Friday Open Thread (with relief)

Dear Friends,

So many things got a little easier this week:

• My back is better thanks to physiotherapy and a regimen of tiny exercises that are nevertheless astonishingly exhausting. (Did you know hips can become misaligned? So many things a body takes for granted!)
• I got some very unexpected good news on the publishing front
• I finished a review (of Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe, up on NPR this Sunday)
• I dropped off some art to get framed (two Stephanie Pui-Mun Law prints)
• Stu and I are moving house soon, which has been an enormous stressor, but has progressed to new milestones

That last one’s been so huge — I thought I’d ruined everything a few times, then found out I hadn’t — that I felt my body just slumping in relief several times a day. So many little things wrapped, and then at the end of it there was the beautiful take-out meal I’d scheduled back on Wednesday from our favourite restaurant, and when I went to pick it up the weather was cool enough that despite wearing a jacket I wanted a scarf.

So I want to ask — what do you associate with relief? How do you signal to yourself that you are done working for the day, that you deserve rest? How do you give yourself peace?

If you read that and felt despair — felt that you will never be done working, that there is no respite — let me ask you to show the kindness to yourself that you’ve so often shown to me, and let yourself have a moment’s rest. Let yourself imagine a hard line between the work and you, a space for you to exhale, to catch your breath, to unclench your muscles. Even if it’s 10 minutes. Ask nothing of yourself for those 10 minutes.

Here is a beautiful beverage made with roasted plum and cinnamon syrup and several other things to take you into the weekend.