have i ever told you that i read to atlas and tell him stories?

i do.

he loves it. he watches me for a while and then he sighs happily and closes his eyes while his entire body relaxes.

i don’t know why i’ve never talked about this before. i have long thought that reading to dogs is a lovely practice.

it seems like such a simple and easy way for dogs and people to quietly connect.

dogs like attention and affection. talking to them in a normal tone of voice is a way of giving them your attention while keeping them calm. the trouble is that it can be hard to talk to your dog for long; they don’t talk back and one-sided conversations aren’t much fun. reading to them is a great way around this.

you know how i got started? an animal communicator was talking to atlas and he told her that he liked it when i read stories to him at night. except i wasn’t reading to him at all. i read exceptionally fast so i had been reading a book aloud (beowulf, i think) as a way to slow myself down.

after that, i started reading out loud deliberately, just so he could enjoy it. not all the time, but often. (oh my. i just remembered when i tried to read him the craggy hole in my heart and the cat who fixed it. i thought it would be perfect. only i cried so hard through the whole book that i could barely get the words out.)

i also tell atlas stories, usually in the evening, when he’s quietly napping on the bed or in his crate. i sit next to him on the bed or lie in front of the crate and tell him a story. often, they are true stories. favorites include the story of how he came to live with me or the story of how he chased a rabbit and then i sprained my ankle or stories that involve squirrels and kitties.

so yes, reading to dogs. i am a fan. if you have a dog, do try it and report back!

if you don’t know what to read to your dog or you want something special, i wrote a very sweet story for atlas when he hurt his paw. the story is called the puppy’s dream and it’s available for purchase.

(poor atlas. he looked at me so sweetly but instead of getting a story, he got a camera in his face.)

once upon a time, i was an engineer.

most of the time, i liked – and even loved – my work. it seemed like life was good, that i should have been happy and contented.

only i wasn’t. there was a current of longing, a restlessness, a nagging sense of disquiet that was always running below the surface.

it felt like something was missing in my life – something important – and i couldn’t figure out what it was.

i wish i could convey how confusing and frustrating it was to always feel like something was missing.

i tried to fill the hole: with people, with activities. that didn’t work.

i tried to ignore the hole. that didn’t work either. every once in a while, the confusion and frustration would overwhelm me and i would decide that it must mean i was in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. i would start researching other options: graduate school or the peace corp or other companies.

i thought it meant that i had to change everything.

but changing everything is a daunting prospect, and none of my ideas ever felt quite right, so i would eventually go back to ignoring it.

i did this for ten years.

the thing i know now, that i didn’t know then, is that something was missing.

i was missing a part of me.

the long hours and the stress and the busy days made it easy for me to forget all the parts of me that i didn’t need in order to do my work. they slipped further and further away from me. eventually, i forgot they were ever important at all.

the thing I know now, that i didn’t know then, is that we need beauty.

we need beauty and wonder and amazement.

we need to remember that we are more than our work.

we need to remember that there are other parts of us that need nourishment.

the thing i know now, that i didn’t know then, is that beauty is neither a luxury nor a frivolity.

beauty is a need.

beauty can nourish the parts of us that we’ve forgotten and that desperately need nourishment.

beauty can feel like a long cool deep life-giving drink to parts of us that we didn’t even realize were dying of thirst.

there are so many ways to add beauty to your day.

here are some of my favorites.

• minimizing all the open browser windows and programs and gazing softly at the tulips on my computer background
• a pause and a breath
• a glance out the window to watch the leaves wave in the wind
• chai tea in a favorite mug
• a quick doodle with fat colorful markers
• standing up and stretching
• sending a hello text to a friend
• wearing a favorite outfit or scarf or piece of jewelry
• (my personal favorite, the only one i couldn’t have done in my little cubicle) getting up from my chair to go over and kiss the pup on the top of his sweet furry head

i thought i would highlight some things that are inspiring me lately, just in case one or more of them speak to you too.

shannon offers a free class + group coaching call every month. she (and it) is always full of smartness, usefulness & laughter.

i found sharon on redbubble this past weekend. she takes the most magically beautiful photos of water & oil drops. i am so in love with them that i feel like i am going to burst with it. today, rainbow rain is my favorite.

somehow, i stumbled across this sweet & loving essay on body image. “it is the stories and the cherishing that make us beautiful. may you catch each falling moment in your hands and kiss it as it goes.”

you need to meet maddie the coonhound. i have apologized to atlas in advance, but i am determined to take my own maddie-inspired photo.

what’s inspiring you lately? anything i should know about?

please help me choose love, be love, feel love.

over and over and over.

p.s. i feel like we could all use a dose of loving kindness. so, i am offering a group reiki session this week, no charge, on thursday, may 16th, @ 6pm pst. if you’ve been wanting to try reiki, or could use some nourishment in your life, this might be for you. if you want in, let me know.

i am not the small of me.
i am the all of me.

i am beauty.
i am light.
i am love.

{to be read to yourself, dear one, aloud, slowly, and often. you are loved.}

“Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.”

- Rilke

remember when i told you that there were all those cute agreeable good-natured dogs posing happily for their people in the tulip fields and mine wasn’t one of them?

in the first two photos, atlas was attempting to rush me. in the last three, i tried to make him stop and stand still, just for a second, so he looked everywhere but at me while trying to sneak by me anyway.

can you see the spray of drool in the last photo? that’s how quickly he moved his head past me. he really is a creature of movement. i wonder if this is a weim thing.

by the way, all of this took place in less than three minutes. i need the arm strength of an amazon and the speed of a jungle cat to live with this dog. i have the first. clearly i’m still working on the second.

i was actually going to title this post the evolution of  a nickname until i saw these photos.

why? yesterday, atlas acquired a new nickname: waffles.

wondering how on earth he got that one? easy. it went from woof-y to wuffy to wuffles to ruffles (have ridges) back to wuffles to waffles.

i met a friend for coffee this morning, then treated myself and my current idea to a delicious sandwich and an iced coconut latte for lunch.

portland is warm and sunny. i wore a skirt and a short-sleeved shirt and sandals and did not freeze. it was lovely.

i am torn between feeling like i am on the right path and with wondering – yet again – what on earth i am meant to be doing with my life. i feel like my heart is three sizes too big – bursting with love for the world and for all of you – but i don’t know how to harness that energy in a way that actually makes a difference in the world.

i have almost literally no food in the house, aside from a can of chili, an apple, some pasta, and a strange assortment of cheeses. however, i feel strangely uninspired to visit the grocery store so i am drinking a diet vernors for dinner. good thing i had that sandwich! (though now that i write this, i realize i could also have an apple with cheese.)

i feel a rather conflicting mix of emotions but instead of feeling them fully, i am reading articles on the internet. they are good articles, but i think i would be better served by sitting quietly for a while. maybe i will do that now.

atlas is perfecting the art of the flop. (by which i mean, he throws himself down on the ground and wriggles around on his back.) i’m pretty sure he’s mastered it, but he continues to practice.

how are you? really?

 
{i wrote this post for my friend relyn’s blog to celebrate her month of passions. i am sharing it here today because it seems fitting. if you are not as fond of lower-case letters as i am, do thank relyn for this brief respite from them.}

When I was younger, I wrote letters to a dear friend of mine. She lived less than fifteen miles away and I saw her most every weekend. I loved writing letters – it was fun to capture funny snippets from daily life in a story – and I didn’t have many far away friends. I didn’t expect her to write back; I just wanted to write letters. Plus, my dad intervened in my one attempt to find my own penpal. (I tried to write to an inmate. There must have been an ad in the classifieds? I quietly slipped the letter in the mailbox one morning – apparently I suspected my parents wouldn’t approve – but it was discovered. That was the end of that.)

I have a stack of postcards and cards on my desk right now. They are all addressed – so I remember who they are for – and I am slowly writing on each of them. Most of them are celebrating March birthdays. I am very fond of belated birthday cards; I like to think it’s even more surprising and delightful when a card shows up well after the birthday has passed. This month, I was inspired to recycle a couple of unused Christmas cards in the spirit of fun and whimsy. As far as I’m concerned, you can say “fa la la la la” all year round, and Santa making a snow angel on the beach is the perfect sight for a snow-covered midwestern friend. (I just realized that the latter says “Enjoy the holidays”. Your birthday is a holiday, right? Maybe it should be.)

It turns out that all these years later, I still love sending mail. With a few words and a stamp, I get to show someone that I care about them, even if I don’t say so directly. I get to show someone that someone out there in the big wide world is thinking about them. I get to imagine a little dose of happiness sitting in someone’s mailbox between bills and junk mail. I get to remember that – even in moments when I feel lonely – there are people in the world that I love and adore.

I must say that I loved mail even more once I discovered the magic of postcards. They really are the perfect size! Letters are great, but sometimes my hand just doesn’t flow across the page, and it’s so easy to jot something on a postcard and pop it into the mailbox. (Like: I’m thinking about you! I had a dream about you last night – we were spies and managed to save the world! Harold and Kumar – a pair of bluebirds – are eating bird seed on my patio and I wish you were here to watch them with me! You might like this quote!)

If I really stop and think about it, sending mail is a beautiful practice. I am doing it for other people, sure, but I am also doing it for myself. It feels like I am putting a little bit of myself out into the world. It feels like I am practicing vulnerability and trust and openness. It feels like I am helping to spread joy and surprise and wonder. It feels like a way to ground myself in the moment and to really appreciate it.

I want to help fill the world with beauty. Sending mail is one of my favorite practices.

want to join me? let’s celebrate our friends and fill the world with postcards!

in a fit of inspiration, i created a set of {let’s celebrate friendship} postcards. they were inspired by my love of mail and my love of postcards and my current obsession with friendship. and yes, i actually put “you rock” on a photo with rocks. i am indeed cheesy.

the set includes 5 postcards. the cost is $12.50.

if you’re interested, click yes, please!

i used to occasionally read something – on the web or in a book – that made me feel uncomfortable.

it almost always happened when i was reading something along the lines of this-is-how-you-should-do-x or this-is-how-you-should-be where i wasn’t doing the thing or being the thing.

for a long time, i thought the feeling meant that i had to change. in response, i would try to do the thing (or be the thing). if i couldn’t (or simply just wouldn’t), i would feel guilty and ashamed of myself for not doing the thing (or being the thing). i would also make the author wrong – either because i was doing something i didn’t want to or because anger felt better than guilt or shame.

this was so uncomfortable that i started to avoid anything i thought would contain advice or suggestions.

eventually, i realized that what the feeling really meant was that i was reading something that didn’t resonate with me. it wasn’t that i was wrong or they were wrong. the feeling was my inner guidance saying, “this is not for you”.

the interesting thing is that once i realized this, nothing i read really bothered me anymore. it became easier and easier to discern what resonated with me and what didn’t – and to take what resonated with me and discard the rest.

it took a long time for me to learn that i am an expert on me.

sometimes i still feel like i don’t know very much about myself, but it is indeed true that i know more about me than anyone else does.

that is what i want for you – for you to know that you are your own expert.

i was playing around with photoshop and made us a pinterest-friendly reminder. (i decided i can’t do this very often because i love fonts and playing with them makes me want to buy all the fonts in the world so i have them at my disposal. there are so many good ones out there!)