365 Days of Wonder

And why this newsletter is changing its name

A few months after my dad died, I rushed out the door to get to school before my students. It was a bitingly cold December morning, and my heart felt raw with grief.

And then I saw it: a single rosebud on a scraggly bush in front of our house.

I began to laugh and then cry at the absurdity of such a lovely little thing proclaiming its place in the dark world. No, this little bud did not make things all better. It wasn’t a cure for sadness. But it reminded me that my heart was capable of feeling more than grief; there was also room for surprise and delight. It reminded me that I am big enough to house multiple emotions at once.

This is what I love about awe — the emotion I have spent the last three years researching and writing about. Awe is found in the ordinary and doesn’t require anything from us but our attention and openness.

As poet Nikita Gill posted on Twitter a few years ago:

The news: everything is bad.
Poets: okay, but what if everything is bad and we still fall in love with the moon and learn something from the flowers.

365 Days of Wonder

I wanted to do something to prepare— on a personal level — for the release of my book in May. So I’m keeping a public journal: One tiny entry each day about something that caught my attention, that gave me goosebumps, that brought tears to my eyes, or that made me say, “Wow.”

I’ll be posting my daily awe-moments on channels like Threads and Instagram, but I’ll also share them each week here— and I would LOVE to have you join me, on your own, in the comments, in that awesome new notebook you bought over the holidays, on your social pages, in texts to friends, or with your family.

I’m also changing the name of this newsletter for a while (or forever?) to Raising Awe-Seekers to better reflect my aims. Honestly, after all these months of writing, I am more enchanted by this topic than ever. I would be quite happy to spend the rest of my life seeking the wonder in the “ordinary” and helping others do the same.

Write what you love, right?

Cheers,

Deborah

P.S. If you know someone who might like to follow along, pretty please share my newsletter!

Days of Wonder Entries: January 1 - January 7

Day 1:

I walked outside on the first day 2025, and within seconds I heard an unfamiliar bird. This beauty is now added my life list (thanks to Cornell Birds for the Merlin App!)

Day 2:

For our daughter’s birthday, my husband made her a playlist of some of his favorite songs (with four pages of descriptive liner notes!). On Christmas morning, she reciprocated -- gifting her dad a playlist that merged her favorites from his album with additional songs that she thought they would both enjoy.

Day 3:

Stick season sunrises have their own peculiar beauty.

Day 4:

Late last night, I found myself stitching this after everyone had gone to sleep — and it felt like entering a vibrant meditative state. I recently read that psychologist Carl Jung would draw a mandala every morning, calling it “the archetype of wholeness.”

Day 5:

I've been listening to this marvelous podcast -- the story of Keiko (the real Free Willy). In episode 4, there's this moment where they simply play the sounds of a pod of orcas chatting in the Icelandic waters. Their language is so beautiful and unknowable, and I found myself in tears while driving to Target.

Day 6:

Me: I'm curious, do you think more in pictures or in words?

10yo: I think in equations -- like, all the pieces come into my brain and I figure them out or combine them into something new. It's like lots of piano notes finally forming a chord.

My periodic reminder that while I know my kids, they are also (like all of us) a beautiful mystery.

Day 7:

Last week, I got the urge to learn how to sew -- so that I could make quilts out of my embroidery (a newish passion). This afternoon, I took out my never-used, top-of-closet sewing machine, and a lovely woman taught me how to use it. And so begins learning something new. One more thing my grandma used to do. Though she died when I was six, I wonder if these pulls are related to her.