👉🏽 Register for Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club here. Next one is February 15 (as in…3 days!) 👉🏽 February writing workshop is SOLD OUT! Wow and thank you. March date + theme announced hopefully by next week.
Here’s a nervous-system downshift to get us started:
Right now I’m sitting on Tater’s Couch™ staring out the window at the birds bouncing around the branches of the plum tree, singing their morning chismes as they rip out the perfect pink blossoms and spit them all over our walkway and sidewalk. There are sparrows, and these two other types of birds whose names I don’t know - both are similar in size to a common house sparrow but one is bright yellow chested, the other, a tomato red (do you know these birds?). The sky is cloudless, the sun not yet over the line of houses as I stare south toward the commanding blue water tower that stands tall over the Excelsior neighborhood here in my beloved southern side of the city.
It rained, hard, for most of yesterday afternoon and into the late evening, so everything out there is all sparkled up today, and it’s Friday, and I keep stretching for something meaningful to say, but mostly, I’m just thinking about all of you out there, and I’m wishing you birdsong outside your windows, and access to a couch where you might take a little nap this afternoon.
See you next week.
tuya, xxoo dani
⛓ ‘s // This week’s rad reads //
🙌🏾 If you’re good, say you’re good by adrienne maree brown. “we learn good from each other. most of the ways i am practicing my contentment in this moment come from studying people who lived/live fully into their lives, in whatever time. black feminists past and present, close friends who point out the mind, body, spirit, boundary, listening and therapeutic balance of a good life.”
📖 a quickie fun one that compares the emergence of the marvelous Carnival House Floats in New Orleans to getting a novel up and running (thanks Kerry for the share!)
⚖️ This article on Justice Sonia Sotomayor is so so worth the read: “When Obama nominated her, Sotomayor has said, he asked her to stay connected to the community she came from. ‘Mr. President,’ she said she replied, ‘I don’t know how to do anything else.’” Also: I would love to sport a Sotomayor tote bag.
☄️ "But there is a dichotomy inherent in the idea of collective trauma, because the collective is macroscopic, but trauma is microscopic. It coalesces in the muscles and neurons. How could we let ourselves process trauma when there were Nazis in the street and talk of civil war? As anyone who’s been through it will tell you, healing is something that happens much later, far from the action. And healing is never the end of the story. After healing comes more wounding. After peace comes the next round of violence.” This one is long, and intense. Four years of Trump rage was awful. What lies beneath it is harder still.
🎤 This is a sweet and gorgeous ramble through the life of Tony Bennett and his family’s recent decision to disclose his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
❄️ "‘We're all sort of wandering in the dark, feeling along the wall for the light switch and needing to draw on those best parts of ourselves, our resilience and courage, in order to get from day one to day two to day three.’" This is just lovely.
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Dani, I always love your reflections and musings, and all the content you find and share. Thank you for lifting us up during this strange and lonely time. xoxo.
Thanks Dani... I always love you in my inbox. xo
i love being in your inbox <3
Dani, I always love your reflections and musings, and all the content you find and share. Thank you for lifting us up during this strange and lonely time. xoxo.
love you sweet friend.