I'm Adalimone and this is The Slowdown.

I keep a journal that I write in every day.

Sometimes it's just lists of things I need to do with an intention scrolled on the top

of the page and other times it's recollections of my dreams or beginnings of poems or some

memory that strikes me or something I want to remember.

I had become attached to keeping these journals because it makes me realize how much I do

during one day.

Before I started journaling with such regularity, I remember thinking I barely accomplished

anything in one day.

Like that John Prine song, Angel from Montgomery with the lyric, and I ain't done nothing since

I woke up today.

But the truth is, I do a great deal, I write it all down, I take notes, I make lists

and check them off, and even in writing down my dreams, I am witnessing my life.

Many dillard once wrote, how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.

What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.

I think about this a lot when I'm planning my day and what sort of pleasure I might suck

out of its marrow during these tumultuous times of constant upheaval and war.

That means noticing even the most mundane tasks in order to know we are alive, that we

are living.

Today's list poem acts like an electrified journal, its rhythmic pacing and imaginative

specificity allow us to see the magic in the mere act of being.

It's 9.30am, I've ran four miles, cried four times, and eaten two chicken sandwiches

...