Read.Eat.Listen: Instruction

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest. This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,

and it doesn't move from outside to inside

through conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.

—From Essential Rumi By Coleman Barks

READ: In addition to Rumi, I've been reading Six Word Memoirs. I love reading SMITH magazine's project/feature 'six word memoirs' when I'm at a loss on where to begin with writing something, and/or don't want to get too lost in a rabbit hole of reading too much Internet fodder. There's also an ongoing Twitter Feed of @SixWords.

As part of teaching appreciation week, SMITH is asking reader/writers to submit #sixwords on the topic of#TeachingIs. I submitted "#TeachingIs holding space for awareness and discovery #sixwords" as I've come to believe the best teachers are like sun and water on a plant, letting me be my best self without much other interference. Other favorites include: 

 ‏@TchrAnnie  #TeachingIs trusting your students, igniting their curiosity

and 

@mollysroy  Every day is a second chance @sixwords #sixwords #TeachingIs

Kind of fun, huh?

EAT:  I grew up across the street from an apple orchard and my dad has 5-6 different varieties of his own apple trees growing on our property. I've always liked them in pie but have always gone in and out with them myself, perhaps due to their ubiquity in California. Also when you eat a lot of apples you know how some apples can be not so good. And maybe because even after all those years having apples given to me, buying them still feels odd.  Nonetheless, in part because the CSA box delivers boxes curated by someone else and has included more apples than I'd buy, I've rediscovered the joyful crunch and simple goodness of an apple. Lately Fuji apples have been on order, sliced and served up with cinnamon and almond butter, yeah!

LISTEN: "The Hard Way" by Tom Kimmel/The Waymores. I saw a trio of great songwriters — Tom Kimmel, Sally Barris and Don Henry — performing as the Waymores, in Niles on Sunday.  All seasoned Nashville writers whose songs have been covered by a famous lot of singers including the likes Miranda Lambert, Linda Rondstadt and Johnny Cash (!), the trio leaves no topic out of the mix of subject matter explored. Fom singing about dead people in love to their work ethic, they put on a great show of skill, heart and humble dedication. Kimmel's song "The Hard Way" especially slayed me: