Longtime Caller, First Time Listener
I want to go fast, both on my horse, and in life. I want to show up to a riding lesson once a week and be able to do everything at a gallop that I barely understand at the walk. The frustration and perfectionism that consumes me at my lesson, prevents me from finding my breath, my pause, my rhythm. Horses, like everything in my life, I take literally. It’s only and always “black and white”. There’s no room for a even a “muted beige” in my current rigidity.
Riding horses is about “feel”, but I am numb, speeding by at 100 miles an hour through each cross arena gallop. However, nothing is so great it can’t be explored in short strides, in slow doses? A gradual gain. Diversify over the “long term” they say. I need to think about my life the way I think about the stock market. Small gains, from numerous places over a long period of time…perhaps a lifetime?
Similar to the thrill of traveling the world from the confines of a great novel, the pursuit of happiness may be gleamed from savoring the small pockets of joy in the day to day grind.
I’ve begun a daily list of my small, joyful “pockets”. A constant remembering of awe, birthed in the ordinary.
I’m now attempting to wear my dreams like a loose garment. Allowing for breath to flow through, leaving room for what I can’t know today, but that will make sense tomorrow. Making the space for grace to enter.
I have a daughter. Emma George Gladis. EGG. I started this journal for her. I don’t want her to live in black and white. For her, I want Technicolor. In writing this, I hope to leave a piece of myself for her, to make sense of it all for me, and to help make sense of it all for someone else
There will be no set schedule. The grammar and musings will be unedited. Part journal, part poetry anthology, part book club, part design scrapbook, part "Dear Abby”, part karaoke… and the space for grace to enter. A melting pot of musings, pockets of joy and pondering the human experience. I’ve been a longtime caller on Substack, but it’s my first time listening.
More soon,
Beth
Small Pockets, Aug. 2023
-slow morning breakfast ritual of snacking and reading
-baseball caps (you can never have to many, in my opinion)
-my daughter’s laugh that brings tears of joy to my eye
-horse whinnies when they see your car pull into the barn
-women in circle bearing their souls
-breakfast in bed
-specks of green on burnt California hills
-Tension and release of a kettlebell swing
-a Garden of pinwheels
-early afternoon baths
-Sports documentaries
-dolphins dancing down the coast
-"Untethering from worry as a lifestyle"
-short walks
-early to bed, always
-wisdom and empathy gained from motherhood
-the Malibu lagoon
-being on "horse time"
-monarch butterflies on bright purple blooms
-the sound of hoofbeats after a few weeks away
-discovering new music while exercising
-old county music
-Brennen Leigh
-hot baths and smokeless incense
-owls hooting outside my window at 4am
-the smell of extinguished beeswax
-stone fruit desserts
-after dinner dance parties
-my daughter's laughter reverberating through my whole body
-searching for butterflies in the backyard
-guacamole on a hot summer eve topped with fresh cilantro and radish
-spicy mocktails
-farms with moss covered stone walls
-smell of woodland fern "rugs" post rain
-crickets who make the hills echo
-dancing sunlight on a post and beam barn
-heavy, worn, annotated hard covered books
-bees fine dining on extra large sunflower heads
-2 strangers chatting the entire 6 hour plane ride- sharing life stories
Thank you Chloe! You are so so sweet!💛
Been binge watching the neighbourhood in the Uk. This seems so natural to you. It’s amazing.