Hello friends

I hope this finds you doing well.

As always here are a few good things, fresh and friendly  to help get your weekend started on a relaxed note – – – –

A Good Word

David Gate

A Good Look

What book would you be reading right here?

Find more of this gorgeousness HERE

A Good Laugh

This ones for the fabric hoarders

A Good Idea

Hang Your Hammock

from KJ Ramsey

There is a spot near our little apartment with two trees perched near enough to one another to hold my hammock.

So, I wrap my straps around their trunks and decide it doesn’t have to be “too awkward” to be five feet from my neighbor’s window, because rest is worth a little awkwardness to get there. And there ain’t nothing like a hammock to hold you when you’re hurting or generally need to welcome home that little child self who—let’s be honest—like every single one of us—CEO and/or chronically-depressed—just needs to be held.

There, between the trees, I see:

That home inside you
—where you are always welcomed back
and are never too damn emotional
or strung out on striving + self-protection
to have a spot—

the only spot near enough to home
is the place between the trees
of truth and tenderness.

It can take some courageous bumbling around to stake your place between those trees.

I guess on this ordinary Tuesday night as I rest the hell up, I want you to know:

there is still a place where you can be held.

And I hope
you’ll let yourself string up that hammock of ye old heart. (Forgive me, I get cheesy when I’m tired.)

Rest isn’t a beach vacay.
It’s renouncing all the voices
that say you can only be as loved
as your performance over this past day.

A Few Good Reads

How Walking (Just Walking!) Changed My Life

When I was in college, my roommate, Kristi, convinced me to go to the gym with her. I remember feeling intimidated. I was slight, pale and Goth-leaning with oxblood lipstick and zero muscle tone. I was certain everyone could tell I was an imposter in borrowed Lycra.

I reluctantly climbed on the bike next to hers and started pedaling. The gym smelled like sulfur and boiled ham but apart from that, it wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was almost kind of fun. I thought the point was to go as fast as you could so I pedaled like a beast on blurred cartoon legs.

Kristi warned me to pace myself but I felt fine. I remember thinking: This is my first time at a gym and I am on fire! I am going twice Kristi’s speed and she goes to the gym every day! Might we even be talking… Olympics material? After forty-five solid gold minutes, I slid off the bike in triumph.

But as I strolled over to the water fountain, a curious thing happened: I noticed that my legs had turned into rubber bands. All gym sounds suddenly muffled and before I knew it, I slithered down between two bikes and passed out cold. I was driven back to my dorm in an ambulance. In front of my crush.

And that was it for me.

For years, I thought Health belonged to the Health Nuts: the SoulCyclers, the Vegans, the Celery Juice Drinkers, the Run-Every-Day-No-Matter-What-ers. Health was owned by people like my friend, Jamie, who did a yoga headstand while in labor with her second child.

Good for her, I thought, and yahoo for all those other people, but I did not inherit that gene – – –

– – – keep reading

WHERE DO YOU FEEL AT HOME IN THE WORLD?

“On a steaming hot evening in early September, we board a west-bound plane, where, in twenty-nine hours, we will next touch earth in China. As we rumble down the runway, as the nose angles upward, as we lift into the air, I already miss the lamplight glow next to our couch.”

Tsh Oxenreider,  At Home in the World

When your friend Tsh Oxenreider writes a book and calls it At Home in the World and then asks you where you feel at home in the world, you might have to think about this for a day or seven.

The first place you think of is an obvious one. But the second? Well that second one takes you by surprise– – – keep reading

Jennifer Hudson Knew Aretha Franklin. To Play Her, She Had to Learn More

For the new biopic “Respect,” the singer researched the life of a years long friend and role model to better understand the circumstances that shaped her.

Jennifer Hudson had plenty of time to think about how to portray Aretha Franklin onscreen. In 2007, soon after Hudson won the Academy Award for best supporting actress — for playing a girl-group singer in “Dreamgirls” — Franklin told Hudson she should play her in a biopic, starting a decade-long friendship filled with weekly conversations.

Like Franklin, Hudson grew up singing in church, and she has poured gospel virtuosity into pop songs. And like Franklin, whose mother died at 34 of a heart attack, Hudson experienced sudden, devastating loss: her mother, brother and nephew were murdered in Chicago in 2008. In her career, Hudson has repeatedly paid tribute to Franklin, from using a Franklin song for her “American Idol” audition in 2004 to singing “Amazing Grace” at Franklin’s funeral in 2018. Now, Hudson is playing Franklin in the biopic “Respect” that comes to theaters this week.

“Every artist, every musician, you’ve got to cross paths with Aretha, especially if you want to be great,” Hudson said in a video interview from Chicago, where she lives; her gray cat, Macavity, prowled in the background. “She’s always been present in my life in some form, even when I didn’t know it.” – – –  keep reading

That’s all for now friends. Enjoy the reads and have a beautiful weekend, rest up, do something you love xx