Inch by inch, word by word

Most mornings of the week my work day starts with a writing session shared with a group of writers spread out across the globe. After the session, we check in and share what we worked on, our struggles, and our joys. The other morning I shared that I had tried to talk myself out of writing from the moment I woke up, but I got my butt in the chair, did a little bit of work, and I took that for a win.

Some days are like that, and when you string together a long strand of days where the work feels tedious, that can wear on your brain. That’s where I’m at with my current second draft. I’m so deep it’s hard to see the big picture - of the story and writing life.

I’m turning to my knitting often throughout the day. I’ll sit for pockets of time with various projects, letting the yarn run through my fingers as the needles click and the project at hand grows. There’s a satisfaction in seeing the stitches add up to a whole, in the growth of a sweater, inch by inch, stitch by stitch.

At certain points of writing a novel you get that same sense of satisfaction - at the end of a chapter or seeing your work printed out, feeling the heft of pages in your hands. But ultimately, knitting is a more immediate gratification, even if the project isn’t complete in a day, you can see measurable progress.

That’s what this is about, I think. Measurable progress. In a first draft, it’s easy - you count your words each day and tally them up nicely and neatly in an organized fashion. In a second draft, you have to shift your ideas of what’s a measurable goal. Is it time? Is it words added to the draft? What about when you backtrack and fix something out of order? What about… what about… what about…

I ask myself that a lot right now. And more often than not I’m finding I don’t have the answers. The only one that I have consistently is to sit down and not try to figure it out - instead, try to feel it out. Maybe measurement isn’t for this draft so much as movement. Maybe I can let the words and paragraphs slip through my fingers, swooping my pen or keyboard in and around them like knitting needles do with yarn. The all-important tension a knitter holds their yarn with is like the consistency of a writer who shows up day after day for the work.

I finished up a sweater the other week, bound off the edges and wove in the ends. I soaked the garment in a bath of tepid water and suds, the stitches relaxed and softened, the sweater had to become something almost unrecognizable in that water in order to get it to the shape it was meant to be. I gently wrung the water out and squished it between two towels to take away the excess water, and then laid it out to dry. Slowly the water evaporated, the stitches plumped, the wool softened. And when I slipped the dried and blocked sweater over my head, I sighed with pleasure feeling the wool against my skin and the sweater hugged my form in just the right way.

Each moment spent with each stitch was worth it in the end. Just as each moment spent with each word will be worth it in the end, too.

easing out of vacation

Vacation came and went and there's little proof but a few photos and a small pile of Florida sand that made it's way into my bedroom carpet. Sunday evening we sat at home, and the four of us looked at each other and all wondered out loud, "did that really happen?" That's what nearly six days in the car, and four days of jam packed activities in the Florida sunshine will do to you. It was a beautiful whirlwind of a trip, and within it we created many memories of laughter, adventure, and family legends. 

Now we're home where the wind is still chilling bones, though the calendar says otherwise. Yesterday I drove Lucas to the train station and watched the nearly full moon set low in the horizon. It was breathtaking, the glow and fullness. By the time I pulled away from the car park the moon was gone, tucked in for the daylight hours and the sky laid in wait of the sun. 

The days are flying fast and hard and instead of tightening my grip, I'm easing into the flow of it all. In working on what feels right, and resting when my body needs rest. In starting off gently with breakfast on the couch and kids tucked into my side, and housework nestled in the corners instead of it taking up prime real estate in our waking hours. In laying the groundwork for play and creativity and work, and finding the sweet spot where they intersect and the magic happens. 

It's also in pulling back from a weekly commitment to blogging. I may or may not show up here every Wednesday. I'm giving myself some grace and ease as I dive into other projects that are calling to me, like another round of edits on Farm Girl and furthering the word count on the new novel. {The best way to stay in the know about this space is to sign up for my mailing list, or to have blog posts emailed to you as they get published (you can do so on the side bar)}

A new season, a full moon, a new perspective. Spring is all about uncovering the shoots and buds, giving them room to grow, allowing and nurturing, cultivating. What's being unearthed for you this season?

A quick ode to knitting

My knitting life has been varied as of late. Lots of projects, some knit with thoughtfully chosen and specifically bought wool,  others unexpected and creatively pieced together with yarn from my stash. A ribbed hat made from sport weight yarn on needles so small they blistered the ends of my fingers after a week of constant ribbed knitting, another that was over and done with in two days. I finished a springtime sweater for myself, just in time for our upcoming road trip to Florida next week, and a pair of fingerless mitts made their way across the Atlantic to Sweden and a dear friend. 

Knitting holds a special place in my heart, for so many reasons. It's a balm, a creative outlet, a connection to my past, something I can pass on to my children, a meditation, an obsession, a nervous habit, a distraction, a tool for focusing, it's art and magic and finite and expansive. 

Writing and knitting go hand in hand for me, they compliment each other beautifully. Especially when in the early stages of a first draft, it's easy to get lost in the process. The vastness of the project. It feels endless and the daily word count a drop in the bucket compared to the final outcome. Knitting is almost a physical manifestation of the process... you can see something being created right in front of you, at your finger tips, in your lap. You can then hold your creation, wear it for all to see, and only you know the memories it contains. The silent prayers, the curse words at a dropped stitch, the daydreams and television shows you watched. The plot points you worked out while adding stitches and counting rows and hoping that you bought enough yarn to finish the sweater. 

Similarly to writing, there's hours of work that goes unseen even when someone looks directly at your project. Some of it is thankless and can be quite literally painful. But the hard work, the mind twisting patterns and numbers, the plot holes and complicated characters, all come together in the end in what is *hopefully* a piece of creative, soulful, and useful art. Books are art, anything hand knit is art, and both feel magical. You take an idea, you take a pattern, and breathe life into them. Poof, you have something that is timeless, something to put your name to and say, "I made that." 

Creating something out of nothing, that's what knitting and writing both feel like to me. And I love them both, and how they play off of each other and challenge me every step of the way. Even when faced with ease, there's still the question of how does this fit with the rest of the project, how does this work? Will this work? You don't know until the end. There's trust in both processes, but in such different ways. 

That is why I need a knitting project while I write, and a writing project while I knit: so I can remember to trust, myself and the process. To remember that every stitch counts, every word counts, and individually they might not amount to much - but together they make something useful and beautiful. Something timeless. 

~~~~~~~

Tomorrow my monthly newsletter goes out. If you haven't signed up to my mailing list yet, you can do so here. I promise I won't send you a gazillion emails!

Next week my family and I will be on vacation... but don't worry, there will still be a blog post next Wednesday! I'll be introducing you to a trusted writer friend of mine, Jennie Booth. I asked if she'd like to write a guest post for me, and she kindly agreed. I can't wait for you to meet her!

Tenderly lit corners

This winter I've been spending a lot of time alone. I've been searching out quiet spaces, tenderly lit corners, tending to myself by going to bed way before the rest of my family and getting up hours before the earliest riser stirs. 

These moments I'm taking for myself are non negotiable, and when I don't get them, I feel a disconnect down to my deepest core. 

Not all seasons are like this, needing such a drastic return, or introduction, to self care. 

And I don't mean self care in the bubble bath, chocolate sweets, binge watching shows and movies sort of way. I mean self care in the most sincere sense, care of self which comes by way of turning inwards and collecting the parts of self that haven't been heard recently together in a gathering... where the only goal is to hear oneself. All of the parts of self, even the disgruntled and hidden ones. 

It's beyond easy to disassociate from ourselves, the core of our being. We're living in a time where everything is fast, instant, and noise is constant. Not just by way of sound, but the incessant information being thrown at us. The clattering of voices - read, seen, heard - that forever sells us things that we don't need. Ideas. Thoughts. Judgments. Comparisons. 

Currently I'm healing a leaky gut, but I'm also tending to a weary heart. Tired from years of disconnect, tired of trying to fit into a mold, tired of trying to be good and nice and not rock boats or make waves. In doing all those things, for years, I've lost touch with my inner voice, and worse, my intuition. So consumed with doing things the 'right way', there's a steep learning curve in learning what is my way. The right way for me may not be the right way for anyone else. And that is a tough pill to swallow. 

It means not caring so much about what others think, not worrying about judgement, it means trusting in something that women for lifetimes have been told not to trust: themselves. Ourselves. Me.

And so I've been stealing away here and there, on weekend afternoons and weekday mornings. For moments, and sometimes hours at a time. With my books, tarot cards, notebooks and pens, and sometimes just myself, whatever tools I need to go further, to dig deeper, to listen better. The benefit in the process of excavating myself is that when I come out from my cave of sorts, I'm able to be more present with my family, and more loving towards myself and others. The closer we become to our honest, true selves, the brighter our lights shine. 

I'm listening, and I can't un-hear. Can't un-see. Can't un-know. 

I'm listening, and finding a connection to my self that can't be forced or rushed. One that has needed an undoing in order to become. 

Are you walking this path as well? Have you come to find yourself at this stage of life in different ways than you were able to previously? Have you read Women Who Run With The Wolves? It's a conduit for depth and seeking, and an invitation to reclaim intuition. Are there other books along the same vein that you would recommend? 

Found in a bookshelf

Last week the cable company had to come and do a thing to some cables, run some wires, all sorts of technical things that go in one of my ears and go straight out the other.

The day after they were here I went over to look at my carefully curated stack of books that sits in front of our built in bookshelf. It's full of to be read's that I intend to go through this year. But the stack looked different, bigger books were on top (the horror!) and even worse than that, some books were facing the wrong way! 

Upon further investigation, half the book stack were books I had already read or had no plans on reading.

And then I looked down and saw the cable.

Someone had taken books out of the shelf in order to rerun the new cable, and my stack of books was taken down as a casualty of fiber optic war. 

I sat and found the books that were in the original pile, and went through others that I forgot we had, adding to the ever growing TBR stack.

And then I found a book about Haiku, which was timely as the creative writing class I'm teaching at our co-op was covering haikus the following class, and isn't that always the way it works?

The book, The Essential Haiku, has made it through many years and several moves. It was one, like about half of our collection, that became ours when we moved in together but was originally Lucas's. He studied poetry in college, and I sometimes joke that his collection of books was part of the reason I fell in love with him.

I know I've written previously about our bookshelf, about his books and how they always literally pop out at me just when I need them. About how I'll think of a title or an author, consider checking it out a the library or on Amazon, wander over to our shelf, and there it is. But I can't remember which blog it was on, or if it was an Instagram post, and I'm too lazy to look through the archives to find the link.

Yesterday morning before co-op I had a chance to look through The Essential Haiku, and I found Lucas's chicken scratch in notes and underlines and stars. From a different time, lifetimes ago. The underlined sections resonated with who he is and who we are. Separate but also together.

This time of year I tend to get sappy. The anniversary of our first date was a week or so ago, and I have such fond memories of our early days together. Wandering the streets of Salem to see the ice sculptures, brunches at Red's, Netflix dvd's back before streaming was a thing. The process of becoming us was quick, we both knew early on that we had something special. But the process of being us, that's a lifetimes worth of work. And finding little bits that remind us of our authentic selves, then and now, is what makes it exciting and rewarding. My husband is a man of few words, and so to see his inner workings, even from years ago, is an honor, one that makes me love him even more than I thought I could.

We often talk about what a gift it is to watch our children grow and become the people who they're meant to be, but we don't often talk about those aspects of our partners and spouses. With parenting, if you have a co-parent you're able to discuss ad nauseam your children's developments, physically and emotionally.

But when it comes to your partner... not so much. Maybe because we're all in the trenches, and it's harder to see changes, progress, their changes often impact our lives for better or worse, and the conversations don't happen as easily. We're willing to dissect our children's lives, but not nearly as willing to dissect our relationships and our own growth. Our partner's growth may be tied up in our own, or compared to our own lack of, or maybe don't want to own up to something, or are afraid that with one persons growth comes distance, if we don't allow space and encouragement.

Maybe we're not prepared to see when and if we evolve at different rates.

But there's joy (and sometimes frustration) in watching another person evolve. To watch someone embrace themselves, and then come back and embrace each other. Not quite new, but not nearly the same as when you first met.

Our books hold a sacred spot as a reminder that we are always evolving, separately and together, and to witness that process is a privilege.

November rambles

November is here, and it came with it's predictable moodiness. Overcast weather, drizzles for days, and a foreboding sense of winter. 

I love it. 

For those of us who love quiet, and a slower pace of life, November is something of a treat. Especially early November, where it's nearly too early to start focusing on the holidays, but they're still in sight as a balm for when the grey gets to be too much. And let's be real, there does come a time when it's too much. But to stave off the dreariness there's fairy lights and glowing candles and before long the next season of The Great British Bake Off drops in the US on Netflix (the 9th!). 

These early November days I'm thinking about what I'm interested in and want to write about in this space, aside from writing about writing. I keep coming back to the idea of slow living, and I want to expand on that. Slow, intentional, minimal... all buzz words, I know, but they resonate deeply for me. In slowing down, I always learn about myself, and notice more about the world around me, and how I want to exist in the world. 

At the same time, it's a choice that comes with privilege, to slow down. I find it increasingly painful to read about minimalism and anything remotely to do with self help and the wellness industry because of how glaringly obvious it is that there's misrepresentation happening, cultural appropriation right and left, and a lack of self awareness and privilege. 

I'm not sure where that leaves me, except to share my own experience, acknowledging the privileges I'm afforded. 

And my experience? It's about how my body does not do well in a hurried state. A rushed state. A loud and noisy and stressful state. And how I'm starting to think maybe it's our society and culture that is troubled, and not me. 

Or at least, maybe our society could do a better job of accepting people who are not in it for the money, who aren't in it for the glory, who aren't in it to keep up with the Jones's, but who want to exist in a way that keeps them content and doesn't hurt anyone else in the process. 

I want to talk about living in a way that isn't exactly mainstream. About motherhood, but more so, about how someone who is extremely introverted feels about mothering growing children. About becoming more eco-friendly... in our kitchen and with our wardrobes. 

This season, there may be a shift in this space, and at this very moment I want to extend a preemptive olive branch: by speaking about any of these topics, I am not condemning your way of living. I will be sharing what works for me, in hopes that maybe a bit will resonate with you, or perhaps you could learn something new, or spark some interest. As with everything I write here, I write for myself, but I also write with the thought that maybe someone needs to hear what I have to say.. and that person might feel less alone after reading my words. 

That's what happened last week, when I shared about my roller coaster of emotions that comes with rejection. I'll tell you something, it helps me to hear that others are in the same boat. So it often comes full circle, and a bit of vulnerability can go a long way. 

Thank you for reading my ramblings, I wasn't sure what I was going to share today when I opened up a new blog post, sometimes my favorite bits of writing come spilling out without a plan or an outline, they flow as they see fit.

voice

It's the end of October, and as cliche as it is to say, I don't know where the month went. Last I knew we were gearing up for a road trip and various visits and field trips and a month of activities, and here we are on the other side with heads spinning and candy bowls overflowing and sugar highs all around. 

In the midst of the comings and goings of family life, this month I've made another push forward with agent queries. I've sent out quite a few, and have received quite a few more rejections. Some flat out no's, some encouraging messages, and another one to add to a growing pile of "I like the concept, but the voice is wrong for me." 

The voice is wrong. 

Of course, upon receipt of such feedback I spiral, thinking about how terrible my writing must be, and vividly picture myself throwing my novel into the recycling bin, all the notebooks and sticky notes, the printed - and digital - copies. I imagine what life would be like without writing. Reading for the sake of utter enjoyment, not ever thinking, "yeah, I'd like to write book someday." 

The thing is, I've already written a book. Several. I may need to write a few more for one to stick.

The other thing is, logically I know this is something newbie writers struggle with: finding their voice. 

I've been thinking for hours about voice. My voice. About how I've cultivated a voice in my blog writing, and in my longer Instagram posts, the style I write in, and the depths I dive. How I struggled to translate that into fiction, and how when I was writing Farm Girl, at times I felt like I was skimming the surface. How I didn't think the voice used in my creative non fiction was worthy of fiction. How every single time Tori Amos's song Silent All These Years plays I weep. About trusting our voices, no matter the context, no matter the medium, and how often I simply don't. How I use my voice, or don't, daily. How impossible it is to hear our own voices in the din of constant media thrown at us from all angles. How voice and ideas dance, and the execution of both is work. How no matter how many times I say, "if you bring a dish to the sink, and there's no dishes in it, please wash your dish" the dishes occasionally pile up in the sink.

I'm thinking about how the times I think least about the specifics of my writing voice (like getting it right...) the more authentic it is. 

Because let's face it, the Instagram captions and these blog posts get less attention than a single sentence of my novel... 

So, I'm thinking about voice today, and thinking about how the only way to really get to where I want to be is to write more. Here, there, everywhere. Because that pit in my stomach that comes up whenever I think about reading a really good novel and thinking to myself, "yeah, I tried doing that. It didn't work out," is uncomfortable, downright painful, and I'm not willing to live with it quite yet. 

~~~~~

I'll be sending out my monthly newsletter tomorrow... 

If you are interested and haven't signed up yet, head over here to do so!

NaNoWriMo Tips

Last week I shared in my monthly newsletter that my plan for next month is to participate in National Novel Writing Month. If you haven't heard of it before, you sign up and accept the challenge of writing 50,000 words over the course of November (roughly 1,666 words per day). I've won three times (which simply means I hit the word count goal) and while I haven't done much with any of those novels since, I've enjoyed the process and the practice it's given me. 

I thought I would share some tips and tidbits I've learned over the years that have helped me break down NaNoWriMo to make it seem more manageable. It's a little late in the game for tips on preparing for the challenge, so I'll share things that help me get through the month. If you're looking for prep tips, they're just a google search away :) 

• Tell your friends and loved ones you're taking part in the challenge. Not only will it help with accountability, but it will also help them to understand why maybe you aren't as fully present as you usually are! 
• Ask for help with things you usually do. For me, it's the household stuff, cooking dinners and laundry, things I like to stay on top of to make life easier in general. Those things tend to slide in November, and I care less when my family knows it's going to happen, and they're willing to help.
• Find a group! Whether it's in person or online, NaNoWriMo works better if you have a community of writers who are doing the same crazy challenge that you are, helping you feel less alone. The NaNo site is a great place to find local meet ups, and search by #nanowrimo2018 on social media to find other people online so you can cheer on each other. 
• Get ahead early on in the month. While the daily word count goal is around 1,600 words, aim for 2,000 a day in the first week. Bank any extra words so that you are ahead of the game if you get sick, have to cook a big Thanksgiving spread, emergencies pop up, or you just want a day off.
• Writing sprints. Whether on your own or with others, set the time for a certain amount of time (ten or fifteen minutes) and see how many words you can write. A few of those in an hour can get you to your daily word count goal. 
• Write first thing in the morning. Or in the evening. Or in little bits and pieces throughout the day. Mostly, write in whatever way fits with your lifestyle, and works best for YOU. 
• Get out of the house and write at a cafe. Or the library. A change in space can do a wonder for your mood, especially midway through the month when it feels like things are stalling and you feel like you can't go on any more. 
• Take a break. If you've banked some words, take advantage of that and take a day off. It'll be okay.
• Just keep writing. Don't edit. Don't judge your words. Just write. The main goal of NaNoWriMo is simply to write 50,000 words. Hopefully of a story, but mostly just words. They're not supposed to be perfect. They're not supposed to be polished. They're not supposed to be linear. They're not even supposed to be coherent! They are supposed to be words typed on a page. That's it. 
• Don't judge your first draft. Whether it's written in a month or longer, it doesn't matter. 50,000 words isn't a full fledged novel in general, so regardless of what gets written, you'll need to finish the story and edit after November anyway. 
• Make small goals, and reward yourself when you achieve them. Maybe it's at every 10,000 words, or only the halfway point. I like to buy myself a few treats, like nice chocolate bars or boxes of tea, and save them for meeting various goals. For someone who is goal oriented like myself, it works well!
• Have FUN. Remind yourself that writing can be fun. Challenges like this are just that, challenges, but the goal is to have fun at the same time. 

The best part of NaNoWriMo is at the end when you see what you've created. Whether you meet the big goal of 50,000 words or not, you created something out of nothing. 

NaNoWriMo is a magical thing. While often it's something people check off of their bucket list, for others it's a starting point. The first novel I ever wrote was during NaNoWriMo back in 2013, and it gave me the confidence I needed to move forward knowing that I could write a story (bare bones as it was) that had a beginning, middle, and an ending. 

I can guarantee you that if it weren't for my early novels, I wouldn't be trying to find a home for Farm Girl today. 

So have fun, write on, and let me know if you're participating or not! Head over to the NaNoWriMo site and find me, my username is crnnoel, I'd love to be a buddy and cheer on your adventure.

~~~~

I also want to note really quickly that I turned off the comments for my blog posts. This isn't because I don't want to hear from you, quite the opposite actually. I find it difficult to respond to blog comments because I'm unsure if I should respond via email, or via this space, where people will see the response... and sometimes the blog comments come in without an email attached to it and that leaves out that option, but the comment warrants a personal response I may not want to share here. 

So what I've done is opened up a permanent contact submission form that you can find at the bottom of the website. Feel free to email any time! I love having conversations about my blog posts and your experiences and all the things, but most often I prefer to have them one on one. There are so many ways for us to be in touch via social media, that another space to have public conversations is wearing on me. I hope you'll understand! 

whirlwinds

A week ago, we were in Washington, D.C. Lucas had a conference to attend, and since part of the reason we homeschool is to be able to say YES when opportunities present themselves, the kids and I tagged along. We left early on Monday morning and drove down the coast, putting us in our hotel room by 3pm. The following two and a half days were a blur of sight seeing and walking and touring our nation's capital. We arrived home on Thursday evening, tired and punchy from ten hours in the car, ready to rest before the arrival of my brother and his wife the following day all the way from Switzerland. 

Much to our surprise, and theirs (it's a long story), they arrived a night early! Not two hours after we unpacked the car, I was back in the driver's seat on my way to Boston to (happily!) pick up the world travelers. We had barely any food in the house, the bathroom wasn't clean, the laundry wasn't done, but none of that matters when you haven't seen your brother in over a year. We fed them bits and pieces leftover from our road trip snack bag, and then hit the grocery store the next day. 

We visited and laughed and ran on fumes and bits of sleep until Toby and his wife left on Saturday morning for the next leg of their journey, and then Lucas and I crashed. I napped for three hours, and didn't feel like I woke up until just today. There were walks, and the new season of Doctor Who (we all LOVE her), a robotics class for Fynn and tennis for Paige and many loads of laundry folded, but it was all done in a sleepy haze. Yesterday was my birthday, and the sky was grey and the air cool, my favorite, and normally I have no problem waking up on even the most overcast of days, but yesterday we were all still sleepy, all still catching up. 

It's felt that way, the last few months, that there's spurts of activity and then a period of catch up. Consistency has been just out of reach. A week or two of that is manageable, but long periods of inconsistent sleep and activity make me grumpy. And it's not being busy. I don't buy into busy. It's inconsistency that wrecks me and my highly sensitive system. But there are times it's necessary, absolutely, and I try my best to lean into it, but there is a huge recovery period. And I always forget this. 

Thankfully, I'm looking forward to a bit more consistency, a bit more rhythm. We've hung fairy lights in our house and embracing all things cozy, I'm desperate to get a handle on the housework (and involve the rest of the family as well) so we're trying out The Organized Mum method, and our learning rhythms are back on track as of today and it all feels good. I feel awake. I've got my feet back under me from our whirlwind summer that feels as though it's finally come to an end, and I'm here saying yes please to it all. But first, the rest of my birthday cake is calling me...

~~~~~

Tomorrow I'll be sending out my monthly newsletter. If you haven't signed up yet and are interested, head over here. I'll be sharing a bit of an update on my writing life, and what I'll be up to next month! 

Ritual

The fans are still working overtime. Hot cups of tea are relegated for first thing in the morning, and then by mid afternoon I'm so desperate for the ritual that I sweat through a steaming mug... because that's what it's really about, the ritual. I've never figured out how to make iced tea that pleases my taste buds. Then, even if I make a half decent pitcher, a glass of the cool beverage disappears quickly. A few gulps, and it's gone. There's no waiting, no patience required, no gingerly testing, risking burned taste buds and that bit of spilled boiling water if you wince and pull the mug away from your lips too quickly. 

We turned the oven on the other day to make a cake to celebrate our return to the school year. Our calendar is filling up with activities and field trips, indoor climbing and birding with the local Audubon, some road tripping and many weekly hikes. Chocolate cake so moist and spongy, it was worth the warmth in the kitchen on an already sweltering day. The ritual, the celebration, the return. 

The kids bake every week, every Tuesday to be exact. They take turns selecting recipes and baking (mostly) on their own, and then they select poetry to read for Poetry Teatime, and we celebrate the every day beauty of words and sugar and togetherness. It's simple, this ritual, but in it's own way it's just as meaningful as the first cake of the school year. 

Noticing the importance of rituals and routines, while honoring the unexpected and impulsive, and noticing the ebb and flow of each is part of my life's work, I believe. I am a creature of habit, an introvert who loves the comfort of home and seek out cozy nooks and sofas where I can tuck my feet underneath me wherever I go. Knowing this about myself is half the battle. Loving this about myself is the other half. 

And so, summer has made me weary. I've lost myself a bit. I'm tired. I'm waiting patiently for the arrival of my most recent order of yarn so I can cast on for a new sweater. I'm ready to pack up the swimsuit and the boogie boards and wash the hand-knits and dust off my boots. I'm ready to not sweat as soon as I take a sip of midday tea. 

But for now I'll take those beads of sweat on my upper lip, and know that my rituals are carrying me through until a bit of ease creeps in with a change of weather patterns, and I can tuck my feet under me on the couch and throw a hot water bottle on my lap while knitting as a child reads aloud next to me, and the change of seasons breathes new life into all of us.