On, in, and Around Mondays: When the Gift Knows What You Need

Every morning I would make tea, in an individual teapot.

Every morning, my older daughter would come by surreptitiously and steal-away with some of the tea.

"Hey, did you take my tea?" I'd say, and laugh, when I'd gone back for more tea and found my teapot wanting.

Then I received a casual teapot for Christmas. Full-sized and cheery, it sat on the counter. Until one day it occurred to me... why, yes, I could make a whole pot of tea every morning, couldn't I.

So I started to do that, and it quickly became a new ritual. And even my younger daughter now has tea every morning.

I started thinking about this phenomenon the other day—how the addition of something we didn't know we wanted or needed can change our lives in the most delightful ways. For my younger daughter, it has been not so much the teapot as her new journal. Every day, she makes clothing designs in it. This has become her new ritual.

I am not sure we can make these things happen. It's as if the gift has to arrive, for the unperceived need to become apparent.

As for me, I accept the serendipity. Especially if it comes with tea.
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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Because My Walls Can't Take it Anymore

I love beautiful art. I love Emily Wierenga.

It seemed natural to find ways to bring Emily's beautiful art into my home, without finding more wall space (which I do not have, at all).

This is the result...

The Emily Collection

So.

My girls each got a journal for Valentine's Day. "I can put my designs in this!" Sonia exclaimed. Sara kept turning hers in the light, "I love the colors. So brilliant."

(I forgot to choose "lined paper" when I ordered, so these are probably destined to be art and poetry journals!)






Me? I got a beautiful bag for the myriads of library books I carry each week. I was pleased that the bag turned out to be heavy in construction. And I get to carry Emily with me (instead of some of the less-than-attractive bags I've inherited from conferences)...




Best of all, I am drinking my favorites now with Emily. When I showed this to Sara, she said, "Amazing. Just amazing. It's so beautiful!" And I like the way the cup shines...



I wonder who said that art has to be on the walls. I'm happy to be holding mine (Emily's) now.

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How about you? Check out The Emily Collection

On, in, and Around Mondays: Writer Needs Reflection

I can feel my heart beating too fast. My breath feels shallow. My body, jittery.

It's not caffeine. There's no threat here in the kitchen. It's nothing at all.

Still, the next phone call I take, I walk with it. There's something about walking that drains the barely-perceptible unease that pervades my body. It's as if with each step something falls away. I miss this outer movement that creates inner space.

After my walk, after my call, I sit and just think. What do I really need?

Swaths of time. Time to go deep. Time to stop surfing (oh, I do love to Internet surf, and find great inspiration in it).

I need a book. Something more than a 500-word screen article. Something to hold in my hands, with a cup of tea beside me. So I do it.

In the green wing-back chair, I settle with a stack of books near my feet. I read one half-way through—a book on Branding. My notebook is filling with notes. I drink Red tea and consider my own personal brand. Not my writing and my logos and online images and posts. Just my self. The Brand that is Laura.

I get up and go to my email, write an apology to a friend. An apology for being so outside-my-personal-brand lately. I thank her for her patience with me, then I close up the laptop and return to the comfort of my chair, my books, my pen.

It carries over into my morning today. Before anything, I sit down and study French, drink my green jasmine tea, plan my week, my day. I even take time to smile to no one at all. Just sit and smile in the dining room. This is me. It feels happy.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Favorite Since Bird by Bird

"It’s a beautiful book, easily my favorite book on writing since Bird by Bird..."

continue reading at Kimberlee Conway Ireton's

On, In, and Around Mondays: Delivering Happiness

A sense of control, plus...

A sense of progress, plus...

Connectedness, plus...

Meaning...

Equals: happiness.

Could it be that simple?

Last night it was. The girls and I decided (control) to watch Merlin together. They've been wanting me to see all the episodes. It's like our little secret. A life of story we are building together (meaning).

We pulled the curtains closed. Shut out the night (progress).

We pulled each other close on the couch, where my Littlest leaned into me (connectedness).

The music, the visions of knights and ladies, a cup of life lost, a kingdom overtaken. Together, we watched. It was nothing fancy. It didn't cost us anything but time and decision.

What would it take to deliver just a little happiness like this each day? Can it be that hard?

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

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On, In, and Around Mondays: Getting Ideas from Pinterest

I got lost this weekend.

In Pinterest.

Hadn't been interested, until my friend Cheryl Smith said it's the fastest growing social network on the Web right now.

Really?

Had to see what the fuss was about. And now I know.

Color, color, and more color. What's not to love? It sparked so many ideas I could barely keep up with them. So I had to make an office. Or something like that.

Do you Pinterest? If so, let me know what's on, in and around your Boards. Tell me where to follow you. And we can pin color together.
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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

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Inspired by Candy

I have become enamored with candy. Funny, because I am not a candy-eater. But the colors, the colors have really taken me.

So of course now I am looking at everything through candy-colored glasses. And today, when I needed to buy new notebooks, I settled on these...

candies.

On, In, and Around Mondays: Collecting Words

I open the Eighth Day Books blog to find this...

"An instinctual poet, Barkat revels in the physical reality of words."

Eighth Day is an amazing bookstore in the Midwest. It supplies the Calvin Festival and The Glen Workshop. How sweet to be mentioned (and stocked on their virtual shelves).

What strikes me now is the odd tension of the phrase 'physical reality of words.'

So suggestive.

This week, someone asked me what makes anyone want to return to a poem, read it twice. The same question could suffice for any piece of writing. What makes us return?

I thought seriously about this and developed many answers. But perhaps the central answer is... we return to writing that has the quality of physicality.

And where do we find grist for our own physical reality of words?

We must go collecting. In the back yard, in the kitchen, on a walk in the woods. We must find words on city streets, in the bakery, at the train station.

This week, my schedule constricted, I sat in the green wing-backed chair and collected words from someone else's words.

We can do that too. In an older book by Henry Miller I found Big Sur, men on horseback coming from the Valley of the Moon, a convict's shack on the edge of a cliff. A good writer like Miller can bring us to places we've never been, and we, in turn, can bring others.

We must simply remember. That words are everywhere for the taking. And we can collect them into a beautiful reality.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

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Blue Pearls and Surprises

Today I loved blue beads, in this post.

Later, I opened my mailbox and received a most precious gift from Karen Eck. She illustrated my poetry book InsideOut and surprise-gifted it to me, filled with her beautiful art.

On one of the pages... blue pearls...

On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing the Come-Again

It's just another day on the trail. Me, biding my time, while my girl rides the auburn stallion around the ring.

I go off, pick my way around horse droppings, to get some time in the open. I've been here so many times now, and I wonder why I bother to bring my camera yet again. The season is the same. The same grey twigs raise their dryness towards the sky. There are the wineberry canes, still red and leaning. Same indigo berries, a little more shriveled by winter's moisture-absent air.

My fingers around the camera, I'm fiddling with the dark body, figuring it will stay in my pocket, wondering why I weighed myself down with it (I feel every little weight I carry). "Nothing today," I mumble, even thinking back to my red cardinal of a few weeks ago; he's made no appearance today.

"Change the angle and proximity, Laura," I suddenly think. "Do you really think you've seen it all?"

I move to the side of the trail and choose a dry twig that's hanging down from an empty tree. I fool with the settings on my camera, wish Claire or Kelly were here. They'd know what to do. They're the ones who've been teaching me.

I am on my own. Or maybe I'm not.

Their advice guides my vision now, and my fingers. I move in close, blur the background. This twig is no longer the same. Like my writing need not be the same. Though I come again, to the me I am, and the same-old places I live.

Come again. Come again. I feel I have found a secret to play with, to quietly sing.


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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

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On, In, and Around Mondays: Nothing-Doing Writing

Phone calls (a lot of them!). Projects. Schedules. Business. And two weeks of laundry piled up because of the Christmas vacation.

My head, spinning. (I know where that metaphor came from now, as I sit in the olive-green wingback chair.)

A footstep in the hallway, and my husband comes into the room, wants to know, "Are you okay?"

I am just sitting. I've taken my glasses off, and I'm holding my head in my hands (it feels good). I am doing nothing at all. Books piled at my feet. The round wooden table to my left, lights off except for the Christmas tree (we keep ours until it can't be kept anymore).

I know the way nothing-sitting can fill me up. But I've been reminded by this article, to sit and let the world go quiet.

My writing notebook is in the pile of books, and I consider opening it. But then, I don't even want that.

It is a clear mind that eventually becomes creative. I've written about this process of emptying and filling before. It never changes. The red dress is still waiting. Today, it's under the Christmas tree. And soon I'm hoping the rain will turn to the white-nothing of January snow.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...