My perfect morning(s).

And life lately, in photos.

Here’s my perfect morning. I wake up early, no alarm. I pull my hair back and put on clothes that I don’t have to dig around for. First: Some sort of bra but not a real bra (obviously). Maybe one of those elastic tank tops from Target that will remain in my drawer for decades to come and essentially provide the support of a slightly tight T-shirt. Next: Matching sweatpants and sweatshirt. Not a full outfit but enough so if someone comes to the door, I’m not wearing that one favorite sleep shirt that prominently features a photo of three raccoons howling at the moon. Not that anyone tends to come to our door at the crack of dawn. But, you know, this is a psychological thing. I am put together-ish, but I am also only in contact with soft things. Nothing digs in or pinches. I have exactly zero awareness of my body shape. For all I know, I’m a fucking octagon. Perfect. Cute socks are encouraged.

The coffee is prepped. The house is, impossibly, the perfect temperature despite a 100-year-old heating system and exactly zero air conditioning. For the first day in many months, I do not greet Jake with his three most hated words: “It’s so cold.” I pour a cup of coffee in my favorite mug, add some milk and it is instantly my ideal coffee shade, a warm blonde-brown. Milky but not milk, you know? I curl up in my favorite chair with a blanket and a book. It doesn’t matter what kind of book, but bonus points if it is something that makes me want to underline a sentence or two. I don’t spill the coffee. It’s quiet, I read, and when I get to the bottom of my mug, I go make breakfast. I eat, I make more coffee, and then I go write.

That’s pretty much it. I’m lucky enough to manage this more than a few days a week, most weeks. Well, not the temperature part, but everything else is doable. Again, I’m lucky.

I thought of this type of morning a lot last week, mostly because I didn’t experience it much. I was busy or distracted or exhausted. On Sunday morning, for example, I woke up feeling like my body had been trampled in the night by a stampede of mini horses. I had spent the entire previous day on my feet prepping for hosting a party, then darting from room to room, conversation to conversation. I had drank wine and poured wine and eaten Domino’s and made exactly one mildly impressive beer pong shot (she’s still got it) and danced to “Call Your Girlfriend” by Robyn and talked on the porch with friends until 2 a.m. as the rain fell and honestly, the next morning, I was exhausted. I was not bounding down the stairs with verve, book in hand, Belle style. But weirdly enough, I also felt great. I hobbled into the kitchen, remarked on how much my feet hurt, gathered a bunch of discarded wine glasses in my arms, guzzled coffee, took an Advil, then smiled. We had approximately 2,500 dishes to wash and (still) no functional dishwasher, but we had a whole basket full of memories that we hadn’t had the week before. I had this weird sense that one day we would look at each other and say hey, remember the first time we had a bunch of people over? That was fun. It was. And on Monday, I walked down the stairs (still not Belle, but closer) and drank my coffee and sat in my chair and that felt pretty great, too.

A great and chaotic playlist, if you will allow me to toot my own horn for a second.

A lot of people told me that your 30s are great, and I have to say that this is the first year that I am starting to agree with that. I feel so completely comfortable and confident in my boring little routines and also delighted by the stuff that continues to surprise me and disrupt those routines. I have more boundaries than ever but, strangely, am more open to saying yes to things, too. Yes to parties. Yes to midnight dancing. Yes to writing books, hosting retreats, connecting with total strangers. No to so many other things (a small sampling: no to constant Instagram use, no to unkindness, no to dieting), too. Big, confident nos. I love ‘em. But also impulsive, wholehearted yeses to lots of unknowns and new things. It’s a balance that’s new to me, but I like it.

Anyway, that’s some of what I’ve been thinking about this week. Here are some other scenes from life lately.