Jun 9, 2026

More time simply living

Posted by Lorianne under Life as Lorianne
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Budding hollyhock

It’s been a year since I resigned my adjunct teaching position at Framingham State, choosing to teach exclusively at Babson College instead. When I made the decision to teach at one college rather than two, I was afraid I’d fritter away my free time, given the way work expands to fill the available time.

Weigela

One year later, I’m proud to report I’ve stayed true to the goals I set for myself this time last year:

There are plenty of things I want to do more of: I want to write more, I want to be more (consistently) active at the Zen Center, and I want to volunteer more for causes I value. These are the things I try to cram into my summer months, but then I have little time for them once the academic year resumes. I want to start tutoring for my local library’s program for English language learners, and I want to continue working in earnest on the book I’ve been trying to write for years.

Roses

Because, perhaps, I’ve spent my entire career cobbling together part-time teaching positions, I’ve gotten good at setting boundaries: for years I’ve made an intentional point of not giving a part-time job my full-time energy. When I am on campus teaching, I give my students my full attention, and when I’m doing teaching tasks at home, I pour my full energy into that. But I live by the dictum “your job won’t love you back” and prioritize my life accordingly.

Day lily

After a full academic year of teaching six courses at one college rather than ten courses at two, I am grateful to be going to the Zen Center more, spending more time writing Postcards to Voters, volunteering weekly as an ELL tutor, and making slow-but-steady progress on the book I’ve been meaning to write for more than a decade. One year after intentionally cutting back on the time I spend making a living, I am happy to be spending more time simply living.

 

Jun 5, 2026

The Secret sits

Posted by Lorianne under Now & Zen
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Yellow peony

Last night I went to the Zen Center to answer questions at the weekly Dharma talk. While I was meditating before the talk, I remembered for no particular reason Robert Frost’s two-line poem “The Secret Sits.”

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Mountain laurel

We spend so much energy pretending we know what we’re doing. We pretend to know how we should live our lives…and we pontificate to others about how they should live theirs. We pretend to know how the world should work, then we get upset when reality runs contrary to expectations. We pretend to know what we want and what we think we deserve, and then we throw a fit when we don’t get one or the other.

Lavender

The Secret sits in the center and knows. Life unspools in unpredictable ways we can’t control. We tell ourselves we can avoid bad outcomes by making good choices…and by all means, we should do whatever we can to control the things we can. But ultimately, life is a secret none of us fully understands. Things happen for random and unknowable reasons, or for no reason at all. Man plans and God laughs. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Mountain laurel

The Secret sits in the center and knows. The moment we stop chasing our thoughts, opinions, and theories–the moment we allow ourselves to sit with the secrets we can’t understand or control–our frantic running in circles becomes a dance, our spirits both nimble and lithe.

 

Jun 1, 2026

Thinking through my hand

Posted by Lorianne under Writing & creativity | Tags: , , |
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Clasped hands

Today’s journal prompt from Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy is from poet Marie Howe, who urges readers to clear their desk, set a timer for several minutes, then write a journal entry using their nondominant hand.

Believe me: I tried to fulfill this prompt. I have a short paragraph–two sentences–written in barely legible print: the best I could do with my right hand. After producing this proof of concept, I switched to my left hand to write the rest of today’s entry.

The goal of writing with one’s nondominant hand, Howe suggests, is to slow down your sentences so you can unlock a hidden side of your creativity. But for me, if I’m struggling over every letter, I am not tapping into creativity: instead, I’m putting an obstacle in front of it.

My goal in my journal pages is to write quickly: that’s why I write in cursive rather than printing. I can’t write at the speed of thought–my brain always outpaces my hand–but I want to exercise my hand so it becomes almost as nimble as my mind.

If I slow my hand down, that simply gives me time to fret over every word. Instead of fretting, I want to train my mind to think through my hand just as naturally as it thinks through my mouth. Slowing my hand down simply defeats the purpose.

 

May 28, 2026

Reciprocated in kind

Posted by Lorianne under Birds
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Mini mushrooms

Yesterday afternoon, I heard the dull metallic thud of some creature hurling itself into the porch screen, trying to get out.

We’ve had sparrows, chipmunks, and even a young rabbit get trapped on our porch before: on hot days they creep into the cool, shady space through the unlatched door or a gap in the screen, then they can’t find their way out. Yesterday’s prisoner was a tiny, nondescript bit of a bird: house wren. It was flighty and skittish, with the inexhaustible energy of its kind.

What I did yesterday is what I’ve done in the past:

The trick is to prop open the porch door then use a broom or umbrella to gently steer the bird, who is flinging herself toward the trees she can see through the screens, toward the house, which is where the door leading outside is. You’re trying to coax a frightened bird away from the direction she wants to go toward the direction she needs to go, gently waving your broom or umbrella to steer her.

After much sweet-talking and several false starts–No, sweetie: go this way–my umbrella and I eventually guided yesterday’s wren toward the open door and its green freedom.

This morning when I took the trash out, the first thing I heard outside was a house wren singing: the same bird, or another? Either way, yesterday’s small kindness was reciprocated in kind.

 

May 27, 2026

In the shade

Posted by Lorianne under Flowers & plants
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Peony

Today has been warm and summery, so this afternoon I took a quick trip to the Garden at Elm Bank.

Dogwood

The alliums that line the grassy labyrinth there are past their prime, flowering and starting to go to seed atop spindly stems.

Grass labyrinth

Walking between their gangly blooms felt like walking through a forest of truffula trees.

Allium

The roses are budding…

Rosebud

the poppies are in full bloom…

Poppies

and I discovered a new-to-me sweet shrub.

Sweet shrub

After admiring the flowers blooming in full sunlight, I found a seat in the shade and enjoyed sitting outside before heading home.

Hosta

 

May 26, 2026

Ten images

Posted by Lorianne under Writing & creativity | Tags: , , |
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Crossed contrails

One early exercise in Suleika Jaouad’s The Book Of Alchemy comes from photographer and writer Ash Parsons Story, who prompts journal-keepers to list ten images from the past 24 hours.

Most of us move through the world with pocket-sized cameras (aka phones) at perpetual arm’s reach. Some of us make a practice of snapping and sharing at least one photo a day. But even those of us who take lots of pictures on our phone sometimes don’t. Instead, we sometimes make mental note of things we don’t stop to record. Story’s prompt urges journal-keepers to make a quick list of those images.

Here, in no given order, are ten images from my past 24 hours:

  1. A crisscross of contrails against blue sky, fringed by maples in full leaf
  2. Morning light trickling through the dining room windows, illuminating the vase of LEGO magnolia branches I set on the window sill last night
  3. A hydrangea bush studded with flower buds clustered as tightly as broccoli florets
  4. A Lycra-clad cyclist pedaling intervals down a nearby street: slow, fast, slow
  5. A Jeep with Texas license plates turning onto that same street, then pulling to the curb, then moving on
  6. Viburnum petals on the sidewalk of a busy street
  7. Sun glinting on the big red X sign on the condemned house down the street
  8. Blooming lupines in a neighbor’s garden
  9. Tightly budded peonies in that same neighbor’s garden
  10. Sunlight trickling through Japanese maple leaves

As a blogger who regularly illustrates my posts with photos, I’m mindful of how taking and sharing photos can be a shortcut: instead of describing a thing and asking you to picture it, I can share a photo. Making a written list of ten images from the past day is a good way to exercise writerly (and readerly) skills that might otherwise atrophy.

 

May 25, 2026

One hundred days

Posted by Lorianne under Book chat, Writing & creativity | Tags: , , |
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Budding peony on rainy day

Today I started reading The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, a book about journaling by Suleika Jaouad. It’s a book that has sat on my shelf since September, when I first heard about it, and I thought summer would be as good a season as any to read a book that might refresh my long-established journaling practice.

Euphorbia (?) on rainy day

Both The Book of Alchemy and Between Two Kingdoms (a memoir of Jaouad’s diagnosis with and treatment for leukemia) reference the practice of a 100 Day Project: an intentional practice of doing some small creative thing every day for one hundred days. In Between Two Kingdoms, Jaouad pursues two different 100 Day Projects: one is a journal-keeping project she did while undergoing treatment, and the second is a cross-country road trip she takes after entering remission.

Dogwood on rainy day

Today is Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, and I’ve been wondering what I should do over my academic break. Usually, I resist filling my break with More Things To Do, but Jaouad’s mention of a 100 Day Project made me realize I have roughly 100 Days before my Fall semester classes start at the end of August: a perfect opportunity to do some small, creative thing during my time off.

Cushion spurge on rainy day

I already keep a journal, but when I realized The Book of Alchemy has essays and journal prompts from 100 writers, I realized writing my way through the book would be a perfect summer project. Usually, I bridle against the enforced creativity of journal prompts: instead, I make a habit of filling four pages a day with whatever thoughts are rattling around my head. For the next 100 days, though, I’m going to experiment with the prompts in Jaouad’s book: not something new, exactly, but a chance to revisit an established practice anew.

 

May 24, 2026

The productivity trap

Posted by Lorianne under Life as Lorianne
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Weigela

At the end of every semester–and especially in Spring–I experience an odd sense of alienation that might better be termed exhaustion. After months following a rigid schedule with a seemingly endless list of Tasks to Do, the end of the semester brings a momentary sense of bewilderment: what should I do with myself now that I don’t have classes to prepare and papers to grade?

For months, I’ve squeezed every ounce of productivity out of every waking minute, procrastinating some tasks (e.g. grading) by doing other tasks (e.g. answering student emails). For months, I’ve felt the need to be Doing Something Productive all the time, with even acts of self-care such as writing, reading, and walking being Tasks To Do as much as Acts That Sustain.

At the end of every semester, I have a mental list of things I want to do, like writing more, exercising, spending time outside…and at the end of every semester, I want to spend the first week or so debriefing or detoxing, both terms denoting Something Productive One Does while actually Doing Nothing.

This past week was action packed: I attended a faculty writing retreat, I taught the meditation class at the Zen Center, and I led drop-in English Language Learner conversations at the library. All of these are satisfying: I feel like I’m doing something helpful while doing them. At the same time, I reached the weekend feeling All Helped Out and in need of introvert-recharging time.

This coming week promises to be more leisurely, with “only” my Tuesday night tutoring session on my agenda. Apart from that, I want to spend more time this week Doing Nothing rather than being caught in the productivity trap.

 

May 20, 2026

Another six times

Posted by Lorianne under Writing & creativity | Tags: |
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Bound

Last Friday, when I went to the library for my weekly writing time, I passed a significant milestone: I finished a good-enough draft of my sixth out of twelve chapters, which means I’m halfway to having a complete rough draft of my current work-in-progress.

Flowering dogwood

To mark this milestone, earlier this week I pasted all six chapters into a single document, then I sent that document to FedEx Office to be printed and spiral-bound: a tangible copy of what I’m calling my half-draft. For all the years I’ve envisioned, outlined, and gradually toiled at this project, it has existed only as pixels in the electronic ether. Just as twenty-plus years of blog entries exist only online, until this week the book-length collection of essays I’ve been working on has existed only as Google Doc files backed up on my laptop and OneDrive.

Black cherry

Having something to hold, even if it’s only halfway done, feels hugely satisfying. As I move onto chapter seven and the second half of the book, I can counter the sensation of hacking my way through weeds (which is what writing an early draft feels like) with a reminder I’ve produced Something Out of Nothing in the six chapters that came before.

Rhododendron

I sometimes tell my first-year students that the first semester of college is the hardest, even though the course material gets more difficult as you work your way toward the more specialized content of your major. The first semester of college is the hardest, I tell them, because you’re doing something you’ve never done before, and you have no way of knowing whether the skills that got you Here will get you There.

Almost lupine

After you survive your first semester of college, though, you have empirical proof you can do it. Whenever deadlines or exams loom and you wonder whether you have what it takes to finish, you can remind yourself you’ve done it before, so you just need to do it again. With six drafted chapters I can hold in my hands, I have tangible proof I can turn an idea into an outline into an essay. Now I just have to do it another six times.

 

May 16, 2026

The year in bloom

Posted by Lorianne under How's the weather
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Budding allium

Today has been warm and sunny, with temperatures in the 70s after weeks of chilly damp. Almost instantly, everyone emerges and takes to the streets: at every turn, there are parents with strollers, joggers, cyclists, dog-walkers, and pedestrians in chatty pairs. It feels like we’ve been germinating for months, lying underground like seeds, waiting for warmth to wake us from our dormancy. And now at long last, the year herself is in bloom.

Allium

 

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