NaBloPoMo: What the Eff?

Because I have apparently lost my damn mind, I am going to do NaBloPoMo here and at Harrytimes 365 this month. I am also working full time teaching a class I have never taught before and writing a scholarly book. Oh and I have 2 kids. And, yeah. I am also writing a novel this month-- 50,000 words in 30 days.

I told you guys that we have started going to a Unitarian church, right? Well, over the last month, Ben and I took new member classes, and a couple of weeks ago we signed the membership book and became official members.

We came to a UU congregation because it seemed like a good compromise between Christianity and Judaism, a place where our kids could attend religious education classes and believe in something larger than Santa and the Tooth Fairy. What I found was a place to help me answer the big questions-- why are we here? What is "the good"? What happens when we die? You know, those questions.

I have started to understand that some of my ongoing anxiety issues stem from these questions and that the answers begin to lie in the practice of living mindfully. So that's what I am going to do here for the next 30 days. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, fat kid that I am, so this month, I am going to post things I am grateful for. Well, not things in the material sense. Moments. Lived experience. Everyday interactions.

On Saturday, listening to a lovely reflection on reimagining the sacred, I realized how thankful I should be for the unremarkable days, the ones that start the same and end the same and feature the same routine crammed in the middle-- the days that everyone says go so fast even though they seem to linger for more than 24 hours.

This month I will revel in the beauty of my ordinary life.