Other Favorite Things

Of all the journaling techniques I have found helpful in recent years, keeping a "Favorites" section has been one of the most helpful - though a full list of good journaling techniques is a good idea for a future post.

The idea is simple: keep a generously-sized section in your journal for lists of "favorites." Whenever you come up with a new topic, add it. Whenever you come up with a new favorite, add it. Once in a while, when you are feeling like life isn't worth the effort and you could use a reminder of things worth doing or seeing or just thinking about, browse the list.

Favorite Lessons That Are Constantly Being Learned, Unlearned, and Fought For:

• Life is worth living. If you have any string of thoughts going through your head that lead to the idea that things would be better without you, recognize it as a faulty equation. Problem X + Problem Y never equals "you shouldn't exist." You may not know what it equals, but it always equals something else.

• Beauty: The reason for living (not "beauty" as in skincare and makeup...beauty as a general principle and gift).

• Shame: Sometimes your really just have to move on.

• Procrastination: Doing something is better than nothing. If you are overwhelmed, do the minimum you have to do to feel less anxious, and communicate with people you have obligations to if you need extra time or to narrow the scope of what you are doing.

• Friendship:

  • If people need space from you, let them have it.

  • At the same time, don't assume people do not want to spend time with you if it's been a while. Reach out and invite them to do something.

  • Be open to connections with many people, but trust fewer with your most vulnerable stuff (still learning).

  • Listen (still learning how to do well. Working as a reporter for the Iowa State Daily in college helped me immensely with gaining some ground as a listener).

  • Friends do not exist merely to help you solve your problems (learning).

  • That said, a friend will care about your suffering and offer compassion in whatever way they can.

  • You can't be there for anyone all the time any more than they can be there for you all the time. There is a freedom that comes in letting go of the expectation for perfection in friendship.

  • That said, I've had a few very specific moments in my life when I could have at least sat and listened to a friend when they were going through something, and I didn't do so - and l regret that. The regret is still teaching me.

• Love:

  • It's worth it (if someone is safe, interested in learning, and attractive to you)

  • Stick up for yourself in conversations - and give your significant other the chance to do the same

  • Say thank you when they are kind

  • Store the beautiful memories in your mind and heart

    
    

Favorite Flowers:

• marigolds

• sunflowers

• lilacs

• zinnias

• dahlias

• witch hazel

• craspedia

• geraniums

• scilla

• blazing star

• tansy

• lavender

• white heath aster

• bachelor's buttons

• cosmos

Favorite Animals:

• butterflies — especially...

  • blue morphos

  • monarchs

  • pearl crescents

  • owl butterflies

  • bluewings

  • sulphurs

  • malachites

  • skippers

  • painted ladies

  • black swallowtails

  • yellow swallowtails

• otters

• squirrels

• frogs

• loons

• cardinals

• geese

• dogs — especially...

  • golden retrievers

  • corgis

  • labs

• cats, big and small

Favorite Things to Do:

• make beautiful things (to give, to sell, to keep)

• draw butterflies

• arrange flowers

• take nature walks

• journal

• go to the library

• read a good book

• play Bananagrams

• mend

• make chocolate chip cookies

Favorite Visual Artists:

• Monet

• Van Gogh

• Georgia O'Keeffe

• Mary Cassat

• Odilon Rendon

Favorite Songs:

chill...

• "The Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog

• "How Can I Keep From Singing" by Enya

• "Say Won't You Say" by Jennifer Knapp

• "Love Song for a Savior" by Jars of Clay

• "A Living Prayer" by Alison Krauss & Union Station

• "Out of the Woods" by Nickel Creek

• "He Leadeth Me" by Sara Watkins

• "My Peace I Give You" by Poor Clare Sisters

• "Be Still" by Audrey Assad

• "One Little Song" by Gillian Welch

• "Hold On" by Tom Waits

• "Come on up to the House" by Tom Waits (or Sarah Jarosz)

• "Doubting Thomas" by Nickel Creek

• "All My Days" by Alexi Murdoch

• "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers

• "Butterfly" by Jon Batiste

• "The Flower Duet" by Leo Delibes

high-energy...

• "Made You Look" by Meghan Trainor

• "Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye

• "No One" by Alicia Keys

• "Can't Buy Me Love" by The Beatles

• "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks

• "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga

• "Levitating" by Dua Lipa

  
  

Favorite Albums:

• "The Very Best of Enya"

• "Nickel Creek"

• "Why Should the Fire Die?" by Nickel Creek

• "Time Without Consequence" by Alexi Murdoch

• "Bach Cello Suites" by Yo Yo Ma

• "Summer" by George Winston

• "Jars of Clay"

• "Kansas 25" by Jennifer Knapp

• "Soul Journey" by Gillian Welch

• "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles

• Chariots of Fire soundtrack

• "The Lost Cosmonauts" by Liana

Favorite Musicians/Musical Groups:

• Enya

• Poor Clare Sisters

• Jennifer Knapp

• Nickel Creek

• Lady Gaga

• Audrey Assad

• Alison Krauss

• The Beatles

• Eva Cassidy

• Gillian Welch

• Alicia Keys

• Tom Waits

• Sarah Jarosz

Favorite Podcasts:

• "Was I in a Cult?"

• "Slow Burn" by Slate magazine

• "Song Exploder"

• "Delta Flyers"

• "Trinity Forum Conversations"

• "This American Life"

• "Mindset Neuroscience with Stefanie Faye"

• "Road Trip Iowa" (my husband Scott's podcast/radio show)

Favorite Comedians:

• Maria Bamford

• Jim Gaffigan

• Jon Oliver

Favorite Food:

• breakfast, in general

• grapefruit

• peaches

• honeydew

• green tea mochi

• ice cream

• chicken thighs with homemade seasoning + potatoes

• salad with French vinaigrette

• carrot ginger soup

• yogurt

  
  

Favorite Films:

• Yesterday

• Don't Think Twice

• Coffee and Cigarettes

• Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)

• Sunshine Cleaning

• Brooklyn

• Roman Holiday

• Funny Face

• The Great Dictator

• Top Hat

• It's A Wonderful Life

• Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein

• Fiddler on the Roof

• The Sound of Music

• The Lord of the Rings series

• Homeward Bound

• Muppets From Space

• The Muppet Christmas Carol

• While You Were Sleeping

• Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

• The Book of Eli

• Jurassic Park

• Alien (an outlier...but weirdly cathartic)

Favorite TV Series:

• The Muppet Show

• Project Runway

• Anne of Green Gables/Anne of Avonlea (miniseries)

• North and South (miniseries)

• Fleabag

• Key and Peele

• Doctor Who

• Star Trek: The Next Generation

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

• Star Trek: Voyager

• The Good Fight

• Mad Men (up to a point)

• Billions (up to a point)

• LulaRich (docuseries)

Favorite Things That Are Hard to Categorize:

• dinosaurs

• baking soda

• tinted lip balm

• bare branches

• vintage fashion magazines

• ribbon

• scissors and florists' clippers

• beaded earrings

• gray socks

• little vases

• bead shops

• lavender essential oil

• candles

• making eye contact with squirrels

• realizing I like something about someone I didn't like

• good pens

• sharpened pencils

• blank pages

• bookshelves

• porches

• liturgy

• people who like questions

• people who play you music

• people who invite you into anything you feel insecure about (for me: exercise, sports)

• people who like thinking about the "public good" or the "common good"

• poetry slams

• "Who's On First" comedy routine

• my husband Scott reading Lord of the Rings out loud

Favorite Quotes:

"Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart."

— Robin Wall Kimmerer from Braiding Sweetgrass

"Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift."

— Robin Wall Kimmerer from Braiding Sweetgrass

"It is as though beautiful things have been placed here and there throughout the world to serve as small wake-up calls to perception, spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level."

— Elaine Scarry, from On Beauty and Being Just

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."

— Jim Henson

"Well, no need to brood on what tomorrow may bring. For one thing, tomorrow will be certain to bring worse than today, for many days to come."

— Gandalf, from The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

“I’m very fond of of suddenly adopting a new set of ideals in order to receive welcome from any rigid group of weirdos.”

— Maria Bamford, from Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere

"[God] loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more."

— George Carlin

"Your life is your art as well as the thing you call your art."

— Georgia O'Keeffe

"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

— Vincent Van Gogh

"One thing is for certain: the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas."

— Neil deGrassse Tyson

"For me, literacy means freedom — for the individual and for society."

— Levar Burton

"Nationalism, tribalism, dislocation, fears of social change, and the hatred of outsiders are on the rise again as people, locked in their partisan silos and filter bubbles, are losing a sense of shared reality and the ability to communicate across social and sectarian lines."

— Michiko Kakutani, from The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump

"Dogma and drugs seemed to be the choices and I wanted neither."

— Suze Rotolo, from A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

"It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world."

— Nelly Bly

"Whether we were born standing on one of the top rungs of the ladder or we've managed to scrape and pull ourselves up, inch by incremental inch, we don't want to look down. We often don't want to know about who is beneath us. We'd rather cling fast to our own position than consider reaching down to help someone further down or, heaven forbid, giving up our spot altogether."

— Brenda Salter McNeil, from Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now

"There is no such thing as harmless disinformation; trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences."

— Pope Francis

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

— Jesus (Matthew 11:28)

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

For—put them side by side—

The one the other will contain

With ease—and you—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—

For—hold them—Blue to Blue—

The one the other will absorb—

As sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—

For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—

And they will differ—if they do—

As Syllable from Sound

— Emily Dickinson

God's Grandeur

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.