30 Things I Love Right Now: Endurance

(1) (Still) feeling challenged by this exercise. (2) The desire to [keep being] honest in this exercise. (3) “The Gate” by Marie Howe. (4). These five stories by Lydia Davis. (5) “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye. (6) The Breakfast-Club-style “low-residency” creative writing program I teach, which met in person yesterday. (7) Marks of Intention at the Birmingham Museum of Art. (8) Goodness, its small favors. (9) Quizzing S– on pop and rock music trivia. (10) What all he knows. (11) Watching the Grammys with him and his mother. (12) You go, Justin Bieber. Do you. Whatever that now means. (13) Lady Gaga. Which is to say: generational brilliance. (14) Encouraging the right kind of puzzlement. (15) Notorious B.O.B. (16) Randy Santel. (17) Which is to say: vicarious excess. (18) Acknowledging the (many) ways I am (often) not mindful. (19) Fall down seven(ty-leven) times, get up eight(y-leven). (20) Seeing brokenness. Feeling it. (21) Fixing things if possible. (22) Accepting when it’s not. (23) Silence. (Still.) (24) Solitude. (Still.) (25) Red cabbage, raw. (26) Dates + cashews. (27) The Boston Way: Radicals Against Slavery and the Civil War by Mark Kurlansky. (28) The prospect of a hot shower, a shave, and a haircut. (29) Cleaning up. (30) Renewals.

“30 Things I Love Right Now” is a foundational pillar of The Write Mindfulness Project, a free resource for writers who want to build a more sustainable creative practice that doesn’t glorify the constant grind for external validation but instead encourages self-awareness, intrinsic motivation, and kinship with the numinous. To start on that journey yourself, click here.