Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Morning walks. Some of the things we saw: a “fogbow,” three herons, a goose family with three baby geese, and a dude loudly playing his music while taking a bath in the river at 6 am.

2. Eric and Ringo hiking together. I’m glad Eric has the time now and that he has Ringo to go with him.

3. Practice. It’s been especially helpful these past few days, which are the one year anniversary of when we found out Sam had cancer and we lost him. I am grateful for the life we had with Sam and the memories we have of him now, and I also miss him and am so sad he’s gone.

4. Peonies. Because they came from the nursery, the ones I just planted for Sam and Angela have bloomed already, and the other four plants are going to have a TON of blooms this year.

5. My tiny family, my tiny house, my tiny life. I am content, comfortable, stable and safe. It’s everything I ever wanted.

Bonus joy: getting a haircut (my first in two years!), pay day, homemade Big Macs and tater tots, sunshine, afternoon thunderstorms, iris blooms, rhubarb, music (I am currently loving Joy Oladokun, so good), books (I just finished Mexican Gothic and it was really good), podcasts (the good thing about finding a popular podcast four years after it started is you can listen to one every day, can binge it instead of having to wait until a new episode is released), TV (this season of Breeders was heartbreaking and so good), clean laundry, a warm shower, rainier cherries, toast with butter and marionberry & current jam my aunt made, a sleepy dog, hanging out and writing with Calyx, texting with my mom and brother and Chloe’, yard time, aqua aerobics, sitting in the sauna with Eric, Wild Writing with my Friday morning sangha, napping, that corner of the couch, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

“Ask yourself: Where am I? Answer: Here.
Ask yourself: What time is it? Answer: Now.
Say it until you can hear it.”
~ Ram Dass

1. Mindfulness and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path on Lion’s Roar. “To understand how to practice mindfulness in daily life, says Gaylon Ferguson, we have to look at all eight steps of the Buddha’s noble eightfold path.”

2. Gifts from Beyond on Lion’s Roar. “When Holly Stocking finds an unopened gift from her late husband, she contemplates what it really means to be gone — and gone beyond.”

3. HAES Health Sheets. “Health At Every Size®-Based Guides for Blame-Free, Shame-Free Explanations of Common Medical Conditions.” I especially like Why We Don’t Recommend Intentional Weight Loss.

4. Americans Have Learned to Talk About Racial Inequality. But They’ve Done Little to Solve It.

5. The 20 best easy cake recipes. Challenge accepted!

6. Online Therapy During A Pandemic Was Exhausting. Here’s Why I Quit.

7. Dr Jen Gunter’s menopause manifesto.

8. ‘We Always Rise.’ A Black-Owned Bookstore Navigates the Pandemic on The New York Times. “Source of Knowledge has been a Newark mainstay for decades. It survived the past year thanks to the generosity of its customers and an owner who provides more than just books.”

9. Seriously, just tax the rich. “Sometimes, the haggling and hemming and hawing over what to do about the debt overshadow a point that many Americans find obvious: It’s simply a good, fair idea to tax the wealthy. They have disproportionately reaped the benefits of economic growth and the stock market in recent years, contributing to increasing inequality in the United States. The divide has become even more obvious during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which billionaires have managed to add heaps of dollars to their wealth even as millions of people were knocked on their heels.”

10. A beginner’s guide to “But, I’m just not into politics!”

11. Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently on The New York Times. “The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?”

12. Overwork Killed More Than 745,000 People In A Year, WHO Study Finds.

13. These mesmerizing plant moments are a whole mood. (video)

14. Windows on the world: pandemic poems by Simon Armitage, Hollie McNish, Kae Tempest and more.

15. A thoughtful post about grief from Kris Carr, who recently lost her father. It starts, “In our trauma-phobic, mourning-avoidant culture, we don’t have a language for the deep experiences that each of us will face at some point in our lives.”

16. Midcoast Maine gains a new small book publisher and two literary magazines. “A new small press has launched in Maine called Toad Hall Editions and its purpose is to give a platform to writers who don’t get noticed in the more traditional publishing arenas.” Three of my favorite people are doing a really cool thing.

17. Pansexuality 101: 5 Key Facts You Need to Know. Today is #PanVisibilityDay!