Showing up for delight

Miracles everywhere

nostalgia

Hi there,

Sunday is my birthday, followed by a two-week vacastaycation. In the spirit of a true vacastaycation, and celebrations of less life left, I’m stowing away all laptops— work and personal— and spending my days offline showing up for delight: My phone is “offline” by design. I will schedule two emails to delete for you. Until next time,

Five things to share:

1. I was initially going to title this post Searching for delight. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I considered the miracles, coincidences, and synchronicities I have been experiencing lately, the clearer I understood I need not search for delight but rather simply show up, pay attention, and notice all the miracles around me.

2. A week of delights:

   • Literally stopping and smelling flowers on our walks with my 4-year-old niece, and her calling out “flowers! flowers! flowers!” It was magical: Once she decided she liked this silly game of smelling flowers, that it was worth her curiosity and wonder, all of a sudden flowers were everywhere to be noticed and sniffed.

   • Attending a literary open mic for writers, poets, and other spoken word forms— so, so, so much delight being surrounded by literary energy!— and running into someone from university, a decade later, and discovering we now live a few streets down from each other! Big city, small world.

   • Reading and letting the gods speak to me through The Forty Rules of Love: An important book for anyone looking to love— no, not for love, but to love.

   If there are better things on the “internet,” better things than my week of delights that are worth my attention, please— please, please, please— let me know. I cannot imagine.

3. A quote I want to share with you:

   Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell. This is what Rule Number Twenty-five is about.

   — Elif Shafak/ The Forty Rules of Love

   Also, it is easy to finish a book in a week when you love it, plus have a book club deadline to meet. 🫣

4. My friend Annie wrote about an ordinary Sunday we spent getting excited about miracles and life (again). A day that felt like being in a movie surrounded by a cast of quirky characters… a platonic version of Before Sunrise. It really was magical! We run into a poet sitting outside of a store with a typewriter, ready to write a bespoke poem for anyone with a prompt. I commissioned a poem about a world without internet:

   

   baby, please no more “internet”

5. Two questions for you: What delights you? And, how can you show up for delight, pay attention, and notice miracles daily?

Before I go, 

time spent offline has reached 1,000+ readers! I am so delighted that my most cherished corner of the internet, tiny but mighty, is growing. Thank you for sustaining me over the past two and a half years: You could have been anywhere else on the internet but you are here with me and I appreciate that. I appreciate your attention. May we continue this journey alongside each other. May we live dedicated to the ideals of time spent offline— a rich, joyful, fulfilling life that doesn’t require internet connection. May our journey inspire others.

That’s all for this week!

Thank you for reading, and share with anyone you think may benefit.

With so much gratitude for this tiny corner of the internet,

Mehret