new year reflections & substack 101

postcard 44: on 2024 memories, reflections and resolutions, a paid subscription giveaway, and my favorite substack newsletters

[This post is too long for email—please view on app or desktop! The paid subscription giveaway is a few scrolls down]

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

—Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

2024 recap & memories, by season

Here is a recap of my past year, along with precious memories I want to immortalize in writing—

winter, part 1 [jan-feb]

Flew back home from K…