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snow day!
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WE MADE A QUICK DASH to the mountains last week, hoping to get here and settled before a promised decent snowfall. It was exciting, but not nearly as significant as we'd hoped. Still, there was snow!
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Then HURRAH another chance came Thursday. Along with B B B I T T E R cold. This one did not disappoint as we woke up to nine degrees and a few inches that coated All The Surfaces. It was beautiful and magical: blowing flurries in the morning, then an afternoon of deep blue skies and bright, illuminating sun. The temps did not go above 20 degrees, so the snow clung as the light emerged spectacular.
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We went for a walk, Tim, Stella and I, and Stella frolicked, and I took one hundred thousand photographs, and Tim agreed to a quick selfie.
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It really was just magical.
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1.7.22 #catsmountain 5:36 pm
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I HAVE ALSO, across these weeks, claimed the time and emotional space I've needed to reflect, to clear out, to make way for a new year. It is something I've done internally rather than in closets; I rode into 2022 both with COVID (my second time despite two vaccines, a booster and conscientious mask-wearing) and the accompanying sour breath of disappointment over a year that, despite overwhelming joy in my daughter's sweet wedding and happy marriage, failed to live up to the high hopes I'd held. I needed to acknowledge this and work through some complicated emotions surrounding it. I realized this, thankfully, and despite my Enneagram 9 tendency to smile and move on, I took the time to do the work. I am doing it still.
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Sweet inspiration from a beloved.
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Also, looking to 2022 with fewer expectations.
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(Quite clearly) working to release my need for journal perfection.
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Lordamercy there is so much more to say about all of this. But for now I'll sign off, offering a look at a few things I found worthy of sharing in these early resolutions-still-holding days of 2022.
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All my best to you as you, too, step across the threshold and into whatever's next.
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Just realized I've never mentioned the nonfiction Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Or have I? Tim and I listened in the car (and we learned so much!). According to the publisher: Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.
Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
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I happen to be listening to this album right now. Perfect for a cold, rainy, deep fog day in the mountains. John Moreland, In the Throes, the whole thing. Spotify link here.
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Also, I'm building a new playlist for us on Spotify called Studio Songs. It's a collection pulled together from music I've made note of through the last year via recommendations from friends, Shazam or through Spotify algorithm recs that worked. You can find it here.
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Recently, on THE DAILY GRACE
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Christmas, Old and New
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How I feel the spirit of my mother around me during the holidays, including her rather superstitious nature. It's something she's passed on to me, and I wonder why these are things I can't let go? Oh, tradition and legacy!
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There are two types of tired:
One that requires rest, and one that requires peace.
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—the wisdom of the instagram
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