Liz Danzico is one of my favorite writers, but picking just one post for a #pastblast is a bit futile. Instead, here are a collection of my favorites. Liz speaks eloquently on many topics, including:
Making real commitments in A Canceling Culture:
Rescheduling appointments has suddenly become acceptable. Whether it’s because our calendars are digital or our schedules are triangulated moments at a time, juggling has become a cultural habit. And it’s uncomfortable, not to mention inconvenient.
Stewardship in Tag Off:
The physical item decision, then, is almost inconsequential. Tags need to be taken off with abandon. But our ability, our generosity — with people, with ideas, — isn’t to be stored and saved for some future unidentified date. It should be used and shared until it’s threadbare, and then some. Take the tags off.
Asking for what we want in Sweet Simplicity:
By introducing a greeting this way, you’ve assumed a context that may or may not be true. When we request value from another, we often make assumptions that impose another story on the individual. You know your own context, your own taste. Nothing more. Instead, be simple in your request. Just ask without assumptions.
Trees, weeds, roots and urban sprawl in The Taxonomy of the Invisible:
Perhaps it’s the way we’ve been taught. I thought back to “weeding,” a good-hearted but somewhat totalitarian weekend activity in my parents’ garden, one I frequently attempted to escape. On Saturday mornings, my parents would announce “weeding orders” for the four children, and we were to set out, in the hot sun, the driving rain, the falling leaves of autumn, and attack. They saw no boundaries.
On happiness in More Focus:
I’m not certain how long happy is, and, now that I think about it, I’m happy not to know. That’s part of the joy, in fact. The not knowing. It’s a common question, “How long will this happiness last?” we wonder, then forget when it just keeps going.
Load up that Instapaper queue folks.
Words cannot describe how much I love this:
Liz Danzico turns off the lights on Bobulate.com, creating a different version for the after hours. She tells you why better than I ever could.
Today, few markers mark time. We make our own markers, using light as a guide on some days, milestones and deadlines on more frenetic ones. But it’s the rare person who, at 6PM, can walk, head high, out of the studio or office, turning day into night and one thing into another. Marking the fact that it’s time to play.
“But before other children were born, when I was an only child, I had the backseat to myself. Road trips found me there, using the entire wooly backseat as my drafting table for giant coloring books and blank paper and hours ahead with crayons. At that time, the contours of my knowing were what I saw out the car window as we rolled down the summer highway. Spaces for coloring all my own.”
