Tuesday, March 19, 2013

i know it has been a while


But here I am, back in Wheaton, where the weather is so cold I can't quite believe it when I walk out the door and the wind hits. My week at home with nine other friends from Wheaton was so wonderful - good food, beautiful sunshine, cold salt water, and time with my family.

And now, suddenly, the end of the semester is looking at me like I am sprinting towards it, even though I am digging in my heels. What a happy place to be, wishing I had more time here where I love people and classes and life. Still, it is good to start to make lists this week of things I need to do, and catch up on email, and bury my nose in some books, and to begin to actually act on figuring out what I will do this summer and next fall.

What has been so good every day is my "Book of Good Things," an idea I stole from the luminous Anna George, in which I draw things, copy quotes and poems, and write lists of things I am thankful for. Flipping through it is a reminder of everything that is beautiful and strong in my life, and all that I have to hope for.

How to make a Book of Good Things:

1) Purchase a medium-sized, flat-bound sketchbook  (thicker paper is better)
2) Make a title page with one of these options:

  • Think on These Things
  • Book of Good Things
  • Whatever is Good, Right, Pure, Lovely, True
Etcetera. Think of your own.
3) Fill it with taped-in clippings of quotes or stories from magazines and old books, write in fragments of poems and encouraging or lovely quotes, and once a week have a page that you fill - completely! - with a list of things you are thankful for that day.

Note: A Book of Good Things is not a journal, a diary, for class notes or addresses or irritated scribblings. Have another book (I do) for that catch-all. Only good things go in this book, so that it is always uplifting to flip through.

Photograph by Brie Mcguire, Santa Cruz CA.

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