eric being back home. It was a sad, sad week. Eric’s mom had been in the hospital and his dad called on Monday to let him know there was nothing more they could do for her and they were talking about contacting hospice and sending her home. Eric flew out the next day and was able to spend the night with his mom at the hospital. The next morning, she died. She’d struggled with lung disease for years and this past one had been particularly difficult for her, so it wasn’t a complete surprise but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier. I’m so glad Eric made it there, and so glad he was able to help his dad with what came next. When you have a good one, no one loves you like your mom, no one gives you that exact same feeling of “home.” After 30+ years, she was my family too, and without her I wouldn’t have my little family, my home. It’s so weird, sad, and awful that I won’t ever get to see her again.
4. Practice. This was the first Friday morning in a while that everyone made it to our writing group. It was so nice to have everyone together again. I canceled my yoga class, as it was the morning after Patsy had died and I was too in my own feelings to hold space for other people.
5. My tiny family, small house, little life. When you lose someone, it makes you even more grateful for who is still here.
Bonus joy: getting in the pool, sitting in the sauna with Eric, the hydromassage chair, zooming with Chloe’, texting with Chris and Stacey, canceled plans, honey mustard pretzels, clean sheets, listening to podcasts, laundry, a warm mug of green tea, my weighted blanket, libraries and librarians, poets and poetry, watching TV, down blankets and pillows, soft merino wool shirts, headlamps, other people’s dogs and kids, people who leave their Christmas lights up and on all winter, the lights in Old Town, pizza, Japanese gardens, sharing reels with Carrie and Kari and Shellie, that my experience with my dad ended up helping Eric when the time came for him to experience something similar, the people who show up, the people who stay, my Shakti mat, blankets, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
4. KNOW WORRIES #10 – “A No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week” from Jonathan Edward Durham’s Substack. “I just want to nap and eat and cry and fight everyone all at the same time, and everything is awful and I hate it.” Same, Jonathan. Same.
7. Not giving upby Jenny Lawson. “Don’t let the world burn you to ashes. Protecting your fragile heart can be an act of rebellion. Don’t be afraid to love and laugh and find joy and silliness even in the hard times. Especially in the hard times.”
8. Against Motivation by Laura Van Den Berg. “Routine is a scrap of stability in an unstable world.”
12. I’ll Meet You in the Outfield. “An invitation to broaden our definition of resistance” from Sara Saltee. “In the outfield, we have to trust our guts, our intuitive knowing, our preoccupations and obsessions. We have to have faith that the story demanding to be told through us will find its way to the people who need it to keep their spirits alive. We have to trust that the songs or poems or images we create speak in a language that will someday fall like medicine on a far away broken heart.”
14. ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know. “Immigration enforcement doesn’t happen in isolation. When ICE agents stake out our neighborhoods, it affects everyone — the families living in fear, the businesses struggling to retain workers, the schools wondering why children are missing class, and the communities watching their social fabric fray. The grassroots response we saw in the first Trump administration shows that communities have the power to respond with humanity and practical solutions. As deportations ramp up again, we have a choice: We can watch as our neighbors disappear or we can build on these proven strategies to protect the diverse communities we’ve built together.”
17. On This Birthdayfrom Frederick Joseph. It’s his birthday and you can now preorder his new book — I just ordered my copy. “Perhaps that’s what writing is, in the end: a quiet rebellion against forgetting. An attempt to press the fleeting into permanence, to take a moment that once was and make it live again, if only on the page. In This Thing of Ours, I wrote my mother and grandmother into the spaces between the lines. Folded their laughter, their stubbornness, their love—complicated and messy and real—into the story. Not because I planned to, but because I had to.”
31. Reen Barrera’s Expressive ‘Ohlala’ Characters Evoke Emotions and Empowerment. “Sporting colorful garments and richly patterned faces, Reen Barrera’s doll sculptures evoke an expressive, make-believe world. Often dressed in striped tops and hand-stitched hoods with animalistic ears, his imaginative Ohlala characters represent the universality of human emotions while emphasizing every individual’s unique qualities.”
32. And finally, this collection of things I saved on my phone last week.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 