Leisure for what?
a clearing
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I gave into the climbing heat this week and did less than felt comfortable. All of my pleasure reading seems to orient around learning (anyone else?!). What a sneaky way of staying productive even while relaxing… I love learning more than most things, and I want leisure for leisure’s sake! This feels daring to want, to ease into… So I’ve started to do one of the most indulgent hobbies that I’ve long avoided: getting lost in a story.
Apparently, East of Eden by John Steinbeck is one of those novels that big readers consistently rank as the best of the best. I’m halfway through and damn… I think I can get used to reading more novels?!
Book lovers: What are you are you reading and loving?
Please drop your recs!
This was also a week of taking care of the little things: fixing the caulking, sewing up fabric, booking tickets, shipping out returns, cleaning under furniture, patiently waiting on customer service… all the invisible things that help to grease the gears of everyday so that it can be a little more simple, a little more spacious.
This last year or so has been one of attending to the basics. In my 20s, I kept my needs very small. I was in a prolonged state of being vigilantly creative around how to make do with what I had. This is a very lonely and shame-filled place to be, and it’s more common than we talk about.