Tag Archives: Jamie Ridler

Wishcasting Wednesday

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image from jamie’s post

What do you wish for this summer?

My biggest wish for this summer is that the High Park Fire will be 100% contained, controlled, stopped, extinguished. That the fire fighters will stay safe, that no more homes will burn, no more harm will be done, and no more fires will start this summer.

That Eric and I and our two boys have a safe trip to Oregon, and then back to Colorado. That our drive is smooth, easy, and without issue or complication, that the dogs stay cool and comfortable, and we arrive in Oregon (and then Colorado) with little effort or suffering. And that our Big Rig functions as a vehicle of love and light that protects everyone we pass or follow or meet along the way. That anyone else traveling in this same time frame is also safe.

driftwood beach, where we’ll be walking in just a few days

That I practice mindfulness and gratitude, experience rest and play and joy while we are in Oregon. I need the rest, and I want to connect wholeheartedly to the joy of the present moment and sink into it fully.

hiking two years ago at cape perpetua, on the oregon coast

That I have a good experience at the World Domination Summit. That I don’t freak out, I don’t push or bully myself to do too much, I don’t try too hard, don’t sink into feeling unworthy or afraid that I’m missing something, that I remain safe and well, and that I get to, in a kind and gentle way, meet the people on the list I carry in my heart and tell them to their faces “thank you and I adore you.” That I can have confidence, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment” (Susan Piver).

Happy, comfortable, safe beach dogs.

Naps, eating seafood, reading, writing, yoga, meditation, walks on the beach, hiking, meeting new friends, long conversations about nothing and everything, laughter, love, love, love.

where the forest meets the sea

And this, from Mary Oliver (shared here this morning), this is what I wish, not just for summer, but for my life. And for you as well, kind and gentle reader. Happy first day of summer and much love to you. May you have everything you wish for this summer as well.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Something Good

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It’s a shorter list this week, and clearly I had a limited number of things on my mind: the High Park Fire, the World Domination Summit, taking pictures, making choices about what stuff to buy or keep or take with us on our upcoming trip, and writing.

take me for a walk…

1. Instagram. I have been dreaming about, coveting, longing for this app for a really long time, but I’m not an iPerson and I like my phones dumb, (at least dumber than me). I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and bought an iTouch so I can play too. For now, since we only have a few days before we leave for Oregon, my strategy is to “keep calm and carry on,” because if I don’t watch it, I will burn up these few remaining days wandering around taking pictures–which most of the time would be okay, but I need to clean and pack and organize and all the other stuff you must do before a long trip. So far, I’ve only taken pictures of the dogs and one self-portrait, (in which my forehead and front teeth seem abnormally large).

2. I’m Fine, Thanks, a documentary. There are still four days left to pledge their Kickstarter campaign, even though they reached their goal sometime in the last few days. I get to see it when I’m at the World Domination Summit in a few weeks, and it looks to me like a story that needs to be told.

3. My 100 Things Challenge on Be More With Less. This is one of those things I want to do, at the same time it scares me silly. Courtney Carver is a badass.

4. An Evening with Ray Bradbury, 2001, “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea. I don’t agree with everything Mr. Bradbury has to say here (like “only the classics are any good, everything new is crap”), but there were lots of things I wrote down, stopped and thought about, and he’s so endearing and inspiring. Most of all, he reminds me that the childhood dream of being a writer wasn’t, isn’t crazy or impossible, and that we should all follow what brings us joy.

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”

5. Terrible Minds. I love Chuck Wendig, am inspired by him time and time again. Lately, it was 25 Reasons This Is The Best Time To Be A Storyteller, 25 Realizations Writers Need To Have, and The Secret to Writing, which is essentially this:


6. This quote from Anne Frank, which I share in honor of the fire fighters and other good people working kindly and so diligently during this High Park Fire:

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too. I can feel the suffering of millions – and yet, if I look to the heavens, I think it will come out all right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

7. Happiness Is Simple: Why Too Many Choices Make Us Miserable & 5 Ways To Improve Your Life! by Gala Darling.

8. The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do from McSweeney’s. This is good.

9. Necessary advice from the trustworthy, brilliant Jamie Ridler, and a whole host of other luminaries. How to Get the Most Out of a Conference When You’re an Introvert or HSP (highly sensitive person) Part I and Part II. I will be taking a close look at this over the next few weeks.

10. Summer Reading List from Brain Pickings. In the introduction for the first book on the list, Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation, Tom Bissell says “To create anything — whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom — is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic.”

11. And finally, this quote, with a picture offered as proof: If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change, (Buddha).