For the Love of April
Links and recs time
Should I say it?
April showers bring May flowers.
I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to all those promised flowers. There is a lot to share today for April’s links and recs, so let’s get right to it.
Stuff to read
Why do we love to hate Dog Man? (And what to do about it) by
(I LOVED this piece as a parent who had had two kids who loved/love Dog Man, and it’s been a good part of their reading life)Pair this, The Parenting Police Are Watching from
with this one, What Are We Actually Talking About When We Talk About Intensive Parenting? from .Beautiful tip on connecting through books here, Formal Book Clubs Are Great. So is This. from
.And more about the connection through reading with Stories That Connect by
. I was also lucky enough to get to contribute a helpful tip for keeping up a reading practice, thanks, Yael!
Stuff for doing
Play Solitaire (with real cards). Caring for myself includes some distance from the digital world, so I picked up a deck of cards and started playing Solitaire in free moments. And last weekend I taught my older kids how to play, too.
Read Wild Dark Shore* by Charlotte McConaghy. It was so very good.
Put on a program at the library. This is a wonderful way to support your local library. There are many types of programming offered through libraries, from how to crochet, organize your closet, how to meditate, or how to read in parenthood. Think about your professional background, hobbies, and interests, and what you may be able to offer to your local community.
Featured Substacks this month
This is a new thing for the monthly roundup. Writers on Substack can recommend other Substack publications, which is a great way for readers to find new Substacks and for writers to support each other. But as with most things online, the recommendations can get lost in the platform. Starting this month, my Substack recommendations will focus on only a handful of publications and rotate every couple of months. I will feature a few here monthly. So this month’s featured Substacks are…
I reference
’s book, When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others*, with some frequency here on A Wonderful Mess, including in the community discussion thread this month. I loved this recent piece on Elissa’s Substack Does Parenting Make You Happy or Unhappy?. I loved this conversation Elissa had on The Mother of It All podcast, all about the messy middle of care.
Emily has a treasure trove of material that explores the intersection of mindfulness and writing. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Emily last summer. Given those April showers, I recently asked Emily for her ideal rainy day…
“My perfect rainy day would be a slow morning with lots of time to read and journal, and write at my own pace. Open windows, listening to the rain. Mug of tea, stay in my jammies all day. Just good deep slow time. A walk in the rain with my family. Watch a movie in the afternoon. More time to read and write (sensing a pattern yet?) That perfect mixture of solitude and connection and not feeling rushed along at all.”
This sounds like a perfect day to me. I also really enjoyed this recent meditation on dancing titled, This is what my body was made for, from Emily.
This month on A Wonderful Mess
Playgroups Are Dead, a book excerpt from
Hearing in Color, a guest essay from
A Thread of Care-Full Stories, the Spring community discussion thread for A Wonderful Mess
I am looking forward to
Digging into Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World* by
.
What about you?
What’s your perfect rainy day?
Such good links, and thank you, as always, for sharing and supporting Book Party! May we all find time to connect and read this season.
Thank you very much Kathryn! I'm so grateful for your support of Be Where You Are and for sharing my writing with your readers. I'm also just excited to check out the writers & substacks here that are new to me. Thank you for your generosity!