WHY PARIS

Often, when I was small, it was just me and Mom left to our own devises. My sister and I were separated just enough in age that made me too little to hang out with. While Janell was off with her friends at the movies or what not, Mom and I would often curl up in her bed and watch old movies together. There was always that one random (we didn’t have cable) channel that Mom could pick up on her little TV that would continuously play old movies and we would sit and watch black and white murder mysteries or musicals or dramatic romances for as long as we could stay awake. Mom’s favorites were the musicals. I loved anything Audrey Hepburn.

So many of those movies we watched took place in Paris.

The movies had a way of casting a dreamy light on the city of Paris, even if the city streets were just a backdrop. It was the playground for the Impressionists and beat poets and philosophers. The amount of art and influence birthed from Paris is delightfully obscene. The paintings and art work from the Impressionists are the first things I seek out in any art museum. The other stuff is fine, but the soft swirly colors of a Monet puts me into my Zen garden of peace. I want a float pod where I am completely surrounded by the Water Lilies. Historically, this city is a treasure trove of richness, revolutions and resistance against tyrants. Yet it’s visions of Audrey Hepburn running down the grand steps at the Louvre or marching along the Seine that fill my head when I think of Paris.

I’ve intended to go for years. I thought maybe about going for my 30th or 40th birthdays, maybe for an anniversary date or for no reason at all. Life has always stepped right on in to block those intentions and dreams. It became wishful thinking, something I’d want to do some day but never getting around to doing. With time, I allowed myself to think of the idea of Paris as overrated. I’ve heard the tales from other Americans about how the French are rude and snobby. Why would I want to subject myself to that? Though, I think it is possible that rude and snobby is a misinterpretation of resilient and reserved. There is something to be said about the power of being polite and unassuming. After all, Americans are often the uninvited guest and we have a way about us that is not always flattering. Any way…as the years passed, I told myself that I didn’t really care if I ever got a chance to see Paris for myself.

But I do.

When Michael asked me where we should go to celebrate our 50s, the word “Paris” popped out of my mouth without any hesitation. We started saving our pennies and practicing a very mindful approach to spending. For months now, we’ve been telling each other “We’re going to Paris!” but even while I was saying it, I didn’t really believe it. I said the words without meaning or feeling and fully expected to add this to the list of things we didn’t do. Remember that year we talked constantly about going to Paris and even taking lessons in French, but then we didn’t actually go anywhere? This is what I was expecting, but last week, one morning while I was in the shower and Michael stood in the bathroom brushing his beard, Michael said “hey…I did a thing last night after you went to bed.” He bought airplane tickets to Paris. This was surprising because he always consults me before making such purchases. In fact, I almost always am expected to be in the same room with him when it is happening. But he told me about doing some online training thing for work and how frustrating it was to just to log in and how he suddenly found himself looking at prices for flights to Paris. For the first time in a long time, the prices were beyond reasonable.

So he bought the tickets.

I booked an Airbnb.

We’ve started making lists.

It seems like this might be something we don’t just talk about doing.

For the past few days, I’ve studied maps and guides. I’ve pinned things. I’ve researched walking shoes. I‘m feeling a bit swoony and overwhelmed. There’s so much to see, to eat, to explore. When I said “Paris.” to answer Michael’s questions, I followed it up with “without major plans of doing anything while we’re there; just being present in Paris.” So today, I’m taking a breath and a pause. I’m setting my list aside and thinking about hiding the maps. In a few weeks, I’ll start sketching together a tentative itinerary. One that will include opportunities for getting lost in the city. Maybe I’ll include a day where I just happen to walk by the Arc de Triomphe with a big bunch of colorful balloons. Maybe I’ll create a macaron trail where we just travel from macaron shop to macaron shop. I could devote a whole day to cheese. Probably more.

We’re going to Paris.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I read a morning newsletter from the New York Times every morning while I drink coffee and eat breakfast. I tend to skim whatever the focused topic of the day is and go straight to the daily/nightly events. I read up on the latest climate change related disaster and the continued genocide in Gaza. I take note of the increasing number of concentration camps that my own country is building and using. I pay attention to what research labs are losing their funding and the latest attack on science by the current administration. I make a list of talking points for my congress people and representatives to email them and call them with that day. And then I sit with my grief and disgust over the country I live in and how so many Americans have turned out to be so very cruel.

And dumb. Cruel and dumb. It’s like we’re being governed by elementary school bullies who are often found in the corner eating glue.

So when Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, I spent way too long being over the moon and texting with Misti about it because it was something joyful in this current sea of cruelty and hatefulness. And when you are a person contacting your congress and representatives begging them to stop the cruelty multiple times a week, this one little light of joy is a necessity. But also, I’m a complete sucker for love. Particularly when I see it happen with two people who seem to really get each other. This is Chris’s fault. Thanks to that jerk, I now I have this romantic side that wants to make heart signs with my hands and kissy faces whenever I see a couple who look like they really and truly like each other.

That thing some of us have inside us that wants better things for this country, for our world; that fire that keeps us yelling about the famine forced onto the Palestinians by Israel and the every day workers in our communities who are disappearing because of ICE and sent to concentration camps, that fire needs fuel. Our voices need a rest every once in while and we need to make space and time for caring for our internal fires. It’s tough out there for us advocates. Most of the congress people and representatives that I call or email multiple times a week are all white men who believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and that a person of color’s place is in prison. They don’t give a flip about what I think or feel. I know I’m yelling into deaf ears, but some of it gets through. None of it will get through if I allow my flame of rebellion to burn out.

Balance.

I am challenging myself to balance every bad news headline with one good one. I want to stay informed while finding good things. If I allow myself to get weighed down with despair, I am letting those fascists win. I have a sticker on my scooter that literally says “Fuck Fascism” with sparkly rainbows. So, yeah. News of Taylor and Travis’s engagement, while deliberately posed and micromanaged, made me giddy. Also, that story about the guy who threw a Subway sandwich at federal agents in D.C made me chuckle. Funny while fighting fascism.

I think this is my new game plan.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I was terrified of any and all kinds of insects when I was little. Except maybe rolly-pollies. Those were safe and often became pets. Every thing else could easily send me into a screaming terror fit if it was found on my body or in my path. As I got a little older, my fits over insects grew less dramatic but ever present. The day I broke my arm in two, I did so because I jumped from the tree I was in to avoid climbing down around the cicada blocking my path. My dad told me that cicadas will bite. So I chose to exit the tree the dangerous way to avoid a cicada bite.

Cicadas do not bite.

Then, during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent three weeks at a biology camp. Yes. I know. I’ve always been this nerdy. At biology camp, we tagged baby birds and counted the diversity of trees. We studied sunfish and listened to lectures on dung beetles. We also built bug collections. It was best three weeks of camp I had ever experienced. My parents picked me up at the end of camp and I was unrecognizable, partly because of my epic lobster sunburn and all of the bug bites. But also had this whole new bravery around insects. Thanks to that (free, paid for with federal and state grants) camp I no longer scream in terror at the sight of a bug. Now when some insect lands on my arm or hand, I look at it and say “Oh! Look at you!” before plinking it off my body. Well, except spiders. I’m still suspicious of those, but my philosophy is to just ignore their presence. It’s working out well for both of us.

I am fascinated with how the insect world changes with the seasons. It begins with ants in the Spring time. The Spring rains wake the ants up and send them into our kitchen where we frantically set out the ant bait traps. They are a nuisance, but I can count on them to appear every Spring. June brings the lightening bugs. The lightening bugs are the overture of Summer, beginning with a twinkle of one or two. By the end of June and into July the lightening bug blinks crescendo into thousands in my back yard. Now that we are nearing the end of August, they are mostly gone and I might get a glance of one lonely blink dancing cross the back yard.

Right now, when it is still very much Summer, the cicadas are out and the backyard is roaring with them. They land on the sidewalks and buzz as Josephine and I walk by on our morning walks. They remind me of those hand shake gag buzzers. I see them wiggling out of their old skins and the shells of those skins stuck to the sides of lamp posts and trees. Occasionally, Josephine will snap a cicada up and stand there for a minute while it buzzes in her mouth before spitting it out and looking at with her head cocked to one side. It is also tiny spider season. I come home from our walks wrapped up in barely visible sticky threads. The later mornings and afternoons are filled with butterflies. Monarchs are passing through on their way to the south for a warmer wintering.

This week, I noticed my first leaf hopper of the year, hanging out on a third floor window. It won’t be long until the praying mantis appears. Each insect is a harbinger for the changing seasons and I know that when I start seeing praying mantis and leaf hoppers that Fall is just around the corner. I am by no means a pumpkin spice kind of gal. Nor do I long for sweater weather. I do however enjoy the shift in colors and light that happens in the Fall. And while I am still suspicious of spiders, I am quite in awe and enamored with the various orb spiders that appear right around the time the air starts to turn crisp. It’s easy to see the shifts in the landscapes with the changing seasons. The land changes from gray to pinks, purples and greens, back to a bit of brown and then into crimsons and yellows before all going back to gray. The insect world is not as obvious. They’re small things in a big world, easily dismissed and ignored.

We probably all feel that way sometimes. Dismissed and ignored. Maybe that’s why I’ve been paying attention, more so this year than ever. I am grateful for small things.

TIKTOC INSTA DOC

For many, this is back-to-school time, but for me it’s yearly-wellness-exam time. This is the time of year I go and have a chat with my gynecologist and schedule my blood work for a cholesterol screen with my (child aged) Intern. This is also the only time I step on a scale. I gave up on weighing myself a few years ago because the number always stressed me out. That stupid scale number fucked with my mental health because I felt like I was doing all the right things. Like eating all of the kale. For heaven’s sake, I forced a lentil loaf on Michael for Sunday dinner this week. It was not my best creation and he was a really good sport about it, but it was straight up health nut food. That scale number would have me questioning why I even bother walking all the steps and standing all day at my desk when my feet hurt. I’m not saying that I live in la la land about my weight. I am very much aware of every fat roll on my body, just like every other woman I know who grew up in a culture of SlimFast and Cabbage Soup diets. Health class wasn’t about feeling good in your own skin. It was about sticking to the food pyramid and avoiding obesity.

We were not allowed fat rolls.

I am not sure things are better or worse. As a tween/teen, I just had verbal body shaming to contend with. The internet gave us the ability to body shame complete strangers on the other side of the country. Have you all seen the internet’s reaction to Nelly Furtado? People are losing their damn minds over how the singer no longer looks like she did twenty five years ago. And they are not nice about it. Right now my Instagram feed is full of ads about turmeric drinks and magnesium oils, things that will help me sleep better or relax. I’m being told that my problem is high cortisol levels, I’m not eating enough protein, I’m eating too much protein and I should probably be wearing a weighted vest. The message is very clear. There is something wrong with my body and this random snake oil is the fix. All of this would have wrecked a teenage Cindy, but almost fifty Cindy gives zero poops about social constructs regarding the female body.

Every once in a while though, I will start to fall for one of these dumb things. Then I ask myself “Cindy, what’s one of those things you do best?” and I know the answer is looking up all the scientific data and research on those dumb things. This NIH review on the Effectiveness of Transdermal Magnesium Absorption kept me from wasting my money on a fancy lotion. I’m still on the fence about the turmeric drink even though there is substantial research that points to it’s benefits. The key active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin and it is not easily absorbed. Black pepper helps with absorption, so incorporating turmeric and black pepper into your meals is the best way to reap the benefits. That’s easy enough for me. I am already cooking with those spices. And while high levels of extended amounts of cortisol (stress hormone) can lead to weight gain and a number of other ailments, there is absolutely no such thing as a “cortisol detox”. Manage you stress with yoga or meditation or staying off the TikTok/Instagram for a bit.

Every time I look up anything about supplements, I get the same results. If you are eating a well balanced diet full of colorful fruits and veggies, you are getting all of the vitamins and nutrients. Those deficient in something tend to have an actual medical condition or they really never eat fruits and veggies. Either way, it is not that hard get the vitamins we need, but we’ve allowed our (what was once) creative spaces to fill up with influencers who are playing at being doctors, handing out their beliefs as medical facts. It’s actually very dangerous because for every one of someone like me who immediately goes to PubMed for answers there are a hundred (if not more) who fall for it hook line and sinker, emptying their bank accounts without getting better.

When my doctor came into the exam room, she asked me all kinds of questions about my health. Am I still mostly a vegetarian? Yes. Am I still doing yoga? Yes. Am I still walking every day? Yes. She never once mentioned or asked me a question about my weight. She didn’t even see it as an issue. BECAUSE IT ISN’T! A few pounds of weight gain is more than expected for a woman of my age, even if I am doing all the “right” things. At the end of our visit, my doctor and I started joking about all the things the internet tells us we should be doing. I asked if she’d had her 600g of protein yet today and she said “Oh God! How do you even do that as a vegetarian?!? You must be full of lentils!” Which made me laugh because I was indeed full of lentils from the lentil loaf the night before. But she also admitted the impossibility of 600g for people who are not vegetarians. My doctor gets it. She knows what she’s doing. She has studied very hard and has had a lot of experience. She has verifiable credentials.

Can you say the same about your TikToc Insta Doc?

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This has been a week for my fitness. I am giving myself gold stars for every day. I have ridden my bicycle to work three times this week, though I might end up regretting today’s ride since afternoon temps are set to be boiling degrees. But I am committed! There has been yoga every day. There has been weights with yoga for four of those days. The meal plan I created for this week (and even next week’s) was a veggie packed delight. Michael has even agreed to kale for a next week meal. Josephine and I have walked every morning and I have walked all of the required daily steps and then some. My muscles are pleasantly sore. The world may be a dumpster fire and falling apart all around me, but I will be fit!

And tired…I’m so gosh dang tired.

The best part of the week has to be the bicycle. Every time I’m on it, peddling to work, I just feel good about myself. I’m doing something good for my body. I’m doing something good for my mental health and I’m doing something good for the environment. I’m not fast even though it is an ebike because I keep the assist level set low. I only want help up the hills. I’m working but not working and that feels good too. The mornings have been so lovely here and really, the afternoons have been tolerable until today. On Wednesday, I came up to an intersection with a bus stop. There is a woman I used to see all the time at this bus stop. We had a whole conversation about biking to work one morning while I waited for a light to change. I haven’t seen her at all this year. I guess the timing has been off with the few times I’ve ridden, but on Wednesday every thing lined up just like Venus and Jupiter. She saw me coming and her smile stretched across her face. Then she yelled “I haven’t seen you in a long time!” My smile stretched across my face when I saw her and I yelled back “I know! Have a great day!” I couldn’t stop, but we waved at each other as I passed by.

It was a moment of complete joy.

I don’t even know this woman’s name and she doesn’t know mine. I know she works at Children’s Mercy and wears scrubs. She knows that I am headed to work somewhere. We’re strangers who had a chance encounter last year when she admired my bicycle and when she confessed her fear of riding, I encouraged her to be brave and that she could do it. There’s an official bike lane that runs from where she waits for the bus all the way to Children’s Mercy. That’s it. That’s all of our interaction, but we were both so happy to see each other this week. Like long lost friends. It was something that could only happen by stepping away from the noise of the virtual world and being fully present in my current surroundings. This was a moment of good.

And one I’m truly thankful for today.

WHAT SHOULD WE BE TALKING ABOUT

So far this week, in yet another attempt to distract us all from Epstein files and what he might say to Putin in their meeting, The pRAPISTendt has deployed the National Guard in D.C. and announced a review of Smithsonian exhibits. He has also shut down the scientific research department of the E.P.A. and a project that tracts the cost of severe weather damage. He’s taking a stab at the removal of gay marriages and he’s firing any White House Official who does not agree with him. If you are a history nerd, you might be seeing some parallel behavior with dictators of the past…like Hitler. I am most certainly not a history nerd and even I can see those parallels. The very idea of deploying our troops in our very own cities is unsettling and a bit scary. But then I saw pictures of guard members posing in selfies with tourists and I’m pretty sure a large number of them see their deployment for what it really is.

This is not about preventing crime. It’s about political theater and federal control. - Clinique Chapman, Chief Executive of DC Justice Lab

This is also racism because teenage black boys are going bear the brunt of this. I can tell you that a lot of the people I see during our morning walks who are sleeping in Tower Park, are young black men. In the state of MO, a person ages out of foster care at 21. A person in foster care is completely dropped from any help or housing once they reach that age. Now, Kansas City’s cost of living is fairly low, but a single person still needs to make about $90,000 a year ( about $44 an hour) to live comfortably. Those types of jobs are pretty hard to come by when you do not have anything higher than a high school diploma. The average rent for a 492 SqFt studio apartment is around $991/month, with basic utilities like electric, water and trash. There is no way I could have lived in this city when I graduated from grad school. The average pay for research techs was about $30,000/ year if you were lucky. This was $2,500 a month that went to taxes, student loans, rent, food, gas to get to the job, car insurance and maybe cable. There was no savings or emergency fund. I was one bad car accident away from being homeless if I did not have family support. Those young men in the park do not have family support.

Places that can use our help right now:

• Pride Haven KC

• Lion House KC

• Our Spot KC

I’m taking a very British response to all of this nonsense by keeping calm. Panicking and getting riled up will not solve anything. I am a white woman in America and while it is disgusting, this allows me certain privileges. I can and will be a Miep Gies. In everything I’ve read and watched about Miep Gies, I’ve seen her sense of humor and quest for joy, even while trying to keep her friends safe from Nazis. So, I’m leaning into that example by keeping my wits about me and seeking out the joyful things that are happening around me every damn day. Like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Now, I know I don’t seem like the celebrity gossip type and I am not, but those two when she announced her new album on him and his brother’s podcast were cutie pututies with their smitten grins.

And I’m one hundred percent here for it.

WE'VE ALL GOTTA GROW UP SOME TIME...

I got a notice last week that my undergrad was hosting a ‘ceremonial demolishing’ of my old dorm building, Willard Hall. On the day of the demo, I also read a headline about AOL discontinuing their dial-up service. I can remember every single time I listened to computer wind chimes as my Dell computer attempted to sign into AOL. Those computer wind chimes opened the doors of the interwebs, but now most of us don’t even have landlines anymore. It’s all Wifi and fibers and space magic. More than half of those times, it was Chris signing in while I sat on my bed with some science book open in front of me. The news of the end of both of those things felt slightly unfair after spending the weekend with some of the very people I lived with in those dorms. More than unfair, really. It was too much of a kick in the guts for a Monday, particularly when it was the first Monday back after a week of vacation.

I can remember every tiny detail of my first kiss with Chris and how it took place outside the north east double doors right outside my dorm room. The very room they’re tearing down right as I type this. My dreams the last few weeks have been filled with variations of Chris. Which is something I find unsettling, disorienting even. There’s a part of me that wants to whisper “go away” while at the same time begging him to never ever leave. Oh, the duality of the heart, but when I’m not waking up with neck sweats, I’m dreaming of Chris doing typical Chris shenanigans. He’s always just simmering there under the surface of my skin. At some point in our weekend, Deborah pulled out her old photo albums from our time in college. So I sat pouring salt over wounds that will never heal, flipping through pictures of us in our most gloriously ridiculousness.

And that’s the kicker or the meat of it or the everything….

Every time I think about my time as an undergrad, I can honestly say that this was the happiest I had ever been. Even before meeting Chris and becoming friends with a list as long as my arm of people I genuinely like and admire to this day. I spent so many nights sitting in the lobby watching TV with a group of people and hoping with my whole heart that this boy named Alex would notice me. This was before I knew about things like friend zones, which is where I firmly landed with Alex. It took countless ice-cream runs and Taco Bell trips for me to figure it out. Though later, that boy Alex would notice me as more than a friend, but it would be too late. That one conversation over tater-tots and burgers at the snack bar with Chris ended all of that nonsense with Alex.

It is not that I haven’t been happy since my time at school. I just know that I can pinpoint that spot on my timeline where there was no possible way my body could hold any more joy in that moment. The biggest most stressful thing I had to deal with was any Dr. McGrath test, which I miraculously always managed to pass with flying colors. Mom and Dad still paid my bills and made sure I had a working vehicle. I was an adult without having to be an adult and it was the most carefree time of my life. Willard Hall was the center of all of it. I don’t care if it was run down and gross. We all knew it was haunted and there was that summer of hoards of crickets, but it was my home, my world, for three years.

The school is not completely tearing down the building, just demolishing the inside. Amy went to the ceremony and reported back with disappointment. She was hoping for more pomp and circumstance and maybe seeing more people from the old days. I have to agree with her. They missed out on an opportunity to interview those of us who once lived there, to hear and record our stories. I am certain that those present, knew nothing of Nellie the resident ghost or that one time we had a real fire in the boiler room and three of us resident assistants ran back into the building, shoving firemen aside to get to a dorm room where someone’s boyfriend was hiding under a desk. Those stupid fire alarms went off all the dang time and it was usually always a false alarm. Except that one time, but even then it was well contained and only damaged a boiler. I am more than certain that those present know nothing of the hours and hours that were spent just laughing and laughing.

I hope the hallways still echo with our laughs.

I received a note from the Jens last week that said something about how getting old is hard. We’ve all become the age of knee shots and hip replacements and I can’t for the life of me figure out how it happened. I like the idea of being trapped in amber with my head thrown back in unabandoned laughter, all of my people surrounding me and trapped in the very same way. Forever joy and silliness. Chris in the middle of it all like a goddamn bonfire. It’s not aging that is hard. It is the losses because of aging that makes it so difficult. In one of the movie versions of Little Women, a young Amy says “Oh Jo, we all have to grow up sometime. We might as well know what we want.” Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe I never really knew what I wanted with the exception of one thing and I didn’t feel like a grown-up until I lost that one thing.

But I refuse to grow up any more than I am right now. I will continue to share fart jokes with my Insta friends and hide ridiculous things in their homes. I will dance and sing along to the music playing in the grocery store. I will put cartoon figures on my science posters. I can be old. I just don’t have to grow up.

THREE THINGS I OVERHEARD AT THE ZOO

Okay, so first of all, I am the last person to correct or say anything about grammar. My writing is full of typos and run-on sentences. I am a terrible proof reader and often leave out transitional words. I will notice an error after posting and go back and edit. I know that I am about to throw stones while living in a glass house, but phrasing matters and as we walked towards the giraffes, I heard a mom say “Look! They’re eating Sadie.” This of course confused her precious three year old because now that child thinks the giraffes are eating her or are going to eat her. That child, understandably, wanted nothing to do with the giraffes.

Later, I noticed two women dressed like a Ralph Loren ad with their sweaters tied perfectly around their shoulders. There were similarly dressed men with them and one of them parked their child wagon horizontally across the side walk. I was taking pictures of butterflies when I heard one of the women say “Wait, what was I talking about? Oh….day drinking.” Well, this explained the child wagon parking and how perfectly wrapped packages can also contain hot messes.

By far, the very best thing I overheard at the zoo was “My sister has a pet ostrich named Becky.” And for the rest of my time at the zoo, all I could think about was an ostrich named Becky and what her life is like. What kinds of shenanigans does Becky get up too? Why is no one writing a whole series of children’s books about Becky the ostrich? Why am I not writing a whole series of children’s books about Becky the ostrich?! Does she have children? Can I write a whole book about sitting on a giant egg? This also reminds me about a fundraiser that the OKC Zoo does every year for Mother’s Day. Every year they serve up ostrich egg omelettes, though i’ve heard that they’ve stopped using actual ostrich eggs. I’m sure Becky would have a lot of opinions about her egg being taken and turned into an omelette.

Any way…I’m on vacation. I’ve visited two zoos and two states and have spent a majority of my time in the company of women I love and adore. I’ve laughed more in the last few days than I have in months. I’m still laughing at myself from when I confidently and slightly aggressively opened the passenger door of the wrong vehicle and surprised the driver who was sitting there eating on a chicken wing. Part of my vacation is playing ‘nurse’ for Heather as she recovers from her hip replacement, but really that just means driving her around places and sitting on the couch watching garbage TV. We’ve eaten a lot of cheese and french pastries and neither of us are mad about any of it.

I’ve also had a lot of time to ponder some changes I’d like to make for myself. Nothing drastic. Just some simple changes towards a healthier me. It’s nice to have this time to think and plan.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael told me that Monday would not be a scooter day for me, but when I got up that morning and looked outside, the sky looked mostly clear. I checked my weather app and did not see anything that would keep me from riding my scooter. Part of me thought it was just Michael not wanting to move vehicles around because he needed his truck that day. So, I moved my car out of his way and then hopped on the scooter to head to work. There were some ominous looking clouds to my east, remnants of the storm that had moved through during the early morning hours and I had to admit that there were some pretty dark and ominous clouds to my west. But in that moment, where I was, the sky was clear and not a drop fell on me as I rode to work.

A few hours later, the sky turned grey dark and rain poured down. There was thunder and lightening and strong winds. Everyones’ phones alerted them to flash flood warnings. A woman even died while walking a trail that Michael and I ride bikes on because of a flash flood. The sky remained grey and heavy with rain for most of the day. I don’t know when I noticed that the rain had stopped. Sometime after lunchish? The sky remained cloud covered but the sun was making an appearance here and there. When my work was done for the day, I hopped on my scooter, once again riding in dry conditions. Michael just shook his head at me when I got home. “I can’t believe you rode your scooter today.” he said. His tone did not shows signs that he was impressed, but more ‘you should know better’.

In those moments when I was riding, the sky was clear.

In those moments.

There’s a story my yoga teacher told me years ago about Yogananda where he was scheduled to be speaking at some conference. The person in charge of picking him up from the airport and getting him to the conference was stressed because things were not going as planned. The flight had been delayed. Everything was taking more time than necessary. She was sure that he was going to be late for his speaking engagement. But after waiting forever for his bag and rushing through traffic, Yogananda stepped out onto the stage at exactly the right time for his talk. The lesson was “Do not worry about being late until you are actually late.”

While this story is something I think about whenever I’m feeling anxious about time, it is also a commentary on being present in the moment.

A friend shared a TikTok video of a a young woman discussing how she has embraced being a slow cyclist. She said that she realized her mindset while riding a bicycle was the same as being in a car. When you’re in a car, you expect to go faster, get there quicker. There’s a hurry hurry mental thing that happens to our brains once we’re behind the wheel. This is not true for bicycles. No one cares how fast you’re not going. I confessed that I had very similar feelings and thoughts about cycling, but I’ve fully embraced my lah-dee-dah style of riding. I stay present on the road in front of me and the activities on my left and right. I smile and say ‘good morning’ to people I pass waiting at the bus stops. There are times when riding the scooter or the bicycle has produced anxiety for me. I might not ride the scooter because I’m afraid of being caught in the rain. I might skip riding the bicycle because I’m worried about being late. Yet, both of these activities do something to soften the hard edges of me. For one thing, neither of them have a digital clock display. Valerie, the scooter, has a digital clock, but I never bothered figuring out how to set it when I replaced my battery. It’s always noon or midnight on Valerie. So when I am on the bike or scooter, I have no sense of time. I just get there when I get there.

This is most true if I’m on the bicycle because I’m a slow cyclist.

These activities provide me with moments of mindfulness that I should have while driving. Let’s face it, we all should be driving our cars as if we were on bicycles. I mean, just this week someone ran the stop sign at the end of our block and two cars were flipped around, windows shattered. One car was full of small children and they all exited the vehicle crying and whaling. Thankfully, no one was hurt. This happens at least once a year at that intersection and by now all of us know the drill of checking that 911 has been called and making sure no one is bleeding out or trapped in a car. We do what we can, even if it’s just sweeping up the broken bits of cars from the street. In most cases, all of these accidents were a result of unmindfulness. But, I also think that mindfulness is an over simplified word. I am not just being mindful of what is happening in my surroundings. I am being present in it.

Michael likes to say that I ride between raindrops and every time he says it, I imagine hummingbirds zig zagging through a rain shower. My imaginings are in slow motion and I can see the wings of the tiny bird moving up and down. I can see each individual drop of rain as it falls. I am not a hummingbird and the reality is my actions is not a slow motion version of Animal Planet, but being present and mindful kind of makes it feel that way. Anyone can ride between raindrops. I’ve just told you how to do it and I’m sure you’ll master it in no time. It’s a skill, not a super power.

A skill I’m thankful to have mastered.

Mostly.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Andrea Gibson, a master of spoken-word poetry who cultivated legions of admirers with intensely personal, often political works exploring gender, love and a personal four-year fight with terminal ovarian cancer, died on Monday in Longmont, Colo. Gibson, who used the pronouns they and them and did not use an honorific, was 49. - Clay Risen, New York Times Obituaries

I know that this is quite the lead in for a gratitude post, quoting an obituary, but Andrea Gibson has been on my mind all week. I do not lean into poetry. In every English class where we were forced to read a poem and then explain the meaning in the poem made me cringe. But I do love a good poetry slam and Andrea Gibson truly was a master of both written and spoken word. Their poems can split open the hardest of hearts and her voice will be greatly missed. The thing that has been most on my mind though is the graceful and most beautiful way they left this planet. In Love Letter from the Afterlife, a poem that Andrea wrote to their wife, they write “Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?” I have been fixated on that line because it says everything that I have been saying for years about Chris’s own death. I was recently tagged in a ‘get-to-know me’ thing on Substack and one of the questions was asking for the last thing I’d read that made me feel seen. I had completely forgotten about this poem. Except I don’t know if ‘seen’ is the right description; maybe the right word to describe how this sentence makes me feel is ‘validated’. Their recognition of how they will never truly be gone is a lesson in death that I want for all of us to study.

The living are here to absorb the souls of our lost loves.

It has taken a lot of time and work to find gratitude in being a vessel for Chris’s soul and knowing that he will always lay claim to a large portion of my heart. It has taken a lot of time and work to release the guilt that comes with that. It has taken a lot of time and work to see this as a gift rather than a curse or a haunting. Because it truly is a gift. From what I have learned about my Chris before he became my Chris, he was not open to love, not even to the idea of it. He was closed off from it, bitter and cranky over the very concept of love. He was very much a Mr. Darcy. I was the one that changed all of that for him. Me. There is something very honorable to being chosen as the collector of the soul at the end. He chose me. But there are also others. Dad. J. I contain bits of them as well.

I’d like to take a moment to address the way Andrea Gibson chose to live while dying. They created a writing space titled “Things that Don’t Suck” where they shared poems and things they loved and beauty. By all means, dying from cancer is far from easy. It is messy and painful and fucking horrible. But They made a choice to live with all of that pain and mess while seeking out and sharing joy and beauty. This is a most beautiful lesson in the art of dying. I have heard so many times that death is hardest on the living. This is true, but I don’t think this saying truly encompasses the complexity of death. You are still alive while you are dying and the knowledge of your demise is an almost impossible thing to comprehend or to make sense of. When Chris and I were handed the pamphlet for hospice care, we were stunned. I sat blinking and looking at our doctor with my head tilted like a curious puppy and I wasn’t even the one dying. Nothing the doctor said made sense to me. Chris had all of that plus the knowledge that his life was over. There are so many choices to make in how one deals with such knowledge. In this world, where it is so easy to see the gross and negative all around, to choose to see the beauty and loveliness a challenge. Choosing to do this while dying is heroic.

But aren’t we all in the process of dying? Isn’t is all just a matter of when? What if we started the practice of seeking out the beauty now?

I have a list of things that do not suck from this week alone, a list of good things that I did or I saw. There were bicycle rides and scooter rides and skate night. There were sacred moments on my yoga mat and cuddles with the sweetest puppy dog. There were many things that did not suck this week and I’m grateful for this.

BISCUITS

I dreamt that I was making biscuits, but not the ordinary kind. These biscuits were going to be like the ones that come in the can that are all layered. I believe the process is called lamination, where you roll and layer the dough over and over again. This was the part where I was stuck. I just kept rolling out dough and folding it over, turning and shaping it before more rolling and folding. I never made it to the part where I actually cut out circular bits of dough and when I attempted to pre-heat an oven, there was not an oven to be found. I was working in a kitchen without a working oven.

This is better than the dream I had last week where I was trying to run two different time lapse experiments on the same microscope at the same time.

I am not a baker. I have baked. I can bake. I just don’t bake. It is a task that seems like it always requires more effort than I am willing to spend in my tiny kitchen. I’m not one of those who find it a joyful hobby. Yes, I know I am keeping a sourdough starter alive in my fridge, but this is mostly for pizza and sometimes ciabatta. Both of those things require minimal effort. You stir together some stuff and poke at the dough ever so often before forming it into a shape and placing it into the oven. This for sure doesn’t happen in the summer months when turning on an oven is just irresponsible. So I don’t know why I’m dreaming of baking. The dream was probably sparked by a TikTok I watched recently of nothing but various breads rising and baking in an oven.

It was fairly hypnotic.

My dad was the biscuit maker in our house. My mother has a superstitious streak in her and declared that she had lost the ability to make biscuits the day her mother died. Every attempt yielded a dry crumbling wet puck of dough. Her biscuits became a joke Dad and I would giggle about at breakfast times. Her cornbread, though, was top notch and legit. I learned most of my kitchen skills through osmosis while standing next to Mom in the kitchen, but making a good biscuit was never a lesson. That was a skill learned from countless hours of practicing a demonstration speech for 4-H on the wonders and values of Master Mix, basically homemade Bisquik. It was a team demonstration and we made biscuits and blueberry muffins. Except, now that I think about it, we didn’t bake anything. There wasn’t a portable oven at the speech competitions. We added ingredients together and spooned wet dough into muffin tins, but had pre-baked goods to show at the end. Like TV. Or my dream.

Maybe the biscuit dream is leftover trauma from speech competitions.

I think about calling my mom and asking her for specific recipes. “Hey Mom, I’m trying to make pimento and cheese and I don’t know what I’m doing?” This is true. We bought some ‘homemade’ pimento and cheese from a specific cheese store and I was so disappointed. It most certainly did not taste like my mother’s. In fact, it went straight into the garbage after we all agreed that this did not taste like my mom’s pimento and cheese. Her version has ruined all of us who have eaten it. I did not absorb the knowledge of the pimento and cheese in all the years of standing next to her in the kitchen. There’s a number of things like that. Banana Pudding. The pea-pickin’ cake, a cake that does not have anything to do peas. Her cornbread recipe even if contains lard. But I don’t ask for these recipes because I am afraid of the answers I’ll get from her. Maybe it’s just easier to not know.

I’m thinking of all of this now because I know where I was in that dream. I know the kitchen without the working oven. I know I was in my mother’s kitchen or at least a collaged version of the different kitchens she has had over the years. The one she has now doesn’t have a stove or oven. It is a kitchenette, meaning there’s a small dorm fridge and a microwave. The tiny counter is already cluttered with a coffee maker and kitchen things she has yet to put into the cabinets. The last time I was there, she had a plastic grocery bag filled with the dishes we had gathered for her to take with her. I know we put those away, but Mom is in a constant state of packing and unpacking. This bag was probably a leftover from the last time she packed up all her things and waited for one of us to go get her. It’s fine really. She doesn’t actually need those dishes anyway. I spy on her through the Facebook page for her assisted living place. I notice what activities she’s participating in and when she’s participating. I know she has a regular table group at meal times and that she attends bible study classes held by one of the other people that live there. I know she’s enjoying herself more than she wants to let on to any of us or even herself.

I didn’t know that when I sat down to write about my dream that I’d end up writing about my mother, but this is how the therapy works. It’s why so many of us sit down and put pen to pages, so to speak.

WHAT I'LL LOOK LIKE IN RETIREMENT

After lunch on Saturday, Michael and I had a few non-urgent errands to run. Nothing serious. Michael needed to pick up a prescription. I needed cotton balls. I also wanted a really good tomato to eat with dinner. You know the kind, one of those craggy weird shaped Heirloom tomatoes, chopped and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Really, this and watermelon are the only things I have any interest in eating during the summer. I mix it up by the addition of cheeses. Crumbled feta on watermelon is delicious. Any way, we didn’t need much so we decided to take our scooters. Which for the most part, really made the excursion. I was wearing a billowing summer dress with shorts and at one point the dress blew up dangerously high like it was going to go over my head. I had to pullover and tuck my dress in. I didn’t mind so much the show I was giving as much as I minded the thought of being blinded my own clothing and wrecking. That was the exception.

Note to self: do not wear billowing clothing while driving 45 mph on a Vespa.

The two of us zipped and zagged our way around town and after our final stop Michael suggested ice cream. He told me to lead the way and I headed off towards a place on Troost that we tend to forget about. We had to get through Brookside to get to the ice cream place and all the shops in the area were having a sidewalk sale. I looked longingly at one shop and Michael asked if I wanted to stop. I did and so we pulled a u-turn right into an open parking spot in front of the shop. Baskin Robins happens to be up the street and Michael said “Why don’t we just walk up there?” But as we walked, we passed Bella Napoli’s and I stopped. “Do you think they have gelato?” and the next thing we know we’re sitting at a table in Bella Napoli’s eating giant bowls of gelato.

And it was pretty close to perfect.

We browsed through the sales and rummaged through the cheese bin at Whole Paycheck. Then we scooted home, but I think it was right at the moment we did the u-turn where I thought “This is what my life is going to look like when I retire.” My days will be filled with puttering. Puttering around the house. Puttering around the neighborhood. Puttering around the yard. I will be an expert putterer. I will wear billowy summer things and ride the scooter to all of my puttering errands. I will pause mid-putter for giant bowls of gelato or ice cream. I will make slightly reckless u-turns to browse shops where I have no intention of actually buying anything. I have been thinking about this more and more as I get closer to fifty. Which also feels strange. There was a time when I never thought I’d retire, not because of age, but because of affordability. The more I think about my eventual retirement the more I see myself (and Michael) not staying here. Our puttering will happen around a village in Italy or Portugal. Maybe Spain. We’ve talked about Costa Rica, but I really think Michael would be too uncomfortable with that heat. The vacations we take after Paris will be ones where we travel to the places we may want to retire to someday.

At one point during our travels, we were stopped at a stoplight next to one of those expensive boxy Mercedes SUVs. The young man driving, rolled down his window and said to us “That’s some real relationship goals right there.” Michael looked over and said “I know, right!” The guy had a young woman, presumably his girlfriend, sitting in the passenger seat. I looked at them both and said “This is the best money I have ever spent in my life.” Then this young guy in his ridiculously expensive vehicle said “You two are living the dream.” The light changed and we took off, but I thought about this through out the day because the day itself had a dreamy quality to it.

This is what the weekend is for, turning dreams into practice for the future.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I have zero plans for the weekend. There is not a long list of run-around errands that must happen or obligations. I will go to Trader Joe’s in the morning and the car wash, but since I’ve been really good about chores during the week, I don’t need to clean my house. I am sure there’s some organizing or cleaning out that I could do. My desk drawers are getting a little full of catch-alls. But I am refraining from making a to-do list. Thursday, I made it onto my mat for personal yoga time and allowed myself a fifteen minute savasana. I was very fidgety at first but by the end of the final bell, I was peeling myself off the mat and opening my eyes to see that I was facing completely opposite of what I thought I was facing. I sunk deep into that savasana, something I haven’t done in a really long time. Maybe my weekend will include more of this.

Last weekend, we were sitting in my brother’s truck at a gas station trying to decide what kind of adventure we wanted for the day, when I said “Let’s drive over to Eureka Springs". This is a quaint little artsy town in Arkansas, about an hour’s drive from my brother’s cabin. We’ve done this adventure together on other visits. It’s a pretty good option for when you want nothing to do with Branson. We took a vote and headed off for the winding roads that lead you to Eureka Springs and it was lovely. We all had a nice time. Then later on Michael said something about how we should have packed our own snacks because we ended up stopping for snacks. Then I mentioned how I could have used some sunscreen, but then I said something about how the idea of going to Eureka Springs for the day was completely spontaneous. If that had been our plan all along, I would have packed snacks and sunscreen. I told Michael that this was why I was not good at spontaneity.

But today, I’d like to revise that statement.

Spontaneous moments require a certain amount of sacrifice to the Goddess of Whimsy. In our case, this came in form of snacks and sunscreen. Not really a big sacrifice. It is an added expense to purchase those things, of course, but we are in a position where we don’t need to go without. Previous experience with spontaneity for me have leaned towards the negative. So being spontaneous in general tends to create some anxiety. The what-if game starts playing in my head. What if I can’t find a parking space? What if it’s too crowded? What if I am uncomfortable in any way possible? Sometimes the Goddess of Whimsy requires you to sacrifice your need for control. I will gladly hand over all the snacks before handing over any control. So, I don’t always (mostly) do well with unplanned activities because I am unwilling to make the sacrifices required.

I experienced zero anxiety with last weekend’s spontaneous adventure. The what-if games never even entered my head and I didn’t once consider the sacrifice needs of the Goddess of Whimsy. This is probably because I was technically on vacation even though I did waste a lot of brain space on the chores that needed to be taken care of before Monday. My day was wide open to possibilities. Which is very much how I have left tomorrow. Today, I’m grateful for taking care of stupid adulting tasks so that I have space for unplanned activities.

But only the joyful ones.

SUMMER TIME AND THE LIVING IS SWEATY

My first summer in KCMO, I kept walking around saying “This is great!” while everyone else was wilting around me. “It’s not the heat. It’s the humidity.” they’d whine. My response would be “I love it! I’m a hot house flower! Bring on the steam!” I had lived thirty something years through dry one hundred and ten degree summers. The humidity felt like a spa treatment. The first warm day in my house, I went to turn on the AC only to realize I did not have AC, I shrugged but called my landlord. He installed a window unit and I lived with this for years not bothered one bit by the unit’s inability to cool my entire house. My brother was talking about the impossibility of living off grid because of the need for AC. I told him that I think there’s a guy in NYC who lives off grid. Then my brother said “Well, you don’t need an air conditioner in NY.” I shook my head and said “Au contraire mon frere.” (I’m learning French!) Summer in New York City is brutal. While we were having this conversation, it was actually hotter in NYC than it was in MO.

Each year, as the human impact on this planet increases the planet’s temperatures, I’ve started to notice how uncomfortable our summers with all that humidity have gotten. Now, I understand completely what it was that everyone was whining about. It is uncomfortable and for the first time in a long time, the heat/humidity leaves me motivated for nothing more than a lounge chair and a drink with ice in it. I want to ride my bicycle to work, but good lordy, all I can think of is the ride home in the evenings. I wear layers to work because parts of my office are meat locker temperatures, but how many layers can I get away with stripping off my body before it becomes inappropriate? I suppose, technically, my lack of clothing is a you problem or social construct problem, but I also don’t have enough bike storage to carry all the extra layers I will peel off of my body.

We spent the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law at their cabin near Branson and the whole lead up to this trip was filled with dread over the temperature. Michael and I were testing out new tents. Mine turns my car into a camper, while his is small enough to carry on his bicycle. We’ve decided that camping trips do not need to involve the two of us sleeping in the same tent. This set up also allows for more flexibility. He can do trips alone. I can do trips alone. We can do trips together. He can ride his bicycle to a campground and I can meet him there. I’m trying to figure out if I can fit my bicycle with my camp gear in the car. Most likely no, but maybe later on I can get a bike rack. Anyway, this was our weekend for testing. We each had to set up our tents without help from each other and once I figured out where to attach the tent to my car, I had shelter. The rest of the time, I thought for sure would be spent just sitting around in pools of our own sweat, flicking ticks off of ourselves.

It was relatively nice temps this weekend. Which was a pleasant surprise.

We did do a lot of tick flicking. Ticks are bad, people. Protect yourself! I have a harder time doing that since I am allergic to DEET. I feel lucky that I ended our weekend with only two tick bites. That’s how bad it is out there. While we were doing all this tick flicking, we were also laughing. A lot. I can honestly say that this last weekend was probably the nicest weekend I’ve had with the two of them since we moved Mom. It made me realize how strained we’ve all been. I think all three of us struggle with not just finding the time, but navigating how to visit with our mom. We have gone from spending day(s) at a time with Mom to spending hours at a time with Mom. But also the dynamic of those visits are different because most of the time it is only one of us there. Visits with Mom are not like what the three of us are used to after years of family meals on Sundays. The three of us are navigating our way through our own feelings around all of this and this has left us with little time for just being present with each other.

It was nice to spend a weekend together in a way that we used to spend time together. Familiar. Comforting. We barely mentioned our mother. And we laughed in the way we used to laugh with each other. This was probably the best medicine I could have asked for.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Among the headlines presented to me this week from the New York Times Well section include A User’s Guide to Midlife, Happiness Doesn’t Have To Be A Heavy Lift, How Stress Masks the Symptoms of Chronic Disease, and It’s Probably Time To Clean Your Water Bottle. I only clicked to read one of these and that was the one on happiness. While the information in the article didn’t really tell me something I didn’t already know, I did learn some new terms for a practice that I try to do every day. Things like micro-moments of positivity and tiny little joys (T.L.J.s). One of my favorite take-aways was the reverse pet peeve.

a ‘reverse pet peeve’ is something small that brings you disproportionate joy. -Bree Groff, author of the upcoming book Today Was Fun.

I’ve not ever used those words to describe my practice of seeking out the tiniest moments of joy, but the reverse pet peeve seems the most appropriate way to describe this thing I’ve been practicing and writing about for years in my Thankful Friday entries. I’ve been preaching the concept that joy doesn’t always have to come from big moments for a long time now.

This week, I had a summer scholar ask me what microscope system is my favorite of all time. I paused before answering because this felt like a choose your happiest moment question. Our technology center has many types of microscopes and they all serve different purposes. I finally answered “The Zeiss LSM-510.” I know this means nothing to many of you. It means nothing to that summer student or even to the postdoc she’s working with. Zeiss no longer makes the 510 and the software that ran that system has long ago been upgraded into something completely unrecognizable. The 510 was/is slow and clunky. Microscopy has come a long way since the development of the 510. The microscope systems I have access to now are so much nicer and friendly to use. I have said many times that I would love to re-image the experiments we imaged on the 510 with the new technology that is available to me now. So why would I choose this as my favorite of all time? The LSM 510 is the first confocal microscope I ever learned to use. I spent hours sitting in the dark with my boss, watching cells crawl across the screen eating bacteria or yeast or whatever we decided feed them. The LSM 510 is the microscope that sparked me. This is where I felt like I had finally chosen the correct scientific path for myself and there were many many moments of reverse pet peeves that happened while watching those cells.

Later on, I was working with the postdoc who is mentoring that summer scholar. His experiment is new and potentially messy so I set him up on a microscope that we recently moved into ‘retirement’. The two of us spent an afternoon working out ways to image this sample and finally managed to capture a short video of goblet cells actively taking in fluorescent dye. We both cheered and highfived each other. It was the most fun I’ve had in the lab in while. When the postdoc thanked me for my help, I shoved his gratitude aside because first of all, I was doing my job. But secondly, I was really happy to be asked for help on this project. This was bigger than T.L.J.

This is a reverse pet peeve that I’m going to savor for a long time.

WHO'S THAT GIRL

Our friends, Jenn and Wade, installed a small above-ground pool in their backyard and Friday night was the inaugural pool party. It was a perfectly simple affair, small and intimate. There were five of us in total and two of those were the men we put to work grilling our dinner. Lauren, Jenn and I made the most spectacular whirlpool and then we just floated in circles chatting about all things and no things. Eventually, we made our way to the screened in back porch. I had slathered Jenn’s magic mosquito repelling essential oil lotion on my legs and I mentioned to Lauren, who was sitting next to me, that I couldn’t seem to stop touching my legs after putting that lotion all over them. Then she said “Now say it sultry.” and I opened my mouth to comply, but nothing came out but bubbles of laughter. Then we all proceeded to laugh for a good number of minutes.

I could never pull myself together enough to “say it sultry”.

Later, when it was just Michael and I, he said “You once told me that Chris said your laugh was infectious. I think that I finally heard the infectious laugh tonight.” We’ve been together for twelve years. It feels impossible that in the last twelve years I have not truly laughed, but completely possible that I haven’t done so in his presence or while he was paying attention. I also don’t want to believe that I have not laughed my true infectious laugh since Chris. That possibility is disappointing and more than a bit sad. Without even realizing it, I went from “the girl who knew sadness” to “the girl who is sadness”. Or maybe just “the girl who doesn’t laugh.” I chuckle. I smile at things. I bark out a decent “ha!”. Rarely do I dissolve into the kind of laughing that leaves me breathless.

Those days have passed.

As we sat across the table from one another slurping noodles at one of our favorite Vietnamese places, I took a moment to tell Michael that I really do appreciate the effort he’s been making not just to get us to Paris in December, but in most things. It is his summer break time and he’s taken over all of the grocery shopping. There’s a wall of sticky notes containing tasks that he wants to complete in the summer months. He has been diligently removing those notes. Like every summer break, he has taken on the task of cooking our evening meals and not allowing me to wash the dishes. Though, sometimes I do it anyway. His goal is to make my summer as task free as possible and I let him know that this is appreciated. Then I said “I know that I have not been my best self this year.” but then I was a little surprised by his response. He said “I know that you’ve been really stressed about work.”

This also made me pause. Mostly, he’s not wrong. It’s just that my stress level around work is more complicated than the day to day of running microscopes that cost half a million dollars each and making sure that people feel safe and comfortable using those microscopes. The day to day stress of my job has been compounded by this administration’s war on science and their determination to make this country dumber. But I also know that I can’t blame my lack luster mood solely on what it means for me and my science friends when the budget cuts to the NIH mean less grant money and fewer scientific discoveries. My lack luster mood is more of a layered bean dip and the spiciest layer is probably a result of my changing body. This is the layer that people eat around. The result is that this layer sticks around longer and ferments in spice, just making things hotter…angrier. I tell Michael that I’m trying, but I’m not convinced. Though, in that moment on a porch with friends, I caught a glimpse of “the girl who knew sadness”.

Years ago, there were almost zero fireflies in my backyard. I can remember lamenting over their absence. “What ever happened to fireflies?” I’d ask. Then when I finally saw the blink of light from one, I clapped my hands and squealed like a toddler. I’ve watched each summer as the population of fireflies has increased and it feels like my backyard is nothing but blinking insects. Those glimpses of the girl I used to be, the one who wasn’t sad all the time, are like those fireflies. It might be a rare sighting in this moment. I’m sure that in time, those sightings won’t be so rare. Okay. Maybe I’m not sure, but I know that this is something I want and need. Which is funny because that’s kind of been my shopping mantra lately. I tend to me more likely to say yes to something I want and need or finding a way to get those things.

This time, when I say “I’m trying”, I really truly mean it.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

With each day, I am finding my gratitude practice increasing in difficulty. I used the excuse of travel for not even writing anything for last week’s Thankful Friday. This week, work has consumed me, leaving me little brain space for paying attention to much else. I even dream about work, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night in a panic about not turning something off or warning so and so about this thing that’s happening with a camera setting on a microscope or why the slide loader is still not functional. This all comes with a side of patriarchal bullshit that I didn’t see coming, but I’m taking it and being a “team player”.

Earlier in the week, Talaura sent me a text to tell me that her little dog, Sarge, had passed away. She said that his little heart just gave out. I immediately started crying when I read this. I skipped right over the shock and straight onto sad. And if this news hits me this hard, I can assure you that those feelings are quadrupled for Talaura. Sarge was the smallest dog with the biggest personality I have ever known. He could be aloof and particular with his affection. Josephine was IN LOVE with him. Every time they were in the same room together, Josephine would try to get close to Sarge and he would just turn his head away from her. I feel lucky that he chose me to cuddle up next too during my visits with Talaura. While he could be aloof with others, there was no doubt in his love and loyalty for Talaura. They were a team, the two of them, together against the world. There will not be a day when Sarge is not thought of, for he will be with Talaura forever in her heart…and mine.

Losses such as this tend to leave me questioning. How do you find gratitude under such conditions? It’s not just about losing a dear, loyal puppy friend, but other losses as well. My friend Melissa had to replace her car this week which sounds simple enough, but she’s a paraplegic. She uses hand controls to drive her car. Those controls have to be transferred to the new car with an added fee of almost $7,000. That’s $7,000 she doesn’t have, especially up front. Being able to drive in the midwest is essential to independent living and it feels criminal to be charged extra for that independence. The stress is almost visibly radiating from her right now and all I can do is be an empathetic listener. In these moments when I cannot actively help the people I care so deeply for, I struggle in my search for gratitude.

I’m grateful that Talaura was able to have Sarge in her life for as long as she did. There was a very real moment last year (?) when she almost lost him because of a viscous dog attack. I know that she still has mental scars from the trauma of that event. Sarge proved the veterinarian wrong and survived with his sass and charm intact. All of this happened at the beginning of an extremely difficult time for Talaura. So I’m grateful she was able to have more time with him. I am grateful that Melissa made it home from her mother’s house on the other side of the state in her limpy barely hanging on old car. Every time Melissa gets out of her car, she has to build her wheel chair. She has to basically build her legs. Getting out of a vehicle parked on the shoulder of a freeway is treacherous for an able bodied human. I don’t think I need to point out how doing this and building your wheelchair is even more dangerous. So, I’m grateful she made it back safely. She’ll figure out the financial side of this. Maybe I could take pictures of her feet to sell on the internet. I don’t know, but we’re trying to remain hopeful. And finally, I am grateful to have a job to obsess over. Yes, it consumes me, but I still love it.

I am grateful for every morning walk I have had with Josephine this week (four!). I am grateful for the times where I was able to get on my yoga mat (five!). I am grateful for sunscreen and scooter rides.

WHERE WE ARE

Last week, there was an incident with Mom at the assisted living center. She’s fine. Everyone is fine. It was just one of those stupid scary moments that had us all going “What the actual Fuck, Mom!” I had already planned to drive down to see her that Friday and of all the things she chatted about, the incident was not on topic. She did say that she was on a ‘bad’ list and can’t go on the outside activities, but she doesn’t know why she’s on the ‘bad’ list. This time, I took Josephine with me and we sat outside for a bit with some of the other people who live there with Mom. Josephine was very popular and drew a bit of crowd. I sat with Mom while she held my hand and we listened to the elder man across from us tell us about his chow dogs. Which he repeated on a loop. I finally declared it to be too hot for Josephine and took us all inside.

I did a lot of head nodding and responding to things with “huh”, “Oh my “, “Is that so?” and “that’s very interesting.” I don’t do the talking on these visits. I let Mom talk about whatever she wants to talk about. My mother thinks she just moved in a couple of weeks ago. She said that she just walked in and people had already moved all of her things in. She said “I’ve been told that this is my home now.” She also told me that my sister starts working there on Monday (she does not). When others ask me about how my mother is, I have to say that she is physically well. This is true. It is her brain that is unwell. There has been some discussions on moving her to a memory care center, but after sitting with her and her cronies, I don’t think she’s any different from them. They’re all on about the same level of dementia.

My mother is just a little more ornery than the others.

We left Mom’s to spend a day or two with my friends Robin and Summer. I hadn’t seen them in a year and we were due for some actual face time. Most of that was spent in the pool and Michael and I came home with sunburns, mine in weird patterns from poorly applied sunscreen. The sky was a blinding blue all weekend with a constant wind that blew away pool floaties and knocked over potted plants. That wind stayed with us as I drove us home through the Flint Hills, struggling to keep the car steady in the lane. I cried while Michael slept in the passenger seat, Josephine sacked out at his feet. Why was I crying? I do this every time I leave that state.

For so many reasons.

My heart and soul are split up into before and afters. Oh, the years I spent plotting and planning my escape from there. I never wanted to stay and yet there is a part of me that never can leave even while everything is so different. Old haunts are now unrecognizable, major streets have even been shifted over in some form or fashion. I built a life there with someone who was truly my best friend and we created our own chosen family there. Nothing came of that plotting and planning for so long. We just settled in and figured that maybe we didn’t truly want to leave. And then we left. We left and it killed part us. Okay, so it wasn’t the move or the transplanting us six hours away from that life we had settled into that killed him. But sometimes it feels like that is the truth.

The wind whispers “if you had stayed, he’d still be alive.”

The hot Oklahoma wind is the devil and it lies.

So I cry as I drive away because I am reluctantly happy in this life and where my planning and plotting has taken me. I cry because of my good fortune. Then the tears fall for the what ifs. What if we had stayed and I no longer had to drive six hours to be with my chosen family? What if staying meant Chris living? If we had stayed, I’d hate my job and be tolerating my daily life, but Chris would still be here. Now, I like my job and I am more than tolerating my daily life, but I’m sharing that life with someone else. When these thoughts come into play, I cry over how stupid I am for thinking such things and for dwelling on the past. I cry for not being strong enough without Chris to hold together the family we created. So I look out the window and cry even more over the stark beauty of the seemingly endless rolling plains. Then just before leaving the Flint Hills, my tears dry up like the sudden downpours that roll through the prairies.

I forgive myself for thinking such ridiculous thoughts. I hold gratitude for the time spent with the chosen family I have managed to hold onto. I let go of my guilt over not spending enough time with every person I could have spent time with, including my mother. I shove away possible regrets and turn my thoughts and focus to the now and my reluctantly happy life.

THE MORNING WALKS

The sun was just up and lighting the sky with orange and gold as Josephine and I headed out for our morning walk. The sun is up earlier now and even though it is 5:30 in the morning, we are not walking in the dark now during our morning walks. The early walk time is necessary for me to get to work on time and to beat the heat of summer. This particular morning was cool, but with the thick heavy air of the rains and storms predicted for later in the day. It was the kind of air that makes the connected space between your fingers feel sticky. Our walk route for this day was the neighborhood walk. For this, we have to cross our street at Lydia and 77th tends to be a busy street during the seven AM rush hour, but not usually at 5:30. Yet, Josephine and I had to wait for a number of cars to pass before crossing. I was surprised by the amount of traffic for that time in the morning.

Eventually, we made our way to the park that’s just east of our house. There was a middle aged couple passed out and tightly spooned together on the pavement in front of one of the park benches. This was the first time I’d seen them in the park. Recently I had noticed a path from the sidewalk leading into the thick overgrown edge of the park. I could tell that someone was living back there; the hint of a blue tarp visible through the overgrowth. But the inhabitants were like the fox family that lived in the same area a few years earlier. They were elusive. I don’t know if the middle age spooning couple were the ones living there, but on this day, a pile of mostly folded and clean clothes laid on the ground near the path. The clothes looked like they had been folded, ready to be put away before someone came along and dumped them out of the laundry basket. I thought about the spooning couple as I saw the clothes, how they were passed out cold, but tightly clinging to each other. It’s as if their argument started with the clothes and ended with a reconciliation a few yards away.

Josephine and I walked the loop of the park, passing another couple with their dog. Again, something rare, seeing other dog walkers at that time of the morning. The couple looked new to dog walking. One of them was wearing a sweater even. Josephine can be reactive towards large dogs on leashes. I kept her relatively controlled on my side while they kept their large dog barely restrained. Still, we managed to pass each other with a nod and a smile without incident. As Josephine and I exited the park, we passed by the spooning couple again, noticing that they had not moved. I briefly wondered if I should check for pulses, but decided against it. From the park, Josephine and I walk up the street to a bus stop. There’s a trash can there and a good place to toss the poop bags. This street is the Paseo, a major and historic boulevard. Across from the bus stop, in the wide grassy median, there’s a fountain. You know…because we’re the city of fountains. On this morning four or five teens were perched around the fountain. The air around them smelled like soap as if they had all just bathed in the fountain. I heard one of them say something about getting back to the hotel. Their conversation made it seem like they were lost but knew exactly where they were all at the same time.

We turned down the street that takes us back home and passed the house that always has random piles of crap in their front yard. Today, there was a shopping cart there and a young man sorting through the contents. A block from the house, a young trans woman passed us, smoking on her vape. We smiled at each other and said good morning at the same time. Then Josephine and I were home and I felt like I had dreamed the whole walk. Never have I seen my neighborhood so active at that time of the morning. I’m used to seeing possums and raccoons at that hour, not people. There is usually the same old man sitting at the bus stop who always exuberantly wishes me a good morning and I pause to have a small chat with about the weather or his health. But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him there in months. It’s possible that he no longer rides the bus anywhere any more.

I’m used to seeing people on the morning walks in Tower Park. This is the time of year when there are more people sleeping in this park. Most of them congregate on the picnic tables in the large pavilion. There’s a scattered few on benches throughout the park. Some times, there’s tent set up next to the two trees that remind me of lovers with the way their branches reach towards each other. No one is stirring when we walk through. This morning, we heard actual snores from someone sleeping so soundly. There was a time during the pandemic when the park was full of unhoused. I walked carrying a backpack filled granola bars that I would leave next to sleeping humans. I got out of this habit when officials cleared the park. Now our unhoused are seasonal, showing up after the last freeze before drifting off to hopefully someplace warmer when the temperatures drop. Most likely though, they are moved involuntarily after the complaints from the neighborhood start to pile up. Even in my blue bubble, there are those who are unsympathetic when it comes to our unhoused. They know about it and feel bad about it, but don’t want to see it.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A number of our seasonal unhoused are teens. They are either tossed out for the summer, unsupervised during the summer and or the park is safer than their homes. Those who ask ‘why can’t they just a job?’ are oblivious to the complexity of being unhoused. It’s not easy filling out applications when you don’t have an address or doing an interviewing knowing you look like you took a sink bath at the gas station because you did take a sink bath at the gas station. It’s not easy to just stop doing the drug you’re addicted to and can even be deadly to stop cold turkey. Not every one has health insurance or access to mental health care. It is not hard for me to be empathetic here.

It might be time to start walking with a backpack full of granola bars again.

WOULD YOU

I was scrolling through the front page of the New York Times and there it was, an oversized pink square highlighting an Ideas article with the title “Would You Want to Know If Your Baby Had an Incurable Disease?” I did not click on the bait to read the article, but I could imagine that it reads like an editorial with some factual research on genetic testing thrown in. It is one of those think pieces that are meant to prepare you for tough decisions, but it is not a new to me think piece. This kind of question is the basis for Twilight of the Golds, a play by Jonathan Tolins.

A thousand years ago, during that idyllic college time, Chris was in a production of Twilight of the Golds along with Talaura, Misti, Kirk and John. The story revolves around the couple Suzanne (Talaura) and her husband Rob (Chris) discovering through genetic testing that their baby boy will probably be born gay. Suzanne’s brother, David (Kirk), is gay and all of this leads to family discussions about the trials of raising a gay child and whether or not Suzanne should abort the fetus. In 1993, the “incurable disease” was(is) homosexuality. As Chris’s theater support, I found myself in his dorm room during show seasons running lines with him in between my class schedule. I am not, nor was I then, interested in being in any of the plays. I am not talented in this way, but Chris… well it was his talent in this way that made me notice him to begin with. Most of the time, running lines was a fun activity, but this play was awful. Chris’s character was moody and angry and most of the character’s interactions was with his wife. Their discussions were hard and complicated and heart breaking. I couldn’t wait to be done with this play. The only good thing that came out of it is one picture I have framed and hanging in the family section of prints in my house. The photo is a family photo of Misti, John, Talaura and Kirk taken as a prop for the set.

It is a cherished photo.

It is no surprise to anyone that I am and always have been pro-choice. It is none of mine or your business of what any woman does with her body. I know that if I found myself pregnant today, I would have an abortion scheduled for the very next day. I don’t need to tell you the many reasons I have for that choice and I would not wait around for genetic testing to make this decision. This play gave me a list of one reason for not getting an abortion. Because I would never once even consider the tiniest of thought of ending a pregnancy if my child was going to be LGBTQ+ in some way. Yet…I know people who would. I know that their hate for the LGTBQ+ community is so great, that if genetic testing made it possible for them to know this about the child they were having, they would immediately abort. I know people who have no place in their hearts for love and acceptance, not even for their own child. I am not friends with these people, but I know them and at the very root of this “would you?” question is the reality of knowing that there are people who would say ‘yes’ to aborting their child for this reason.

And that knowledge has put a dark smudge on my heart.

I was off camping in the woods the weekend KCMO was celebrating Pride. I missed the parade and seeing people walking together in love and solidarity. I am the biggest softie when it comes to seeing two people together who are so obviously in love and who have realized that they have found their person. I think I have more LGTBQ+ friends who are in long term relationships than straight friends. I recognize the difficulty in finding your person when the odds of doing so are so stacked against you and I so respect and admire those people have beaten the odds. And so, I turn straight to mush over it. My heart swells up at the sight of it and I will rip out the throats of anyone that tries to come in to hurt or destroy that love. My dark smudge has made me deeply protective of love, mostly because I know what it feels like to have found my person only for him to be cruelly taken away.

I think about this every Pride month. I think about that awful play and I even get a little mad at Chris for the role he played in that play. I think about how rotten a human has to be in order for sexual orientation to be the reason to have the abortion. Then I look over at the people and friends who show me every damn day that love is always the winner.