1)    I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who walks around with my head in the clouds – or buried in my smartphone – too much of the time. But sometimes I remember that whatever moment I’m in is a “never again” moment, and I stop and pay attention. And sometimes I go on a deliberate quest to notice. That’s the subject of this month’s blog post. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Please feel free to post in the comments section on my blog page and start a conversation. 2)    In the aforesaid post I referenced The Art of Noticing – a delightful book that inspires us to look at the world more attentively and see it in new and wonderful ways. Rob Walker, the author, also publishes a TAoN newsletter, in which he shares more ideas and prompts for paying attention. Recently he floated the idea of keeping a “never again” journal to record moments that will never happen again in the same way, and I decided to take up the offer. I emailed him to let him know his idea had taken root and sent him a photo of my tiny journal. Imagine how thrilled I was to hear back from him asking if he could share it in his newsletter – and how even more thrilled I was to see it written up in his next issue under the heading Dept. of Inspiring Readers! Not only that, but another TAoN reader, Jeremy Caplan, picked up on it and featured my journal in his WonderTools newsletter! I’m thoroughly enjoying my moment of nano-fame. (And the WonderTools newsletter is very cool too, by the way.) 3)    What if you went to a restaurant and the server delivered a meal you didn’t order? That’s what might happen if...

1)  One thing my friends know about me is that I’m a stickler for language. In particular: for clear language. Fuzzy language leads to fuzzy thinking (she said authoritatively), which is at best an obstacle to effective action – and at worst, downright dangerous. I put down some of my thoughts about this in my blog post this month. Warning*Warning*Warning: Contains politics. 2) Speaking of language: if you love words and you love beautiful illustrations, you will adore Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World, by writer/illustrator Ella Frances Sanders. It’s a thoroughly delightful compendium of words in different languages that express concepts we simply don’t have a word for in English. But as soon as you see them in this book, you will wonder why we don’t, and wish we did. Just gorgeous. 3) I’ve been a big fan of David Byrne since his days as frontman for the Talking Heads. He’s a wonderful singer and musician, of course – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. From what I can tell, he’s someone who thinks about and tries his hand at everything – from music to theatre to neuroscience to architecture to the environment to … well, everything. The breadth of his interests is mind-boggling, as you can see from his website. I particularly recommend his online magazine, Reasons To Be Cheerful, which focuses on “smart, proven, replicable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems” (sorry, no cute kitties) and reminds us that there is reason to hope after all. 4) Have you noticed that there is a lot of talk recently...

Following the pattern I set with my first blog post, I started out planning to write about one topic for my second one and ended up landing on another one. All because of a notebook that caught my eye. This month: kindness.

I don’t subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but there are a select few I not only enjoy receiving but actually read. Generally those are the ones in which the author shares a curated list of things they found particularly interesting on the assumption that if they find something interesting, their readers might too. And I invariably do!

So I’m “stealing like an artist”, as the brilliant writer and artist Austin Kleon would put it, and creating my own newsletter containing things I find particularly interesting. I’ve dubbed it my Compendium of Delight, because I like the word “compendium” (it makes me think of a slightly dog-eared journal stuffed with cuttings and papers and snippets of collected wisdom), and I love to share things that delight me. I hope they’ll delight you too – maybe even enough to subscribe to this newsletter!