1. Poetry: After the Loss and What Comes Next and Some of the Stories from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, You-Shaped Hole by Tara Mohr, Portals by Alix Klingenberg, Los Vecinos by Alison Luterman, Focus and In Therapy from Julie Barton, Hellifino by Todd Wynn (by way of a link Julie Barton shared), and Kintsugi Again and Keep Reaching from James Crews (can’t wait for his new book), this is for the addicts who never got a love letter, only lectures by christopher sexton, Inside the Mind of a Master Writer — David Whyte (a video interview), and Come Back to Me As Lightning, “Faith, Doubt, and How Andrea Still Leaves Me Love Notes” from Megan Falley.

2. Follow the journey of a Palisade peach from Rocky Mountain PBS. Final destination: my belly!

3. Letting the salty flood wash over me, “And finding a way to a better kind of hard” by Rita Ott Ramstad on Rootsie.

4. Good stuff from Seth Godin: After the chores, Contagious emotions, and Scarcity and abundance. 

5. Are you mad at me? “For those who have kept the peace, but lost themselves” from Meg Josephson. I’m reading her new book, Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You, and it’s SO good.

6. From problems to progress: five ways to focus on solutions, not just struggles. “When you’re stuck in a rut, moving forward can feel impossible. Here are five ways to try to progress through struggles.”

7. You can’t tell when strange things with meaning will happen from Patti Digh. “All you can do is be ready—or at least be willing to be interrupted. Willing to be shifted. Willing to say: I don’t know what this means, but I’m listening.”

8. What’s your best travel tip?, a collection from Austin Kleon.

9. Beloved Bother. “A typo in my great-uncle’s obituary held the key to understanding him.”

10. Gardens of Possibility, a curated list of fifteen stories from Orion. In related news, The Unexpected Benefits of Starting a Small-Scale Dahlia Operation.

11. After The Bomb. “Survivors of the Atomic Blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki share their stories.” In related news, Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima photo archive.

12. How to Stress Less and Calm Your Life: What You Haven’t Tried Yet from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

13. He Announced His Intention to Die. The Dinner Invitations Rolled In. on The New York Times. (gift link) “On Instagram, the artist Joseph Awuah-Darko asked the world to invite him to dinner before he ended his life. More than 150 meals later, he is still going.” In related news, offered as a counterpoint: This Influencer Told an Incredible Story about his Impending Death by Euthanasia. But How Does This Effect his Followers? “Joseph Awuah-Darko gained hundreds of thousands of followers, money, and dinner invitations after sharing his euthanasia plan on Instagram. But there are holes in his story. And what are the consequences of his posts for followers who are struggling with their mental health?”

14. I thought we’d entered the age of body positivity. Then came ‘shrinking girl summer’ – is everyone getting smaller except me? “It’s been the year of weight-loss drugs, with celebrities seemingly disappearing before our eyes. For those of us left behind, it’s both a torment and a temptation. Spoiler alert: I tried the jabs, too.”

15. Terracotta and Gold Figures by Vipoo Srivilasa Conjure Joy and the Divine. His Instagram page is really fun too. I especially love this figure.

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

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.