I was recently introduced to a beautiful children’s book, called Peace is an Offering, about taking care of one another and appreciating the world around us.
The sweet, simple poem is by Annette LeBox with illustrations by Stephanie Graegin adding a delightful interpretation of her words.
Cover images via the publisher.
While you can get it at your local library or bookstore, I also recommend having Emily on YouTube read it to you. Her quiet, soothing voice, combined with the lulling rhymes and satisfying sound of book pages turning, will make you feel at ease (or give you ASMR).
Because, like many of the best children’s books, it’s not just for kids.
A few years ago, I wrote (through tears), “Life can be such an off-balance mix of highs and lows, beautiful moments and heartbreaking ones all scrambled together.”
It remains true at the close of this tumultuous, challenging, disorienting – and, yes, often heartbreaking – year. There are points of light, even in dark times.
Quijote hanging out with me before polling place setup in November.
I asked a few friends to think of some good moments they experienced in 2020 and share them in the form of a top five list of things they did or simply enjoyed.
Their lovely responses (and fun photos!) are below.
These are my top five favorite makes of 2020 – a year that provided ample time for me to be creative.
1. Cornflower Yoke Cardigan from Vintage Baby Knits for my niece, Maxine Eleanor. She was born August 1.
2. No. 1 shirt from designer Sonya Philip. I learned how to sew basic garments this year. I made several of these and lived in them all summer!
3. I participated in Denyse Schmidt’s Proverbial Quilt Along. The quilt reads, “The Darkest Nights Make the Brightest Stars.” I gave it to my eldest niece Alexis, who headed off to college in August and was having a hard time with everything she’d been forced to miss due to the pandemic.
Kelli in a sweater she made herself!
4. My best friend Meghann turned 40 in August and asked for a quilt in her colors. This is the most ambitious quilting project I’ve ever completed. My mom quilted the top with her longarm, to make it extra special. The pattern is an Ohio star.
5. I completed Morning Sky sweater in cornflower blue and have enjoyed wearing it. I really like the scalloped edge and the fit. I made it from inexpensive yarn, and it has held up nicely!
1. I went on my first meditation retreat in Stockbridge, MA a week before everything shut down because of COVID. This was on my 2020 list before 2020 arrived.
2. I went on an epic hike in Yosemite and hiked Half Dome. I was sooo lucky to be invited on this hike as going all the way to the top requires a permit that is given through a lottery system.
Two of Vesna’s hand carved stamps.
3. I was able to stay home for 6 weeks when COVID first hit. We did a lot of walks in local parks. I also learned how to edit videos and filmed 3 classes for Skillshare.
4. I planted two fruit trees in my backyard: a fig and a pomegranate. I will always remember that they were planted during COVID year (haha)!
5. I am joining Carve December, and I am determined to carve a stamp a day during this month.
Lori camping with family.
• from Lori Meisner Cleland:
1. Socially distanced camping trips with my brother and his family
2. Discovering new (to me) music, like Gregory Porter
3. A slower pace
4. Increased support of and appreciation of small businesses
5. Seeing all the amazing creativity going on as people work to navigate this crazy year together
Photos from some of the local restaurants Lori supported this year.
Photos that go with the lists are from the respective listmakers.
P.S. Dinah Liebold’s list of gift ideas that was so detailed and timely that it got its own post last week, so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already!
I’ve been thinking about Shahrazad the storyteller.
In the frame story of The Thousand and One Nights, a sultan has been forcing a new person to marry him every night and killing her in the morning. To stop the deadly cycle, Shahrazad (also spelled “Scheherazade”) volunteers to be his next bride.
That night, she begins weaving a tale so compelling that the sultan decides to wait on killing her in order to hear the rest. Night after night, she keeps telling stories. Wild, fantastic stories. Stories within stories. Stories with plot twists and cliffhanger endings. Stories that keep the sultan on the edge of his seat for so long that he never does get around to killing her.
She saved herself through her stories. With only her words and her wit, she also saved the rest of the kingdom in the process.
Of all the characters between the pages of The Thousand and One Nights, the actual hero is Shahrazad.
After we’d parked, I asked a security guard the quickest way to Tucson Music Hall.
He replied with “Oh! Are you looking for the rap thing?”
I was wearing a long velvet dress and heels.
“No, not the rap thing…”
A few minutes later, someone asked if we were looking for the game.
Apparently, in Tucson, no one bats an eye if you decide to don formalwear to see hip hop or hockey. And we noticed several people wearing cowboy hats to the opera.
What to know about Tucson Music Hall
Tucson Music Hall is the site of Arizona Opera’s Tucson performances.
It’s located on the Tucson Convention Center campus, along with the Leo Rich Theater and the Tucson Arena (which the locals confusingly kept referring to as “TCC”).
Tucson Convention Center is not the same place as the Tucson Expo Center.
Sun Link Streetcar Stop: Congress Street/Granada Avenue (6E or 6W)
Nearby:
285 ft – Museum of Contemporary Art
.4 mi – Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block
.5 mi – Hotel Congress and Maynard’s (lodging + dining)
Performances in Tucson also have a lobby full of shopping and refreshments for sale – wine, snacks, delicious-smelling coffee, and old school west-coast favorite Thrifty ice cream!
There’s also “Shopera at the Opera” with booths of Local artists and vendors, who give part of their proceeds to support Arizona Opera.
We enjoyed seeing the inventive ways that Southern Arizona Artists’ Guild member Betty Harris found to upcycle fabric scraps and thrift store pieces. Next to her was a Barefoot Books booth with a selection of really neat-looking kids books, including the very fitting Stories from the Opera.
I’ve never heard anyone say writing a novel was easy. The fact that so many aspiring authors have trouble completing the task gave Christine Smith and Jessie Kwak the brilliant idea to form Four Windows Books.
It’s an author incubator and publishing company that guides new authors through the writing process all the way to completing their first books. The novels are written and published in serial format, delivered to subscribers via ebook a quarter at a time. Each year, Four Windows will choose four new authors and a new city to feature.
The first-ever Four Windows books are being written by four authors who live in (or have lived in) Seattle. Part 2 is set to be released November 30. It was cool to revisit Seattle through Part 1 of these books – places like the Aurora Bridge (where the Fremont Troll is) and the International District, which is where the excerpt below takes place.
Joanne stepped off the bus in the International District station, the last underground stop before the transit tunnel disgorged its travelers to disperse throughout the forsaken lands south of the stadiums.The scent of curry entwined itself in the more familiar smells of black coffee and wet concrete, and the walls echoed with a busker’s saxophone wailing out Moon River.
She ascended the steps to street level, and felt a wave of nauseating anxiety — like the free falling terror of hearing a professor announce an exam that she’d forgotten to study for. There were Chinese characters on signs and the frenetic song of tonal language all around her, foreign as hieroglyphs, but all reminding her of where she was not from, what she did not know, who she could never be.
She took a moment to orient her phone to her surroundings, and then headed off down a side street.
She walked past the Tiantang Medicine Shop twice before finally Googling a picture of the building — two red characters painted over a nondescript door marked the entrance. She opened the door to be greeted by a heady wall of aromas — licorice, pepper, and ozone with a slight undernote of sewage.
A wrinkled man hunched on a stool behind the counter, wispy-haired and liver-spotted. He was gazing disinterestedly at a talk show when Joanne entered; he regarded her in solemn silence for a moment then focused back on the television. The shop was lined with shelves, and each shelf held an amalgam of irregular plastic bins containing dried bits of organic god-knows-what. There were a scattering of identifying cards about the shop, but only a few were in English, and those bore such cryptic legends as ‘concentrated gel of antler velvet’ and ‘codonopsis’. After a minute of surveying the inscrutable, she gave up and approached the man behind the desk. “Excuse me, could you help me find some of these herbs?”
He replied without taking his eyes from the brewing domestic dispute, “You from Dr. Keller?”
There was a note of disdain in his voice that made her want to deny it, but her list was on his letterhead. “Yes, I just started seeing him.”
“He’s a fool.” Without ceremony, he slid from his stool, took the paper from her hand and started scooping various powders and plant matter into bags.
“I’m sorry?”
“He’s big fool. You should know.”
—
You can download the entire Part 1 of Trace and the 3 other books for free in your e-reader format of choice.
PS Yes, Ian is my brother, but he didn’t ask me to do this. I’m just excited about the project and the books, and I can’t wait for Part 2!
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