I was reading about the Vikings while the snow piled up around us this week. The dramatic weather made it easy to imagine the kind of landscape that would produce such a stout and clever (albeit, brutal) people. It fascinates me to think how nature, place, and time shape cultures. I think that’s why my interest is often drawn toward dystopian literature. Not for the scares, but for the exploration of what happens when you disrupt assumptions about how the world works, when people’s skills no longer match the time they live in, when nature changes its course. I prefer the stories where we rise to the occasion and prevail humanely over the ones where the world goes feral. I hope we’re writing one of those right now.

We were really fortunate to keep our power during our snowstorms this time though many people didn’t (and still don’t have power). And I’m thinking constantly about those of you in Texas and Oklahoma and other parts of the south. The Vikings might have built a society around surviving harsh winters off-grid, but plenty of the rest of us haven’t. I’m keeping a candle lit for those who are cold, hungry, thirsty, lonely, sick, or homeless right now. And one for the hard-working crews who are working to get power back and rescue those who are in need (including the turtles.) <3

This week:

~ My writing streaks have been going so well (67 days and counting!) that I decided to do a yoga challenge. At least 10 minutes of yoga every day for 365 days. (I was inspired by this video.) I’ve done extended challenges in the past and I know that something happens mentally when you do yoga daily. I’m 13 days in and already feeling the shift.

~ Installed Freedom on my phone (I already use it on my laptop for writing sessions) which has been the happiest event this week. My phone works like a phone for most of the day, not a computer. I love it.

~ From Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, a quote from Andre Gide:

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

(See? We do need your voice!!)

~This mesmerizing Luca Guadagnino video for Sufjan Stevens.

Wherever you are I hope you are warm and healthy.

A blessing as I go, from the precious John O’Donohue:

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.