That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don’t have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let’s make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Peas sign reversed. Mercedes Benz without the O.

Y, a Greek letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century—a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.


~ From Y, by Marjorie Celona, originally from the Indiana Review, republished in Best American Non-Required Reading 2008.

How can you not be inspired, like I was, reading this, to pose and consider everything remarkable about a letter? Maybe your first initial, or your last. I’m on the lookout every day for opportunities like this: to slip through an open doorway, an imaginative loophole, a slight tear in the fabric of all that right now insists. Because everything is happening at once, as it always is. Everything converging. Projects, deadlines, discoveries, presentations. It’s easy for me to just put my head down and run hard without stopping, without looking, without pausing for a handful of moments to practice doing what I love the most. And I found this to be the perfect thing to do today, mid week, now, on the seventeenth of November, with the world blue and brown and quiet with the promise of snow, amid everything else.


At the back door there are leaves that the wind’s tossed up in heaps, brown and crackling under our feet as we make a bonfire with friends, roast marshmallows and press them between crumbly graham crackers with chocolate; drink cappuccinos, and watch the children play. They take rakes with bamboo tines and heap the leaves until one or all of them are buried, laughter rising up with the sparks toward the night sky that is full of ink and diamonds; such a mess of grandeur, are the heavens above us.


The children turn on the porch lights; four boys in hats, leaves eddying up in the dark. Their shadows are eerie and huge across the grass, and then up in the sky, the waning gibbous moon, a pregnant C up there with the spilled milk of the universe, the faintest shadow of its darker side also there, barely illuminated: a C in reverse.


C: The letter that is at once the contents and the container, the balance of negative and positive space, the curve of palms, cupped, holding a bowl, and also the shape of the bowl. It is curiosity, and the top bit of a question mark in reverse. The final slight line in a pair of parenthesis, the pause of a comma, the arc of a story, a a smile turned on it’s side. It is the consonant that invokes creativity, the third letter of the alphabet, the symbol for chemical concentration, the speed of light in a vacuum, the abbreviation for carat, century, constant, cubic. It is the first note in C major, and the way my name begins.

Take 5 minutes. See what you can write about a letter. Or share a link an image or post and I’ll be sure to take a peak.

What you hold are hold the fragile wings of something that arrives in the night and then slips away, leaving only its slight carbon footprint on your sill; or the small body of a sparrow that’s just hit the window. Or maybe you hold the runaway tug of your dog’s leash; or the runaway tug of your heart.

You might hold the hand of the one you love; or your face in your hands; the heft of your child’s body, his head thrown back with laughter; or the weight of emptiness in your palms pressed together in prayer.

What you need to know is that what you hold can be a anything. What counts is intention. What counts is reaching out. Taking hold. Accepting. Offering.

Spend today taking note of your hands: of the artful way they pick up a pencil, wipe tears from a cheek, flip eggs, type, caress, create. Of how they translate the world for you; the way they’re the bridge between what’s inside your heart, and what you make of it. Of the way they feel held in another’s hand, or pressed into dough, or submerged in water. Imagine the joy you can hold; the possibility you can ask for and accept, like a boomerang tossed and received.

*

I can’t even describe how powerful it is to have people back you. How it makes things real, how it makes you be accountable and your very best self. How generosity is at the root of so much: abundance, success, inspiration, joy.

There is so much talent and creativity and passion and goodness in this list of bloggers and creative entrepreneurs, and they fill me right up with inspiration + gratitude + joy. Have fun perusing. You’ll be so delighted.

1017
100 Proof Stories
Airstream Dreaming
Andie Edwards
Annie Denison
Barb’s Evolving Project
Bead Tree
Becoming Megsieth
Beverly Reverlry
Blissful Thinking
Brickhouse Studios
Bring Yourself
Catching Days
Cayden J
Coco & Lafe
Coffee Stained Clarity
Daily Fieldnotes
Dawn Smith Designs
Dream Dust
Do What You Love
Dust Of Europe Film Project
Elayna Alexandra
Elisa Elliot
Everyday Glimpses
Flyover People
Hashi Works
Hysterical Mommy Network
Imaginations Everything
In The Violet Hour
Inosculation
Jorun Boklöv
Johanna Hoerrmann
Julies Little Joys
Just My Digital Stuff
Last Crumb
Laura Two Tina
Learning To Walk In Heels
Leonie Wise
Lesley Dahl
Life On The Green Line
Like A Radio
Listening & Speaking
Little Elm
Little Potatoes
Liz Lamoreux
Lizardek
Lylium
Magpie Days
Magpie Girl
Meadow Lark Days
Meat Revolution
Melissa Brott Photography
Michael Kershner
Mindy Schroder
Molly Sutton Kiefer
My Creative Space
Oink Tails
Paul Frank
Perils Of Caffeine In The Evening
Phriday Filosofy
Pixie Campbell
Positively Organic
Rosa Murillo
Scatterbeams
Seeking Equipoise
Shameless Self Promoters
Slightly Scrappy
Shona Cole
Solomon Shiv
Soulful Owl
Some The Wiser
Stefanie Renee
Story Lamps
Sunday School Rebel
Superbeck
Susan Kruse
Susanna Crossman
Tara Bradford Photography
Terri Rambo
The Learning Curve
The Life and Times of a Kiwi-Mumbaiiker
This Joy Ride
Timothy C. Flood
Trying To Stay Focused
Wet Fresco Photography
Wood Smoke & Lingon Berries

Ali Edwards: Giveaway

Boho Girl: Giveaway

Do What You Love: Interview

Liz Lamoreux: Nine {An Interview}

Magpie Girl: 1Q Interview

Susannah Conway: My Creative Life {Interview}

Wishstudio: A Book You Can Help Bring To Life

**
(If you are a backer and I didn’t include you on this list, it wasn’t on purpose! I had a few broken links and a few outdated URLS that I couldn’t trace. Please please send me your URL if you backed this project and would like me to add you.)

Today like any other day,
we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open
the door to the study
and begin reading. Take
down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be
what we do.
There are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi

Make these. They are the perfect accompaniment for thunderstorms, especially when made and eaten with little boys.

* 1 8-ounce package cream cheese
* 1 large egg
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

* 1 cup all purpose flour
* 3 tablespoons sifted unsweetened cocoa powder
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
* 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
* 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped, melted, warm
* 1/2 cup whole milk

Beat cream cheese in medium bowl. Add egg, sugar, salt, and vanilla and beat until almost smooth. Fold in chocolate chips (I was generous with these!)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Mix wet ingredients together then add dry. Fill cups 1/3 full. Then plunk a heaping spoonful of the cream cheese + chocolate chip mixture into the middle of each cup.

Bake cupcakes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pan, then in the fridge~ I think these cupcakes actually taste better cold than warm…though some might beg to differ.

* Recipe originally from here.

Also, I am just loving these beautiful photographs.