5 Quick Things #201 🎒
dusty desks, fairy stories, liquid soap, & buttonholes
Hello!
We’re officially back from our family trip up to the Pacific Northwest, and I’m slooooooowly easing back into life here at home. I’ve given myself all the permission I need to land the metaphorical plane with as long a runway as possible because I’m back to school prep meetings next week for the rapidly approaching new academic year. This week has meant tackling giant laundry piles, refilling the empty fridge, cleaning off dusty desks, and harvesting what’s left of our summer garden — all while joyfully still not creating any content except for what’s scribbled incoherently in my journal.
Every summer on these screen breaks I reset my perspective, where I re-remember why I love to write in the first place. I don’t write because I love hitting publish every day, because I need people to know my daily thoughts, or even because I need to feed my family (even though I do, and writing is the widest avenue where I do this). I write because I enjoy it, and I enjoy sharing it with others when it’s time to share it. My thoughts and words need to marinate more often than I allow them (or our culture deems prudent), yet it’s on this annual mid-summer break when I remember, yet again, that everyone is perfectly fine not hearing from me and I’m more than fine to just keep my thoughts to myself for a bit.
More on this soon… In the meantime, hello! 👋 It’s good to dust off 5 Quick Things and send this little letter to you once more. I hope it finds you in a good space.
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. I’m SUPER eager to get started on my fall backyard garden… If you’re new to gardening (or you want to try for the very first time!) this is a solid 101 primer.
2. There’s no reason to eat three meals a day (via The Atlantic). (Related: I’ve eaten only one or two meals most days for several years now and feel great when I do.)
3. I’ve never thought of this before, but I like this perspective. “What lies near the heart of fairy stories, therefore, is the restoration of creatures formerly sundered from one another.”
4. I want to try this. It’ll have to be soon or else I’ll just wait until a holiday break — but I’m intrigued and weirdly curious.
5. And finally… How peaceful is this?
Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📻
This Jack Johnson playlist because it drips with summer and as hot as it is right now, I still want to savor this season while we have it.
Quotable 💬
“I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye #
Question For You to Ponder… 🤔
Do I still do some version of my favorite thing to do for fun when I was a kid?
Welp, that’s all I have for now because well, I haven’t been writing, recording, or reading much beyond what’s between a book cover. 🙌 New episodes of A Drink With a Friend are headed your way soon, along with some new essays here in The Commonplace. I’ll share them with you over the next few weeks!
xo, Tsh
p.s. Ha!