oh may.
may felt full, like making progress but in a direction i'm still just guessing about.
i spent so many of my waking hours nannying, babysitting, and helping with kids at church, marveling at the way i somehow wake up every day with fresh excitement about hanging out with toddlers. i went to the park and read. i checked out three (always three) books from the library, even though a stack of books "to read" sits on my desk at home. i adventured in chattanooga. i visited my family in charlotte. i hosted my parents in nashville. i spent time painting, with acrylic paints on mixed media paper. i started writing, really writing, a book.
i made the most of my time in may. it wasn't accidental, but it wasn't intentional. (is this what it means to be a grown up?) (because, i did all these things in addition to cleaning and grocery shopping and meal prepping and waking up extra early to have me-time in the morning.)
"rescue bots," by luca michael goodin, age 3.
other may things.
THE ENNEAGRAM. in caps because, well, if you know it then you know why. (if you don't know it, i'd recommend reading the road back to you, which i recently read.) if you know it, then you're probably nodding along as i say i'm a nine. so, so much a nine. if this post about learning who i am and this post about not watching tv doesn't give it away, i don't know what does.
(related: sleeping at last is writing songs for the enneagram. so far, he's released intelligence, and is also working on a song for each number. you can get early access to these by subscribing here.)
the BOOK. more caps because it's my book. and i just wanted to say, to document here, that may is the month when i stopped writing things that could or could not possibly be potential material for a book and started writing for the purpose of publishing those words in a book.
so far, it's been like 10% writing things i didn't know were inside me, 90% staring at my computer wondering if it's too late to find another calling, and 100% asking myself "who even cares about this?" but also, knowing the words are flowing through me and not from me takes the pressure off. i am writing it, but it's not really mine.
this mostly feels insignificant, because i could've been serious about writing a book this whole time and you never would've known. but i wasn't.
the "that sounds fun" podcast, hosted by annie f downs. i have recently discovered that i hate driving a little bit less when i am listening to podcasts, so i've been trying out a bunch and this one is like, how have i not been listening to it already? annie is a writer who is a seven on the enneagram (i love sevens). i don't know that i need to say any more for you to understand why this podcast sounds fun to me. (see what i did there?)
the "there is a cloud" series from elevation church. hello, who is even surprised by this one. but! i couldn't leave it out, especially after week two, "barriers to blessings," after which i called up T to discuss.
the history of love, by nicole krauss. do you know it? honestly, i think i first heard of this book from tumblr, with the line, "once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." and it's just that i needed to read more from the person who put the words together to form that sentence, and i finally got around to it. it reminds me a lot of extremely loud and incredibly close (the book, not the movie).