Truth Bomb of the Week
I am an oracle junkie, and this old deck from Danielle LaPorte is in the daily rotation. When the message “May your new ideas feel like sunrise” came up, I knew I had to share it. Make it so.
Now Listening
We’re rebuilding our vinyl collection, although I wouldn’t say I’m a purist. Most days, I listen via Spotify, and my wife is an avid iTunes listener. In addition to my usual digital streaming, this week I have put JJ Grey & Mofro’s new album Olustee on the turntable several times, and it didn’t disappoint.
What’s that you say? You don’t know this band? Well, please get acquainted posthaste. No Depression roots music reviewer Grant Britt describes the frontman perfectly: “JJ Grey is a shape-shifter, a marauding swamp thing big-footin’ it through his ancestral Florida homeland, splashing muddy funk in all directions. Trying to nail those big feet down is like wrasslin’ gators: He’s pretty much gonna do what he wants, so just grab hold and hang on for the ride.”
He’s backed by Mofro, a rotating group of consummate professional musicians anchored by bassist Todd Smallie (also of the Derek Trucks Band and Tedeschi Trucks Band, among others), and together they put on my favorite live show, bar none. I’ve seen them several times and haven’t gotten enough: I plan to see them anytime they set up within a couple hundred miles of me. Check them out here.
A new-to-me band I have listened to this week is one I learned about from Dipity Literary Magazine, a Phoenix group called Some Days Are Darker. They have a kind of brooding 80s vibe; the lead singer reminds me of Chris Isaak.
Lyric used as a prompt:
From the latest album from Matchbox Twenty, the title song Where The Light Goes makes a great jump off to get the ink rolling across the page. “Can you tell me where the light goes?”
Overheard:
At the coffee shop I overheard a woman characterize her days in a way that was at once unique and relatable. “The calendar is dragging me along.” I’d never heard it put quite that way, but instantly understood what she was talking about. It’s a phrase I could have used myself at so many times in my life, whether I was a stay-at-home mom to three babies, a busy manager with half of her hours double-booked and no white space in sight, or even now, with only myself to answer to for how I spend my days.
Laughed Out Loud:
So many moments in Anne Lamott’s classic Bird by Bird are hilarious, but this line, advice from a woman at a 12 Step meeting to another woman whose husband had a habit of passing out drunk in the front yard made me laugh out loud. “Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.”
On Mantras:
For Women’s History Month this year, I have been spending a little time each day savoring the magic of classic, established, and emerging female poets, and a new favorite is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. In the Bio section of her website, she has her one word and three word mantras listed (Adjust and I’m Still Learning), which prompted me to wonder what mine are. Every year I choose a word of the year and I do everything in my power to integrate it into my being and learn what it has to offer me, so I suppose that might work for my one-word mantra. In 2022, the word was Congruency. In 2023, it was Alignment. My word of the year for 2024 is Meraki. I think about it at least once a day, but I told my wife a couple days ago, “If I had to be honest about my true one-word mantra, it would be ‘whatever.’ I say that probably more than anything.”
I have a few candidates for my three-word mantra, but I haven’t landed on the winner yet. Be Here Now. This All Ends. Peace, Be Still. Relax, Let Go. Manifest That Shit. Similarly, if I had to be honest and tell you the three word phrases I say to myself most often, it would be these: “Drop Your Shoulders” and “It Doesn’t Matter.” The first relates to where I store my tension. I have to remind myself a dozen times a day to relax. The second is why the tension is there — I’m a martyr fueled by that phrase. I almost typed “recovering martyr,” but I’m probably not there yet. Awareness is the first step, right?
Enjoyed Reading on Substack this Week:
Jillian Hess’s deep dive into Octavia Butler’s papers and notebooks was an inspiring and motivating peek into Butler’s creative evolution.
I’ll be honest: seeing another writer who “made it” penning affirmations like “I am a writer,” “I sell what I write,” and “I live to write” in her notebook was validating. My grandkids got me this journal for Christmas and I write similar dreams in it each morning.
CJ Palmisano’s essay On Hummingbirds, Bougainvillea, and Hitchcock just pleased me. It captured a slice of her life, complete with tangential, conversational fills and educational tidbits. I felt like she was telling me all about this over a cup of coffee.
I can’t recommend this one strongly enough: Jeannine Ouellette’s moving essay: There, hanging weightless in the void, I saw it: our pale blue world under its papery blanket of light. She captures the contrasting celebration of the beauty of our up-close-and-personal daily interactions with our planet and the sorrowful knowledge that it’s all slipping away from us. It brought me to tears.
Books Finished this Week:
Katherine May’s The Electricity of Every Living Thing. I adore Katherine May, and immediately, upon closing the cover of this book, snatched her latest book Enchantment off of my book shelf, promoting it from my TBR pile to my Reading Now pile (yes, there’s a pile).
Follow her here on Substack, and if you haven’t read Wintering, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, or Enchantment yet, you should.
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chödrön at a scant 100 pages long was a short afternoon’s still-timely read, a balm for the soul during these insane days.
Coming Soon:
The Smell of Death Surrounds You, an essay on some recent and lingering losses, and their unifying thread in my life.
An as-yet untitled essay on Imposter Syndrome, an oft-discussed topic in creative circles, but I have a new little twist on it that came to me this week.
ICYMI:
My ten tips for dealing with traumatic experiences
"Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.” 😅😄 That is great!
Whatever is a good 1 word mantra. I approve!