Life + Culture

The Wordle Craze of 2022

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Wordle

At the beginning of the year, my Twitter feed filled up with Wordle squares. I had no idea what was going on. There were more and more everyday. Then I started reading articles about how these Wordle squares were a word game created by Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner. So romantic!

Word games have never been my thing. Sure, I’ve done crossword puzzles and similar games, but overall I tend to not enjoy them. I get a few words quickly, then some I don’t get, so I stop. I’m but a mere mortal. How much of my very limited time on this earth should I spend playing games that start annoying me? Ahem. Not much.

The older I get, the easier I abandon things that don’t bring me pleasure. I used to always finish books and movies no matter how much I disliked them. I would grind it out to the end, because I’m not a quitter. Then after, I would feel frustrated thinking about how I couldn’t get that time back. These were things done for fun. Not for school or work. I started wondering why I was doing this to myself. I’m the boss of me and get to decide.

Let me clarify that these games annoying me are done alone. I love board games and playing word games with other people. I’m an introvert, so I don’t quite get why for games I’m all about the social aspect of it. Something to explore about myself I guess.

Anyway, I love Wordle! It’s a game that you can play alone, but it has definite limits. You can only play one time a day. All the words are five letters. You only get six guesses. Then you’re done! No agonizing endless hours of guessing and then not even getting all the words. It’s usually around 10 or 15 minutes, then it’s over. On with the rest of your day!

For the past 13 days I’ve played. It brings such a simple yet complete sense of comfort and satisfaction every time. There’s this moment when I’ve guessed a couple of times and gotten a few letters and I’m going over so many words in my head, then I feel like giving up.

There’s absolutely no way I will ever find this word. Then I get another letter. That was no help! How will I ever get this word? How has anyone gotten this word today?! But I see them. They got it. It’s possible!

Then I’m feeling kind of sad for myself. Again, I look at the letters that I know the word contains. Nothing. Then they start sort of melting together in different ways and suddenly I think of a new word. Aha! Could it be? Yes, it be! I did it again! Yay, I’m so smart! Then I go about my day.

Up until now, Wordle has been free. Last week, The New York Times bought it. Hopefully it will remain the same wonderful Wordle that I enjoy each day.

This game that so many of us play each day is a bright spot in the pandemic. It feels like a very specific moment in history. One of fairly few things that I will savor from this time. So I want to make sure to capture this feeling. This simple little game brings a wonderful escape in the midst of so much that is not wonderful and for that I am grateful.

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*Updated 2/10/2022* Just learned that there’s a Wordle Archive where you can play previous games. Not sure how long it will stay free, but for now you can find it here.

*Updated 4/27/2022* Unfortunately, the Wordle Archive is no longer available. ☹️

Home – Outside The Box

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new home

No more boxes! I’m officially unpacked and settling into the new place. It’s been just over three weeks since I moved. Things are still being arranged and it will take a while to really be used to being here, but it’s feeling like home.

I’ve always wanted a balcony and finally have one! The unseasonably warm temperatures provided a bit of time to sit outside, enjoy the space and the view. The balcony faces lots of trees, so it’s like I’m looking at my own tiny forest!

Overall the place is bigger and the layout is better, but the kitchen is smaller. Can’t have it all! But I’m making do and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Then I switch up the way I’m using the space, so it’s more comfortable and efficient. I moved the coffee maker around a few times, but think I found a place that works. It was such a relief when I finally found it in the mess of boxes at the beginning!

Even though I’m still in Quincy, I’m in a new zip code! Goodbye 02170 and hello 02169! Before I was closer to Milton and now I’m closer to Braintree. It’s nice exploring new places, especially the food related ones!

As much as the world can be full of turmoil, it feels good to create a sanctuary at home. I’m very grateful.

When It’s Your Season

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squrirel and acorn season

It’s September! I love summer and never wish it away, but September is a favorite month. As my birthday month, it’s also my personal new year – a time to reset. When we were kids, September was always back to school season, so it was a time of new beginnings for everyone.

The change from summer to fall is also a big time of transition. Right now I’m in the midst of a big change and transition. After 19 years in the same apartment, I’m moving to a new one in a few weeks! I’m so excited!

As a Virgo sun and Taurus rising, I tend to dig in and stay put. I haven’t lived many places because I usually  stay somewhere at least five years. But 19 years is a record. It’s the longest that I’ve ever lived in one place. That was never even the plan. This was supposed to be a transitional place. Ya just never know!

This is the first time that I have no plans for how long I will be at the next place or where it will take me in my life. The longer I live, the more I see that while we do have some control over our lives, we also need to go with the flow of it. When we make a decision and have to fight for it at every turn, it might not be the right plan for us. Sometimes the Universe has decided otherwise.

We can feel the difference when we decide to make a change and everything easily falls into place and flows. This change feels right. As much as I thought about moving over the past few years, it didn’t feel right until now.

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A new favorite podcast is Breathe Go Flow with Tracye Warfield. I started listening at the end of July or beginning of August. I’ve listened from the first episode, which was pre-pandemic, up to August 2020. She’s so uplifting and has been a wonderful motivating force for me to make this change. An episode from February 2019, called Are you a Clinger has some real gems.

“You get to keep what is yours in your season.”

~ Tracye Warfield

It’s important to know what’s for us in our current season and let go of what isn’t. This resonates so much with my word of the year. Another quote that I recently found is a new favorite as well.

“Ripe fruit falls quickly.”

⁣~ Mari Andrew

I don’t think she said it first, but I found it on her Instagram. It goes back to feeling that when the time is right, what’s in season for us will be available without such a struggle. These last few weeks of summer will be full of change and I’m here for it. Let the packing begin!

Recently Read: You Were Born For This

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Born For This

The plan wasn’t to finish You Were Born For This in one sitting, but the reading just flowed.

So much of my life, certain events and themes, struggles and luck were obvious and maybe inevitable after looking deeply into my chart. What an awakening!

We all like to think that we have control over our own lives. We do to a certain extent. But luck and chance play big roles as well.

I needed this book in my twenties. But if it had been available then, I wouldn’t have had the familiarity with myself to receive it in the same way. I’ve never read a book with such ease and felt such gentleness towards me as the reader.

After reading some books, I’ve gotten the feeling that they really could have been essays. However, the writers got lucrative book deals. Maybe because they had a big audience. Then they had editors who massaged the hell out of that essay to make it into a book. But it really wasn’t a book and it did not feel genuine or respectful to me as the reader.

As a writer, Chani Nicholas is the exact opposite. While reading, I felt that she was rooting for me and thinking about how I might feel as I journeyed through my life reading her words. Nicholas wrote You Were Born For This as an act of kindness to her audience.

If you are even the least bit interested in astrology, I recommend buying You Were Born For This. I’m always one for borrowing books from the library, but this book is different. It’s more personal.

To get the most out of it, you need to download your chart from her website. Then use that information to fill in the pages as instructed through the book. You’re then guided through your Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Its Ruler. These are the three keys to a chart.

Most of us are familiar with our Sun sign. That’s the most basic part of our chart and determined by our birth date. I’m a Virgo, but that’s such a small part! The Sun represents our life’s purpose.

The Moon represents our physical and emotional needs. My Moon is in Scorpio.

The Ascendant and Its Ruler is our motivation for living and steer the direction of our lives. The Ascendant is also known as our Rising Sign. Mine is Taurus and the Ruler is Venus. Venus is all about seeking love, beauty and pleasure. I feel this deep into my bones. This blog is literally my attempt to notice the beauty all around and share it. It also feels like home to me.

But wait, there’s more! Just like with real estate, there are different houses and location matters. The placement of certain planets together in one house, near each other or opposite others changes things dramatically.

The luminaries, the sun and moon, are placed well in my chart and act together helping me live out my life’s purpose. Jupiter, trines my Sun, offering some protection and luck. As a kid and throughout my life, I’ve been good at winning contests.

Jupiter is also in the same house as my Ascendant which magnifies my impact on the world. Nicholas gives the example of “a bombastic laugh” and people tell me that they always remember my laugh.

Some of my life’s challenges I see in my chart too – a Scorpio Moon is not easy. She says that I will be called to “dig deep” and “transform … pain into purpose.” Sometimes that feels like the story of my life. Seeing my chart, it’s definitely part of it.

She says, “Scorpio deals with death, loss and transformation, sometimes having the Moon in this sign speaks to not only experiencing these issues in childhood but also having them as part of your professional interest or expertise.”

When I was a child, almost an entire generation in my family died and I remember being quite aware of the loss. Also when I was a child, the town’s grade school building had structural damage, so I attended school for a couple of years at a Catholic Parish. We had recess out in the back and quite literally played among the graves. As a freelance writer and lawyer, I’ve written about end of life issues.

I could go on and on, but if you do the work on your chart, you will find You Were Born For This endlessly fascinating and return to it over and over again. Because really, it’s all about you.

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If you’re interested in another book that I recently read, take a look here.