Lol about the elf. Excellent reasoning! I still think December is magical, but I can’t imagine what it would be like seeing it again with a child. I love this response.
I always seem to be looking for magic. I find it to be sort of a delicate balance, because you have to be able to lure it in with your openness to it but not chase it away with planning. It's simple but elusive. It looks like an external thing, some kind of treat that you get to experience if you're in the right place at the right time, but it's really all inside of us: the noticing of small details and the connections we make that give them meaning. I'm trying to learn to do this more often!
Things I look forward to in December: taking a walk or drive to see the holiday lights, sitting in a dark room with a lit Christmas tree on a snowy night, walking over to the church and spending time alone inside-- something I usually find myself doing on Christmas night; the local tradition of Santa riding through the streets on the back of a fire truck throwing candy to the kids, seeing my son, Cody, get excited over his gifts. :-)
Nutcracker, gnome, or elf: I'm gonna say Nutcracker because they remind me of how my mom and my son, Mikie, always loved them. Mom had a small collection of them. So seeing them reminds me of people I love. :-)
I love your words on magic. I totally agree with the delicate balance and being open. Your December plans are lovely and poignant. I hope all of these things happen this year. I think it is wonderful that you have connections for the nutcracker pick. I hope you have that collection of your mom’s now.... I am sure it is beautiful.
I love the quote by Ruth Ozeki, as well as the one by Edith Wharton.
Your encounter with the gingko leaf is a wonderful one. I believe the universe provides signs but we’re often too distracted or in a trance, ruminating about the past or future, to notice. I enjoyed reading the book by Robert Moss, Sidewalk Oracles, which is all about coincidences, synchronicities, signs, symbols, etc. I find hope and inspiration in these “messages.”
Gold is this season’s color. I’ve recently been stopped in my tracks on a walk when noticing light shining through the golden leaves of a tree. It inspired me to write this haiku for my husband’s birthday: When sunlight shines through
Golden leaves, I think of you
Your warmth, eyes and smile
Also, kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken things, usually pottery, with gold
I’m probably rambling now, but your offerings get me thinking. Thank you for writing.
Hearing that I get you thinking… is a gift of its own. Thank you. I love knowing that something has resonance and that others “know” and understand these things. Thanks for the book recommendation. I just put it on hold. I love that you are entering a season of gold…. Your haiku is beautiful. Thank you for reading and commenting. I hope things are well as you enter December this week. Find five minutes for you, too.
Amy, I've been thinking about a Note of yours for days now. I don't remember if I reacted to it, but I definitely read it and took it in. I think it might have been the Thanksgiving piece (Roundness of memory..). At any rate, what struck me was a comment you made about how we aren't *supposed* to restack our own work - something along those lines. I remember thinking, "According to whom?!" I'm having similar thoughts reading this.
I believe you and your words belong wherever they land. I do not see you as someone who wings them out with abandon. We never know who we might touch, or how they might discover exactly what they needed to read. On Thanksgiving day, we joined friends for a shared meal and time around a fire. One fellow, a young man I've known for years, was overflowing with complements for Chicken Scratch. That's all nice and everything, but it's not the point. The point is, I didn't even know he read them!
Thank you for persisting, and for sharing your curiosities, in all the ways you do.
I am so glad that your shared meal worked out (that your husband felt well enough) and that you ended up dining with a reader. What a very special thing that probably was. Even if you hadn’t gone looking for it, it’s can be so meaningful when that happens. I appreciate your comment. I did remove the note you saw, and I had said that in it. Notes can be a tricky space for some of us. I appreciate that the comment even registered with you. Thank you, again, for reading. Hope you avoided catching whatever it was.
Great choice. And thank you for the sentiment (and for sharing glimmer material). Keeping an attitude that is open to magic is the best I can do right now…. Which sometimes means putting aside my logical/rational self! Wishing you a peaceful final week of November.
What I look forward to in December is seeing houses with Christmas lights. I also love cool sunny days, they allow you to appreciate the sun and sky without risk of spontaneous combustion.
I went halfway down a rabbit hole with the nutcracker, gnome or elf question. Definitely gnome, but I found this surprising information in several different articles. “Christmas elves are in fact a type of dwarf, whose skills in stone craft have been adopted for toy making.”
I have avoided the “work” of planning it out specifically during this Thanksgiving week, but I am looking forward to teaching my 1st grade Christmas Around the World unit this December! Is a joy every time revisiting certain videos and traditions, crafts and snacks.
Nutcrackers
I read Fairy Tale in paperback form in July. I really loved it. I hadn’t read any Steven King novel in a long time. I hope you enjoy it!
I think when you look for the gold, the glimmers, the signs, you’ll find them. It’s better to look for the gold than to see the negatives, although day to day I am not consistent. Those little golden moments can carry you through. I have thought a lot lately about how we can still laugh and rejoice and have beauty when there are horrible events going on for other people. But I think we have to take our leaf photos and enjoy what we can that’s in the real world around us. I hope you find your joy this week. ☺️
Thank you. Your words are well-received. Keeping things normal and being open to magic is, I think, the best I can do. Sometimes it feels silly, but I agree with you about the value (and the acknowledgement that it isn’t always easy). Your first grade unit sounds wonderful! What a beautiful offering for your students.
Nutcracker all the way! I love the Tchaikovsky nutcracker music and listen to it all December. I’m not a ballet person, we didn’t do ballet, or even go to nutcracker performances as kids, but we had the Maurice Sendak-designed nutcracker ballet on VHS. I think my mom taped it off PBS. We watched it every year. I tracked down a DVD of the same program a few years ago to show my own kids. My daughter actually asked about it a few days ago. Oh the joy of your kid actually liking something from your own childhood.
That is wonderful, Lauren. That is a very special joy, indeed! Thank you for sharing this memory and connection. I got intrigued last year by nutcrackers…. Feeling that’s in my December future in my journal at least :)
I think this is the first post of yours that I’ve read and I have no idea how I got here as I am finding so many great things in Substack, but I love prompts and doing things together. I’m assuming the hashtag is an Instagram thing. Is there a way to find others participating here on Substack?
These prompts might help to inspire my Document your Days personal goal for December when I get stuck. I am a digital girl living in a digital world! So I tend to do things that way. I’m trying to use my phone for quicker creation in Adobe Express because I get lost in time creating in Photoshop.
Hi Cheryl - I am sorry you don’t know how you got here! I agree there is really just so much here on substack and everywhere. Maybe it was from a link or a share? I do the Creativity Matters Podcast, but it doesn’t sound like it was that.
Illustrate Your Week is a simple weekly prompt series for documenting your life.
I’ve been sharing Illustrate Your Week for a few years. Each week I share a set of prompts for people who are working in an illustrated journal (or some form of visual journaling). The prompts are open-ended, flexible, and can be interpreted in whatever way works for the individual. Some people use one or two and work them into their journals. Others use most of them. If you are using the app, it’s harder to see the “section” - but if you visit the substack in a browser, you can jump to the Illustrate Your Week Section. There are some introductory posts early on. (I need to restructure things so that they are easier to find.) At Instagram, the hashtag is #illustrateyourweek — there are a small number of people who share their journals week to week. (This challenge of mine isn’t one that other people on substack write about.)
Digital journaling can be wonderful - there are so many great examples out there for doing that. I hope you have a great December. And maybe the prompts can help fill in when you have some blank space. Hope you get off to a great start!
I think you saw that picture of a single lonely ginkgo leaf that I published a couple of weeks ago in my posting on yellow things. I think ginkgos are special, too, as are monkey puzzle trees.
Besides that ginkgo leaf, the Universe has dropped not just one but two yellow leaves in my lap as I drove my wheelchair outside these last few days.
Thank you for writing, thank you for sharing. I always look forward to Sundays.
I think it lovely that yellow leaves have dropped into your lap, and so literally, in these days! I do remember your “yellow” post and the beautiful photographs. I had not thought of the ginkgo there when caught up with my own, but I love that some of us share symbols like this and, more importantly, notice them and attribute some kind of meaning in the context of our days. I had to go look up monkey puzzle trees. I don’t know that I’ve seen one... but with a name like that! Thank you for commenting. I hope that you have a good week in process.
That sounds like a nice thing to look forward to, Catherine.... quiet time and family. Maybe there will be no rush and t will all be peaceful and measured! Discovering gnomes sounds pretty enchanting. I noticed what I assume is a “fairy house” recently somewhere where one has never been before. It is nice when we realize so many others share a strand of whimsy. I do hope you draw those gnomes into your sketchbook this December, if you haven’t already. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I’m looking forward to the magic in my grandson’s eyes. December is magical at 4. Elf. The other 2 are just not animated enough 🤣
Lol about the elf. Excellent reasoning! I still think December is magical, but I can’t imagine what it would be like seeing it again with a child. I love this response.
I always seem to be looking for magic. I find it to be sort of a delicate balance, because you have to be able to lure it in with your openness to it but not chase it away with planning. It's simple but elusive. It looks like an external thing, some kind of treat that you get to experience if you're in the right place at the right time, but it's really all inside of us: the noticing of small details and the connections we make that give them meaning. I'm trying to learn to do this more often!
Things I look forward to in December: taking a walk or drive to see the holiday lights, sitting in a dark room with a lit Christmas tree on a snowy night, walking over to the church and spending time alone inside-- something I usually find myself doing on Christmas night; the local tradition of Santa riding through the streets on the back of a fire truck throwing candy to the kids, seeing my son, Cody, get excited over his gifts. :-)
Nutcracker, gnome, or elf: I'm gonna say Nutcracker because they remind me of how my mom and my son, Mikie, always loved them. Mom had a small collection of them. So seeing them reminds me of people I love. :-)
I love your words on magic. I totally agree with the delicate balance and being open. Your December plans are lovely and poignant. I hope all of these things happen this year. I think it is wonderful that you have connections for the nutcracker pick. I hope you have that collection of your mom’s now.... I am sure it is beautiful.
I love the quote by Ruth Ozeki, as well as the one by Edith Wharton.
Your encounter with the gingko leaf is a wonderful one. I believe the universe provides signs but we’re often too distracted or in a trance, ruminating about the past or future, to notice. I enjoyed reading the book by Robert Moss, Sidewalk Oracles, which is all about coincidences, synchronicities, signs, symbols, etc. I find hope and inspiration in these “messages.”
https://img.thriftbooks.com/api/images/i/m/5A87FA04F8DEC374E1DC5117F85AD8A45ECC5D80.jpg
Gold is this season’s color. I’ve recently been stopped in my tracks on a walk when noticing light shining through the golden leaves of a tree. It inspired me to write this haiku for my husband’s birthday: When sunlight shines through
Golden leaves, I think of you
Your warmth, eyes and smile
Also, kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken things, usually pottery, with gold
I’m probably rambling now, but your offerings get me thinking. Thank you for writing.
Sending peace 🍁🌟🥰
Hearing that I get you thinking… is a gift of its own. Thank you. I love knowing that something has resonance and that others “know” and understand these things. Thanks for the book recommendation. I just put it on hold. I love that you are entering a season of gold…. Your haiku is beautiful. Thank you for reading and commenting. I hope things are well as you enter December this week. Find five minutes for you, too.
Thanks for the mention of the Robert Moss. book. He was a favorite of mine, and I was not aware of this volume.
You’re very welcome. I hope you enjoy it-I love his work on dreams, too.
Amy, I've been thinking about a Note of yours for days now. I don't remember if I reacted to it, but I definitely read it and took it in. I think it might have been the Thanksgiving piece (Roundness of memory..). At any rate, what struck me was a comment you made about how we aren't *supposed* to restack our own work - something along those lines. I remember thinking, "According to whom?!" I'm having similar thoughts reading this.
I believe you and your words belong wherever they land. I do not see you as someone who wings them out with abandon. We never know who we might touch, or how they might discover exactly what they needed to read. On Thanksgiving day, we joined friends for a shared meal and time around a fire. One fellow, a young man I've known for years, was overflowing with complements for Chicken Scratch. That's all nice and everything, but it's not the point. The point is, I didn't even know he read them!
Thank you for persisting, and for sharing your curiosities, in all the ways you do.
I am so glad that your shared meal worked out (that your husband felt well enough) and that you ended up dining with a reader. What a very special thing that probably was. Even if you hadn’t gone looking for it, it’s can be so meaningful when that happens. I appreciate your comment. I did remove the note you saw, and I had said that in it. Notes can be a tricky space for some of us. I appreciate that the comment even registered with you. Thank you, again, for reading. Hope you avoided catching whatever it was.
Gnome. 🍀
Great choice. And thank you for the sentiment (and for sharing glimmer material). Keeping an attitude that is open to magic is the best I can do right now…. Which sometimes means putting aside my logical/rational self! Wishing you a peaceful final week of November.
What I look forward to in December is seeing houses with Christmas lights. I also love cool sunny days, they allow you to appreciate the sun and sky without risk of spontaneous combustion.
I went halfway down a rabbit hole with the nutcracker, gnome or elf question. Definitely gnome, but I found this surprising information in several different articles. “Christmas elves are in fact a type of dwarf, whose skills in stone craft have been adopted for toy making.”
That’s an interesting discovery. I did a double dip last year in gnomes and nutcrackers…. Both are a lot of fun. I love Christmas lights, too.
I have avoided the “work” of planning it out specifically during this Thanksgiving week, but I am looking forward to teaching my 1st grade Christmas Around the World unit this December! Is a joy every time revisiting certain videos and traditions, crafts and snacks.
Nutcrackers
I read Fairy Tale in paperback form in July. I really loved it. I hadn’t read any Steven King novel in a long time. I hope you enjoy it!
I think when you look for the gold, the glimmers, the signs, you’ll find them. It’s better to look for the gold than to see the negatives, although day to day I am not consistent. Those little golden moments can carry you through. I have thought a lot lately about how we can still laugh and rejoice and have beauty when there are horrible events going on for other people. But I think we have to take our leaf photos and enjoy what we can that’s in the real world around us. I hope you find your joy this week. ☺️
Thank you. Your words are well-received. Keeping things normal and being open to magic is, I think, the best I can do. Sometimes it feels silly, but I agree with you about the value (and the acknowledgement that it isn’t always easy). Your first grade unit sounds wonderful! What a beautiful offering for your students.
Nutcracker all the way! I love the Tchaikovsky nutcracker music and listen to it all December. I’m not a ballet person, we didn’t do ballet, or even go to nutcracker performances as kids, but we had the Maurice Sendak-designed nutcracker ballet on VHS. I think my mom taped it off PBS. We watched it every year. I tracked down a DVD of the same program a few years ago to show my own kids. My daughter actually asked about it a few days ago. Oh the joy of your kid actually liking something from your own childhood.
That is wonderful, Lauren. That is a very special joy, indeed! Thank you for sharing this memory and connection. I got intrigued last year by nutcrackers…. Feeling that’s in my December future in my journal at least :)
I think this is the first post of yours that I’ve read and I have no idea how I got here as I am finding so many great things in Substack, but I love prompts and doing things together. I’m assuming the hashtag is an Instagram thing. Is there a way to find others participating here on Substack?
These prompts might help to inspire my Document your Days personal goal for December when I get stuck. I am a digital girl living in a digital world! So I tend to do things that way. I’m trying to use my phone for quicker creation in Adobe Express because I get lost in time creating in Photoshop.
Hi Cheryl - I am sorry you don’t know how you got here! I agree there is really just so much here on substack and everywhere. Maybe it was from a link or a share? I do the Creativity Matters Podcast, but it doesn’t sound like it was that.
Illustrate Your Week is a simple weekly prompt series for documenting your life.
I’ve been sharing Illustrate Your Week for a few years. Each week I share a set of prompts for people who are working in an illustrated journal (or some form of visual journaling). The prompts are open-ended, flexible, and can be interpreted in whatever way works for the individual. Some people use one or two and work them into their journals. Others use most of them. If you are using the app, it’s harder to see the “section” - but if you visit the substack in a browser, you can jump to the Illustrate Your Week Section. There are some introductory posts early on. (I need to restructure things so that they are easier to find.) At Instagram, the hashtag is #illustrateyourweek — there are a small number of people who share their journals week to week. (This challenge of mine isn’t one that other people on substack write about.)
Digital journaling can be wonderful - there are so many great examples out there for doing that. I hope you have a great December. And maybe the prompts can help fill in when you have some blank space. Hope you get off to a great start!
Amy,
I think you saw that picture of a single lonely ginkgo leaf that I published a couple of weeks ago in my posting on yellow things. I think ginkgos are special, too, as are monkey puzzle trees.
Besides that ginkgo leaf, the Universe has dropped not just one but two yellow leaves in my lap as I drove my wheelchair outside these last few days.
Thank you for writing, thank you for sharing. I always look forward to Sundays.
I think it lovely that yellow leaves have dropped into your lap, and so literally, in these days! I do remember your “yellow” post and the beautiful photographs. I had not thought of the ginkgo there when caught up with my own, but I love that some of us share symbols like this and, more importantly, notice them and attribute some kind of meaning in the context of our days. I had to go look up monkey puzzle trees. I don’t know that I’ve seen one... but with a name like that! Thank you for commenting. I hope that you have a good week in process.
I am looking forward to some quiet time in December and having some family over for meals before the Christmas rush.
I would normally say Nutcracker but I have to go for Gnome as just recently I have seen some on walk where I wasn’t expecting them.
That sounds like a nice thing to look forward to, Catherine.... quiet time and family. Maybe there will be no rush and t will all be peaceful and measured! Discovering gnomes sounds pretty enchanting. I noticed what I assume is a “fairy house” recently somewhere where one has never been before. It is nice when we realize so many others share a strand of whimsy. I do hope you draw those gnomes into your sketchbook this December, if you haven’t already. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I love the imagery in this, Amy. That single leaf capturing your attention, a simple yet magical moment. A little glimmer. 💛
Thank you, Erin!