So I was on the phone yesterday with a beautiful kindred spirit who took my Make Art, Choose Joy class, and we were talking about the inhale-exhale that’s fundamental for artists (and all humans).

We were acknowledging how HARD it is to let ourselves inhale (take in nourishment, sustenance, rest, nutrients, beauty, pleasure) when we are measured our whole lives by how much we exhale (output, produce, create, accomplish, finish).

Both of us tend to try to cram as much into every hour of the day as possible.

Ironically, this urge to maximize– to do and accomplish as MUCH as possible– often leads us to miss out on the very thing we’re yearning for.

When I’m trying to jam one more thing into our day, even if it’s something lovely like grabbing an ice cream cone with my kids, I end up frazzled and rushed, hurried and short.

Come on, come on, hurry, let’s go is my constant refrain.

I don’t want this to be how my kids remember me.

And I don’t want it to be the way I spend my own hours and days.

I want the opposite. I want saturated presence. I want to inhabit the beloved animal of my own body. I want to LIVE these days, swim and float and soak them up, not rush through them.

I want to treat my life itself like art, like a ritual. I want to make something beautiful out of it, where the making itself IS the sacred act. Because in the humble weft and warp of my days and hours is what I’m actually weaving.

It isn’t just about slowing down…but it isn’t possible without slowing down.

And so, my dear beloved friends, I’m taking another summer sabbatical from this missive.

(This is a radical act for me. To consider that taking a break wouldn’t be this one-time aberration, this thing I had to do once in 2022 because I was so tired and broken-down…but could be something I just build into my life and take on a regular basis?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?

You see, I’m a life coach but I’m also a human raised in a capitalist society that asks me to keep proving my worth and value with constant ceaseless productivity. I’m working on it.)

I used to be really good at joy. Like, it was one of my best skills. But I’m out of shape. And it takes robust joy muscles to find joy amidst the sheer volume of pushing required to keep our family of seven going.

So I am dedicating this summer to being a beginner again, to recommitting myself to the study of joy.

I’m going once more in search of saturated presence.

Last summer, I wrote this and it still holds:

These years with my kids are flying by so fast. And I want to have a real summer with them. I want salty days and sand in my book. I want card games after dinner. I want rambles and berries and watermelon, sticky bodies in a cool bath, frosty glasses of lemonade and iced tea. I want to jump on the trampoline and laugh. I want to get dirty and not worry about the laundry.

For so many years I worked straight through the summer, often writing– oh dear– about honoring our own rhythms even as I pushed myself to ceaselessly churn out writing week after week, even during vacation, even during the holidays. That is starting to seem a little absurd to me. I’m not a machine; I don’t have a marketing “team”– it’s just me, writing from my heart to yours.

I love working. But I don’t love half-working and yelling, “Just five more minutes!” seventy five times and hearing “But you SAID” and knowing they’re right.

So I’m taking a sabbatical from this missive. I’m going in search of a real summer.

I’ll still be talking regularly with my beloved private clients, of course– text me, loves, that’s why you have the batphone straight to me– but I’m taking a week off the grid entirely and I’m stepping away from this missive for a few weeks to honor my seasons.

I’ll be back before autumn. Until then, I’ll be sharing my field notes over in RichJuicyStarryBeauty, where I share– well– everything.

I’m wishing you what I’m trying to give myself– a sweet, real summer.

I hope you’ll wander and lose yourself in a slant of light. I hope you’ll pick wild blackberries. I hope you’ll get mesmerized looking up at leaves against the sky and fall asleep on an old quilt. I hope you’ll dream up a whole new world.

I’ll see you back here when the seasons turn again.