Category Archives: Something Good

Something Good

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1. Another day, another opportunity for a fresh start, to begin again.

2. “Where I’ve Been” blog posts. I can’t wait to try this.

3. The Pressure, a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr: Oh how I know this pressure, and want to discover what it might be like without it.

4. Gratitude Practice. Spending some time, every day, thinking about what you are grateful for, writing about it, or even saying “thank you” directly or publicly, is a path to contentment and joy. Here’s a freebie intended to help, “3 good things that happened today,” shared by way of a Scoutie Girl post, “art to inspire: the power of positivity.”

5. Slow down your writing from Kaspa at Writing Our Way Home. This is some really great advice, not just for writing Small Stones, but for writing practice in general.

6. Hannah Marcotti shared a list of some really good stuff to read, Beautiful faces. Magical Places. My favorite quote is from the post on Find Your Balance (because if you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know I struggle with finding balance):

When I say balance, I’m not saying, “Be like me.”
I’m saying, “Be more like you.”

7. I knew there was a reason I have been in love with Ray Bradbury’s work most of my life. His love of reading and writing is my own. He says:

Books are smart and brilliant and wise. Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.

8. How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love by Maria Popova. This is a really great list! And the blog where I found this post and the Ray Bradbury video, Brain Pickings, is really great too.

9. how to be original by Justine Musk. She is on fire lately. This post is all about the four qualities of a compelling creative voice.

10. 40 Days of Silence, a free ecourse from Erica Staab. I signed up for this and have been getting the daily emails. They are short but powerful, such good reminders! My favorite from this last week was a quote from an interview with John O’Donohue, (a really wonderful Irish poet, he wrote some of my favorite poems), which said “To return back into ourselves, there are three things needed”: stillness, silence, and solitude, and he explained why each was so essential.

11. A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted, a post by Erica Staab and a poem by John O’Donohue. I couldn’t stop crying when I read this, both Erica’s words and the poem. Erica said:

Tears sprang to my eyes as I thought how often we think we have the “wrong” answer. How often we are stuck in the thought that we should be anywhere else but where we are. How often we think that we are handling our grief, our children, our jobs, our friendships in the “wrong” way. And sometimes yes, things need to change, but more often than not it is only because we haven’t given ourselves the compassion and more objective look that we give to others.

12. Brene’ Brown’s latest TED talk, “Listening to Shame.”

13. If you never saw Brene’ Brown’s first TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” I highly recommend it. Judy Clement Wall wrote a post today on a Human Thing, “What I know,” about that first talk’s impact on her. While her details are different, I had the same experience of that first video. It changed my life, helped save my life, in about a million different ways. Judy said:

It changed everything for me. Not that day, or that week, or that month, but over the course of the almost-year since I watched it. It was the beginning of deep down, gut-wrenching honesty, first with myself and then with my husband. It was the beginning of true fearlessness, of love like a religion, of faith.

Amen.

14. The wreck and the raw of post retreat. Dear reader, I am in the thick of this. I went to the Boulder Shambhala Center this weekend (along with about 340 others, and 1500 who joined us in a live, online broadcast) and received a new practice from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche that broke my heart wide open, which always leaves me completely exhausted, but in this really beautiful way, feeling everything that it means to be alive–the good, the bad, and the ugly. So today, I am attempting to take John O’Donohue’s advice from A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted and be excessively gentle with myself.

Something Good

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It’s Monday, and even thought Daylight Savings Time is kicking my butt today, I can still think of good things to share. Here’s the list:

Being Elmo.

I just got done watching this movie (it’s available on Netlix streaming), and it’s every bit as wonderful as everyone said it was. I teared up many times just from nostalgia: Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, the Muppet Show, Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth.

image by tiffany terry

I love Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo, and his story. He knew at nine, when he first saw Sesame Street, that he wanted to be a puppeteer. He started making his own puppets and putting on shows, but was teased by other kids for “playing with dolls.” His brother, George, said “He’d faced a lot of opposition, but he just stuck with his dream, and he went for what he truly believed in his heart.” Kevin says:

There will always be someone saying to you that you might not succeed with it, you might not make any money with that. There’s always going to be some type of obstacle in the way. All of those things will go away if you really focus on what makes you happy.

When developing the character of Elmo in 1984, after many other puppeteers abandoned him, Kevin says “I knew that Elmo should represent love.” Oh, and he does! I was already in high school when Kevin’s version of Elmo appeared, not the target audience at all, but I loved him so much, still do.

Sam’s Two Year Anniversary.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the day we brought Sam home from Animal House Rescue. This picture is from that first afternoon. He can’t fit in my lap anymore.

“We’re Getting Another Dog” This I Believe Essay by Jeanne.

The reason we have Sam is because we lost Obi. Two other really great dogs passed on this week, Strauss and Jane, and a few others are struggling. I reread Jeanne’s essay from time to time, because she reminds me that:

I believe that getting another dog is a physical act of pure hope and resilience. It’s a statement that I can and will bounce back from the worst of it.

Getting another dog is believing in life and the real meaning of it. I can’t think of any other decision I have made in my lifetime in the name of love with such an inevitably painful outcome.

Getting another dog is an act of unconditional optimism. It’s seeing the goodness and being grateful for all the blessings.

Knowing this simple truth makes me appreciate all I have at this moment and makes it easier to face all the inevitable grief that is part of life.

Amen.

Sleeping Dogs.

Let them lie, because I’m not sure if there’s anything cuter.

Unless it’s a sleeping baby bunny.

Dogs Have Nightmares Too

You know how sometimes my Something Good posts are mostly about amazing women? Clearly today’s list is all about dogs. Saturday night, Dexter woke himself up from a dream and started barking. He was sleeping in the living room, so I went out to check on him. He still wasn’t quite awake and when I first came around the corner, he barked at me, and then immediately realized his mistake, lowered his head and started to wag his tail. His hair was standing up all the way down his back and after I pet him for a bit, telling him everything was okay, he followed me back to the bedroom and asked if he could sleep with us, just like a little kid who’d had a nightmare. I loved it, because he hardly ever sleeps in the big bed with us anymore, and I miss cuddling to sleep with him.

Handmade Root Beer.

My great aunt Magdeline used to make this for us. There’d be rows of dark bottles lined up in her dirt cellar, and it was so tasty. I had some yesterday at Coopersmith’s that wasn’t as good as that (how could it be?), but it reminded me how good it can be.

“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye.

I love a good heartbreak song, and I’m really digging this one.

Sharing Appreciation, Kindness, and Love.

I’ve been on the giving and receiving end this week, and there’s just nothing better (other than sleeping dogs and bunnies, just to review). Kate Courageous posted on her Facebook page today “Someone left a note on my car that my bumper stickers ‘made their day.’ The fact that they left a note made MY day. #kindness.” This is how it works, you tell someone something kind, and they soften and feel the love, maybe even send some appreciation back your way, and you feel good having made them feel good, and it’s all good. We should do more of this.