In actuality, what I am writing about here is moments in time that disrupt the ever-present rambling of my inner critic. These instances catapult me right back into the present moment. And every time, it really is amazing.
I recommend trying it this month, make a list of numbers down your page - you can choose any amount you want. Over the new few days, write down amazing things.
See what happens.
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My youngest and I were driving home from the market last week. She held a 6 pack of yogurt she had requested and while I had asked her every three minutes not to open them, I kept hearing little crackles. While I cannot see her through the rearview in her carseat, as a mother, I can see her. I can see that pudgy little index finger poking a hole in the corner of one of the blueberry yogurts and then 77 seconds later, a hole is poked in the strawberry one. Four more to go as I request again, do not open those yet. How incredible to actually have eyes in the back of my head. Mothers are amazing.
On that same drive, my other two daughters are driving with Chris and I have them all on speaker phone aligning our ETA back home. All of a sudden, the oldest yells at my husband to turn around because she saw an owl! My husband keeps seeing owls in our yard and I have yet to see one. “Awww wow, you all see an owl?” I yell over speaker phone into their car speakers, but no one can hear me because they are entrenched in owl awe. They say they will call me back and hang up as the holiday music picks back up in my own car. I look to the rear view mirror and tell my youngest in the back, “I so want to see an owl!”. Her response, as you can imagine, is another yogurt lid poke. I look back out the windshield and would you even believe it, a huge brown owl is airborne flapping their ginormous wings right in front of me. I slam on the breaks so I don’t run into the feathered friend as my jaw drops into my lap. Majestical and un-caring, the brown owl flies across the front of the glass of my car into the trees. Yogurt has flown from my child’s lap all over the back of my seat, splattering out of the little corners she had opened. But I don’t care, I saw an owl!
Almost every day before the school bus arrives home at about 3:28pm, I fold blankets and a little pad thing called a nugget from the middle of the living room floor. The kids use them for fort making and I use them for my breath-work sessions every morning in what I call a rest nest. It is all imaginative play in a way, I love that.
My dog has a lite blue sweater with red mushrooms on it. Very not subtle. I honestly would wear a matching one if it had come in human sizes at the dog shop we found it on a sweet little street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I always thought dog sweaters were for small dogs, but they are not.
I stumbled across a weird old video of two young girls who played with faeries and gnomes daily in some little riverbed in the UK. They even got a photo of them. I did not take the time to research it more and watched for like 2ish minutes as a narrator told the story. And I have since asked myself every twenty minutes today, I mean what if? The mind can be quite a landscape and to answer your question, no, I am not on mushrooms in my wonderment. Truly traipsing through the edges of my imagination. I know, amazing.
Have I told you before that our youngest daughter pronounces ‘s’ as an ‘f’? Her request to fnuggle is some kind of heaven. And then it snowed today and she loves to play in the fnow.
Across town is a café I love and they know all my family members’ names and remember your order. Well, they make a latte with rosemary and vanilla now. The person that said, let’s try rosemary syrup and coffee add vanilla, hats off to you.
The way the coconut has infiltrated my life this year is incredible. I have a cozy coconut soup on rotation, I blend coconut oil and a whipped coconut cream in my coffee daily, and I am actually warming up a pumpkin waffle that I just haphazardly added coconut shreds to. Coconut lotion, coconut in my mixed drink in Mexico on a trip with my best friends, coconut water. Like the avocado for millennials, I chose the coconut.
Sometimes I don’t know what to talk about with new friends if they have not dipped a toe in romantasy (romance fantasy books) yet. And I have never really been at a loss for words until now…
What if every time I got mad, I said to myself, what if you wrote a poem about it? I tried it this morning after looking at my tired self in the mirror and feeling anger about my children’s utter disregard for my quality of sleep. I took my pen to paper and it ended up getting to another anger root wondering if free range chickens are actually free range? And then me being jealous of their said free range lifestyle. Poetry is amazing and I do feel better.
Speaking of poetic language, how beautiful is the phrase: a blanket of snow?
In my small town, there are dead zones where my phone just drops calls or no longer connects for an entire stretch of cement. One of the dead zones always happens by a cemetery and well, that makes sense to me.
Because I have a very specific sensation I am seeking in the holiday season, I find my book selection choices from the library shelves change. I borrowed a pretty hefty self help book just this past week and the next day, I returned it. It was not the right vibe for the holidays. Bringing this vibe check into all of 2025. Said it.
Do you include White Christmas (from way back, 1954) in your holiday movie line up? I love it so much. Bing Crosby’s voice is like honey and Rosemary Clooney is a dream. This year, I watched it and I laughed so much at Danny Kaye. I guess when you watch the movie so many times in your life, you can focus in on different characters and this year, it was all Danny for me. He is hilarious, please watch it! My husband says it is cheesy but I get lost in the choreography, the romance of it all with Bing in a blazer at all times and as I sit in a groutift (an outfit consisting entirely of gray) right now, the way Vera-Ellen dressed in the movie in prep for an overnight train ride, how?
One of our favorite holiday songs is Wham’s Last Christmas. My middle child and I were driving and she asked me about how to give your heart to someone. She continued before I could respond wondering if you cut your belly open and reach up and grab the heart and sew yourself back up and then give it away. And then, how do you get it back in for the next time you want to give it to someone special? Amazing.
What are your thoughts on when the second cup of coffee actually makes you more tired than you were when you had just had the one cup? Isn’t that just a f*ck all or what? You are going in for even more zip and then, boom, opposite effect. Uncertainty really is the way.
One thing I remember from my first Summer in Maine was how people who here visiting on vacation still went to the beach in the rain. Full on beach umbrellas, swimsuits, coolers - they were still out there. Today it was raining and so sloppy out and I went to walk the beach. Just yesterday, I was telling someone in a cute local general store how much I love the ocean, and well, I won’t just love parts of her. I will love all of her, be it in the snow, in the rain, in the mess of it all. And I did just that.
Someone left a vision candle at my retreat earlier this Spring. We did a twist on vision boards and glued our cut out images and words onto votive candles. Fun, right? Anyways, I have someone’s vision candle and I mean to mail it to her, I do. But the post office is a whole effort and one I have not done just yet. And some days I walk past her candle wondering if I should light it for her. Doesn’t feel like I should but some days, I wish people would light my vision candle for me. I might do it for her, just in case. And then, I wonder if we all realize that someone out there is thinking about our vision for us on days we might not be able to. Sigh.
My family was sick in November and my dear friend down the road dropped off a basket on my doorstep with a loaf of homemade gluten free sourdough, three huge mason jars of the jiggliest bone broth and a bag of frozen chicken feet for when I make my own broth that will jiggle, too. I still can’t believe she did that. Today I am making her a gluten free apple cider donut bundt cake that I will place in the center of her basket that I will go place on her doorstep and it feels like love.
What if I wrote smut? I whisper to myself maybe twice a day. And as if I don’t want anyone to see the thought bubble ruminating above my head, I wave my hands in air to brush it off to the next day when I think it again….
Did you know that humans actually cannot fit down the throat of a whale? I just figured from the book Moby Dick, we could.
20: i hope you have poet-tried some smut poems by now.
21. what part of the human can be swallowed? what gets stuck in the throat?
also, i'm trying this practice with a friend this year using my own deck and thought you might dig the idea: https://www.13holynightsoracle.com/13hn