1. How people across the U.S. are making the most of the solar eclipse.

2. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Medicine of Surrender. In related news, another poem from Rosemerry, When It Looks Like the End.

3. A Glimpse At Nature: 41 Award-Winning Shots From WNP Awards 2024. In related news, Regional winners announced in the 2024 World Press Photo Contest.

4. Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan: Anthony Ray Hinton. “Anthony Ray Hinton spent nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row for a crime he did not commit. When acclaimed civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson was assigned his case, they spent 16 years fighting before winning a unanimous reversal of his case in the United States Supreme Court. Anthony shares the important lessons of compassion and friendship he learned in the midst of great injustice.”

5. Who were the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza?

6. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph Just Want You to Like Them on The New York Times. (gift link) “Good friends and ‘Saturday Night Live’ alumnae, the actresses are each headlining an Apple TV+ comedy of wealth and status.”

7. Ball pits and bodacious pigs: my week in search of happiness and wonder. “I don’t want to be cynical or pessimistic, but it’s difficult in such gloomy times. Can I find a way to tap into my playful side?”

8. The Perfect Green Lawn Is the American Dream. But It Shouldn’t Be from Outside. “Four easy things you can do to rewild your space and support climate-critical biodiversity.”

9. Addiction, Motherhood, and Jesus with writer Anne Lamott on the TED Radio Hour. “Writer Anne Lamott has garnered a cult following with her shockingly honest prose on love, death, faith, writing and more. This hour, her wisdom from a career that has spanned 20 books and 40 years.”

10. The tropical resort providing world-class dementia care | 60 Minutes Australia. (video)

11. I Agreed To Meet My Ex-Husband’s 2 Other Ex-Wives. I Did Not Expect That Decision To Change My Life.

12. Building from Within. (Facebook reel) “A Dallas neighborhood couldn’t attract a major grocery store. So a community church started its own.”

13. Stay. Stay. Stay. from Jenny Lawson.

14. What if We Already Loved You? from Laurie Wagner.

15. Podcasts from Upaya Zen Center: Being Awake (“Sharon Salzberg reflects on her early life experiences of feeling fragmented and lacking a sense of coherence, values, and belonging. She discusses the concept of integration symbolized by the Buddha and uses the metaphor of visitors at the door as representing painful emotions. Frank Ostaseski emphasizes the importance of embracing life fully, welcoming everything with love, and cultivating an awakened heart. He also shares a story to highlight the impermanence inherently woven into life”) and this 8 part series, Love and Death 2023: Opening the Great Gifts (“This opening session of Love and Death touches on themes of love, death, and the profound impact isolation had on us during the pandemic. Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski share personal experiences and insights, emphasizing the importance of human connection, presence, and the healing capacity found in the face of death. The speakers invite participants to explore the gifts of love and death, encouraging a practice of unwrapping these gifts in the present moment rather than waiting for life-altering events”).

16. Proust Questionnaire: 35 Questions To Ask Your Characters From Marcel Proust. These would be interesting to ask yourself, as well — the main character in your story. 🙂 In related news, 100 deep questions to ask friends to get to know them better.

17. The Beautiful Exhaustion of Compassionate People on The Beautiful Mess from John Pavlovitz.

18. How Introverts Can Navigate Crowds With Ease.

19. Good stuff on Be More With Less: 9 Little Notes To Help You Stress Less, and Life In the Slow Lane: Why Soft and Slow is the new Busy, and The Power of Embracing Quiet Time.

20. Good stuff from Seth Godin: Responsibility and blame, Surprise and uncertainty, Generosity and fear, and “This time will be different.”

21. See the return of California’s wildflower ‘super blooms’ this spring as 2024 season begins.

22. How Stephen King scared a generation of storytellers into existence.

23. What Public K-12 Teachers Want Americans To Know About Teaching.

24. Photographer Captures Statue of Liberty Getting Zapped by Lightning.

25. Wisdom from Morgan Harper Nichols: “‘Being present’ to this very moment doesn’t mean that we have to make sense of everything that is happening right now. Of course, there are very real things happening in the present that must be addressed. And at the same time, as you process all of that and navigate through the specific things that you are able to do with the capacity and resources you have, may you also know that you are allowed to take a moment to breathe, wherever and however you can.

…

When you are waiting, perhaps you are not just waiting in this present moment that can be intense in a billion different ways. You are also learning how to be in a space where you are allowed to slow down and observe the most seemingly insignificant thing and what it might reveal to you. Not every moment or every thing you look at will be this way. Instead, this process of learning how to be here is learning how to practice stillness, but not putting pressure on yourself to do it the “right way.” Instead, choose to focus on how you can welcome grace in the present moment, no matter what you are waiting for.”

26. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: 10 Ways to Find True Happiness (“Introduced by Kaira Jewel Lingo, ten Black dharma teachers dive deep into the paramis, the ten qualities of enlightened beings”), and Open Heart, Wise Heart: The Life & Teachings of Ruth King (“Mindfulness allowed renowned Buddhist teacher Ruth King to heal from trauma. Now she helps others find their own healing. A profile by Toni Pressley-Sanon”), and How to Create a Meditation Space (“No matter your living situation, you can have a place to practice. Yaotunde Obiora explains”).

27. Threads Has Weird Ideas About Writing And Publishing, So Here Are Some Of My Own from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

28. Always be ordinary from Patti Digh. “What if we all just put down our clever and picked up our ordinary?”

29. On Being Beloved by Frederick Joseph. “The world tends to obscure simple truths. It erects barriers between us, crafting a maze of isolation that we navigate, often in despair. But in the quiet moments, in the spaces between the chaos, there lies a possibility for connection, for recognition. This is what I seek to capture in my words, this is what I strive to remind us of: the inherent worth of every soul, the unspoken bond that links us in our shared humanity.”

30. Note to Old Irishtown Road: Apologies on Short Reads.

31. And, finally, this random collection of things:

1. Morning walks. I didn’t actually go on any this week, so these are all pictures from Eric and Ringo’s walks. They saw a bald eagle and a beaver, along with lots of racoons and a few deer. It’s been almost four weeks since my surgery and my goal this next week is to start doing some walks with Ringo on my own, (if Eric lets me).

2. Surprise gifts. I was on Facebook yesterday and saw this. The fourth anniversary of Sam’s death (which was also a surprise but not so much a gift) is next month, so it’s a little bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter.

3. Good books. In particular, I am working my way through just about everything Brianna Wiest has ever written. I don’t agree 100% with her, (I don’t really believe that the things that happen to you are what is “supposed” to happen to you or that you even chose those things as a “soul contract” before you were born, etc.), but 98% of what she says is really helpful. I was trying to explain to someone the other day and I said, “It’s not so much new information, most of it is things I already know and could write myself, but somehow I needed the reminder. It’s sort of like having a conversation with my wisest self.” The one I forgot to include in this pile is The Pivot Year: 365 Days To Become The Person You Truly Want To Be, which includes a lot of prompts perfect to use in a yoga class and are nice short readings for before I meditate in the morning.

4. Writing. I write every day, have filled over 100 notebooks and published 2500+ blog posts in the past 10+ years, however to sit down in front of my computer and open up a blank document and start typing is more complicated. There are so many things I want to write about and have written about but not published and it can feel overwhelming. Yesterday, I told myself to just sit down for 15 minutes, even if all I did was stare at a blank screen. This is a trick I know well and I always fall for it, because as soon as I open a space, I start typing and suddenly an hour has passed.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. The dumbest things make me happy, like this morning when I was sitting at my desk writing and Eric came in to hug me. He had to do a splits variation to get low enough, which was rough because he’s sore from a long run yesterday, and I teased him and said, “come on, do a Jean-Claude Van Damme,” which lead to him saying things like “Jean-Claude Van Damme-it” and “If I did, I’d do some Jean-Claude Van Damme-age to myself.”

We also realized that Eric doesn’t mind rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher, but doesn’t like unloading and putting things away, but I DO, so another chore successfully assigned based on who doesn’t mind or even likes doing the thing. Unfortunately, neither one of us really likes cleaning bathrooms or dusting, even though we do it anyway because it’s nice when it’s done.

Ringo has been cracking us up lately because he’s decided he needs to go to bed earlier, more like 7 pm than 8 pm, so after we are done watching an episode of Iron Chef and just starting an episode of Snapped, he insists on being put to bed. Next month, he will officially be the oldest dog we’ve ever had and I am wishing for at least another four years, (cattle dogs life expectancy is 12-15, but I’ve known a few even older).

Bonus joy: Texting with Chloe’, watching movies, listening to podcasts, baking (today is raspberry bran muffins and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies), Mike Birbiglia, a massage with Dana, paying all the bills, getting our taxes done and submitted as well as refunded and paid, being back in the pool and sauna, clean sheets and laundry, daffodils and forsythia blooming, sunshine, being on the other side of a major windstorm, other people’s dogs and kids, honey mustard, ice cream, canceling things when I can’t people, trees, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.