How it works: Each day, for the whole of August, take a photo and share it on your blog. You can add words if you want — or not. You can use any camera. You could share a series of photos, or miss a day out, or just post on weekends. There are no real rules, basically. This is all about being present and enjoying taking photos just for the hell of it. And perhaps reinvigorating your love for blogging, and/or taking a break from writing.
There are some regular posts I won’t be giving up in order to take part, like Something Good on Monday or Self-Compassion Saturday. Susannah has provided prompts for each day, and I am planning to use those.
I am only just now getting back home from a trip to Oregon, sifting through my email and dirty laundry, taking naps and going slow because I have a mild form of jet lag. The first two days, I posted my August Break pictures on Instagram, but I want to share here too, with a few words of explanation.
Day One: Breakfast
It was my last morning at my parent’s house, and this was what I grabbed for breakfast, but then my mom asked if I wanted scrambled eggs and an english muffin, so I saved the banana and protein bar for the airport shuttle ride, having a second breakfast later like a good little Hobbit.
After eating my breakfast, I was able to get a blurry picture through the window of the feral cat my dad’s been taming eating its breakfast.
Day Two: Circles
My aunt and godmother is an amazing quilter. This is one she made, a series of overlapping circles, one of my favorites. It hangs in my living room and reminds me of a kind of family crest.
1. This description of a good writer, from Isaac Asimov, “You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.”
4. On being copied from Andrea Schroeder, in which she says “people aren’t buying your product or service on its own – they’re buying your product or service animated by your creative essence.”
Beautiful, true, important things almost always take a long time to come to fruition. There are often very long stretches that are tedious, thankless, difficult and hard to measure. We get tired and that makes us weak and vulnerable to things that hurt our feelings or make us want to stop trying. There are often points in the journey when we feel absolutely alone, misunderstood and even cast out. There are sometimes points in our journey when we just want to be alone…and that is hard to explain to people we love. Making progress is not easy, is it?
With all of that in mind, however…think even more seriously about how miserable it is to stay stagnant. Think of how awful it feels to know in our hearts that we are meant for something, but to continue to ignore it, run away from it….or stay stuck just looking at it in fear.
12. The Well-Fed Woman: Tara Sophia Mohr on Rachel Cole’s blog, in which Tara describes something I know all too well, in a way I hadn’t quite figured out how to say it yet:
I grew up making art of all kinds – but when I went to college I couldn’t find a way to create comfortably in the highly competitive, hierarchical environment there. My center drifted over to my more intellectual, left-brain side, and that became my comfort zone. The more I was centered there, the harder it was to create. I became very, very afraid making art – so frozen in my creativity, afraid of failure, afraid of “not being good.”
13. Also on Rachel Cole’s blog, a brilliant reframing of perfection, The New (Im)perfection.
21. Rachel Cole linked to a song in her Midsummer’s Joy post, and I was so happy, not realizing that Mary Lambert, the gorgeous female voice on Macklemore’s “Same Love,” had her own full song, She Keeps Me Warm. I bought her EP Letters Don’t Talk and have been listening to it on repeat (it’s only five songs).
Dreams come true, Jill, that’s what they do. The only variable is when. For the slow approach: Resist. Attach. Insist. Deny. Stop. Second guess. Whine. Argue. Defend. Protest. Cry. Struggle. And ask others, when you know the answer yourself. For the quick approach: Visualize. Pretend. Prepare. Dodge. Roll. Serpentine. Do not waiver over intentions, but over methods. Show up, even when nothing happens. And give thanks in advance. You knew that.
I am gradually learning that the call to gratitude asks us to say, “Everything is grace.” As long as we remain resentful about things we wish had not happened, about relationships that we wish had turned out differently, mistakes we wish we had not made, part of our heart remains isolated, unable to bear fruit in the new life ahead of us. It is a way we hold part of ourselves apart from God.
This year, I’m taking part in Susannah Conway’s August Break again. She describes it this way,
I am only just now getting back home from a trip to Oregon, sifting through my email and dirty laundry, taking naps and going slow because I have a mild form of jet lag. The first two days, I posted my August Break pictures on Instagram, but I want to share here too, with a few words of explanation.
It was my last morning at my parent’s house, and this was what I grabbed for breakfast, but then my mom asked if I wanted scrambled eggs and an english muffin, so I saved the banana and protein bar for the airport shuttle ride, having a second breakfast later like a good little Hobbit.
After eating my breakfast, I was able to get a blurry picture through the window of the feral cat my dad’s been taming eating its breakfast.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 