What a year. I hope these last twelve months have been gentle on your health and kind to your peace of mind. I have much to say about all that’s going on, but I write my sputtering outrage and grief for the world in other places. In the spirit of sharing good things, here are some joys and wonders I’ve encountered in these last 12 months.
~Magical walks each week with people I love. (The picture, above, is from one such walk. No filters, I’m too lazy for photo fussing.)
~I savor our family Sundays with games and food and conversation and silliness and extra dogs and the people who willingly take leftovers home. I keep those who are missing from our gatherings in my heart.
~I’m incredibly lucky people continue to put up with my ongoing covid restrictions. They agree to get together for a walk rather than out for coffee, hold meetings in the park or on a patio, take covid tests before coming to my house, and endure zoom rather than in-person classes.
~One of my life’s deepest joys come from teaching writing classes, particularly memoir classes. It’s a privilege to witness the incredible connecting power of shared stories. At the close of each 6 or 8 week session of memoir classes I encourage writers to continue on as a group. I am thrilled so many have done so. One group of writers has been meeting 11 years, another for seven years, others are in their first few years of supporting one another’s writing.
~My favorite job ever continues to be serving as editor of Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice. It’s here on the web and here on Facebook. Here are this year’s nominees for writing awards:
~I also continue to work with wonderful writers as a book editor. I’m in the background, a sort of labor coach, as their new creations are readied to enter the world. Each birth is a thrill.
~It may seem odd to include this as a wonder, but our elder dog lived well into his 17th year. He continued to enjoy his food, his outings, and his snuggles right up to the end. Thank you for all our years together Cocoa Bean.
~I’m grateful to have poems and essays published this year. Several are in wonderful anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal edited by James Crews and Poetry of Presence II: More Mindfulness Poems edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby Wilson. Here are a few of the online offerings:
“Last of the Honey” in The Inquisitive Eater
“Ordinary Substance” in One Art
“Oil Painting of a Tree-Lined Path” in Thimble
“I sing the song the dishwasher makes mid-cycle” in The Shore
“Carnival” in Gastropoda
“Urgent” in Poetry Breakfast
“Lollipop Epiphany” in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes
~So. Many. Good. Books. My goodness, I feel richer than any billionaire thanks to the wealth of library books available from Medina County District Library. Here are titles of a few of my very favorite reads this year. (I try to keep an up-to-date list on Goodreads, mostly to spare myself from forgetting titles I’ve already read.)
Immersive and amazing nonfiction read this year includes:
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Swimme
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
We Are The ARK: Returning our Gardens to Their True Nature Through Acts of Restorative Kindness by Mary Reynolds
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder by Dacher Keltner
The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz To Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process edited by Joe Fassler
Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World by Perdita Finn
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
The School That Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler by Deborah Cadbury
Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World by Scott Chimileski
All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak: A Funeral Director on Life, Death, and the Hereafter by Caleb Wilde
The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture by Mary Pipher
Play, Make, Create: A Process-Art Handbook by Meri Cherry
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain
A Walking Life by Antonia Malchik
Immersive and amazing memoirs read this year include:
The Wild Boy by Paolo Cognetti
The Salt Path by Winn Raynor
Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat
Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine by Ibtisam Barakat
A Place Called Home by David Ambroz
We Are Bridges by Cassandra Lane
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatema Mernissi
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
Colored People by Henry Louis Gates
Girl Factory by Karen Dietrich
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews
Immersive and amazing novels read this year include:
Go As a River by Shelley Read
At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
The Glass Chateau by Stephen Kiernan
Alchemy of a Blackbird by Claire McMillan
To Cook A Bear by Mikael Niemi
You Are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg
Take What You Need by Idra Novey
Now Is Not The Time To Panic by Kevin Wilson
The Storied Life of A.J. Filkry by Gabrielle Zevin
The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
We The Animals by Justin Torres
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
~We still aren’t back to the joys of hosting potlucks, house concerts, or art parties here. Damn covid again. But art with these co-collaborators is an immeasurable delight.
I hope 2024 brings you wonder, meaning, playfulness, and love. May this beautiful world of ours begin to heal.