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| Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash |
“I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Wooly jumpers, Wellington boots, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palette punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love.”
—Alys Fowler
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| Photo by Alex Geerts on Unsplash |
Well, we made it through September. Fall is sort of here. This weekend I expect to be sweeping off our lanai and helping my husband in the yard. I’m doing my best to feel optimistic (see below) in October, and as I mentioned in September’s Happy Little Thoughts newsletter, I’ll also be looking for the small positive actions that can boost my mood and energy. (Didn’t get the newsletter? Click here to subscribe.)
If you have some extra time and feel like reading something inspiring, here are a few links I’ve found interesting and encouraging recently:
Access the (free and printable) Action for Happiness “Optimistic October” calendar here. Today’s action is: “Look for reasons to be hopeful even in difficult times.”
The Positive Lexicography Project combines two things I love: happiness and words. Read more about it in “The Glossary of Happiness.”
I miss traveling a lot—I haven’t felt it was safe or appropriate even to visit my mom(s) in California, or take a road trip with my friend Kerri. In “How to Take a Vacation Without Leaving Home,” Ingrid Fetell Lee offers a few suggestions for adding a little adventure to your staycation.
After 10 years of writing a health and well-being column for The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman has learned a few things about happiness. In “Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilledlife,” he shares some of them. For example: “There will always be too much to do—and this realisation is liberating. Today more than ever, there’s just no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time—a l the things you would like to do, or feel you ought to do—and the amount of time available. Thanks to capitalism, technology and human ambition, these demands keep increasing, while your capacities remain largely fixed. It follows that the attempt to “get on top of everything” is doomed. (Indeed, it’s worse than that – the more tasks you get done, the more you’ll generate.)”
There’s nothing notably new in the advice found in “10 Waysto Find Stillness in Turbulent Times,”—just good, solid advice for quieting an anxious mind.
And speaking of an anxious mind, according to researchers, elevated stress and worry can actually change brain chemistry. “Coronavirus:the pandemic is changing our brains—here are the remedies” offers some suggestions for coping.
That’s all for now. I’m off to take the dog for a walk before it gets too hot (it’s cooler, but not cool). Have a great weekend!
Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Tolstoy said, “Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.” I found this poem by Dorianne Laux in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, published by Grayson Books of West Hartford, CT. The poet, whose most recent book of poetry is Only As The Day Is Long, lives in Maine.
Like most people, I’ve been staying close to home this year. I haven’t visited my mom in California, or met up with my friend Kerri for a road trip…and I miss it.
At home, it’s
been too hot to explore outdoors, and it hasn’t felt safe or appropriate to
explore anywhere indoors. I’m getting a little stir crazy! So I decided to take Field
Trip Friday into the realm of memory—surely there were some places I’ve
visited during the past few years that I haven’t fully savored or written about here
on Catching Happiness.
And indeed there were.
The first one I want to share with you is the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, the
first large Buddhist monastic community in the United States. Kerri and I stopped
briefly at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas during our California road trip in
2018. We didn’t have a lot of time there, but the atmosphere made an
impression. I had not heard of it before, even though it’s
been around since the 1970s, and was officially inaugurated in 1982. Just goes
to show how many interesting, out-of-the-way places are out there if we only
look.
The monastic complex lies on 80 acres of a 700-acre property nestled into a valley near Ukiah, California. There are 13 buildings, including the monastery, a dining hall, elementary and secondary schools, a gift and bookstore, a vegetarian restaurant, as well as an organic garden, fields, and woods.
Here are a few photos:
Under normal circumstances, the monastery offers in-person classes and events, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the complex is temporarily closed to visitors and events are being held online.
Since I’m not ready to
travel again yet, I am going to take some time to go through my photos from the
trips I’ve been fortunate enough to take, and I’m going to pull out my trip
journals, too. It’s not a bad thing to have time to reflect on the past
travels. It lifts my spirits to relieve happy memories, and even the bumps and
inconveniences of travel become funny memories over time. This is one of the
(few) gifts of the pandemic: an opportunity to slow down and appreciate what I
have without always pushing forward to the next bright, shiny thing.
Has the pandemic offered
you any unexpected gifts? Please share in the comments below.
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| Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash |
“The biggest lies I tell myself are ‘It will just take a minute,” and “I’ll remember that.’
“It’s rare that anything worth doing lasts ‘just a minute’ or that we’ll be finished ‘in a sec’ or that ‘a quick look’ will be enough. We have to break away, turn off, shut down and come back.
