1. Poetry: Upon Meeting My Biological Father at the Age of 23 by Michelle Meyer and La Gioconda by Martha Silano and Gated Community by Alexandra Oliver and War Begins Again by Tishani Doshi and Why We Climb Mountains by Marti Noel on The Daily Rattle, Going Somewhere by Genevieve Taggard and Peace Treaty by AE Hines on Poets.org, It Was Like This: You Were Happy by Jane Hirshfield and Pardon My Heart by Marcus Jackson and Five Paragraph Essay on Time by Kathleen Flenniken on The Slowdown, Holding the Door and Small But Fierce by James Crews, Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons shared by Patti Digh, the deepest well by Maya Stein, Revised by Paula Gordon Lepp shared on Heart Poems, The Single Instant and Orbit and Formative and The Last Parent Teacher Conferences by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and If I Were to Ask My Body and Welcome to the First Gathering of the “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing With My Life” Club by Julie Barton.

2. Being a Regular by Hugh Hollowell. “If I were to move tomorrow to some place where I didn’t know anyone, I would immediately begin looking for places where I could be a regular. I don’t know of any activity that so quickly makes you feel you belong to a place and its people.”

3. The Real Secret to Reducing Screen Time by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. **Spoiler Alert**: “The real secret to reducing screen time is to shift your focus from controlling your phone to forgetting all about it.”

4. Molly Was My Gateway Drug to Meditation on Open Secrets Magazine. “How taking the illicit 1990s psychedelic pill paved the way for me to get Zen.”

5. Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan, a cello and piano cover by Brooklyn Duo. (video)

6. The Grief No One Recognizes by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. “On recognizing loss when everyone around you is glad it happened.”

7. What Am I Gonna Do, Take Them With Me? by Andrea Scher. “On giving it away before you go.”

8. The Many Versions of Me from Kari on A Grace Full Life.

9. Threshold by Jo on The House of First Light.

10. He Wrote Judy Blume’s Life Story. She Won’t Talk About It on The New York Times. (gift link) “Mark Oppenheimer had many conversations with his subject for his new book. Then the relationship took a turn.”

11. Finding the green shoots by Gretchen Schmelzer. I read this with my hand over my heart and tears in my eyes, “my heart hurts—but it is also full. Life is both so courageous and fragile.”

12. Good stuff from Jamie Attenberg on Craft Talk: A Visit from Lauren Groff (“Walking and talking with the best”), Today’s Writing Pick-Me-Up (“The good one sentence can do”), and A Key to the Lock of the Book (“Thinking about tone this morning”).

13. When You’re Not Sure Where You Belong in the Writing World, “reflections after my first AWP conference” on Earth & Verse.

14. 2,200 Lists Later, “& Beth Kephart on the literary list and the art of transcendence” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

15. What technology takes from us – and how to take it back by Rebecca Solnit on The Guardian. “Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort.”

16. Mysterious ‘Hero’ Dog Leads Police Straight to Missing 3-year-old Officer Says in Body Cam Video.

17. Good stuff on Poor Man’s Feast by Elissa Altman: remembering a favorite Italian soup on a chilly, not-yet-spring day (“On the Perils of Cooking From Memory”) and Women and Medical Gaslighting (Part 2: More on the dangerous truth).

18. Badger signs: An essay from Terry Tempest Williams’ new book ‘The Glorians’ on High Country News, (“Thoughts on an elusive animal and the afterlife”). In related news, Terry Tempest Williams Answers the Orion Questionnaire, (“In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane”).

19. Guest Pep Talk: Perspective from Eric Zimmer on For Dear Life with Maggie Smith.

20. The other stack of evidence, “There’s more than one pile of proof in the world” by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project.

21. My Mom by Summer Brennan. “This is impossible. Utterly impossible. And yet here I am.” Summer recently lost both her parents, and while my mom still lingers and that’s another kind of loss, I feel this in my bones.

22. The Art of Not Looking Where You’re Told. “A walking exercise that turned Lisbon’s sidewalks into a wilderness.”

23. GLP‑1 drugs may fight addiction across every major substance, according to a study of 600,000 people.

24. How Creativity Helps the Brain Make Meaning After Disruption on Psychology Today. “Neuroscience explains why art helps people heal.”

25. ‘All you need is a chair and a view’: could daily ‘dusking’ make us healthier and happier? on The Guardian. “An old Dutch ritual of going outside to watch the coming of night – or dusking – is having a revival across Europe. Fans of the practice say it’s a great way to disconnect from screens and find peace.”

26. A Blessing For The End of a Sh*tty Day on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz.

27. And finally, a few random things I saved to my phone.

1. Poetry: What Every Woman Should Carry and After Turning Off the News and Knowing This Place by Julie Barton, After Bad News and Sacred by James Crews, Geranium by Karen Solie and Poem about everything except— by Amy Lemmon and Or am I a room with a roof taken off, still holding onto my idea of ceiling by Kelly Hoffer and Somewhere Else by Adam J. Gellings on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, A Sign? and After by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, This human life by Maggie Smith and Interior: The Suburbs by Horace Gregory shared on Poets.org, Inheritance by DeMarcus Burke and Four Years Later by Julia Kolchinsky and Confrontation by Drew Rollins shared on Rattle, “Love / is paying attention” from Pádraig Ó Tuama, A Scrap of Blue from Alison Luterman in her recent newsletter, If this is all we get then maybe it’s okay that it’s messy from Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project, It looks like the sky is coming apart and together at the same time by Maya Stein shared on Heart Poems, and What Every Woman Should Carry by Maura Dooley shared by Patti Digh. In related news, “This world is full of everything good, everything beautiful,” a new episode of On Being with Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith.

2. A Year of Kō on The Dewdrop. “We invite haiku poets to incorporate the kō phrases for the micro-season as prompts or inspirations into their haiku submissions. Please refer to our kō calendar, (below) which can serve as a guide for haiku poets to read, ruminate, reflect, and then write their own response in sync with the appropriate kō micro-season and publishing time frames.”

3. The Path, “a daily ritual on foot” by Danusha Laméris.

4. a mountain of clutter and chaos. “Is it my surroundings, or is it my brain?” by Elissa Altman.

5. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: He is Not Worth This, America and America Has Already Lost the War in Iran and Hey, Don’t Forget to Be Happy and Good People Have Had it With Faux Patriotism and Phony Faith and Lessons Trump Supporters Are Teaching Their Children (Whether They Know It or Not).

6. What Happens When a Neighborhood Is Built Around a Farm? “Agrihoods reimagine urban living by putting food, not cars, at the center of the community.”

7. You Can’t Give 100% to Everything All the Time. “On choosing what matters most, putting good things on the back burner, and why it’s okay to be sad about it” by Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

8. An Existential Guide to: Growing Old. “Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read” on The Shadowed Archive.

9. The Habitual Disregard for Creative and Intellectual Work as Labor. “And why do we tangle up our self worth with work anyway?” by Ravynn K. Stringfield.

10. Years ago, novelist Tayari Jones snuck into a writing class. It changed her life.

11. Kristin Neff & Caverly Morgan: Self-Compassion as a Lifeboat. (podcast) “Can the simple act of being kind to yourself actually be a doorway to awakening? In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon brings together two remarkable teachers whose friendship has sparked a revolutionary approach to inner transformation. Kristin Neff—the researcher who first measured self-compassion and author of Fierce Self-Compassion—joins Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher and former Zen monk, to explore how self-compassion practices can become what they call ‘a lifeboat’ to our deepest nature. Together, they reveal why self-compassion isn’t just a psychological tool for feeling better—it’s a direct path to recognizing who we really are beyond our limited sense of self.”

12. How To Weave Friendship Into Everyday Life on Culture Study.

13. One Good Small Thing. “Take it when you can get it” by Jami Attenberg. Such a sweet story.

14. The Texture of Wartime Monet by Summer Brennan.

15. What Lurks Beneath and What Love Reveals, “& Lucy Kalanithi on a different way of loving” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

16. The late-winter urge to flee my life and the subtle reinvention on Earth & Verse.

17. Seals, shipwrecks and a screaming swallower: Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026 – in pictures.

18. Recipes I want to try: Perfect Mexican Rice Every Single Time and How to Make Mexican Corn Hotcakes.

19. Her husband wanted to use ChatGPT to create sustainable housing. Then it took over his life. “Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the ‘most hopeful person’ before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbot.”

20. A CBS News personality is starting his own media company – but keeping his day job. “David Begnaud is launching an independent media company using the beehiiv platform while remaining a contributor at the network.”

21. Love Stories on 1440. “Below are more than 100 love stories submitted by our over 4.7M readers. Whenever you need a little lift, scroll through and let your fellow readers warm your heart, coax a chuckle, give you a lesson to ponder, and maybe even bring a tear to your eye.”

22. Feeling lonely? Six ways to connect with friends – even when busy.

23. Object-ives #24: The Brown Wall-to-Wall Carpet of My Childhood Home. “Many secrets were hidden in its mottled earth” by Sumitra Mattai.

24. The winter alters what is possible. “Don’t mistake dormancy for failure” by Patti Digh.

25. LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching. (video) “Two brothers learn about competitive birdwatching by becoming birdwatchers—spending a year living in a used minivan, traveling the country to compete in a ‘Big Year’.”

26. Lost Words, a Rhinoceros and Soul Connections by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.

27. Lauren Groff answers the Orion Questionnaire. “In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane.”

28. ‘Truly accessible to everyone’: how to start yoga. “Some think yoga isn’t for them – but there’s ‘something for everybody’. Experts share what to know about the mindful practice that can improve strength and sleep.”

29. Watched by Millions, ‘People’s State of the Union’ Counters Unhinged Trump. “‘We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich and the well-connected and the well-protected,’ said Rep. Summer Lee.” In related news, in her rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union speech, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger questions whether Americans feel the ‘golden age’ Trump describes.

30. Scams, hustles and false idols that were supposed to save us, “a partial accounting” by Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.

31. What If Your Sanctuary Gets Destroyed? “When our place changes, even overnight, our stories stop making sense—until we redraw the world around us” by Janisse Ray on Trackless Wild.

32. The Sunday Letter Project. “The Sunday Letter Project is a weekly invitation to balance. To recalibrate, reconnect, and return home. We believe that letter-writing is the perfect antidote to this generation’s dependence on technology – it allows you to slip back into a time where the world felt less frantic and more spacious. By signing up for the project, you will be invited to take a pledge: a pledge to take a pocket of time each Sunday and dedicate it to yourself and your loved ones. To write, to ponder, to savour. To regenerate a practice that has connected humans for generations and is starting to be lost. We believe letter writing is a unique way that we can find our way home as humans, and we invite you to join us.”

33. Eight Tenets by Elizabeth Hawes on The Sun.

34. If I want to ever be okay — “on living this life, when there is no easier world” from Britchida.

35. And finally, this meme. Because it made me giggle.