I am sitting on a bed, not the bed I slept in but still in pajamas and a knit hat because it is cold here in this room. I’ve turned on a space heater. I came here to change into my swimsuit so I can go out in the cold and drive to the pool to resume my tiny discipline of moving my body in water after weeks away. But I sat first on my bed and followed a trail of breadcrumbs made of zeros and ones to you, Josie, a stranger far away who I have come to regard with affection and gratitude for the ways you often, often, call me into presence. And it is good. Thank you.
Erika it is honestly such a gift to be given this image, I really crave this sort of insight and connection, thank you so much. I hope that when you read these words, you find yourself in a similarly still moment, and I hope very much that you got your swim. It is my birthday next week and my one request is that I can be taken to a pool. I haven't swam in 10 years - I used to swim every day - and I miss it more than anything!
Dear Josie, I am...sitting at my art desk in the basement. It is -15 outside and am grateful to be in a warm home. Last year and this year's journals are in front of me, opened. One to last April, the other to a soon to be January 2026 page. I've added a card, a momento, to last April's page. From a dear friend who was there for me at a time when life as I knew it, seemed to have stopped. I've just washi taped another card, a birthday one, from same friend, into the last page of December 2025, along with collaged affirmations collected throughout this past month. Sitting here, listening to you speak your words, and wanting to collage the recording into my journal. I am thinking about your words and now relistening to you speak them while I send you hugs from a very cold Canada and wishes for you and your family for a new year full of love, joy, good health, lifting energy, empowerment, inspiration and whatever your heart needs to flourish in 2026.
Thank you Josie for keeping me real, through your art and writing.
Your journals sound so beautiful! What a precious thing to have this record of all the things that mattered most, the people who left a little footprint in your year. I hope you are staying warm. It is -7 here today, which is cold for our bit of the Midlands. Fraser pushed me through the snow to the office and I've had the most glorious view of snow-topped roofs and ice-white sky. All love and thanks to you x
Oh thank you Josée! Yes, I am happy to have these records of joy and also of difficult moments that we've passed through, bruised and thankfully, stronger. In Québec our temps can go down to -24! It was -28 last week (but only during the night) ! Our homes are very well insulated and we have central heating. Yay for modern technology! LOL! Snow is lovely, isn't it? All fresh and white, like a soft cloud. Take care, and stay warm too, dear one. xx
I am… sitting sideways on the sofa with a thick furry caffe latte coloured blanket over my bent knees. On the blanket and over my feet lies the black and white dog who is visiting until Monday. She warms my feet, still cold after our walk earlier. Now she is barking in her sleep, high pitched yips completely unlike her waking voice.
I am sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor eating a yoghurt from a pouch. One of my cats is trying desperately to eat said yoghurt, and keeps putting his little white paws on my legs and sniffing the pouch in my hand, no matter how many times I tell him he can't have it. My other cat is very amused by the pride flags my partner brought home from their job to wash and is sat between them on the airer. My partner is chopping vegetables behind me for our dinner
I love picturing your naughty cats. Darth spent the weekend similarly getting his nose into everything. I have my cross stitch threads wound into bobbins and I keep them in a flat box that often sits on the bed next to me when I'm sewing. It is his FAVOURITE thing to reach in and try to seize a bobbin with his little teeth and run away. Sending love to you, Sophie. Thank you for this image.
I am ... So grateful to you Josie for writing this piece. I just returned from some shopping whilst the shops are still open (here in Berlin the shops close on Sunday), and I only returned from visiting family in the UK last last night. I am anxious right now because of a multitude of chronic worries in my life, the pit in the stomach and the heavy heart present. But seeing your words, I am, helped me to pause to read from you, to hear you and imagine you. To feel that I can see your kind eyes reaching out and into my window to pull me into now. While worries remain, what can we do but breath, pause, and notice. Thank you for allowing and opening that space.
I hear your worry, dear Liz. It is an especially difficult time to stay present and not get pulled into predicting the future. I hope that when you read this, you can pause again and just breathe and notice the things around you . I am sending you so much love.
Thank you dear Josie. What a gift this thread is... I have a dear friend who isn't able to get and about as much as I know she would love, she also tells me how much joy it gives her to hear about what I see and experience. So your lovely reply above regarding swimming really struck me. I really hope that you do get to go swimming again for your birthday or sometime soon, and maybe also enjoy some wild swimming some day too - that has been a salve for me over the years and has become something I have tried to store as a memory for future times. Sending you lots of love xx
I am ... sitting on the sofa under a duvet. There is an open fire that my partner has built up from last year's coalite and sawn-off ends of pallets. It's warm in a glowy, gentle way. I am mildly irritated by the sound of random youtube videos my partner is flicking through. I have a mug of tea that I've let get a bit colder than optimum (there's a range where you take a swig and say "ahhhh, teeeeaaaa" and it's past that point.) I am aware of the feel of the rolls of fat that have snuck back in below my shoulderblades andabove my waist, and I feel shame and guilt that I haven't been taking care of my body as well as I should.
I am looking out at the purpling sky and the snowy garden.
I am largely hopeful. At least, I'd like to think so.
I love all of this. The fire and the irritation and the not-quite-right tea and the feelings flowing through your body. Thank you for being real with me x
Hi Josie! I am just come in from standing in a freezing park admiring the super wolf moon and its sidekick Jupiter hanging miraculously in the night sky. I shake myself and enjoy the tingle on my cheeks.
I love this post and all the sharing offered up by this community!
I am drinking orange stress reducing tea from a cup decorated with honeybees made by a dear friend. I am under a blanket with feet tucked under on a chair over 40 years old that is not an antique. I am in overalls and a hoodie and an old man’s old gray cardigan. I gaze up at my golden pothos with its variegated leaves and wonders how it decides how to accent its leaves and how the clay pot decides to age and what the person’s life was like who made the maple drop-leaf table that was my grandma’s on top of which the tea and the clay pot set. I call my puppy, Daisy, who is cream like the cream of the pothos swirls and who is as fluffy as the leaves are smooth and think how I wonder why anyone ever has a puppy (so much work!) and how we ever live without a puppy (so much laughter!) and how we can hold simultaneously opposite thoughts as our tea grows cold.
Sheila this is gorgeous! Thank you so much for writing this. Your home sounds full full of love and beautiful textures and things to pore over. I can just imagine Daisy yipping and wrestling and all the stress and joy bundled together.
Thank you for your post. I am laying snug in my bed, still in my PJs despite it being late morning. Reading on my phone, listening to the rain on the roof. The soft low light of a foggy west coast day seeping through my window.
Rain sounds are my absolute favourite. When I was little, I used to sleep in an old converted garage with a flat roof and I loved loved the nights it rained. While I've been working this morning, I've had an app playing rain sounds in my ears, too. It makes me feel so safe and rooted to here. Wishing you a good day today, Lindsay.
I am slightly sunburned after a day on the beach . Sitting on my bed feeling that Sunday afternoon low so familiar from childhood , anxiety for my son in his 8 th stint in rehab always present . Thanks to your writing I bring my attention to the lush African thorn tree around me , the harsh grating churr of a baby hadeda ibis begging for food from its parents on our lawn . And I breathe out .
Being present, and being mindful, and also loving yourself enough to say ‘ It’s OK for me to be here - I matter, there’s no one like me, my soul is here right now in this moment, whether I’m feeling so ill I can’t leave the sofa, or so well with vibrancy and flow that I can’t wait for the day to begin.
I did my favourite thing the other day - made a New Year collage in a mindfulness group. 2 hours of choosing any image or colour that caught my eye or resonated with me deeply. Abandoning my plan and what I thought I’d do. Working fast. Ripping out whole pages of Art Monthly ( ? )
Sorting the pile. Realising I needed to make two pictures. One of the dark dreadful last year. In the corner, me as a silver swan swimming away from it all, off the page. Then one of landscape, colour, a lighthouse, me riding my horse like a warrior, love, light, welcome, all safe. home.
The pictures told me - this is where I am right now … out of a long long dark 6 month tunnel and blinking in the light of things being good.
Of course it will change again - life will bring something else … but I emerged with a gift, because there is always a gift from the darkness,
I’m not sure, but I think a part of it might be the ability to be alongside friends who are in their own dark tunnel, but in a way that is helpful. To reach a hand to hold theirs and say ‘I am here for you’ ….. and mean it. To do what I say I will do.
I’m so grateful for you and your writing Josie - because it is so real, and it resonates so deeply.
I am feeling the uniqueness of each one of us and the deep interconnectedness we all have with each other …
Like a mushroom but with a huge web of threads underground …. Mmmmm
Oh gosh Andrea, your collage sounds like the most powerful alchemy! What perfect images you found, I love them so much. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I am sitting on the chaise longue in our bedroom, in a slightly awkward position because I’m intending to get up shortly and start doing some housework. The room is warm but the window opposite me is open and I can feel the cool fresh air coming in and see light snow on the roof opposite (like Colette, I’m also in Canada). I can hear cars going by on the road and see the bare branches of the lilac tree outside the window moving to and fro in the wind.
This is so beautiful Ellie. We have snow here today too! The most we've had in ages, it feels like such a delight. I hope your day brings you many more things to notice and deep peace to breathe into. Thank you for sharing your picture with me.
I am sitting in comfy clothes, with a heated rice bag on my low back. Out my window I can see more(!) new snow on the spruce trees bordering the front yard (I am in Canada). The snow came overnight, but now the sun is making an appearance- the first clear day we’ve had in at least a week. I am glad for the discipline of ‘shovel the snow while it’s fluffy!’ so that my body enjoys the process more than it complains.
I am so glad for your sunshine. I hope you are warm and having a good day. We woke to snow too here, which is very rare, and the strange, shifting bright light through the blinds was such a delight - the light that only snow can make. We are relishing it while it lasts.
I am … sitting on the floor in front of the fire, the only sound the whapp and whiffle of flames. I am feeling grateful for the warmth of burning wood and the way it brings my cottage to life while, outside, the night is crackling with stars and frost. Thank you for your wise words, Josie, and wishing you a bright new year x
I am unwashed and greasy-haired, sitting in an armchair with snotty tissues all around me, attempting to read a book and failing… finding the dopamine hits on my phone more of a pull. A January heavy cold has felled me! The Christmas tree is still up and twinkling next to me, I can see very blue sky out of the window, and my soft-haired saluki is curled up on the sofa opposite me. The sounds of some crazy synth composition from my 17 year old son are coming down from the room upstairs. Thoughts about starting work tomorrow are buzzing in my mind like an annoying fly
Under a duvet on the sofa. The TV is on but I'm only paying it half attention as I catch up on emails. It was the local Christmas bird count today (another Canadian reader, it was cold out there today!), and I collate the results so I'm thanking volunteers, and checking numbers. All of which would be better left tomorrow when I am better rested and clearer of mind.
I am savouring the taste of dinner still in my mouth, and the warmth of my partner's leg rested on mine under the duvet. And realising I should take a shower. But I'm too warm under this duvet so it'll wait til tomorrow.
Thank you Josie. I am back in the moment, for now at least.
I am sitting on a bed, not the bed I slept in but still in pajamas and a knit hat because it is cold here in this room. I’ve turned on a space heater. I came here to change into my swimsuit so I can go out in the cold and drive to the pool to resume my tiny discipline of moving my body in water after weeks away. But I sat first on my bed and followed a trail of breadcrumbs made of zeros and ones to you, Josie, a stranger far away who I have come to regard with affection and gratitude for the ways you often, often, call me into presence. And it is good. Thank you.
Erika it is honestly such a gift to be given this image, I really crave this sort of insight and connection, thank you so much. I hope that when you read these words, you find yourself in a similarly still moment, and I hope very much that you got your swim. It is my birthday next week and my one request is that I can be taken to a pool. I haven't swam in 10 years - I used to swim every day - and I miss it more than anything!
Dear Josie, I am...sitting at my art desk in the basement. It is -15 outside and am grateful to be in a warm home. Last year and this year's journals are in front of me, opened. One to last April, the other to a soon to be January 2026 page. I've added a card, a momento, to last April's page. From a dear friend who was there for me at a time when life as I knew it, seemed to have stopped. I've just washi taped another card, a birthday one, from same friend, into the last page of December 2025, along with collaged affirmations collected throughout this past month. Sitting here, listening to you speak your words, and wanting to collage the recording into my journal. I am thinking about your words and now relistening to you speak them while I send you hugs from a very cold Canada and wishes for you and your family for a new year full of love, joy, good health, lifting energy, empowerment, inspiration and whatever your heart needs to flourish in 2026.
Thank you Josie for keeping me real, through your art and writing.
Your journals sound so beautiful! What a precious thing to have this record of all the things that mattered most, the people who left a little footprint in your year. I hope you are staying warm. It is -7 here today, which is cold for our bit of the Midlands. Fraser pushed me through the snow to the office and I've had the most glorious view of snow-topped roofs and ice-white sky. All love and thanks to you x
Oh thank you Josée! Yes, I am happy to have these records of joy and also of difficult moments that we've passed through, bruised and thankfully, stronger. In Québec our temps can go down to -24! It was -28 last week (but only during the night) ! Our homes are very well insulated and we have central heating. Yay for modern technology! LOL! Snow is lovely, isn't it? All fresh and white, like a soft cloud. Take care, and stay warm too, dear one. xx
I am… sitting sideways on the sofa with a thick furry caffe latte coloured blanket over my bent knees. On the blanket and over my feet lies the black and white dog who is visiting until Monday. She warms my feet, still cold after our walk earlier. Now she is barking in her sleep, high pitched yips completely unlike her waking voice.
I am… thankful for the idea for this practice.
Oh your visitor sounds like perfect company for a cold weekend! Thank you so much for reading and sharing this image with me.
I am sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor eating a yoghurt from a pouch. One of my cats is trying desperately to eat said yoghurt, and keeps putting his little white paws on my legs and sniffing the pouch in my hand, no matter how many times I tell him he can't have it. My other cat is very amused by the pride flags my partner brought home from their job to wash and is sat between them on the airer. My partner is chopping vegetables behind me for our dinner
I love picturing your naughty cats. Darth spent the weekend similarly getting his nose into everything. I have my cross stitch threads wound into bobbins and I keep them in a flat box that often sits on the bed next to me when I'm sewing. It is his FAVOURITE thing to reach in and try to seize a bobbin with his little teeth and run away. Sending love to you, Sophie. Thank you for this image.
I am ... So grateful to you Josie for writing this piece. I just returned from some shopping whilst the shops are still open (here in Berlin the shops close on Sunday), and I only returned from visiting family in the UK last last night. I am anxious right now because of a multitude of chronic worries in my life, the pit in the stomach and the heavy heart present. But seeing your words, I am, helped me to pause to read from you, to hear you and imagine you. To feel that I can see your kind eyes reaching out and into my window to pull me into now. While worries remain, what can we do but breath, pause, and notice. Thank you for allowing and opening that space.
I hear your worry, dear Liz. It is an especially difficult time to stay present and not get pulled into predicting the future. I hope that when you read this, you can pause again and just breathe and notice the things around you . I am sending you so much love.
Thank you dear Josie. What a gift this thread is... I have a dear friend who isn't able to get and about as much as I know she would love, she also tells me how much joy it gives her to hear about what I see and experience. So your lovely reply above regarding swimming really struck me. I really hope that you do get to go swimming again for your birthday or sometime soon, and maybe also enjoy some wild swimming some day too - that has been a salve for me over the years and has become something I have tried to store as a memory for future times. Sending you lots of love xx
I am ... sitting on the sofa under a duvet. There is an open fire that my partner has built up from last year's coalite and sawn-off ends of pallets. It's warm in a glowy, gentle way. I am mildly irritated by the sound of random youtube videos my partner is flicking through. I have a mug of tea that I've let get a bit colder than optimum (there's a range where you take a swig and say "ahhhh, teeeeaaaa" and it's past that point.) I am aware of the feel of the rolls of fat that have snuck back in below my shoulderblades andabove my waist, and I feel shame and guilt that I haven't been taking care of my body as well as I should.
I am looking out at the purpling sky and the snowy garden.
I am largely hopeful. At least, I'd like to think so.
I love all of this. The fire and the irritation and the not-quite-right tea and the feelings flowing through your body. Thank you for being real with me x
Hi Josie! I am just come in from standing in a freezing park admiring the super wolf moon and its sidekick Jupiter hanging miraculously in the night sky. I shake myself and enjoy the tingle on my cheeks.
What a moon it was! I love picturing you out looking up at it, just as I did too.
It's so bright! I took the dogs out to the park and the moon reflected off the snow was bright enough to walk without a torch
I love this post and all the sharing offered up by this community!
I am drinking orange stress reducing tea from a cup decorated with honeybees made by a dear friend. I am under a blanket with feet tucked under on a chair over 40 years old that is not an antique. I am in overalls and a hoodie and an old man’s old gray cardigan. I gaze up at my golden pothos with its variegated leaves and wonders how it decides how to accent its leaves and how the clay pot decides to age and what the person’s life was like who made the maple drop-leaf table that was my grandma’s on top of which the tea and the clay pot set. I call my puppy, Daisy, who is cream like the cream of the pothos swirls and who is as fluffy as the leaves are smooth and think how I wonder why anyone ever has a puppy (so much work!) and how we ever live without a puppy (so much laughter!) and how we can hold simultaneously opposite thoughts as our tea grows cold.
Sheila this is gorgeous! Thank you so much for writing this. Your home sounds full full of love and beautiful textures and things to pore over. I can just imagine Daisy yipping and wrestling and all the stress and joy bundled together.
Thank you so much! You made my day! 💕
Thank you for your post. I am laying snug in my bed, still in my PJs despite it being late morning. Reading on my phone, listening to the rain on the roof. The soft low light of a foggy west coast day seeping through my window.
Rain sounds are my absolute favourite. When I was little, I used to sleep in an old converted garage with a flat roof and I loved loved the nights it rained. While I've been working this morning, I've had an app playing rain sounds in my ears, too. It makes me feel so safe and rooted to here. Wishing you a good day today, Lindsay.
I am slightly sunburned after a day on the beach . Sitting on my bed feeling that Sunday afternoon low so familiar from childhood , anxiety for my son in his 8 th stint in rehab always present . Thanks to your writing I bring my attention to the lush African thorn tree around me , the harsh grating churr of a baby hadeda ibis begging for food from its parents on our lawn . And I breathe out .
Oh Jenny, I feel you. Sending you so much love, to you and your son. These precious baby birds of ours too x
Interesting Josie !!
Indeed - magic words
Being present, and being mindful, and also loving yourself enough to say ‘ It’s OK for me to be here - I matter, there’s no one like me, my soul is here right now in this moment, whether I’m feeling so ill I can’t leave the sofa, or so well with vibrancy and flow that I can’t wait for the day to begin.
I did my favourite thing the other day - made a New Year collage in a mindfulness group. 2 hours of choosing any image or colour that caught my eye or resonated with me deeply. Abandoning my plan and what I thought I’d do. Working fast. Ripping out whole pages of Art Monthly ( ? )
Sorting the pile. Realising I needed to make two pictures. One of the dark dreadful last year. In the corner, me as a silver swan swimming away from it all, off the page. Then one of landscape, colour, a lighthouse, me riding my horse like a warrior, love, light, welcome, all safe. home.
The pictures told me - this is where I am right now … out of a long long dark 6 month tunnel and blinking in the light of things being good.
Of course it will change again - life will bring something else … but I emerged with a gift, because there is always a gift from the darkness,
I’m not sure, but I think a part of it might be the ability to be alongside friends who are in their own dark tunnel, but in a way that is helpful. To reach a hand to hold theirs and say ‘I am here for you’ ….. and mean it. To do what I say I will do.
I’m so grateful for you and your writing Josie - because it is so real, and it resonates so deeply.
I am feeling the uniqueness of each one of us and the deep interconnectedness we all have with each other …
Like a mushroom but with a huge web of threads underground …. Mmmmm
Oh gosh Andrea, your collage sounds like the most powerful alchemy! What perfect images you found, I love them so much. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I am sitting on the chaise longue in our bedroom, in a slightly awkward position because I’m intending to get up shortly and start doing some housework. The room is warm but the window opposite me is open and I can feel the cool fresh air coming in and see light snow on the roof opposite (like Colette, I’m also in Canada). I can hear cars going by on the road and see the bare branches of the lilac tree outside the window moving to and fro in the wind.
This is a lovely practice, thank you Josie!
This is so beautiful Ellie. We have snow here today too! The most we've had in ages, it feels like such a delight. I hope your day brings you many more things to notice and deep peace to breathe into. Thank you for sharing your picture with me.
This sitting in an awkward position because you're between things is familiar!
I am sitting in comfy clothes, with a heated rice bag on my low back. Out my window I can see more(!) new snow on the spruce trees bordering the front yard (I am in Canada). The snow came overnight, but now the sun is making an appearance- the first clear day we’ve had in at least a week. I am glad for the discipline of ‘shovel the snow while it’s fluffy!’ so that my body enjoys the process more than it complains.
I am so glad for your sunshine. I hope you are warm and having a good day. We woke to snow too here, which is very rare, and the strange, shifting bright light through the blinds was such a delight - the light that only snow can make. We are relishing it while it lasts.
How wonderful that you have (had?) snow, and that you’re loving it! It truly is quite beautiful :)
I think of you often ; I’m so grateful for the words that you craft and then share with us. Thank you.
I am … sitting on the floor in front of the fire, the only sound the whapp and whiffle of flames. I am feeling grateful for the warmth of burning wood and the way it brings my cottage to life while, outside, the night is crackling with stars and frost. Thank you for your wise words, Josie, and wishing you a bright new year x
'Whapp and whiffle' made me beam with delight, thank you so much. Words like honey!
🙏🏼 xxx
I am unwashed and greasy-haired, sitting in an armchair with snotty tissues all around me, attempting to read a book and failing… finding the dopamine hits on my phone more of a pull. A January heavy cold has felled me! The Christmas tree is still up and twinkling next to me, I can see very blue sky out of the window, and my soft-haired saluki is curled up on the sofa opposite me. The sounds of some crazy synth composition from my 17 year old son are coming down from the room upstairs. Thoughts about starting work tomorrow are buzzing in my mind like an annoying fly
This is so real and gorgeous. I hope with all my heart that you feel better today!
I am...
Under a duvet on the sofa. The TV is on but I'm only paying it half attention as I catch up on emails. It was the local Christmas bird count today (another Canadian reader, it was cold out there today!), and I collate the results so I'm thanking volunteers, and checking numbers. All of which would be better left tomorrow when I am better rested and clearer of mind.
I am savouring the taste of dinner still in my mouth, and the warmth of my partner's leg rested on mine under the duvet. And realising I should take a shower. But I'm too warm under this duvet so it'll wait til tomorrow.
Thank you Josie. I am back in the moment, for now at least.
Gorgeous gorgeous words, thank you. How special these moments are.