Priorities and planning I did a lot of prioritisation of relationships and projects this week, which was helpful for getting clearer on where to put my attention, energy and time. And then worked on my budget to make sure it was inline with my priorities. Felt a huge sense of achievement after this work, and […]
The week that started 11th May 2020
On death in Mary Oliver’s poetry I love how Mary writes of death in White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field. There’s a whole section of owl poems in the collection of her selected poems that I’m reading. Which makes me wonder about owls as harbingers of death or representations of death for […]
The week that started 4th May 2020
tl;dr: Savouring for happiness, poetry (especially Mary Oliver’s), black speculative fiction and sci-fi, flowers upon flowers, drawing & learning the names of trees in German, being inspired and encouraged to draw by my workmates, tree geekery, short stories (esp. Tove Jansson’s), psychology of happiness (specifically The Science of Wellbeing, it’s amazing, do the free course) […]
The week that started 27th April 2020
Cheap stationery So, The Science of Wellbeing reminding me that stuff is inherently disappointing, despite what our biased intuitions tell us, helped me kick my expensive stationery cravings. So, I switched from Ryman’s and Paperchase to The Works. As a result, I learned about this innovation – paper you can write on underwater, and it […]
The week that started 20th April 2020
Words and writing Not been writing so much, in terms of writing poetry and books. But, I’m journalling more than usual, which is helping and healing. Kinda going back to the quantities of journalling I used to do. So, that’s good. Bought more stationery to support these habits. Last week I encountered some new words […]
The week that started 13th April 2020
Learning things So, this week I started a free course called The Science of Well-being. It’s by psychology professor Laurie Santos of Yale and it’s on Coursera (love Coursera). Grateful to my colleague for letting me know about it, because it’s brilliant. Whizzed through week 1, and now practising using my character strengths. Regardless of […]
The week that started 6th April 2020
What’s in this week: Wellness Writing, including my new & improved writing techniques My artist date this week, mostly enjoying botanical art online Creativity I’m appreciating COVID-19 and inequity reflections Wellness Re-reading what I’ve written before about how to be well and avoiding burnout (Sep 2019). Writing as healing My new writing technique is unstoppable* […]
The week that started 30th March 2020
In our black caucus at work, we talked about black authors to read, here are some recommendations… Kiley Reid x 2 Tomi Adeyemi x 2 (The Children of Blood and Bone trilogy) Colson Whitehead Brit Bennett (debut: The Mothers) Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn) The autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave […]
The week that started 23rd March 2020
On mental health and the risk of depression I’ve been pretty worried about spiralling back into depression, and I could feel the tendrils of low mood, motivation and energy dragging me down. Thankfully, I was able to realise that early, within a day or so, and do something about it. Some of the things that […]
The week that started 16th March 2020
Best part of the week was my solitary writing retreat, reading Mary Oliver’s poetry and Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown. More in my next weeknotes. Hayfever & other allergies One of my friends asked for advice on what to do about seasonal allergies, so I put together some resources. Maybe you’ll find them useful. […]