April, third week :: 2021

I marked off my 120th day of writing this weekend and decided to take a few days off to reset my goals. I’m stuck on one chapter of the novel rewrites and I need a little bit of time away from it to get some perspective. I was feeling bad about how slow these rewrites are going, but then I came across James Baldwin’s admission that writing is just hard. “Every form is difficult, no one is easier than another. They all kick your ass. None of it comes easy.” Amen to that.

I asked Mark to take the long way home tonight, around the dike on the low-lying road that curves around farms and newly bright fields. We rolled down our windows and drove slowly, letting Bortkiewicz’ Lyrica Nova play out into the sunset, something we’ve done for years whenever we need to unwind. These first weeks of school I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to find real rest, but I’ve at least remembered that it begins with a little time and a bit of nature, even if it’s only seen from the window of a moving car.

The moon hung over us as we drove, a bright sickle against the blue sky. She’s moving through her cycle again, patient and constant while our world keeps fracturing and wounding itself. All around us green blades pushing up through soil, rogue daffodils in ditches, flit of deer shadows among the cottonwoods, moth dance above the windshield. Inhale. Exhale. Tomorrow I’ll get back to studying, back to learning how to write, because as James Baldwin says:

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. In some way, your aspirations and concern for a single man in fact do begin to change the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look at reality, then you can change it.

Let me know how you’re changing the world today, friends. xo

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Gathered:

~ Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows reading Rilke.

~ Justine Bateman refusing to feel bad about aging.

Peace keep you.

More soon.

Tonia

April, First week :: 2021

Hello friends!

Phew! My first week of school is behind me. I love it all and I have all my homework done early like a good Enneagram 1. I’m exhausted and also my brain won’t stop churning over all the things and I’m exhausted. Did I say that already? I already regret my arrogance at not taking the easy math path. My children promise me the first couple weeks of term are the worst and I will get into a groove before I know it. (Please let that be true for almost-50 year old brains too.)

I am in love with everything about Community College, especially the egalitarianism of it. It’s open to everyone, it’s cheap(ish), and the professors are not going to get famous and make their careers here, so they’re just the type of people who like to help the ragtag rest of us learn things. And boy are we ragtag. I have to turn off my Zoom camera so I don’t just grin with happiness at all the diverse and wonderful humanity in my classes. Everyone - I mean, mostly everyone I talked to about starting school - told me I would be so annoyed by the young people in my classes, but listen, I AM NOT ANNOYED BY THE YOUNG PEOPLE. I love them. I love the boy who spends the whole class staring at himself and smoothing his hair back, up, down, flip the bangs, every two minutes. I love the kid who refuses to answer any questions posed to him. None. I love the girl who just graduated from her ESL class and always has to ask the meaning of words (you go, girl.) I love the ones who insist we have our pronouns visible next to our names so no one feels unwelcome. I love the spotty, awkward kids whose voices crack when they are called on and the bright-haired extroverts who cannot quit interrupting. The world is just full of interesting and gorgeous humans and I’m so glad to be a part of it. Do I sound excited and ridiculous? I know. But honestly, the world is beautiful and I’m happy to be here.

We ended March with the most wonderful walk down to the river to see the Full Crow Moon ride the night sky. (I just shot these photos with my iPhone, so please excuse the graininess!) I’m getting better about marking these days with small ceremonies. Full moons are for gratitude, which was a perfect way to end the month and begin a new one with so many changes.

I don’t have much more to offer this week, except an apology for the missed comments and emails I haven’t responded to. I hope I’ll be more coherent next week. Until then, enjoy this strange and wonderful world we live in as much as you can. I hope you get some sunshine and maybe some (appropriately distanced and masked) time with actual people this week.

Gathered:

~ I make kombucha every couple of weeks. This post from Cat’s gorgeous blog inspired my best batch yet, which I made with rosehips, hibiscus, elderberry, schisandra berry and ginger. Soooo yummy!

~ Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane are releasing a pandemic album inspired by Gilgamesh. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I can’t even. Preview Gods and Monsters. (Also, Johnny Flynn is the best thing about the new-ish Emma, which has many amazing qualities.)

~ And this reminder from Gladys Taber: “I believe there is nothing so tiresome as an apologetic woman.”

Peace friends,

tonia

March, Fourth week :: 2021

The new dog, Laika, is a little sensitive. She’s supposed to go to work with my daughter every day but a vet’s office is full of strange dogs and people and noises that make her anxious, so she has to stay home with the rest of us on workdays. I’m not really a dog person, or rather, I like dogs just fine when they belong to other people and not so much when they are my responsibility, but for most of the day Laika is quiet and sleepy and as unobtrusive as the cats, so we get along fine. A couple of times a day she stares at me with the saddest possible eyes until I take her out to the (unfenced) woods so she can explore without getting lost. On Laika-days I am forced out of my homebody-ness and out under the trees in all kinds of weather, something I’ve never been able to do consistently by my own willpower. Which means the dog that I did not really want has become a facilitator of something important for me.

Today while we were tramping around in a different part of the woods I found four plastic jugs full of water tied together with baling wire and buried in the leaf litter near a downed tree. There were rumors around town last year that a couple of homeless men had been sleeping in the old gravel mine that butts up against our property. This is the size of town that knows exactly who the two homeless men are and how they ended up sleeping in the old gravel mine, so I had an instant mental image of those jugs slung over the back of a particular bike on their way to and from town. No one had disturbed the buried jugs for some time, so while it’s mildly upsetting to think of strangers (neighbors?) sleeping in my backyard, I wasn’t really worried as I dug them out. I was wondering instead where the men are now as I haven’t seen them for months. The plague year has closed me in on all sides, put me on the defense, outstretched my compassion.

This week I was listening to Bayo Akomolafe talk about this feeling of overwhelm and how continually focusing on how to solve the world’s problems may be limiting us. Perhaps, he asserts, it is possible to use uncertainty instead. I have plenty of practice with uncertainty: I don’t know what to do about the water bottles in the woods or my homeless neighbors or gun violence or species die-off or the mess of late-stage capitalism. But when Laika draws me out under the sky and the rain hits our skin and the squirrels dash through the Fir branches and the Cedar shelters this tiny cache of human need I am suddenly aware of my connection to this great, groaning, speaking, moving Being that is Us, our world. “This world is promiscuous,” Akomolafe says, “it dances here and there, and new paths are always emerging.” It is in the listening, the connection, the waiting, he asserts, that we may be able to see the new ways of healing the world is devising for itself. Our culture abhors an unsolved problem, knows only the success of production and action, but for centuries there have been people who faced the world’s needs by retreating to lonely places to pray or chant or learn from the land. Maybe my daily visits to the trees are tapping into that quiet energy, maybe this nervous, sensitive dog that needs the woods is a deep calling to come away and learn. If so, I say yes.

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Gathered from this week:

~ Robins - by Peter Johnston. A lovely little film that will help you exhale.

~ Hedgespoken Picturehouse - Are you tired of streaming, polished, image-heavy stories yet? Tom Hirons and Rima Staines have brought their traveling, off-grid, story caravan online for live storytelling. I haven’t listened/watched this yet, but I have plans for tonight with a glass of wine and my pjs. UPDATE: I listened this evening and it is marvelous! <3

Don’t miss Rima Staines’ amazing artwork either.

~Adam Zagajewski’s Mysticism for Beginners

I hope you find some quiet places for your soul this week. And as it was Mr. Rogers’ birthday on Saturday, let me just say, “I like you just the way you are.”

Peace and love,

tonia

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!