March 26, 2025

God is a Lingering Feeling

Dear Reader,

Last year I wrote a prayer book. Not because I always trust god but because I always trust timing. And what is timing other than god? And what is the pause except for a lingering moment in time? And what is god but a lingering feeling?

I traveled this week on Monday and while I was certain I would write my newsletter on the airplane ride I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t find the words because I wanted to stay hidden. I wanted Monday to be a day just for me, not for the people.

I’d say overall this is rare, I am known to broadcast the intimate details of my life and my inner landscape consistently on Mondays, desire for privacy or not. But this Monday felt like mine to have alone.

I emerge, craving the connection this missive brings to me and others. Yesterday I went to Powell’s and let myself go wild with the used quilt books. I always feel a sense of accomplishment seeing my own books there on the shelves in the self help section. Seeing Jacqueline and Holly and Fariha’s books facing forward I beam with pride and delight. A bookstore is where I go to remember that I have friends who write books too and that those friends love me and that I love them.

My own book editing and writing process feels like a total slog. I can barely open the document. The due date stares down my nose. I plan to work on it in my downtime and yet I just can’t seem to access my editing self.

In the spending ban I spent six weeks not buying any books and I found I read more than I had in years. I was also able to write more. As I navigate spending more freely my book buying habit seems to creep back in and I can’t always tell what is good buying and what is taking me from my goals of saving. What percentage do we save? What about when we want a fence or a wood shed?

As I sat on the floor thumbing through the quilt books I heard my beloved whisper to herself, it’s here, as she found the book she’d been looking for. Watching her in the aisles, wearing my flannel, searching for our shared favorite poet that we didn’t know was our shared favorite poet until we were in the poetry section, I am puddled.

If god is a lingering feeling then love is a quiet echo, always reshaping the spaces we cannot name.

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Thank you for reading another installment of Monday Monday by Cody Cook-Parrott. If you loved this newsletter feel free to share an excerpt on social media, forward it to a friend, or link it in your own newsletter.

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