Thinking About Leaving and Unexpected Adventures

I'm up early after not enough sleep, sipping tea and waiting for breakfast to finish on the stove. There's not a sound on the street. There's a little birdsong, but not as much as I expect to hear this time of day. Maybe they're taking a holiday as well.

I notice someone has put out the trash. It's Memorial Day so they'll be bringing it back in again. I can never remember which holidays have a next-day pick-up and which don't, so I watch the neighbors to see what they do. I won't this evening, of course, I'll be far away.

I have a list of things to pack and attend to. I'm just about done with it. There's a bit of tidying to do and I watered most of the plants last night. I need to decide what clothes to bring. I always bring too many. I like choices. I'll be at the beach for two days and traveling for four more to split the driving, so I really don't need to bring much, and I probably won't be wearing too many clothes while I'm there. Usually what happens on a trip like this is I put on something I like and wear it over and over again. Last time I ordered white cotton slub-knit long sleeve tee shirts from Old Navy I bought two of them. That, and a pair of jeans, will probably be all I bring, well, and something nice to wear, just in case. I would live in white cotton and denim if I could. 

Flip flops. Don't forget those. And sunscreen. Didn't I clean out my linen closet so I could find things more easily? But now I don't know where anything is. 

All of this should be easy. Simple. Nothing to worry over or to think too much about. I remind myself. It's an affirmation. And as my mother always says of travel. "You're not going to the North Pole. You can pick up anything you forget." I've changed the first sentence of this paragraph to 

All of this is easy.

A couple of weeks ago I had no idea I'd be traveling today. I was wondering when I'd be able to do that again, as so many of us are. Perhaps my wondering was a seed I planted. Here it is, popping its little green head up out of the earth, beckoning. 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Sunday Night

It's been a long day, and I'm ready for bed. 

Sometimes it's enough just to know that and follow your body's lead.

I head out for six days of travel tomorrow. It's going to be a full and wonderful week. I have some things to do tonight before I go - things like watering plants, packing, taking out the trash. How did it get to be 8:44 and I'm just beginning? 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that invites a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

The Sound of Water

I hear birdsong through the rain.

But the relentless sound of falling rain drowns most of the songs. I'm not sure that I've yet noticed how green everything is. The trees hang heavy with leaf. And the wind that comes with today's rain showers moves the boughs with a long, slow, deep pull. I am still, and listen and watch for the beauty. 

The lilacs, rhododendron, and peonies sit spent on the stem and we wait for the next show of blossom. Probably the hydrangea. Already they are budding. They're my favorite flowers to cut and bring indoors. They don't stay on the shrub for long around here. I love the way the abundant flowers sit in the vase and fill the room with beauty. I love that the property here has about six shrubs and they seem to bloom forever. I love the way you can cut a stem or three and feel like you've got a full bouquet. But I also love a full bouquet. My place is small, so less is more. And a little more than that is extravagant.

I love visiting my mother in summer during the hydrangea bloom and seeing her shrubs heavy with deep purple flowers. I've never seen their equal. I usually cut the top off a water bottle and bring some home. They sit in the cup holder in my car and keep me company on the ride back and then gift my space once I arrive. Right now I'm waiting for some buds to open in a succulent garden my friend Sarah gave me last week. From the looks of it, the flowers will be a deep pink. The planter sits on my kitchen table, a chaotic profusion of succulence. I hear the sound of water swell within the leaves.

Cacti, bromeliads, and succulents are all succulents, as botanists characterize things. Horticulturalists have different criteria. Of course, not all succulents are bromeliads or cacti. I love to imagine the invisible ecosystem within. The superhighways upon which water travels and pools. They thrive in circumstances that undo others because of how they are adapted to hold and distribute their resources. And they are no less beautiful or diverse. There are six in this succulent garden. 

The transition team in my last congregation gave me a gorgeous succulent garden when I left. There are four cacti and four succulents in that dish and some of the plants have begun to grow and expand. The cacti are slow growing, but the four other succulents are growing in ways I did not expect. I look at that community of plants and wonder how they will all live together as so many of the plants begin to take up more space. I used succulents as a teaching tool in their process. They felt challenged by resources, even though they had the largest endowment of any church I've worked with so far. But even large endowments can empty like lakes in the desert when the waters are siphoned off to feed drought in other areas. 

A friend in Arizona posted a photo the other day of one of two natural lakes there that has dried up. I wonder what new wonders will grow there now.

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that invites a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

  

 

 

Morning Glory

I came awake suddenly at 4:30 this morning. 

In the eerie silence, a light shone through my window. Peeking through the slats of the blinds, I saw a bright, nearly full moon making its descent but still high in the sky. Wreathed in cloud and haze, the moon appeared almost as if it was floating in water. I looked at the clock and sighed. I'd gotten to bed late, at around midnight, and guessed that was it for me. 

Coming back from the bathroom, I heard the first morning songs. A few minutes later it was a full chorus as more and more songbirds woke from slumber to greet the day. I lay in bed, listening. Tentatively rolling over and over, trying to decide if I would sleep again. 

I got up, deciding that if sleep came it would likely be one of those restless morning sleeps, plagued with the bad dreams that wait just at the edge of consciousness for our vulnerable moments. So I decided just to get up and see what the day would bring, there at its edge. I have not been disappointed. 

Throwing all the windows open, I'm greeted with cool air and more songs. Impressionistic skies color as the sun rises behind cloud. I've heard only one car door slam, one vehicle drive away for the driver's early morning business or commute to work. I sip a beautiful Chinese tea and cook up some new potatoes and pea greens from the farmer's market. Actually, the greens are raw and dressed with a bright, lemony vinaigrette. An odd, but lovely breakfast. 

There are strawberries in the ceramic colander on the counter.

Before most people are up, I am writing. It's my favorite time of the day to write. I spend way too little time here, and this morning reminds me of something I love and want to show up more for. The sun has just broken through the clouds as I think about this and recedes as the thought passes.

The rest of the day will be busy, filled with Zoom meetings, pre-trip laundry and packing, tea in the mid-afternoon with a friend I haven't seen since before the pandemic. I'm done in time to make a nice dinner and enjoy it and settle in for an early bedtime. I have branzino thawing and fresh asparagus from the farmer's market. It's in season now, and local. Beautiful and delicious. My spellcheck does not like branzino and prefers that I have Bronzino thawing for dinner. I don't think so. Considering it's the sobriquet of a Renaissance painter, I think I'll stick with my fish. 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Night Writing

I like to write in the morning.

Of course, sometimes there are meetings in the morning and morning meetings can stretch out into the day, and sometimes I leave a morning meeting and have to run off to another. And sometimes it's Zoom all day. Or part of the day. Or in the early evening because, of course, with Zoom, meetings with far-flung others that once were impossible become possible if one is willing to stretch the bounds of the workday. 

So today. Whose loose theme is Thirteen for the Thirteen Seconds of Sabbath videos I've thought to make again on Thursdays, for no other reason than the clever alliteration of Thirteen and Thursday. It didn't work out today. There were other things.

I look up, and out the window the soft blue sky is beribboned with pink and lavender. This is the beauty of night writing. If I were to guess at something else I like about writing at night, it's the chance to reflect upon the day while everything still is fresh.

To observe my appreciation for the colleagues I meet with on a Thursday morning every other month, a meeting we've continued through the pandemic by Zoom. I hope we'll meet again in person soon and drink tea together and nosh on lovingly prepared snacks or snacks that have been hurriedly assembled. 

To be grateful for my son, who took the train up today to help me put together the chairs that sat in boxes in my front room for a month before I screwed up the courage to try to assemble them, only to discover that I need help. 

To smile and remember the time we shared together after the chairs, on the deck at a riverside restaurant, enjoying sunshine, soft breezes, good food and each other. 

The drive into Philadelphia to take him home, and back north to the small river town in which I live. I sat in one of my newly-assembled chairs for about ten minutes and had a cup of tea before jumping on Zoom to read what I've been writing and to listen to others read what they've been writing. There's always something a writer notices when reading her work out loud that she does not see when reading it on the page or on the screen.

The phone rings. It's my mom. We haven't talked in a couple of days and catch each other up on our happenings. Talk about the holiday weekend that's coming, when we'll see each other for a day while I'm breaking up a trip to North Carolina to connect with my daughter who's visiting from Chicago. One of the fun surprises in life. If you'd asked me a year ago, this would not be something I would have predicted. But how delightful it is nonetheless. I'm delighted also to spend Memorial Day with a larger family gathering I did not expect either. Crabs and barbecued chicken. Looks like the summer really will begin on Monday. 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human existence.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year beings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Word Play on Wednesday

The word of the day is whimsy. Whimsical. Wild could be another Wednesday word. Or wildness. Or wilderness. Wonder is a third. So, wonder-filled. Whimsy. Wild. Wonder. Love all three of them. I've been playing around with W words today and thinking about wonder words.

Wackadoodle. Wacky. Wakeful. Waiting. Walking. Wander. Wanderlust. Wanted - Want- Wanting. Warrior. Waning. Watercress. Watery. Wavering. Waxing. Wayward. Wavy. Waves. Way. Wayfaring. Wayfinding. Wavelength. Wealth. Weather. Web. Weird. Welcome. Welcoming. Westbound. Whispered. Whole. Whorls. Whatever. Wholehearted. Windy. Willowy. Windblown. Windswept. Windward. Wine. Winged. Winsome. Wistful. Wizard. Witchy. Wolf. Womanly. Win. Wondrous. Woodsy. Woods. Words. Wordsmith. Worldly. Worldwide. World. Worth. Worthwhile. Writing. Wrought. Weighty. Well. Wise. Wisdom. Wee. Wry. 

Wednesday is a fun day to play with words. It's a freedom day because the other days' (loose) themes feel more settled, as far as the things I'd like to cultivate in my life. Wednesday can be a day to play with possibilities, no matter what else I am doing, and in that it is transformed.

In my work world, Wednesday often has been a day I've dreaded. Usually a lot of responsibility and overwork. It's a day I sometimes find myself catching up with the things I may have neglected early in the week, as well as trying to make sure I don't have a lot left over to hamper the end of the week. And normally I've loaded the day with commitments. 

So I'm recasting it. 

Whimsy reminds me to find time to play, regardless of whatever else I've got on the to-do list. Even if that's just playing with words and enjoying the mouthfeel of them.

How many weeks is 100 days? It might be fun to take one of these W words every Wednesday and see where it takes me. Just look at where whimsy has led. To word play. 

There are 14 weeks in 100 days, by the way. And having begun on Monday, I'll end on a Tuesday. Crossing the threshold beyond the 100 days I'll find myself on Wednesday, and I wonder what I'll have learned by that time to carry into the once woeful and work-bedraggled day. Hopefully, new language and new ways of seeing.  

I was jotting down in my journal this morning, musing really, about the things I've got on my lists for today and tomorrow. Finding myself smiling, some strange ink flowed from my pen:

I'm finding myself, as it is, happy already. 

 I wrote it a second time, just to make sure it was real. It was.

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Art: "Freedom,"  Zenos Frudakis, Installation at 16th and Vine Streets, Philadelphia. 

Ode to the Chairs I Long to Build

There's a chair in pieces in my living room.

I thought it was a good idea to order them. Yes, there are two. One is still in the box in another room. The description online said that partial assembly is required. From the looks of it, complete assembly is required. I used to have a husband who did these things for me. Since I got divorced, I've been learning to do some of these things myself. At least anything I want to have happen. About four years ago I repainted my chest of drawers and changed the drawer pulls, and two years ago I painted a nightstand that has glass doors and a drawer. That was a nightmare. Painting in a tiny apartment is also a nightmare. The only floor space for something like this is in my bedroom. I slept with the windows open but I hate to think about the fumes I was breathing. 

I'm stalling.

The unassembled chair waits on my living room floor. It was delivered about a month ago. I've been looking at the boxes and trying to screw up my courage. There's the back, the seat, two arm/leg pieces, something called a stretcher, a lot of hardware, and an Allen wrench. I thought if I pulled one of them out of the box, some kind of magic would happen and I'd suddenly be able to do it. I'm laughing at myself as I'm writing this. I've already tried to screw the back to the seat. The space is tight and the way the directions say to do it is impossible, but I'll figure it out. I have to, right?

My approach to trying something new is to imagine a positive result and to see myself doing it. I've done that with kayaking, with hiking the desert, with various household projects, in my career, giving birth and raising children. And probably with other things that aren't coming to mind. I'm meeting a friend for tea later and, until then, I'll be working on the chair. It's probably a negotiation - between me and the chair. Or between me and myself. Either way, I'm looking forward to being one step closer to my vision of an eclectic mid-century design scheme in my living room. 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

A Hundred Days of Happiness

I'm creating a new furrow in my brain. 

I think it was the photograph of the strawberries that did it. Or maybe it was the tea, the beauty of its delicate fragrance as the boiling water hit the tea leaves. Or slicing the bread and cheese. The grass-fed butter. The beauty of the colors on the plate. 

I can look at my life through the struggle and dissatisfaction, the challenges and grief that are inevitable, or through what makes the experience of living wonderful. Thoughts are creative. Focus directs us. I'm thinking that if I pay attention to happiness, gratitude, and self-love, my life will get better. This idea, of course, is nothing new. Even in my own writing. What was it? Three years ago that I wrote The Summer of Self-Love? 

It can be hard to sustain, though. We've just come through 15 months of pandemic and pandemonium, as a friend has called it, and we've spent a lot of time isolated in our homes, our thoughts, our positions and our perspectives. Fifteen months is plenty of time to create new brain furrows that carry the thoughts that shape our experience. But three months can begin to turn around what needs turning. 

I started to think about this on Saturday and I was going to spend Saturday and Sunday developing the idea so that I could start strong on Monday, today, the day when the hundred days begin if I'd like to carry it through August 31. I had a headache the whole weekend and didn't do a thing. I have a headache this morning too, but I'm not letting that stop me. It may just be the last 15 months rearing up to tell me that it is what it is. 

It also may be a reminder that the best approach is not to over-plan but to let it be a landscape of discovery. And lightness. I have some ideas. I've jotted some things down, a loose structure for days. Themes, maybe, to help me remember and to give me some bones to build over. Things like Thirteen for Thursday. I make and share 13-second videos called Thirteen Seconds of Sabbath. They remind me that I can stop anywhere, anytime, to collect myself, to take a second or thirteen to pause and notice beauty, to check myself back into my own bliss, and give me a serious pause in the week for appreciation and noticing.  

There's also Me-First on Monday to set up the week well. Tidy Tuesdays, to get something done. Whimsy on Wednesday, because I like to live with lightness and Wednesdays usually feel anything but light. Friendship on Friday because friends and social connection are important.  Sabbath on Saturday, so I don't lose myself in striving. Succulent Sundays, so I don't lose the sense of gorgeous giftedness in life. 

Sign posts to my own happiness.  

And a few minutes spent walking down those paths each day just might change everything.

So let me just say right now that I don't know if it's going to work. I go into these writing series open to what might grow and understanding that it might fall on its face. It's part of the landscape of discovery. But for today, here's to the beginning of gathering up all the good things in life and setting them in front of my eyes, ears, hands, nose, and tongue. The deeply human ways of taking things in and processing them. For me, that leads to reflection and away from rumination. I'm hoping it will open joy and wonder to me again so that I'm more likely to notice that part of life. 

What do I need today? So many things. What is one thing, just one, that I can do and be deeply present to? That's the question of the day for the next one hundred days.

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.