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

1. Yard time. It’s that season again, when the weather is nice enough to sit out in the backyard, when everything is starting to turn green, the light lingers a little longer, and we start planning our garden. Last night, it was still light out at 7:15 pm and 62 degrees, and the sky was gorgeous.

2. Practice. I am struggling lately with my yoga practice, am wondering whether I’ll teach as much as I’d planned to when I can get back into a studio again if I can’t even manage to get myself on the mat (or maybe not teaching is why I can’t?), am in a strange liminal space with it, avoiding and resisting and wondering why but letting it be okay for now. That said, my writing practice is going strong, fed by the class I’m currently taking with Natalie Goldberg, which has also inspired me to reread all her books. Some days, I write for hours, and I feel so much better when I do, cleared out and calm. I’m still working on my book and even though it feels good, there’s momentum there, it’s a steep learning curve — as in I’ve never written a book all by myself and have no idea what I’m doing.

3. Morning walks. Ringo was on restriction the first part of the week, had tweaked his back playing in the back yard and couldn’t go very far, but he’s better now. The other day, I decided not to go around the second pond, then this morning when they were out, Eric and Ringo went that way and saw an adult fox by the den that’s under one of the trees along the fence, which means there are babies, so now I’m on a mission to see them. There are five potential den sites along our various routes, and I’ll be checking them all.

4. Starting our garden. We are going to start the seeds we have this weekend, (you can’t really put anything new in the ground here until after May 15th). I saw a video of a daffodil farm on Instagram and I am now motivated to also get a bunch of new bulbs and plant thick rows along our fence in the backyard. Once we really get going, we’ll continue filling in the front as well and I’m planning to rework the narrow bed between our driveway and the neighbors yard. For reference, here’s some pictures of our front garden from last season.

5. My tiny family, my tiny house, my tiny life. I am looking forward to the weekend, to Eric getting some rest (he’s been working SO much), to cuddling and napping and walking and sitting in the sauna and reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.

Bonus joy: laundry, writing and hanging out with Calyx, Wild Writing, all the people getting vaccinated, pay day, ladybugs, bird song in the morning, birds at the feeder, how fluffy and wiggly Ringo is after getting a bath, a warm shower, clean sheets, naps, reading, podcasts, good TV and movies, music, good neighbors, grocery pick up, a crisp Gala apple, the small “snack” cucumbers, naan, texting with my mom and brother and Chloe’, getting in the pool, Wendy coming home from the hospital, Chelsey getting to be with her mom when she passed, all the new puppies and babies, ordering pizza which means not having to cook for the next three days.

1. On being introverted: 6 ‘Rules’ For Being Friends With an Introvert, and How Understanding My Introverted Nature Transformed My Career, and How Meditation Helps Me Thrive as an Introvert.

2. Why We Suffer: Meditation & The Three Root Poisons, an online meditation class with Adreanna Limbach.

3. And who are you really? from Seth Godin.

4. Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out, a poem by Richard Siken.

5. Decluttering 101: 10 Rules to Help You Live with Less Stuff from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

6. “The food movement became the wellness culture, which is just diet culture rebranded by Gwyneth Paltrow.” An interview with Virginia Sole-Smith “about weight stigma, diet culture, #bopo, men’s disordered eating, 75Hard, and so much more.”

7. Short Film Sundays. “Short films from creators of color. The first Sunday of every month!”

8. Meaning from Karen Walrond on Chookooloonks.

9. When you are having big feelings, here’s what to do, some good tips from Jamie Ridler.

10. Something worth contemplating from Mindy Tsonas Choi: “What if our goal was not to get bigger, but to do more good? How might that change what we create, how we create it and who we might reach?”

11. My Dog Won’t Stop Sleeping In My Bed So I Had To Get Creative, but not like you think, because this: “You don’t have to be a writer to write. You don’t have to know all the rules to dig a little deeper and solve your own problems. Writing is magic. Critical, creative problem solving is magic. And it’s better than googling our problems and skimming through hardly related articles from six years ago. Which I’ve spent countless hours doing.”

13. America’s gun problem, explained. “The public and research support gun control. Here’s how it could help — and why it doesn’t pass.”

14. Dad creates wholesome comics to teach kids empathy, kindness, and love.

15. A Dog Who Kept Sneaking into a Dollar General for a Unicorn Toy Gets His Plush and a New Start.