Jenny Top 8 no. 17
This week let’s be easy baby. Let’s just take a moment to look around, and track what you love. Let’s remember to also build lifeboats of joy to get us through the hard of life. I am on Maui, and when I am here I am lucky enough to go sit with Monk Sen at the Rinzai Zen Mission. The other day this was his teaching…
Difficult times may make us strong. But don’t let them harden your heart. Keep them soft.
I have come to Maui so many times since I lost my mother. It became a compulsion, a place that I just had to be. My therapist says I get my marching orders on Maui, and then I come home to Los Angeles and try my best to execute them.
The other day I had the thought, clear as day, that what happens for me on Maui is that my heart opens. It is obviously part Maui, but really all that magic that I feel is really within my heart! I come here and day by day the armor around my beating sparkling heart softens and slips into the earth. It doesn’t happen right away, there are internal fights and struggles sometimes, expectations, but it always happens in some way, at some point.
This was such an AHA moment for me! To see it so clearly, because it means I can say oh, when my heart is open I can make the best life for myself. When my heart is open I am connected to the universe, to my higher self, to my surroundings, and others. I don’t think god moves away from me, but I sure do love to move away from god. I use god in the sense of my own god. I will write this every time, because I don’t want anyone to feel excluded. You are allowed to have your own creation of god. God is yours and anyone who says that you must go through them to get to god is not very godly in my big fat opinion. I don’t know what god is exactly, but I know that if my heart is guarded, shielded, and covered in plaque it can get to me, but I cannot get to it.
When my heart is open I am not confused about my life, about next steps. My heart is one of my maps, and so I need more access to it than not. Also if I cut off access from it then I am going to build a life that never feels quite right.
So how do I keep my heart open when I am back in LA, in my “real” life, overstimulated by traffic and the pulsing needs of the strangers around me for Matchas with assorted foam flavors and a desperate desire to be seen? How do I keep my heart open when I am pressuring myself to be better, to succeed, to do the dishes, and the laundry, and walk the dog? What structure do I need to build for myself so that my heart can be more opened then closed? Or what rituals do I need to keep it clean, like daily tooth brushing and flossing for the heart?
What closes your heart?
And, what opens it?
This feels like important information for your user manual. It can shift and change, it should, but where do you start today, right now?
A short list of things that start to open my heart that do not include a plane ticket to the most magical place on earth…
<3 Meditation, but sometimes lots of days of it if my mind has been running the show for months on end!
<3 Being nice to someone
<3 My people, being honest with them and then laughing about it is a miracle medicine.
<3 GRATITUDE LISTING
<3 Exercise
<3 Writing down the things I am doing well!
<3 A Jenny Top 8 always does the trick!
What’s on your list?
xxJ
The 8…
Julia Rothman Sticker Book Going with my 12 year old summer, this sticker book is pure GAH! I picked mine up at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, which is also pure I wish I could buy every book here and go sit in a beautiful location and read them all! Julia Rothman’s book was wrapped in her wrapping paper and included a surprise drawing of hers. It was underpants! I am on a real surprise purchase binge lately, so it was a real moment of joy.
Yuzu-Ade I mean this is my drink of the summer, but because I live in LA, it’ll prob be my drink of the year!! My go to combo is McCall’s salmon sashimi to go, a Yuzu-ade, and a sneak trip to Block Shop because I have a jim jam and toiletry bag and journal obsession.
Sarah Coleman Pill Bottles. As unpractical as this seems, please gimme all of them.
The art of Ty Williams. This is one of two artists that I discovered at The Post Supply in Portland, ME this summer while I was on my amazing three day Maine adventure! I am in love with every single pencil drawing of Maine. They elicit the comforts, safety, joy, and zest of summers past and hopefully more to come!
NEW Kind Regards, Jenny sweatshirts at Sunroom. I am so excited about these new sweatshirts. The WHATIF sweatshirt, you can WHATIF the worst your whole life, but also WHATIF everything worked out, or was even better than you could have imagined? I mean, what about that? Every thought is a fantasy, even the shitty ones! AND the sweatshirt that I am most excited, SO SO excited about, The Tourist Sweatshirt, vintage, mostly Hawaii sweatshirts embroidered with i love you and WHATIF. I also dropped some new i love you’s, but here’s the catch they SOLD OUT at Sunroom in a couple of weeks, except one! I always pull a few for shhhh Friends & Family to the people who have been collecting since the very beginning. HMU basic angels.
Lady & Larder Roadie Cheese Plates! I’m pretty sure this isn’t there official marketing concept, but these to go charcuterie boards are SO delicious that I always end up eating it in the car! Also it’s in Santa Monica, so it takes too long to get home, and I only have so much control. A dream day is getting my car cheese plate, and going to see my I’m so lucky he’s my therapist therapist in person; talk about an LA situation that can open my heart!
Paul de Lucena Louis Vuitton Planters available at Judi Rosen. If you are actually paying attention here, you know that I have go to’s, and Judi Rosen is one of them. I love her jeans, soft cotton t’s, and playful style. These “planters” are on my forever wish list.
The work of Dominique Ostuni. OMG the intelligent whimsy of Dominique Ostuni’s work!! I also discovered this Maine based artist at The Post Supply. Each piece is a beautiful little endless world in a ceramic. She also has mystery pinch pots on her site. Go buy one and keep the mystery trend alive!!
WHAT DO YOU LOVE PRACTICE
from the KRJ Zine no. 1
Have you ever felt lost? Have you ever felt like you can’t locate yourself on the map anymore? Same, and this is what I learned... You can follow things you love right back to yourself! I remember walking in Paris when I had no idea who I was anymore and having this insight and saying out loud, okay, I like that. Okay, that. This practice brought me gracefully back to me, because I was never lost.
Can you go through the world this week and make a list of everything that you love? Everything and anything. Moments, people, dresses, art, anything at all, and bonus points if you say out loud, I like this, because it helps the brain to track it more quickly.
