March, Third week :: 2021

I don’t have much time to write this week. I took a (nearly-empty) train north to help my son and his family with their new baby. She’s lovely and I am enjoying time spent with the other littles I haven’t seen much over these last months. We keep talking about how it feels like real change is coming, how soon we may be able to just visit each other without weeks of preparation and caution or that buzz of worry in the back of our minds that someone might have inadvertently exposed us to a terrible virus.

I am so looking forward to that day. <3

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A couple of lovely things gathered this week:

~ Gather Victoria’s 30-Day Diary of Eating Wild Greens

~From Louise Erdrich, this incredible poem:

Birth

When they were wild
When they were not yet human
When they could have been anything,
I was on the other side ready with milk to lure them,
And their father, too, the name like a net in his hands.

And Baby Edie, of course:

Wishing you all a lovely Equinox this weekend, whether you’re bringing in Spring or Fall. <3

Love,

tonia

March, second week :: 2021

Journalists say they learn by fire how to write quickly and to deadline. I haven’t mastered that skill yet, but I realize if I’m going to keep posting while I’m in school I’m going to have to abandon my hours-long post-writing and light a fire under myself. From now on I’m pretending these posts are written with J. Jonah Jameson lurking over my shoulder shouting “We ain’t got all day, kid!”

Mark and I were able to get away last weekend for a few days at our favorite beach town. It felt crazy to be away from home, checking into a hotel. (Did we really use to do those things semi-regularly?) It was part of a business trip, so I had one day all to myself. I walked in the rain, bought multiple fancy coffees, indulged in a pastry, and ate it back in the hotel room in bed reading the Winter issue of Orion magazine. It was glorious.

Being alone for a few hours in a new setting was the gift I needed before my energy gets pulled into new tasks and new learning. I was able to connect some ideas that had been coming up and realized my intuition has been gently leading me deeper into my Simplicity Practice. I capitalized the letters because that’s how my mind showed it to me this weekend: as a commitment I should be centering around. Moving forward, I am going to be continually asking myself the question, “Is this the simplest way?”

By “simplest”, I don’t necessarily mean easiest, although sometimes I will. Elisa Rathje wrote a lovely post about all the things simplicity can mean last week - a post that helped me realize that what’s confusing about an idea like “simple living” is that different situations may call for different types of simplicity. By this point in my life, I have a good sense of my overall values in most areas and should be able to apply my “Is this the simplest way” question appropriately to different situations. For instance, simplicity with food is not about price and time for me, but rather, naturally simple and holistic systems. Thus, I purchase much of our food from local farmers who use sustainable practices. This requires more driving and more time but supports a broader ecological simplicity I want to see in the world. And it also simplifies our menus because I am cooking with what is at hand rather than sourcing elaborate ingredients for specialized recipes. (During the week it’s often just a grain, a bean, and whatever veggies are available.) Another situation will have a different response. That kind of elasticity in approach should help me in addressing daily needs.

Goodness, the time goes fast. My imaginary editor is yelling in my ear that it’s almost time to move on, so I’ll wrap this up. Btw, I would love to hear your insights on approaching simplicity as an intentional practice (or any other comments!) <3

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A few things to share from this week:

~ Ryan Holiday’s list of 100 (Short) Rules for a Better Life - I have barely scratched the surface with this list, but #20 has prompted me to strap on my foraging basket and bring a sharpened stick on my walks at least once a week from now on.

~ I can’t quit watching this.

~ The very first of the wild greens are popping up packed full of energy and life and I’m delighted. Every morning I’m picking a few dandelion leaves and anything else that looks edible (and probably like a weed), throwing them in the blender with some kale, an orange, and a bit of ginger, and making myself a tiny wild green smoothie to start the day. I can’t wait for chickweed, cleavers, nettle, and plantain to show up. <3

~ This honest Twitter thread from Audrey Assad. “There are only curiosities…there is only presence…there is only gratitude. And those are the things I practice. Curiosity and presence and gratitude are my prayer life. In pain and bliss and everything in between. Whatever or whoever God is, I am still in love.”

~ A list of writing resources from the lovely Holly Wren Spaulding. (Her classes are so good!)

Until next week, my friends. <3

tonia

P.S. The rewrites are taking so much longer than I expected but I want to make sure that I put out a book I’m proud of. I’m sorry it’s taking so long but know I am working hard and I feel really good about the writing and the story so far. Thanks for hanging in there!

March, first week :: 2021

I learned a new word for myself this week: nemophilist : someone who is in love with forests and the woods, who visits often, a “haunter of the woods.” I was born in a desert valley, but I swear my heart formed under the roots of a moss-pelted Douglas fir. Even as a child I knew that I belonged with trees. I love so many kinds of natural places, but when I enter our tiny patch of woods and stand still, I feel connected and known in a different way, as if I had sprung from this very ground, as if I am a part of the vital network that links all the natural world. And of course, I am. It’s a part of our modern affliction that we think of nature as something outside ourselves, something we go to visit or escape into. But nature is not something out there, it is us.

Sometimes, I begin my day meditating outside on the back deck. In the winter, that means bundling up and carrying a candle out to my chair, but there is something wonderful about sitting in the still-dark, listening to the world before the neighbors begin driving by on the road below, just the sound of the creek and the occasional shush of trees I can’t yet see. It’s like finding myself again before the world pulls and tears, asking me to forget. Today I found myself whispering, show me how to live within this harmony.

I spend a lot of time thinking how to lessen my impact, create zero waste, leave no trace. But lately I’ve been thinking how that language can lead to disordered thinking of ourselves as something apart from, as invaders who don’t belong here and must tiptoe across the landscape in repentance for existing. Instead, I want to start asking how to live with, to learn the harmony and reciprocity I am meant to be a part of. Not just how can I quit consuming too much and creating waste, but how can I be a gift to this land? What can I give back to it? It’s a small shift, but one that leads me more into the flow of abundance and generosity that I believe nature is always singing about.

This week the sun arrived and a daffodil bloomed, sapsuckers are at work. Thank you, March for coming. We needed you.

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Notes from this week:

Fred Bahnson’s essay “Keeping the World in Being” - “I’m attracted to Cassian’s writings and the work of other early monastics because they reveal parallels between the era of the desert fathers and our own; they, too, lived during a time when the known world was coming unhinged. In 313 CE, when the Roman emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, thereby marking the beginning of Christendom, men and women of conscience knew that the wedding of church and state was not a betrothal: it was a betrayal. The early anchorites withdrew from this arranged marriage because they knew that Christendom could no longer sustain their inner lives, that civilization had in fact gone mad. They left the cities and withdrew to the Egyptian desert, where the vastness of their spiritual hunger could be met by an equally vast landscape.”

~ With apologies to the minimalist mood of the moment, I’ve given over to bookish hedonism. I don’t want to be restrained. I’m happiest when I’m surrounded by them, reading them, creating them. Nemophile, bibliophile, not sorry. As Ryan Holiday says at the end of his newsletters:

I promised myself a long time ago that if I saw a book that interested me I’d never let time or money or anything else prevent me from having it. This means that I treat reading with a certain amount of respect.

May have sent this image to my husband ten times this week:

Aidan McGarry’s book wall.

~ “Every hour spent reading is an hour spent learning to write.” ~ Robert Macfarlane

~Despite my ongoing efforts, I’m not much of a music person (I know, I’m sorry, my formative years were wasted), but I do love a song that reaches out and connects in my mind to characters in my stories. Sometimes it’s the lyrics, sometimes it’s a sound, sometimes a mood, but they’re almost always pop songs because I usually discover them in the car on long drives while my mind is working out plot points. Currently, Harry Styles and I are deep into The Spaces Between with Falling (the whole Fine Line album is terrific, btw). My other novel favored lots of John Mayer.

~ William Stafford is one of my life-mentors for a good reason. His blend of pragmatism and natural optimism make me hopeful. I’m leaving you with my morning copywork from today - with a slight {alteration} - if you’ll forgive my boldness, Mr. Stafford.

A Story That Could Be True

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a {queen}.”

May you face all your doubts and questions today in such a spirit.

peace,

tonia

P.S. Three weeks until my classes start and I’m working as hard as I can on rewrites for The Spaces Between. Send stamina and a few extra hours, please. <3

February 4, 2021

The birds were singing when I went out this morning and the bulbs I rushed into the ground in November are poking their heads up, but we always get a false spring in February and I’m refusing to be drawn in.  I know Mother Nature has 8 more weeks of drizzle and grey skies for us here.  I don’t mind.  I’m pretty fond of winter.

 I’m up to my ears right now in 7th grade algebra.  Square roots and the distributive property, sigh.  I’ve got a couple more weeks to take my math placement exam and as I’m hoping to do the least amount of math possible over this degree I have to study hard now.  I’m just calling this humiliation month.  I’m thinking that maybe some really nice pencils and a good pencil sharpener would help me enjoy this better.  (Check yes if you agree that good writing supplies always improve a situation.) I ordered a new fountain pen and the yummiest, smoothest ink a while back and that has been making me happy pretty much every day, so it follows that new pencils will make math easier, right?  I’m all about textural pleasures.

A few things I want to remember this week:

~ I came across this advice from Jerry Seinfeld in a newsletter I follow this morning.

LEARN HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOURSELF

Oof, I needed that.  I’m still way too dependent on the approval of others (or flustered by their disapproval).  Insecurity and shut-down women run in my family like water through a hose, but hell if I’m going to join them.  This is the year of doing hard things, of finding the guts to speak and live on my own. (Eleanor approves.)

~ Speaking of going solo, did you see this post on the realities of Instagram engagement?  I hope no one is actually buying into this. In case you are wondering, it’s been a year and a half since I left social media and I have no regrets.  I still check in occasionally on a few people whose content enrich me and I’m grateful for people creating beautiful posts, but I do have a secret hope that we’ll move on some day and the corporations can figure out how to make money by doing their own damn work. 

~ appleturnover’s channel is a gift.  Such beautiful little films about a small-scale regenerative homestead. 

~ Adrienne Maree Brown on the founding wound.  Woah. (Worth reading the whole thing if you have time.)

things are not getting worse
they are getting uncovered
we must hold each other tight
and continue to pull back the veil
see: we, the body, we are the wounded place

 ~ And this, from last month, but still making me cry.  I’m so thankful for the people in my life who have allowed me to change and still love me as myself.  A couple of friends in particular - you know who you are! But mostly my husband, for whom I feel such deep, deep gratitude. 

Until next time.

Peace keep you.

patron of the new year

Hello friends,

I was working on a post for this week, but then Wednesday happened and now I just keep staring at this screen wondering what I’m supposed to say. Currently, I feel angry. And more angry. And impatient with people who are shocked and bewildered because what did you think we’ve been saying for the last five years?! (And that makes me feel humbled and small all over again because of all the Black, Brown,Indigenous, LGBTQ and other marginalized voices who have been telling us this for much, much longer. I’m sorry and thank you for your endurance.)

National traumas leave marks. Emotions take up space and time. That’s where I am.

~~

The only escape I’ve managed from the news cycle the past few days is working on my first novel, The Spaces Between. Because it was under an agent’s contract for so long, I haven’t actually spent much time looking at it critically for a few years. Reading it now is like visiting a younger self. There’s the story on the page, which is entirely fictional, and there’s my memories of where it was written and how it felt. But there is also the memory of my internal struggles hovering like shadows around the words. I can trace my maturing through the lines. Maturing as a writer, of course, but also as a woman. I’m no longer writing for the critical voices in my head. So much of the work I did before was an ongoing argument between those voices and the self that was trying to break free. It makes me grateful that this book was never published, because when I wrote it I didn’t understand what it was to write out of truth. I didn’t realize it of course, but I was writing and living from a narrative I internalized but didn’t believe. Now I am writing as my true self; I have a strong sense when I am going against my own nature and purpose and I recognize the joy that comes when I’ve been the most honest. It’s a good place to be.

~ I’m forever on the lookout for symbols or imagery that will help me live into the stage of growth I’m in and last week I stumbled across Eleanor Roosevelt. As soon as I saw her picture I felt that she was going to be my patron (or guardian spirit as Austin Kleon would call her) for this part of the year.

Here she is gracing my journal with her bright common sense and strength.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you’ll be criticized anyway.”

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

“Be confident, not certain.”

Eleanor makes me want to stand up straighter and get to work. So despite the rocky start to the year and the current state of my emotions, I have a lot of plans for 2021, including some good changes to my day-to-day life (which I’ll share more about later.) Next week, unless some other catastrophic thing happens, I want to share the first chapter of The Spaces Between with newsletter subscribers, so watch for that! <3

In the meantime, take good care of yourself. Be real. Be passionate and angry when you need to, but grab a bag of White Cheddar Hippeas and some Netflix when you need that too, k? Also naps.

Thanks for listening.

peace, friends.

tonia

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Soundtrack for this post: Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending from The Lark Ascending Collection

On repeat for comfort and inspiration: Paterson (Jim Jarmusch,2016)