Happy Birthday

there will be cake

Today, Iridescent Ordinary turns one year old. That’s kind of a big deal for this little publication--or any one for that matter. 

I’m so grateful you’re along for the ride. 

My goal with Iridescent Ordinary is to cheer people on toward creating and sustaining meaningful daily practices. By people I mean us: you and me. And really anyone who wants to get in on the action. Maybe mostly me. 

It is an honor to share with you years of reading, research, and challenges I’ve been doing for myself .

It’s been a year with its own kind of struggles, including significant travel up and down the eastern seaboard for a variety of family situations, a super wonky work schedule, a few mental/emotional breakdowns, and a lot of unknowns.  

Here we are together, twice every week, trying our darndest to take teeny tiny baby steps towards getting better at this life thing. It starts with what we do every day. 

Some things we’ve covered:

• Meditation

• Gratitude

• Finding joy

• Intention setting

• Curiosity

• Creativity

• Focus

• Rest

• Choices

We’ve talked with artists, life coaches, authors, entrepreneurs, writers, surgeons, and a real life goddess. We’ve shared playlists, journal prompts, meditations, podcasts, memes, ideas, socks, snacks,  and hacks. I’ve read dozens of books and listened to hundreds of podcasts in my effort to cheer us along our daily practice path. We’ve celebrated new sponge day frequently. 

And yet…

It feels as though we’ve only dipped our teeniest tiniest little toe in the water. As the most complicated and messy species on the planet, human-ing is hard. We have these hyper-complex lumps of electrified squishy meat and jello inside of our skulls that sometimes compels us to think and do weird/unhelpful/downright idiotic things. We’re limited not just by the narrow spectrums of our five senses, but also, we spend a lot of time limiting ourselves. 

I mean me, but feel free to include yourself if it feels appropriate. 

A friend once asserted  “Efficiency is intellectual laziness.” Then she sat back and crossed her arms, waiting for me to recognize the brilliance of what she’d said. I called bullshit on it right there.  I argued that efficiency frees up room for one’s intellect to roam. 

At its most basic level, efficiency is a bowl by the door to collect your  keys as soon as you get home, so you never have to spend time looking for your keys. Efficiency is creating  reminders on your phone for everything from moving the car on street sweeping night to reminders to eat a good breakfast in the morning. 

Efficiency is a way to manage the little shit so you can focus on the big shit. 

Minding your daily practice is kind of like that. Make important things an automatic and habitual part of your day--so you don’t have to even think about them. You just do them. Meditation. Boom. Done. Positive self-talk. Boom. Done. Exercise. Boom. Done. Gratitude. Boom. Done. Next. 

Orchestrating a daily practice isn’t about productivity. It’s about extracting the most meaning and  living from your days, whether it is learning how to sit with your breath or creating a ritual around dancing to your latest favorite song. 

Even if you don’t think you have a daily practice, you do. Do you wake up and check twitter? Email? Do you head  straight to the coffee pot or jump in the shower? That’s your daily practice. As soon as you finish work do you crack open a hard seltzer or head out on a run? That’s your daily practice. Do you fall asleep on the couch with Netflix chugging away until you jolt yourself awake snoring then drag yourself to bed or literally scroll through Tik-Tok until you drop your phone in slumber? That’s your daily practice.

Once you recognize what your daily practice is, you can play around with what you want from it.

My aim with Iridescent Ordinary is to help all of us create a more intentional daily practice that allows us space to thrive and expand. 

Full disclosure: I’m not always great at my daily habits. I don’t have a normal life (whatever that is). I don’t have a normal job (whatever that is). My husband is sometimes home, and sometimes not. It seems every week is somehow different. My challenge is to create a rhythm that flows, no matter what my to do list looks like.

I’m here for all of us who understand how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and that right now we need a little inspiration. 

Thanks for joining me on this ride. 

To my paid subscribers: I am filled with profound gratitude for your support. The words and art published here twice every week are my own. I invest a significant amount of time and energy into putting this together.  

To everyone who likes, emails, comments and messages me: thank you for your insightful input. It is so validating to know I’m not throwing my work into an indifferent void. 

To celebrate one whole year of publishing, I’m offering a paid subscriber special. If you read this and enjoy or benefit from it, please consider a paid subscription. I am a small, independent artist.

P.S. All cakes have been made by me. Including the disastrous Jell-o situation.