MY TWENTY TWO YEAR OLD SELF

There was a thing floating around last week on Instagram that challenged people to post a picture of themselves at age twenty one. The funny thing about this was that so many of the people in my community only have actual print images of themselves from that time. We were all twenty one in the years before digital. The closest picture I had of myself on hand and printed was taken when I was twenty two. It’s a photo of Chris and I on our wedding day. He’s in a tuxedo and I’m in my wedding suit, a flower headband on my head. I’m holding a bouquet and our marriage license. It is one of the few pictures I have of the two of us where Chris is actually looking at the camera. It is the only decent photo of the two of us together on our wedding day.

We went with unconventional as our theme.

That is the picture I shared on Instagram but with a note that I was twenty two in the photo, but only just barely and that it was the closest I could get to twenty one right now. I’d have to dig through a box if I wanted something from when I was twenty one. There were a couple of people who responded to my post in disbelief and declared that I still look pretty much the same. I responded to these people with gratitude for the kindness but also an assurance that this can’t possibly be true. Though one person argued with me, holding firm to their belief that I still resemble twenty two year old Cindy. And again, I hold firm to my belief that it is impossible that I look the same as I did twenty six years ago.

I am the same weight now that I was then, but take better care of my body now. My haircut is the same, but my hair has more white in it now, but when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a twenty two year old me looking back. When I look at twenty two year old me I see more than the surface stuff and the reason I don’t believe for a second that I still pretty much look the same as back then. This was before I had finished undergrad and entered into the soul crushing world of graduate school. Chris always backed me up, never telling me “you can’t” or that I was doing things wrong or not good enough. I believed I could do anything and in time that confidence would be whittled down to nothing, but Chris would be right there helping build that confidence back. Without him around, my imposter syndrome is magnified for the whole world to see and to point at with critical pointer fingers. I am the house built on sand, continuously rebuilding my confidence levels while new tides come in to wash it all away. That picture was taken when I was at the beginning of what felt like everything, before bad career choices and bad financial decisions. Before I knew real heartbreaking loss. Before I even knew anything about imposter syndrome. Before I learned that I have to be my greatest ally. Before I knew anything about anything.

Aging is living. Living is aging. -Radiant Rebellion by Karen Walrond

That picture is of a woman just beginning to live. If I could go back and tell that young woman in the picture to do things differently, make different choices, would I? There’s maybe one or two things I’d recommend, like don’t buy that time share you’ll never use or think about clinical microbiology as a career. Otherwise, I’d say make the choices you’re going to make, but soak up every single moment of joy, even the smallest thing that makes you smile. Take millions and millions of mental pictures of those moments and there will be millions and millions because you will experience more joy than pain. In fact, I will argue that the amount of joy you experience is what will make the painful moments stand out and sting the most.

I would tell her that some times are not going to be great, but you’re going to be okay.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday morning, I peeled my tired ‘don’t wanna’ ass out of bed and then pulled on some clothes. I opened my closet and reached in for my walking shoes and Josephine nearly lost her mind. Josephine does not have a big enough body for containing joy. When she sees my walking shoes, she knows we’re going for a walk and her joy explodes from her body in a couple of ways. She will parkour herself all around my bedroom and grab the nearest toy to flip around in the air. Then she will throw her little body at me in a demand to tie my shoes faster. Once she is harnessed and leashed, she will grab a section of the leash and pull me towards the front door. This is her reaction every time, not just because it’s been a few months since our last walk.

Michael and I are and will continue to be busy with various things over the next few months. Michael has several after school meetings and play rehearsals. I get home late on Tuesdays because I teach an evening yoga class. This makes me feel bad for Josephine because she has no one to pet her all day or play a game of tug-o-war. It is a long day for all of us. The weather is tolerable this week, so I was determined to at least do this Tuesday morning walk. I woke up before my alarm (not unusual) and looked at the clock. My whole body groaned. I was a little bit sore form the previous day’s yoga experience. My eyes were crusty. It was cold in the house and staying in bed, even though I would not get any real sleep, felt soooooo much easier than getting out of bed.

But I didn’t stay in bed.

I rolled to one side and peeled myself up to a seated position. Then I firmly placed all four corners of the bottom of my feet into the floor. I said to myself “get up.” even though I still didn’t want to, but once I was dressed and walking, my body changed it’s mind about the ‘don’t wanna’. Our way to the park felt slower than normal, mostly because Josephine had to stop and investigate all of the things along the way. Side note: Josephine is part pig. She grunts and snorts with her nose to the ground for 95% of the walk. At one point, she sniffed a spot on the ground, took five steps before shaking her head in surprise and circling back for another sniff. We saw two raccoons slink their way across the street (blocks from our house) and heard one owl claiming the area has his. We were the only ones in the park or out in the neighborhood. There was only the faintest of light to the East as we walked the last block back to the house.

I know that not to far from now, there will be more than just a faint bit of light as we make our way home from our walks.

Why is it so hard to get started? What happens to my body during these months that makes it impossible to want to move?!? It’s like my blood thickens to maple syrup but it doesn’t make me warmer. I am never warm. My hands are so cold that if I were to touch you, you would think you had been touched by death. I starting writing this entry thinking that I would immediately post this because I figured that getting up to walk the dog would only happen on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning there I was bundled up and walking Josephine through the neighborhood. Then I did it again on Thursday and Friday. By Thursday, this was starting feel like a gratitude post and I delayed posting. I’ve also been a little bit lazy about my writing, spending my “free time” playing The Bee or doing the NYTimes crossword. I recognize that winter is far from over and that I should expect at least two more miserably cold with possible snow events before the end of March. I also know that today a large rodent made some predictions about the weather for the next few weeks. But today, right now, I am not focused on the future or the what ifs to come.

I am grateful for a week that contained buckets of sunshine every day and temperatures that allowed us to thaw before the next cold front comes along.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Last week, Micheal had some sort of a cold, but I kind of ignored it. He didn’t really act sick except for that one morning when he said “I don’t feel good.” But still, I blew it off which I have apologized for because now I’m the one with the cold. Not too long ago I saw some joke meme tweet thing of a conversation between the brain and the body. The body was saying “We need more fluids!” and the brain replied “I just gave you tons of fluids! What are you doing with all of the fluids?! Are you making mucous?” Then the body doesn’t respond because that is exactly what it’s doing with all of the fluids. I have never found anything more relatable than this. I wouldn’t be so mad about it all if I hadn’t just gotten over the cough and funk that I had before Christmas. This has been a week of cold medicine and neti pots and lots of Kleenex. Then, I threw in some red light therapy for good luck.

Last Saturday, I stepped on a scale for the first time in over six months and for the first time ever, I didn’t give a flip about the number that appeared. My uncaring of the number did not come from a depressed state. I just didn’t care. I was standing on the scale purely for reference since it was also my birthday. If I kept a lab notebook on myself, this would be important data to add, but I don’t. So, I filed the info in my mental lab notebook. My weight is a reflection of my current state of activity level, which always decreases as I go into hibernation mode. In the Spring time, I know I will emerge from semi-hibernation to dog walks and bicycle rides. The season will shift from rich lasagnas to tomato salad and the number on the scale will still just be a number. This is the thing that forty eight year old Cindy would like to pass onto seventeen year old Cindy: The scale numbers are a social construct.

Pear, apple, hourglass, etc are all social constructs for the shape of a woman’s body.

Each year, I gain a new perspective and a little bit more wisdom about this body that my soul inhabits. Each year, I gain a new perspective and a bit more wisdom about my soul and living each day with loving kindness. The only disappointing thing about my birthday this year was that I was too busy and isolated to take time to thank each person individually for their Happy Birthday wishes left on my Facebook timeline. I took the Facebook app off of my phone years ago and only have access to it when I’m on my computer or iPad in a wifi area. So I came home from a day of absorbing yoga knowledge to a timeline filled with love and joy. Which is the only reason for social media.

This body and soul is not large enough and can not contain the amount of gratitude that I have for each of you and for those who make the choice to use these platforms for good.

THE WHALE

I spent the whole day on Saturday attending a chair yoga teacher certification class. I was supposed to go again on Sunday but woke up with a sore throat and a slight fever. After showering and eating breakfast, I didn’t feel much better. So I opted to stay home and not spread my germs, but I was very happy to see that pictures and videos from the day had been posted for me to scroll through. It was also really nice to watch a video of our teacher demonstrating how to get off the floor and it is exactly how I teach my students to safely get off the floor. The course was helpful and validating. Michael said that the experience seemed to have energized me, which is funny because I ended up taking a four hour nap on Sunday.

Early on Saturday, our teacher passed out a deck of oracle cards. I thought that oracle cards was just a Roze thing, but turns out it is becoming a popular yoga studio thing to do. It’s cleaner than goat yoga. I treated this experience with the same eye-roll as I’d use for Roze. The card that I pulled from this deck is a card I have pulled before from one of Roze’s decks. It was the Whale: True Voice card and I half read the description knowing full well that somewhere in there it was going to say something about speaking with compassion to yourself and others. I have no problems speaking with compassion to others. I might even be real good at that. I don’t want to talk about the ‘yourself’ part of that sentence. There was one part of this description that I hadn’t noticed before and it reads “Getting in touch with the mystery and unseen realms of life.” To which I responded “Shut the fuck up.” I turned my ghostbuster trap into an Idea trap.

The description on this card also said this:

Singing your true song from a place of compassion.

Somewhere along the way I have forgotten my true song and I have been working really hard these last three months to remember that song. It has slowly been coming back to me, but in a really annoying way. It’s like I can plunk out a few notes over and over again in my head, kind of like hearing Chris try to sing out the tune to Brazil, which if you knew Chris, you knew he was tone deaf. It’s like I hear something that is kind of familiar, but not yet clear and I know some of that is from trying to hard. Every one I know has struggled with January and it has not turned out to be the fresh start to the New Year that we all wanted. I know I jumped into January first with the idea that I was going to figure everything out on week one.

Then January tried to kill me.

More than a few notes of that song revealed itself this weekend. The revelation came by immersing myself in a community of yoga teachers of various of levels of teaching experience. Teachers can and do learn from other teachers. I loved learning from the others in our group and I loved sharing my own knowledge with the group. At one point on Saturday, we were paired off to practice teaching sun salutations. My partner was a woman who is still working on her teacher training and still finding her teacher voice. She was nervous when it became her turn to teach me. She’s normally a Spin teacher and I said if you can teach a class while riding a bike, you can teach anything. But really, the best advice I gave her was that the more she loved this practice, the easier it will be for her to share her knowledge of the practice. And then I started speaking whale like Dory in Finding Nemo. (Not really)

This post is about to get real long because finding your voice and loving your practice ties into something I started writing last week.

Last year, I purchased a new camera backpack to hold my Nikon and the (potential) extra lenses and gear. I did a whole lot of research on camera packs and what I wanted in a backpack. That also meant narrowing down what it was that I didn’t like about the camera bag I already owned. The deciding factors included comfort and ease of packability while not being bulky. I didn’t want to settle on any of these things for cost and I spent monies to get what I truly wanted. It was worth it. I love everything about this backpack. It has specific and easy to get to pockets for just about everything I need while traveling. It fits my body and does not feel like I am wearing a pack meant for a month long excursion on the Appalachian Trail. It hangs nicely on my closet door and I generally just leave my camera in it.

The bag and camera have not moved in over two months.

I have fallen completely out of practice with my Nikon. In fact I can pinpoint the exact time when I felt joy in taking photos and that was when I was in Woods Hole back in October. Lately, when I’m sitting in bed in the mornings with Josephine and drinking my tea, I will stare at that bag and start to stew. I sit there and think about projects I could/should start to practice using this camera. Last year, I was gifted a flash along with a set of diffusers and I have yet to take time out to learn when and how to use it. That’s just stupid because now in the dark cold months when the last thing I want to do is to go outside is the best time to stay inside and learn about flash photography. When you look for the light, but can’t seem to find it, then you make your own light.

This weekend I was reminded that when you truly love the things you do, then of course you find time to do those things. But there is also joy, great amounts of it really, in sharing those things with others. Yoga. Photography. Words. These are my things and I’m clearing space for more doing of these things that I love.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday morning, I dropped Josephine off at the groomers at 7:45 AM and then promptly locked myself out of my car. I locked myself out of everything. My phone. My wallet. My lunch. All inside the car. I borrowed the phone at the groomer’s and called my insurance company for road side service. This took twenty minutes and my estimated time for service was 100-130 minutes. I waited three hours, walking back and forth, standing near my car, hopping up and down. Every time I tried waiting it out inside, Josephine would start whining. So I stood outside most of the time. I finally gave up and borrowed the phone again to call a locksmith. Then I waited twenty minutes and paid $270 to have the nicest young man with the thickest Italian accent open my car.

I am not kidding when I say that I hugged him.

Seriously, it was the most ridiculous morning and I don’t even know why, but I went ahead and went on to work even though half the day had passed and I was going to have to leave at 3:00 to get Josephine. I just didn’t know what else to do with myself. So without much thinking, I headed to the closest place where I could address my physical needs: bathroom, coffee, food, warmth. That place happened to be work. I am just grateful to be able to go somewhere. That is the very first time I have ever locked myself out of my vehicle. That seems surprising, but it’s true. I’ve locked myself out of the house, but there have been people inside it. All I had to do was knock. I once locked myself out of an email account because I could not for the life of me remember my password. But I had, until just now, never locked myself out of my vehicle. I did it with gusto too.

Later, when I had finally made it to work and warmed up, I texted a friend about what I had done. A giggle bubbled up as I read the things I had written. Then I couldn’t help myself. I just started laughing and laughing. Because it was so much more than just being locked out of my car. I hadn’t had coffee or breakfast. I had no way to pay for anything. I had no way to contact anyone unless I asked to borrow a phone, but who would I call because I don’t have numbers memorized. Even then, who would I call that could come get me and do anything to help this situation? I was in true pioneer wild west territory.

My mother went through a phase where she continuously locked herself out of her car. Her colleagues bought her a special key chain that held her keys on a retractable cord attached to a belt loop. It was a brief phase, but it is something I thought about while I waited for someone to come unlock my car. I hopped from one foot to the other and thought “Oh no…it’s happening.” Then I shrugged and thought “good for me.” There are worse traits I could inherit, but I think I’ve inherited the best of my mother, like her resilience and stubborn independence. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a bit stubborn and independent. My mother celebrated a birthday on Monday and I am grateful that she could do so.

Today is the last day that this body will ever be forty seven years old. I asked Alexa this morning to play the top hits from 1976 and it started playing a song by the band Kansas. This was followed up with an ABBA song and I remembered that I am not only an inauguration baby, but I’m a baby of the Disco-Rock Wars. Which is probably why I love roller rinks and mosh pits. I left the house singing “There was something in the air that night. The stars shone bright, Fernando.” Even though it’s dangerously cold outside, I felt the sun on my face and decided that today is going to be so much better than yesterday.

OUCH

I sliced my thumb on a can of beans I had just opened to go into the pot of soup I was making for dinner. It’s not bad, not a stitches situation, but when it happened I quietly said “Ouch! Fuck!” and then my thumb started bleeding. Michael took one look at the first drop of blood and said “Oh no…” and then he ran off in search of a bandaid, which once found he applied to my thumb with shaky hands. I almost asked him if he needed to sit down for a minute. A few hours later, I removed the bandaid only to put on a new bandaid five minutes later when my thumb started bleeding again. Thumbs tend to be workhorses of the hands and this particular wound is in a place that gets bumped around a lot. I feel every bump and it smarts.

January.

Every time, I think it will be easier. If anything, the passing of time makes it worse and when I tell myself that I just have to make it through January, there’s a voice that whispers “February is going to be just as bad.” I want to blame it all on the weather, the bitter cold that makes it impossible to move around on this planet. It wasn’t this cold back then when we first moved here. It wasn’t even this cold the year he left us. Passed away, whatever. Some days it’s “he died”, some days “he departed” and some days when I’m feeling really cranky it’s “he left us”. The goddamn nerve of that man and the choices I have made since have set me up for a lifetime of knowing my life was better in the before times. Maybe that’s the why of making those choices.

Sometimes, I get so mad that I am still writing about this. I will write paragraphs around my unhappiness and then I will delete it all. I will fill the empty space with forced joy while asking myself when was the last time I was truly happy. This question always arises during the coldest, darkest months of the year when I’ve been the most stagnant, when the air is the most painful. Every year I make a plan, a strategy for navigation around this time and every year that plan fails not just miserably but epically. With flames and destruction. It is quite possible that my plans have failed more epically this year than any other year, even though on the outside it all looks normal and happy. She smiles. She make an attempt at laughing. She pretends.

I pretend.

After Thanksgiving, I calmly told Michael that I was no longer putting any work into this relationship. In some ways this made my life easier. I have dropped any expectations I had of him being a true definition of the word ‘partner’. That means doing tasks that I’d have to do any way if I lived alone. Shoveling the driveway, clearing the snow from my car, making a meal plan, holding myself accountable. I’ve stopped expecting an equally emotional and intellectual relationship. I had been working and striving so hard for this to be that kind of relationship, that the more effort I made, the more I was reminded that I didn’t have to do this in my previous relationship. I thought for the longest time that I was compromising, but what I’ve really been doing is conceding and with each concession, giving up pieces of myself until I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.

Mostly, I didn’t care about the loss of myself but how is that different from the days that followed Chris’s death? So now, in the darkest coldest months of the year I have more time and space for the past. Again with these choices I have made. I am not sure I ever really figured out who I am without Chris other than a bit pathetic. I’m tired of everything but mostly I am tired of being pathetic. When will I ever learn to lean into the stillness and the benefits of rest that come with these months? The truth is that if I stop being pathetic and less conceding, I will see that I am still the person I was with Chris. I had my own identity then and there’s no reason to believe that I don’t have my own singular identity now.

Knowing that doesn’t make this month feel any less poky. January will always be a cut on my thumb that’s deeper than a paper cut but not so deep that it requires needle and thread.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This is one of those weeks where it is challenging to not fill this post up with words of negativity and despair. Tuesday evening, Michael and I parked vehicles in our driveway with the idea that he would be leaving first in the morning. We thought for sure that they would not cancel another day of school. The main roads were clear or mostly clear, but around 8:30 that evening Michael received the call that there would not be school on Wednesday. So we pulled on our boots and coats and went out to swap out vehicles. It was not a well timed or well choreographed event and I ended up having to drive away because a car was coming and Michael wasn’t in the driveway yet. Once you are headed east on my street, there’s not a lot of options for turning around and I ended up slipping and sliding my way up hill on an uncleared neighborhood street. At one point, I thought for sure that I was going to be stuck. It was dark. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and I didn’t have my phone. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled my car into the driveway just as Michael was locking up the house so he could come find me.

This almost could be a metaphor for the week as a whole. There was a lot of slipping and sliding and moments of feeling stuck. The accouterments for snowy weather are heavy and cumbersome. More care has to be taken just by walking to your car. I could have very easily been stranded and stuck in a snow drift, but no one had to come rescue me. I made it home. In spite of the drudgery of this week, I have gotten out of bed every morning and I have done my seven minutes of exercise while waiting for water to boil. Then I have sat in what I call Puppy Meditation. This is where I sip hot lemon and ginger water while petting and snuggling with Josephine. I made time for my own yoga practice and had a few dance parties at my desk. I even made it to the DMV to renew my driver’s license. I arrived fifteen minutes before they opened, was second in line and first to the licensing counter. It took me ten minutes to complete all the tasks, a task I had been dreading since my notice for renewal arrived two months ago.

While this particular week has felt like the length of an entire month, there has been goodness in it to be grateful for. In fact, I will make the argument that weeks that tend to feel more grueling and last longer than some, actually contain more moments of gratitude. Those moments are more clear and vivid in my memory than all the rest of the muck from the week and Puppy Meditation is probably the thing I am most grateful for. I tend to feel guilty for not taking Josephine on walks in the winter mornings. Sitting with her in the mornings and gently rubbing her belly reminds me that she doesn’t care what we are doing in the mornings as long as we are doing it together. She might even prefer Puppy Meditations to the walks. Petting dogs lowers cortisol (bad stress hormone) and increases oxytocin (feel good bonding hormone). Puppy Meditations is not sitting doing nothing.

I am grateful to be transitioning back into a routine that benefits my physical and mental well being.

Today’s weather has so far turned out to be not quite as bad as predicted. We did not receive the layer of ice followed up with more snow, which it is doing right now. Schools are closed again today, but mostly because of the severe cold. My weather app says that it is currently fourteen degrees outside, but feels like negative three. This is a weekend for mugs of tea and bowls of hot soup, for wrapping up in blankets and piling your lap with pets.

This is a weekend for making a choice of stillness.

WHY DOES JANUARY EVEN EXIST?

Three of us braved the icy, snow crusted roads this morning to come into the office. I had no choice. I have service people in town right now to do preventative maintenance of some of our very most popular microscopy systems. Rescheduling would be a difficult option for all concerned. But honestly, I probably would have made the treacherous drive here any way because I have become the First Law of Motion. The act of getting ready to go in to work is the applied force this ball needs to start moving.

And this ball really needs to start moving.

But that’s the thing with January. It is the first month of the year and should feel like a month of possibilities and fresh starts. The reality is that the month of January is my old 1976 Buick Skylark that took three to twenty turns of the key to get the engine started. This is where you decided if you are a ‘glass half full’ or a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person. If you lean towards the half empty way of thinking, you might think that January is here to ruin all of your plans. Michael attempted to make reservations for my birthday dinner in two weeks and there was zero availability at my first two choices. That weekend kicks off Kansas City Restaurant Week and there is the potential for an important Chiefs football game on that day. When Michael asked me for another option, I said “just forget it.” Then four to six inches of snow got dumped on the city and there’s more coming on Friday, canceling plans I had made for my mother and sister to visit so we could celebrate my mom’s birthday. So it really feels like January is looking at me and saying “Hey…I get that you want to do things. I really do, but nope.”

January. Wrecking plans since 1976. Or 2012 (if I’m being generous).

The month of January is named after the Roman god, Janus, the god of new beginnings and transitions. Janus is not the god of good new beginnings or bad new beginnings. He is the god of just new beginnings and new beginnings of any kind requires some transitioning. Back in 2012, I did not see January as a month of new beginnings. It was a month of painful slogging tasks. It was a time of conditioning for a transition into a new beginning that was most definitely not a good new beginning. All Januarys since have been compared to this and treated with an expectation that January is going to be hard as fuck. But I so desperately want to see January with ‘glass half full’ eyes, so here goes.

What would a ‘glass half full’ person think about January’s shenanigans?

January is your therapist telling you that all those things that you want to do requires you to put in some work to do them. There’s no waking up to written manuscripts or finished marathons. Goals are not met by happenstance. You have to put in the work, but January is also forcing you to focus only on the things you can control. It’s going to throw all these obstacles or tests out there that you have no control over to train you both mentally and physically to focus on the things you can control. To a ‘half glass empty’ person, this looks like the bare minimum of activity, but ‘glass half full’ people know that looks are deceiving. The hardest pose in yoga looks like you’re doing nothing while doing nothing, but this doing nothing time allows for molecular level recovery for our bodies.

I can’t control the snow, but I am able bodied enough to shovel my driveway and dig my car out. I made it to work, but did concede to canceling my yoga class this evening (safety first). Plans are not ruined; they have just been rearranged to different dates and venues. Everything could be so much worse right now. January could be really making me do much harder things this year than just navigating snowy terrain and cold weather. Maybe I should give the month of January a new slogan.

January, the month that is the kick-you-in-the-ass trainer you didn’t know you needed.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael and I declared an ‘only stockings’ present year for Christmas and he filled my stocking with ridiculous desk toys. I now own a “Badass” button that tells me how wonderful I am every time I press it and a tiny glowing crystal ball that continuously tells me to '“ask again later.” The Ghostbuster’s trap, I was told, was really more of gift for Chris. So I did the very most Chris thing I could do. I printed out a tiny label with the label maker and gave the trap a name that implies it is a trap for ideas. Good ideas or bad ideas. The trap is an equal opportunity idea catcher.

At the same time I was making the trap label, Amy sent me a picture of a set of books that she would probably have purchased for Chris. It was a series of books of William Shakespeare’s version of Star Wars. She included a shot of dialogue from Scene 1 that included the line “he beepeth on and on.” Michael has a habit of asking me if I know about subject A and then explaining subject A to me even though I said ‘yes, I know about that.’ Now, all I want to do is interrupt him with “Must you, Sir, beepeth on and on?” I am truly surprised that I do not have this set of books already sitting on my bookshelf because while there are many things I got rid of, books were kept. I mean, we should all have our very own copy of Catch 22 stacked next to our bibles (yes, I have a bible, know thine enemy and all that).

I’ve told Michael my theory of soul absorption and how I believe that I have absorbed most of Chris’s soul. It is the reason why he is not surprised when certain phrases fall out of my mouth. He has yet to notice that I sometimes cross my eyes and stare at passengers in the cars stopped next to us at stoplights, not unlike Chris’s goofy-faced alter ego. This was the face he used for Rosco, the hitchhiker Chad picked up during his cross country road trip, the trip that started our friendship with Chad. I have more pictures of this face than I do of Chris’s actual face and I’m not mad about it. We recently started watching Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones and in the very first episode, we listened to a woman who is 102 talk about the importance of laughter, but this is not the first time I have heard such advice. I have experienced it first hand. The amount of laughing Chris and I did is why I never really consider anything I did as ‘grownup’ until I was thirty four and moving us to Kansas City.

The years when I feel I have laughed the least are the years I have felt decrepit and ancient and those are the years I regret the most.

When I started writing this entry, I couldn’t remember the name Chad had given to his imaginary hitchhiker and when I asked him about it, he replied “What made you think of that?” It was so many years ago, so many life changes ago. I told Chad it was because I was writing about Chris’s dumb face, which is true, but it’s really because I’m holding onto joyful moments and reminding myself to be silly. I don’t even need to look at Chris’s goofy face to start grinning; all I have to do is think about it.

I am making it a practice to laugh daily, but I do beepeth on and on.

HUNGRY FOR WHAT

I opened up the editor side of this website and looked around like it was brand new territory. This was not unlike the feelings I had when I walked into the microscopy room at work Tuesday morning. In fact, after taking all of the objective lenses off of one system and cleaning each one, I set them next to the microscope and walked away to do something else. It was about twenty minutes later when I remembered that I never actually put those lenses back on the microscope. I have been away from work (and here) for a week and two days. I let my emails fester in my inbox for nine days before finally giving in and clearing things out. I barely took or posted any photos. After returning home from Oklahoma and furiously cleaning my house, I was down right lazy, not leaving the couch unless it was absolutely necessary. Do I have regrets?

Just one. I don’t feel as though I ate as much cheese as I could have eaten in the last eleven days.

Well before the holidays, I was feeling a constant gnawing hunger twinge in my guts. I wanted to eat all of the things and none of the things. I wanted to fill my body up with something, a lot of different things and not necessarily food. I was hungry for changes. My social media ads went into overdrive, filling up my feed with food prep services, fancy ramen noodles, weight loss programs, face yoga and shape wear. For the most part, I ignored those ads, but every once in a while one would sneak its way into my brain. I’d click on the link and search for price tags. Then I’d come to my senses, shake my head and turn it off. Being so well organized for Christmas allowed for some reflection time and I sat down and wrote out a detailed list/flow chart for what I want in 2024. There is nothing unreasonable on that list, except maybe the part about seeing a moose, but I woke up on January first feeling a little bit guilty for not getting right to work. Instead of getting up and getting on my mat or playing my seven minute exercise app, I snuggled back under the covers and watched three episodes of The Diplomat.

When I finally did that seven minute workout on Tuesday morning, I thought “Damn, why is this so hard?!?” while I coughed between squats and mountain climbers. That head cold I had the week before Christmas turned into a cough that still hasn’t gone away. It has at least changed from sounding like masses amounts of wet cotton is about to explode from my body. The cough has been reduced to an irritant and a wish for a zero gag reflex (yes, place all of your dirty thoughts here) so that I can scrub my esophagus with a bottle brush. Half of the people I follow on Instagram posted pictures of New Year’s Eve plans that included cold medicines and tissues. I don’t feel alone in thinking that a mere seven minutes of exercise right now feels like two hours of torture exercise.

On Christmas Day, Michael and I went over to our Jenn and Wade’s house to have Christmas dinner with them and their family. Upon walking into their home, every visitor was handed a card that contained some kind of conversation starter and then everyone in the room would take a turn at answering what ever question was on the card. One of the questions that came up was “What’s a lie you tell yourself?” Look, there’s a number of lies I tell myself on a daily basis, but the one I was willing to speak out loud to the group was this. I tell myself that I am not a healthy person, that I do not take care of myself. Some of that stems from a month of sporadic yoga practices and a pause in dog walks because of the weather. Some that stems from allowing someone in my life to speak to me on a daily basis in a way that is not healthy and letting it go on because I just didn’t care enough to stand up for myself. But also, if I don’t speak kindly to myself, how can I expect others to speak to me in a positive way?

This is something I’ve been working on before the new year, not just being kinder to myself but demanding kinder and more thoughtful speech from others. So by the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, I wasn’t as hungry for change as I was in late November. Just the act of writing down the things I want for this year, filled up some of that empty gut feeling. So many things on my list are not resolutions of self improvement, maybe only two or three items. Everything else is all true wants: camping, joyful movement like roller skating, bike rides. I treated my resolutions like they would be part of my Life List, filling the year up with activities of joy and spacing those activities throughout the year like tapas plates of snacks. I’m walking into this year with a little trepidation (the world is very much a dumpster fire and it’s an election year), but mostly I’m walking into this year feeling peckish and excited about snacks.

I’m going to treat this year like Rick Steve spends an evening tapas bar hopping in Madrid.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve been battling a head cold all week, pretending that there’s nothing wrong with me. Each day has been a progression from sore throat to nasal congestion to barking cough. I refuse to give into the idea that I am actually sick because there’s been no fever or aches. I’ve tested negative for COVID three times now. On Wednesday morning I didn’t nudge Michael to get up. Instead he came to me and when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I opened my eyes and croaked “I’m getting up!” Then we sort of argued because he said “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.” and I replied “I feel just fine…cough cough…..I’m not sick.” This week is a short week leading into a fairly long break for the whole institute. Our microscope calendar is full and I have several projects I’m helping with. I may have the available sick time, but I didn’t feel like I had the luxury to use it. Besides, the cough hit by Wednesday and that’s always the last symptom in the head cold progression.

So, I am not sick.

Though, if I was sick (and I’m not saying that I am, just if I was), now is a pretty good time for it. I have been relieved of all chores and duties until Saturday morning when we go get haircuts. My job today is rest and an eventual shower because the Cabbage wants to have dinner at the ramen place down the street tonight. I will shower for soup. The following days will be quiet ones. Our Christmas with the Cabbage is on Christmas Adam/Eve. Our Christmas day will be spent with friends for a low-key dinner with puzzles and games. We will spend two days with my family in Oklahoma and then an evening with Michael’s mom’s. Then our plans are to stay still and ring in the new year quietly at home.

During my Wednesday chair yoga class, I gave my student a little bit of extra time in final relaxation. As I helped each student gather and arrange cushions and blankets to be comfortable for a long savasana, I told them to let this time be their gift to themselves. Sometimes we need to bribe ourselves in order to allow for moments that may seem splurgy. Being still and resting for fifteen minutes feels like a splurge to many of us, me most of all. There’s something about ‘gifting’ those fifteen minutes to yourself that feels like permission. I told Michael I didn’t want anything for Christmas this year. I just couldn’t think of anything that I wanted that I would not buy for myself. I told him to save the money for when we go back to New Orleans. We are only doing stockings, but I think I will follow my own advice and gift myself a holiday of rest.

I hope that you are able to give yourself a similar gift this holiday season.

I am grateful to have the luxury of a long holiday that allows for rest. I think that this is my last Thankful Friday entry for the year. I think that having a holiday of rest includes taking a break from this space. Before we know it, we will be blinking in a brand new year, a year for new adventures. I am excited for the adventures awaiting me. Some of them are going to be big. So, with gratitude, I am taking this moment to rest and prepare my body for those adventures.

Many Happy Holidays to you.

THINGS CHANGE

The Facebook memory that popped up the other day was a picture of a collage of holiday cards that I had stuck to the side of my refrigerator. For a tiny moment, I almost shared that memory but then I looked closer at some of those cards. Many of the cards were photo cards containing pictures of my dear friends and their families. I didn’t share the memory because first of all, it’s not a great picture, but secondly a few of those cards do not reflect a few of those families today. In fact at least two of the families in that picture have had drastic, heart breaking changes in the last five years. One photo card is from a college friend with her husband and two children all smiling brightly for the camera. I considered the husband to be a great friend too, but he left my friend in a surprising and shocking way. He turned out to be not the person I thought he was or who anyone thought he was. After deciding not to share this memory, I studied that photo looking for signs on his face or in his eyes only to shake my head and realize he was the best actor of us all.

I’m sure my friends remember my holiday cards of the past and how different my cards look today. I wanted to hold onto a tradition that could not be recreated with any other person but Chris. I have given up on the idea of elaborate and funny holiday photos. I like to think of my cards now as more of a sarcastic head nod to the suburban family unit. I’ve stopped trying to get a nice photo of all of us together and instead, I patch together individual pictures of us. I’m the hardest to find because I am rarely in front of the camera these days. Maybe it’s time for another 365 day self portrait project. I always seem to quilt something together just in time to take advantage of a big holiday card print sale, even if the picture of Josephine on this year’s card was actually taken last year. It was the best I could do this year. A series of unfortunate haircuts made Josephine not as photogenic as usual and let’s face it. We’ve all experienced a year of unfortunate haircuts.

I had Talaura on speaker phone Saturday evening and we chatted while I roamed around my house doing chores. I had a stack of unopened cards sitting on my desk and I began to open them one by one and then tape them up on bookshelf for display. Anna and Greg greeted me from the cover of their card with a drooling half grinning baby. They referred to themselves not by name but as “Mateo’s grandparents”, as they should. I am kind of in love with their new empty nest status and how they have entered a stage of life that is less parenting and more spoil the grand baby. The card also arrived from a different address than where I sent my card to them. So, hopefully that gets returned soon so that I can put the correct address on it. Then I opened the card from Todd and I said out loud to Talaura that these children are unrecognizable. That’s not entirely true. I still recognize Todd’s boys, but they’ve mostly lost that ‘boy’ look and have moved on to ‘young man’. Talaura and I chatted about how strange that those two were now closely resembling adults.

Michael has been struggling to get the Cabbage to send them a Christmas wish list this year. They finally responded with “I’m a teenager now. I’m not supposed to want or like things.” They have grown past the surprises and excitement that comes at Christmas when you believe that a white bearded old man is going to break into your home, not to steal your toys, but to give you more toys. I still plan on setting out a nice beer and some pretzels for Santa because I like a bit of whimsy with my holidays. It feels strange to see everyone growing up and getting older when I feel as though I have not changed. It took me so long to finally do “adult” things like buying a lawnmower and a house, cremating a husband. I feel stuck at an in between stage of life where I’m just responsible enough to stay employed.

For a brief period of time as a small child, I can remember spending hours pretending to be Wendy from Peter Pan. I’d interrupt adventures and insist that it was bath time or tea time or bed time. I would tell my stuffed animals who were playing the Lost Boys to be more sensible. I’m sure many of you are nodding your heads and thinking “of course you did, Cindy.” Commanding sensibility is my brand, but as I watch my dearest friends’ children growing up, I find myself wanting less sensibility or more silliness. I don’t want to be a Wendy any more. I don’t want to be Peter and leader of the pack, but I think I’m ready to try fitting in with the Lost Boy crowd.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

In these last few weeks of December, I’m finding myself to be at a loss. I’ve finished my Christmas shopping. Things at work are slowing down so that no one is on a microscope on Mondays and the calendar doesn’t fill up until Thursdays. Then I have two days of being busy and the rest of my time has been spent reading up on live cell nuclear stains. I am also spending a large amount of headspace on squashing the feeling that I’m missing something. For instance, did I really book the Airbnb for Christmas with my family or did I dream that part? Have I purchased enough gifts to make all the people happy? Have I made any real plans for the coming year or are those still roaming free-range in my head?

I can tell you that the answers to those questions are yes, probably not, and a nope.

I’m sure that being this organized around the holidays is meant to be a good a thing, leaving time for just enjoying the moments. This is the reason that I make the effort to be ahead of the game this time every year, so I can sit back and bask in the holiday glow. Maybe do some baking (that’s hilarious and I said maybe). Avoid the crowded mess of people shopping for last minute gifts. Turns out that I’m not so good at basking and the doer inside me can’t stop thinking that I need to do something.

Karen Walrond sent out a recent newsletter with journalling prompts for reflecting on the past year and taking time to celebrate your joy. I know many people who really had a rough go of things in 2023 and they’re more than ready to start anew in 2024. This makes me think back on years when I had a rough go of things and I wonder if I have the experience to encourage people to take a moment to celebrate your victories of this year before moving on. I’ve had plenty of years when my joy to celebrate is just the act of getting out of bed in the mornings. I don’t feel that 2023 has been much of a struggle for me. I did some things that challenged me and were outside of my comfort zone, but those things led me to goodness.

I have yet to sit down and do any of the journal prompts, but I did go ahead and compile an album of pictures for the year. There are pictures from this year where I had to pause and ask myself “Did that happen this year?!” not because I don’t remember it happening. Some of it just feels like is happened ages ago. Usually my end-of-year slide show goes on and on. This year, I made a real effort to only include pictures with people and animals, but it was hard to not throw in some pictures that I took of places. Some of my best pictures do not include a single person and they were taken in moments of great joy. But today, I’m celebrating moments of joy that includes the wonderful people in my life.

JOSEPHINE IS NINE

On the very first day of December, I lugged all the boxes containing the Christmas decorations up from the basement. I put together our little tree and decorated it with my favorite ornaments. I set out the menorah and Abominable Snowman. I hung the wreath on the front door and set my light-up elephant on the front stoop. I hung all the Christmas stockings on the wall by the tree. Then I packed up the boxes and put them all back into the basement. I was like a Tasmanian Devil of decorating and I only half noticed the order in which I had hung the stockings.

But the Cabbage noticed straight away.

You see, the order of the stockings from right to left is me, Michael, Josephine, The Cabbage and finally, Albus. The Cabbage saw how the stockings were placed and viewed the order as order of importance. Meaning Josephine trumps the Cabbage. When the Cabbage mentioned this, Michael said “I’m less important than Josephine.” Now…that’s not…true…..Maybe there’s a little truth there. Anyway. I’m the one that decorates. I can do what I want. The only time the other two have any interest is when I decide to not decorate and then there’s complaints. So if the stockings end up in an “order of importance” so be it.

Josephine turned nine on the eighth of December (I believe this is right because the earliest picture I have of her is for December 2014 and her eyes were barely open). We didn’t really celebrate. There may have been an extra treat that day and the discovery of an old lost toy. [Complete side note: I’m missing two spoons from my silverware set that I received from a favorite college professor when Chris and I got married. I made Michael look under the couch for them because who knows?. Instead, he found an old bone and Josephine’s stuffed snail. The spoons are still missing.] I don’t think to celebrate Josephine’s birthday in December because she didn’t come home to us until late January, but also I tend to celebrate her existence every day.

It is winter temperatures and that means, Josephine and I opt out of our morning walks for snuggle time under the covers. She will go outside only because I’ve told her to go outside, but then she runs back inside as soon as she’s done, and hops up onto the bed to burrow under the comforter. The two of us lay there with me scratching her ears or belly until it is my turn for the shower. Sometimes, there is competition from the cat where I’ll only be able to pet with one hand because the other hand has to scratch Albus’s ears. I don’t think Josephine likes sharing, but she tolerates it because like I tell her every single day, she is the best puppy in the world.

And she is.

Josephine is everything I could have asked for in a canine companion. She’s smart and inquisitive. Her personality far exceeds her size. Everyone who has interacted with her all tell me that she is the sweetest puppy. She is so much more than a pet. She is a member of my family and a true companion. Josephine is always by my side. Or on my lap. I choose to celebrate her life every single day because the life of a dog is shorter than a human’s. Which, come to think of it, is how we should probably treat each other. Every day is a gift.

Take a moment to celebrate that gift.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

There was a house just outside of Collinsville that every year, would have the most beautiful and elegant Christmas light display. We would pass by this house every time we drove into and out of town. One year they did not decorate at all. I can remember riding in the backseat and driving by the house on our way home from an evening church service and asking my parents why the house was not decorated for Christmas. My mother answered “They had a death in the family and will not be celebrating this year.” I remember nodding my head in understanding. We had experience our own loss right around the Holidays a few years earlier. There was a tree that year and presents, but very little joy.

This feels like an age old question: When is it appropriate to celebrate during and after times of great loss?

Michael and I are not Jewish, but during our first holiday season together, we listened to a story about celebrating Hanukkah on NPR. We found the story to be so beautiful and moving that we decided right then to start our own tradition of lighting the menorah. Over the years, it has become the most meaningful holiday ritual for me. We do not do eight days of gifts. We do have latkes on the first night, but the most important part is that we all take a moment to stand in one place together, lighting the candles and being grateful. Merging families with different backgrounds and traditions can be messy. We both came from a particular way of life that included other people, traditions we were use to in previous relationships. Celebrating Hanukkah became our tradition.

I woke up around 3 AM on Thursday morning and then laid in my bed thinking about the Palestinians in Gaza and their families who live in places outside of Gaza who are hearing of loved ones being slaughtered. I couldn’t stop thinking about how more than half of the prisoners released by Israel during the cease fire were all eighteen years or younger. Many of all of the prisoners released were being held without charge. I can’t imagine that the continued bombings of civilians in Gaza is going to bring about the release of the remaining Israeli hostages either. My heart is split between the Palestinians who are suffering from losing most of their family and their homes and the Israeli families who lost family members in the Hamas attack or are still waiting the fate of their family members. How do you celebrate a holiday so connected to this suffering?

I had to go back to all of those years ago when I heard that story on NPR. I had to remember what it was about that story that struck me with the beauty of Hanukkah and how it embodies the daily gratitude practice. I thought of that first Christmas after we lost J. No one felt the holiday spirit, but we gathered and celebrated because it was always J’s favorite thing. We celebrated to honor the one we had lost. This year with Hanukkah, I am lighting the candles to honor those we have lost but also to spread light.

Praised are you, lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has given us life and sustained us and enabled us to reach this season.

This year, I am lighting the candles for those who cannot. This year, I am bringing light to those trapped in the dark.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

Look, the world is a bit of a dumpster fire right and I don’t have anything nice to say about it. So I’m not saying anything. I am subbing yoga classes for a fellow yoga teacher this week and my life currently looks like 2010. Which is busy. My life looks busy and not in a Christmas Holiday busy kind of way, but I’d like to leave you a list of things that are bringing me a lot of joy and happy distractions during this time.

• My wonderful, adorable friend Amani has started a tiny mic series where she critiques her neighborhood Christmas displays. The one with the giant Abominable Snowman is my favorite so far. The look of joy on her face is infectiously wonderful.

• It is advent calendar time and my favorite thing has been watching Ollie and his little brother Tato, doing things from their advent calendar. Last year’s advent calendar was the one that brought Tato into the family. So watching these two together this last year has been wonderful. I love their adventures.

• Speaking of advent calendars. Every year I get a newsletter that waxes poetically over the Aldi cheese advent calendar. The newsletter always warns that this calendar is hard to get. This year, I was in Aldi at the exact right time. This cheese advent calendar has been sitting in wait in my fridge since the beginning of November. So far, it does not disappoint. The cheese portion has been the perfect size for cutting into two tasting pieces for the both of us. We’ve had a super sharp cheddar, a pepper Gouda, and a smokey cheddar. Monday night’s was some weird apple blend. I did not love it, but I did not hate it. Even though it is early days, I give this advent a 10 out of 10.

• I am terrible at crossword puzzles. Word finding games, matching games, hidden treasure finding game. Those are fine, but the crossword has always confused the crap out of me. Last week I started attempting the New York Times daily crossword. I go through and get what I can and then after dinner, I make Michael help me finish the crossword. Tuesday’s I did most of it all on my own and only needed help with four clues. I’m learning the tricks of the crossword. Go brain!

• All of my Christmas decorations are up and cards are in the mail. Hanukkah starts on Thursday and after much debate, we(I) decided to continue our tradition of celebrating. I have reasons that I might expound on later. We have latkes planned for our evening meal and I am looking forward to lighting the first candle.

• One of my coworkers eats a breakfast burrito from our grab-n-go area of the cafeteria almost every day. Each burrito comes with a packed of La Victoria hot sauce. He never uses the sauce, but doesn’t feel like it’s a good idea to throw them away. Our office fridge has a crisper drawer full of these packets. They have become an enormous joke to all of us. We needed a topper for our Christmas tree in the office and I made this:

This is probably the best craft I’ve ever done.

What about you? Where are you finding light these days?

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This week has been hard work. Even though the scheduling for microscope usage has been light, there have been serious troubleshooting issues on some them. One problem was so bad that after spending two hours trying to figure out how to fix it, I gave up and called the company who made the system. Then while I waited for them to call me back, a coworker went to look at the problem and promptly fixed it in about five minutes. It was a really dumb fix and easy for me to miss considering the software that runs this particular system is a complicated nightmare. I also understand the benefits of having fresh eyes on a problem and this is one of the reasons we all work so well together as a team.

Still, it was frustrating.

Then there were some difficult conversations that needed to happen in my personal life. I have hope that those discussion will lead to good changes, but I am remaining realistic in abilities. Changes do not happen overnight. The results from these difficult conversations is that I’ve seen a glimpse of an old self, a less numb Cindy. For a really long time, I’ve been like a wooly mammoth trapped in the tundra and I’m starting to thaw out. I’m a little tentative. I mean, imagine being a wooly mammoth and being awakened into today’s time. It’s disorienting and exhilarating and a little depressing given the state of things. I am less tolerant, but leading with kindness and only time will tell if good changes unfold. I am prepared either way because I have come to realize that holding myself in one spot for so long is exhausting.

I’m tired of being tired.

Today is the first day of the last month of the year. Usually this thought would set off alarm bells in my body. I could give you a long list of things that I have left to do before Christmas or a whole bunch of woes on what I didn’t accomplish in 2023. I will not be giving out that list because I don’t feel like I have an unmanageable task list to complete and I don’t care about the things I didn’t accomplish in this year. I was going to say that I have plans for next year, plans that include taking responsibility for my health and setting clear boundaries in my relationship. This is true. I do have plans but I am not waiting for the start of a new year to start implementing those plans. Every morning we wake up, we set new intentions or maybe just commit to an old intention and then do our best to honor those intentions. I don’t need to wait for a ball to drop to start doing things and I don’t need the pressure of making the year count to discourage me. Switching my mindset to this way of thinking is the reason I am not panicking this year.

I am excited about the things to come in the New Year. I have pictures going into a local restaurant in March and some fun travel plans. I think maybe I’ll track down a moose and finally see a real live moose in 2024. It may be time to drag out my tent and invite myself on some of my friend Melissa’s camping trips. I miss camping and reorganizing my camp gear to fit into my car is a great winter time activity. At the same time, I’m proud of the things I did accomplish this year. My pictures hung on a wall inside a freaking Starbucks. I sold my art! I fell in love with riding a bicycle around this city. My four week beginning yoga class was so well liked that they asked me to just keep teaching a beginner like yoga class (there’s a giant picture of me pretending to teach yoga in the Stowers Report, which is a little embarrassing). And probably most importantly, I have actually survived without major injuries this year.

I have gratitude for the things coming my way, but more than anything I am grateful for this moment right now and opportunities to work on today’s intention.

TIS THE SEASON

To my knowledge, Chris has never been to Iowa. I haven’t ever really been to Iowa, though Michael told me we drove through the state on our way to the Apostle Islands. We drove through while I was sleeping in the back seat because Michael had decided to drive us to Wisconsin in the middle of the night. His idea was that I would sleep while he drove and then we would switch drivers in the morning. His plan mostly worked. I drove us from Duluth to our campsite near Bayfield WI as the sun rose up in the East, with Michael snoring in the passenger seat. Chris was left in Wisconsin on the banks of Lake Superior during that trip. The night before leaving for Heather’s in Des Moines, I realized that Chris had never actually made it to Iowa.

As I pulled his coffee can down from the bookcase, I tried to remember the last time I had taken Chris anywhere. It’s been awhile. Maybe the last time was over a year ago when we visited Vancouver and I left in the hand of laughing sculpture. Our travels of late have all to been to places where Chris and I have already gone. I was in the kitchen, opening the can when Michael and the Cabbage walked in. “What’s that?!” The Cabbage asked as they opened the fridge in search of a snack. Michael answered for me and then there was a brief but frank discussion on human remains. There’s not a whole lot of Chris’s ashes left. Enough left for a few more adventures. Once we made it to Heather’s we sat around the table discussing possible locations to leave Chris. I had looked up some places listed on the Atlas Obscura website. One spot happened to be a cemetery and it was Terry who asked “Have you ever theft Chris in an actual cemetery?”

The Huston Cemetery in Wes Des Moines used to be the center of a roundabout. The intersection has since been remodeled but the tiny cemetery of maybe ten headstones still remain. The last person buried in the space was James B Huston in 1889, the man who founded the settlement. I walked all the way around the cemetery, looking for a good spot to leave Chris. The headstones were all so worn that barely any lettering stood out. I finally settled on a spot close to the tree and in eyesight of an old farmhouse. Really, it was too cold to stand outside debating too long on the perfect place and too cold for tears. There have been a number of times Chris has been left hastily and rushed, mostly because it’s not quite legal. This spot was probably the most legal of all, being it is an actual cemetery.

This is the time of year where everything starts to feel like a scratchy hair coat for those of us who have experienced loss. The memories of our past lives float in to remind of us what it is that we have lost and the Holiday season becomes a mix of pain and joy. Good and bad. Our grief can cause us to lash out in unexpected ways and I am reminded to speak mindfully and tread softly. I am not the only one to have experienced loss. I am not the only one with a ritual for celebrating the life of someone I love. Leaving Chris in all of these different places is a reminder to myself that I do not live in a vacuum. We all have broken or bruised hearts.

This is the time of year for more then ever leading with kindness.

FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Our weekend plans with my brother and sister-in-law fell through rather suddenly and it kind of paralyzed us for a few minutes. We had done all the weekend chores ahead of time. Laundry was done. The tiny grocery list for the week was taken care of. The Cabbage got to go to the school dance that they were originally going to miss. It was Michael’s birthday weekend and the weather was really nice. It seemed a bit dumb to spend it sitting on the couch. So we decided to drive over to Lawrence and explore the shops on Mass. Street. I was a little concerned that this would be a bad idea because it was Sunflower Showdown weekend. Kansas named their rivalry game after a flower; in Oklahoma its’ called Bedlam. Maybe Oklahoma rivalries are more rowdy. I mean, just two weekends ago Oklahoma State fans threw our goal post into Theta Pond in celebration of our win over OU.

There were a few day drinkers out stumbling from bar to bar, but the game started later in the evening, so the crowds were not bad. Truth be told, those day drinkers were normal day drinkers for a Saturday in a college town. We had an easy time of strolling up and down the street and browsing around in some of the shops. We found a really great thrift clothing store where the Cabbage found a clunky pair of Mary Janes in their size. I nabbed a wool dress coat that still had the original tags and a comfy sweater. Then we wandered around a used bookstore. At one point, I was standing in front of a display of old books. My back was turned to the cashier and I could hear her talking to someone on the phone. This is what I overheard: “Look, you’ve made it this far. You only have two more months. You’re doing really great. I’m so proud of you.”

I stood there for few minutes, pretending to be interested in the books in front of me and I thought what a great friend this person is. She sounded honest and genuine in her support for the person on the other end of the line. Most of us have that person who will call with similar words of support, but it is nice to know and witness that sort of support in the wild. I bought a ridiculous old paperback, purely for the cover and when I walked up to the cashier, I saw a skinny mangy looking black cat pacing along the counter. A small child was trying to pet it and the cat eyed him with suspicion before moving securely out of reach. I paid for my book and met Michael and the Cabbage outside. Later on Michael asked me if I had seen that woman in the bookstore talking to the cat. I looked at him and relayed the words I had heard. Then I said “She wasn’t on the phone?” He laughed and replied “No. She was saying all of that to the cat.”

What a lucky cat.

We left Lawrence in time to go over to Jenn and Wade’s for the tail end of their Friendsgiving, an even that we thought we were going to miss. We walked in and were immediately embraced with strong hugs and plates of food. All the others had eaten already and the crowd of guests with small children were packing to leave. Wade sat with us at the table while the three of us ate, giving us his full attention as we discussed everything from our day to where’s the best chicken in the Kansas City. Then we sat around the backyard fire pit with people Michael and I do not know well, but conversation was easy and we laughed so hard at ridiculous things. Eventually we got the nudge from the Cabbage that they were ready for home and bed. We packed up and received more hugs as we departed. I was so grateful that we made it and that they made space for us, that they were genuinely happy to have us there. Making new friends after a certain age and after moving to a new city where you don’t know anyone is not easy. But, I’ve managed to do it. I’ve always been good at collecting interesting people, but I am surprised that I have managed to collect people who think I’m the interesting one.

I would say get yourself someone who speaks to a mangy skinny cat the way that cashier in the shop does, but I suspect you are like me and have number of those someones in your life already.

We are lucky cats.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I often forget that this is the month for gratitude because I practice gratitude every day and share it here every week. So, November is just a month that happens to contain a holiday. There are those who use November for more than a gratitude month. November is also National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. I have a handful of friends who have honored the month with working diligently on a novel and I have on occasion officially thrown my hat into the writing ring, signing up for NaNoWriMo. The challenge of committing to writing daily on a thing you might send off to be published as a book is enticing and intimidating. I have always failed miserably to finish anything.

This is true for any month.

Before you get excited for me, let me say that this year is not any different from any other time. I did not officially sign up for NaNoWriMo. I did not quietly make any commitments to write daily for NaNoWriMo, but I have been writing. I have been writing on a project that I know I have time to write because I don’t have plans to share it in public. At least not now. I am waiting for an appropriate time. The thing I started writing is based on an idea for a book title that just randomly floated into my brain. Since then, I have been fleshing out a story to fit under that title. This is, I just realized, the same way I write my little fortune cookie stories. I use the title of the page, in this case a fortune, to inspire the story. I never really finish a story for this, but I don’t think that I am incapable of it. I always run out of room to write before I am given the chance to finish. Turns out the Fortune Cookie Diary has not just been a practice in creativity but a lesson on getting a writing project off the ground.

This project may end up like all the others and I would not be disappointed with myself if it did. There’s plenty of UFOs on my computer and about half of those make me feel a number of negative feelings most of which revolve around my lack of discipline (I blame Chris). I can finish this or not finish this current project without any of those feelings because in the process of writing, I have let go of some stuff that has not been serving me. Each written memory gives me greater insight and understanding and unlike many of those other projects, I have yet to reach a wall that I can’t seem to write my way around. Maybe this one will keep going because it feels really good to free some of these thoughts that I have been holding onto. They are thoughts that do not serve me well and the foundation for many of my feelings of inadequacy. Those thoughts are where the not enoughs come from. After each writing session I have felt stronger in not just saying, but believing that I am enough.

So for the month that celebrates writing and gratitude, I am thankful for my writing practice.

We are traveling to Iowa next week for a friendsgiving in Heather’s new house. I’ve never been to Des Moines and from what I’ve been told, it’s really great or really boring. It depends on who you’re talking to. I’m leaning into Des Moines being really great because we missed friendsgiving with Heather last year. Up until then, our Thanksgiving gathering were beginning to feel traditional. I am a creature devoted to routine and habits. So to have our gatherings back feel comforting. I don’t know what next week will look like for this space. If I end up not posting anything, may your holiday be filled with light and comfort.

Peace.