Thursday Things #120
*the* bag, the line about a watering can, and an All The Things double-take (what are the odds??)
Every other Thursday, I share a handful of good things I'm loving, reading, watching, listening to or just discovered. AKA the random good stuff we’d talk about over coffee or text if we had one another’s phone number. I'm glad you're here!
Hello to you and hello to Thursday and thank goodness for the weekend right around the corner. Friends, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it—I’ve been ridiculously sick and am headed back to the doctor in half an hour to talk through test results. Today is a swirl of work, meetings, the doctor, sickness stuff, and something for a friend this evening—it’s 1:39am at the moment (I’m drafting most of it now, or else we’re looking at Friday Things #1 LOL) so there are likely typos, but we’re here and I’m hoping you’ll add your own Thing or two in the comments to round this one out a bit more.
P.s. I’m sorry the final (fall) book list of 2024 is a little delayed. Some Things took me out and threw my plans out the window. As luck would have it, they caught the wind and landed in a puddle so we are just sorting things out1 over here.
I have a brand new piece to share with you, and it’s a smidge summer-y, but to be mindful of your inbox and keep from emailing twice in one week (book list + new writing) or three times if you’re a paid subscriber (book list + new writing + new downloads and a bonus)—I think we’ll stretch summer into October and save it for another day. :)
For today though, some good things . . .
The floral bag.
Oh yeah, it had to make its Thursday Things appearance. It’s good, y’all. It’s real good. I shared this in Instagram Stories and within minutes the inbox started filling with heart eye emojis, link requests, and messages that said “Ok but I love influencery Kaitlyn!”
To which I replied: “I don’t know why I love it.” - me
I am obviously a VPI.2 It’s like a VIP except not. Anyway: here’s the link!
In which I say a lot of words about a writer.
You know this, I know, but I’m not quick to say “Hey, here’s an email newsletter to regularly add to your inbox.” Actually—I’m pretty sure I’ve said that five times in the last decade, but we’re making it six today because
is, as I told her this summer, a writer’s writer.3Listen, you will not want to skim her posts or emails. When you see one arrive, just go ahead and set aside fifteen minutes to soak it in and savor beauty in both photography and words.
Our experiences of Tuscany were different (you can read her reflection here), but my experience of being around Ashlee is pretty straightforward: a breath of fresh air mixed with a kind steadiness… or maybe it’s a steady kindness? Both, I think.
I was working the whole time, and because we ended up at different tables for the group dinner each night, our few conversations happened in small pockets here and there. But each moment in passing was—okay this is going to sound cheesy but I promise it’s true—refreshing.
When you meet someone in person that you’ve only known through their writings, whether online or in books, you hope they’ll turn out to be who you think they are . . . most of the time, in my experience, they’re even better.
That’s not always the case, of course—just this year, though not at all someone from the trip, I had that unfortunate up-close discovery. But this gal right here, who I barely know outside the written word and is mostly a stranger, felt like a friend.
And then she actually was one in a kind moment by a pool, in a shadowed hallway as the lights-set-to-a-timer kept us flinging out an arm or leg every fifteen seconds to say yes “we’re still here”, in a quiet room during the last group sharing session, a gentle voice that was both lotion and a lullaby saying “You’re a writer too. You’re one of us. You served us all week but I hope you know, you belong here.”
At first I wrote “In which I say a lot of words about a newsletter” because that’s what I had on my running list of Good Things To Share in Thursday Things, but looking over this it’s actually about the writer of the words—and I’m going to leave it as-is because if you get what I’m saying when I tell you Ashlee and her words are like lotion and a lullaby, and you combine it with the mix of refreshing and “writer’s writer”, then you’re so in.
Just wait until you see her photography.
Oh, and did I mention that every few months she sends a round-up of links and she calls it All The Things? No wonder we felt like friends.
The Tuscany edition.
I’ll keep stringing words together, and if there’s a post of some sort down the road, I’ll share it with you here. But for today, if you feel the tension of publicly and/or privately navigating a both/and, I just want to say: I see you and I’m proud of you and it’s complicated, isn’t it? You’re holding the weight, holding your tongue, holding kindness and integrity together. You’re doing your best and you’re trying again when you stumble down a road of more than one thing. You’re looking carefully, determined not to miss the goodness along the way, even if it’s harder to find, because you know it’s guaranteed to be there.
I made a post of some sort (and am working on one for Venice, but every picture is magic because Venice is magic and I can’t edit it down), and so here is the share:
It’s the line about the watering can for me.
Don’t ask how many times I’ve listen to this, mkay? The lyrics are so smart, so simple, so good.
Last but not least: thank you.
I need to hop in the car and head to a waiting room across town, but I can’t click send without saying thank you.
Thank you.
Truly.
For as long as God leads, I’ll be here (and there)—and I’m real glad you are too.
Also—a bit of a rambling addition, but file this under the Thursday Things “things we’d talk about if we were in person” section.
I’ve started drafting something that says a little more re: last week, but it’s/I’m not ready. I can’t actually explain the gut feeling, but I’m certain if you’re a writer you’ll get it—I just know, somehow, somewhere inside, that there’s more to be lived before it’s written.
If we were talking over coffee, I think we’d be metaphorically holding several both/ands even as we literally held lattes in our hands. And I think, as we meandered through the lighter Good Things, we’d talk about that too.
Example: now you know a little something about a sickness situation, but you also have an image from that timeframe where all looks joy-full and wonder-full and all the good -fulls.
I mean, what? Except… hello, all of life, mine and yours and all of ours.
Part of the Tuscany reel caption says:
It’s really all of life, everywhere, every time, isn’t it? There’s always more to the story, a thousand words behind every picture. So we find words to tell it true, to tell it slant, to share a glimpse that is honoring and honest and hopefully hope-full. And somehow, the glimpse of goodness grows and becomes… gooder.
The editor in me is cringing but I bet you get it. When we gently hold the complicated tension of the difficult and the delightful, it’s then that we see it prove true: goodness is guaranteed.The pixels we see online are just a fraction of the both/and story we’re each living. As my friend said, “there’s always more outside the frame.”
It was about the trip and also about more than the trip, which is of course the larger point of the full caption. I wrote those words while curled up, unsure if the weekend mini-celebration would be possible. I thought of them Sunday night as I looked at afternoon images of genuine gratitude and a true smile. I laid down approximately sixty seconds after I walked back in the front door, but there was a brief window of less pain (Thank You, Jesus. You did love a party…) and what you see pixelated is 150% real. But “there’s always more outside the frame.” I was grateful to go and grateful to be back home. It was a gift to read the kind words in the comments and a gift to know there’s more to be told that isn’t in the caption—because it reminds me to look through that lens when *I* scroll and see this, that, or the other. God may we, may I, have grace for the fraction that is seen and compassion for all that is not.
And may we remember: yes, there’s always more to the story isn’t only about what isn’t pixelated… it’s also a promise.
God isn’t done writing.
There’s more to come.4
Have a good rest of your Thursday, friend. 💛
And by sorting things out we mean: trying not to worry or stress or strive. being flexible. resting instead of rushing. going slow and then even slower. then, slower still. crying, sometimes. choosing grace and gentleness. trying softer. amen.
VPI: Very Professional Influencer. I just made that up but wow I kinda love it.
Though… would you be genuinely interested in knowing more of the emails/newsletters I always open? Almost every single Thursday Things includes a link to someone else’s blog post, book, art, song, social media post or their account as a whole… but I know that differs from a blanket statement re: emails/newsletters. If you’re looking to add another to your inbox though, I do have some suggestions.
Paid subscribers: consider this a hint. ;)
KAITLYN. I am speechless. You sure know how to make a girl cry in the middle of the library. Friend, I don't even know what to say. I feel unworthy of this public kindness, and simultaneously grateful for it all the same. Thank you for this, and thank you for being you, and thank you—AGAIN—for all of the effort and energy and love you poured into our Italy trip. I know you did far more than I even know. And I am such a grateful recipient of your labor. Not to mention, your words. Love you! ❤️