I know this has been said a million times before, and is cliché, and everyone is already familiar with the concept of nourishing the appropriate areas of our lives that we want to grow, but I am still astonished by it when I garden: when we take time in our lives to pay attention to something, that thing will prosper.
This is true whether we cultivate our craft by carving out time to write or photograph or woodwork; our relationships by spending quality time with the people we love; or our worries, making them larger and more real in our lives for the care and feeding we give them.
But nowhere is it so clear to me, so real, as when I water plants. Perhaps this is because I see what neglect results in as well: withering. Decline. Death.
As I trickle clear water on pansies and lettuces, I see new flower buds that weren’t there when we bought the plants, new leaves that have sprouted since we planted them. It makes me kind of giddy.
It only takes a few minutes of my day. Each time I fill our lemonade pitcher with water and go out on the front steps to give the flowers a drink, I am struck that this simple act gives them life.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
With each season I think “this is my favorite season.” Right now, my favorite season is spring. Everything is fresh and bright and cheery: red, yellow, and violet tulips; sunny daffodils; purple hyacinth. And blooming trees.
Where I grew up, on the coast of Georgia, seasons were subtle. There were changes in temperatures, some trees lost leaves (though I can’t recall which ones), and in spring, azaleas bloomed. We were surrounded by live oaks, pine trees, and palm trees, which all remain green through winter, and which do not flower in spring.
I can’t tell you how much it still amazes me, after living 10+ years in Maryland, Minnesota, and Virginia — all places that burst into bloom in spring — that entire trees blossom. Where I’m from, bushes bloom, roses bloom, lilies bloom. Ground plants. Small plants. Annuals. But trees? No. Trees don’t bloom.
In Blacksburg right now, and in fact right out my window as I type this, we have 30-foot pear trees covered in white blossoms, 15-foot redbuds popping with tiny magenta buds, 20-foot dogwoods with their smattering of greenish yellow petals. In our neigborhood there is a 40-foot tree whose entire crown is dark pink with blossoms. I expect large trees to change color in fall, but in spring? Everywhere around here are cherry trees covered in delicate pale pink flowers.
I just can’t get over it. It is wondrous to me, that plants as large as 20, 30, 40-foot trees can burst into bloom. I expect flowers from small plants, but it still surprises me that I can go anywhere around here and see flowers on hardwood trees. And they occur naturally, in the woods — they are not just ornamentals in gardens.
Though I know it is basic biology — angiosperms reproduce via flowers — these flowering trees make me feel, every day, like I am witness to a miracle.
If you, too, love blossoms, I discovered yesterday that a colleague’s wife is a botanical artist: her medium is flowers. 😍. Her work made me feel the same way flowering trees do, like I was witness to a miracle. She’s amazing. Check out flora.forager on Instagram. You will be so happy you did.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
For Christmas one year, when I was 9 or 10, or maybe 11 or 12, my aunt and uncle gave me a packet of stationery. They always gave unique, interesting gifts, and I remember how that packet of heavy-weight ivory paper, embroidered on the edges with cornflower blue flowers, filled me with promise: empty paper, special paper. It had so much potential.
I wrote letters on that stationery: letters to my Grandma on St. Simon’s Island, letters home to my mom and dad from Girl Scout camp. I loved that stationery. My own smooth paper with envelopes to match. Each time I pulled it out and ran my hand across it, I delighted in its prettiness. Its existance, and that it belonged to me, both inspired and encouraged me to write. It gave me a reason to get out a pen and ink words on paper.
I still prefer to write in ink. My 1o minute writes would turn to blog posts much more quickly if I typed directly into the WordPress app on my desktop. But like vinyl records, I love the physical objects of paper and pen, my thoughts in ink, undeletable, scratched in my handwriting, on a page. Personal thoughts flow more easily with a pen in my hand.
I would love to have stationery again. I use cheap composition books for my free writes, which serve their purpose fine. I coudn’t afford expensive paper for writing practice; we’d go broke.
But when I want to send a card or a letter, I am always blocked by the paper I have to write on. I don’t want to write on an ugly piece of ordinary, bleached white printer paper. So I end up not sending notes, or if I do, the process makes me sad.
Sometimes we receive pretty notes from Brian’s grandma, handwritten in ink on stationery. They feel warm and alive, and her handwriting reminds me of her voice.
The special paper, decorated with her thoughts, fills me up.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
I lay in bed this morning looking at our bedroom’s freshly painted walls. I studied the color, trying to find accurate words to describe it in my mind.
Cream.
That’s not accurate. Cream — dairy cream in real life — is more white. This is closer to vanilla ice cream, but still darker. Richer. It’s the color of French vanilla ice cream. It’s a rich cream.
And then I realized that’s the name on the paint chip: Rich Cream.
I have great admiration for the vocabulary of whoever names paint colors. Think of the scope of words you’d need to know. Most colors are named for something concrete: an object, a noun. For example, my office color is Lime Mousse. Our son’s room, a terra cotta color, is Oxide. Like rust.
I often want to paint a room a certain color simply because I like the feeling the name evokes. Our original pick for our room was Kansas Grain, which I loved the thought of sleeping in. Warm, light, golden. But the color wasn’t right for the space. It was too peachy. Now we sleep in Rich Cream, a bowl of silky vanilla ice cream, which isn’t a bad evocation either.
I suppose that’s another element of naming colors, which makes me appreciate the skill even more: the names evoke pleasant feelings. Our daughter’s room is Jamaica Aqua; our front door is Florida Aqua. Two colors, two names, that take me to warm, islandy, happy places.
I’m not the best at home improvement projects. I scowl and snap when I paint or try to execute upgrades at home. But I do love browsing paint chips. Frosted Emerald; Waterfall; Roman column; Wood Violet.
I love the sensory experience of seeing all those colors and exploring temperatures, tastes, textures, and smells the names evoke. I’d be terrible at naming — too many options! so much specificity! — but I delight in the work that paint-namers do.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
For his birthday, my husband wanted a turntable. He’s been digitizing all of our CDs so we can listen to them easily from our living room stereo, but while it’s convenient once it is all digitized and we can control the music from our phones, it is a soulless process. He and I both feel the lack of anything physical to work with when we play music — nothing to touch, hold, or place in a player; no artwork to enjoy while we listen. No object we feel we own.
On his birthday last week, the kids and I presented him with a record player from U-turn Audio. Though I knew it might be risky, we really really wanted to not get the black one. So we bought the white one instead. It has made him ridiculously happy.
This turntable has been almost as exciting in our household as when we brought the kittens home. Our kids are really into it. The problem is, we spent the whole birthday budget on the turntable, and we didn’t have any money left to buy any records.
I know, lame.
But the lack of music to play actually intensified the experience for Brian. The next day, he went to a record store and flipped through vinyl albums. He was moved by the act of being in a brick and mortar store, touching the albums, and looking at the large format artwork that was once an important part of the listening experience.
STYX vinyl: one of the first albums of my husband’s new collectonOn Friday, he brought home two records: Miles Davis Kind of Blue and a favorite from his childhood, one that as soon as he saw the album cover washed him with nostalgia: STYX Paradise Theater. He came home during his lunch break, placed Kind of Blue on the platter, started it spinning, and set the needle in the smooth outer ring of the disk. The sound from the record was rich and warm. He sat on the couch, put his feet on the living room table, and sipped coffee while he read the album cover and listened.
When the kids came home, they wanted to know all about the music he bought. They wanted to look at the records. They had a dozen questions. “How does it work? How does the music come out?” My husband showed how to put a record on, how to place the needle. They watched it spin and wanted to know about the grooves — how they’re made, how the needle in the groove makes music. They had never asked questions before about the mechanics of music-listening or the physics of sound. This object — a vinyl jazz record — sparked a curiosity that had previously not existed.
We’ve already listened to our two records multiple times. The kids want to listen to more, and so do we. “Maybe we could listen to the clock,” our son said.
Our living room clockThis morning over coffee, my husband and I reminisced about how significant music was in our childhood lives. We remember our first albums, we remember the cover art, we remember a scarcity about collecting music. Music wasn’t easily accessible then — you had to save up your allowance to buy a record or a tape or a CD. Now our kids can just hook up to Spotify on their tablets, pull up songs on the Internet, or we can share digital music from our own collection.
This turntable is special to them in the way that music was special to us when we were their age. We want them to have the experience of their own first album, like we had when we were young — maybe the Empire Strikes Back score for our son and Rubber Soul for our daughter, who has learned at least a half dozen Beatles songs on her guitar.
For now we’ll just keep playing these two records, enjoy them with our feet up on the table and a drink in our hand, and start saving our allowances again.
“Is this going to be like getting concert tickets? REFRESH, REFRESH, REFRESH!”
I asked this of Andrew Spittle, co-organizer of SupConf and our Happiness team lead, when the SupConf Kickstarter went live. We were purchasing tickets for colleagues, and I wasn’t sure how fast they would go.
“Ha. You need to get out more,” he said.
“It’s in my OKRs,” I said.
He thought I was joking. Then I showed him my my Objectives and Key Results spreadsheet, which clearly states, “Work outside of home 2x per month.”
The reason I don’t get out more is that I love working from home. I’m here when my kids get home from school, my shower is right here after I’ve walked 4 hours on my tread desk, the kitchen is here and stocked when I want a snack.
And after I’ve walked my 4 hours in the morning, showered, and eaten lunch, I move upstairs to our new living room to work from the lounge chair.
Afternoon workspace (our living room)
I get to be here in the open when the kids get home from school. Even if I’m still working, I like sharing the space with them while they eat their snacks, school is fresh on their minds, and they just might be willing to talk to me about their day.
To be honest, leaving the house is a hassle. I’m so spoiled. Even though a coffee shop is less than 5 minutes away, it seems like a lot of work to get there compared to padding around our house in my slippers. So much time wasted, what with getting dressed, packing my laptop bag, putting on shoes, opening car doors, driving 5 minutes, parking, standing in line for coffee.
I do love the one day a week I leave the house for a couple of hours and am out in the world, but there’s a reason I only do it once a week. I love my home setup. I love my Key Lime Studio. I’ve got a tread desk where I walk at 2.1 mph for a minimum of 4 hours per day. My Fitbit daily goal is 15K steps, but I usually hit more than 20K with my walking desk. As I age and my body becomes less inclined to survive high impact workouts, this tread desk is an amazing investment in my long term health. I love it very much.
Home office with tread desk
The walls of my office are decorated with artwork gifted from our Minnesota friends at Studio on Fire, and with souvenirs from places I’ve been with my Automattic, the company I work with: postcards from Philadelphia where I spoke at the inaugural WordCamp US and from Hawaii where I traveled for my first team meetup.
Studio on Fire print and postcards from Philly and Kauai
Inspired by my friend and coworker Wendy Scott, I’ve also started a photo wall with images from events I’ve travelled to: our annual company meeting in Park City, Utah; team meetups in Kauai, New Orleans, and Phoenix. This year I will get a chance to add more, from San Francisco for SupConf; Vienna for WordCamp Europe; and Whistler, British Columbia for this year’s company meetup.
Photos from Hawaii, New Orleans, Phoenix, and Park City, UT
I am getting out more to work, and I enjoy my surroundings every time I do. I love the clink and clatter of coffee shops, the almond croissants at Our Daily Bread, the white noise of café conversations. But I am so grateful that I can work from home, too, and get healthy while I do it.
Automattic is a fully distributed company, with employees from more than 40 countries and from time zones all around the world. Sound like a cool place to work? We are hiring.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
Butterfly Mind 