Tag Archives: Tribe

Something Good.

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I think I might have already mentioned this, but when I am feeling bad, I will often ask Eric to “tell me something good.”  When I need something to hang on to, to make me feel better, something to show me that it’s not all bad.  When I am in that dark hole, way down at the bottom, and the mean things with teeth are down there with me–“tell me something good.”

Picture by Cubby

He’s really good at it, because even when all he can think of is “I love you,” it totally works.  I mean, how great is it that the person that you picked and who said “yes” eighteen years ago, and knows you better than anyone, knows all the embarrassing and ugly stuff, continues to love you?  He usually is able to give me a whole list when I ask him, followed by a hug and “what can I do for you, how can I make you feel better?”

But wait–this isn’t a post about how great Eric is, even though that’s true.  This post is about a new Monday feature I’m starting today on this blog: Something Good.  I like the idea of gratitude generating joy, and the opportunity my gratitude has to spread joy when I share the good things.

Here’s today’s list:

  • Monday Morning Yoga. For the past four and a half years, I have been going to a 6:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning yoga class.  The teachers have remained the same, and there are two other people, along with a rotating cast of about 10-15 others, who have also attended for all that time.  It is a constant comfort, while it continues to challenge me to keep changing and evolving.  These classes were the beginnings of my yoga practice, and I am so grateful.
  • My Dogs. I promise I won’t list them every week, but I totally could.  These furry boys are at the center of my life, and live right in the middle of my heart.  And Obi might be physically gone, but he is still with me, with us.
  • Kind Over Matter.  This is on of my favorite websites.  It is a collection of daily goodness that comforts and inspires me.  There was a guest post today, “Be the Rabbit” that was so great, made me think of my dogs and helped me to think of another strategy for taking better care of myself.  “Kind Over Matter is a place that is filled with kindness, inspiration, creativity, truth, gentleness & love.” Amen.
  • Blogtoberfest. This event challenges bloggers to post to their blog every day in October.  It was perfect timing for me, because I had just started this blog, and committing to daily posts gave me the discipline and inspiration to really get this thing off the ground.  I might have already faltered if not for Blogtoberfest, but with it, I feel settled and connected to this practice, and can already see it’s value, shared and internalized.
  • Writing This Blog. Writing publicly and daily is really good writing practice, and as I have mentioned before, people like Malcolm Gladwell (who wrote Outliers: The Story of Success) would argue that it takes some 10,000 hours of dedication to a craft or profession to become an “expert,” so the more practice, the better.

And also, a few times in the past weeks, as I have been writing a post, a line emerges that shifts things for me.  Yesterday, it was this one: “it’s actually my heart that is starving and this is not going to feed it, never going to satisfy that hunger no matter how much I eat.”  Holy Wow.  It feels like there’s this deep wisdom bubbling up, and this practice gives it space, power, a voice.

  • A moment of gratitude from one of my favorite movies, Joe Vs. the Volcano: “Dear God, whose name I do not know – thank you for my life. I forgot how big… thank you. Thank you for my life.”
  • Your turn: tell me something good.

National Day on Writing

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Today is the 3rd Annual National Day on Writing.  The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) established it in recognition of “the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives.”

Picture by Jonathan Kim

Clearly, I don’t need any reminding that writing is important to my life.  I might be able to make the argument that writing is my life. 

Although, I was talking to a dear friend just yesterday about how only about 40% of the joy comes from the actual act of writing.  The rest is about being curious about something, researching it, reading about it, talking to people about it, trying to figure it out, searching for connections and seeing patterns, and then stringing words together in order to share what I discover with others.

Writing is map making, and song writing, and picture painting, and soothsaying, and remembering, and dreaming, and heavy lifting, and laundry, and hurting, and meditating, and walking away, and letting go, and celebrating, diving in and giving up–see how writing is life?

Andrea Scher, author of the Superhero Journal blog (she’s so much more than that, but for now, this is the relevant detail), wrote a post not too long ago in which she asked her readers:

But I do wonder sometimes what I am missing when I have my camera. It is a balance I am very curious about and try to stay conscious of–how much (and when) does my camera bring me deeper into the moment and when does it pull me farther away?

My response was:

I think about this all the time, because if I don’t have a camera, I am probably thinking about what details to savor and capture so I can write about it later. It’s the dilemma of the artist: life is happening at the same moment we are making art of it, so are we living or making art?

But I suppose that’s what I am saying, what I understand now: maybe I don’t need to distinguish between art and life, as my art is my life, and my life is my art?  I don’t need an official, government sanctioned Day of Writing, because I have 365 days of writing.

And joy.  And gratitude.  And hard work, but good work.  And kindness.  And wisdom.  I know how to spell “love” because I write, and it is written on my tender heart because I live it, breath and bone.

Today, Sam was in the yard, playing in a pile of leaves that Eric had carefully raked the day before.  The joy he so clearly felt is how I feel about writing, so I’ll leave you with the image of that, kind and gentle reader.