Life’s a Beautiful Adventure
Discovering Magic in the Ordinary Finding Poetry in the Everyday Living a Deliberate Life Thought-Provoking Worksheets
S ta mp i n g t o n & Co m pa n y Volume 1 • Issue 1 • DISPLAY UNTIL 10/31/14
$19.99 US • $20.99 cAN
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t f i t f G i a G s i a s y i a d y Tooda T by Sylvia Stefanova
A breezy summer morning ... Sitting on the lakeshore, my eyes gaze deep into the horizon. The water is calm, the sun is warm, the blue is bluer, and the green is greener. Looking at each and every blade of grass, each and every craftily rounded stone, each and every little wave, each and every slow-moving cloud ... everything is so amazing, so perfectly made ... .Âť
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say . er of wh at my hea rt has to I am fin all y sti ll, a lis ten
It is a rich beginning of a new day — a bathed in light and glorious abundance new day. How it is going to unfold and how I decide to use it is wholly up to me. Whether I am going to make this day a perfect part of my summer story depends entirely on me. Because every summer has a story and now I am creating one ... .
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Pleasure, Please! Four Tips
MORE
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Seductive+++
LIFE by Cassandra Key
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leasure is a glass of Shiraz and a book of poetry. It’s dancing under the moon, saying yes, saying no, and biting off a square of gourmet chocolate. Pleasure is sitting at an Italian café, drinking a cappuccino, and watching passersby. It’s wearing pink lipstick, sending yourself a love letter, sleeping in, or taking a nap. Pleasure is so many things, and yet, we hardly find time for it or think we don’t deserve it. Even the smallest pleasurable thing gets put off or branded to be “too much work.” No more excuses! Here are a few ways to sneak pleasure into your everyday.
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Turn the Yuck into Yay!
Hate going to the gym, but want to work out? What’s the most pleasurable workout you could do? A dance class, yoga, a walk after dinner ... find something you actually enjoy. Can’t find time to work on your novel, but really want to write one? What’s the most pleasurable step you can take toward getting it written? Writing for 5 minutes in the morning while sipping tea, taking a notepad into the bubble bath, writing in the park on your lunch break ... you get the idea. Let yourself be seduced by the task at hand. Turn it into play. Ask, “What’s the most pleasurable way I can accomplish this?”
Make it Easy
I used to date this guy who’d always tell me, “Cassandra, life is easy,” and then flash me a huge grin. Honestly, I wanted to reply with something like, “Well, I’m so glad it’s easy for you,” and then punch him in the face. But in retrospect, I see that he was right. Things don’t have to be complicated. I know this sounds cheesy, but it’s about surrendering to the flow of life. It’s about not getting too wrapped up in the details and how things will work out and just trusting that they will. Also, you don’t need a lot of things to be happy. Although I don’t fault anyone for wanting material things, I know from first-hand experience that you can be happy with less. Life gets easier when you’re not chained to constant desire and trying to maintain all the stuff you’ve already acquired. Try letting go of some of your possessions (Do you really need that dress you haven’t worn in six months?) and see how you feel.
Stop Playing the Beat-Up Game. So you drank a Frappuccino with whipped cream, skipped your workout, or watched “The Walking Dead” marathon instead of doing something productive. So what?! Does any of it really matter in the grand scheme of things? You hereby have permission to take a break, “cheat” on a regimen, and be lazy just because it feels good. Allow yourself the pleasure of the moment, even if it means having a chocolate-covered strawberry instead of a salad. Give yourself a break every now and then.
Forget the Rules.
Do you stop wearing white after Labor Day or pass on the most beautiful pair of 5-inch heels because you’re too tall and could never get away with that?
Do yourself a favor and chuck “the rules” in the garbage, please. And this doesn’t just apply to fashion. Do whatever interests you, even if it’s unconventional. What’s the worst that can happen? You get a few stares and whispers? And does it matter if you’re happy and having a good time? Nope. So what’s seducing you right now? What small step can you take toward pleasure today? Go ahead and take it. I dare you.
Cassandra Key is an American ex-pat living in the Philippines and spends her days beach bumming and wedding blogging, while writing for her own blog, The Sacred Middle, where she writes about happiness, magic, and self-love. Someday she hopes to write a young-adult novel and have tea in England. You can follow along with her at thesacredmiddle.com.
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on i t a r b e l e C with a SMALL C by D. Smith Kaich Jones
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keep opening my doors and life keeps getting in. It blows in with the autumn winds and sits still with the heat of summer then sneaks silently through the keyhole, dragging moonlight with it, waking me, tapping me on my sleeping shoulders, whispering I should get up, there are stars out there waiting for a waltz, music is playing, get up, get up. Sometimes I do. Life understands when I don’t. Life leaves gifts everywhere. It is messy and the packages are hastily wrapped, the look-here messages scrawled in shadows. Life says hey, your cat is on the neighbor’s roof, and listen to that yowling, is that not the best yowl you’ve ever heard? Life says taste this tomato, taste it warm right from the earth, let the juices dribble down your chin and, dear God, but isn’t this the best tomato ever? Life says there’s a flower blooming in the night; it will be open for your pleasure until morning’s light, and look at those petals, white against the darkness — isn’t that the best blossom ever? LIFE SAYS INHALE. Life also says your mother is dying, take her hand and remember her eyes, it will be all right, there are secrets I’m not telling you yet. Life says you may feel penniless, but walk into the day, the sun is waiting with arms wide open, free for the taking. LIFE SAYS EXHALE. It is my friend Kelly’s 50th birthday today, and for her party she asked that life be celebrated. She asked, “How do you do it and what does it look like?” It looks like
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everyday, I thought. It looks like fallen flower petals, and it looks like rain. It looks like the sounds the birds make at dawn. It looks like the aisle of grocery stores when a song I love suddenly begins to play overhead, and I cannot help but dance a little dance. It looks like a sigh, a kiss, an unmade bed. It looks like
Cheerios in a white bowl with a bit of silence on the side. It looks like your team winning, but it also looks like your team playing the game for the joy of playing.
It looks like a plain vanilla cupcake in white paper, a dance with the wind, pink toenails, warm socks. It looks like jalapeños with breakfast and silver paint on the walls. It looks like a fire against the cold of winter, and a deep lake cool against a summer sky, and it sounds like Steve Earle and Bob Dylan and sometimes Taylor Swift. It looks like chick flicks, books that make you cry, and all the candles blown out on the first try. It is all the stuff you forget so easily and all the stuff you can never forget. It is the cat racing across this keyboard, leaving numbers and symbols typed across the screen, yowling happy birthday. Is that not the best yowl ever? ≈
Read more musings on life at emmatree.com.
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Passionate by Madelyn Mulvaney
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his morning is tea and dogs and a bird wearing love sonnets. A dazzling lurch of sky. Also magical branches like galloping swords and thick Irish socks the color of clotted cream. New books (a return to love and a book of bees), then handwritten letters and pretty stamps in a jumble of colorful markers. Comings and goings — mostly to the cupboard for almonds and handfuls of dark chocolate covered blueberries. Stringing turquoise and stone beads on a delicate indigo thread. Beautiful, beautiful music. Yerba Mate tea and raspberry muffins. Yoga up in the bedroom loft — stretch, unbend, breathe, let go ... (with Lucy on the pink quilted bed) This morning is carefree, exploratory, and a list of things I crave ... things I fall in love with. I fall in love every day in the best possible way — with outdoor concerts, dance lessons, bonfires on the beach, homemade pizza, small pebbles in pockets, pale green apples, and yellow butterflies. Here: I want to share something with you. » BELLAGRACEMAGAZINE.COM
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by Jillian Lukiwski
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I love it when the dark horse wins. Actually, I love to be the dark horse. When I find myself in a dark horse position, here’s what I like to do: 1. Meet up with the folks I am competing with and be my regular curious, dorky, runty self. I am very physically unimpressive to look at so everyone pretends to not really notice me until I force them to talk to me by offering up chipper hellos and introducing than not, strangers want to impress and test the dark horse so they talk a lot about their sponsorships, make a big deal about their malamutes and generally look down in disbelief at the little brown bird dog by my side.NOTE: You can make yourself an even DA RKE R dark horse if you are the only competitor running a single dog. No one can take a single dog team seriously. Come on now. 2. I tie on my racing bib. Wait in line for the staggered start. Put on my skis. I want to have fun, but I also want to win. I want to win really badly. I want to be the best of the day. I want my dog to be celebrated. 3. When the official yells at me to start, I ski until I feel like my heart is going to fall out of my chest and my shoulders feel covered in flames. I step skate all the corners and do NOT slow down for them. I ski so fast I am on the brink of being out of control at times. I double pole relentlessly, stab the ground over and over, bend my knees, push off with at the top of my lungs — he likes my enthusiasm and digs in a little deeper when I call out. We are relentless, my dog and I. 4. When I catch a ski tip in a snow machine rut and suffer the worst arse-over-teakettle wipe out in the history of my skiing career and Tater proceeds to drag me at terminal velocity about 15 feet down the trail, face first, I get up, untangle the lines, check if I have a nosebleed and ski even harder until I reach the point of bodily fire again … 5. … then, I sustain that burning state of exertion, pass the skier who started before me, ski on, hard and fast, and four miles later I cross the finish line. And smile. Big. 6. Then I kiss my pup right between the eyes and tell him he is the fastest, strongest dog of the day. Then I hug my husband when he runs over with his cowbell and stopwatch to tell me that I crushed the competition and the nearest time to mine is nearly two-and-ahalf minutes off. 7.
Follow along with Jillian Lukiwski on her blog, thenoisyplume.com.
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