I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.
– Mary Oliver, Felicity
I love Jeanette LeBlanc‘s writing. All of it. I particularly adored a piece of hers that I read recently, Start With What You Know. She evokes so powerfully the writing life, the tension and urge and essence of the white hot need to come to the page. I was inspired to share my own list of what I start with, of what I know.
this, the sunset out of my office window, is something I know to be true
I think most clearly in the morning, and I like to start my day before the sun is up.
I like my coffee with coconut milk and coconut sugar. Hot, and more than one cup of it.
Life is messy and most people carry some scars and wounds with them.
Drinking alcohol doesn’t really work for me most of the time anymore.
I’m more attuned than most people to aches and pains and changes in my body. This only makes me a hypochondriac if I act on every discomfort. It makes me aware and sensitive if I remember to sit tight and wait. Most things pass.
Writing is an essential part of almost every day for me. I need to write what I see, what I think, what I feel.
I feel a lot. Good and bad and everything in between. I ride roller coasters inside my emotions every single day. The challenge is creating more space between the feeling and the reacting.
My spidey sense about other people is rarely wrong. I need to trust it more.
Nothing puts me more quickly and firmly in touch with the ineffable, deeply reassuring energy that throbs through the universe than being outside.
When you write what you know, what do you start with?
What It Really Means to be Happy – I love this piece on Tiny Buddha, which asserts that happiness is an orientation towards our lives rather than a single mood. Oh yes. As someone who has publicly decried the emphasis on “happiness” as life’s ultimate goal, this piece really spoke to me.
9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings – Thank you to Tracy, who sent this link from Maria Popova’s wonderful site to me. It won’t surprise you, probably, that my favorites are #4, “build pockets of stillness into your life,” #6, “presence is a far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity,” an #8, “seek out what magnifies your spirit.” The whole list – concise, wise, powerful – is worth reading.
Motherhood is Always Saying Goodbye – “Mothering holds within it, then, ancient wisdom that comes from millennia of women devoted to the hard practice of letting go.” Yes. Nothing I can say to add to the glory of this piece, which asserts that motherhood and life itself is about letting go and living with farewells but YES. I often find the work on Literary Mama resonant, and this essay touches me more than most.
I’m reading Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family and finding it compelling, both a call to action and a reminder that I am doing okay. I had the privilege of meeting her last week, which was absolutely fantastic.
We are back into Homeland and I continue to think it’s incredible. Top 40 again continues to dominate my playlist (which is almost entirely in the car) – right now, loving Rob Thomas’ Hold On Forever and I’m still not sick of Passenger’s Let Her Go.
What are you reading, thinking about, and listening to lately?
I write these Things I Love pieces approximately monthly. You can see all previous posts here.