THANKFUL FRIDAY

Yesterday was Chris’s birthday and for some reason, my phone calendar has this listed multiple times as all day events. One of them is not even correct. It reads “Chris Maddera’s 43rd Birthday”. If Chris were alive today, we would be celebrating his fifty fourth birthday. I would probably be making everything jambalaya, a dish I have not made since the last birthday he was alive. There was a moment yesterday when I thought I’d get through the day unscathed, but that didn’t happen. After a vigorous and intense personal yoga practice (I’m up to 30 sun salutations and that may be my limit because of time), I settled myself down for a much earned savasana and immediately started sobbing. Grief gives zero shits about your savasana or time and space. This is the second time in the last six days where grief has rolled up to sucker punch me in the gut. The first time got me sobbing in my car in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. That was less about Chris and more about my mom and her mental struggles.

Grief is an onion. Cut into any layer of it and it’s still going release syn-propanethial-S-oxide gas.

There is no antidote for syn-propanethial-S-oxide, but you can reduce your reaction to it in a number of ways. You can wear goggles and use a very sharp knife. You can also chill or freeze the onion. Bottom line is that you can make it so that you cry a little less, but not completely. This is grief plus time. As each year passes, I cry a little bit less. I feel the string between us getting longer and longer and I just want to wind it up tight around my finger to shorten the distance. I may cry less, but I don’t miss him less or think about him less. Now more than ever. I mean can you imagine what Chris would be writing and doing in the midst of this current administration?!? He’d be inciting our anger and disgust, handing out the pitchforks, all while making us laugh uncontrollably over the ridiculousness of it all.

Look, I stared at a blank page for a really long time trying dig up something for today’s gratitude posting and instead I told you about Chris’s birthday and my dumb calendar. How do you find gratitude in the face of such great loss? Better yet, how do you find gratitude in the face of such great loss without it sounding trite or contrived? The answer is that you don’t. I can list off a half dozen things of gratitude from this week for you right now and every single one is trite and contrived. I’m grateful for the sunshine. I’m grateful for that one day this week it was warm enough when I go home from work that I could take Josephine for a short walk. She was so excited about it that she pooped four times. I am grateful that mom is being cared for and that I don’t have to do it. I am grateful for the friends in my life who continuously have my back and provide me with support.

Trite or contrived gratitude, to me, is just an act of honing the practice. It’s not any different from saying grace before a meal and being thankful for the food on the table. Of course you are thankful for your food. Unless the meal before you is your least favorite food. When I was a child, my heart would sink every time I ran down the stairs for breakfast and discovered Mom had made French toast. I hated Mom’s French toast. It was always soggy and to this day I do not ever order it. That’s beside the point. I was still grateful to have food and a mom who made sure I had breakfast every morning. I found that even the simplest, most obvious things to be grateful for makes the hard, painful stuff like grief a little easier to handle.

It’s like putting on goggles before cutting up that onion.

IN DEFENSE

I rarely take the hook, but there was something about a particular posting that I couldn’t resist commenting on. A facebook “friend” (yes, I’m still there. I have reasons) posted about the Grammys and the unbelievable audacity to award Beyonce with a Grammy for Best Country Album. The person already had three comments on the post all along the lines of “What is the world coming to?!” So I chimed in my two cents.

Beyonce's country album is great and totally deserving. You can really hear the influences of early country music and gospel in many of the songs. The grammy was intended for "country album" not "Country artist". So she fit well in that category. Growing up when country music was dominated by white men singing about drinking whiskey and cheating on their wives, it's refreshing to hear some diversity.

This comment is completely heartfelt. I am not a ‘woke’ person when it comes to music. I tend to listen to a playlist of the same artists ranging from Neko Case to First Aid Kit, I throw in the occasional Andrew Bird and the National, and have stations that reflect these artists. But I feel it is important to broaden my listening because it’s like traveling to new places. It opens my ears up to new sounds and ideas. It is an empathy builder. Often times, I throw on my headphones before heading off for my coffee walk and pick an artist that is not in my everyday list. Just this morning, I was listening to Douchii and having a dance party at my desk. Beyonce happens to be another one of those artists and I’m not going to lie. I like a number of her songs and I really enjoy her country album for the reasons already stated. I prefer the sound of earlier country music as opposed to today’s country tunes. This is why I often listen to Yola, who sings an old bluesy style of country. Today’s country, to me, sounds like fake country accents rapping to a banjo.

if you’re into listening to two dogs fuckin then sure I get ya other than that it’s pretty dumb

This was the reply left to my comment regarding Beyonce’s win. It is far from constructive and straight up racially inspired hateful. I was a little surprised, but I guess this is something this person feels passionately about considering they were willing to speak to their yoga teacher that way. Yes, this person used to be a regular yoga student. I left it alone. Melissa (who is a mutual Facebook ‘friend’) saw all of it and sent me a text. We’ve decided that Two Dogs Fuckin’ may be our new band name. But the exchange left me pondering what it was/is about Beyonce that induces such violent and visceral reactions. Particularly from suburban white women.

I remember hearing the hoopla and ridiculousness over the release of a country album by Beyonce. Radio stations in Nashville railed against it. Other country artists screamed hatefulness over it. “She’s not country!” “What could she possibly know about country?!?!” “She needs to stay in her lane.” So quickly these people had forgotten the African American influence on country artists. They did not throw such fits when Darius Rucker moved away from Hootie and the Blowfish to country music. Jelly Roll seemed to easily slide from rap into the country scene. Beyonce was born and raised in Houston Texas. I mean…that’s a big boots and chaps and cowboy hats kind of town. She grew up in country music and gospel. Also, these people are artists. Artists explore and experiment with different art forms all the time.

So why is it a problem that Beyonce has done this?

I can only guess that much of the hate thrown at Beyonce stems from not just the color of her skin, but that she is female. Resentment and jealousy genetically passed down starting with antebellum white women who watched their slave owning husbands sire child after child with his slave women. In that patriarchal landscape, the only place the white woman could put her pain and resentment was on that slave woman and the child. Thus began a systemic system of turning jealousy into hatefulness towards other women and particularly women of color. This could have been an excellent opportunity for women supporting women, but no, we once again let misogyny and racism win. Those white suburban women still believe that there is a specific place for everyone. Everyone must fit into their constructed social normative box. This is why they cannot tolerate the LGTBQ+, they’re people that do not fit in a specific place and a strong talented successful black woman blows up their little boxes.

I think if these women truly listened to Beyonce’s music they would discover a lot of commonality. Beyonce presents herself as strong and fierce, but you can hear in her music that she carries all the same insecurities as everyone else and shifting through the hatefulness just to read some constructive criticism probably feels impossible. And when they announced her name at the Grammys, the shock of winning was clearly evident on her face. She had received so much hate by releasing a country album that she probably struggled to comprehend a win in this category; because it is so much easier to see the hate that’s thrown at you than the good.

I don’t know what the sound of two dogs fucking is, not sure I’ve ever heard that, but if that’s the sound of this album then I guess I like it.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve seen so many memes about the length of January and how it feels like the month that will never end. I mean, January sure has set a particular tone for the year by starting with a blizzard. Then we entered a chaotic period of governmental change immediately threatening people’s jobs. Oh, hey…did you hear about the tuberculosis outbreak happening over on the Kansas side of this city I live in? State line is a street, not a barrier and I’m four miles from that line. So masking up is a very reasonable thing to do while roaming the city. Yesterday, we witnessed a horrific plane/helicopter crash over the Potomac, killing everyone involved. Today, leaves us holding our breaths in anticipation of the next tragic thing. And maybe by tomorrow, everyone will be sighing with relief that January is finally over.

I don’t know if I will be one of those sighing with relief.

January is complicated. This month, named for the god of beginnings and transitions, was added to the Roman calendar sometime around 713 BC by King Numa Pompilius. At this time there was still much debate and speculation about how to create a calendar. The first of January didn’t become the first day of the year for another hundred years and of course this is just the Roman calendar. Don’t get me started on the Lunar Calendar, though in a quick research glance, I did note that Anglo-Saxons (White, English, “Christian”) are the only ones who do not celebrate the new year based on the new moon. We’ve also grasped tightly to the narrative of the month being a new beginning. January is National Healthy Weight Awareness Month, National Codependency Awareness Month, Veganuary, and many more self improvement awareness things.

I find the expectation to make great changes to be stressful.

Thirteen years ago, January was a month of great change for me that was not one of my choosing. It holds more weight now then it did previously. Some of the weight is pure terror of the unknown of illness. Though the time was terrifying, painful and so fucking sad, still it was the last month I had with Chris. In between the pain and terror there were moments of great sweetness. We laid next to each other, hands clasped, and talked about everything and nothing. We laughed so much even while crying. The illness had not taken Chris’s mind yet and we spent hours together, just the two of us, soaking up the time we had left. I can’t really sigh with relief at the ending of January because February is so much worse.

Michael and I had a date night last Saturday that was really a hold-over birthday celebration. For the last three years whenever Michael has asked me where I want to eat for my birthday, I always say Earl’s Premier . This never works out because of some reason or other. This year, I stomped my foot and pouted. This is how we ended up with reservations almost a week after my birthday. It was all worth it. We took my scooter charm into Tiffany’s to be repaired and had the most pleasant experience. Then I went to Anthropolgie to spend my gift card. Again, I had the most pleasant experience, which was a surprise for me because I was not feeling good in my skin. The sweater I purchased is so so pretty and the colors make me feel joy. I will be sad to not wear it year round. Then we went to Earl’s and had the most spectacular dining experience. Simple. Delicious. Fabulous. A lesson for next year: Do not attempt birthday celebrations on actual day of birth.

Psst….I’m planning on celebrating a month earlier…in Paris!

So on this very last day of this first month of a new year, I’d like to celebrate the good that is tucked away between the bad. I survived another year! I’m relatively healthy! I can still touch my toes and move my body around. My mother also celebrated another birthday this month and I feel lucky to still have her with us. I ate a dozen perfect little raw oysters. I now own a sweater that contains the colors of a dessert sunrise. Only the giant piles of snow left from clearing streets and sidewalks still remain. All the rest of the snow has finally melted this week. Olga, my sourdough starter, is still alive and kicking. I may attempt ciabatta again this weekend.

Tucked inside the bad of the month were warm soothing hugs, silly giggles, and fascinating stories. I have gratitude for this messy, but lovely month.

I'M LEARNING FRENCH BUT DREAMING IN JAPANESE

Ever since Michael said that we were going to try to make Paris happen this year, I’ve been channeling Yoda and saying “there is no try!” I have committed myself to learning enough French so as not to be the stupide americain in Paris. Michael tried to get through the very first Duolingo lesson and then immediately gave up. He says that he just can’t hear what is being said. I will admit that I struggled through the first three or four lessons for the very same reason, but the more I stick with it, the easier it’s getting. Now I’m trying to use phrases I’ve learned in conversation. I’ve also been listening to a lot of French pop music. I am sure my pronunciation is utter garbage, but I can read French pretty well. 

Sort of.

Meanwhile, I keep waking up at one AM from a recurring dream about a young pregnant Japanese woman who is the only survivor of a bloody assassination attack on her gang lord husband. I think it’s something I’m co-writing with Quentin Terentino because then I lay awake for the next two or so hours mentally writing out what happens to her after she flees the house and all the bloody dead bodies. I have lots of ideas, like this one: Yuri tentatively makes her way into the main living room. Gore and death surrounds her, but she feels a hand grasp her ankle. Yuri struggles to not scream but looks down to see her husband Isamu covered in blood but still gasping for air. She leans down and he draws a bloody finger tip down her cheek, lays his hand on her round full belly before letting the hand drop limply to the floor. Then he rips the chain holding a small silver key from his neck. Isamu places the key in the palm of Yuri’s hand and closes her fingers tight around it. “You are free” Isamu whispers with his last breath.

Then what happens?!?! Who was the assassin? Why was Yuri spared? Is Isamu really the father of the child she’s carrying?

I don’t know! I mean I know, but I don’t know!

Oh, hey…did you know that perimenopausal induced hives are a thing? I do. Also, I’ve been bleeding from my vagina since January 19th. 

The crazy dreaming and sleep habits are partly due to my body, but I have to admit that I’m also doing a lot of worrying. Last week was a doozy. So many things happened! One of those things was that the NIH was told to put a hard pass hold on grant reviews. For those of you who do not know, the NIH funds a lot of basic medical research. Some of you may also not realize that while I am a scientist, research facilities like mine employ a number of nonscience people (maybe even more because it takes a lot to keep a building running). Less, or in this case no grant, money means less jobs for EVERYONE. Putting people out of work doesn’t seem like a smart way to boost an economy, but maybe I just need to be patient and wait it out…

The White House budget office ordered a pause in all federal loans and grants. The directive could upend funding for local governments, disaster relief and education. -The New York Times

Anyway, I’m worried about not having a job in the future and I’m worried about my friends who are in similar situations. I’m worried about the safety of my friends who have been receiving extra amounts of bigotry and just plain hatefulness thrown at them (at times, literally). This administration hit the ground running to make this country more discriminative and are taking off their bigotry filters (if they even had any to begin with). There’s a woman I have followed in the blog community for years. She’s wonderful, writes books on being kind and spreading joy. She’s a beacon of light. Her elderly parents have been accosted multiple times in the last few months. One of those times, her father could have been seriously injured because a man pushed him off his bike. The other time, a white woman angrily yelled the n-word at both of her parents and then threatened to beat them over a parking situation. 

Is this the country that we are now? What does “Make America Great Again” truly mean? Because if this, straight up encouraging hatefulness and taking away funding that supports low and middle class citizens is the way to “make America great”, I’m not sure I want any part of being an American. And I am struggling to understand how anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ can support any of this. Leaving the country, which is something Michael and I have discussed in regards to our retirement, is becoming a more appealing idea. Chris and I, years ago, started doing this thing where we’d take vacations to where we thought we might want to live someday. We’d pretty much settled on Portland,OR and Kansas City wasn’t even on our list, but we ended up very happy with our move. Nine blissfully happy months. Anyway, maybe this is how Michael and I should consider our travel adventures, start vacationing in places we might want to retire to one day. Except Paris. I know Paris is an unsustainable retirement option. 

Especially if my retirement is fucked because I lose my job next year. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Last Saturday, I had birthday lunch and pedicures with my mom, brother and sister-in-law. We had a very lovely time. Then on Sunday, our friends Nurse Jenn, husband Wade, Jenn’s youngest Bee and their partner M (who has recently been accepted to the firefighter program…young people doing stuff!) met Michael, the Cabbage and I for roller skating and then Indian food. We had a very lovely time. Then on Monday, I put myself into a media bubble and would only allow All Creatures Great and Small on the TV or a movie of my choosing (I chose A Real Pain…highly recommend). Sometime in the afternoon, Jenn brought over sticky toffee pudding and we sat on the couch eating this delicious treat while nerdily discussing the Interstitium (more on this some other time, but I’m scientifically obsessed). All and all, it was a peaceful day.

Forty nine, or any of the nine-ending ages, feels like an odd one. Nineteen sounds like one is trying to convince others that they are older, while twenty nine, thirty nine and forty nine all sound like one is desperately clinging to a younger age. I feel like for this year I will constantly be defending myself with a “No really! I am forty nine.” Though Michael did say that I could probably get away with telling people that I am thirty nine. He likes living in my house and even though I force him to eat kale. I mean, it is a nice thing to tell me, but I’ve never been one to baulk at increasing age or pine for my youth. I look forward to turning fifty. Each year brings new insights and challenges. The challenges greeting me this year are centered around shutting out the chaos and noise and focusing on my community. How can I better serve the people in the place where I live? How can I protect those who will be at threat and in danger because of our new Nazi administration? Some of you think I am joking. I can assure you I am not. My dear friend Bradley has already been given notice that he will most likely lose his federal job and a most recent executive order rescinds Equal Opportunity act 13988 that prevents discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Life is about to get really scary and dangerous for a large population of Americans. I’m going to focus on making my community a safe, all inclusive community and I learned something at the roller rink on Sunday that may help me stay focused and out of the chaos.

There was a woman around my age at the roller rink and I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her. She just looked so relaxed and at ease on her skates, even skating with her hands in her pockets. At one point, as Jenn and I made our way back out to the rink from a short break, we passed this woman as she was standing to the side of a birthday party table. Jenn stopped and said to the woman “You are our role model on skates.” I nodded in agreement and said “You look so at ease on your skates. I want to be that relaxed when I’m skating!” Now, I’m not a bad skater. I don’t fall down or flail (mostly) all over the place, but my body is a taught wire in anticipation of falling. I don’t feel at ease or relaxed or graceful. This woman thanked us and then said that the first time she went out on skates, she was terrible. She ran into the walls so many times, she had bruises all over her body. She swore she’d never go back. Then her daughter got onto her and said “You raised me to be strong and brave and to never give up. You can’t give it up either!” So she went back to the rink. She then confessed to us that she had only learned to skate just last year. She told us that we can also skate like her. She said “Relax your knees. It’s like dancing.”

I got out onto the rink and heeded her advice, relaxing my knees and swaying like I was dancing. Then I put my hands in my pockets and as soon as I did that, I felt my entire body change. I stopped worrying about a potential fall and just casually skated my way around and around the rink. I think this applies to pretty much everything. Relax your knees and just dance. Put your hands in your pockets. If we fall, we’ll get back up. If you fall, I will help you get back up. Many of us were raised to be strong, brave and to never give up. We can’t give up now. I’m grateful for the skate lesson that turned out to be a life lesson. I am also grateful for all the well wishes that I have received this week.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

There were several discussions last year among my coworkers in regards to mid-life crises. I think they came up so often because we all witnessed mid-life crisis behavior in someone we know. A new jeep of dreams was purchased. A used to be friend blew up his marriage with an affair. Everything I was witnessing were all the cliched old behaviors that I had heard people joke about for years. Yet…I never heard these stories about women and mid-life crises. Every joke and actual witnessed behavior has always been a male perspective. He bought a toupee, a convertible, traded an older wife in for his younger mistress.

I’ve never heard a feminine pronoun do any of those things.

No one knows because women do not have time to blow up their world with crazy shenanigans. We’re too busy trying to remember where we parked our cars because the perimenopause brain fog is a real thing. More hours of the day are wasted by calculating the amount of protein we’re eating or not eating. These are new tasks that have been thrown into our pile of daily tasks that we had before the perimenopause symptoms started wrecking havoc on our bodies. Women are too tired to go buy themselves a convertible or have an affair with a younger man.

It made me question what my mid-life crisis would look like. This is officially the last year of my forties. If I’m going to go out and blow up my world, this would be the year to do it. It also means I must be expecting to live to be almost one hundred. Honestly, I feel like I missed the mid-life crisis boat. That’s something I should have done years ago. Which is fitting. I have always been a bit delayed in these kinds of things. Years after our friends had bought homes and settled down, Chris and I were finally doing those same things. I clearly remember buying my first lawnmower and feeling like this pushed me into grown-up status. I was thirty five years old. I am a Laggie.

Then I remember the year Chris died.

It is quite possible that year was my mid-life crisis year. I drank more. I did more drugs. I had questionable interactions with strange men. I lived a little bit more dangerously than usual, enough so that I recognized that I was being dangerous. Usually it’s only when I hear people gasping around me that I am in the middle of a dangerous action. There were moments in that year when I knew well before the gasps started. My motto for that time was YES and I said yes to all of the things, many things I should have said no to. It didn’t feel like I was blowing up my world because that had already happened and I wasn’t the cause. Which leaves me questioning if a mid-life crisis brought on by grief really a mid-life crisis?

All of those mid-life crisis behaviors are attempts in grasping onto joy, a way to fill the void of unrecognized goodness that all ready exists in a life. The flashy new car and exciting new lover are straws in the grasp. Those of us who have learned how to see the joy in our daily lives do not require the grasps or crisis and I believe those of us with daily gratitude practices have an easier time of seeing that joy.

WHEN ONE GOES OUT

The Nelson Atkins Museum currently has an installation from Felix Gonzales-Torres. It’s a very simple piece of two light bulbs hanging on the wall. If you knew nothing about art or Felix Gonzales-Torres, you might even walk by, overlooking it as art. Felix Gonzales-Torres is, was, the kind of visual artist that would make my brother groan because of lack of actual paint and canvas.

Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s sculptural installations are imbued with details of his life. On March 5, 1991, he lost his partner Ross Laycock to an AIDS-related death. In this work, Gonzales-Torres conjures a couple through a pair of gradually extinguishing lightbulbs, an artwork that quietly commemorates his partner’s passing and makes a larger reference to the AIDS epidemic. Gonzalez-Torres’s own premature death due to AIDS five years later adds an additional narrative dimension to the work: viewers bear witness to both artist and partners’ lives and losses through the two nestling bulbs hanging from entwined cords.

The last time I was there, both bulbs were blinding in their brightness. On December sixteenth, one of the lights went out and when I saw the posting, I sobbed at my desk. I remember looking at the two lit bulbs long enough to give myself vision twinkles and believing with my whole heart that the instillation would come down before any of the bulbs burned out. I wanted to believe this was all an artistic hoax and someone just replaces the bulbs before the museum opens for the day so we would never know. I wanted both bulbs to stay bright and shining forever.

It’s hard being the bulb that’s still on.

There was an episode recently of Somebody Somewhere where the character Tricia was upset because she had forgotten their sister’s birthday. Sam and Tricia play sisters and their other sister passed away from cancer. That’s the lead in to season one of the series. Sam was trying to calm her sister Tricia and said to her that is was okay and that there were some days she didn’t even think about about their lost sister. It was a well done scene on the various ways we handle loss and grief. I wondered if there would ever be a day when I just didn’t think about Chris. I don’t know what that would even feel like. I know Michael said in the very beginning that Chris never goes away, but I wonder how long he’s going to stick to that. When does he eventually say something like “yeah…I know I said that, but maybe it’s time you let go of Chris completely”?

My answer will always be never.

Michael has a coworker who announced that their wife has terminal cancer. It’s the long, slow, kill you kind of cancer. Michael has talked about this fairly young family often now since the announcement. In his most recent conversation about his coworker, Michael brought up the conversation we had all those years ago. He admitted that sometimes it feels like he’s living with a ghost and one he’ll never be able to live up to. Yet he still insists that Chris never goes away. I should just tell Michael even, though he won’t actually listen, that he shouldn’t try to live up to as much as he should try to live a life. Stop projecting your feelings and start truly hearing what is being said. But it is true; he will never live up to the ghost. Blessing. Curse. Catch 22. I will never be free of this book.

I went back to the Nelson to see the Gonzales-Torres piece. I was on a girl date with Melissa and I was telling her all about the piece as we approached it, but the bulb was no longer burned out. It had been replaced with a new bulb and I was outraged. I was furious. How dare they replace the bulb and wreck the message of this art! Rage filled my body and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I had to know why someone would do that. Why would someone just go in and wreck this completely emotional work of art? So we stopped at the information desk on our way out where we were told that the bulbs are replaced when both go out. So at some point, without posting, the second bulb went out. They were just resetting the piece. Which….maybe…that’s what I have done. That’s what we all do. When bulbs go out, we replace them with new bulbs. Wattage may be different from the last bulb, but it’s still a light source.

There’s a lot of weight attached to being the last light one, a lot of responsibility. It takes a lot of energy to be the only light left in the room, always compensating for the light that’s been lost. Sometimes a room needs more light than just one bulb can provide. I don’t like sitting in the dark unless it’s at the movies. The dark is for sleeping or gazing at the night sky until you are sleeping. I prefer the light. Even when it is so bright it makes your vision twinkle.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Somehow, we’ve managed to survive the first week of January. Which doesn’t really seem like a small feet considering the state of things. Michael didn’t leave the house until Thursday and even then his school was a virtual day. He was supposed be chaperoning theater kids at the state conference in St.Louis, but it got delayed a day. He finally left Thursday morning for chaperon duties and won’t be back until Saturday evening. Him being home came in handy on Wednesday when I couldn’t get my car back in the driveway. The snowplow had come through to clear the second lane of our street and blocked everyones’ driveways. This was the first time we’ve had to shovel our way into the drive. Usually we’re just trying to get out. Then, this morning we awoke to a whole two inches of fresh snow. I feel like I’m doing a decent job of holding it together and not just roaming through each day while sobbing.

While the midwest is buried under mountains of snow and ice, people in the west coast are watching their homes burn to the ground and fleeing for their lives. There are a number of ways to help those people in California: American Red Cross, some GoFundMe pages, animal shelters are listing needs on Amazon. Pick one or all and help if you can.

• American Red Cross

• Mutual Aid Network of LA (great donation and needs directory)

2025 is starting off spicy.

I am thankful for every update that has been posted from people I know living in the fire zone. They have let us all know that they are alive and safe. While I have backed away and have become less social on some social apps like Facebook, X and Instagram, I have not completely jumped ship. I will never completely jump ship from Facebook or probably Instagram to tell the truth and that is because I have very specific intentions for how I use those social apps. Both of them keep me connected to people I love. Not just the ones out of state or in far off places, but people I love that live in my neighborhood. So I will continue to treat those places like I have always treated them, as places to connect, support and spread light. I will do this while respecting the decisions of some people to leave those platforms. Some of us have to do whatever it is we need to do in order to stay safe from the violence, hate and vitriol coming from the new administration and those who support him.

Karen Walrond posted in her newsletter this week about how she wants to be like a porch light, which is a perfect description for the kind of person I would like to be. A lit porch light tells you that you can trick-or-treat at that house. It is a welcome sign, a sign of safety, of comfort. It is my intention this year to step away from the garbage of social platforms. For me this means not engaging with it and removing it from my sight and to maintain my boundaries. I will continue to use those spaces for what I have always believed they were for; celebrating our wins, comforting each other in times of loss and cheering each other on in our endeavors.

Some new places to find me:

• I was never good at X(twitter) and I’m about the same on Bluesky, but I’m there @cindymaddera.bsky.social

• I’m learning Substack and have yet to post, but considering moving some blog content over there: @elephantsoap

• I’m posting more photos to Flickr: Cindy Maddera

• Eventually this space will all be moving off of SquareSpace and over to someplace more affordable. Look for big changes in June.

I am grateful to be part of the porch light warriors.

OLD IS NEW

First Flickr photo

I just did something that I haven’t done in ages and that was to upload new photos into my Flickr account. Remember those days where Flickr was the place for all our photos? That’s where many connections were made and it shaped our idea of online community. We cheered each other on in 365 Day projects and praised each other’s artistic endeavors. Were there some creepoes? Sure. There’s always creepoes. Some of my most liked photos on Flickr are bare feet photos. Though there’s ball gag photo that I took once that has over 40,000 views. Mostly everyone was nice and respectful. Then Instagram came along and everyone was all “ooohhh, shiny shiny!” and jumped ship.

I am also guilty of the “ooh, shiny shiny”, but part of the appeal of Instagram for me was that it was more community and less so much about the art of photography. It was just easier and honestly, a little less intimidating. Everyone on Flickr felt like real photographers taking real photos. I was always striving to imitate and disappointed with all of my photos. What’s kind of funny, is that I started having all the mental health insecurities with Flickr that people talk about having with Insta. I will never take a photo as good. I will never be skinny enough for a picture or pretty enough. I will always look awkward and like I’m trying to hard. I was a part of Flickr because of Chris and Amy and Brian. I thought it made me part of the gang and in some ways it did.

I have Chad in my life because of Flickr.

Instagram came along right around the time Chris was dying, which made it even more appealing. It was a clean slate. Chris did not have a presence there. Also the content on Instagram was less ‘Wow! Amazing photo!’ and more ‘oh! what an interesting thing you’ve encountered!’. It felt more relatable to me, a way to share a snapshot of my daily life. It didn’t matter that I was a terrible photographer and there was very little chance of me coming across an old photo of Chris. My relationship with Instagram started to change a year or two after joining. One day, I woke up and decided that I wanted to take better pictures. I wanted my Insta dashboard to be pleasing to the eye and I started honing my craft. I became more choosy about the photos I posted. I was curating my life and while I wasn’t paying attention, the richies running the show were also trying to curate my life, attempting to steer my dollars and thoughts for their benefit.

I am not a successful candidate for being steered.

In an attempt to step away from influence, I thought it might be a good idea to be more active on Flickr again. When I opened my Flickr feed of people I follow, the first images were all from this one man who has been part of the 365 Day Project for years. He’s one of the admins for the group. There he was, starting a whole new year of photos and I scrolled down to see who else has remained active all these years. The space still feels like it did when I joined way back in 2005, but less creatively intimidating. And since my gang is partially broken, I feel less pressure to be there. Less than a handful of all the people I followed are still active on Flickr, but I think times are changing. Amani posted today that she’ll be more present on Flickr than other social apps in the next year and I see more of us returning in the next few weeks. We’ve all grown weary of being influenced.

I look forward to making new online friends and curating a community instead of curating myself.

THE STATE OF THINGS

It snowed all day on Sunday. All. Day. Monday morning, we awoke to blue skies and blinding sunlight. The snow is taller than Josephine and when she finally jumped off the top step to go outside, she had to tunnel her way to her favorite potty spot. Now, if she goes out it’s because she’s desperate. She comes back in covered in snow with balls of it clumping to her legs. She stands stock still and expresses the tiniest saddest whimper while I grab a towel. At ten o’clock this morning, I finally bundled up and cleared a path at the backdoor to make Josephine’s life a little easier. While I was up and bundled, I started tackling the front steps and path. I shoveled a path from our steps to about half way down the drive when I paused and thought there had to be a better way to do this.

We do have a snowblower.

And that’s where Michael found me, in the garage untangling a power cord and wrestling the snowblower out of the garage. Now I’ve never used the snowblower before, but I figured it had to be better than a shovel. So today I learned that the snowblower is only slightly better than a shovel when there’s almost fifteen inches of snow on the ground. Michael and I spent the next two hours clearing the end of our driveway and unburying my car so I can go to work tomorrow. We are still uncertain if Michael will be going to work tomorrow. If school is not cancelled again tomorrow, we’ll need to go back out and unearth his truck and then swap cars in the drive. My toes finally have feeling again, so I’m hoping they cancel school because I do not want to go back out there.

Okay January. I see you. You are coming in cold and furious. This is the most snow Kansas City has seen since 1993 or something like that. That means we are starting the year overachieving. I mean, I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend. I made a decent loaf of bread, wiped down everything in the house with Clorox wipes, wrote up a class for a couples yoga class I’m offering up in February and while I only did six sun salutations on Saturday, that’s still six more than what I did last Saturday. I have several out of state family and friends who have messaged me about the weather and asking if we were okay and I can honestly say that we are. We have electricity and food. We’re safe and warm. We might be a little bit broken from clearing the driveway, but we’re surviving.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

The three other people who are at work with me today spent some time chatting about the weather and going on and on about power outages. Meanwhile, I’m blankly staring into my empty coffee cup like it’s going to predict the future, one that does not include power outages. I’m not completely uninformed about the impending snow storm. I know the reports have said something about a layer of ice followed up with snow. But I’m from Oklahoma. Layers of ice are normal. It’s the 6-12 inches of predicted snow that has me worried. Everyone here is in agreement that school will be canceled on Monday. Everyone except me because I live in lalaland where everything is sunshine and rainbows.

Look…I just had a really long break from work. Long enough to forget how to do my job and long enough to require some family space. Michael now has the cold/flu virus that the Cabbage dealt with for most of the week. I am managing to avoid it, but it is work. I’m basically walking around the house with Clorox wipes wrapped around my hands. The Neti pot is now a daily thing and I’m slurping down so much immune support water that I’m sloshing when I walk. Forecasters are now telling me that I am going to be trapped in the house at the very least for the next three days with germs. And as I picked up a paper bag to breath into, I thought about what a fickle human I am being.

I was just waxing poetically (or just waxing) about the joys of hibernation and how my yoga practice was solid during forced isolation. Here is my opportunity to do both of those things. Yesterday, I completed twelve rounds of sun salutation before resting and then moving into and holding some yoga poses. I woke up this morning surprisingly sore. I had not been on my yoga mat since December 19, 2024. For me, being off my mat for that long is not normal. Even though my arms were sore, today I pushed myself to complete twenty rounds. I started grinning when I reached number eighteen because I didn’t think I’d go that far today. I rarely think about my yoga practice during the weekend because I struggle being on my mat when I know there are chores that need to be done. It seems to me that I am being handed an opportunity to commit time on weekends for yoga.

I can always quarantine Michael in his room or in the basement.

The lockdown was tough for a number of reasons, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hear someone talk about how they benefited from a forced lockdown. Homes were cleaner. Exercise was easier. More time was spent outside in the fresh air. We had more time for artistic endeavors. I may have been a complete basket case of worry on the inside during that whole time, but my house was the cleanest it has ever been. Maybe I needed a forced lock down to accomplish some things that I had neglected. Isn’t a snowpocalypse basically a forced lockdown? It is fairly certain that Kansas City will see at least one to two of these snow storms that force us to stay put. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to recognize the value in having a mini-forced lockdown period.

I am grateful for this aid in forming a good habit.

UNDECLARED

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m currently sitting on my bed with a dog and a cat at my feet, nursing an honest to Gods hangover. Michael told me that he didn’t think I had too many more gin and tonics that normal, but he’s the bartender in the house and sometimes he can’t be trusted. All I know is that I made it to midnight and then went to bed where I spent a good twenty minutes trying to decide if I was going to throw up.

I did not.

I disagree with Michael about the ‘normal’ amount of gin and tonics and can say that last night was a rare occasion, one I will most definitely not be repeating for a really long time. While I haven’t made any actual lists or vision boards for what I want for myself in 2025, I have been thinking long and hard about it. At least one of those wants is health related and I’ve been thinking a lot about my (declining) yoga practice. A common Solstice celebration in yoga is to have a practice of one hundred. Usually it’s one hundred rounds of a sun salutation. Back during the lock down times, I was probably close to doing one hundred rounds of sun salutations a day. Like a hamster on a wheel, I’d be on my mat doing loops and loops of surya namaskara variations because I very much felt like a caged animal. So I’ve been thinking about starting that up again, working my way up to one hundred salutes to the sun every day. This is something that is holding center stage in my mental vision board.

In fact, right now that’s the only thing I’ve got for 2025.

That’s not entirely true. Of course I’d like to work harder at being a better person in 2025 and all that usual blah blah blah. Michael and I would really like to spend Christmas in Paris this year. Frugality is a reasonable thing to paste into a vision board so we can make that Christmas wish come true. I’d also really like to volunteer at a local charity and maybe finally get around to teaching another yoga workshop. The thing is, putting these things down on paper in January, especially when next week’s high is expected to be twenty degrees, feels impossible. I truly believe I was made for hibernation and the time I spend curled up under soft, cozy blankets and pets is time well spent. It’s contemplation time where I think about how to fill in my vision board around one hundred sun salutations.

January is being very January this year. The Cabbage spent most of the week with us with a bad cold. Fever, sore throat, all of the icks. We’ve managed to keep them caged up in their room and they go back to their mom’s today, but winter is coming this weekend. That means Michael and I will be caged up in our house with left over kid germs. I didn’t plan on putting ‘get more colds’ on my board for 2025, nor did I have ‘fumigate the house’ on my board, but here we are. This is how we’re jumping into this new strange year. We’re jumping in with shields and swords, fighting microscopic invaders. Perhaps I should include ‘drink more orange juice’ to the board.

Maybe leave out the vodka.

THE YEAR IN PICTURES

Every year, when I sit down to pull pictures for the annual Year in Pictures video, I am always surprised with all the things that happened in a year’s time. I have a bad habit of fixating on the things that happen near the end of a year and getting weighed down by the not so joyous moments. I get to the end of the year and think “I didn’t do anything this year.” That thought is obviously false. I saw the Northern Lights this year. Twice! We hunted moose. I spent time with old friends and even had a short visit with a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. The end of the year may have been challenging, but the whole of the year far outweighs the challenging parts. It is a reminder that I can make light, a reminder that I feel I will need for the coming year.

THE GREAT SANDWICH

In my most recent newsletter from Karen Walrond, she talked bout the origins and the state of limbo. And I read it while nodding my head and agreeing completely. Limbo aptly describes how I am feeling right now. There are two weeks left to this year. Just two! And once again, I’m sitting here gobsmacked that we are on the cusp of a brand new year. Yes, I know we haven’t even gotten to Christmas, but that’s NEXT WEEK! I spent some time on Saturday wrapping the few gifts I have for the Cabbage and hanging our stockings. They have two more gifts coming, but those probably will not get here until after Christmas. The Cabbage was a little late in providing me with a want list. They’re okay with the state of things. Any way, my tasks are mostly complete.

I am very much feeling in between, hovering in the moment of just before.

I’ve thrown all usual habits into a dumpster, poured lighter fluid in and threw in a lit match. Dog walks and yoga time have become distant foggy memories. But today is the first day in weeks where I have not had large amounts mucus flowing like hot lava from my nose. I can’t even try to form a snot bubble from one of my nostrils and no longer have the red scaly nose of a toddler. I finally feel well and spent the weekend scrubbing my grimy house. I also made a very successful batch of sourdough ciabatta rolls. The successful loaf of bread is in reach. I might actually do that next.

This time of year is never a great time for my brain. It’s the beginning of dark times and mean reds. Being organized and efficient does not work in my favor as it frees up empty swaths of time. Last week, I used some of that time to work on a writing project that’s been sitting idle in my docs. I was writing about something from the past and how I was manipulated by a loved one and I got so angry. I just sat there fuming at this thing that I couldn’t change and had no control over to begin with. I do not have the time to waste on being angry with this person, nor would it change anything. The only benefit of writing this event down and rekindling this anger is knowing that this is something I can consider whenever that same person tries to guilt me in some fashion.

So you can see…empty swaths of time for me means picking and probing at long passed events like a tongue with a mouth sore. I dissect old moments to find out how I could have handled them better or handled them at all. When I’m not picking at old scabs, I’m scratching in new wounds of belligerence for falling off the exercise horse. “Fatty Fat Fat” I say as I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. As if my little hiatus on exercise has anything to do with the size of my waistline. My lack of usual movement is causing me to hallucinate and see a reflection that is not necessarily true. Some of you are thinking “Cindy, this is an easy fix. You feel better, so start moving your body more.” But those people who think that do not know how tired I am all the time. I could lay down on the floor under my desk and take a nap right now. Except I wouldn’t sleep because the Catch 22 here is that I’m not a napper.

I am in a time sandwich, meaning this is the filling between two slices of bread and it is a terrible sandwich. Worse than the one Talaura thought I’d left her when went to that camping music festival in Guthrie. Look… it’s a complicated story made funny only by too much heat and probably too much booze. It’s a ‘you had to be there’ thing. I can make a good sandwich. Hell, just the other day, I whipped up a tuna salad to put on a ciabatta roll that Michael said was the best tuna salad he’d ever tasted in his life. That’s saying something because when ever I suggest tuna salad as an option, he makes the face of someone who just smelled a bag of rotten farts. I have good sandwich making skills; I could make a better, less self destructive time sandwich.

I think that I am going to focus on being a better sandwich. Do less brain picking and have more dance parties at my desk. I’ll be back later next week with a Year in Pictures post.

Happy Holidays!

THANKFUL FRIDAY

It’s that time of the year when I think I have a giant list of things I need to get done before Christmas only to realize that I have tackled 97% of that giant list already. Most likely, the other 3% of that list will get tackled over the weekend. Then I will be back into a twiddling thumbs situation that my brain never really knows how to handle. This makes it hard for me to be present. My mind keeps floating off and into the next year, already calling it for this year. I’m basically phoning it in right now.

So, in some of my free time, I’ve been sorting and organizing photos I’ve taken this year. I’m starting to run low on postcards and uploaded some new prints to be made into cards. This week, I had friend who I had sent a postcard too a couple of weeks ago, tell me how professional and perfect my photos look as postcard. I asked her to remind me which one I had sent and she described a picture of a view finder pointed out towards the ocean. Then she said that if she had seen that postcard in a shop, she probably would have bought it. I thought this was the sweetest compliment and I was grateful to hear that the card had brought her joy.

This is a habit that I started late in the year. Every Sunday, I sit down and pick out two postcards to send out to two different people. There is no rhyme or reason to who I write a note to. I usually just skim my Christmas card list and randomly make a selection. Often, I try to pick out someone who I know to have been having a particularly hard week and if someone sends me a card in response, then I send another one back. This is how Amani and I have become penpals, penning each other short but sweet postcards. Amani has taken up water colors and I have a small collection of watercolor postcards of her art. My favorite one so far is the most recent one, filled with brightly colored jelly fish. The note on the back was damaged in transit and I can’t read the last part of her note. It has something to do with me “seeing beauty almost….” Which makes me laugh. It’s like I almost have an eye for beauty…almost. Not quite. This has been a good habit to start and as my brain starts to build a plan for the next year, I hope it remembers to leave space for postcards.

Something else I noticed while organizing photos is that I managed to capture a lot of joy in this year. Recently, I had to fill out a description form for an old photo that one of my online photography groups wants to feature. It was taken so long ago that I couldn’t tell where or why it was taken and it’s just a simple photo of a wild yellow iris. One of the questions on the form asked what had inspired me to take this photo. I wrote the following.

I am an amateur photographer with the sole purpose of seeking out beauty and joy in the every day. It's almost my meditation practice.

This still holds true for me, but I find great joy in getting out my camera with purpose and intention. I am grateful for these habits and practices.

And my brain is already leaving space for more of it in the next year.

BAH HUM

I’m not saying that I’m anti-holidays this year. It may look that way because I have yet to put up our Christmas tree and I am opting out of Christmas cards this year. I did buy us a new dinosaur menorah that we’ve been calling the Menorasaurus and my lovely holiday wreath is hanging on the front door. I will get our stocking out of storage, but I’m skipping the tree this year. Here’s what happened. The distance between Thanksgiving and Christmas got shortened. I spent Thanksgiving driving to Oklahoma and back. I got sick again and I’m now on antibiotics. I figured that by the time I had enough energy to clean the house and set up the tree, it would be time to take it all down. The idea of it did not spark joy.

Instead, I’ve decided that I am celebrating the holiday season in a more selective way.

Years ago, my family started a new Christmas Day tradition. Instead of turkey or ham for the big holiday meal, we picked something that we all really loved that we didn’t get to eat as often as we liked and that was fried oysters. Randy and Katrina would buy the oysters from the White River Fish Market and then Katrina and Mom would cook the oysters all while fending off anyone walking into the kitchen trying to snag a fried oyster before sitting down to dinner. Eventually other things got added like shrimp cocktail and then there was that hilariously fun year we had a fondue pot. This is Christmas for me. My head is filled with visions of all of us gathering in the old family house, crowding the kitchen or setting the table. It took four of us to make the cocktail sauce, each of us contemplating flavors and always agreeing that we needed more horseradish. That cocktail sauce is the only reason my parents always had a bottle of gin in the house. Yes..put gin in your cocktail sauce, heavy on the horseradish, light on the ketchup, some lemon and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Do not buy a pre-made cocktail sauce.

This kind of Christmas has been lost to me for many years.

Once my dad was placed into a memory care facility and my mom quickly sold our house to move into a much smaller house, we have failed to maintain this tradition. I think we tried it once or twice but I never felt comfortable in the new kitchen space and we gave up trying, opting instead to just eat at White River Fish Market where they cook the oysters and clean up the mess. It’s fine. I’ve told myself (keep telling myself) that the food is not important. It is the gathering together in one space that is important. This year, I’ve been having a much harder time believing this. I have felt untethered from my home in Oklahoma for some time and after moving our mom into assisted living, I completely lost an anchor. At Thanksgiving, I slept on my brother’s couch so I could have Thanksgiving dinner with my family at the Cracker Barrel. While standing in the storefront with Mom, waiting for a table, Mom said “it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving.” I couldn’t disagree with her. There was something slightly depressing about the whole thing and I knew this going in. I was already scheming up a new plan for Christmas.

Michael and I booked an Airbnb in a neighborhood near my mom for the weekend before Christmas. My idea is to create a comfortable space for us all to gather. We’ll cook oysters and have shrimp cocktail. We’ll spend a day just being in a comfortable living room together without the chaos of restaurants. I am not delusional. I know this will not be like old times. We’re missing some very important players from the old times. One might even say that at least one of those players was the cornmeal to this fried oyster tradition. But part of celebrating the holiday in a more selective way is making choices for comfort and choosing something familiar to all of us. A large kitchen and comfortable living room for gathering. Fried oysters and cocktail shrimp. These are familiar things.

We’re two weeks away from this and I am already anxiously hoping for perfection. I’ve been compiling a list of things to take with us like extra chairs, throw blankets and pillows. Plus food. I’ve put siblings in charge of specific tasks. And it already feels brighter than Thanksgiving. I am coming to terms with the fact that my family is no longer growing as much as it is aging. In some ways that makes things easier. We no longer do physical gifts. Instead we gift each other time. The aging part is made more difficult when we try to hold onto the way things were, desperately grasping to a life that is no longer the same. So, what if instead of desperately grasping to the past, we just remember the past while being in our present? Any way…this is my Christmas wish for this season and I don’t need a tree lit up with lights to make that wish come true.

I’m choosing to be bah hum….not full strength bah humbug.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael and I are watching Shrinking on Apple TV and in this season, one of the characters and his husband are trying to adopt a baby. They finally have an interview with a young pregnant woman who is trying to decide between these two and another couple as potential parents for the baby. He chooses to have the meeting at his best friend’s house with other people present, people he trusts for parenting advice. The others get called out to deal with minor emergencies for their own children and the interview ends up just being with the three of them. At one point, this character explains to the young woman why he chose this place for their meeting. He said he wanted her to see the amazing support system he has in his life and that he recognizes the importance of having a village. It takes a village to raise a good human.

In the last few weeks, there have been a few postings on Facebook from old Collinsville friends announcing the passing of a loved one. Two of those passings were women that were part of the tribe that shaped and raised me, Mrs Ryal and Mrs Burton. While I haven’t stayed in contact, hearing the news of these passings struck a jarring chord because they were part of my village. I cannot deny that my scientific curiosities were encouraged and fostered by Mrs. Ryal; nor can I deny the lessons of kindness and comfort from Mrs. Burton. I am thankful for the parts they played in my life and my heart goes out to their families as they navigate through their grief.

But I am also reminded of the power of a tribe. This is why I am so willing to give out my phone number to my friends’ (often now grown) children. I had a really good tribe of women when I was young and it is only fair that I keep this tradition going. More than this, I recognize that I have built a community of friends that continue to support me. I have surrounded myself with a tribe of my own where we are supportive of each other in ways that go beyond words and moves into action. Without realizing it, Mrs Ryal and Mrs Burton taught me how to be a member of a tribe and the importance of building a tribe. Some may say that this is only something that can happen in small towns, but that is simple not true. I live in a metro area and the lessons of kindness, acceptance and comfort that I was taught by my tribe in my youth is what has made it so easy for me to build my own tribe.

Any where.

Today I honor the tribe of women from my past that provided me with skills for building the tribe of my present.

I WENT TO FUNKY TOWN

Right off the highway in a little bit of a sketchy run-down area is this place called Funky Town. Shortly after moving here, Chris and I drove by the place in the daylight and really all that is visible from the highway is the sign for the place, but we both started singing Funky Town and asking questions. In all of that time between then and now, no one has ever given me a straight answer about this place. I have been told all kinds of vague stories that range from retro Disco club to swinger’s club. In fact, most people have told me that Funky Town is a swinger’s club. While I was telling Heather that I visited Funky Town, she asked me at least two different times if “I was a swinger now”.

That’s none of your business.

Anyway, since no one has ever given me a straight answer about this place, my brain built one inside my head. This is something my brain is very good at doing. In this case, my brain took every Disco related thing I have ever seen and smashed them into one rainbow gold version of Studio 54 with a table in a dark corner piled high with cocaine. So when my friend Sarah texted me that she was going for her birthday and included an invitation, I did not hesitate. Well…I hesitated slightly. They were not going until 9 PM (my bedtime) and it was freezing degrees with snow on the ground. Then I shook myself out of my hesitation and took a nap. This was my chance to find out what exactly happens at Funky Town.

My brain turned out to be not entirely inaccurate. The place is very much like a rainbow gold Studio 54, but a rainbow gold Studio 54 plopped down inside of a Molly Murphy’s (is that even a reference any one is going to get?). There was a tiki lounge section, a psychedelic VW bus making up part of one of the bars, and a car wash on the dance floor. We had tables situated in a forest area under some fake trees. The place was packed with people dressed in bellbottoms and gogo boots, afros and porn mustaches. I saw four different guys wearing the same rainbow sequined suit. The clientele ranged from barely legal enough to get in to old enough to have invented this party. I didn’t visually witness any sort of ‘swinging’ but I can’t say for certain that there were not couples there looking for other couples to swing with. It was very busy and very loud and I spent about two hours on the dance floor, dancing my heart out.

It was fabulous.

The one regret, the thing I couldn’t shake the entire time, was my want for my big camera and flash. I wanted to take pictures of people and for people. I wanted to photograph the whole scene and hand out little cards with my name and contact information. I’m not good at costuming myself. I wore pink baby doll dress and legging. There was mascara on my eyelashes and gold hoops in my ears. That’s about as fancy I get, but I could put together 70s photo journalist costume if it would get me camera access.

Maybe next time.

RETROGRADE

Apparently Mercury is going into retrograde right this very minute and according to my Yoga Journal weekly horoscope email (that I usually ignore) this is a great time to finish projects. The number of times I’ve heard people go on about retrograding Mercury, one would think that I had some sort of clue of what ‘retrograde’ means. I don’t hate physics and earth sciences; I just don’t love them. Anything biological, I’m all in. Quantum physics makes me hyperventilate. Last week on NOVA, I watched as some guy talked about gravity’s effect on time and I had to go throw up. All of that is to say that I now know that retrograde motion has to do with how planets orbit the Sun and the speeds of those orbits. Sometimes, like three or four times a year, Mercury looks like it’s moving backwards. This is Mercury in retrograde.

Every thing is an illusion.

The planet Mercury has a lot in common with the Roman god, Mercury…probably because they named the planet after the god. The god Mercury (or the Greek version, Hermes) does a lot of stuff. He’s a messenger, a guide for the dead, a god of commerce and good fortune and fertility, but I’m pretty sure most of those ancient gods had something to do with fertility. He can be called upon to protect travelers and also known for communication and writing. I’m sure the whole ‘messenger’ thing is part of the communication and if you tend to lean into woo-woo whatever the planet Mercury is doing reflects whatever the god is up to. This, depending on star signs, matters to us humans in a woo-woo kind of way.

I’m some sort of Capricorn-Aquarius hybrid that I don’t understand and my horoscope told the Capricorn me to “schedule more naps”. Isn’t that lovely?!? It also told me to dedicate space and time for my own passions. It told the Aquarius me to figure out my desires. My takeaway is that I should dedicate time and space for figuring out what my passions are and what I truly desire. Actually… the Aquarius horoscope is garbage. The one for Capricorn gave me permission to sleep more and be a hermit crab. The Capricorn me is zip tying up the Aquarius me and hiding her way down deep in the soul basement. Or wherever those things live.

Obviously, I’m not a woo-woo kind of person.

Let’s talk more about how this is a great time to finish projects. Last weekend…was it last weekend?….wreath making day, Salem was talking about diligently working on her novel and I looked at her said “I will never finish writing a book.” They denied that this is true, but they haven’t seen the (growing) list of started writing ideas sitting in my Google Docs. They also, for some weirdo reason, love me and think I’m pretty great, which I’m like ‘okay…whatever’. They’re young with an old soul and super cool. This makes me feel like I am also super cool. I don’t even know where I’m going with this….I guess the tiniest woo-woo version of me really likes the idea of more naps, any naps really, but finishing something I started would be neat too.

This is a very rambley post.

Happy Thanksgiving.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Last week, the New York Times posted a study about the gender gap and exercise and how women have less time to work out then men and (surprise!) our health is paying the price.

Experts say this exercise gender gap has a lot to do with the disproportionate amount of time and labor women devote to caring for the home and for others. It’s also consistent with research suggesting that, on the whole, women tend to prioritize other people’s health above their own, experts said.

The whole article is irritating, from the study that found women have 13 percent less free time a day to the differences in reasons for exercise. Women are mostly exercising “to lose weight”, not because it can be a stress reliever or just good for mental and overall health. We exercise because we want to fit into the patriarchal normative of what a woman should look like. What’s also irritating is knowing that I fall into the trap of prioritizing others all too frequently.

It has been weeks since I had attended a Monday yoga class or spent personal time on my mat. Between illnesses, travel, work and meetings, I have struggled to carve out time for exercise. In a recent text exchange with Chad, I said that I was basically phoning it in physically until the New Year. I seriously had given up on regaining any part of my practice routine and vowed to do better next year. Then my Monday morning came in hot. I barely had a chance to put my bag down before I was troubleshooting various problems and right then I decided that I was going to try to make it to yoga. I would just eat my lunch during lab meeting and I even said this to my coworker, Amanda. Not five minutes later, someone came to tell me they would have slides ready for the slide scanner and could they bring them at 1:00. I said “We have lab meeting at one.” The person then said they would bring them at noon (yoga class time) and I was just about to open my mouth to mumble out an ‘okay’ when Amanda spoke up and said “Bring them at 2:00!”

Amanda was my advocate for yoga class on Monday.

I am equal parts grateful for Amanda and annoyed that I needed to have an advocate because I’ve forgotten how to advocate for myself. That’s not even true. I have not forgotten; I’m just not good at it. I do not practice enough self advocacy and the result is that I say yes to everything but myself. Monday was the shove that I needed. It gave me just enough momentum for me to step away from my desk and onto my mat every day this week, to say “not right now” to things being asked of me. But also, as women, we should be advocating for each other. I don’t mean the big stuff. That’s a given. I’m talking about the little things, stepping in where and whenever to be a road block to those demanding time and effort. I am not the only woman who struggles with prioritizing others. This seems to be a thing all women do and we should be helping each other out.

I often find myself in the position of advocate for the Cabbage, not with school or activities or anything like that. I advocate during times of parental injustice. I am the one holding up a pause butting and saying “wait a minute, think of this from the kid’s side.” I’m not always saying the Cabbage is right, but just maybe the reaction doesn’t need to be so big. I like to think that I am teaching the Cabbage to not just advocate for themselves (they’ve gotten really good at intelligent argument) but also the benefit of advocation for others. It fosters an environment of care for each other.

It’s teamwork.

I am grateful for those who advocate for me when I fell that I cannot. I am grateful for the time on my mat this week. I am grateful for the reminder to advocate for myself and I am grateful to be in a community of women who advocate for each other.