by Kat | Nov 24, 2025 | General, Words
I know that I said last week that there would not be a post today, a conversation with a dear friend helped me see that this post might be helpful to me and I am certain that all of you sharing things that you discovered during the month with your words might be helpful to me as well… so here I am.
This month, my focus was to make an attempt to slow down these waning days of 2025, which felt like they were racing past at warp speed.
The Be Careful of What You Wish For slow down arrived abruptly last Monday and I have been in this strange time ever since. All constructs of time feel broken… or maybe it is me that is broken. Let me tell you though, I much prefer the work of the Yutori of Slowing Down versus the Yutori of Grief.
And so to help occupy consume time, on Thursday I picked up some knitting… but not knitting that if I made a mistake (which was highly likely) that it would be problematic to fix… cloud knitting is not grief knitting. Fortunately I had a long forgotten sock that I had haphazardly begun last April… I was at the point of the decreases that work down the foot. Could I string my thoughts together to work through those decreases? Maybe? And if I could not, would it really matter?
And so I poured all my grief into these stitches. Likewise, these stitches hold an abundance of worry I have for my son and his wife as they navigate the unthinkable. That worry also created some righteous anger that I poured into the stitches… so much anger. And before I knew it, that first sock was done. I cast on the second sock and continued to fill it with tears and heartbreak and emptiness… and a measure of guilt… yes, guilt. Guilt over the delight of the daily update of Odette.
Who knew that the Yutori of Grief would also have moments of indescribable joy and so I knit that guilt into the sock as well.
I am closing in on the finish of this second sock…I am at the toe decreases as I schedule this to post. However, it seems evident to me that these are socks that I don’t think I can ever wear (I mean… these socks hold so much… so much, I fear they would be painful to wear.) Instead, I will tuck these socks away… a reminder of grieving for what won’t be.
When I settled in with this word this year… I had no idea at all how it would help shape my days and honestly, last month I was feeling quite “done” with Yutori. But life had other plans because I had no idea of how Yutori would also help shape my grief. Divine intervention? I don’t know… truthfully, my anger with the divine right now is off the charts. I prefer to settle in with my much loved Rilke and his wisdom about living the questions… questions that have absolutely no answers and likely never will…
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke
And so, yes… I am even living (and knitting) grief with all its unanswered questions.
Thank you for allowing me the space to share this most excruciating time with you all. And thank you even more for all the kind support you are giving me through your thoughts and for holding me and my family close in your hearts. It has been an immeasurable boon of good that is bearing me up each day. I will be back on Wednesday, I think… with something, I am not sure exactly what… perhaps another sock?
As always, if you have an update to share about how your word and you fared this month… I welcome your update and I am eager to read it! You can leave your link below!
by Kat | Oct 27, 2025 | General, Words
Greetings and Happy October Word Update Day to all my fellow “Worder’s”!
How was October? By now I hope you have settled into a “zone” with your word, but despite being very comfortable with the direction of your year… I hope you still are finding something new and exciting to learn! If you are sharing the October Update, you will find the link up at the bottom of this post! Welcome and thank you for participating!
Enjoy these last moments, here, now, as much as you can.
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo
Yes, yes, and yes! I confess, I am very much enjoying Yutori Days… weeks… months! And to spend my favorite month of the year with a very Yutori focus… well it does not get better than this!
It is truly amazing how one’s perspective changes with simple act of slowing down. This month, particularly, a changed perspective has saved my sanity more than once! (It has been A. Month! has it not?)
I have also put Yutori to good use when doing tasks I particularly don’t care for and while I don’t like washing floors or vacuuming or doing the dishes any more than I did before… there is something almost meditative about the activities. I allow my mind to wander where it wants to go and I am surprised by the creative paths it journeys down! (My most recent Yutori Thinking Spells have included how my next year of stitching will evolve!) I did not have Yutori = more creativity on my radar when I began this journey!
The other thing that has surprised me this year is how my “slowed down” reading has been this year! Even without paging through the book notes portion of my journal, I remember far more about the books I have read this year than previous years! I simply take a moment or two after finishing a book to jot down some thoughts about the book. An extra moment or two to linger with a book is a very good thing. I will absolutely be carrying this with me… it is a practice that is serving me well!
Finally, last Saturday was Frankie’s Gotcha Day! I confess, the blur of those first puppy days and all the interrupted sleep of last November and December feels like a distant memory that happened in another life. But, this month especially, Frankie and I have found a bit of a Yutori pace for our days together. Or perhaps it is that Frankie has settled in with my routine but it makes me feel very good to say that I am very much Frankie’s Person. Yutori Days with a pet are the best thing ever!
Who’s the best boy ever?
And there you have my October update!
If you wrote a post to share this month, please leave your link below! I am most eager to read it and I thank you so much for participating!
by Kat | Sep 29, 2025 | General, Words
Greetings everyone and welcome to the September update! We are nine months done… and I have questions for you all!
- How is your year going?
- Are you finding that your word is helping?
- And, most importantly, what have you implemented to your days thanks to your word?
You will find the link up at the bottom of this post. I am so eager to read how you all are doing this month!
In the early days of September I stumbled across a poem by Lynn Ungar — a most happy accident! It is almost as if Lynn had her own Yutori Year, and she noted it beautifully in her poem, The Way It Is. I have spent lots of time with this poem this month as I eased into a new chapter of life as I try and accept and assimilate some changes to my days. And Lynn Ungar absolutely helped!
The Way It Is
by Lynn Ungar
One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in patched — like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.
And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly what it is.
The Way It is © Lynn Ungar, 2015.
Thank you, dear Ms. Ungar for these words, this meditation, this realization that what it is is exactly what it should be.
Header photo by Suzy Hazelwood
I hope that what you are finding as September draws to a close is that you are nearing the same space… that what it is is exactly where you should be!
If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Aug 25, 2025 | General, Words
Greetings fellow word journeyer’s and welcome to the August update! Have you reached the “downhill” point with your word yet? Are you merrily coasting along? Or was August a struggle for you… like it was for me? Whatever this month was for you, I am so glad you are here! The link up is at the bottom of this post!
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change. ― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
I have heard those crickets all month as I spent time trying to “just absorb the world around me with no goal except to see.” And what did I discover in all this time… that the world has lots of grey areas and very few black and white spaces where things are clear and simple.
As you all know, it has been a year of health issues for me… lots of tests which I would think would be very black and white, but instead I have found myself firmly in the Grey Area and I have spent much of the month frustrated and irritated.
I have lots of check marks in the problem column but few in the solutions column. My desire is to be in the World of Black and White… problem → solution = happiness.
Then I had a bit of a Light Bulb Moment…It suddenly occurred to me that Yutori is a practice that was built for a life where the Grey Areas are greater than the clear cut Black and White World… and no, the serendipity of spending a year with Yutori is not lost on me as August draws to a close!
So this month, after wasting a good bit of time railing against the lack of answers… I turned back to the Yutori description and settle into this:
Just absorbing the world around us with no goal except to see.
Firmly settled into the grey areas of life… absorbing the sometime silence of the day… birdsong has been replaced by the drone of crickets reminding me that almost nothing will last forever except maybe those blasted grey areas.
But perhaps, there is some comfort in those grey areas… a calm, sometimes stillness, that hums under the surface of everyday life. At least that is what I am hoping for!
Header photo by Sam Forson
Thank you all so much for joining me this month. I am eager to read your update so please leave the link to your post below!
by Kat | Jul 28, 2025 | General, Words
Welcome dear friends!
We have arrived at the last Monday of July… the day we all share our updates with how our word showed up for us, how we focused on our word (or not… it is very okay if you did not think about your word!) I had some unexpected surprises this month and I kept Yutori in my focus as you will read. I am eager to read about how you did this month as well and you will find the link to share your update at the bottom of this post!
Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty. You don’t have to fix everything. You don’t have to solve everything. And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things. — Morgan Harper Nichols
It was a happy accident that I stumbled across this Morgan Harper Nichols quote… and just what I needed for my focus for this month.
And so, I reminded myself daily to… let July be July. Hot and muggy…the epitome of summer. July absolutely reminded me daily that it was Full On Summer!
And, like July, my days were “hot and muggy” with uncertainty… Full On Uncertainty! I spent lots of time being still with myself, my worries, and my concerns and I reminded myself frequently… I am not the fixer or the solver! I can just be in the uncertainty. If only that was as easy to do as it is to say.
I have arrived at the portion of my life where I am daily “living the questions”… and I would really like to get to the point of living into the answer… living the questions is not easy especially when the desire for the answer… i.e. fixing/solving… is overwhelming.
I let myself sit in the uncertainty. I meditated on the uncertainty. I was still with the uncertainty. I tried to get comfortable with the uncertainty. And, like letting July be July, I just let the uncertainty be uncertain. I did find some answers… but I also learned that answers are not always solutions… but rather a door to more uncertainty.
I wish I could tell you that I have magically arrived at peace as July winds down… I have not. But I have begun to make peace with the uncertainty. I am not quite at the point of “loving the unsolved,” as Rilke suggests. But I am not fighting with it today. I am letting the uncertainty be uncertain… and holding peace in the same space. Not perfectly… it is a work in progress, but I had some brief moments of success.
Do I still have worries and concerns? Yes, I do! But I am realizing that I can have worries, concerns and they don’t have to overwhelm me… I can also hold peace at the same time. I am learning that sitting with worries is a bit like arriving early for an appointment… it is amazing when you are still and just take in what is happening…inside and out… you find more than you expected.
Perfection? Nope… but perhaps something even better, the discovery that there can be uncertainty and peace at the same time. Is it a work in progress? Absolutely… but I am not shying away from the work.
If you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below. I hope your July was magnificent!
Header photo by Johannes Plenio
by Kat | Jun 30, 2025 | General, Words
Greetings fellow OLW friends and welcome to the June update! I hope that all of you had a most amazing month as you contemplated your word and you will find the link up at the bottom of this post!
Little did I know when I began June and my “plan” for Yutori this month how vital that would all be as I end the month. So come along with me as I circle back to more deeply examine the idea of external and internal space… and trying to hold both in some sort of balance.
By taking up space, standing up for ourselves, and reassessing a future with crystal-clear perspectives, we gain clarity and make room for self-care, well-being, and joy. — Erik Pevernagie
Strangely, joy quotes kept showing up for me this month and little did I know that by month’s end how vital saving all those bits of joy would be. As if the external space knew something I was yet to perceive…
I spent much of the month doing physical self care of myself… PT and Pilates topping the list. I also spent a good bit of time weeding in my garden beds… thank you Spring Rains for the weed boom! For those of you who don’t garden, weeding is great physical work and I worked up a good sweat each time I tackled those weeds! Pulling those weeds is also a great way to relieve stress and it is a great frustration buster as well!
I closed out the month taking a challenging class on Continental Knitting (which is not my method of knitting!) Three hours of challenging my brain and my hands to try new and very unfamiliar things! I am sharing my samples… the grey sample I knit in my “usual” manner of knitting and the fuchsia sample all done with Continental knitting. The knit stitches were not as troublesome as those blasted purls!
Grey swatch… roughly 2 hours of knitting time. Swatch perfection… my knits and my purls are the same size! Ribbing doing that ribbing thing nicely! Fuchsia swatch… roughly 3 hours of knitting time and lots of “rowing out” especially when I began stockinette! And that ribbing… well, as you can see it is not ribbing much but this swatch does get the award for basically laying flat pre-soaking!
I am amazed at the stark differences in my samples which were knit on the same needle and the yarn is the same gauge! Good reminders that trying new things has a purpose… it stretches you… it makes you reassess things… and those perspectives are a good thing to keep in focus as the month closes out.
Why? Well, while PT was highly successful in one way… it seems the problem I am still having is not being caused by something PT can fix. This news was, quite honestly, devastating. I believed it was all going “to plan” and suddenly I found myself having to reassess… and my perspective is not so crystal clear right now. But I can see how vastly different the “swatch” of life before is from the “swatch” I am learning now. But here is what I am reminding myself of… it is still my life! I am still taking up the same space as before. I am not standing up alone (as the physician reminded me of when we met last week) and, while this hurdle was not one I planned for… I am still here!
And then on Friday, came the best boon of all… in Krista Tippet’s summer series, it was the week of Joanna Macy… somehow the external space knew exactly when to deliver this bit of wisdom. Of course, Rilke sent me a lifeline… giving me the mantra I would need to go forward and that is how I will close this month out. I have heard and read this poem dozens of times before and it never really struck me until I heard it on Friday morning when it became clear exactly why my beloved Rilke wrote it…and as I let his words wash over me, it very much feels like he is speaking directly to me… giving me a bit of light on the path ahead.
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
You can hear Joanna read it here.
Header photo by Pixabay
I welcome you to leave your June update at the link up below. I am eager to see how your month went for you!
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