Clicking Through

After a hectic month, the pace of my life has slowed. Each day still has a to-do list, and I love to cross things off. I haven't had a personality transplant or anything.

BUT. I'm aware that I have a little breathing room. I have time to click through on Twitter or Instagram and read what's linked. And so I have. I've also read many of the articles I'd bookmarked during the busy season.

Most recently, I read an extraordinary piece by Josie George, a UK writer. Her site holds many brief, pithy pieces and I've enjoyed every one. Bonus: she uploads audio files so you can hear her reading them, too.

I first read this piece, Forest. It begins with a lovely, closely observed experience of nature, both in the past when she still walked and in the present from her wheelchair. Wonderfully pleasant and evocative.

And then this:

"Nature is being repackaged. To encourage us to love it better, to save it, we are told more and more that it will make us feel good, that it is something designed to heal us. I know it is true — that it can — but I don’t know how I feel about that."

Yes! She articulated something I've been mulling over but hadn't found words for. And she goes on, taking this insight into unique spaces. I'd quote more but I don't want to ruin the surprises and connections. Go there and read this, seriously.

Suffice to say that she carefully considers the relationship between the natural world and we humans, with satisfying conclusions, the kind that should have been obvious but weren't (to me).

Her blog is populated with other excellent essays, and I look forward to her book, Nothing Ordinary: A Still Life, due for release in January 2021. Her general website is here.

It's really fun to have the time and space to sample the rest of the world again.

Go ahead. Click through. What pleasures await!