1. Morning walks. I’m loving getting to leave earlier, still see the sunrise, walk a bit further, and make it home in time to do all the other morning things. This week was the last one of golden leaves on the trees, so of course now the sky is showing off.
3. Cooking. Not gonna lie, sometimes when I want something in particular, I really want someone else to do the work — getting the ingredients, making the effort to measure and mix, then the actual cooking, cleaning up after — and I could just do the eating part. Today, however, I made myself broccoli parmesan fritters for lunch, did all the work myself, and I was very happy with the eating part of the deal. Besides teaching me to read, cooking is one of the best skills my parents (Mom in particular) taught me.
4. Joyful movement. Walking with Ringo, aqua aerobics or swimming, training with Shelby, and yoga.
5. My tiny family, my tiny home, my tiny life. I’m so grateful that Eric is so good at doing all the maintenance care for Ringo: nail trims, ear cleaning, allergy shots, and baths. With Eric at work so much this semester, Ringo is more my dog and I don’t mind that at all, except for how he keeps stealing my spot on the couch and being so cute doing it that I don’t want to make him move.
Bonus joy: writing with my Friday morning group, training with Eric on Saturday mornings, sitting with him in the sauna, good books, naps, listening to podcasts, good TV, a new therapist (fingers crossed it turns out to be a good fit), down blankets and pillows, clean laundry, clean sheets, the last bit of peach compote I made with this summer’s peaches on my morning oatmeal, pancakes, snow tires (although it hasn’t snowed yet, I’m ready), vaccines, hanging out with Calyx, texting with Chloe’ and Mom and Chris, good neighbors, libraries, the weekend, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.
4. How Bluey Became the Best Kids’ Show of Our Time. I say it’s because it’s about a family of Australian Cattle Dogs, but this article argues it’s because “No other series gets the strange, hilarious magic of play.”
5. A great set of prompts from Amanda Sandlin, “some questions I am asking as I contemplate what conviction means and looks like to me”, shared in her most recent newsletter:
What regular habits and practices facilitate connection to my intuition?
What habits pull me away from my intuition or make the connection murky?
How am I living a life of service? How can I serve better?
What is the bigger vision that pulls me through the nitty-gritty times of slog?
Are any areas in my work out of alignment with my values? If so, how can I begin to shift those areas into alignment?
7. John Updike, His Stories, and Me. “When the famed novelist wrote a short story about her father, poet Molly Fisk was forced to confront the secret truths that lie in fiction.”
8. 10 reasons to quit social media from Alexandra Franzen. I’m sure I shared this when she first posted it, but it’s worth another read. Now if I just had the guts to do it for longer than two weeks at a time… #10 on the list always gets me.
9. Philosophy Bites: Myisha Cherry on Rage. (podcast) “Stoic philosophers described anger as a temporary madness and argued that we should eliminate it wherever possible. More recently Martha Nussbaum has argued for keeping anger out of political debates. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, in contrast, Myisha Cherry makes the case for rage in some specific circumstances. She discusses rage with Nigel Warburton.”
10. Insights at the Edge: Embracing Pleasure, Fractal Responsibility, and the Power of Our Imagination with adrienne maree brown. (podcast) “adrienne maree brown is a social justice facilitator and a bestselling author…Tami Simon speaks with adrienne about the concept of ‘fractal responsibility’ and how the world changes as we change ourselves; engaging in ‘critical relationships’ and finding the courage to hold ourselves accountable; cultivating 1,000 percent honesty and trust; figuring out your right work—or what adrienne calls ‘your most elegant next step’; pleasure activism and ‘reclaiming your erotic yes’; holding the grief and suffering that seem beyond our capacity; and imagining a future that works for the majority of us.”
11. Adriene Mishler: ‘In 2021 I was like, “I have to pause. I have to practise what I preach”.’ “The word ‘YouTuber’ may spur thoughts of frenzied tween vloggers, yet the Yoga With Adriene channel is the total opposite, acting as a digital retreat for mind, body and soul. With a mindfulness empire, too, Adriene Mishler is making wellness for everyone an accessible reality.”
12. Hello darkness my old friend on Rita’s Notebook, because this: “But this late stage is just a different kind of true, one that tests our loves in ways that easy days never do.”
13. Shavasana, a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on The Sunday Poem, a really great weekly share, observation, and invitation from James Crews on Gwarlingo.
16. Austin City Limits: Leon Bridges / Khruangbin. (video) “Enjoy Texas artists from across the musical spectrum with Leon Bridges and Khruangbin. Fort Worth native Bridges performs modern R&B tunes from his LP Gold-Diggers Sound. Houston trio Khruangbin plays worldbeat-tinged psych rock from its album Mordecai.”
19. In Fight Over ‘Beloved,’ a Reminder of Literature’s Power on The New York Times. “Now that the internet exists, getting worked up about ‘explicit material’ in one of the 20th century’s best novels is a losing game. More important, it’s foreclosing a core truth of education, which is that it can be — it should be — unsettling, destabilizing and mind-altering. The kids can handle it.”
24. In The Blink Of An Eye. “Traumatic events seem to happen both simultaneously in the blink of an eye, and in slow-motion. Details are acute, while also a blur. I know it happened on August 5th, yet it somehow feels like it was years ago, not three months ago. I remind myself multiple times a day that you’re okay now, but the images of what happened will be burned in my memory forever.”
26. Animated short film “Sad Beauty” (2020) – by Arjan Brentjes. (video) “In a heavily polluted world, a young woman mourns the disappearance of animal species. When she falls ill due to a bacterial infection, nature appears to send her a message in her hallucinations.”
27. The Search for Planet-Friendly Protein. “The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is pushing hard for cheaper, healthier, and less resource-heavy alternatives to mammal and bird protein. This includes a practice that’s already common in 130 countries: entomophagy—eating insects. Indigenous cultures worldwide have enjoyed these sustainable protein sources for millennia.”
28. Hearing the Language of Trees. “The author of Braiding Sweetgrass on how human people are only one manifestation of intelligence in the living world.” I’m reading, savoring this book right now.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 