How one Mayor Pete volunteer learned to stop worrying and love Joe Biden
I rode the subway to Boston’s North Station to meet a Pete Buttigieg volunteer named Dan. This was in January – cold, a pandemic ago. I was all in for Mayor Pete.
Dan and I greeted arriving commuters with “Pete 2020” signs and gave away blue and gold “Pete” stickers. Most people rushed by, pretending not to see us. A few grinned knowingly and stopped for stickers before rushing into their days.
Later that morning I posted an audio account of the experience. I said I’d felt…
Settling in for creative work on Sanibel Island
It doesn’t take much to make me feel at home in a new place. All I need is decent Internet service, a coffee maker, a window with something natural to look at, and a horizontal surface for my gear.
Here on Sanibel, the horizontal surface arrived yesterday.
Our amazingly helpful Dream Vacation Rentals agent, Ryan, asked me to pick out a desk at Amazon so he could buy it and have it shipped to me. I found a Eureka 31.5" computer desk for $50.99, and I assembled it last night. It has…
I’ll begin by locating myself in virtual and real space: In the latter I sit at a desk in a cottage, looking out at the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Maine. I have a cup of cooled coffee in a mug that reads “For the Love of Pete, Vote Joe.”
In virtual space, I am in a breakout room of volunteers making phone calls to Colorado. Our awesome field organizers are Nailah and Charlotte. On my MacBook Pro I see myself and nine other volunteers. We are in the “new room” where I took everyone through a 20-minute training…
My return to Medium after a year’s absence
Today the sun took an hour to climb above a cloud bank beyond the islands. It was low tide. I took a photo from the upper deck of the cottage where we are staying during the pandemic. I won’t say it’s a thrilling photo, and that’s pretty much the point. In order to quit procrastinating on my first Medium post in more than a year, I had to lower my standards. A new creative habit doesn’t have to produce brilliance from the get-go. But if you start and keep going, your words…
What do these four SXSW panels have in common?
A newcomer could be forgiven for thinking there are at least four different conferences going on this week in Austin, Texas.
This year is my 10th or so trip to South By Southwest, and the other day I let happenstance plus a little planning guide me to four sessions in the Austin Convention Center, each different than the rest. I’d like to tell you about them as a way of sharing my appreciation for the genius of this annual celebration of creativity and connections.
- Connected World 2025: How Can You Plug…
A day of canvassing for Jared Golden in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District gives me hope for the future.
My grandson James, 12, and I drove from Old Orchard Beach to Lewiston, Maine, yesterday. Our mission: To help Jared Golden win his bid to represent the state’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
We arrived early at 124 Lisbon Street and checked in with Emily Manter, the field organizer I’d been emailing in preparation for our visit. She briefed us and five other volunteers and distributed clipboards with voter lists organized into walkable routes.
Emily told us the race is close. Incumbent Congressman Bruce Poliquin has higher name recognition than Golden but lower favorable ratings. …
Two very different people last week inspired me to lean into life with rekindled zest
By happenstance, I encountered two very different people last week bringing eerily similar messages.
Gregg Levoy in a workshop last Sunday at Unity Spiritual Center Denver called it passion. Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer in an interview Wednesday called it joie de vivre, which she translated as zest for life.
Levoy, a journalist turned author and speaker, recently turned 60 years old. Dr. Ruth, a Holocaust survivor who 30 years ago became a famous psycho sexual therapist via radio, TV, and books, will be 89 in June. He is at least a foot taller than she is. …
Sometimes that’s the best you can do in order to keep your writing practice from fading to black
It turns out that writing three posts a week at Medium is tougher than writing five.
The reason seems to be that the more choice a practice offers, the more chances there are for procrastination and a slipping away from the practice itself.
When I was writing five times a week, I only got two passes. I usually took them on Friday, when I create and upload my weekly podcast, and Sunday. On every other day of the week, I uploaded at least 500 words here about something that scratched my itch to write.
Last week, on a day when…
“Everything I need flows through me,” a friend told me this morning
“Everything I need flows through me,” a friend told me early this morning.
We were on FaceTime, catching up with our lives in Denver and Boston. He said he was trying out that affirmation after watching a documentary about self-help celebrity Tony Robbins. I told him I liked it a lot.
I had heard of Robbins but had never read any of his books or seen him in person or on TV. His brand of positive-thinking bombast is not my cup of tea, actually. …
How mistakes, big and small, can be teachable moments if you lean into them as soon as you can bear it
My Southwest flight from Denver to Portland, Oregon, today has that new-plane smell— we are riding a brand-new aircraft. And no one was dragged from their seat at the gate before we left. So far, so good.
I dozed after takeoff and woke up at 30,000 feet. I’ve had my free honey roasted peanuts and Wheat Thins, with a tonic water and lime. The WiFi connection that I paid $8 for was borked for a half-hour, so I began writing this post offline. It’s working fine now. I bet Southwest will give me a refund for the temporary glitch. …
Len Edgerly
Host of the weekly Kindle Chronicles podcast
