*

Things on my mind lately:* My novel. I'm scared to go back. * Running, hard. * Feeling moody. Often. * Finding my stride again, maybe. * Indian summer. * Wishing things were easier. * Getting a glimpse of what a house with TWO boys in it will be like. * Learning to check pockets stain treat laundry.

You?

Weekly Crushes

It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was clipping Bean into his ski boot bindings for the first time and sending him down the driveway. Now the first leaves are already golden and orange. Where has the summer gone?

The crickets know that snow is on its way. In the garden, fat pumpkins with girths rounder than Bean's hugs. My Bean, who has started a mixed-aged (Waldorf) kindergarten program, and comes home singing. My Bean who tells us about the enormous imaginary kangaroo that lives upstairs. My Bean, suddenly a big-little kid. Four and a half. Mischief around every turn. He is my favorite forever.

And then my baby boy, my little Sprout, coming up on 7 months old, impossibly. He is a chunk. Pure love. Grins always. He's been surfing the floor the past week or so, trying to crawl. In between attempts he's pleased as peas to sit in the center of a circle of pots and spoons, banging things and grinning. He's always cracking himself up. There are so many times throughout the day where I'll look over at him and feel my heart catch and then expand. He'll be smiling at me, watching me from across the room as I do things in the kitchen or fold laundry or type. He is my little Buddha. My reminder to be right here, now, in this precious, precious moment. He is my favorite always.

Also, some weekly blog crushes to share:

2 or 3 Things, Bliss, Le Love (can't help going here and smiling), listing quirks over at Cupcakes & Cashmere...(a quirk DH pointed out tonight while we rocked it in the basement gym---3 miles in 24:15 minutes---is that I love to watch bull riding. Really.)

Also, these houses (still brooding over treehouse plans, as you can tell.) This gorgeous little party. This amazing installation. It's how my heart feels, sometimes, lately. Overflowing, made of feathers, of air, of fragile things.

What are some of your crushes right now? Share please. Also~ what are you looking forward to this week?

September Crushes

I adore September, and little boys hanging out in tree forts; back-to-school, back to routine. I love the newly sharpened pencils, newly picked apples, earlier bedtimes, scrambled eggs & toast for breakfast, new sneakers, and watching the pumpkins grow fat Hand monsters.

September is perhaps my favorite month of the year, especially here in New England where everything is golden and lingering and lovely.

I kissed my husband for the first time 10 years ago on September 5th, and that continues to be what I consider one of the best decisions I ever made. (Have I mentioned recently how hot he is? Ever so. He's like a good wine: keeps getting better with age).

Bean starts school on Thursday. He's excited. Right now we're in the backyard lolling in the sun. He's lying on a quilt in his new tree fort (a post coming on that soon!) and we're both eating plums and I'm thinking of stacking the final cord of wood, although a run might be on the docket.

Some recent crushes start off your week:

Sunday Suppers~such gorgeous food, I want to lick my screen.

thoughtful friday, oh hello friend, and kate neckel are some new blogs I am loving. And this post. Every bit true. Also this advice. *** What are you browsing, considering & doing today?

Monday crushes

Zoom!That was just the entire month of August flying by. I cannot believe how quickly it has gone. One week until September. Already there are fallen leaves on the lawn.

I wanted to share a few things I have been crushing on today:

This darling little clock project.

This glorious sketchbook series and this lovely inspiration wall.

And this list of stories. Good to listen to while doing the dishes.

The past week has been a blur of copy-edit days. Every scrap of time spent close to the thesaurus and the delete key. I miss my book. I miss talking to my characters in my head in the shower. I hope they're waiting. It terrifies me that maybe they have slipped away. A page of events and scenes languishes in the top drawer of my desk. It cracks me up that I professed big plans for this story by the end of the month and here I am at end of the month. And I am not even close.

But there is something to this that I've been learning and learning again this summer. Things come and go---and really, you can't hold on to anything too tightly.

I'm starting to get that it's okay to just ride the waves. To be greedy with sleep and joy and creativity when they find you---and to sink into work and fast-paced days and tiredness on the days that those things hit hard. Each will return, and leave, and return again. There is something in this of faith, I think.

Whatever today is, tomorrow will be different. Yet there is a thread that loops through the fabric of both with its promise. Continuity somewhere. Balance, eventually.

It's scary though to feel a surge of creativity, only to have it plundered by more practical things. There are moments where it feels like having a blindfold yanked down over my eyes, and I'm just bumping into things, fingering the shape of each moment with hands as unknowing as the blind eyes of potatoes.

Are you doing the life you want daily?

Hmm.

August.

I have been writing posts in my head all week. I've been swamped, and I love it. I'm doing copy editing. Being paid to write. Life is good.

Except. I haven't had a scrap of time to write--on my novel, or here. Still trying to find balance. Always this. Is there such a thing? I am determined to sink deep into these last summer days with gratitude.

This is what I want to remember about August:

The humid hot and sticky days. Making cherry pie, served warm with whipped cream. Yellow watermelon. Friends visiting a lot. Backyard bonfires. The corn almost ripe in the garden. Oscillating fans. Rain falling from sunny skies. My apricot colored cat on the white sheets. The dragonflies circling in the heavy air, waiting for rain. Falling in love again, more, enormously with my guy. New calf muscles, and biceps. Running hard almost every day. Swimming in the pond in the rain. Bean's obsession with helium balloons. My beautiful, gorgeous baby boy Sprout who is six months old, sitting, almost crawling, smiling always. I adore him. Utterly. He is a dream baby, and I don't want him to grow up yet.

I found these lines at the end of a poem today--in the Sun, from A Warning by Eric Anderson Nothing ever goes away enough or arrives enough, and I want to cry when I think of my heart, muscle pounding in muscle, greedy always for joy.

This is exactly how I feel.

***

What do you want to remember about August?

Monday's inspiration + a question

Hi Monday. It's briefly sunny and everything seems to be yelling about it: finches and woodpeckers and chickens. In the honeysuckle at the front of the house, hummingbirds.

Today: a run, reading a story or two, taking Sprout for his 5 month check up*, transplanting a peony bush, and quite possibly some baking. Also writing. Always, always that.

Here are a few links I found this weekend that I am crushing on:

These photos of the Holland Flower Auction that almost make me want to weep. I'd give a lot for an armful of roses right now, or tulips.

This Joy + Ride. A gorgeous little journal with interviews featuring artists and writers and all kinds of delight.

And this delightfully terse blog with beautiful photos.

(* An update to come on my beautiful, sweet Sprout.)

***

Now an question for you (that will help me enormously on a story I'm writing): What were you like as a teenager? If you share, I will. And maybe I'll even post a pic or two.

Inspired by:

Hi. Wednesday. There was sun today for the first time, literally, in weeks. Tell me this, Internets, is it sunny where you are? And if so, is it often? I'm starting to get itchy feet. Hankering to be somewhere else maybe. Some place with more sun, more... I don't know. If I were foot loose and fancy free I'd be tempted to do this. I've always wanted to write a story about big rig drivers. Cool, right?

Really though: do you love where you live? Tell me about it!

Also today: lots of revising and forward progress. Writing is a crazy making profession for sure. So much terror and doubt is there, every day, waiting in the margins, in the click of the space bar. During breaks today I was inspired by her beautiful aesthetic. And also this breathtaking art.

This super cool journal also caught my eye today. I love when image and story and news and ideas collide. It's how it's like inside my head.

Speaking of things that get inside my head--I loved reading this story in particular because it reminded me somehow very much of The Year of Silence by Kevin Brockmeier in the Best American, which was originally published here. I wish I could find a link for you to read it online--because then you'd see what I mean about these two pieces connecting. This picture in particular, of Sao Paolo stripped of visual pollution is just what I pictured when I imagined a city stripped of sound. It's serene and calming and yet...I like a mess, which is why I liked how Brockmeier's little piece ends immensely.

And finally, because I adore lists and am a total sucker for good food, Travelers Lunchbox delighted me so much today. Particularly this list of all foodie lists. My short list of to die for food off the top of my head: cherry pie, pasta from Mezzaluna, lime gelato in the Piazza della Signoria, affogato, oysters with white wine and garlic butter.

Runners up: root beer floats, hot chocolate from Quebec served in a bowl, majool dates, fresh raspberries, steak frites, unagi sushi, raspberry sorbet, licorice, dark dark chocolate, caramel apples, dry packed scallops, Oh lord, I have started something I cannot stop. What are your top five and your runners up?

A weekend roundup

First off, I very much loved reading about your media habits the past couple of days. I have continued keep a record of what I've been consuming media wise, and I think that it's made me much more conscious and thoughtful about my choices... I've decided to keep the record going over at twitter. It seems like the perfect, if not slightly ironic venue for such things. But before I do, I want to share with you some of my favorite links from the past couple of days:

Firstly, Elizabeth Strout's essay "English Lesson" in the Washington Post this week is fantastic. She is such an amazing writer to me. Her characters are so real, nuanced, subtle. She deserves every ounce of praise for Olive Kitteridge, which was my favorite book I read last year.

Also, I am giddy with the discovery of the Washington Post's Summer Reading Issues from years past. I am sure everyone else on the face of the earth has already devoured these stories, but until now they have somehow escaped me. Delight. I cannot wait to read all of them (I have not yet.)

Also, speaking of the Washington Post, if you don't read Gene Weingarten you should. This piece made me sob when I first read it. This one made me nearly die laughing. Also, because things seem to work this way in my life, his piece this week explores the various glories and follies of tweeting. Ah-hem.

Now, without further ado, some family updates (a.k.a, my camera is fixed people. Prepare yourselves for some seriously photo-heavy posts to come!)

First off, have you met Bob, our rooster? Bob, Internets. Internets, Bob. He is named after this book.

Here is the new batch of girls who have finally figured out how to do the free-range thing, thus saving us more fruitless attempts to catch them whilst thrashing our legs on sharp pine boughs.

And here is newest member of the poultry bunch: the chick that the goose hatched. It's name name is Twitter. Bean named it. I swear he knows nothing of my current media obsessions.

And because I cannot stop staring at my beautiful boys:

Also yesterday, because it was raining and we were bummed because we were supposed to go to this amazing parade to celebrate the umpteen hundred years of our city's existence and instead had to stay home to avoid being drenched and bedraggled, we had a dumpling party instead. The four of us. Fancy frozen drinks for everyone and homemade dumplings using this recipe.

While we were frying up the dumplings we had pandora on, set to a Madonna quick mix (which turned out to be the best movin, groovin, bootie shaking tunes ever!) The storm was right overhead with lots of serious thunderclaps. For dessert we made chocolate pudding with fresh strawberries and watched the Tour together on the couch.

What have you been reading, doing, and eating this weekend?

Media Record Day 2

Started off on media bistro this morning, and found my way here. Again apropos. I like how even here, in the seeming chaos and of the Internet, like attracts like, and patterns emerge.

Later my mother sent me a link to this fascinating review of Winifred Gallagher's Rapt; a book I now very much want to read.

From there the day fragmented into lots of email, a little twitter, and thankfully a lot of writing. (Saw this post, via Twitter, and started wondering is conflict essential to all good fiction?

What do you think? I am very interested in hearing your ideas on this...

Also watched So You Think You Can Dance, which I adore, because as I've said here before: if I could have a talent bestowed upon me, it would be the ability to dance.

It was a roller coaster day though. Storm clouds, indecisive rain, sallow sun, moods getting tossed all around our house. One of those days where everything seemed annoying: Bean's loud sing song voice, the way he is inclined to DASH everywhere lately, Sprout's new inclination to spit up gallons of sour milk without any warning whatsoever, the never ending dampness that has become this summer, and one too many issues with the poultry (the chicks escaped again--and the same hoopla of chasing them around a very sharp pine tree in the rain, in the mud, that occurred two days ago, took place again today.)

It should also be noted, as somewhat of a highlight, that our goose hatched a baby chick today. Chick, as in chicken. Long story. I'm not sure if it will survive. Something in me isn't quite sure she'll know how to mama a baby that small and fluffy (I'll post pictures tomorrow!) but when I checked on her this evening the little chick was tucked in on her back, at the nape of her neck, peeping away. She's still sitting on two other eggs. Here's to seriously hoping she'll figure it out. I've kind of had enough poultry drama for a while.

Honestly it was one of those days where I kind of wished I lived somewhere utterly urban: full of angles and elbows, people wearing black, umbrellas, pointy shoes, bustling bodegas, sharp lines, bright lights. I'd happily settle willingly for anywhere sunny though. Then I could throw a garden party just like this (found via a friend on facebook.)

What were your media moments today?

Media Record Day 1

Here is a record, more or less of the media I interacted with today: The continuation of a hysterical email exchange with my dear girlfriends about married names and given names and choosing names. One of my friends is marrying a man who happens to have the same name as her, minus a syllable. You can see how this might get tricky.

Another email exchange with some amazing friends about their reading habits, re: fiction or memoir? (Weigh in please!)

Visiting and revisiting twitter and still not quite getting how such a multi-directional, utterly dislocated conversation with a thousand different people going all at the same time makes any sense at all. But kind of liking reading about the goings on in the literary agent world (last weeks #queryfail made me laugh, though apparently it made others cry.)

Facebook, twice. A friend posted this: “prioritizing inappropriately” and it couldn’t be more apropos.

SheWrites, once. Since I signed up on Monday, the place has a zillion new members. I’m still not sure how to use the opportunity here. I’m tempted to spend all day networking. But then there’s that pesky thing called ACTUALLY WRITING which I should be doing more of. I have 90 pages of raw material. I need to double that. Then I can talk. Or maybe then I should focus my energies on revising?

Read this rather morbid list, while researching the circumstances of Plath's death for my book. Oy. I haven't chosen a profession with a guaranteed pleasant outcome, have I?

Then I read "Suspension" by Rebecca Makkai, and loved it because of it’s form. I googled Makkai after reading her story “The Worst You Ever Feel” in the 2008 Best American, and this story is where I landed.

On paper, in actual three dimensions I read Lorrie Moore’s piece "Childcare" in this weeks New Yorker. A few great lines, like this one: “ I accidentally nodded. I had no idea, conversationally, where we were. I searched, as I too often found myself having to do, to find a language, or even an octave in which to speak” made me smile because I could relate. But the piece was generally meh. Not something that will likely stick with me, though maybe now it will because I am writing about it. (Go read it! Tell me what you think. I loved doing that last time--hearing your ideas about a story. Having a little impromptu book club.)

And I read the intro in Molly’s book a Homemade Life. Every time I hold the book in my hands I am smitten with simultaneous inspiration and envy. It’s not a good combination and thus far has prevented me from reading farther. However it has inspired me to try my hand at homemade pasta. Also chocolate cupcakes.

Finally, I read yesterday's headlines in the Wall Street Journal, while walking back up the driveway with a sleeping Sprout, but I cannot recall any of them. Only that there was an entire full page add about Presidential Armored Safe's that you can obtain for FREE if you purchase multiple sets of 'government coins that never loose their value.'

I am certain I consumed other bits of information, and yet my memory of them is even more frail and blurred. What is the point of all this consumption if I cannot even remember it?

Maybe I should also note that I also did some revising, finished a chapter, started two art projects while bouncing Sprout in the ergo, took a walk (to get him to sleep), did the shred, and baked cookies. Also there was dinner and bedtime stories and so forth. Gasp. Does anyone ever feel like they have enough time?

*** Your turn: what media did you interact with today?

Media Habits

Wednesday. When I type that word I think of fifth grade, of the yellow lined paper I used to practice spelling it on in loopy cursive, Wed-nes-day. I still say it that way in my head when I write it out.

Funny how certain things stick and others evaporate in a second. Just as I was writing this I thought of the premise for a perfect short story. By the time I’d pulled up a new sticky note on my desktop, it had slipped my mind and all I could remember was the fact that I need to email several friends and am very remiss in doing so. Maddening.

Memory. It’s such a loopy, lumpy thing, like an old floral couch with little spots burned in the fabric from where the sun struck it, shining through a vase on the windowsill just so.

I remember my childhood vividly and sporadically. From fifth grade I remember learning the entire Greek alphabet, all of the prepositions in alphabetical order, how to spell Wednesday, and how I kicked Zachary O’Day in the crotch with those slouchy pointy toed boots that were all the rage along with acid washed jeans in 1986.

I do not however, remember yesterday, unless I put some serious mental effort towards the task.

No. That isn’t true. I do remember the way last night we decided to go with a red metal bucket to pick raspberries down by the pond and a quarter of the way there ran into two stray dogs. One was a yellow lab with one of those pronged collars that look vaguely threatening, and the other was a black wisp of a dog with floppy ears and lanky legs and pale ghost blue eyes, part husky for sure. They weren’t from around here. Not any of the neighbor's dogs, and when we went towards them they ran, away from us, up our hill, towards our house and our free range chickens.

Incidentally, just yesterday DH decided that our two month old chicks were old enough to go free range, without the enclosure we normally put them into. And by decided, I mean he took the path of least resistance, as they had escaped him when he was trying to transfer them from the large wooden box where they spend the night in the coop, to the enclosure on the lawn. They escaped and he decided to hell with them. So they were out under the pine all day and just fine except that now of course two feral and rather hungry looking dogs were heading right towards them.

We ran back up our hill, pushing the stroller with Sprout who indignantly began to wail and Bean, who dropped his bike and skittered up after us, his yellow helmet bobbing, his eyes on the sky where thunder had begun to rumble. "I saw lightening," he said, his voice all quavery. "It might get us."

Seriously, when it rains it pours around here.

And so there we were, trying to deter the dogs by yelling and throwing rocks in their general direction, and then trying to catch and re-coop the not so big and definitely not so smart chicks who would make a mad dash for the coop door and then at the very last minute would scatter frantically in all directions.

I remember this. Yes I do. But what I don’t remember—unless I stop now and really think of it—is what I read yesterday, what I learned, what media I consumed. And I’ve been thinking about that since my last post: how I am maybe suffering from information/networking overload and what to do about it.

And I came up with this: For the rest of the week I am going to try to keep notes here about my media habits and see where this gets me. Likely, I'll be back with my first record this afternoon. You in?

What would you ask for?

"She'd been so sure a crap liquor store would not stock French cigarettes just because you asked. The shock every time she went in, and there they were. She was used to taking the world as it was, she'd never have guessed you could get what you wanted by asking for it."

~from Paint It Black by Janet Fitch I was struck by these few sentences and the idea has stayed in my head since I finished this book (which I loved, by the way) And I've wondered: What do I want to ask for? What should I be asking for? It feels powerful and vulnerable at the very same time to think of this. To imagine asking, putting myself out there, saying this is what I need.

Today I would ask for: An agent to represent my book. Funding to be able to write and live. Financial abundance would be swell,but just enough would be okay too--to live and write, rinse and repeat. A sponsor, or sponsors. To not feel like I'm always the trailblazer. Some days I want so badly for someone else to say: here, let me show you how to do this so you won't mess it all up.

(And also maybe for some sun. The humidity is getting on my nerves.)

What would you ask for? Really. If you could ask for anything--or many things, what would they be?

Morning comes

I last night I dreamed that I was teaching figure drawing. This morning I woke up smiling, regardless of the world (another day of rain; uncertainty still.) Then there were chocolate croissants. The most perfectly ripe strawberries. Bean's last day of school. A new friend.

And this. She's right, of course.

Tell me: What did you dream last night? What is the greatest thing that stresses you out? What are three things that made you happy today?

A list happy inventory

In January for my birthday, inspired as always by Andrea's awesome lists, I wrote my own: 32 things to do before I turn 32. But then I forgot to post it, until now, when I was cleaning up the post-its on my desktop (how I love the post-it widget!) and found the list again. I was surprised by how many things I've already done, or started to do. Something about putting stuff on the page makes it happen. And I love that.

I'm thinking that maybe as I accomplish things on my list I'll post about it & link to the list in my sidebar. Aside from the sheer glee of writing them, nothing beats crossing stuff off lists. You too should make your very own list. I would LOVE it if you shared. Here in the comments. Or share the link to your list on your blog.

The thing about making a relatively long list of things to be completed in a relatively short time (a year) is that you have to really think about your life realistically. What do you really want to do this year? What do you want to accomplish? What are some of the small things that you have been meaning to do, that will likely get pushed to the side by bigger more consuming (and not necessarily on the list!) things unless you write them down?

1 month old

Sprout is one month old and change today. I keep wishing I could go back to old posts and find out what Bean was like at 1 month, but alas, I didn't start blogging until he was more like 3 months old so I am forced to trawl my gmail archives for the laboriously detailed emails I exchanged with another mom from the birthing class DH & I took.

We've since lost touch, but going back to our emails I discovered that not only did we document every single little thing about our babies, but she also introduced me to blogging by sending me a link for dooce's site.

I remember having no idea what a blog was and finding out felt like a revelation. There were other women out there who were also feeling isolated by new parenthood... and the were writing about it! Astounding! Now of course dooce has gone on to become famous and our entire generation of mamas have been dubbed "digital moms."

How things have changed in four years.

***

I already feel rather guilty comparing Sprout and Bean because I grew up in a household where comparison was regular and toxic. My sisters and I were always in competition, always being compared, always coming up short...and it is my goal to never do this to my boys (overtly pigeon hole them into categories: you are the artist, you, the musician, you the flighty one, you the responsible one, etc.)

But there is something to be said for comparison now, in these early months when what Sprout is capable of is mostly limited to bodily functions and sucking on a pacifier.

It astounds me that I had so much to email about with Bean. My friend and I exchanged almost weekly emails going into extensive details about nursing and pumping and bathing and burping and whatever. Bean was apparently much fussier than Sprout at the same age. He also seemed to have his night and day mixed up, though now, four years later and equally sleep deprived I can hardly recall this.

I do vaguely remember being awake--as in AWAKE and doing things--in the middle of the night because Bean would be screaming...and thus far Sprout is mostly asleep at night, or eating, or performing another bodily function that often involves lots of grunting. In general he's a happy-go-lucky second kid, and is mostly content to snooze on my lap during the day as I sit on the couch and write.

In honor of Sprout's one month birthday and my original discovery of blogs this same time four years ago, I am sharing some links I've found lately that I just absolutely love. I realize I don't do enough of that any more, but Marta inspired me with her blog hunt a while ago.

Here is my version. Will you play along? {Five new links you love.}

1. Loving: Color Me Katie--She makes me want to skip and twirl & wear polka dots and eat lolly pops and do things just for fun, just because. Love her sense of wonder and whimsy and delight. And also, her photographs.

2. Looking : The Blue Hour and Grass Doe--A writer friend sent the link for Grass Doe. The pictures inspire words. All the more alluring since there are no words anywhere on the site...the photos are breathtaking, and tell such a story. The Blue Hour I found while googling for info on Grass Doe. I love going back through Blue Hour archives to see how much he's grown & changed as a photographer. Just goes to show--if you are committed, you can hone your art.

3. Listening: 8 Tracks--Found this via Brian's blog & am experimenting with making tracks & listening to other people's tracks. Extra credit if you make your own track and share it here. Here is one for you, from me.

4. Watching: Improv Everywhere--How can you not smile watching these? I adore the fact that there are people out there who are not nearly as shy as I am who have the courage and the whimsy to make life become art everywhere.

5: Inspiring: i [love life]--She has such an awesome attitude towards life~ and I am totally on board with the whole Niki + iPod + RUN. Can't wait to go buy new shoes!

Yippee

Done with work. Done. Soo happy.

Last night, beautiful dark snow squalls. Leaving work, it looked like a rainbow rinsed of color in the sky above the door. An arch of gray and white, the first fat flakes hitting my tear stained cheeks.

This morning, blue skies, blue jays plump against the cold in the lilac tree by the feeder, golden light on the bar branches.

Eating Irish oatmeal, cream and strawberries & making lists in this notebook.

Small good things:: Part 1

Small good things, right now, this morning as I'm eating toast & jam with damp hair and bare feet a the center island:

* Watching the chickadees dip and dive to the bird feeders out the dining room window.

* The heat of the wood stove and bare feet.

* My skin smelling like yummy new ginger sugar scrub.

* My Ruby Loves necklace--a gift from DH.

* New Years plans with only adults.

* Crisp green granny smith apples.

* A plan to go shopping this morning--by myself.

A Mighty* Life List

A list of things I hope to do in my lifetime.
Occasionally I go back to it to add a new goal, or mark something as accomplished. Both are incredibly satisfying.
1. Write and publish a book. 2. Take a roadtrip across the US in a camper. 3. Live in Europe for a year; preferably Paris. 4. Drink mint tea in Morocco. 5. Speak fluent French. 6. Learn to dance. 7. Grow a garden. 8. Hanglide or paraglide. 9. Keep bees. 10. Learn to surf. 11. Take a photography class. 12. Write regularly for a magazine. 13. Buy a potters wheel & kiln and throw pots in the garage. 14. Teach creative writing. 15. Complete a sport triathlon. 16. Own a tiny apartment in a big city to sneak away to. 17. Meditate. 18. Learn to kayak. 20. Take a trip to India. 21. Learn to sail. 22. Travel somewhere every year. 23. Grow a rose garden. 25. See the northern lights. 26. Go on a multi-day biking trip with just my guy (again.) 27. Ski Snowboard black diamonds. 28. Go camping in the summer. 29. See the monarch migration in Mexico. 30. Visit Prague. 31. Re-read the great American novels I never read in high school. 32. Build Bean a tree house. 33. Host a dinner party. 34. Find more close friends nearby. 35. Own horses. 36. Speak at TED. 37. Meet as many of my writing heroes as possible (Isabelle Illende, Joan Didion, Elizabeth Strout, Tim Winton, Alice Munro...) 38. Spend a winter in New Zealand or Australia. 39. Make small + smart investments. 40. Visit the Galapagos. 41. Lead life-changing creative spirit workshops. 42. Live on the ocean. 43. Meet Ira Glass or be interviewed by Terri Gross. 44. Live in a house with painted white floors. 45. Get a Round The World ticket and spend 1 year traveling 46. Live in the Pacific Northwest 47. Learn to develop film in a dark room. 48. Go fly fishing. 49. Learn to fish-tail braid my hair. 50. Take a paragliding lesson. 51. Host an interview series on my blog. 52. 
Host a monthly dinner party for friends. 53. Learn to screen print. 54. Paint with encaustic. 55. Spend a week in Iceland

  * Inspired by Mighty Girl I always an on-going list of the big (and sometimes small) things I want to do before I die, tucked into the back of a notebook.

As Tim Brown puts it: "Believing that something is possible, will somehow make it so."

---

What's on your list?

Wednesday::

I woke up in the middle of the night to a nosebleed. In the dark I could imagine the color, my cupped hand already filling, reaching for tissues. In the morning an ice storm, a two hour delay, lingering over coffee.

At school, everything out of routine, topsy turvy, but we're talking about poems and poems make anything better.

In the evening the sky was navy and threatening, but then suddenly each twig and branch was gilded with light.

Project runway ended. It made me happy.

What is your midweek like?

Attempting

I make lunch the night before; do yoga first thing; then come home from work and play with my boys. The three of us take a long walk down the melting muddied road. It is pock marked with potholes: perfect circles of mud and splashy water, just right for jumping, which Bean does in his black and yellow rain boots. I love the way he pauses before each jump, placing his feet together, crouching down, getting the most out of his small muscled legs. The water goes everywhere in satisfying droplets. I love too the way he pauses to fish around in the muddy, icy cold water, then stands up triumphant: “I found a beautiful rock!” he yells. I make lunch the night before, circling the counter unaccustomed to thinking about food at 9:38p.m. Especially not a chicken & arugula wrap, fresh berries and yogurt, walnuts and raisins. In the morning I slip from my bed and turn the shower on before thinking. I stand bleary, rubbing my eyes, my feet on the looped lavender bath mat. Then I turn the water off, circle the house, find my yoga mat and breathe. After the fourth or fifth sun salute I realize that the entire right side of my body aches: my ear, throat, hamstrings, ankle bones. I apologize to my body for just living in it so often, without thinking. I take my vitamins. I turn the shower on again. I exfoliate. I let hot water pound on my back until I know it’s made my skin lobster red. I linger. Then I plunge towards the day.

I am trying to live this month as intentionally as I can. Taking care of myself. Making the whirling chaos of my day to day life less chaotic. It’s all about the small things, that I’ve given too little thought to. The things that ultimately bear the Morse code of self discipline. Food. Exercise. Laundry. Dishes. Creativity.

I loved reading your lists about the things you’d do if living “perfectly” for a month. Now I’m wondering: what stops you from doing them? What stops us all, really?