Whew. This week. The first week of classes is always a wild ride but I am pretty sure this week has lasted 14 years. It’s been a lot. Add my own personal not-doing-great-mentally to the mix and…I’m just really, really glad this weekend has an extra day. I hope I’ll actually be able to take a mental break from work and to deal gently with all the other nonsense going on in the world so that the stress doesn’t just keep compounding.
I love that Joy the Baker’s word of the year is joy. I also love a gentle January (which this one has definitely not been for me thus far), and this post is full of inspiration for unabashed moseying.
I enjoyed this extensive list of ways to get involved if you are concerned about book bans.
My friend is seeking legal assistance with getting her son the help he needs. Please donate if you can.
In light of my general overwhelm about financial…anything…I have enlisted the help of Tori Dunlap’s community, The $100K Club. It is way outside my comfort zone but in just the last three days is already helping me. The monthly membership fee ($47) is somewhat steep for my budget, but that is still less stressful than trying to piece together all this info myself and weed through all the advice people like to give (omg the mounds of opinions – most of them either completely irrelevant to me or just plain bad advice).
Edited to add this bonus because it’s so good and something I need to remember about myself this month as a reminder to breathe first and then respond. I don’t have to perpetuate bad history by making anger my default. People lash out when they’re sad.
I hope that you are well and that your weekend is easy/fun!
[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.
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.”
Ah, December. Wonderful and wild. Full of parties and Advent festivities. My favorite time for reflection and anticipation.
I’m equal parts excited and tired already.
Because the first part of the month is always so busy, my reading needs to be generally lighthearted and easy. I need books that soothe my mind and soul after a busy day. I’ve already finished the books we’re discussing at book clubs this month, and I’ve lost interest in actually finishing the remaining reading challenges this year. So I can really just read whatever I like. I mean, I can do that all the time, but I’m not putting any self-imposed parameters on my choices this month.
Except for one. I need to get some of my library books back to the library. I have an excessive amount checked out. It’s absurd. So I need to read the ones I’m actually still interested in and just return the ones I’m not. I would love to blank-slate my library check-outs this month, but I’ll settle for cutting them in half.
Also, I’m still planning on finishing my main goal of 180 books for the year. It will be a tight race, but I think I can do it.
Here are my plans as of now.
Books for Advent (i.e., read as part of my daily Advent practice, so finish before Christmas Day)
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.
It’s rainy and cool outside, and I’m enjoying a nice cup of tea. Hello, November. It’s wonderful to see you.
Here are some things I read that I found enjoyable. Hope you do, too.
A few tips on how not to freak out about the US election – tl;dr – focus on the present moment or next doable step, be the change you want to see, get involved at the local level, etc.
A refreshing take on rejection. My favorite quote – “Blurting out madness is still 100% my jam and it always will be.”
Are we too impatient to be intelligent? An offensive (to someone who loves efficiency as much as I do) and compelling argument for why faster isn’t often actually better.
A fantastic piece from Elif Shafak on being a writer in the age of angst. There are so many great takeaways, but let me leave you with this one – “Literature brings the periphery to the centre and rehumanizes those who have been dehumanized. This is why, storytellers are memory-keepers.”
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.
“My bucket list of little things aims to live every moment as if it’s my first. To find the glory in what a seasoned eye might falsely consider mundane.” Andrea Gibson, Things That Don’t Suck (Substack)
It has been a long week. Nothing particularly bad has happened. I’ve just felt puny and tired. The weather, however, is gorgeous. It was 52 when I left home. I am wearing a light sweater!
Today, I need a list of things to look forward to this season that aren’t super ambitious but still give me ways to ground myself and remind myself that I’m alive and meant to be living and not just muddling through.
Buy a delicious cup of coffee and drink it while browsing a bookstore. Take all the time I want.
Take shorter, more frequent walks. Not everything has to be hard all at once. A little bit multiple times a day is better than pushing myself and getting too exhausted to do anything else for hours.
Keep my hands warm and nimble with piano and knitting.
Make soup without rushing. Pan roast the veggies slowly. Add one ingredient at a time. Fill my home with cozy smells.
Take drives. Drive down winding country roads just outside of town and find the few trees in Texas that know what time of year it is. Drive down my favorite streets and let the memories of every time I’ve been there before flow over me.
“…because she didn’t know if it was better to be correct or fun, and why did it feel like she always had to choose between the two?” Alison Espach, The Wedding People
Almost halfway through the month, and this is the quote that is resonating with me most this morning. I feel this way in several areas of my life.
It comes through in my art. There is a tension between my training and my enjoyment. I outline and then write a rough draft and then edit…except that is more focus and work than I can commit to right now. So I keep writing but in ways that are more fun. I blog, I write bad poetry (and let it stay bad…for now), and I experiment with stream-of-consciousness journaling. I am a classically trained pianist, but I have found so much freedom in just sitting at the keyboard and playing around with whatever sounds, chords, and melodies come forth. I stick to just enough of my dance basics to be safe (turns out, the basics of dance are mostly about avoiding injury) when I fling myself about in a haphazard way in my living room. I love the foundation that my training has given me but I also love breaking out of it when I need to.
It comes through at my job. I don’t think I’m a good manager. I want the job to be fun for my team, but I spend so much of my day harping on corrections – mostly about basic stuff they should already know – that I feel more like a nag. A nice nag, but a nag nonetheless. I also find it exhausting and dehumanizing to be held responsible for the actions (or lack thereof) of other people with precarious levels of give-a-damn. I know it’s not a unique problem – this is just management in a nutshell – but it’s still gross. I’m still waiting for the big bucks that are supposed to make it worthwhile to hit the bank account. I need to learn how to be inspiring, but I just don’t know that I’m that person.
It’s coming through in my life in general right now. Life isn’t super fun these days. Or, it can be, but there is a high price for anything that lasts longer than an hour or uses a lot of energy. The “correct” thing is to rest and not overdo it, but it takes so little to overdo it that I’m not sure that’s even a reasonable expectation. Overdoing it and the ridiculously over-the-top physical consequences of doing so seem inevitable. This would be a great time to be independently wealthy so that I could spend my precious energy only on fun things.
One of the ways I’m slowing my roll this month is not being super picky about writing a post every single day. It will happen most days – just not every day. It’s especially nice to take a break on the weekends.
Where do you get caught up in the struggle between being correct and being fun? Or do you? Is it just me?
M. Suzanne Terry 