I’m excited to do this slow read with you. I can’t believe I haven’t read this book because Odell is from my city! She did a workshop at the new community space down the street where I’m doing my monthly reading series for caregivers. AND the tree she writes about is five minutes for me! Ooh, this will be fun.
Actually “doing nothing” doesn’t feel good to me. So I define it in terms of doing things that don’t serve a particular purpose or have an end goal. It’s about untethering myself from the narratives of what I ‘should’ be doing. I make a lot of art & craft which is really just junk - I find the process meditative & soothing & it allows space in my mind to think deeply. This is my kind of “doing nothing” (ps love that yr knitting! This fits my definition perfectly!!)
I'm reading Journey in Place: A Field Guide to Belonging by Janisse Ray. It feels like a good companion to Odell's work.
I love the idea of a dedicated notebook. I'm a big journaler, but that means good things often get buried in the more mundane writing.
My note next to the resisting in place quote on page xvi is, Become a homeschooler. Add in mother/writer for to make yourself even less easily appropriated.
YES! I have been thinking a lot about homeschooling lately. I think it is (can be) a model for divergent living and new structures. My kids are all young adults, and I see the benefit now more than ever. My big task is to bring this autodidact-y, agential thinking to my other students - some of whom have never been given the opportunity to follow their curiosity or value their take on things.
My husband does academic support at the university down the street. So many of the students that he works with are in "a state of anxiety, envy, and distraction" (xii). And some of them are ready to think about other ways of being in the world.
I know that having a creative, expansive teacher like you changes things.
I am reveling in her phrase "maintenance as productivity." Homeschoolers always complain that their kids always want to eat, that the stuff of life crowds out academics. But man, that life maintenance is where it's at! In every way that we can be in touch with, root down into those maintenance pieces we inhabit our lives a little bit more.
Thank you for the list of words + the outside sources. Growing us into better readers.
Regarding attention, I wanted to share that one of my new attention challenges is something I'm doing at the gym. There is a cinema cardio area, which I love because then there is no piped in music and only one screen. I can go in there to do cardio and focus on one thing - the movie showing.
But, in the general area of the gym, there are 10 television screens featuring 7 different channels and piped in music. When I do cardio in that area, I am working on NOT having my attention flip from screen to screen. Instead, I try to ignore the screens, not have them cull my attention, and focus on the exercise process I am doing and on whatever I am playing on my earbuds and pushing everything else out, not letting my attention be drawn and flit all over the place. It is not easy because the space is demanding constant attention shifts and fostering short attention spans, but I am trying to counter that and push back and train my mind to not be pulled in by all of the external stimuli.
I’m so excited about this slow read study. I’ve picked up the book many times and never got far, probably due to distraction, lol. This structure will help so much. I’ve set up a notebook and spent this morning copying the parts I underlined. Thanks for doing this!
There were a couple of times when she mentioned shape..."To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system" and "identity as an unstable, shapeshifting thing determined by interactions with others and with different kinds of places." It reminds me of a quote that I have hanging on my wall by Heather Mackay Young: "The only commandment is to dissolve all solid things. Be formless, forever-" I think part of this resistance is to grow, to shift, and like she says, let what you come in contact with to become a part of you. Allow it to shift your perspective so that you don't stay "stuck in your ways." When you're out in the world exploring, you can't help but change/grow based on your experiences, as long as your eyes, mind, and heart are open to really experiencing it.
Another quote from the book; "[embracing] the mere experience of life as the highest goal" is something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Also while talking about what placefulness is, [It is] "Ultimately, against the placelessness of an optimized life spent online." That was a gut punch for me.
I love that quote, and your notice of all the Odell thinks about shape. In Chapter 1, she talks about having these "periods of removal" where we leave (voluntarily or involuntarily), where we leave our lives and come back completely changed - a new shape.
If embracing and experiencing life were the highest goal, I think many of us would fail on the regular. It is a simple and worthy goal, but hard to do.
That's true...to embrace and fully experience everything would be a goal that would be impossible to accomplish. I was thinking that maybe it meant to just live. That just by being/living/participating in life, that is goal enough.
I am so excited about this and plan for my morning pages tomorrow to focus on some of the thoughts/ideas here. In particular, I loved this question: what shape cannot easily be appropriated by capitalistic values? (I shortened it). My response: a circle. I plan to explore that more!
Also, the question: who does your productivity benefit also stuck out to me because in my morning pages this morning I was reflecting on what went well in 2025 (a question from the incredible Nora Rahimian, an anti-capitalist). As I reflected, I realized my response related to so many OTHER people in my life and NOT me. My productivity benefits so many others, but when and how does it benefit me? is something I'm thinking about a lot.
What I also wrote down from this: what is the power of the in-between?
I’m excited to do this slow read with you. I can’t believe I haven’t read this book because Odell is from my city! She did a workshop at the new community space down the street where I’m doing my monthly reading series for caregivers. AND the tree she writes about is five minutes for me! Ooh, this will be fun.
PLEASE share from your pov! And take a pic of the tree (with you looking at it pensively!) Lucky!
Will do!
Actually “doing nothing” doesn’t feel good to me. So I define it in terms of doing things that don’t serve a particular purpose or have an end goal. It’s about untethering myself from the narratives of what I ‘should’ be doing. I make a lot of art & craft which is really just junk - I find the process meditative & soothing & it allows space in my mind to think deeply. This is my kind of “doing nothing” (ps love that yr knitting! This fits my definition perfectly!!)
I'm reading Journey in Place: A Field Guide to Belonging by Janisse Ray. It feels like a good companion to Odell's work.
I love the idea of a dedicated notebook. I'm a big journaler, but that means good things often get buried in the more mundane writing.
My note next to the resisting in place quote on page xvi is, Become a homeschooler. Add in mother/writer for to make yourself even less easily appropriated.
YES! I have been thinking a lot about homeschooling lately. I think it is (can be) a model for divergent living and new structures. My kids are all young adults, and I see the benefit now more than ever. My big task is to bring this autodidact-y, agential thinking to my other students - some of whom have never been given the opportunity to follow their curiosity or value their take on things.
My husband does academic support at the university down the street. So many of the students that he works with are in "a state of anxiety, envy, and distraction" (xii). And some of them are ready to think about other ways of being in the world.
I know that having a creative, expansive teacher like you changes things.
I am reveling in her phrase "maintenance as productivity." Homeschoolers always complain that their kids always want to eat, that the stuff of life crowds out academics. But man, that life maintenance is where it's at! In every way that we can be in touch with, root down into those maintenance pieces we inhabit our lives a little bit more.
Thank you for the list of words + the outside sources. Growing us into better readers.
Regarding attention, I wanted to share that one of my new attention challenges is something I'm doing at the gym. There is a cinema cardio area, which I love because then there is no piped in music and only one screen. I can go in there to do cardio and focus on one thing - the movie showing.
But, in the general area of the gym, there are 10 television screens featuring 7 different channels and piped in music. When I do cardio in that area, I am working on NOT having my attention flip from screen to screen. Instead, I try to ignore the screens, not have them cull my attention, and focus on the exercise process I am doing and on whatever I am playing on my earbuds and pushing everything else out, not letting my attention be drawn and flit all over the place. It is not easy because the space is demanding constant attention shifts and fostering short attention spans, but I am trying to counter that and push back and train my mind to not be pulled in by all of the external stimuli.
I never thought about the root of the word amateur before - I love this!
I’m so excited about this slow read study. I’ve picked up the book many times and never got far, probably due to distraction, lol. This structure will help so much. I’ve set up a notebook and spent this morning copying the parts I underlined. Thanks for doing this!
There were a couple of times when she mentioned shape..."To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system" and "identity as an unstable, shapeshifting thing determined by interactions with others and with different kinds of places." It reminds me of a quote that I have hanging on my wall by Heather Mackay Young: "The only commandment is to dissolve all solid things. Be formless, forever-" I think part of this resistance is to grow, to shift, and like she says, let what you come in contact with to become a part of you. Allow it to shift your perspective so that you don't stay "stuck in your ways." When you're out in the world exploring, you can't help but change/grow based on your experiences, as long as your eyes, mind, and heart are open to really experiencing it.
Another quote from the book; "[embracing] the mere experience of life as the highest goal" is something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Also while talking about what placefulness is, [It is] "Ultimately, against the placelessness of an optimized life spent online." That was a gut punch for me.
I love that quote, and your notice of all the Odell thinks about shape. In Chapter 1, she talks about having these "periods of removal" where we leave (voluntarily or involuntarily), where we leave our lives and come back completely changed - a new shape.
If embracing and experiencing life were the highest goal, I think many of us would fail on the regular. It is a simple and worthy goal, but hard to do.
That's true...to embrace and fully experience everything would be a goal that would be impossible to accomplish. I was thinking that maybe it meant to just live. That just by being/living/participating in life, that is goal enough.
I am so excited about this and plan for my morning pages tomorrow to focus on some of the thoughts/ideas here. In particular, I loved this question: what shape cannot easily be appropriated by capitalistic values? (I shortened it). My response: a circle. I plan to explore that more!
Also, the question: who does your productivity benefit also stuck out to me because in my morning pages this morning I was reflecting on what went well in 2025 (a question from the incredible Nora Rahimian, an anti-capitalist). As I reflected, I realized my response related to so many OTHER people in my life and NOT me. My productivity benefits so many others, but when and how does it benefit me? is something I'm thinking about a lot.
What I also wrote down from this: what is the power of the in-between?