1. Morning walks. I love fall in Colorado, so much. It’s just gorgeous right now.

2. A short trip to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We spent the weekend up at Beaver Meadows. They recently did a bunch of updates to the cabins and grounds and they were really nice. It was so good to be together, just the three of us, do some hiking and resting. On our first morning hike, we saw a MOOSE!

3. Practice. “Do practice while you can. You’ll need it when you can’t.” ~Krishna Das
I had lunch with a dear friend yesterday who lost her mom three years ago. She pointed out I had a “head start” of sorts with my experience of caring for my mom while losing my dad. I absolutely did: 15 years of study, practice, therapy, and holding space for others. It supported me, soothed me, saved me. Practice, do the work now, even if you can’t imagine the outcome or where it will take you. You’ll know when you get there and your effort and your ease will be worth it. 

Inspired by Jami Attenberg, I started a new challenge: 1000 words a day for 30 days. This is how I built this blog, with 30 day challenges, and it now has 2700 posts after 12 years of writing. I’ve also written every day for that many years, as evidenced by the sagging shelves full of journals in my office closet. But this writing a book is new, something I’m trying to figure out– in particular, finding the way I write a book. The 30th day this time just so happens to land the day before my birthday, so I’ll have extra to celebrate.

I’ve been trying to write “the book(s)” for the past few years but life — burnout, retirement, COVID, menopause, losing Sam and Ang, the DT Era, the current rising environmental crisis, #blm, a major surgery, losing Joe and Rita, the falling away of a dear friendship, the loss of not one but three sanghas, Mom’s stroke and Dad’s passing. It’s been a lot. And it will continue to be a lot because being human is hard.

Life is tender and terrible, beautiful and brutal. I’m over here just trying to keep my heart open, stay tender, keep practicing, and not give up. Two days in, I already have 6500+ words. 😉💜 

4. Good friends. Lunch with Chelsey, texting with Chloe’, training with Shelby and the gang, writing with my Friday morning Wild-ish group — so good.

5. My tiny family, small home, and little life. It’s everything I ever wanted.

Bonus joy: a massage, a warm shower, a nap, taco salad, texting with Chris and Mom, dark chocolate covered just about anything, getting to go to Red Sage three times in a week, having Jennae’s five year old daughter in my yoga class on Thursday (even though at 45 minutes in to a 60 minute class, she sighed loudly and said, “I’m tired of this already, when will we be done?”), how happy Ringo was when we packed up the car to come back on Sunday morning and I asked him “you ready to go home?” (apparently, he loves it here as much as me), other people’s kids and dogs and gardens, pie, new books, grocery shopping, clean laundry, purple and orange mums from the grocery store, listening to podcasts, watching TV with Eric and night and making each other laugh, hugs in the kitchen, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.  

1. Morning walks. This time of year, they can be dark, cold, and windy, but I still love them so much.

2. Good people. They are everywhere, and I’m lucky to call some of them my friends, my family. When “the shit hits the fan,” you learn who is up to the task, who is going to stick around and help. There will be people you expected more from that will leave you disappointed, but I don’t dwell there for too long. I wish them well and let them go. And the others, the ones who show up and stay, hold space — they are precious. They will make soup or send pie, send cards and texts and leave comments on your posts, bring flowers from their gardens, check in on you, totally understand when you have to cancel plans, give you hugs, and make you laugh.

3. Practice. It is the center of everything, the first and the last thing, the thing I can do poorly or well and it has the same benefits, my soft spot to land, the ground, my refuge.

4. Fall. In particular the color, the slowing down, the light, the quiet.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. October 9th was Eric and I’s 30th anniversary. I feel so lucky, not just that I found my person and am so happy, but that he feels exactly the same way. 

Bonus joy: dark chocolate covered salted caramels, zucchini muffins, falling leaves, color printers, help with the hard things, kitchen counter love notes, books, listening to podcasts, clean sheets, funeral casserole, my heating pad, down blankets and pillows and coats, wool socks, vaccines, stretching, naps, the pool, sitting in the sauna, massage, catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a while, other people’s babies and kids and dogs and gardens, saying what needs to be said, watercolors, trees, trails, garbage people, grocery shopping, clean laundry, texting with Chris and Mom and Chloe’, going to Little Bird Bakeshop with Carrie, lemon poppy seed scones, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.