Tag: life

Cozy Posts

Stormy October Morning

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Hello, dear readers, dear friends. It’s been a little while since I’ve written here and I thought I’d draft a snippet of a picture for you all of a cozy, little morning on this stormy, October day. I invite you to bundle up in a big, comfy sweatshirt or a warm sweater and imagine yourselves drinking something rising with swirls of steam that warm your cheeks, the ceramic of your mug pleasantly hot against your palms and fingers as you join me on the big, blue couch. Help yourself to a squashy pillow for your back or a warm throw for your lap. Kick off those shoes, put your feet up, and get yourselves nice and comfy.

The wind howls outside and the waves of the Atlantic are churned, abundant with choppy white. The branches of the trees dance, the fragile leaves rustle, and the seagrass bows with the occasional strong gust. The bones of our home creak with each brace against the elements, sheltering us well from the storm as we look on from our perch, set high in the hill.

Inside, the lamps are glowing, casting little pools of gold in the corners of the room. The curtains are open to take in the view of the gray, blustery day outside- a Nor’Easter, in fact, a storm not bad enough to have a name, but a storm no less.

I taste the faint hint of orange peel in my tea and savor the lingering warmth from a hearty breakfast of steel cut oats with peanut butter and maple syrup. Soon it’ll be time to reheat the kettle. Would you care for a cup? Tea, hot cocoa, coffee perhaps? How do you take it? Milk? Sugar? Cinnamon?

Today calls for reading, don’t you think, something inviting and adventurous. I’ll pick a book or maybe two from the wooden shelf stocked with favorite reads, family photos, handmade pumpkins, and the little, wooden chess board that my dad made. Where shall we venture today, friends? I’m favoring a visit to the Burrow, myself, I think. I slide Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets off the shelf and flip to page 32 for a healthy little dose of cozy.

I’m a skip ahead-er when it comes to my favorites, finding the scenes that evoke a sense of comfort for me. Any other skip ahead-ers here with me on the big blue couch this morning? What are you reading today? Where are you off to in the imaginary world? Who are you off to see? To meet?

The rain drip, drip, drips from the door overhang outside and the neighbor’s coffee pot bubbles next door. I still miss the sound in my own kitchen some days.

I imagine the deer, who often visit, sheltered from the wind this morning, huddled and warm somewhere beneath a colorful arbor of branches, enjoying a breakfast feast of lingering greenery and late blooming flowers, undisturbed by people.

I’m headed to the Shire next to savor some peaceful nature, myself. It feels like a good time to pay another visit to a merry band of sweet, brave hobbits I’m acquainted with as they embark on an adventure that I’m absolutely certain will be bigger than four little hobbits could ever possibly anticipate, while somehow being just the right size, all the same.

You are welcome to linger as long as you like. Don’t mind me. I’ll just be nestled over here in the crook of the long, cozy seat of the big, blue couch with some squashy pillows for company, wandering another world for little whiles at a time.

Books · Cozy Posts · Travel

Monday Observations

Beth DeFries4 Comments

I’ve been waiting for a cool, gray day where the seagrass sways and the rose of Sharon bows in the damp and the breeze. The curtains billow at the open windows, faithful spectrals awaiting loves long lost at sea. Come back to me, they whisper, unanswered. I don’t have the heart to tell them.

The ocean’s an unraveled bolt of fabric, pre-hemmed with white and ready to cut, too unwieldy for the machine, too expansive for the hand, destined to sit on the shelf, admired and fading, to inspire projects too elaborate for fruition, aspirations never addressed, dreams destined to remain unrealized.

A freighter snails its way along the horizon line, containers catching the view from the highest stack. “Bon voyage, mes amis!” je dis, “Et merci pour votre service!” I’ve been practicing my French again. Montreal’s this week et je suis un peu rouillée, j’ai peur.

I write at the window, sipping Earl Grey without caffeine, feeling the lack of coffee today, but that’s ok. We cut our demons for a reason, right? We feel the lack of them sometimes, but we must carry on. The golden glow of the table lamps helps to fill the void left behind by coffee’s lack. I savor over-steeped bergamot instead, robust and resonant in flavor. I warm my cheeks, my hands in swirls of steam.

I’m feeling the doubt of sharing a long-form fiction project with a handful of friends a couple of weeks ago now, doubt being my greatest talent, or at least sometimes that’s how it feels. I bolster myself. Have courage; it’s there somewhere inside your head, in your heart, in your gut. Be proud of your words, that collage of letters, chapters, characters built in your mind. You love them and they deserve the chance to be read.

It’s Monday and I’m getting excited for the new adventures this week will bring, the sights and smells and tastes and sounds of a place I’ve never set foot in before. This week, I also anticipate finishing reading a series that I’ve been reading for over a year now.

I went to forty-sixth and second in New York. They sell roses at the market on the corner across from Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. There is no turtle in the fountain, but the fountain is there and I wondered if anyone has reached the tower sitting there in that little urban oasis, tucked away from the fray, somehow in another world. In. Mid. End. Keystone. There’s just one thing left to do. Read. And then I’ll know what it was all for, this journey, this year. And when I’m done, I’ll buy a rose from the market and I’ll leave it on a bench for another adventurer to wonder at. For what is life without wonder? What is life without intrigue and imagination?

Nostalgic Posts · Poetry

The Adventurers

Beth DeFries1 Comment

We live for adventure, you and I.

We live for it here,

for each step, each breath, each song

sung along to in the kitchen, the shower, the hallway,

doing laundry and dishes that have to be done.

Life is a beautiful mess with you.

The mess just means we’re living.

We wear out our shoes and our jeans,

our socks and our old tee shirts.

There’s sand in the bath, hair on the sinks, and trash in the waste baskets.

We live and it shows.

It sounds and it looks and it smells like us here,

as it should,

as we’d live it.

We crave the smiles and expressions,

the weekend mornings spent lounging,

reading books and articles,

watching shows and “content” and DVDs,

playing games about planes,

even booking tickets on real ones, every so often.

We capture little moments throughout the day

and keep the ones that stick to make us smile later on.

We savor quiet nights, cooking aromas, and sampled tastes,

the smell of sunscreen and oatmeal in the mornings,

cold cream, soap, and toothpaste at the end of the day.

We capture visions from hilltops, from mountains, 

climbing up the little bumps on the world

to soothe our hunger to explore.

We store them in our heads and in pictures,

file them away for use in our dreams, our memories.

We make shadows in the sun,

heat at our backs, giants on pavement, 

their footsteps synchronized with our own,

tagging along on our meandering journey.

We set our sights on now and tomorrow and the next day, 

only looking far ahead when it’s practical to

which, let’s face it,

you do for the both of us, oftentimes.

We are an amateur cover band with no audience, 

singing bluegrass, indie, rock, and pop

to the tiles, the walls, the car windows.

We are background noise you only get on the hundredth listen,

wandering a broad and varying soundscape.

The music is often on, it seems,

but sometimes there’s silence and we like that too.

There’s sleep 

and days full of nothing

but sitting with you on the big blue couch

in this place where we live for the adventure that’s living,

in this place where we live,

you and I.

Mental Health · Poetry · Social Media · Travel

On Crickets and Fireflies

Beth DeFries3 Comments

I was reminded last week, by some truly lovely friends, that a handful of people actually read this. They brought up that I’ve been “pretty quiet over there” for a while. I was surprised that anybody noticed, to tell you the truth. I’ve been a little blocked with the personal stuff lately, see, or maybe just a little more reluctant to share for worry that people aren’t interested because that’s how it seems when you send personal writing out into the world and get crickets back. It’s pretty quiet from where I sit too sometimes. That’s just part of the process though, I tell myself. If people want to engage, they will. If they don’t, they won’t and that’s just fine. I need the outlet either way sometimes, the one way radio, so to speak.

The inspiration for the stuff that seems to do well with my readers on here, whom I don’t actually know- poetry (which still surprises me) dried up soon after I nixed coffee over two months back, which I don’t really understand, other than to know that I’ve never felt more emotionally stable than I do these days. Wouldn’t it be nice if the urge to write some rhymes or freeform comes back and I get to keep this nice, calm brain? Is life that good? I sure hope so.

It’s been hot here in NJ for the past few days after feeling like March for weeks beforehand. I was tired of the rain and the cold, but I wouldn’t mind if the cool, stormy weather came calling again, looking for a place to crash after a flight delay.

We took a trip to Miramar Beach, FL this month. I didn’t write about it and I probably won’t beyond this. It was restful and fun with a lot of family time that made me smile and a few dips in the turquoise Gulf that’ll have me missing that beautiful, warm water with each icy plunge into the Atlantic this summer.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was lucky enough to see some really wonderful friends last week, then some more later in the week, one of whom I hadn’t caught up with in many years. I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch, it turns out, other than writing here and even that’s not been so good lately. I don’t even use social media anymore. It felt too inauthentic, the line between “friends” and strangers too blurred.

When I’m with my people face to face, I try to make up for lost time. It’s always so refreshing to see a familiar face, to hear their laugh or tone of voice, or to catch the unique little mannerisms or humor that make my loved ones who they are. It’s like watching fireflies in the indigo night, little blips of brilliance that transform the dark to magic.

I hope you are all happy and staying cool and thank you, as always, for reading. And thank you, Jean, for calling me out. I needed it. 💖

Health & Lifestyle · Healthy Habits · Mental Health · Minimalism

Reflections on My No Buy Month

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

The house is a mess today. I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with that and I don’t plan on cleaning much. Maybe tomorrow. And that’s a hard maybe.

Yesterday was tough. February’s been a little tough so far, actually, but I think I’ve walked into some realizations, some signs marking the next turnoff to get back on the right track. I’ve got the GPS volume turned up high so I don’t miss it!

I completed my no shopping challenge with success in January and welcomed February with relief. I think I threw some stuff from my Amazon wish list into my cart at like 12:06AM on February 1st and immediately hit Proceed to Checkout. Granted, these purchases were needs rather than wants, but still, pretty embarrassing in hindsight that it only took six minutes into February to shop. Anybody else like this? If so, hope’s not lost! First, though, some background.

I quit coffee altogether for five months this past spring and summer. Before that, coffee was definitely something I relied on. I understand caffeine withdrawal like a pro. I’ve had splitting headaches that I didn’t understand until it hit me that I hadn’t had my coffee in X amount of hours. The fix was easy and all too accessible. Coffee is something I consume in moderation now, like everything else in my diet, and I try to remember the sense of dependance, anxiety, and physical discomfort that coffee represented for me in the past when I relied on it too much.

Hitting Proceed to Checkout at 12:06AM on February 1st and the subsequent dopamine release I experienced reminded me of those accessible caffeine fixes. Maybe shopping wasn’t just a habit. No; I recognized a problem.

Not buying stuff in January felt freeing. I wasn’t waiting on packages or tracking shipping. I didn’t have to drive anywhere to drop off returns. I didn’t have the shame I experience from the buy and return cycle. In January, the saving was the addiction and it felt great and I’m not just talking about money. Think about the time, the energy, the decisions that go into the cycle of shopping, or any bad habit- for that matter. And yet, shopping, once an available outlet again, overtook that sense of peace? Why? I had to get to the bottom of it.

I allowed myself to buy a few needs for the first few days of February, but soon found my wants encroaching. Precious time was lost to the scroll and limited mental energy- to decision fatigue. I have what I need! I tried to shout it in my head, but it came out meek. I preferred how I felt in January. I wanted that peace again, that time, that energy. I set a modest budget for the rest of the month for shopping, wondering if maybe the total deprivation of January was what led to “the itch” to shop as soon as January ended.

Now, let’s talk yesterday. Yesterday, I made a pact with myself to nip this habit in the bud and replace it with more constructive practices. I found myself distracted throughout the day with the craving to head to Marshall’s to buy things that I don’t need. Why? Procrastination, discomfort. When we have things that are difficult that we are supposed to be doing, it is uncomfortable. Discomfort is trigger numéro uno for me when it comes to giving in to bad habits. I learned that in my diet. I learned that in my creative pursuits. Heck, I’m writing this now and it’s not comfortable. I get help out of reading things like this, though, so in hopes that at least one of you will too, here are my reflections on the matter.

Yesterday afternoon, I got dressed with the thought of going to Marshall’s while simultaneously warring with myself to not go to Marshall’s. I left my home and went to my car. What are you doing? Just where do you think you’re going, missy? I said to myself. I got to the first stop sign and told myself, go for a walk instead. Get some energy out. Get some exercise, and maybe this idiotic craving will go away or at least become less noticeable.

By the magic of the gods I listened to me; which doesn’t happen nearly enough, I am sorry to say. I went to the park and started my walk. I ran into a woman I now know by name as I frequently see her on my walks. She said hi and called me by my name and said it was good to see me. That little bit of connection, that little tiny bit of recognition made me smile. I wouldn’t have gotten that at Marshall’s and I would have been short one smile yesterday. Thank you, Pamela.

I walked for about forty-five minutes and as I did, my thoughts turned to things other than shopping. I thought of minimalism and frugality, of mindfulness and the people in my life. I thought of the things that bring positivity and things that bring the opposite. I thought of things that fall into both categories- the people too. I made a mental list. At the end of my walk, I felt calmer. I went home and did some writing I’d been putting off. I watched an old Kate Kaden video on frugality and minimalism. I read some posts of Leo Babauta’s on his blog Zen Habits. I inched toward my center again. I felt my feet firmly on the ground.

This past year, I have learned a lot about myself, accepted a few glaring shortcomings, and been hit by realizations that probably could have been addressed by going to therapy at some point in time, but hey, maybe someday. And that’s a hard maybe. It takes a brave soul to speak your truth out loud to a real life person and I don’t know if I’d exactly be sorted into Gryffindor any old day of the week. I tend to internalize and the wisdom dawns slower, but it dawns all the same.

If you are a person who struggles with addiction and would like help, I hope you can recognize the strength that comes with reaching out to a loved one, a friend, a professional, a support group, heck-even reddit. There is not shame in seeking support and you are absolutely worth others’ time and energy.

Thanks for reading, friends. You are so loved and appreciated. Wishing you a February full of strength, clarity, gratitude, and all the good things! 💖

Health & Lifestyle · Music · Reviews & Reflections

Standing on [the] Bleachers

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

Good Morning. I’ve been hooked on an album for the past few days, filling the quiet with constant sound because it makes my brain feel good. It’s distracting in the best way and has had me dance writing in giant headphones for a few days now. If you’re feeling like you could use a little more head bobbing, leg bouncing, and shoulder dancing or just a healthy distraction in your week, join me in a listen.

I know it’s been a lot of posts lately. The reason for this is procrastination and overwhelm on my longer writing project. It’s getting there, but it can get there later for right now. I write here because if I don’t, I won’t write there. My type-A personality would have me organize my creative distractions in a spreadsheet and address them in a reasonable order, but that’s not how reality works and recently, I feel a little like a lamb searching for grass on a construction site. Huh– where did I get turned around? How long have I been gone from the pasture? This music is leading me back though. Isn’t “Dream of Mickey Mantle” great?

I went for a run along the beach trail the other day, going a little too fast because adrenaline allowed and it felt good to focus on the pleasant pain of blood pumping in my legs and behind my ears instead of other things. The wind was loud and sharp and the air was salty and fresh. I was exhausted after two miles, but the stretch after was soothing and necessary. Stairs will be tough for a day or so, but that’s part of the fun, no?

I watched Mike run his first half marathon in October my senior year of college. I was amazed that people run that much for fun and actually look happy doing it. After the race, he jokingly asked me if I wanted to do one sometime. I was like, “You’re joking, right?”

He was joking, and yet, the itch to do something BIG crawled onto my skin, seeped into my pores, and sank into my veins. Could I run 13.1 miles? Yeah; I could.

My times weren’t amazing, but I ran the North Jersey Half Marathon twice and felt good for ten miles both times and then felt like my legs would fall off for the last three, which is weird because you need legs to finish the race, and I was determined to finish. I remember a sign that one of the spectators held. She sat in a wheelchair and held up a poster board that said, “Pain is temporary. Pride is forever.” It is what got me through my first race. It is the mantra I used for my second. I think about that sign all of the time because to this day, it urges me to accomplish things that are tough.

A friend of mine recommended an incredible book by Glennon Doyle called Untamed. It is a memoir by a woman who did hard things because she realized she could do hard things and that she needed to. I know I can do hard things too. I need to do them. I know because I’ve done them before. No obstacle is too big, no distraction too consuming. If life were easy all the time, the good parts wouldn’t be so good.

What song are you on now?

To reduce less healthy distractions this week, I started listening to music while I write. Normally, I’m horrible at this type of multitasking, but for some reason, this album is fueling me and my fingers are flying. I did make the mistake of watching the music video for one of Bleachers’ newer songs, Tiny Moves, and it is incredible. Don’t watch it unless you have a nice chunk of time, because it is beautiful and you will want to watch it more than once. The video features Margaret Qualley who choreographed, starred, and co-directed the video and Bleachers front man, Jack Antonoff, her husband. I feel a weird connection to Qualley since usually, when people ask me, “You know who you remind me of?”, I could now just answer yes, since the answer is more often than not Andie MacDowell, Qualley’s mother. I shared the link for the video with my friends to whom dance was a huge part of life at some point – it never was for me; I haven’t the talent, but I always wished I could. I’ll happily settle for the talents that I can call mine though.

I got my first “real” haircut since December 2018 yesterday and honestly, it’s just fine. I never was one for salon small talk, so when the pandemic was like, try cutting your own hair, I was all for it. My self-hair cuts were fine too, not to mention free, so maybe the salon and I will do battle in another six months to see who gets to hold the scissors.

The independence of certain skills can be very freeing. Cutting my own hair and doing my own sewing alterations were difficult skills to learn, but they allow me to minimize interactions that I find tedious and that makes the pin pricks and temporarily looking like Samara from The Ring a little more worth it. Making a story outline was similarly difficult to figure out, but I know I picked up the other skills well enough so I have high hopes for what I’ve put together.

I just realized that my head has been bopping the entire time writing this. The music’s getting in my blood, the words are singing in my head. I’ll go for a run in a little bit and the wind in my ears will join the symphony and it will be a brain pounding and body pumping with healthy distraction. I will write words. I will read words. I will stretch mentally and physically, escaping into Gone Now, because it just feels good.

Have a weird day; have a fun day; have the best day you can. Get up, get dressed, brush your teeth. Do something little, because lots of little somethings lead to something big.

Love,

Beth

Health & Lifestyle · Mental Health

Let’s Hear it for the Boy

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

A friend of mine once asked me how I come up with ideas for my blog posts. I confessed to her that my process is not so thought out, but rather a let’s just see what happens approach. If I feel like I have the stamina to write something for the blog on a particular day, I open my laptop and hope to be inspired.

Most of the time, to my own astonishment, it works and words string into sentences and paragraphs like a dream. There have been seven times (maybe eight with this one, who knows?) when it hasn’t, but I have grown used to ignoring the number of unfinished drafts in my writing view of the blog. Maybe one day I’ll devote fresh eyes to those, but for now the back burner is big enough to hold them all, so there they will sit for now.

Sometimes a title comes first – sometimes a particular line of a poem. Sometimes a memory or a feeling gets typed out and sits alone on the otherwise blank page for a while until words fill in the space around it, disguising it amongst the forest of sentences and stanzas, seemingly equal to the rest.

I clutter with words. They are something I found again when I began to simplify things. Writing words brings me joy and so I do not set a limit on them.

I always wished I could speak as comfortably as I write, but something gets lost in translation with the whole words coming out of my mouth thing while simultaneously breathing and thinking. It’s nerve-racking to go off script when other people improvise. I often rewrite conversations in my head that have already happened. The ones that can’t be edited are torturous. I write conversations that will never happen as well and wonder how they’d play out in reality.

I used to have a debilitating fear of talking on the phone to strangers. Like, I was afraid to order a pizza growing up and I love pizza. There was even one time during college when I thought I left my wallet in a restaurant and Mike told me it was ok and to just call the restaurant and he was sure it would be there. All I can say in response to that is thank goodness that wallet was just stuck between the car door and the passenger seat of Mike’s mom’s car, otherwise it would have been irretrievable. I mean it was bad you guys.

To have an irrational fear of saying words as a person who loves words doesn’t make any sense and I let it limit me for way too long. I soon learned, however, to my relief, that I wasn’t the only one who had trouble on the phone.

The summer after graduating college, I got an internship as a scheduling coordinator at a rehearsal rental studio in Manhattan. I remember keeping a Post-It note in front of the phone at work with impossibly difficult information to remember such as my name, the name of the studio, and the studio’s phone number so that when my throat began to tighten when I picked up the receiver and my thoughts turned to static, I’d have some lifeline to hold onto. I know– tough stuff.

It wasn’t until I got a call at the rental studio from a boy who was clearly more nervous on the phone than I was that I began to get over this irrational fear. He forgot to give me his name when he booked and hung up before I finished asking for that info. I called him back to finish the booking, silently praising my Post-It note strategy, knowing that without it, I’d be drowning due to my overactive salivary glands that switched on as soon as I picked up the receiver. The boy picked up and admitted that he was nervous talking on the phone. I told him not to worry and that I was too sometimes (white lie- I know). I got his name and finished his booking and we ended the call, each feeling a little less alone perhaps and a little more comfortable on the phone. That phone call changed a lot for me and I grew confident in a career that heavily involved answering and making phone calls.

Writing helped me cope with my phone phobia. I used to write out everything I needed to say on the phone if I were making an important call; in fact, I still do sometimes. I have even learned that some of my friends do this too and it makes me feel less like a malfunctioning robot of society. Somehow, seeing the words written out in an order that makes sense before I release them from my mouth gives me confidence. You can’t, however, pre-plan most of life’s conversations. Like I said before, I clutter with words. They are shoved in the hall closet of my head like miscellany after panic-cleaning and I’d hate for something to fall out that would disrupt the order of the room. Sometimes, however, words fall out and get a laugh or a smile and those make the uncertainty of it all worthwhile.