Hello everyone, and welcome to Speaking with Joy, a podcast to fill your soul, challenge your mind,

and make you brave. I'm your host, Joy Clarkson, and an evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful.

So make yourself a cup of tea, find somewhere comfortable, and let's dive in to this week's episode.

Life with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms is like a sonnet.

You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.

Hello everybody and welcome back to Speaking with Joy.

You find me today on a blissfully sunny afternoon in St. Andrews, Scotland. Yesterday was

my birthday, and I find that I'm having a hard time shaking myself out of the celebratory summer

mood. Joel got me a bird-watching booklet, which of course has encouraged my lockdown fascination

of watching birds. and I've spent most

the day either sitting out in my on my stoop or taking a walk because it's so beautiful and blue

that I find I'm having a hard time convincing myself to get any work done. But the one item on my

to-do list that I was excited about was to record this episode,

which will be in two parts. First, a farewelling of our lovely escape cast together over the

past three months, and then second of all to announce my summer book club, and to give you a little

teaser, that opening quote has something to do with the book club.

But I also chose it because I thought it was a rather fitting quote

to seal off this strange season in which we've all found ourselves.

Over the past three months, we have each one of us in our own distinct ways

experienced a world with more limitations than we could have imagined.

And within the confines of this strange lockdown life, I have, through the letters that I received

and the people I've passed on the sidewalk on my daily walks, I have seen many people writing

...