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*
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.”
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.
“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) 