Whew! What a few weeks it’s been. My dad had a couple of small strokes, so my sister, brother-in-law, and I have been working at the farm, cleaning, taking care of mom, etc. He’s home and recovering well, but it’s still a lot. Work has been gracious in giving me the time off to take care of things, but next week is our biggest training week of the year, and I’m feeling the pressure!
What better way is there to relax in the little downtime I have than to read? I have a lot of books listed from previous months that I’m going to work on finishing, particularly from my reading challenges, and I’m adding a few new things for this month as well.
Book Clubs
James by Percival Everett (the audio is great – highly recommend) – also a Bad Bitch Book Club Challenge prompt – a 2024 award-winning novel [general fiction]
Love is in the air. Or something. Maybe it’s smog. Or anxiety.
On this arbitrary date that we celebrate love and consumerism, I hope you are surrounded by people who get you and know how amazing you are. Also, your hair looks nice, and I like your shirt.
Shout-out to Maggie, on this, her favorite day. It’s totally not made up. It’s a very real and special holiday, Magnanimous.
Here are some things I’ve read recently that I loved, and I hope you do, too.
I’m Cancer-Free, So Why Do I Feel So Depressed and Hopeless? by Maggie Hundshamer-Moshier via Bezzy BC – I’m feeling a lot of these things right now. The other day, I burst into tears at a mild inconvenience and turned to my friend and said “I think I’m depressed.” They smiled sweetly and said, “You…think?” Noted.
The Perils of Voracious Reading by Caroline Donahue – “The desire to read is as strong for me as the desire to eat.” I feel that. My favorite way of digesting what I read is keeping a commonplace book. In fact, since I read in more places than at home, I have one there and one that I carry around with me. They’re mostly full of quotes but also sometimes notes on how something made me feel or my gut reaction to a book/passage. The one I stash in my purse also often has lists, meeting notes, and doodles from meetings.
How To Read a Book by Monica Wood – I’m going to have to add Monica Wood to my favorite authors list. This is only the second one of hers that I’ve read, but both this one and The One-in-a-Million Boy were fantastic. If you like Fredrik Backman, or you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you will probably love the stories Monica Wood tells.
What Goes With What by Julia Turshen – I will sit and read a cookbook cover to cover like it’s a novel, but with most of them, I start skimming about halfway through. Not this one. Turshen’s recipes and instructions are interspersed with memories, essays, and interviews about the role food plays in her life, and I adored it all. This would be a great book to give to a new cook who is just learning how to experiment and think outside the recipe, but I (a somewhat well-seasoned cook) learned a lot (and *cough* would like it as a gift *cough*), too.
Finally, an oldie but goodie – The Optimism of Uncertainty by Howard Zinn via The Nation (2004). “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.”
Whew. What a year to explore wonder! I mean, I guess I am, in fact, frequently astonished (Am I really? Or is it all playing out exactly as expected?) and full of doubt, both of which were phenomena featured in the definition. But damn.
My focus last year was technically learning how to embrace quiet but realistically, it was also a lot of trying not to die. My community was instrumental in helping me achieve that goal. Of course, people are only able to help others insofar as they have the spoons/energy/resources to do so. Therefore, in addition to capturing some wonder along the way, a big part of my mindset this year leans more toward getting my shit together so that I can be in a position to be there for those who are having their try-not-to-die year(s) now. I mean, I have been a moderately-functioning adult for a long time, and I have most of the adulting basics down, but there are areas I could be stronger. I find myself veering toward pieces that talk about cultivating sanity and joy and community and love and stability amidst *gestures broadly* so here are some of my favorites this week.
Reckoning with This Vicious World from Ask Polly, aka Heather Havrilesky – “Every opportunity to dance, to seek pleasure, to love with an open heart, to create freely, to show yourself without shame, and to celebrate what you are makes you stronger and more helpful to this struggling world.”
Power: What It *Truly* Is – Tori Dunlap with Kasia Urbaniak – “If you’re focused on how you’re being perceived, your attention is inward and you lose the power to lead the conversation.”
This is Happening by Nadia Bolz-Weber – “…this is not the time to concede the faith to nationalists, and I do not want those of us who believe Jesus’ message was one of mercy, humility, hospitality and forgiveness to give into despair.”
How Do You Know: The Consequences of a Lack of Media Literacy and Where We Go From Here by Ashlie Swicker via Book Riot – “We all know that the internet twists thinking and that this leads to large swaths of people buying into misinformation…Still, I think we imagine that this is happening somewhere else, to other people…We don’t hold ourselves accountable for the same kind of open mind and fact-checking that we demand from people who think differently than us.”
On HillmanTok University, Black Educators Are Sharing Invaluable Info by Kaitlynne Rainne via Her Campus – Professors dropping lots of knowledge on TikTok. They’ve posted syllabi, resources, etc., on everything from basic adult skills like budgeting and personal wellness to courses on literature and entrepreneurship. Teachers are going to teach, regardless of the hurdles they face. Love to see it. I also love that it’s called Hillman.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Bernice King: “There’s a difference between being informed and being consumed.” I invite you to take that into your weekend and beyond.
[Prime reviewing/contemplating/reflecting space – a blanket and a cup of tea in front of twinkly lights]
How many times can I say this year has been a doozy without it becoming redundant? Welp, here’s one more time.
This year was a doozy.
I’ve tried reflecting and looking back for the past week, as is my custom. Most years – but particularly this year – I resonate with Kate Bowler’s feelings on reflection. I get stuck on certain things and forget so many others, even with the aid of my journal and planner (which in many ways is even more telling than my journal). The older I get, the more I realize that maybe the end of a year is too soon to reflect on it. I am usually still too close to it to ponder it with any real clarity.
But what I can do is look at the goals I set and see how I fared in measurable ways. So let’s dive in.
2024 Theme – Quiet
In many ways this year was very loud. But that especially drove home my need for carving out quiet time, and I had a small amount of success with that.
The intentional pursuit of quiet helped me to find space to heal both mentally and physically.
It also revealed how much work I still have to do in those areas. I didn’t always succeed at finding space, and my medical challenges this year made sure that it was really obvious when I didn’t. Getting quiet time is a lot of work, but it’s necessary and worth it.
Even when I’m “quiet,” I’m still anxious. It takes a lot of time I don’t always have to calm my brain enough to get the needed benefit from quiet moments.
Another challenge is that I don’t really have physical places to find quiet. My upstairs neighbors are loud and active, so even when I’m quiet, my environment still isn’t. And to go anywhere else is to inevitably have to socialize or be perceived or get distracted. Going forward, I need to find a way to really be at rest. I would prefer it to be an actual physical space, but earplugs have been a little helpful in the meantime.
I’m not quite done with quiet, nor do I think I’ll ever be. I have goals for the upcoming year that will help me continue to explore it.
Read 180 Books
I’m so close. I have read 175 so far. It’s possible to reach 180 by midnight tomorrow, but I don’t see myself forcing it just to meet my goal. I am enjoying looking at my Storygraph charts, and I may share one or two tomorrow when I talk about reading goals for 2025.
Even if I don’t finish any more books this year, aiming for this lofty goal still helped me read 20 more books than last year. I consider that a success!
Creative Education
All things creative pretty much tanked for me this year. I did have a few performances with beloved friends, and I have been able to be more active in choir this fall. But with the exception of a few brief inspired frenzies, my writing has been at a standstill.
I am not any further on The Artist’s Way than I was last year at this time, and I haven’t really cared about creative education at all. Looking back, I can admit this goal was a little unreasonable.
What has changed is that I would have felt really dejected about this pause in the past. But I don’t feel that way today. I am satisfied with how I’ve spent my time this year, even if that meant I didn’t heavily pursue a lot of the things I love. My attention was simply needed elsewhere, and I honored that. I am proud of myself for doing so.
Health Goals
I’m alive! I did it!
I survived cancer and cancer treatments, both of which tried to take me out.
As part of that survival, I also built some stronger, healthier skills that I hope to take into the new year. Also, I’ve learned to call them skills instead of habits, because apparently habit isn’t a thing my brain does. This was one of the helpful revelations that came out of therapy this year. For me, there’s no doing things without thinking about it. Even if I do something every day for a year, the moment I don’t remind myself (that is, actually set reminders or leave lists in a place I know I’ll see them), I drop it like I’ve never even heard about it. Everything has to be a conscious choice every time.
Which sounds exhausting (and it can be). But it’s also liberating. It frees me from trying to make progress the way other people do. Instead, I can focus on my goals in a way that actually works for me.
And it’s working beautifully so far.
So that’s the year. That’s 2024. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with it.
I hope you are satisfied with your year, too. Feel free to brag on yourself a little in the comments.
December 22 last year was a Friday. I was talking about books (of course). I had just wrapped up work and parties and performances for the month and was looking forward to traveling to see my family. This day last year was one of my favorite moments of the holiday season – that little transition between work and rest where I get to take a breath.
It was also a little over a week before I got my diagnosis.
So on December 22 last year, the appointment for the follow-up scan that eventually revealed the cancer had been made, and I was anxious. The first reference I see to news about health issues in the blog is on December 30 in my year-end review. This quote is…something.
“I was ahead of schedule for most of the year, until work and health issues exploded. I don’t know how much those things will actually settle down, but I’ll keep the same goal for next year and see how it goes.”
Yeah, it did not settle down. At all, in any way. If November/December 2023 was an explosion, 2024 was a supernova.
What I enjoy about re-reading this post, though, is how well my 2023 goals had prepared me for what was to come. As challenging as this year has been, it would have been so much harder if I hadn’t already learned some practical ways to take care of myself – not just physically but also mentally and financially. I’m not sure I would have made it without those skills. Good job, past me!
Out of necessity, I’ve sharpened those skills this year. I know I’ve made some progress, because otherwise, today would not have gone the way that it did, and I would be in worse shape for it.
Yesterday was a good day, but it was also a loud day. A very social day. I woke up this morning still feeling the sensory overload. I got up and started getting ready to leave home. I noticed it was not easy.
I paused to check in with what I was feeling:
Irritation, almost to the point of panic
Itchy skin, particularly anywhere it touched fabric or whenever the breeze from the fan blew over it
Dull, throbbing headache
Strong aversion to the smell of my lotion (which is “unscented”)
Nausea due to all of the above
Yep. That’s still overload. Probably not a great time to go sit in a room with an organ. Or people.
A year ago today, I might have forged ahead and gone to church. After all, the choir was singing and I love being part of that. I’ve missed out on it so much this year.
But nowadays I am more likely to choose getting well over doing almost any other thing. I choose slowing down. I don’t like it. I still want to do all the fun things and dislike that I can’t. But I know that taking a break when I need it is the better choice.
Today is officially the end of the semester. All the students are moving out (well, all who are not staying for winter housing, which is a whole thing). I’m working tomorrow just to supplement the office/make sure my people are sane and fed.
The prompt for Susannah Conway’s December Reflections challenge today is “Biggest lesson in 2024.” Always the overachiever, I’m listing five things I’ve learned this year. Some even have links. Enjoy!
Taking care of myself is not selfish. Or, even when it is, it’s the good kind of selfish – the kind that helps me be a whole person who isn’t constantly stressed out and mad at everything I’m doing for everyone else instead of taking care of my own needs and/or sanity. This lesson can be for you, too. Take care of yourself. Decadently, even. If you don’t know where to start, here are some ideas on romanticizing your life, some of which may seem extravagant (gentle pushback on that – is it actually extravagant, or are you a people pleaser?) but some of which are also just “remember to drink water.”
An important subset of taking care of myself – keep up with your health screenings. It literally saved my life this year. Here are some basics but you may need others depending on your personal health risks. That’s a good question to ask during your annual physical.
I can’t care enough for everyone. Still working on this lesson, particularly at work. My toxic trait is that if I feel like someone is not invested or caring enough about something, I try to care on their behalf. Turns out, caring does not work like that. It just makes me tired and stressed, and I do not need that in my life. “Find out whose business you’re in,” and get out of it.
Ask for help when I need it, and expect that it will come. My people showed up this year in multiple big ways, and I’m so grateful. I was afraid to ask for help, particularly financial assistance. I could have saved myself so much worry just by having more realistic expectations of my friends and family. This has turned out to be my greatest joy of the year.
It’s OK to feel multiple things at a time. I can be grateful and angry and resentful and hopeful and grieving and curious and awestruck at the exact same moment. This has pretty much been my mood since October, and I don’t see it going anywhere any time soon. Side note: people do not know how to handle this. Side-of-the-side-note: people can learn how to handle this, or they can go away.
The season of Advent, that is. It’s (probably) my favorite season of the church year and one of the reasons I tend to say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” during most of December (you know, other than the usual reason of wanting my well wishes to others to be as unconditional, as free of strings and assumptions, as possible). I am especially glad today that the weather seems to understand it’s December and is behaving accordingly.
Here are five things I’ve read in the last few weeks that I thought you might enjoy, too.
How To Have Cancer by Cory Doctorow – I resonate with so much here. The hoops you have to jump through. The inevitable “I wish I’d done it this way to make it a little less stressful/more effective.” I’m glad Doctorow is OK. I’m glad we’re both (generally) OK.
A Brief What, Why, & How of Advent by Tsh Oxenreider – I was recently asked what Advent was about and I rambled a lot. Enthusiastically, but still so much rambling. Here is a much more succinct version. I don’t do everything on this list (and my tradition uses blue candles – for hope/peace/healing – rather than purple – for royalty/penance – during Advent), but this is a lovely explanation.
But How Do You Read So Much? by Pandora Sykes – “I will find ways, as I always do, to not do the other stuff, so that I can find time to read.” Yes, that’s it. That’s the big secret. I read so much because I really, really want to read so much. I thoroughly enjoy it. When I’m not reading, I’m usually thinking about what I have read recently and counting the minutes until I can get back to it. But if you only want to read as much as I want to do Pilates every day (i.e., only a little – usually more of an “I should” than an “I want” situation, unless I’m feeling particularly tight or sore in an area I know it will help), then maybe give yourself a break about how infrequently you read and focus on all the wonderful and life-giving things you do instead.
Why Walking Helps Us Think by Ferris Jabr – This piece was a fantastic motivation to take more walks. If you only get one free New Yorker article a month, this would be a good one to use it for!
And a bonus bullet point this week – I joined Bluesky – Roxane Gay said it best – “Some people don’t get exposed to other points of view in their day-to-day lives so they need social media for that. Some of us have friends and colleagues and family. And it shows.”
I am anxious about my health, my job, my friends (especially those of us whom the prevailing culture seems to want to annihilate), my country, and the world in general. I am not ok.
This week has been a lot, and it’s Friday.
It’s Friday, and I love you, and here are some things I want you to remember to do.
Connect with your people. It’s ok to be overwhelmed with grief. For many of us, this year has already been super shitty. For many people, it got extra shitty this week. For many others, it was always going to be shitty no matter what happened. It’s ok to say that. Reach out and say that to someone who is a soft place to land. If you don’t have someone in your face-to-face life to say that to, you can say it to me.
Take care of yourself. Drink water. Eat something (multiple times a day, even if it’s just a cracker or one piece of fruit. Cheese. Cheese is delicious.). Take your meds. Take a walk. Take a nap. Cuddle with your pets (or a friend’s pets).
Take care of your community. Volunteer, donate, raise awareness, protest – whatever you can do. Even if you have to do it from your bed.
Make art. You are a creative force. Art fosters innovation, solution, communion, restoration, revolution. Artists are instigators of change. Artists remind us of the things worth staying alive for.
Write it down. Blog. Post on social media. If that doesn’t feel safe, take five minutes at some point every day to word vomit on the page of a journal. No one ever has to see it but you. Even if you need to check out for a minute, don’t stay that way. Don’t stop paying attention. Don’t stop speaking up. Don’t stop.
I hope your weekend is restful, and I hope you get to spend it with people who have your best interests at heart.
Today, I enjoyed this lovely pastry from The Market by Clark Bakery, our very own on-campus bakery. It was flaky and messy and awesome.
Just like life is sometimes.
This year, there have been good days and bad days, but very few days have been all one or the other. Days I remember fondly were still usually hard. Most days this year have been meh overall.
But even days that were super traumatic had a little spark of hope in them. Sometimes, that’s all that saw me through.
The comfort of a friend.
Actually being able to taste a cup of coffee (which was a rare treat during chemo).
A cool breeze.
Sharing cat pictures.
Coming home to a care package in the mail.
A flaky, messy pastry.
Likewise, every book I’ve read this year has played some role in helping me push through to the other side of whatever was going on while I was reading it. No matter how hard something was, the stories were always there. When I didn’t have the energy to do anything else, I could still read. When I got tired of repeating updates about my health, books gave me something else to talk about.
I’ve enjoyed sharing a small portion of that with you this month, and there are many more quotes I had lined up that I hope to write about in the future. I encourage you to keep a quote journal, whether it’s to jot down things that inspire you in the books you read, in articles from your favorite cultural icons, or even in memes that catch your eye as you’re scrolling through your social media feeds.
This past weekend, I participated (loosely) in Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon. The official time was 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday (EST). But I (and various others in the Discord and in the Facebook group) rarely actually stick to the time of the event. My goal, for example, was to simply read a collective 24 hours. I think the Dewey’s team is on to us – instead of hourly challenges, they just listed a handful of challenges to complete “at any time during the readathon.”
I completed no challenges.
I didn’t read a full 24 hours.
I barely remembered to post the picture of the stack I was choosing from (see above) on the group’s social media pages.
I carried on with plans to attend my favorite yearly Halloween party and Spiderdead, brazenly cutting into the hours I would usually set aside on readathon weekends to read.
I finished three books, but only one of them is actually in this stack (Fang Fiction – pretty cute!).
What I got out of the readathon was still pretty magical.
I got to tuck into stories about found families and books and several other favorite themes. I ate good, simple food, so I rested better (weird how that happens) and thus felt more refreshed when the weekend was over (despite it being a “busy” one). I embraced my full homebody self without the usual twinge of guilt about what a person who lives alone should want to do on the weekend.
These twinges are getting smaller and less frequent as I age. One reason for this is that I’m accepting who I am more and becoming less apologetic about it with each passing month. Another reason is that I get so much joy and restoration out of my alone time that there is little to no room left for feeling bad about it.
At any rate, I had a great weekend, and I look forward to many more like it as the season changes.
M. Suzanne Terry 