When I am feeling low, I often make NYC chef Sandro Fioriti’s lovely Pasta al Limone, It take no time or odd ingredients to make and is both comforting and divine.
Read MoreHow to Dispel Worry (Mary Oliver)
Worry and overwhelm are common emotions these days. This morning, we found two simple things that shifted us out of them.
Read MoreAn Email Experiment for Improvised Life Subscribers
For most of Improvised Life’s 10-years of publishing, I sent out each new post by email. Most readers reported viewing it as a surprising and welcome gift in their inbox every morning. Starting next week, I’m going to try that again…
Read MorePhyllida Barlow’s Fearless Embrace of Chance
One of the best things to come out of the months of Covid-19 lockdown has been extraordinary films from art galleries and museums. One of the best of is about the English sculptor Phyllia Barlow. It provides an illuminating counterpoint to the many life questions that the virus has thrown into relief.
Read MorePowerful Scientific Imaging Shows Why Masks Work
This remarkable video captures what is normally invisible to our eyes — how masks work to slow airborne infection carried on our breath — and resolves much conflicting information about them. Essential viewing for those that wear them and those that don’t.
Read MoreWays to Eat Cherries, With a W.S. Merwin Poem
Fruit eaten in its season is even better eaten with a poem. When we stumbled on this W.S. Merwin poem, we realized we were in the last moments of cherry season. It’s a perfect accompaniment to our favorite cherry feasts.
Read MoreHow to Indirectly Help New Ideas Grow
We recently re-discovered “Eating Grapes Downwards” a poem we’d loved and somehow lost track of. Christian Wiman describes the mysterious creative process we cannot control, and often aren’t even aware of, but that is part of every life. With instructions for how to navigate…
Read MoreOur actions entrench the power of the light on this planet. Every positive thought we pass between us makes room for more light. And if we do more than think, then our actions clear the path for even more light. That is why forgiveness and compassion must become more important principles in public life.John Lewis
How to Eat an Apricot
Diane Ackerman’s poem “The Consolation of Apricots” gives a sense of just how far an apricot can launch you into reverie. It also gives instructions for how to eat one. I’ve added my own two-cents about how to find great apricots, and what to do if you can’t, along with a recipe for the effect of summer apricots all year long.
Read MoreRisk Equivalents of Common Activities (Roz Chast)
At the New Yorker, cartoonist Roz Chast takes on the kind of equation we are seeing everywhere, of “experts” assessing the level of risk in commonly enjoyed activities of human existence.
Read MoreThe Ancient Formula for Gratitude
Opening at random Richard Powers’ remarkable novel The Overstory, we found the ancient formula for gratitude.
Read MoreMagic Trick: Divine Ice Cream Made In a Plastic Bag
At a dinner party New Yorker food critic Hannah Goldfield attended last summer, one of the hosts served ice cream that had the mind-blowing effect of a magic trick. Here’s how, with a recipe.
Read MoreWhy Starting Each Day with a Poem is ‘As Necessary as Bread’
Eight years ago, afriend and I discovered that reading – or listening to – a poem has a hugely beneficial effect. Here’s the backstory, the poets we rely on, and some poetry.
Read More‘The Pandemic is a Portal’ Arundhati Roy
In this short, potent video, Arundhati Roy reads from her essay “The Pandemic is a Portal” It is at once a question to hold in mind, an invitation, and a call to arms.
Read MoreHow to Hang a Hammock Anywhere
When we passed a woman lazily lounging in a hammock strung between two trees in our local park, we wondered why we don’t see more people taking advantage of the many hammock opportunities that are available. IF you know how…
Read MoreHow We Manage Our Distracted Mindset and Get Working
We’ve heard a lot of people complaining about the strangely distracted mindset caused by the limbo of Coronavirus. Here’s a way we’ve found to manage it.
Read MoreExperience a Feeling of Flying, with Rumi UPDATE
We love the feeling of flying in Universal Everything’s beautiful little video and find ourselves watching it over and over; it’s amazingly refreshing to our lockdown minds. It reminds us of this Rumi poem.
Read MoreMake Your Own Fire Cider for Well-Being, Cocktails, Cooking
We learned a lot from ‘How to Create Your Own Herbal Tinctures’, including Jade Mark’s compelling recipe for Fire Cider.
Read MoreWhat “Being Like a River” Really Means (Rebecca Solnit)
Ever-incisive Rebecca Solnit shifted our view of the much-abused metaphor of rivers by describing how rivers REALLY act. And that gave us much deeper understanding of how change often happens, historically and personally.
Read MoreJoy Right Now Where You Don’t Expect It
Although we’re not religious, we’ve loved being able to wander into an empty church when we find one open, for a few minutes of quiet and the particular kind of stillness they hold. Recently missing that possibility, we’ve been discovering other ways to get the feeling of respite our random visits once provided.
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