I am from the Great Plains. In that part of the world, we're raised to be earnest and to have a self-deprecating sense of humor. (This translates to a love of dry wit, but never at the expense of kindness to strangers.)

My family is long gone from the place where I grew up. This lack of pressure to end up any particular place both suits the wanderlusty part of me and gives me a nagging sense of homesickness (best relieved by the smell of coffee and the Sunday paper). I like to think I have a sense of place wherever I happen to find myself.

I used to think I was right quite a bit more often than I do now. These days, I tend to find the complexity in the middle ground to be more interesting than making blue-faced arguments about absolutes. That's not to say I've become more narrow-minded; if anything, it's that I've got a broader view of the world now than I did in days past.

Gathering honey. Settling in, but still ripping out seams. Creating a narrative. Making housecalls. Savoring opportunities to get outside of my everyday radius. Making room for the people I love.

Missing flights. Not getting too bent out of shape about things. Penmanship. Making messes. Wrapping packages. Picking back up with old friends when I see them, as though no time has passed at all.

To read: Creative nonfiction, magical realism, books about hobbies I will never take up. Letters to a Young Poet, A Death in the Family, Anna Karenina, A Primate's Memoir, Random Family, Blood Meridian, A Roomful of Hovings, Under Milk Wood. Anything about neuroplasticity. Short stories (Eudora Welty, Raymond Carver, Borges, Junot Diaz).

To listen: Music that's so soulful it makes your bones ache. Otis Redding. Donny Hathaway. Nina Simone. Jazz. Ahmad Jamal. Bobby Hutcherson. Abdullah Ibrahim. All those countrified voices I grew up listening to. Emmylou Harris. Guy Clark. Townes Van Zandt. Found sound. The Books. Blues. Elmore James. Muddy Waters. Howlin' Wolf. Sometimes indie hoohaw. Electrelane. Bill Callahan. Albums that are an entity. Astral Weeks. Darkness on the Edge of Town. Graceland. A strangely high number of musicians from Lubbock, Texas. Buddy Holly. Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Delbert McClinton. Terry Allen. Radiolab, This American Life, and Planet Money on the radio.

To watch: Movies without chipper endings (unless they involve Doris Day, Carey Grant, or Katherine Hepburn, or unless they are otherwise truly hilarious). Dancer in the Dark. Cool Hand Luke. All the Real Girls. Anything Preston Sturges ever made. Allegorical comedies. The Big Lebowski. Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Well-made documentaries. Dark Days. Be Here to Love Me. When We Were Kings. Vernon, Florida. The Wire.

To eat: Biscuits with strawberry jam and black coffee. Runny egg yolk. All things dark and green and leafy. Oysters. Legumes. Anything I've never tried before or that someone took great pleasure in making. Anything baked in a brick or wood-fired oven. Pickled okra.

What’s hilarious or beautiful or true about the moment. How to lean in.