AnnieModify

Gentle

A gentler world begins
in the way you touch your heart.
Be soft with the light inside you.
Caress your body with this breath.
God is nothing else
but the place where the sun comes up
in your chest.
You are the glimmering destination.
You are the golden honey daubed
on the bread of the ordinary.
Whatever is perfect,
whatever is heavenly,
begins here.

— Fred LaMotte

Do not bargain to be loved. 

Do not negotiate. 

When love is withheld as a punishment, as a manipulation, as a means to move you in a certain direction: Do the worst and most difficult thing and quit asking for it. Withdraw your hand, put it in your pocket. Clamp your mouth shut, let your silence swell, do not ask for explanations.

It's already been explained. 

Love is not contractual. Love does not have terms you must fulfill before you get to have it. 

Love exists and is made apparent in all situations where it is present. 

If it is not apparent — if you cannot feel it, hear it, and see it in action — it is not present. 

This seems like a harsh rule but it is the only rule of love. 

 Love is not confusing. Love is clear. Love is simple. Love is obvious. Big as the sky, sturdy as a mountain. Brave and honest, tender and unrelenting. 

 You don't have to poke around in dark corners asking, Is it here? Is it here? 

 You don't have to dig for love until your fingers bleed. You don't have take apart some sharp-edged thing to get at the gooey love-filled center. 

Love doesn't hide. Love appears and stays. Love is present. 

 When you're loved, you know it. You feel it. It opens you up. It blesses you with spaciousness and closeness, with freedom and safety, equal measures. You don't have to choose one and lose the other. Love does not offer you a half. Love is the whole. 

Do not bargain to be loved. 

Here are some things that are not love:

• Affection

• Agreement

• Attention

• Attraction

• Compliments

• Apologies

• Gifts

• Sex 

Love may express itself in those ways. Love may give you affection, attention, all of the above. Wonderful. 

Love can bring you these things, but it does not hold a monopoly. 

Agreement can come from avoidance of conflict.
Attention can come from jealousy.
Affection can come from loneliness.
Compliments can come from a need to please.
Gifts can come from guilt. 

Love is not transactional. Love is not a handful of coins in your pocket, spend one here, spend one there, save some up for a rainy day. 

Love does not run out. Love is self-created, self-fulfilling, endless supply.  

Love is active generosity. Love is splendid, exorbitant kindness. Love cannot be measured or doled out in small bits, cut into smaller slices. 

When someone tries to love you this way, here is the explanation (take a deep breath): 

What they offer you is not love. 

They offer you something, to be sure. But it is not love. 

If love is what you want, don't bargain for what is not love. 

Some people want to love but don't know how. Or they want to get love, but don't know how to give it. 

You don't teach them by accepting not-love and pretending it is love. 

You can show them by knowing what love is and being it, best as you can: Being clear, being simple, being obvious.  

Not accepting half-truths or hiding. Not equating affection with love, apologies with love, attention with love. Not being pulled into transactions. Not being backed into a corner. Not making yourself smaller. Not agreeing when you don't agree. Not tolerating what you shouldn't tolerate. 

Clear, simple, obvious. Big and sturdy. Brave and honest, tender and unrelenting. 

Even when saying goodbye. 

As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.

― Bessel A. van der Kolk

What we live through, what we experience, how we navigate a life that is one unknown after another, how we keep breathing in the midst of pain, how we learn to carry suffering, how we open our arms to each other, how we offer comfort in the face of tragedy: none of it really makes sense.

How we look forward with hope, how we keep functioning without hope, what we do when it feels like there’s nothing to hope for, when meaning is lost, when it would feel nice to have the earth open and swallow us whole…

How we find small things to delight in, how we notice a good thing in the middle of a shitstorm, how we put our heads down and plod forward through despair, how we tilt our faces toward the sun, how we park the car and get out and shut the door and check the mail and walk inside when our minds can’t imagine why we’re doing any of it and our hearts are howling, screaming, shattering…

How we make art, how certain things become sharper, how we accept one another’s discomfort, how we make room for each other’s pain, how we read a poem or a comic or watch a show or stare out the window, how one story might pull us under but another story might be what saves us…

Bukowski said, What matters most is how well you walk through the fire, and what we didn’t realize is that it’s all fire, all the time, and how we walk through it is how we live, how we keep living, because love is a fire, love is as strong as death which means sometimes, a lot of times, we live through things that seem likely to kill us.

The mystery is you and how you are here, right now, slamming your hand in frustration, yelling, cursing, sobbing, retreating into silence, considering violence, burdened with helplessness, pacing and exhausted, uncertain and trembling, numb with detachment, shaking with anger, frozen in shock, shaking with grief, panicking, breathless.

It’s extraordinary — the way you breathe, the way you keep breathing. The way you question yourself, the way you smile, the way you let tears roll down your face, how you peer through the flames to see colors and light.

A week in which some things happen and some things do not happen, much like other weeks. 

Current situation:

The pain of having children who become driving teenagers is the exorbitant cost of auto insurance. The joy is getting to stare out the window as the midwestern landscape moves by and think about nothing and everything for hours at a time. 

Monday 01 June: Dentist in the morning, then work. I make all the kids’ appointments for the same day, which was a logistical requirement for years and now is just a solid tradition. We all troop in and the receptionist says, “Ahhh, the Muellers are here.” I guess at some point my adult-ish children will start doing their own dentist thing but we haven’t crossed that line yet. I’m not rushing it. 

Tuesday 02 June: My Mom died 19 years ago. I miss her every single day. 

Wednesday 03 June: Certainly some things happened on this day. But memorable things did not happen, I guess. 

How often we made our worst fears come true, by behaving as though they already were.

— Louise Penny, A Better Man

Thursday 04 June: Early work meeting, then met a friend for a walk. Work, gym, then I spent a lot of money on Amazon¹. Now that we’re down to two kids at home (🥺) each with their own! separate! bedroom!, they no longer have to tolerate twin-size creaky metal loft beds. So: I ordered bed frames and mattresses. Which means next week we’ll have to put together the bed frames…. 

Friday 05 June: Took a long leisurely walk at the end of the day. Refused to cook dinner due to the volume of leftovers in the fridge. Saw some pretty peonies. Snuggled up on the couch and read Louise Penny while Lily watched Wednesday again. 

Saturday 06 June: Hospital day. Floor wasn’t full and then we had multiple discharges so I ended up with only 5 patients. I actually sat down for probably 2-3 hours total. Home. Shower. Balcony time. Stayed up too late watching Slow Horses. 

Sunday 07 June: An absolute luxury of a morning. No alarms. Slept until I woke up, then coffee and slow soft waking time. Then unhurried gym time: Weights, run, sauna. I’m not sure when I became a person who finds a 2 hour gym session luxurious but apparently that’s who I am now.

At this precise moment Zeke and I are about 60 miles from Bentonville, Arkansas, where my sister lives. Tomorrow we’ll do  a college tour at U of A in Fayetteville, then drive home. 

📚 Read A Better Man by Louise Penny. Also FINALLY returned the stack of horrifically overdue library books. SORRY I’M SO SORRY. 

📺 Started rewatching season 4 of Slow Horses because I realized I never watched season 5! But then I didn’t remember what happened in season 4 so I’m watching it again before I watch season 5. 

🩻 I’m starting Anatomy & Physiology 1 class tomorrow so that’s probably all I’m gonna be able to think or talk about for the next 8 weeks. BONES! MUSCLES! ORGANS! ALSO TISSUES! 

💪 3x weight training. I moved up to 40lb dumbbells on bulgarian split squats. I like to start every workout with some split squats because then you know you’ve already done the worst possible thing. 

👟 2 runs and hit over 12k steps every day.

🐈‍⬛ 1x Goobie took over my journal.

1. I know Amazon is the devil. Don’t @ me.

Sunday came, Sunday went, but the notes can be week notes any day they want to be. 

Current situation:

Monday 25 May: Memorial Day, also hospital day. Having to work certain holidays is a new thing for me. 

The long light days of summer begin. Last night it was light until well after 8. Pool is open now. Hasn’t been very warm yet but that will change quickly. We’re a week away from June.  

Tuesday 26 May: Thinking about the cost of optimizing: The more you optimize, the more difficult it is to be flexible. A danger of losing resilience.

There’s an underlying principle at work here. Stress creates resilience.

— Scott Hogan, Built from Broken

On the other hand:

A nervous system that is constantly in sympathetic mode cannot hold complexity. 

— Nate Hagens, A Framework for Action (YouTube link)

Wednesday 27 May: Back to runnnning. I did a Couch ➡︎ 5K program over March and April, ended in early May. Took a few weeks off. Wasn’t sure how I’d do today but all the muscles seem to remember what to do. Now I’m pleasantly tired, my legs are sore, and I feel amazing. I kind of wish running didn’t feel so good because it’s also so goddamn awful. 

Got Rob all moved out today. 😭 It’s fine, it’s good, he’s ready, it’s great, it’s time, blah blah blah blah blah I hate it. He’s still in town, at least. 

Thursday 28 May: One of those days where there are too many things. We gotta quit with all the things. So many things. One thing then another thing. LET ME NAP.

The linden trees are blooming and they smell amazing. Also the magnolias. 

After everything, the wild went on. Of course it did.

— Moonbound, Robin Sloan

Friday 29 May: You know you are genuinely in old-person territory when sleeping till 7 feels late. Also, impossible to sleep past 7. My back has a strict time limit on when it must no longer be on a mattress. I find this upsetting and unfair.   

💜 Mara here for the weekend! 

Saturday 30 May: Hospital day. I have GOT to get better about having some sort of dinner mostly prepped on hospital days because otherwise I come home and just eat whatever I can grab like a starved maniac. Gremlin mode activates. I just stood in the kitchen shoveling stale old potato chips in my mouth for… I don’t know how long. Let’s not talk about this anymore. 

Sunday 31 May: Hiking church. Very muddy after all the rain. Delightful water sounds everywhere. 

Spontaneous tattoo time, thanks to Mara who had her tattoo stuff with her and  just casually freehand drew this design on my wrist from a couple of inspo pics I found. It’s a blackberry vine with a few tiny skulls. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

📚 Finished Moonbound by Robin Sloan. Excellent. I loved it. Cozy but in the way I want cozy to be when I try to read a cozy genre book and am inevitably disappointed (bored?). This book has the feeling I’m actually after. 

…. other things happened like I remember going to the gym at least twice? OH WAIT FUCK YEAH I PR’D BENCHPRESS BABY!! 115 POUNDS.  

That was satisfying. 

I want to write more about that Nate Hagens video which I have not finished watching but which is really good but I am too tired. 

To sum up: A week (or so) has passed, I was alive, I did things or did not do things, here we are, me and the adorable tiny skulls are ready for sleep now. 

Are these weeknotes again? Yes they are! Is this a fluke or is it a trend? Who knows! Who cares! Let’s do iiiiiittttttt.

Current situation: 

Monday 18 May: Went for a walk early, before the rain set in. I adore a rainy day. Got a lot of work done. Afternoon thing canceled due to power outage from the storm. Evening thing canceled due to it being outdoors. Busy day became cozy day. 

Did an interview for a freelance piece. Do you have questions about EoE? I might have answers¹. 

Thinking about studying but not studying. I should just study.

Tuesday 19 May: Hospital day. Walking out to my car I happened to go past a young couple leaving the hospital with their brand-new baby. Mom sitting in backseat, leaning over, looking, exhausted smile. A glimpse of tiny baby face nestled in. Dad checking and rechecking the car seat, slowly easing the door shut, hustling around to the driver’s door. A precious, unrepeatable moment I was lucky enough to observe. 

Grammar books were my books of prayer. Looking up words in the dictionary was for me an image of goodness. The endless endless task of learning new words was for me an image of life.

— A Word Child, Iris Murdoch

Wednesday 20 May: Long walk in the morning listening to podcasts. Trying to brush up on my Spanish so it doesn’t fade away entirely. I don’t think this conversational listening podcast is gonna do it but maybe it will help. 

When I can’t make a decision I’m usually overcomplicating the context and overestimating the impact.

A veces no me gusta tomar decisiones.

Thursday 21 May: Early morning meeting. Long walk. Work. Last day of school. For Lily, last day of middle school. If I squint and tilt my head I can see the light at the end of the school-parent journey. Then I start crying. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FEELINGS ALL THE TIME. 

Anyway here’s a flower.

Another Official and Exceedingly Delightful Meeting of the Cunty Bitches Book Club. We talked about books for 10 minutes. It’s fine, books aren’t even the point. 

Friday 22 May: Made shrimp and collard greens and cornbread for dinner. Mom used to boil collard greens with a ham hock. I sauté them in bacon grease. Won’t change a thing about her cornbread recipe, though. It’s perfection.

It  is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so  that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number  of disagreeable surprises.

— The Art of Eating, M.F.K. Fisher

Saturday 23 May: Hospital day. Hit 10,000 steps by 12 but things were fairly quiet all afternoon, so only 15k total for the day.

Sunday 24 May: Hiking church. Look at this snail feasting on a downed sycamore. 

💪 Three gym sessions: push/pull/legs. Sauna every time. Benched 95 lbs, my max so far. Maybe I’ll hit 100 next week. 

👟 Four long walks and a nice hike. 

🎵 Leave Me When I Need You // Lahra

📚 Continued A Word Child by Iris Murdoch. Started The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. Dipped into The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher. Started Moonbound by Robin Sloan. Reread a bit of Finite and Infinite Games² by James P. Carse.

🔗 I Did Not Come to This Kids Party for an AI Sermon // Justin Ribeiro 

h/t Baldur Bjarnason

The quagmire is clear; to engage with the preachers is to legitimize not  only the sermon but rather the dominant hierarchy that the viewpoint  attempts to crystalize. That hierarchy is not one of “the AI fulfills  your needs” but rather the external force that AI is is inevitable and  places a radical demand on your life—you may not want to use it, but its  placement in applications you use places demands on you. The sermon is  no different; it places a radical demand for you to engage, with someone  who is either ill-informed or worse, well-informed and willing to seek  gains at your expense.

🔗 Friction deserves a better reputation // Nicholas Bate

What costs something to produce tends to be better than something which  costs nothing. The slow letter beats the careless message every time.

I agree.³

🔗 Prepare your no and keep it handy // Derek Sivers

It’s so handy in those high-pressure moments where someone is looking  you in the eyes, asking you to do something, and awaiting your answer. No problem! You have it memorized and ready-to-go, even when unexpected. You can be kind but decisive on the spot. 

A good practice.

I leave you with this cautionary reminder:

1. Eosinophilic esophagitis. It’s becoming much more common. Caused by food allergies but the triggers aren’t obvious as symptoms/reactions build over a long period of time. The gist is if you have trouble swallowing or keeping food down, it’s not normal, get it checked out, symptoms do worsen without treatment. This is not medical advice. 

2. I can’t find anything I’ve written about this book but I know I’ve written about this book this is one of my favorite books wtf I must remedy this situation immediately

3. OMG I AM LOVING THE PIKA LINK SEARCH FEATURE 

Are these weeknotes? Yes they are! Will I do them again next week? Who knows! 

Sunday 10 May: Got home from hospital shift around 7:30pm. Exhausted, hangry. Walked into a clean tidy home, flowers and cards, and the kids cooking dinner (spring roll bowls which were so so so good). Plus! a NEW CHAIR for the balcony. We ate and talked and did that thing where you laugh so hard you cry. Then I sat on my new balcony chair & had some nice bourbon while they cleaned everything up. Anyway it was a great Mother's Night 💗

More spaces in my life for uncensored unfettered thinking. 

Less platform, more workshop. Less stage, more garage. Less producing, more tinkering. 

Tuesday 12 May: Took a sick day. Felt off, sore throat, achy yesterday. Woke up with the full experience. This was to be an uncomfortably busy day and instead I am canceling all the things I can. Left with a couple of items to do from the comfort of the couch. Hot tea. Window open. Cats sitting in the sun. Breeze and blue sky outside. If I feel enough energy I’ll take a slow walk later. 

Dreamed about being evicted. Felt very real. Woke up panicked. Relieved to realize it was a dream and I have a two-year lease. 

Wednesday 13 May: Took my chemistry final. Not as difficult as anticipated! A relief, since I didn’t study as much as planned. 

“I want you to see all kinds,” he would say to her. “I want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show. The trick is to play in it and look at it at the same time.”

“What whole thing?”

“Living. All mixed up. The more kinds of people you see, and the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living. Remember, no matter what happens, good or bad, it’s just so much” — he used the gambler’s term, unconsciously — “just so much velvet.”

—from So Big by Edna Ferber

Denial and suffering may be good methods for undoing the old / destructing but they are not good methods for creating / constructing what you actually wish to build. 

Thursday 14 May: Still sick. Tried to do a bit of work. Mostly just rested. Feeling somewhat better but end of day.

Friday 15 May: Mara’s college graduation day. Those two years have flown by. Many feelings! So proud of her. 

Saturday 16 May: Lily’s birthday! A weekend full of celebrations.

Took her and a group of friends to one of those combo bowling / laser tag / arcade / overstimulation places. They did all the things & had fun. I got some studying done. 

But is it doable?

Sunday 17 May: Hiking church. Warm today, 70℉ when we started. Chubb Trail from West Tyson. 

It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own power without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being. 

…primarily Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.

—from On Writing, Charles Bukowski

💪 One gym session (Monday) before the sickness took me out Tues-Thurs, then it was A Weekend of Events. Back to our regularly scheduled program next week, I hope.

👟 A few short walks, and a nice hike. 

📺 Unfamiliar (loved it) and season 1 of The Thaw (liked it, will watch the rest). Lots of tv time with sick days.

📚 So Big by Edna Ferber (finished) and On Writing by Charles Bukowski.

🔗 The old world of tech is dying and the new cannot be born // Baldur Bjarnason

No matter the flavour of Christianity, a core idea baked into every aspect of the religion is that singular revelatory events can fundamentally change the world. There’s the “before”. Then the “event”. Then an “after” that has been completely transformed. In Christianity itself this is usually associated with Christ’s chaotic transit schedule – “He is here! He has left! He is about to arrive again! Now he’s leaving again! But he’s also somehow always been here! And not.” – but the mode of thinking is common throughout literature, philosophy, and storytelling in the Christian west.

🔗 Letting things build // Tracy Durnell

The way I often read non-fiction — snatches of twenty pages here, twenty pages there, putting a book down for two months (or two years) at a time — is not conducive to *finishing* books, but I do find it conducive to thinking. Rich texts can take a while to sink in, so I’ll jump to another book while I let the first one marinate.

🔗 You are here // Sebastian

As I approach my topics and ideas through writing—whether in the form of brief notes or by looking back when I pick up the journal and flip through its pages—a process of contextualization takes place. And that is important. For me, this is a form of metacognition: observing myself as I think and being able to analyze and categorize my thoughts “from the outside.” It doesn’t completely solve the black box problem of self-perception, nor does it eliminate the blind spot of the mind that seeks to explain itself from within itself, but it does make things a lot easier and more accessible.