Hey, it's producer Micah Kilvan.

Thanks for staying tuned as we get ready to return with a new host.

Last spring, the slowdown team and I asked you to help us select for the podcast,

to send in poems that have helped you slow yourself down.

It was such a beautiful way to connect with our community that we wanted to reshare these episodes.

Here's one of our community curators to share what's special about their submission.

My name is Candace Howes.

I live in North Carolina.

I am a marketer by day and a writer by night, morning, or whenever I'm not procrastinating.

Early 2021, I was in the pandemic and I was like, well, I'm just going to like get on the internet and read some random poems and try to cheer myself up.

And somehow I stumbled across this poem.

And I felt like it really spoke to where I was in my life at that time.

Everything's kind of like falling apart.

But you have these little things like thinking about what that means.

I think my biggest hope is that someone who hears this poem fills a sense of hope and is

inspired to really grasp a hold of those little joys that are in our life.

And I think it's especially important now just because personally and as a society,

there's so much that we're carrying and so much that we're working through.

Something else I liked about the poem is how communal it feels.

Whenever I read it, I also feel like I'm in that moment with someone else.

And so I really like the feeling of unity

that I think this poem kind of inspires.

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