els omellons, population 190.

the rosemary is in bloom. the country road i took for 20 minutes to get here had so much rosemary along the road, and trees of all kinds: olive and almond of course but i think also some cherry and i don’t know what else.

now, after wandering around a bit in this absolutely adorable little down (cut short by the rain starting back up again), i am sat in the corner of the town bar with my coffee, listening to the (mostly but not all) old men arguing politics and farming issues (there were a lot of flooded fields on my way here), or perhaps complaining about their wives, who are all at home evidently. the wives are probably enjoying a quiet house–these men are so very loud.

every table in the bar is full but one, the single bar/restaurant in town. i am literally the only woman here except one of the staff, and let me tell you that it is still nice to be in a country where i don’t have to feel uneasy being the only woman.

the only direct interaction i have gotten is from a hunched-over old man leaning on his table, gesturing his newspaper at me, shrugging a whole conversation in his friendly “i don’t mean to bother you, just wanted to offer” manner. i kindly demure with a shake of my head and a slightly-frowning-but-still-friendly no on my face. after multiple additional shrugs, these of the “whatever, just if you want” variety, he walked away with the help of his walking cane, the kind made of metal, with the four little feet at the bottom for extra stability, that gets prescribed by the doctor for you. in the moment i marveled at two things: the consideration of strangers in a place i’ve never been, seeing me sitting by myself in a bar sipping a coffee, and two, how much we can communicate without a single word.

this town has no grocery store, no tobacco shop, no general store. not even a bakery, and that one surprises me here in spain, for usually, even the smallest town has a place to pick up your daily bread. other than this bar/restaurant i am in, i don’t see much for commerce at all, though there is a rarely-open olive oil shop by a local producer and a locksmith. despite all the lack in commerce, there is still a civic center, a place for town events, and an activity center for old people. there is still an outdoor pool and this bar and weekly farmers market.

what i am saying is that there are not enough residents to support businesses but the government is still supporting the town. it’s making sure that there are services and provisions and, most importantly, gathering spaces. third spaces–social spaces–are very important to spaniards. it seems that to a spaniard, a good social life is the highest value. they have recognized, rightly, the importance of community for our mental and, yes also, physical health. so the government makes sure there are places for everyone to go: places to run into your neighbors, to catch up, to not be stuck alone in your home.

for a euro twenty you can get a cafe con leche and hang out with a table full of your neighbors. maybe join in a game of cards, or dominoes. every bar has a table of men playing cards. i asked once what the men in our town were playing, and it was a card game called “botifarra” (which is also the name of a common sausage) played with a regular deck of cards. always just men, because as mentioned, the wives are at home enjoying the peace and quiet (and probably having their friends over for coffee at home).

i am finding my own peace and quiet here, in the foothills, with a simple life. on my way here, i drove down a back road and the song “feels like home” by bonnie raitt came on.

and i thought yes, yes it does.

i have found my place.

my place with the craggy boulders in the fields of olive trees and almond blossoms, with the mountains of prades to my south and the mountains of the pyrenees to my north, both within view on a clear day. with the rosemary and thyme taking over the roadways and blooming with wild abandon in thanks for just a little rain. with the good neighbors looking out for me and the little neighborhood bars welcoming me in, offering me a paper, but no pressure, thinking nothing of an artist writing in her little notebook in the corner, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

want to come walk the tiny villages and write in our journals with me? oh you can do that! take a look at the l’Artesania website to learn more.

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i was driving home from getting groceries, at the not-so-tiny-sized town down the road that has a full-sized mercadona. (mercadona, friends, is the grocery store in spain with a cult following. and i have joined the cult.)

on the way back i drove past a sign that said “SENAN, 7 km,” a sign that has piqued my interest multiple times. i said out loud, “i still don’t know what’s in senan.” yes, out loud. no, there was no one else in the car with me.

on that short drive home, i started cooking up a plan: a near-daily walk and journal in a new coffeeshop, field, or casal bar. every town, no matter how small, has a “bar casal,” a town bar. they’re usually small and full of families (not uncommon to have a small playground at a bar casal!) and low-key and they serve a good espresso every hour of the day. they’re supported by the local government, in an effort to make sure small towns still have enough life in them to keep people moving away (at such a fast clip) to the cities. usually that means the building is owned by the local government, and they rent it out for something like one euro a month to the proprietor willing to run a bar or cafe in a tiny town with perhaps just 100 people. this makes the business an affordable enterprise for someone willing to run a business in such a small place, and it creates a “third space,” a gathering place, for the residents. it’s a win-win. no one is getting rich off the deal, but everyone’s lives are richer for it.

so, I have decided to take on this challenge of walking my journal all around the 15-minute radius from the cottage, for multiple reasons. first, when I lived in barcelona 20 years ago, i would stop in a park or a bar nearly every day to write in my journal–and I miss that. now, I don’t have any desire in moving along any gentrification in the tiny towns around me, like has happened in barcelona, by sharing these places with you. i think we are safe though, given the shrinking populations of the thousands of tiny towns there are throughout spain.

there are over 8,000 “municipalities” in spain altogether, and the vast majority are so small and getting smaller, that they qualify for a variety of initiatives to repopulate “españa vaciada,” emptied-out spain. now do I think my little notes to you on substack are going to repopulate those towns? well no. but i would like it if at least more people knew about them.

i want people to know the spain outside the big tourist destination cities. the charm of a tiny poble in catalunya is unmatched, and more people should realize the beauty waiting for them just outside those gentrified, tourist-trapped cities. i’m going to start by sharing just the ones neighboring my own.

and so, that is my goal: drive to a neighboring town 15 minutes (or so) away, take a short walk, followed by a stop in a field or a bar or a coffeeshop with my journal. i’ll jot down in that journal what i saw in the town i walked around, the dirt road i wandered down. i’ll chart in my journal the beauty i found along the way. i might write down an overheard conversation or describe the space or the people. i may even comment on the contrast between my slow life in spain and my harried, anxious life in the united states.

and I’ll share some of those experiences here, for you. why not? i’ll get back my old journal-date practice, and i’ll share beauty with you. yes? yes.

okay great. it’s a plan. trato hecho, as they say here. well actually they say here, “tracte fet,” because… catalan.

i’m off to scout google maps for every last tiny town within a 15 minute drive radius around me, and their bar casal hours. in the meantime, here’s a few captures from a walk through and around my own town this weekend, during the height of almond blossom season.

be sure to notice the beauty today, friends. it still exists. it’s waiting for you. in times when the horrors persist, beauty is a way we get ourselves to persist, as well.

want to come walk the tiny villages and write in our journals with me? oh you can do that! take a look at the l’Artesania website to learn more.

There’s an old writer’s practice in journaling where you take a line from a book or poem and you use it as the start of your own writing. You steal someone else’s words ( of “Steal Like an Artist” would be proud) to get you started on your own.

Personally, I like to take a passage or poem that I’ve been returning to over and over again. Maybe it’s the first line of the poem but maybe it’s somewhere else in there, something that sparks a little light in your interior.

The poem I’ve been returning to over and over again is one by , and it’s a letter from Hestia, the Greek goddess of the hearth and home.

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You see, I went to a solstice party in December, and we were instructed to each bring a poem to read around the fire. I brought this one, after being told about Hestia at the Barcelona Journaling Festival in a session with Jon Sayers, where he introduced us to journaling in the method of Carl Jung. Jon’s workshop continues to shock and delight me, and it showed up again in finding this poem by Gill:

Advice from Hestia to Girls

You are not made of paper.
If you were, you would have
Turned to ash long ago.

You are more, Bone, and muscle,
And beginnings and endings–
Evoke that when the world tries
To convince you that you are small.

You are not stone. Your heart is warm,
But seek no homes in other people’s chests,
Seek no truths there while your own heart,
Each throb, reminds you of your true home.

You are not made of paper.
Paper is easy to use and crush,
And you were not made for that.
You were made flame first.

And fire is born knowing
its elemental nature.
It knows the mystic force in shining alone

-Nikita Gill

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Your visual prompt: Start by collecting colors and images that you relate to, or that feel encouraging and empowering to you. Maybe it’s the colors of flames, or maybe there are beautiful flowers or…. Whatever feels encouraging and embodying. With those bits, make a border of ephemera around your two page spread.

Your written prompt: Within that border you have just created, write your own letter of advice. Start with a line from the poem above- maybe you take the first line, “You are not made of paper.” Or maybe it is any other line within the poem–start where you want! Let that first stolen line of a poem be the start of your own poem of advice, encouraging and strengthening you and reminding you of who you are at your core. And whenever stealing, remember: always take note of the original author- give credit now, if for no other reason than you can remember who inspired you when you look back! but mostly because one should always, always credit.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last letter:

Other great moments of beauty to explore:

• The art museum in Valls, great for exploring Catalan artists from the area.

• On being a multi-hyphen person, and the end of the feasibility of a “career writer.”

• A so-enjoyable flip-through of a visual journal by Stacie Martinez.

• You have until Feb 24 to order Amie McNee’s next book.

Back in November, I attended the Barcelona Journaling Festival, and it was a glorious two days of returning to myself, just shortly after my ex had moved back to the states. It was two days of connecting with other people passionate about writing and keeping a journal, like me. Community and writing it all out. It was so needed. I keep returning to many of the journaling practices and prompts from those two transformative days, to get me through winter, to get me through this wintering period of my life.

I went to this festival, intent on one thing that I think was very important for its transformative powers. I had been writing daily for the two weeks before the event about the past, about the divorce, about the loss and the need to start over. But for these two days, in this space full of other journalers, I told myself I was not allowed to process the divorce or the loss. I was only allowed to focus on the rest of my life. I was to focus on the future, on the parts of my life: my writing, my artmaking, my life in Spain, the retreat home for artists and writers I was building. I was to focus on the building. Giving myself permission to step away from all the writing about the thing going wrong, and write about all the other parts of life so full of possibility and beauty–was so good. And Barcelona Journaling Festival was so very full of amazing presenters and workshop leaders. So many.

One in particular that I can’t stop going back to the practice she introduced us to was Amie McNee. She talked about her own past struggles, and how journaling got her through–and out–of it. She told us about how she got herself to a place where she could really value and prioritize the gifts she has to give to the world: her art.

It seems to have worked, because McNee published two books last year, and has just published another book this year. This year’s book I haven’t received yet but wow, both the historical fiction, “To Kill A Queen,” and the motivational goodness that is “We Need Your Art” were both just so, so good. This year’s newest book, “I Don’t Want a Job,” built from what started as a Substack post, looks incredible as well and I can’t wait to get the copy I ordered.

So, you ask, what was the practice that I keep coming back to? What short journaling exercise is an important part of getting me through? It’s a bit of talking about the hard, and then showering myself with love and acceptance, really. And what a gift the combination these two parts has been. Read below in the prompt to try out my version of Amie’s journaling prompt yourself.

(If you’re curious what a creative notebook is or what these written visual prompts are about, begin here or check out the full collection of creative notebook letters here.)

Your Writing Prompt: Set a timer for one minute, 90 seconds tops: spend this time really spilling out a quick release of emotion, of telling the most bare, honest, crabby version of the truth. Yell onto the page what’s wrong. Then when that timer goes off, write a letter to yourself from a mothering voice (and as Amie so wisely advised, if your own mother wasn’t great at comforting you, create that comforting voice you wish you had been given. Create your own comforting, encouraging, accepting cheerleader you need now).

Write a love letter to that hurting spot. Start with “of course you are sad, this is very hard. Of course you don’t have any energy right now. And then move on with that voice, not a blasé cheerleader that denies the truth, the hard, but a voice who sees in you a future that overcomes and is brilliant. That knows what you are capable of achieving. That believes you are more capable than even you can trust right now. That voice, she believes in you. She knows your goodness, your gift, your strength. Let her tell you all that you are able to do, let her envision a brilliant future for you. Not one that acts like it’s easy, but one that knows you are able of handling the hard. One that gives you permission to fully rest, that doesn’t rush you, that doesn’t expect stark discipline when what you really need is a nap. The voice of wise love and adoration. Write yourself a letter from that voice. She might make you cry, but they will be tears of release, tears of renewal. Tears that will let you get up and take that next step.

Your visual prompt: Review that love letter, that belief-in-you letter, and take a phrase or sentence that you want to remind yourself of again. Turn the page and write those words big, with a big fat marker or a brush pen or just an outline of bigger letters you can fill in. Take your time, make it **aesthetic** but please, please don’t worry about making it perfect. Doodle or scribble all around it, using bright or soothing colors. Maybe even get out the watercolors or marker set to really make yourself a big beautiful love note to yourself. In future days, you can turn to that page, take a few deep slow breaths while reading that love note to yourself over and over, and then start another journaling page with that very phrase, and see where it takes you when you repeat this loving truth to yourself. See what happens when you focus on the voice that believes in you.

Highly recommend:

• Attending the Journaling Festival in New York (August) or Barcelona (November) this year.

• Reading one or all of Amie McNee’s books:

  • We Need Your Art

  • To Kill a Queen

  • I Don’t Want A Job (which, may I remind you, is very different than not wanting to work!)

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last letter:

I am starting the new year slow but strong. And if you’re leaning towards the slow part of it, it’s not too late to do a little visioning of your own.

Long ago, I rejected the idea of new year’s resolutions. I’m more of a “spring is the start of the new energy” kind of girl, that resolutions facing cold, dreary, exhausted January were just asking to create disappointment in yourself. That moving with the seasons, with the agricultural year, makes a lot more sense for new projects and vows to grow into a better person.

But I’m also a planner lover, even if it’s a DIY Bullet Journaling planner. A new planner just begs for you to consider your plans for the new year, so years ago I replaced those resolutions with new year goals. New year bucket lists. New year habits to build over time. For a while I would pick a ‘word” for the year, setting a tone or a gentle reminder of where to focus and what to live into in this new year. Even if I wasn’t resolving to never eat sugar ever again, no not ever—I was starting to consider what the new year could look like and what it could become in time. January is also when I generally start planning my garden, ordering any specialty seeds, drawing up garden plans. It’s a gardener tradition! So in many ways January is the “how will I grow” month, you know, just sitting under cozy blankets, tea in hand, plotting and scheming what I could do after the thaw.

One thing I had never done, until this year, was to create a vision board. But this year, my friend Jeanne invited me and just one other friend (and let me tell you the joy in “being picked” has not lessened after middle school in me!) over for a New Years Day retreat. She made us gorgeous silk velvet eye masks, filled with rice, and lavender she grew in her garden. We did a meditation and journaling process, sat outside in the sun enjoying her lasagna, and then got to the stacks and stacks of magazines in the living room by the fire. Jeanne told us to just wander through the magazines, and pull out of them whatever we were drawn to. To make a whole stack of images and inspiration, maybe thinking about what we wanted in our new year. Nothing super structured, not on a hunt for specific things. But to just flip through the pages and see what called to us. Then we got to arranging on our boards.

Mine of course, had plenty of flower pictures, and lots of the word artist. I do plan to grow lots and lots of flowers this year, but I also think it was just as much the thought of surrounding myself, cocooning myself, in beauty. After glueing down those that made the cut, I still had a nice little pile of options.

I didn’t want to just toss away what had called to me.

So I brought that little stack home, and did some more starter pages with them. Starter pages are just as the name suggests: a start to a page. maybe it’s a little bit of washi, or a few bits of paper, or even just one. A starter page has a little visual bit started on the page- they’re great for getting rid of that blank white page fear, and make me want to keep journaling to fill them up.

Your visual prompt this week: If you don’t have magazines at home, ask around to friends, or perhaps visit your local library and ask them if they have old magazines set to go to the recycle bin. Make sure there’s a variety of options- including magazines you wouldnt’ necessarily normally read. Look not just for words or images but also for colors that call to you. Then once you’ve got entirely too much to choose from, start arranging and see what ends up on the board. Maybe that “board” is just the front first spread of your journal, you know, the one you’ve been waiting to put something special in. For that matter it could just be the next empty two page spread.

Once you’ve got that glued down, you’ll have lovely bits that shouldn’t just be tossed away! Anything that doesn’t make it into the spread goes into starter pages. Maybe add a little washi tape or a bit of some other design element, but stick to a single thing you pulled out, that drew you, per spread.

Your writing prompt: Take some time to look at your vision board, and write a letter to a friend, “showing” them your vision board, and what you think it means to you. Through the next week, use those starter pages to write about what you are drawn to in those images, using the cutout as a prompt or what you want out of this year. State your desires. Dream big. Hold your plans loosely, with an open hand. Know that dreams and desires may not happen in the timing or the way we want them to– but that we can keep working towards them, with a willingness to flow as things change: right along with them we adjust and let go and keep holding on. Right along with those changes we can allow ourselves to see how much bigger and better sometimes those initial ideas end up coming into reality.

In this dreaming, planning, and preparing month, I’d like to kick off with encouraging you to create your own vision board. Because I don’t know about you, but my need for visions of a better future didn’t stop on January 1. And my need for beauty, in these last days, has only gotten stronger. Beauty as survival, visions and dreams as forward motion. We need it all these days, friends.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last creative notebook letter:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

You can also support my work by sharing with others. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

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I have a secret to tell you.

No, not that one, another one: I am trying my hand at writing fiction.

In May of this year, I was still trying to plot out an idea for a nonfiction book I had been trying to lay out and figure out and answer niggling questions and concerns about it for over half a year. Something wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t want to let go of the idea, either. It just wasn’t coming together and then… suddenly it came together. But it came together in a completely different way than I could have ever imagined: it turned into a fiction book.

I have always said I’m no fiction writer. I have never understood how people just come up with whole worlds and this has always been some magical out-of-reach skill that I, as a writer, just was never going to have. I love reading fiction but I had made my peace with never writing it. I’m much more a reflecting-on-this-life kind of writer. But then, the nonfiction I had been wrestling with suggested I turn it into a fiction story, and like a whirlwind it came together for me.

No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. But what I will say is that the roadblock suddenly was unblocked. Like a flood, in the middle of May, I was writing up a story premise, and doing character sketches, and setting the story in a specific time frame and place, and for three days straight I was writing like mad, dreaming up all sorts of scenarios and story arcs and conflict and resolution.

I have never written like this. I have never thought like this. But I kept thinking about it, and writing about it, throughout the rest of the year. I didn’t get much of the actual chapters written. I think I was not ready to trust it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about-and writing about-this story. These worlds. And now, as the weather starts to cool and cozy season is upon us, I am settling in and excited to begin slowly chipping away at putting down really rough, unorganized un-fixed attempts. This next phase will be just getting down the story. Writing chapters.

My trepidatious but inspired exploration of fiction writing got me thinking about life, of course. Writing always reminds me of life.

And here’s what thinking about fiction has me thinking about life:
How much more would we accomplish if we just allowed ourselves to do things badly, and then fix it later? All those ideas and goals and dreams we have been noodling for months if not years, but we are hesitating: what if we allowed ourselves to do them badly, and then get better at it as we go? What if we stopped worrying about being good at it before we had even had a chance to try it? What if we allowed ourselves to be a beginner when we begin something?

So if you are at the edge of this really crazy idea, something you know nothing about, but can’t stop thinking about? Now is the time.

Be a beginner.
Start learning, start researching, and most importantly start doing.
Begin while you are still learning.
Begin before you are good at it.
Begin even though you are nervous, even though that debbie downer logical side of your brain says it’s ridiculous.

BEGIN.

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How about we practice this a bit, explore this a bit, in our safe space: our creative notebooks.

This week’s visual prompt: Pull out a few of your favorite markmaking tools- thick markers, colorful pens, the best soft pencil in your pencil case. Use those favorite tools to doodle numbers one through five along the left hand side of the page. Make them whimsical, ridiculous, colorful. One through five, going all the way down the page. Big, audacious doodled numbers all decorated with swirls and little bits and bobs.

And your writing prompt: Alongside those fun and funky numbers, list five fun and funky things you would do with your time if you weren’t worried about whether or not you were any good at it. Don’t think about what you’re talented at, or what you think od possible to eventually be good at. Don’t even think about what the purpose is. Just list five things you have thought would be interesting to try- especially those things that you thought had no purpose, or that you would be terrible at them. List those things.

Then take one of them, and write about it more. What’s stopping you? What would happen if you ignored that and did it anyway? What would happen if you took half an hour a day away from doom scrolling and instead played with this ridiculous idea you’ve had instead? What would that look like? The doing of it, I mean.
The beginning.

We’re not concerning ourselves with the results or the purpose or heavens definitely not what people will think of it. Okay? Just what would it be like to try it out? What could you do to ease in, to allow yourself time to just give it a shot, try it out, no pressure no expectations? Write into that space.

Write into the beginning of beginning.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

When I lived in Chicago for a short season of my life, I would attend art openings in the Pilsen neighborhood, visiting a gallery and studio and alternative space, one after another, on Second Fridays. It was really great: I saw a lot of great art, and a lot of really bad art, and I met very interesting characters. But it was a LOT.

And what I remember the most about those Second Fridays is needing to step outside the galleries at some point during the evening, to focus on just the sky, or just the sidewalk. My eyes and brain needed a rest. They needed space to settle down.

I think about that sometimes these days, as Americans face so much news, an onslaught of what the hell, and I mean that not as a swear but as a true representation of news of the day, every day. I think about it in my life, with so many things to do and so many changes happening and so many cultural and governmental shifts that I need to understand and take in and assimilate to.

Life is a lot, and sometimes we just need to stare at a seemingly blank space. To lower the input and for just a bit, to find calm. Maybe it’s just me, the urge to just sit and stare at the wall for a while, to let my mind and eyes come to an equilibrium after so much input. But I don’t think so. I think it’s a human response to overwhelm. It’s why staring out at the lake or ocean regardless of whether or not there are waves is so soothing. It’s part of what is wonderful about laying in a dark field looking up at the stars, quiet and reverent.

There is just so much input, and we need a chance to calm the noise.

And I have been needing that a lot lately. I have been needing it so much that I have been intentionally setting myself on a practice to turn off the input, if even for 10 minutes, to let my mind settle.

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Part of the practice (surprise! You had no idea, did you?) is recording that experience in my journal. I dial down the input to a blue sky or the dirt beneath my feet. I take a picture. I breathe, in and out, and just stare for 10 minutes. And then I go to my journal after those 10 minutes and write the observances and thoughts during those 10 minutes. What I love about this practice is that you really can do it anywhere. You can stare up at your ceiling in your room. You can lay down in a lawn to look up.

The sky is always above and the ground is always below. Wherever we are, there is respite from the input, from all the noise.

Let’s try it.

Writing and Visual Prompt:

Lay on your back, looking up. Maybe it’s your back yard, maybe it’s a park, or a field out in the country, maybe it’s the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. Wherever it is, just lie down on the earth and look up at the sky.

Set a timer for 10 minutes, no music, no nothing, just you, staring up. Just staring, interrupted only by a moment to take a picture. Then when the timer goes off, sit up, grab your journal, set a 2nd 10 min timer, and write about the experience. What did you notice? See? Hear? Think about? Was it hard or did you find it relaxing? Pick out on or a few selections of those images to a one hour WalGreens photo service (for example) or print out a low-res version on your home printer, and paste those in your journal opposite your writing. Draw a frame around them, doodle and label the images.

Later in the week, or the next day, do the same thing, except looking down. What do you notice, along with your shoes and socks? Where are you standing or sitting? What is the ground beneath your feet? How did it feel to shut off the world around and just look below? Again, print out a photo. Meditate on it while you create a frame of doodles of some sort. Slow down while you contemplate the experience of slowing down.

And then remember, my dear friend, that the sky is always above and the ground is always below.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

There is a lot, just so overwhelmingly much, happening in the U.S. government these days. And the problem with all that national politics is that politics affects local, personal, individual lives. It not only affects the everyday lives of everyday people–it is intricately interwoven into everything we do. It affects our interactions with strangers. Our safety. Our neighbor’s safety. Politics is always personal.

Politics is not some far-off thought experiment that we can discuss with differing opinions (like Libby Eddleman’s insight about Ezra Klein’s observations of politics in Gaza as if it’s a thought exercise vs Ta-Nehisi Coates’ observations of politics and how it affects lives). Politics is our lives, and it determines the quality and value of our lives. Politics determines our children’s education, our transportation, our health care, our access to opportunities and to our everyday infrastructure. And so much more.

This is not unique to the United States. It’s the same everywhere. Here in Spain, whether or not my little town has a pool and a doctor? That’s politics. Whether or not we still have a farmers market every week in the plaça, and the price of a lot of those fruits and vegetables? Yep, directly influenced and shaped by politics year to year. Here in Spain, and there in the U.S., and in every country, politics isn’t some nebulous, neutral debate topic.

Politics is the arrangement of our societies. It is embedded in everything.

And so, when I watch the political upheaval in my home country of the United States, I know it means personal upheaval for everyone living there too–and it means infinitely more upheaval for my immigrant friends, my black and brown friends, my lgbtq+ friends, my friends who depend on medicaid to keep their kids healthy… and so many neighbors of those friends, too. The upheaval in everyone’s daily lives has been weighing heavily on me. I am hurting for those who are hurting.

And from over here, other than writing my reps and voting when voting days come around, I don’t know what else to do. What can I do from over here in my tiny village in Spain?

Well, I can share with you a practice that may not overcome the upheaval but will help you survive it, and be able to fight it another day. Because one thing I know about upheaval is that it tries to distract you. It tries to unsettle you, to wear you down. And one of the best ways I know of for resettling, recentering, and reconnecting to the present? It’s to simply take a deep breath and look around you.

To stop, look right around you at the physical world, and name it. To make sure to also see the beautiful little bits right in front of you. Beauty will help us survive. So friend: today we are going to reconnect our bodies to the physical world right in front of us. We are going to hone our observational skills because not only is it a coping mechanism for the overwhelm of political/personal upheaval, but it then arms us to go out beyond what is directly around us, and to better see what is happening in the broader world, as well. And if we need anything right now, it’s to be able to center, and to be able to continue seeing clearly what is happening around us. To name the things. To say them out loud, to put them into words. To be witnesses, and to speak up, speak out. To name the thing without fear.

So no, this journaling practice you’ve been doing with me? It’s not useless and it’s not just a “silly little thing” to reconnect to beauty. It is survival and it is resistance. Observe around you. Name what you see. Name it clearly, directly, in detail. Stay in the present, and stay observant.

This week’s journaling prompts

First, let’s do a little Visual Play: Look around you. This week is all about honing our observation skills, so stop for a moment and see what you have right in front of you. What bits and scraps can you move to your journal that you find next to you? Perhaps it’s in the recycling bin in the kitchen, a wrapper or box or cookie sleeve. Perhaps there are post-its with reminders scribbled on them on your desk. Perhaps it’s in the drawer to your left, those stickers and stationary that you never know what to use for–maybe some of those bits and scraps can be arranged in the corner of a page. Gather those all together, overlap them, glue them down.

Writing Prompt: Now that we have started looking around us, looking enough to uncover hidden “treasure” to capture in our journals, let’s move on to our writing prompt this week. This week’s prompt is all about slowing down and describing what is next to us. Two weeks ago we talked about taking a visitor on your everyday routine or errands. Let’s continue with that reminder to start paying closer attention to our everyday lives. Today we are noticing what is right in front of us. Take ten minutes, set a timer (oh yes, I’m making you use a timer again) and spend that full ten minutes describing your surroundings. What is next to you, in front of you? No judgment, no assessment or opinions. Just straightforward description: there is a glossy, deep brown coffee mug from IKEA, with just a single sip left of cafe con leche in it, cold and deserted. Next to it, my red sunglasses, thrown aside when I suddenly realized they were still perched on my head and making that spot behind my ears hurt. Behind them, The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad, thrown on top of a pile of receipts and bills in no particular order. …. And keep going.

And then when you are done with your journal: friend, keep going. Sending love to everyone in the midst of upheaval this week.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last week:

For the second half of September, we have a visitor staying with us, as part of her scouting and research for whether she will be moving to Spain, Italy, or Greece. The lovely Victoria is an American who also has her Greek citizenship, which makes it much easier for her to up and move to… anywhere in the European Union, really. She has conditions: she is looking for inexpensive, she doesn’t need the beach, and she has to be somewhere that she could depend on walking or public transport instead of a car. Challenge accepted!

So of course, like when anyone comes, one of our first tasks is to get our visitors acclimated to the town. Sure, Google Maps exists, but we like to do a little walkabout to show them what’s available where, and just give them their first experience buying a few groceries, for example, with one of us along to help translate or assist with cultural norms.

So that’s exactly what we did on the first full day in L’Albi with Victoria. I took her around to the Bibliobus first. It’s a traveling library that visits our village every other Wednesday, a huge RV that’s been converted to hold hundreds and hundreds of books. Then we were off to the rest of the town. We stopped by both of the two grocery options: the olive oil co-op that also features its own miniature version of a BonArea grocer, and Quevieres Anna where along with basic shelf-stable groceries she could also pick up fruits and vegetables, meats and cheeses. We got the best yogurt on the planet at the co-op, and a local manchego cheese at Anna’s. Of course we stopped in to say hello to Nuria and her general store, packed to the gills with everything you could possibly want, from dishes to cleaning supplies to notebooks to clothing to batteries.

We picked up some Catalan Farmer’s Bread, “Pa de pagès,” and magdalenas at the bakery. We stopped at one of three banks in town so she could use the ATM to pull out some euros. All the shopping options were visited, giving her a good idea of what was available in town, and when she would need to go further down the road.

I know it’s helpful for our visitor, but it’s also so very good for me. It’s nice to see my little town from a newcomer’s eyes once again. Victoria, for example, is a photographer who is very drawn to textures and details. She brought me back to my own love of the textures of walls and doors, the way materials wear over decades and centuries when you let them- it’s beautiful. It is always a gift to be reconnected to beauty, right in your own surroundings. I will take any opportunity to have new eyes reminding me of the wonder of my own everyday place.

Which also, by the way, creates some wonderful fodder for a creative notebook exercise.

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Writing Prompt:

Let’s bring a visitor from another country through our everyday lives. In a letter to them, or like a script for what you would tell them about, take them on a walk (or drive, or metro tour) of your everyday needs. Explain the bakery that you go to for special treats, and the bread you get for everyday life. Talk about your rotation of grocery stores, your party store you stop at on the way to the park or yes, a party. Stop by your favorite coffeeshop with them, and talk about your favorite drink there. How is it different from what I’m drinking here in Spain? Maybe to get the wonder back, you’ll need to travel that route yourself again first, your normal Saturday morning errands, perhaps, except this time jotting down notes for your visitor as you go.

Visual prompt:

Your normal everyday activities can be charted, like artifacts worthy of study. Danny Gregory is well known for drawing his every day. So we’re going to take a page from his advice and draw our everyday moments. Make little doodles of the food you eat in a day, or buildings you enter, or the people you see, the tools you use (pencil, computer, coffee cup, car…)— the everyday matters. The more wonky the drawing the better. Have you seen Lewis Rossignol’s work? The more wonky, the more fun, I say. This is not about realistic representation. This is just about charting, slowing down, connecting. Grab your kid’s markers and color in some of it. Label everything.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

Back to school season, which has just happened this week in Spain, always gets me thinking again about those back to school shopping trips when I was a kid. I don’t remember the clothing shopping trips, but I do specifically remember the yearly trek to Lee’s General Store, just off the town square next to the Hallmark store, to pick out our class supplies. Lee’s had a selection of office and school supplies year round, more towards the back, but at the end of summer, they cleared out a whole aisle and a half right up front to make room for all the crayons, pens, markers, erasers, safety scissors and of course: Trapper Keepers. I loved that yearly visit for school supplies. I’d circle that aisle over and over, making sure I knew all my options before making my selections. I’d rummage through the folders to reach the back, making sure there wasn’t another color behind the rest that I didn’t know was available. I’d figure out a color theme for my supplies, so my scissors didn’t clash with my folder which didn’t clash with my 3 ring binder. Yes, I had a 3 ring binder, not a Trapper Keeper. Trapper Keepers were too expensive and, to be honest, a little too garish for my tastes, even as a child. Or maybe that was a defense mechanism, like the fox who couldn’t reach the grapes saying he didn’t really want them anyway. Trapper Keepers, as I remember them, were neon, or animal print, or something super bright and flashy. And I wanted something a little more “mature.” And so I’d pick out a baby blue 3 ring binder, and blue or white eraser, a pencil case with blue in it, and everything would match. Everything had to coordinate, because I was creating a mood, you see. A look. A statement about me, my personality, my style. As a kid whose clothes were nearly all hand-me-downs from my cousin Trish or found at garage sales, my clothes definitely weren’t making a personal statement–so it was important that something I was going back to school with felt like me, I suppose.

I still select my office and art and journaling supplies in the same considered, check out all the options and make a coordinated plan, kind of way.

Of course now, Lee’s General Store is gone, and there is this cheesy gift store in its place, with flowy lettering on faux worn wood and other “shabby chic” decorating bits long after shabby chic has gone out of style in the rest of the country. Bless small town Iowa, she’s always at least a few years behind. Lee’s went out of business after Wal-Mart showed up on the outskirts of town. I hesitate to believe that back-to-school shopping in the back of a big box Wal-Mart could be as magical as my childhood experiences in Lee’s. I am grateful that I grew up in a small town before Wal-Mart took over the United States. Still, in my 50s, every year, I would do my back-to-school supplies shopping. I would pick up a multi-pack of glue sticks (or three), some post-its in fun colors, a dozen of my favorite pens, and peruse all the notebooks and rulers and organizers and well… everything, honestly. I still went round and round the options to make sure I’m selecting exactly what I want. And, yes, I would also still look on in horror at the Trapper Keeper designs that, for reasons I cannot fathom, are still garish and still popular. They’ve even “gone retro” (i.e. copied the designs of my childhood) and then moved on again, which tells me that I am much, much too old to be back-to-school shopping every fall. Definitely too old to be looking forward to that special trip each August. But there it is: a magical trip, buying precious items that others just think of as basic necessities without much thought put into them, every year the kick-off to my fresh-start fall feeling, as everything gets back up to full speed and our days of applying sunscreen and bug spray, packing a book to read, and adding extra ice to our water bottles dwindle.

Of course now, in Spain, I am still learning where to go for my school supplies shopping. I’ve wandered through papelerias and librerías in plenty of locations, but haven’t yet found my perfect spot. I have learned, though, that glue sticks don’t come in big savings packs at back to school. The whole “buy in bulk to save money” thing? Not so common here. I have discovered some favorite brands, like Milan for notebooks and pencil sharpeners, so we’re getting there.

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But I’m still nostalgic for that old general store of my youth back in Pella, Iowa.

I get nostalgic and wistful at the transitions of every season, it’s true, but fall is definitely the strongest season. Fall still has that “fresh pencils and notebooks” kick-off feeling. And so, with that in mind, I thought it’d be a good chance for us to kick off a little fall preparation, now that it’s nearly the official start of fall. I know what you’re going to say. But to me, it’s still summer until September 21, and you will not convince me otherwise! I kind of think of the period between the start of the school year and that official date as our “transition period,” where we are ending summer while also preparing for fall.

So with that, let’s prepare:

Your writing prompt:

This week’s writing prompt is two-fold. First: tell me about your own memories of getting ready to go back to school. Maybe you were excited, like me, about getting new school supplies, or maybe you weren’t my brand of nerd but still some kind of nerd, so you also had some anxiety about how other kids were going to treat you during recess again.

Second: let’s shift from looking back to looking forward. What do you want to do this fall? I am not talking about what you want to accomplish at work, or what you need to get done, or what you hope to complete. Oh, no. We are not making a to-do list here. We are making an experiences list. As Elizabeth says, “schedule the fun first.” So make your checklist. Do you want to pick apples and make apple butter? Make a big batch of chai? Rake leaves with a child so they can jump in them? Go to your favorite park or national forest to take in the colors of the changing leaves? Make a list: at least ten experiences, ten beautiful moments, that you want to make time for this fall. Yes, that’s until December 21. Then rip a blank page out of your journal, re-write that list, and post it to your fridge. You’re going to want to check things off as you do them, so put it where you’ll see it often.

Visual play: gather up your favorite school supplies: pens and pencils, washi tapes, post-its, and so on. Think mark-making and paper bits. Do a bit of using each of them on a journal page: what do those pens write like? Do swatches of all your marker or highlighter colors. We’re not going shopping, we’re just doing an inventory, drawing ourselves back into the tactile and visual qualities of what we already have around us. Be sure to label everything: what is the name of the color? What is the brand? The pen width measurement? Do you notice you like thick lines or thin lines? Does your inventory stay very ordered along the page, or do you find yourself wandering and playing and winding around instead? Inventories don’t have to be boring, after all.

Enjoy your materials!

This week, you could also:

• Consider joining the fall retreat for Rest | Restore |Explore- you have until Oct 3 to make your decision!

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

Missed a letter?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

I’ve never been a real habit-keeper. Never had a “standard” breakfast I make every morning, never stuck to a routine very well–I’ve been very much a scheduler and planner, but not a “every day in the morning at x hour I…” kind of gal. That was all fine and good when I had a kid to get off to school at an early hour, and a job to get to at a specific hour, or meetings on the calendar to attend… even if they didn’t fill my day, those timed appointments and requirements built in a structure to my day that left just enough space to plan in everything else. It worked for me. Outside expectations created a half-full structure that then limited the time I had to do my own projects and finish my to-do list around it. That limitation, it turns, out, resulted in more getting done.

But this summer, my daughter wasn’t in school, and I didn’t have a job to go to (though I had plenty to do) and everywhere around me were festivals and events and people taking full months off work… there were no outside expectations. That, combined with some health problems (that we are figuring out and working through, thank goodness!), means I really was not my regular productive self this summer.

In the past, I would often get the “how do you get it all done?” question. People were impressed by all the projects I managed to take on, and finish. But these days it feels like I get very little done, and I’m frustrated with my own lack of internal motivation. I completely see why retired people get bored, frustrated, and their health starts to go down as their days have no structure to keep them moving. There’s got to be a healthy middle ground, doesn’t there, between the nonstop grind culture of America and the Spanish holiday attitude… somewhere?

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Well, this week the daughter starts back to school and the neighbors are all back to work and I am also finding that my need for more rhythm and routine has hit a changing point. One of the things I am stitching into my day is writing and journaling. I spend about an hour at my desk, writing on my “thocky” manual keyboard (like if you turned a typical typewriter sound down with some soft cushioning and a deeper sound, that’s when the clicky-clacky turns to thocky) for an hour a day with the London Writer’s Hour, and opening my journal every day, even if it’s for five minutes, to fill a page.

And when I say fill a page, I mean lots of different things- but one that keeps coming up is really chucking it full of paper bits, all the way to the edge, or filling it mostly with paper bits from my days, and then filling any remaining space with writing. It’s not my typical manner of journaling-I am usually more minimalist in style-but this is a good exercise, and it pushes me past what I would normally do. Of course, pushing yourself past where you would normally go is often a very good practice.

And so, as we all get back into our fall rhythms, hopefully glad to have schedules and plans back into a more structured existence as I am, let’s not forget to give ourselves that time to play, to explore and practice beauty, a routine as important as anything else on our to-do list in this overwhelming world. Even as our schedules fill, it’s important to take some time, even if it is just five minutes a day, to take a deep breath and fill a page. Whatever form it takes in your own life, may the healing powers of beauty be a part of your everyday rhythm.

And now for the prompts:

Visual play: As is usually the pattern for me, actually, today we’re starting with our visual prompt. On the left side of a two-page spread, fill a whole page with papers and ephemera. Not a single square millimeter of that left side page of your journal peeking out. Fill it all. Stuff it full. Get messy. Maybe even have it spill onto the right-side page a bit. You’ll write on the right hand side but there’s no reason the two sides can’t talk to each other, or banter back and forth. Got it all filled? Okay, now we can move to the writing.

Writing prompt: Pick out a favorite song, and two or three different pens/markers, at least one of them creating a nice and thick line. While you listen to that song on repeat, write out those lyrics on the right-hand side of your two page spread. Get all angsty and expressive like a college girl just discovering the smiths. Use a fat marker or a calligraphy pen or brush pen, you know, something that can really make a mark. Maybe write a line or two of those lyrics over top of your page full of paper bits, right on top of it all. Be sure to get messy, with your writing just as you did with your visual play, and really fill the page with the lyrics.

For some of you maximalists, this set of prompts today will feel good, it will feel comfortable. For others, like me, oh boy is this a push for us. But that’s okay, remember: journals are for exploring and trying things out. Don’t like it? We can turn the page, simple as that, and have a fresh new start. A new blank page.

This week, you could also:

• Consider joining the fall retreat for Rest | Restore |Explore- you have until Oct 3 to make your decision!

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session with me

  

Missed a letter?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

Last month to sign up for this fall’s Rest | Restore | Explore Retreat Nov 3-9! Read all about our guest Kalah’s experience in the spring retreat here, and get details on the fall retreat and how to sign up here.

Last week, in my letter to you, I told you about August, starting with how hot it was. Well, those last days of August, the heat broke. I even needed a sweatshirt on the last night of August. Have I told you how much I don’t do well in the heat? I kind of… melt. Like crayons in a hot car: I am a mess.

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So I am noticeably relieved that the heat has chilled out, that we are now having daytime highs in the low to mid 80s instead of high 90s. Those might sound like still-hot temperatures to my old friends back in just-below-cold-Canada Michigan, but here these temperatures are delightful, since it’s significantly cooler than the last two to three months, with practically zero humidity I might add. Like, people have noticed the change in me so much they have told me how much happier I looked.

I told you I was a hot mess, a melty crayon box in a hot car. A hot car with fabric seats, mind you: harder to clean up after. That kind of mess. You feel me? You feel the extent of the mess I am during the hot summer months?

So of course, now that I can stand to be outdoors without needing to be near a pool or a sea, I am planning my ventures out for journaling dates again. Recently, before heading to a doctor appointment in a town about half an hour away, I stopped by a favorite bakery to have a second morning coffee and time in my journal.

Quite a good number of the bakeries here are kind of like coffeeshops in the U.S., but with more pastries: they have a big fancy espresso machine, tables and chairs indoors and out to sit in while you sip your coffee and nibble on your chocolate croissant. People meet friends there, or just stop on their own. It’s a great place to people-watch. And a great place to pack my journal with me and get some thoughts down, a little intentional pause in the middle of a busy day. I like to head out for appointments half an hour to an hour before I need to, leaving me time for a stop at a coffeeshop and a journaling session while I am already out of the house.

I also like to wander out of town, follow a tiny winding country road, and stop somewhere with a beautiful view and a comfy rock. In my bag I pack a little camping/beach sheet, my journal and ephemera, some ink and colorful materials, a little jar of water and some paper towels, and off I go. Sometimes I write while I am out, sometimes I sketch the scene in front of me, sometimes I just play with line and color on the page, letting the landscape inspire me but not trying to capture what it realistically looks like. I just capture some movement, or some color, or the feel of the world around me- it doesn’t have to look anything like the landscape in front of me. Especially in my journal, we are just documenting, just capturing, just experiencing. I love those country walks, and those coffeeshops. I used to feel really self-conscious about journaling out in public, until I lived in Spain 20 years ago and did it enough times to realize that, oh, people don’t really care all that much about what I am doing over here in my spot. No one is really paying attention, really. I in general am left alone, and no one is really all that interested in what I am doing.

What a relief to not be as noticeable as I thought I would be. Not really interesting enough to capture the attention of strangers, after all.

So may this be an encouragement to you, as well: you’re probably not interesting enough to capture the attention of strangers, either. Isn’t that nice? I’m glad I could encourage you.

This week’s prompt:

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Moving to another country and starting your whole entire life over in your 50s is… well, it’s daunting. Even when you already know the language, even when you’ve lived in that same country before, even when you already have your accommodations set up. It’s a lot.

But I came here with a mission, and that mission was to create a retreat center for artists, writers, and revolutionaries. I admit, we changed that last word to “justice seekers” to be more understandable, since revolutionaries can bring with it connotations that we don’t intend, but listen, I will always be partial to revolutionaries.

We had a specific kind of space we wanted to create. Not a retreat center that’s like a spa, all fancy and proper and with green juice and no coffee. Absolutely not. An approachable space, comfortable and inviting. A space that is safe for everyone: to explore, to truly rest, to be reconnected with beauty.

And plenty of really good coffee.

Big goals, big dreams, and big red tape. It has not been an easy first year. So like in every other season of my life, I’ve depended on my creative journal to stay a little more sane, to stay connected to beauty, to have a place to spill out all my thoughts, get them outside the body and somewhere else to live. So much so that I filled journal #100 this year.

I’ve been sharing this practice of creative journaling with others, in one form or another, for decades. I’ve taught children, I’ve taught adults, and for three years before moving back to Spain, I was integrating creative journaling into an art course I was teaching at a local university. Of course, the vast majority of my students weren’t art students. They weren’t even people who considered themselves creative. They were nursing students, business majors… anything that wasn’t the humanities. Those were my students. They were there to fulfill a core requirement outside their major. But guess what: they thrived, absolutely thrived, at the practice of filling a journal. Every one of them (except one person, in three years) filled an entire notebook with writing, scraps of paper, bits of doodles, photos, you name it. Anything that was flat enough to be pasted to a piece of paper was going into those journals.

I wanted to be sure to continue helping people practice beauty in this approachable, simple way when I moved to Spain. And in our Rest | Restore | Explore retreat this spring, I not only was privileged to help our participants start their first creative journaling practice, but I got to achieve a lifelong goal: an outdoor creative journaling workshop. We walked out to my friend Julio’s field for a journaling workshop outside, blankets spread out under us, paper and markers and glue sticks all around us. We had our journals in our laps and a glass of Spanish wine in our hands. There was even a sunset. I think I cried. The beauty of being able to give to others exactly what I had been envisioning for decades was all in that moment, and that moment will forever be engrained in my memory.

That moment is why I am willing to restart life here in Spain, despite its difficulties. Because what we are building here, that safe space where I get to invite people to reconnect to beauty, to find a practice that doesn’t require any special skills or materials, is needed now more than ever. What a gift: I get to create that moment for others. That moment when people stop worrying about whether or not they are creative and just… create. When they realize they have permission to create not for anyone else, but just for themselves. Their journal is for their soul alone, and once they realize that nothing is required of them and they don’t have to perform for anyone, then they relax and actually enjoy it. Sink into it. Spill it all out into that notebook. Sometimes, like our retreat attendees again this fall, they get that moment in a field with an almond grove behind us and a sunset in front of us.

Beauty. Connection. Exploring a country and yes, even a little creativity.

Courtney, Dee and I can’t wait to create another core memory with our next group of retreat attendees. I hope you’re one of them.

See you in Spain!

holly

Learn more and reach out to Dee about joining the November retreat here.

Missed a post?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

And don’t forget to subscribe to these letters- I’ll continue sharing with you my own creative notebook while giving you ideas to fill your own, and about once a month I’ll catch you up on some thoughts about living in Spain or share a story about what’s happening around here. Maybe a good Spanish sunset or food picture or two.

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You could also:

Connect with me to plan your own Creative Journaling Retreat-whether it’s the three night plan laid out here, or your own personalized version.

And also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session

Has our first year in Spain been much harder than we thought it would be? Why yes, yes it has.

Has there also been amazing experiences, great discoveries, and so much joy? Yes, yes, also true.

One joy? The way I’ve continued and even expanded my work with creative journaling.

As many of you may know, before we moved to Spain I was teaching creative journaling as part of my coursework at the university level. Nearly all my students were not art majors-in fact precious few of them were even humanities majors! My classes were filled with nursing students and business majors and scientists. They, as you can imagine, started off hesitant about this journaling thing, but I am so proud of them: it didn’t last. So many of them ended up really quite good at it, for one thing. And so many of them, whether “good at it” or not (what is that, even, anyway?), found a practice that they intended to continue. I like to think I taught some students that, like me, will someday be talking about filling their 100th journal.

It’s been so rewarding to explore journaling in Spain again, as well as continuing to expand how I share the practice with others. Along with completing my 100th creative journal, this year has been full:

• I filled four journals in one year, leading up to that 100th journal.

• I studied for and became certified as a journaling coach, adding more studies and experiences to what I can then pass on to students and workshop attendees.

• I reopened the creative notebook, a project I had started with my friend Elizabeth a dozen years ago. Life got busy for us back then and the creative notebook got put on the back burner. I’m grateful that Elizabeth is graciously allowing me to carry on that work from here in Spain.

• I taught creative journaling in a spring retreat held at l’Artesania, which included leading the dream-come-true journaling workshop in a field at sunset. And I’m preparing to do it all again for fall Rest | Restore | Explore retreat attendees!

• I built and shared a three night creative journaling retreat offering, and already have some folks discussing coming out to L’Albi to experience it.

And most importantly, those journals have helped me stay focused on the beauty all around me. To stop, to pause, to get all my worries out and then recenter around the good.

Oh and! I started sharing here in these letters weekly prompts and inspiration for all of you! To help me with supporting my work here (and, you know, the cost of plumbing), I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber- at the great big price of less than a single coffeeshop treat a month. I’d love your support.

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So now, without further ado, on to our prompts and visual play ideas for the week:

This week’s prompt:

Join me in recentering towards the beauty and the good.

Give yourself 5 minutes to throw down all the awful-in your life, around you, out in the world. Five minutes to spill it all out on the paper, get it out of your head and your body, released onto the empty page.

But then. When the five minute timer goes off, stop.

Set another timer, this one for ten minutes.

And this time, spill out all the beauty, all the good things, the tiny flavors and sights that delight you, the relationships that feed you, the good in your life, in your surroundings, out in nature, out in the world. Literally refocus yourself onto beauty. This can be a list or full sentences, I don’t care how you chart the beauty-just spill it out. Small, large, all beauty is significant.

We can call this our “the horrors persist, but so do I” practice.

Visual play:

Go out on a walk around the block. Look for the beauty, and take pictures with your phone’s camera. Try to make it the slowest walk you’ve ever taken. Find the architectural details in the neighbors’ houses, the little weeds in the cracks, the summer sun hitting the trees when you look up… Slow down. Look around your block. Capture everything beautiful you see. Then when home, sit down and send a bunch of those photos to a one hour photo service where you live. Bonus points if they let you put several images on one 4x6 photo paper sheet- tiny bits of beauty for the win! Over the next week, include those photos in with your journal entries. Write about those images, those moments seeking beauty. Focus on them.

Want to support my work? Subscribe for as little as €5/month. That’s less than a coffee for my American friends!

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You could also:

Consider joining the fall retreat for Rest | Restore |Explore- you have until Sept 3 to make your decision!

Connect with me to plan your own Creative Journaling Retreat-whether it’s the three night plan laid out here, or your own personalized version.

And also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session

Addiction? Maybe. Obsession? Possibly? But let me tell you something.

Without those 100 journals I would surely have lost my little mind. There’s something about dumping everything out onto the pages that makes it all smaller, and bigger at the same time, somehow, like enlarging my view beyond myself. But it always makes life more sort-out-able. Not left stuck in my brain, not stuck in my body. OUT. Out where I can assess it more clearly.

Without these 100 journals, I think I would have lost touch with my creative self. No matter what access I had to time or materials or space, there was always room for a notebook, a pen, and a glue stick. I always had a space of my own in these journals for personal expression, play, experimentation. I always had a place to stop, slow down, breathe. I always had a place to land.

I don’t have many constants in my life as an adult: careers, homes, interests, they are always shifting. But these 100 journals? They have been my constant. My life’s work in some ways, small and large.

Without these 100 journals I am not quite sure how I would have navigated this crazy life, and this crazy world.

These journals are my place for release.
My place for ideas and dreams and plans.
My place to be messy and loud and slow and, well…me.

One hundred down, endless possibilities to go.

So now it’s your turn. How will you fill your creative notebook this week? Here’s some ideas to get you started.

Writing prompt: Take 10 minutes every day that you can to make a list: a list of the beauty you’ve noticed in the last 24 hours. Small, things, big things, seemingly inconsequential things that have made you smile. Writing lists helps us re-focus and collect our thoughts. Writing lists of beauty? That’s a re-focus I would highly recommend.

Visual play: Fill a whole page with ephemera and papers. Go through your office, your recycling bin, your purse for little bits. Put them all on one spread. Not a single square millimeter of your two-page spread of your journal should still be peeking out. Fill it all. Stuff it full. Get messy.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session

Missed a post?

Last week:

And you can find all the creative notebook entries here.

And don’t forget to subscribe to these letters- I’ll continue sharing with you my own creative notebook while giving you ideas to fill your own, and about once a month I’ll catch you up on some thoughts about living in spain or share a story about what’s happening around here. Maybe a good spanish sunset or food picture or two.

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Last week, I got you set up with your supplies and a couple ideas to get you started in your creative journal. This week, we’re going to build on those assignments, so if you haven’t collected your notebook, supplies, and ephemera, or written yourself a letter, go on back to last week’s post to get caught up.

I need you to remember, as you start a creative journal, or pick back up the practice, that there is no wrong way to do this. There is no special skill needed: no drawing acumen, no creative bone in your body. It’s okay if you were convinced at some point in your childhood that you are just not an artsy type, that you’re not creative. (They were wrong, by the way: all humans are creative by nature. All humans need beauty. A lot of us got that taken away from us by the school system.)

I need you to believe–or at least act as if you believe–that you are capable of creativity, to know that it is healthy and helpful to use your hands to make things, that you can write whether or not you are a “good writer,” and that your words and creations are valuable for you. Maybe you won’t end up selling artworks or writing a memoir. Not everything has to have a financial reward for it to be rewarding. Okay? We start with that understanding.

So this week, we’re just going to get used to pausing for maybe 10-15 minutes every day, or almost every day, to play in our creative journal. Paste a few bits and pieces in a corner of a page, write some words alongside it, and that’s it. No wrong way. Here are some specific prompts to get you started.

Today’s experiment: Turn to a fresh page in your journal, and set a 10 minute timer.

This free writing challenge has two parts.

For the first 10 minute timer, start with “I want to write about…” and write a line, or two sentences, or whatever gets you just started on that idea so you can remember it later. Then write again “I want to write about” over and over with another topic concluding the sentence. For the second 10 minute timer, start with “I don’t want to write about…” and do it just the same, but list all the things you really don’t want to talk about or even put down on paper.

If 10 minutes seems too long, set a 7 minute timer minimum for each one. The time pushing yourself to come up with whatever random thoughts come to your head will get you somewhere you didn’t expect to end up–and that is the point.

Writing prompt: Use those two lists you made in the above experiment, the Want to Write About and the Don’t Want to Write about, and pick one to write more on for 10 minutes, each day. Again, keep your hand moving. Remember that this journal is only for you. It is your safe place. See where that permission takes you as you write each day.

Visual play: Here’s where all those scraps of ephemera (paper bits and pieces) come in. It only adds a few minutes to your journaling time, and bonus: this practice helps you slow down and relax before starting.

Rifle through that little stack, and pick out 3-5 pieces that you think would be good together. Maybe they’re all close to each other in color (reds and pinks and oranges for example). Maybe they’re all bits from a specific day, or fruit stickers and food wrappers. Maybe you like the combination of textures and lines. Whatever calls to you, honestly. Move them around on a page, maybe in a corner, maybe along the side, maybe along the bottom of a two-page spread. When you like the way they look, glue or tape them down. Once in place and attached, then start writing: around them, on top of them, inside them… or just next to them. You decide what you think will be pleasing to look at, and then you play with the words and visual bits existing together. The writing can be about the visual pieces, or not at all.

And remember, there is no wrong way to fill your creative notebook. The words can be connected to the visual pieces or not. It doesn’t have to look good. You don’t have to have deep, wise thoughts. You are just playing. Experimenting. Trying things out. Do this visual play before writing once a day for multiple days, and see how it gets easier and more enjoyable as you go along. I’d love to hear your thoughts as you try it out.

This week, you could also:

• Catch up on Instagram: l’Artesania retreat center, the creative notebook, and me.

• Plan a visit to L’Albi

• Schedule a creative journaling workshop or plein air session

Missed a post?

Last week:

Two weeks ago:

And don’t forget to subscribe to these letters- I’ll continue sharing with you my own creative notebook while giving you ideas to fill your own, and about once a month I’ll catch you up on some thoughts about living in spain or share a story about what’s happening around here. Maybe a good spanish sunset or food picture or two.

Subscribe now

My first journal was filled my freshman year of college, 1990. It was a black and white speckled composition book, just the very regular normal cheap ones, because my drawing professor at Calvin University that assigned it to me didn’t want us getting too precious about it. It wasn’t to create finished works; it wasn’t to be framed or shown off; it was an assignment. The assignment was to play. We could draw, collage, paste things in there, write, whatever we wanted. Since it was a drawing class, i am sure the main point was the drawing, but it’s not *all* it could be. My professor, brilliant woman that she was, didn’t give us precious materials and she didn’t give us strict guidelines. Play. Experiment. Put things down. Fill it up by the end of the semester.

That was fall 1990, and now, 35 years later, I’m finishing up journal #100.

Some of those 100 books of various sizes and thicknesses have included lots of drawings, but some others have been mostly just page after page of thoughts written down by hand. Many are filled with collages- bits of ephemera (that’s just a fancy word for paper scraps) from my daily life, like the inside of security envelopes and paint sample cards and candy wrappers and empty sugar packets. If you go out for coffee you will witness me sneaking my empty sugar packet into my purse for later use in my journal. Many have plenty of doodles and photos and feathers and anything flat-ish I could paste or tape down. I just play, experiment, put things down, and fill them up. That was the assignment for journal number one. And still 35 years later, that is the assignment.

But with that simple assignment I have been able to explore new ideas for both writing and artmaking projects. I have been able to chart my days—which somehow helps me, just by putting down the details, to sort out the big picture. I have complained and cried and celebrated and put every single emotion down in those journals. That gave those emotions somewhere else to live, outside my body, so they didn’t get stuck there.

I can say with absolute certainty that when I am not journaling regularly, you can TELL. You could clock it across a crowded room thanks to my mood, my fogginess, my slipping sanity.

Just as importantly as the above uses, keeping a journal reconnects me to beauty in the everyday, in the simple things: the beauty of words, the beauty of handwriting even, the beauty of a few colorful bits arranged on a page, the beauty of sitting with the pear in front of you and scratching its contours on paper. The beauty of marks, doodles if you will, repeated over and over on a page. Simple. It only takes a notebook, not too precious, a pen or pencil, and something to stick bits to the page (scotch tape, gluestick, washi, heck i have used that black electrical tape before). It doesn’t require a financial investment. It doesn’t require skill. All it requires is a willingness to play. To put things down. To fill it up.

I’ve taught college kids and children and adults, friends and strangers, to harness the potential of those simple tools. And now I am bringing it to you. I would challenge you to come along, try things out, keep at it until you’ve filled every last page of your first notebook. Then come back and tell me about your experience with this simple, profound practice. Willing to take the challenge? We could start, say, tomorrow. You in?

For now, these weekly posts with experiments, prompts, and visual play ideas are free for everyone. But I’d love for you to support my work:

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Today’s experiment: Set up your creative notebook.

Rifle through that shelf with office supplies (or visit a non-Target near you) and pick out a notebook, sketchbook, anything that is a pile of paper bound together. Grab a pen, pencil, or maybe a few different ones for variety. Scrounge through for some tape or glue stick. Set all these next to your bed or on your kitchen table. Plop yourself down, and open to page one. At the bottom of the first page, put your name, “Started on” with the date, and a way for someone to contact you if it gets lost. OH and put “Journal #1” there too (or whatever number you’re on, if you’re joining me for a refresh instead of a new experiment).

This week’s prompt: Write yourself a letter. Be tender with yourself, and tell yourself that you have permission to use this notebook for whatever you need it for. It is just for you, and no one else needs to see any of it. This is your space to fill. You can fill it was whatever you want, whatever you need. Remind yourself that it is okay, and it is good, to allow yourself freedom in this space. Keep writing kindly to yourself for 10 minutes, and see where those kind words of permission take you. What else have you been needing to give yourself permission to do, or say, or be? Here is the space.

Visual play idea: Walk around your home and collect bits and pieces. Wrappers, envelopes, junk mail, receipts, gift bags, ribbons and tags. Don’t forget to check the junk drawer and the recycling bin. Put all those bits in a zippered envelope or basket or shoe box. Keep adding to the pile all week long. Start training your eye to see potential journaling materials all around you. Look for colors and patterns and symbols. They don’t need to mean anything right now. Build your stash. Let’s see what you have accumulated by next week, shall we? I look forward to seeing what treasures you’ve found in your daily lives.

For the next week, let’s just fill some pages, shall we? Let’s start there.

the creative notebook is back to its old shenanigans.

a dozen years ago, my friend elizabeth and i started a little side biz. “the creative notebook,” we called it, was created to share our love of art journaling with others. we held workshops, sold paper packets, taught people how to stitch together their own journals and what to do to fill them–and talked a lot about why we thought that was so important. well soon enough, as american lives are wont to do, we got too busy to keep up the side hustle.

but since then, i have continued to fill journals. i’m finishing up number 100 right now. i’ve taught college-level art courses that i incorporated art journaling as an important part of the coursework. i’ve gotten officially certified as a journaling coach. i’ve taught a workshop in an almond grove, out in the fields of catalunya, spain, watching a beautiful sunset while we drank spanish wine and nibbled on spanish treats and wow was that ever a dream come true.

and i think, just as important as all of that, i’ve been thinking through this naming of what i do, “art journaling.” through teaching university students, teaching adults in a field in spain, and endless conversations and journal entries, i have been observing how that word “art” makes people think that what i am offering is… not for them. journaling becomes, because of that little three-letter word “art” in front of it, scary and something they aren’t capable of doing… or not interested in.

and to be honest, as many of my pages are just scribbling down thoughts as there are drawings or collages or photos or anything else that would be considered “art.” so why keep using a word that doesn’t always apply, and immediately creates a wall between this gift i have and about 80% of the people that i try to share it with?

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and so, i’ve started instead calling it “creative journaling.” that, first of all, feels like a better descriptor for what i do. but it also feels much more approachable, while still having a little growth edge for people: too many of us were taught to think we aren’t creative beings. but we all are. all of us. and all of us can benefit from keeping a little notebook where we spill everything out onto paper, where we play, where we practice beauty, where we just have a blank space to breathe.

and so, full of so many ideas of how i wanted to share the gift of keeping a creative journal with others in a more regular and intentional way, i reached out to elizabeth to get her permission to continue using our instagram page and email. of course that generous soul said yes, and good thing because i have plans. lots of plans of course, because, well, if you know me you know i love concocting big wild beautiful plans.

but one plan is to share—here and on instagram—some things with you:

• my own creative journaling practice

• information on the hows and whys of keeping a creative journal (even if you insist you are not creative), so you can try it out for yourself

• weekly prompts and visual ideas to try, for my paid subscribers here.

of course, handwritten notes will continue to tell you about our adventures here in spain, but the creative notebook will be an important part of what i offer to my readers.

of course, i mentioned big plans, so i’m also looking for my first official one-on-one creative journaling coaching clients, and developing a weekend retreat to host here in l’albi spain, and much more. but let’s start here, yes?

let’s start here. with a notebook, and a pencil or a pen, and maybe we could get wild and use a gluestick to paste little bits of our lives in with our thoughts.

let’s start here, with the creative notebook.

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