I have a travel essay entered in the WeSaidGo essay contest! You can read “The Bits and Pieces Tour” here. Please stop by and take a look.

Elsewhere on the internet:

Change your password, change your life! What a great idea. Read about how the lowly password can remind you of what you want more (or less) of in your life. 

Don’t let these habits steal your happiness. 

Want more reading time? Check out Gretchen Rubin’s “13 Tips for Getting More Reading Done.” 

Interesting piece on how getting rid of expectations can help you “master the art of living.” 

These made me laugh (and almost made me miss working in an office). 

Visit A Blog Made Vibrant for a free downloadable “Emergency Mood Booster” worksheet.

Have a happy Friday!

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Readers of this column during the past year have by now learned how enthusiastic I am about poems describing everyday life. I’ve tried to show how the ordinary can be made extraordinary through close and transforming observation. Here Tess Gallagher goes to the mailbox to post a letter. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? But notice how closely she pays attention to this simple experience, and how she fits this one moment into the meaning of her life.

Under Stars

The sleep of this night deepens

because I have walked coatless from the house

carrying the white envelope.

All night it will say one name

in its little tin house by the roadside.

I have raised the metal flag

so its shadow under the roadlamp

leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.

Now I will walk back

thinking of the few lights still on

in the town a mile away.

In the yellowed light of a kitchen

the millworker has finished his coffee,

his wife has laid out the white slices of bread

on the counter. Now while the bed they have left

is still warm, I will think of you, you

who are so far away

you have caused me to look up at the stars.

Tonight they have not moved

from childhood, those games played after dark.

Again I walk into the wet grass

toward the starry voices. Again, I

am the found one, intimate, returned

by all I touch on the way.

“Under Stars” copyright 1987 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted from “Amplitude: New & Selected Poems” with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Gallagher’s most recent book of poetry is “Dear Ghosts: Poems,” Graywolf Press, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”

—Alan Bennett, The History Boys

Last week my friend Kerri came to stay with me, a most welcome visitor. Kerri and I have been friends since college, and now have the misfortune to live at opposite ends of the country—me in Florida, and Kerri in Washington. We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, and there was much talking (an understatement), eating, puzzling and general merry-making. We crisscrossed the state meeting other friends, both mutual and new to me (hi, Deb!). Despite our late hours and our busy schedule, I feel refreshed and energized by her visit. There’s nothing like the tonic of time spent with a good friend.

On the morning Kerri left, we had a most unwelcome visitor—a coral snake:

My life would be barren without friends—they are essential for my happiness. I’m incredibly lucky to have the ones I have. I need to make sure that time with friends stays at the top of the priority list.