THANKFUL FRIDAY

A list of gratitude for this week:

• Michael went to the DMV for the new car tag so I wouldn’t have to.

• He also cleaned the bathroom yesterday.

• We came back to Kansas City and the tulips have just started to bud out along with the trees.

• We are no longer eating foods that are some shade of brown. I am cramming spinach into every meal.

• I paired down a big box of photos into a little box of photos.

• I made plans for fun things like breakfast with friends and roller skating.

• The cat was right here when got home and we didn’t have to wait a couple of days for him to show himself.

• The geese are back that laid eggs outside my cubicle window last year. There were three eggs when I left last week and now there are five and mother goose is sitting on them, patiently waiting.

• I discovered pictures of my teenage brother pushing toddler me around on the vacuum cleaner, which I believed was the most fun. His birthday is tomorrow and I’m pretty grateful he’s still here and allows me to push him around and tell him what to do.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Elephants that roam the dry arid flat country of Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park, coat their bodies in the mineral rich mud and dirt of the land. It starts with an abandoned termite mount. The elephants rub their bodies against the tall red mounds. With consistent visits and a little rain, the mounds get worn down to the ground, eventually turning into a wallow. As more and more rain starts to show up in the season, that wallow because a delightful mud hole for the elephants to roll around in. The more they roll, the bigger the wallow gets and then the true rainy season begins. The wallow becomes a waterhole and an oasis for all the animals in the park. The elephants visit the waterhole daily and on their treks through other muddy areas, they often pick up tiny seeds on their feet. Those seeds are the dormant embryos of killifish. The embryos are released into the water where they hatch and live out very short lives before the waterhole dries up at the end of the season.

Now, I knew that killifish embryos can stay dormant for years, trapped in the dirt. I know this because we study them here as a model in aging and development. I did not know that sometimes, they travel on the feet of elephant. I learned all of this while watching a Nature show about elephants and termites, a show where I sat riveted by the images I was seeing on my TV screen. This is not an unusual practice for me. I am still awed and bowled over by the complexity of our biological world. My curiosity feels boundless.

I have been thinking a lot about a word tossed in the direction of people like me that are meant to be an insult and that word is ‘woke’. I am a woke(ish) individual and much of that wokeness comes from my curious nature and my thirst for knowledge. I want to know why. I want to know more. I want to understand. The opposite of woke is asleep. Why would I want to perpetually stay asleep and miss out on all this color and beauty and amazement? I can’t be curious while I’m asleep. I cannot live a full authentic life while asleep. When the Nazis started rounding up people to mass murder and shove into work camps, they didn’t just come for the Jews. They came for the artists, writers and scientists. They came for those who were woke. Those artists, writers and scientists who survived the Holocaust lived to create beautiful things and make life saving discoveries. They remained curious about their world. I bet if you asked them to trade in their curiosity, or wokeness, so as not to have been put through the torture of the Nazis, they would say “Never!”

Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited slaves from learning to read. Nazi’s burned books. - Robert Reich

There is bravery in being awake.

The killifish embryos are dormant because they need specific conditions to live. Well, one specific condition, really; water. Once that condition is met, those little embryos do not waste time. They hatch within hours of being in the water and then reach sexual maturity in just fourteen days. They know that their days are numbered, their life only lasting about six months. So they make the most of it. The males flash their bright colors and dance for the females. Those males take a risk in their open displays. It makes them vulnerable to predation, but they do what they need to do so that life can persist. We do what we need to do so that life can persist. My openness and curiosity might put me at risk, but it is the stuff that gives me life. I am grateful for things that remind me of my true nature, like PBS and stories about tiny killifish embryos being carried on the feet of elephants.

I am an artist and a scientist. I am woke. But I also hope that I am like a newly hatched killifish and making the most of this life and my time here.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

According to the Sleep Foundation, there are four stages of sleep:

• Stage one, or N1, lasts about one to seven minutes. This is the falling to sleep stage.

• Stage two, or N2, can last for ten to twenty minutes. This stage is kind of where you go during a good final relaxation. There’s a drop in body temperature, the muscles relax and the breathing and heart rate slow down. Even the brain activity slows.

• Stage three, or N3, is the deep sleep stage and typically lasts twenty to forty minutes. The researchers say that people are generally harder to wake when in this stage and experts say that this stage is critical to restorative sleep. As the night progresses, this stage shortens as the body moves into stage four, or REM.

• REM stage is the dreaming stage. Brain activity picks up but the body experiences a temporary paralysis of the muscles with the exception of the muscles that control the eyes and breathing. Normally, we don’t reach this stage until we’ve been asleep for about ninety minutes. There are two REM stages. The first one lasts only for a few minutes, while the second stage can last for an hour or a little longer. As we get older, we spend less time in REM.

I know all of this because I just looked it up.

I looked it up because I wanted a clear picture of what I am about to tell you. At the end of Daylight Savings Time last year, I would go to bed at my usual 9 o’clock hour only to wake up again around midnight. Then, I’d wake up again around 2:00 AM, go use the bathroom and drift off to sleep until about 4:30. Now my alarm is set for 5:25 AM. This is the latest I can get away with if I am going to walk Josephine before work. Waking up at 4:30 and then going back to sleep made getting up at 5:25 impossible. To be fair, if it’s cold, we’re not walking, but this doesn’t mean I couldn’t get out of bed and use this time for yoga or some sort of exercise. Instead, I drifted off to sleep again only to wake up around 6:00. Josephine traded walks for extra snuggle time and I don’t think she was mad about it. While I recognize that winter is for hibernating, that doesn’t keep me from feeling bad about my decline in physical activity.

But then Daylight Savings Time came back and you could hear a collective groan across America about our lost hour of sleep.

I am the exception. I’m probably the only person to actually thrive by losing an hour of sleep. I have been awake and ready to go every morning this week at 5:00 AM. I still wake up around midnight, but that second wake up doesn’t happen now until 3:00 or a little after. So I fall back to sleep for about two hours and wake up ready to start the day. Josephine has lost her puppy mind every morning when she sees me pull my walking shoes from the closet. The weather has been perfect, so perfect that I’ve also ridden my scooter all week and I can honestly say I have been more active this week. Yes, I know I have fallen completely like a dupe for Fake Spring.

I don’t care.

Wednesday evening around eight, I opened my mouth in a jaw cracking yawn and Michael said “I know right?!? Why are we so tired this week?” I mentioned the time change but then I said “I feel pretty good about being tired at this time of day. I should feel tired. I’ve been up since 5:00 AM doing stuff. All day long.” This is the most active I’ve been in months and I believe it’s because adding an hour screwed up my second REM stage. This has been a great week for my physical health with some slight improvements with my mental health. Sometimes I just sit and pretend that President Elon and VP Trump are not dismantling our country, that they don’t even exist and science will get funding and my gay friends can stayed married. I allow myself about ten to fifteen minutes of this where I’m not thinking about what representative or senator I have to call next or keeping track of my weekly tasks so I can email them to Elon. It’s a tiny delusion, a bit of an indulgence really, but the moment rejuvenates the activist in me.

Always there is a song playing in my head whenever I am riding the Vespa. Usually, it’s Beyonce’s All The Single Ladies. Look, I can’t explain that. It’s the beat, I guess? I just like it, but this week, the song playing in my head is one from vacation bible school.

I got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where?! Down in my heart! Where?! Down in my heart! Where?! Down in my heart to stay!

We have the capacity to hold a mixed array of complicated feelings all at the same time. This week I am grateful for the reminder that I have the capacity to hold large amounts of joy while still feeling a little bit of dread. Joyful moments fill our batteries. Last week, I received a fortune cookie fortune that reads “The one who laughs, lasts.” I had a complete mental block and thought this was the dumbest fortune until I woke up the next morning and slapped my forehead. It was the comma throwing me off. Laughter, humor, joy, this is the stuff that is going to sustain us through this fight.

Those who laugh, lasts.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday, while a blizzard raged outside, I dreamed of tornadoes. In the dream, I stepped out the front door to look around and then the tornado sirens went off. I looked to the west and could clearly see a sizable tornado making its way in my direction. I hurried back inside and told Michael “We need to go to the basement right now.” I scooped up Josephine and we all scrambled down the rickety basement steps. Michael said “I don’t understand. I didn’t hear the sirens.” I replied “I only heard them for a beat and I don’t know why they’re not still sounding the alarm.” We watched through the basement window (that doesn’t really exist) as the tornado danced into our front yard. It then skirted between our house and the neighbor’s to the east of us. We continued to watch the tornado move along through backyards and between houses, luckily leaving people’s homes undamaged.

This dream happened while the wind outside didn’t as much howl as it did roar. It almost sounded like waves from an angry sea crashing onto a beach. Occasionally there would be a loud thump or thud of something being knocked over or very likely a transformer blowing. Our power flickered off long enough at some point during the night to require the time to be reset on the stove. When I peaked out a window, I could see a number of small tree branches littering the backyard. Even though there was very little snow accumulation, school ended up being closed Wednesday mostly because of power outages across the metro. The roads were icy in patches, worse for side streets as per usual, but I had no trouble making my way to work. We didn’t even bother shoveling the driveway. At lunch time, I stood waiting for the elevator with one of our postdocs and their five year old. The child was literally vibrating with pent up energy and I asked about his snow day. The postdoc, being very patient but also having a look of worn depleted mom, said “I hope it’s the last one.”

Maybe this is the last snow storm for the year.

Probably not.

In the fourteen years since moving here I have never seen a tornado. I have only twice looked up at the sky and said “Yeah….the weather person might be right about this. We should go to the basement.” As if I know more than the weather people and in someways I just might. KCMO is a vast area of various terrain. When they say there’s “tornadic activity” in the KCMO area they’re talking about the flat areas near the Kansas side. Tornados prefer to travel across flat lands. My house sits on the nubby hill side of town, the part where everything begins to slope towards our great river. Not that this means tornados are not possible in my neighborhood, just less likely. And if I don’t know what a wall cloud looks like or the sky signs for a tornado by now, then I never will and quite possible will have to relinquish the part of my identity that was born and raised in Tornado Alley.

Technically it is still winter. Yet, here I am dreaming about spring time tornados in places not normally seen. I am sure it is a bit of wishful thinking. There’s always a bit of exhilaration at the first sight of the tulip greens poking up out of the ground even while knowing we will see more snow before they actually bloom. I suspect this dream has less to do about weather than it is a commentary of current events. We’re all hiding in basements from a real life tornado causing minimal damage to maximum destruction as it weaves it’s way through our communities, taking away jobs and scholarships, building an economic structure that will force a choice between paying for healthcare or paying the rent. This tornado might spare my house, but not the houses of our LGBTQ+ families or nonwhite Americans.

When I say ‘spare’, I mean not completely destroyed. I still stand to lose my job and my retirement money due to cuts in federal funding for science. Funds for my work place are also linked to an investment company. If the investment company isn’t doing well, we don’t do well. The tariff situation is going to make it difficult for the investment company because no one is thinking about investing money when they’re just trying to pay the bills. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out ways to communicate with those who use the phrase “respectfully disagree”. This would be easier if the disagreement was over pizza toppings and not the value of human lives. The word ‘respectful’ is subjective and often employed in arguments where the user has little constructive, factual or relevant words to aid in their argument. It is a card thrown when the card holder doesn’t want to listen. It is used by people who have enough privilege to allow them to not question their government or the ‘news’ they are watching. This privilege also allows for a lack of empathy towards those impacted by this administrations decisions.

I do not have the luxury of such privilege.

Once as a child, I stared directly at a tornado as it traveled feets away from the family camper. I did not scream or flinch. I just stood still, pinned to the trailer by my mother’s arm. I am strong and brave. I am tenacious and I’ve learned how pace myself in a fight. I’m finding great joy finding little ways to mess with the methods of destruction being implemented by this tornado. Amani sent me a link this week were I can provide a description of discrimination by the administration. I tried writing a whole paragraph but the form errored. So I’ve been entering one sentence at a time and submitting it. This feels so much more satisfying and fun then an all at once thing. Whenever I’m feeling a little down, I go on over to The Department of Education , and type in ‘White House’ for my school with the zip code (20500) and then leave a sentence about the discriminatory practices committed by this administration. I’m still sending Elon my weekly updates. I know it’s not a big change, but I know it’s annoying for the person on the other end. I am one gnat, but I know I’ve generated more gnats by sharing my little micro aggressions. I’ve seen what happens when someone gets swarmed by gnats with the running and waving, flailing arms. It drives a person crazy.

This post doesn’t really sound like much of a gratitude post, but maybe if you read between words you can see it. I am grateful for the small things and I am grateful for the parts of me that have no fear. I am grateful for dreams that remind me that there is growth from destruction. I am grateful for the tiny bit of hope that we can rebuild, better and stronger. I am grateful for those who have joined the gnat army.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Let’s face it, new friends after a certain age is not an easy find. When Chris and I moved here, we both felt the isolation of our new unknown. We had left all of our closest people in Oklahoma, people we met with for meals or coffee at least once a week. Sure, we had the internet and the ability to chat with those people daily, but it just wasn’t the same as face to face time. And many (if not all) of those nearest and dearest are friends we made during our college years. Now we found ourselves in a quandary of how to meet new people in a town you are unfamiliar with when you are past the age of hanging out in bars, not church goers, and not in school. Chris and I were very happy with each other’s company, but we knew that making new friends was going to be important in the making of our new home.

Then Chris died.

I have a handful of friends that I met through Heather and Terry and I love them even though I hardly get a chance to see them. They all have lives that are bit more fabulous than my own with bedtimes after nine PM. I recognized that I needed at least one friend my own age with a similar bedtime, someone who would hang upside down in hammocks with me or go roller skating. I started my search for new friends by joining a meet-up social club. I joined two, actually. One was a photography group. I met with them once when they all gathered for a lunch at a Mediterranean place and the topic of discussion around the table was everything but photography. I was one of two women at the table and completely ignored after someone asked me what I do for a living. The guy at the head of the table kept a suspicious eye on me the whole time. That group didn’t really seem like a good fit. The other group was a non-themed group consisting of members of various ages who liked to visit museums and then go bar hoping. We were all a bit socially awkward with each other and I never ended up swapping contact information with anyone. At this point I was also deep into the world of online dating. Juggling new potential lovers and making new friends became a lot.

I stopped juggling.

I just stopped looking and immersed myself into doing the things I liked doing. I am one of those people who is happy to sit alone at dinner with a glass of wine and book or journal. I am also happy taking myself to a yoga class even if I don’t know anyone else there. Movies by yourself is like a vacation. I grew very comfortable with spending time with just myself as company. There’s always that saying floating around about finding the thing once you stop looking for the thing. This is basically what happened. I met Michael, but romantic partners are not always the friend you can drag to the roller rink or a yoga class. So, I went to camp and made those kinds of friends. All without looking or trying to fit in with the crowd. I’m pretty sure this came about because of all the time I had spent alone.

I have always felt that most (if not all) of those nearest and dearest people mentioned above are my nearest and dearest because of Chris. For probably a bit too long, I felt that there was no way I could have those people in my life if it were not for him. I was not smart enough on my own or charismatic or brilliant or funny enough. Good God, Chris was funny and I rode his shirttails. I know now that this simply is not true. It was never true. I remember our friend Tiffany saying once years ago about the day we all met; she said something about what she remembers most was how I walked right up to her and introduced myself and shook her hand. I pulled her into our flock. I was not just an accessory for Chris. We were partners in the true sense of the word and we were equally good at collecting interesting people.

I have a newish group of women friends and we went to an area roller rink for adult skate night earlier this week. We are a group of various ages though I’m sure I’m the oldest and we are also a group of various skating experience. I made an even newer friend (friend of a friend) at the rink who let me pester her about skates and wheels and I learned soooo much. When we had skated ourselves to exhaustion, Jenn drove us all to Andy’s Custard. It was finally just tolerable enough for us all to stand outside eating our treats and being ridiculous. Which we were. I have a whole wonderful series of photos of Lauren jumping into a picture I was I attempting to take. We laughed so much that I was sore the next day, though that could also be partly from skating. We made a pact over custard treats that adult skate night would be a regular thing and going on the calendar at least once a month. And I know it sounds so fucking stupid, but in this moment, not just surrounded but included by this smart and hilarious group, I realized that I am like-able.

I’m good enough. I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. -Stuart Smalley

In our late night confessions during Chris’s last few weeks, his only concern for me was that I would try to do too much on my own. This is not an unreasonable concern. Michael has the same concern because I will totally believe that I can lift the far too heavy thing or fix the thing I have no idea even works. I like to remind Michael that I have taken apart the lawnmower, replaced a belt and put it all back together without losing any fingers or needing to buy a new mower. I appreciate their concern, but I more capable than either of them realize. There was no discussions with Chris about the possibility of me moving back to Oklahoma or that for some reason I would be without a support system here in KCMO. He didn’t mention any of that because he knew what I didn’t. He knew that people would love me and just be there and that I would have no problems building a Kansas City family. It would have been nice if he’d told me that, but I also appreciate the time I spent learning all of this on my own.

Girls’ night out with roller skating, ice cream and hilarity was a balm for this soul that has been battered by winter and current events.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I started following Ella Emhoff last year partly because I think she helps me to stay in touch with what the young arthouse club is into these days. They are also very cool and the kind of young person I’d want to hang out with, meet for coffee and discuss needle point. They recently posted a thread in substack about writing down every positive and negative feeling you have each day and this reminded me of the complaint free bracelet I had to wear as an exercise during yoga teacher training. The idea of the bracelet was that you moved it from one wrist to the other every time you voiced a complaint. The goal was to not have to move the bracelet. The exercise for yoga teacher training was to wear the bracelet for one week and then write about your experience. This meant wearing the bracelet outside of our yoga space and into our regularly scheduled lives. The whole exercise inspired Chris to invest in a bracelet and then he bought a whole bunch of them to hand out to our friends.

Here is what we learned from that one week. We learned that we complain a lot about tiny insignificant shit. I’m not going to say that complaining is bad. Complaints are valid, but this exercise taught us what complaints are truly valid enough to be voiced. Am I whining or is this something I can constructively complain about to be fixed? It also helped us communicate our wants and needs to each other in a kind and thoughtful way so as not to hurt feelings. The bracelet taught me to really pause before voicing my complaint. In that pause, I would ask myself “Am I complaining about a problem of my own making? Is this something I have the ability to fix?”. Everything in life is a choice and this pause allowed me to choose my reaction to a problem. I abandoned the bracelet years ago, but every once in a while I pull it out of my jewelry box to wear for a day as a reminder.

It might be time to wear that bracelet again.

At the end of my yoga class this week, a student that only shows up once in a while to my class remarked on how much she really needed my class that day. She said “What is happening?! Wildfires and snowstorms and flooding and the current administration firing so many people. This year isn’t getting off to a good start.” But for forty five minutes, I had just provided space for her to set all of those thoughts aside and focus only on her physical well being. I like to think of it as nourishment or a moment of pause before reactions. I am providing sustenance to power us through future difficulties. Because, no, this year has not started out well and has created large messes that is forcing our communities to clean up and rebuild.

Just this week, the USDA rescinded grant money to the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, a local non-for-profit neighborhood improvement organizations who provides fresh vegetables and produce among other benefits to a low income area of Kansas City. A lot of that produce comes from urban growers and the majority demographic of the neighborhood is black. This is considered to be a DEI project by the Trump administration. These cuts and funding freezes are also having a hard hitting effect on rural farmers. Any farmer who signed up for a project supported by the USDA that pays farmers for planting up to 500 acres of cover crop are not getting their reimbursement money. This amounts to a $16,000-$17,000 dollar loss for each farmer. These are the people feeding this country and these are just small blips of horrors committed by this administration in this week alone.

My complaints against this administration are for problems not of my making and ones that I can do little to solve. I use the 5 Calls app daily to constructively voice my complaints and wishes. I make sure I know what is on the ballot and how those issues will impact my neighborhood. Then I make sure to vote at EVERY opportunity. Starting in May, my summer vegetables will come from local urban farms purchased at the Ivanhoe Farmers Market so that my dollars can benefit my community. I canceled my Amazon unlimited books subscription so that I can be more supportive of my local library and small business book shops. It is easy to get overwhelmed right now, but there are things we can do. Maybe you have a friend who recently lost their job with the National Parks Service. Hire them for a day to give you a tour of a park or invite them over for a meal. Maybe you have a friend who’s a veteran and struggling. They no longer have a crisis hotline to help them in times of need. Invite them out for coffee and a chat and just be a listener for them. Buy produce from local growers. Start building a secret room for hiding your LGTBQ+ friends when the time comes. Learn how to safely stock pile and administer the abortion pill.

These small acts of good make for bigger impacts that any of us can imagine. I am grateful that I have the ability to do small acts of good.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Sometime last month I noticed that the enamel on my Tiffany’s Vespa charm was about to come off. So, Michael and I took it into Tiffany’s for repair. The manager was his usual wonderfully charming self and worried that my charm could not be fixed. He said that not all of them were repairable which is unfortunate because they don’t make that charm any more. In fact, I purchased the last one that the Kansas City store had in stock. He did some checking and came back to me with a sigh of relief. It could be repaired and then we started to fill out the paperwork to send it off to Tiffany’s New York for repairs and cleaning. I picked it up yesterday and squealed with delight as I placed it back on my chain that also holds Chris’s wedding band.

They belong together.

I got in my car today to drive to work and the sounds from the radio alerted me that today is Valentine’s Day. I’ve fully transitioned over into my mom’s car. That happened unexpectedly this week and Michael has been doing little things to make the transition more appealing to me, like programming the radio with my usual radio stations. So the Bridge was talking about Valentine’s Day and how this is their day to raise money and bring awareness to organ donation. Right away a woman started telling her story of the tragic death of her husband and I made the decision to change the channel. I flipped it over to NPR figuring that even the news would be better than what was happening on the Bridge. Except I flipped it to NPR just in time for today’s Story Core.

When the Story Core series started on NPR, Chris and I immediately changed the name to Story Cry. Every Friday morning as we drove to work together, a Story Core would start playing and Chris and I would start crying. Today’s Story Core, Love and taxidermy: The story of Bud and Jackie Jones, turned me into a snotty mess. Bud and Jackie had been married over 65 years and after telling their story, The Story Core producers brought Jackie and her daughter back to talk about how life has been since Bud passed away last year. They both said the usual things about missing him, but Jackie said things that I have also said. Our relationships and our loves were very similar in emotion.

When I got to work, I sent a text to Michael asking him if he had heard the morning Story Core, knowing he usually had NPR playing on his way to work and we had left the house at the same time. He replied with the crying face emoji and an “I love you”. I replied back with “Thank you for tolerating me.” because I know I’m demanding and at times obstinate. I know that it can’t be easy for him to share me with a dead man, yet he does it. Then he said this:

You get to love two men that will love you forever. That has to count for something.

I am very lucky. And this will probably be as close as we get to sending Valentine’s to one another.

This week has been filled with reminders of how fortunate Michael and I are. His truck brakes failed, like FAILED, on his way to work Tuesday. He managed to safely park the truck in a parking lot, get a tow truck to take the truck into the repair shop that had just finished putting new tires on Mom’s car (I’ve got to come up with a new name!) and drive that car into work. Not only are we fortunate enough to have a ‘spare’ vehicle, we can take the financial hit of the repairs. It just eats into the Paris fund, but I have no problem with putting beans on the menu for multiple days in a week. We’ve had a few unexpected nickel and dime moments recently and each time we’ve found ourselves dolling out money for the unexpected, Michael has said “We’re going to Paris no matter what!”

This week in Duolingo I learned Je vais a Paris.

Nous allons a Paris.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

In the past couple of years my employer has added some paid holidays that are not observed by everyone. Meaning schools are open, as well as most business, but there’s no mail or garbage pick-up. These are paid holidays that I have to myself because Michael has to go to work and I usually spend those days cleaning the house. Last time this happened, I used the day to have blood work done. This time though, I planned ahead and sent a text to Nurse Jenn asking if she also had the day off. She did! So we met for breakfast and then went to the zoo.

We went to the zoo without children!

Our zoo opened a new aquarium recently and I had heard all the rave reviews, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to see it for myself. The Cabbage has aged out of being wowed with zoo trips and Michael and I never seem to think to go just for ourselves. We get free zoo passes all the time because we live in Jackson county and some of our taxes help pay for the zoo. The passes have expiration dates, but it doesn’t keep them from piling up in the magnetic clip on the fridge. I yanked out the most recent valid pass, threw away the rest and Nurse Jenn and I walked into the zoo for free!

Without children!

I know I keep emphasizing the part about no children, but seriously, have you ever been to the zoo with kids? It should be fun and it’s not not fun, but it is work. It’s work because now you’re in charge of carrying all of the things, dealing with snacks, hand washing, meltdowns, not losing the child in Africa, making the walk from Africa back to the parking lot while dragging the hot, tired dirty child. Zoo Africa is just about the same distance away as actual Africa. It’s the furthest spot on the map from the parking lot and no matter how well you think you’ve planned it, you are always leaving it during the hottest, driest part of the day. And children do not think it is funny when you start singing Toto’s Africa.

Because children do not have any senses of humor.

This time, we didn’t have to think about or be responsible for anyone but ourselves. Though, Jenn did graciously cart my extra camera lens around in her bag. We took our time in the aquarium and then wandered out to only look at the exhibits we wanted to see, like the elephants and the rhinos. Then when we were ready to leave, we just left. No one cried or whined or begged to be carried. We just walked ourselves out of Africa while singing Africa out to my car. It was positively lovely and I used my camera, both lenses even! I don’t think I’ve ever had a more relaxed, carefree time at the zoo and I know a lot of that had to do with the company I keep.

The photographer me is very grateful to have had time at the zoo when there was very little traffic. I could have spent hours with my camera pointed at jellyfish or that one elephant playing with a stream of water coming down from a building. There was not a moment when I had to wait patiently to the side for someone to get out of my shot. Okay, maybe there was one. The octopus, Arthur, was pretty active and popular, but that was the only time I had to wait my turn. When we got out of the car, I said “Now which lens do I want for today?” and Jenn took that question away by tucking my zoom lens into her bag. There was a moment when we were near the elephants when I said “Okay, I think it’s time for a lens change!” and those words felt so professional that I thought maybe I know what I’m doing. I even had my own assistant!

Look, I know that some people are anti-zoos and I get it. But there are zoos out there that do the zoo thing really well and I think our zoo can be added to the list. When you walk into a zoo exhibit and are standing in awe of the sites and accessible knowledge around you, then you’re in zoo that is doing things right. For me, seeing all of the creatures in our aquarium feels me with wonder and amazement. Our planet is fucking amazing and I want to keep it that way. I am grateful to have easy access to this kind of inspiration and I’m really grateful I have people I can share that awe and enthusiasm with.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I avoided the news and the TV on Tuesday, but I did glance at my phone early the next morning just before heading out the door for Josephine’s walk. So I ended up walking with the knowledge that this country had chosen a convicted criminal over a black woman. I walked with a sunken heart and a weight of exhaustion settling into my bones. My thoughts turned to the work ahead, the volunteer work and monthly donations to come, things I could do to help those in my community feel safe. I thought about all the government programs that he has threatened to cut and what that will mean for scientific research. One of the members of his administration has already announced the plan to cut 10,000 scientists from the FDA. My friend Sarah may lose her job as a fair housing investigator with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a department that is on his list of cuts. Who will advocate for those seeking affordable housing? There are many things that benefit our communities that are at risk and I had to really ask myself if I had it in me to step in and help those who will be abandoned by this country.

I was born an activist. For as long as I can remember I’ve been raising money to save this planet, to find a cure for AIDS, to accessible healthcare for all, to public television that provides educational resources to everyone and on and on and on. For as long as I can remember I have been advocating for my communities and the importance of truly caring for each other. I have done this work before. I can do this work again. We do what we need to do protect and help the ones we love. On top of my monthly donations to Planned Parenthood and PBS, I will be adding monthly donations to OurSpotKC.

Our Spot's services empower youth, provide LGBTQ+ resources, and create safe spaces that foster growth and inclusion.

Our kids are scared. A fellow blogger shared a social media post from her daughter where she said “I am scared for my immigrant parents.” The new administration has plans for a denatualization project that would remove citizenship from immigrants (Chris’s mom is an immigrant). We are already seeing hateful rhetoric being thrown at people for being gay, trans, black, hispanic, not white. That rhetoric stands to increase with the new administration, particularly with plans to remove policies and rights that have been put into place to protect those people. There have been ‘friends’ on Facebook posting vague posts about not understanding why some people are unfriending them. This is why. It is because you chose someone who will put their lives in danger and they no longer consider you to be a safe person to be themselves around. No one should have to fear being their true self. Our kids should not be scared and it makes feel a little sick knowing that grown adults have done that, that they have created an environment of fear. My top priority is to change that and I believe that OurSpotKC is the perfect place to do that.

Josephine and I took our usual path to Tower Park that morning and I watched a layer of fog roll across the open areas. I could smell the campfire that had already been started at the main pavilion. There’s a handful of homeless that sleep in that pavilion at night and every morning, the first to wake starts a fire in one of the metal barrels nearby. This particular morning was chilly and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had taken turns keeping the fire going throughout the night. Josephine and I made our way to the north side of the park, the sky was still dark with just the tiniest hint of light at the horizon. But I could still see some stars. Sometimes I am surprised by the number of stars I can see in the city. The park is lit with motion sensor or timed lights and often they end up shutting off right as I’m walking up. I am an invisible woman. At one point I glanced up at the sky just in time to witness a star shoot across and burn out. To the see the stars at all in the city is a treat. To witness a shooting star in the city is a gift, but in this instance possibly a message from the universe.

The witnessing of a shooting star is a rare, awe inspiring moment. It is an event that causes us to close our eyes and wish for something good. I am grateful for that moment in the park, the timing of that shooting star and my opportunity to wish for a better world. That moment was also a reminder of the simplicity and power of ‘one’. Some of you may remember that video Chris posted oh so many years ago of the one guy in the crowd dancing like no one was watching. It didn’t take long for a crowd of dancers to form around him. The tiniest stone still makes a ripple when you toss it in the pond. All of these actions seem small, but they end up having huge effects. This was just the spark I needed to keep my almost burnt out flame of hope going.

I am grateful for hope.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

For many people, today marks the first day of their 21-day gratitude challenge. You may see these challenges posted in memes throughout all the social media formats. It is a daily gratitude practice that leads up to what Americans consider to be the most important day of gratitude, Thanksgiving. It is a lovely way to celebrate the month of November. I believe it also a great way to start a regular habit of daily gratitude. This is not how my gratitude practice began. My practice had nothing to do with Thanksgiving and I had to go to a real dark, woe is me place before realizing I needed a gratitude practice. There was a lot of digging deep in those days and building up of good habits, habits that helped to keep me alive after Chris passed. Some might call those habits life skills, but all of the writing, photography, and the continued quest for joy all started from a simple daily gratitude practice.

I’m not going to lie; the month of October was not an easy one. There was a lot of traveling. There were many tedious and stressful moments. There was illness..or is illness. Michael and I are still coughing and I really have no idea how much more snot I can blow out of my nose. I have an endless supply of mucous right now. But even though October was difficult I can pick out something from each day that made me smile or laugh. Each day there was something I was grateful for. Kleenex. A sunset. Pain au chocolat. Time with a good friend. My gratitude list is long and continues to grow.

Tonight, will be the first Friday in weeks where I’ve slept in my own bed. I will get up tomorrow morning and go about my usual Saturday chore routine, slowly bringing in some normalcy. Michael has been taking care of grocery shopping and laundry and the general household maintenance while I was away. There was a time in our relationship when leaving him to take care of all the things would leave me feeling guilty. There was also a time when Michael was very vocal about being inconvenienced. We’ve both had to do some work to change this way of thinking and behavior. I am grateful that while we might be slow learners, we are learning to work together as a team. I am grateful for Michael’s help during all the chaos of last month. I don’t think that without my gratitude practice, I would have been able to recognize his help in picking up the slack while I was gone.

There’s a lot of good things I wouldn’t notice and would go missing without my gratitude practice. There’s a lot good stuff that I would take for granted. When I remember the person I was before I started the practice, I cringe. Not only was I unhappy, I just didn’t like myself. I’m embarrassed by that past version of me. Sure, I could give dozens of excuses for my unhappiness like finances and living conditions and devastating loss that I just didn’t know how to handle. But my unhappiness leaked out of me and onto others. That feels unforgivable. I felt ugly and recognizing that ugliness, I knew I had to make a change. I could not change my living conditions or too much of my finances. I could not bring back that which was lost. But I could change my mindset. The gratitude practice was the beginning to that change in mindset.

Just something to consider if you’re thinking about starting your own gratitude practice.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Last Saturday, the Cabbage had piano lessons at 11:30. Her teacher holds lessons on the second floor of one the old warehouses in the historic West Bottoms. Sometimes I tag along, sometimes I’m busy doing other things. Usually, Michael and I wander around some of the antique shops in the area while the Cabbage is having their lesson. Then we’ll go have lunch somewhere after lessons. On this particular Saturday, I took my camera with me thinking I’d be inspired by the old, rundown buildings in the West Bottoms.

I’ve done this before, taken my camera along when visiting this area of the city. What has happened more often than not is that I don’t ever really take any pictures. I get distracted poking around a shop or Michael suggests getting hot beverages and then I’m holding a coffee and trying to wield my camera at the same time. It seemed like that same sort of thing was going to happen last Saturday too. I took a few snaps, drank a macchiato and then wandered around a shop that mostly sells houseplants. But something changed after lunch. We ended up at an old deli in downtown where the Cabbage ordered a slice of cheese pizza with extra cheese and a side of cottage cheese and Michael and I had a discussion about how badly we did or did not need to go to Costco. It was decided that need was not great and our time would be better spent wandering around the downtown public library.

The Kansas City Downtown Public Library is often on a must-see list. The parking garage is painted on one side to look like a giant bookshelf of books. The library itself is housed in an old bank, the vault is visible on basement level where the film and music section is housed. That floor also contains a display of Orval Hixon’s photos, including the one I shared here earlier this week. Every floor holds a treasure other than books and every floor has a window (or three or twenty) that provides an interesting view of the downtown skyline. And I had my camera out for all of it. I took my time, often letting Michael and the Cabbage get way ahead of me, often just wandering off from the group that was us. It was the most time I had spent consciously taking photos with my Nikon since maybe our trip to New Orleans back in March.

It made me breathe out in a sigh of relief.

This has been a very good week. Three days this week, I have ridden my bicycle to work. Michael installed a new and improved basket onto Valerie. My old Ikea one broke in a most annoyingly spectacular way last week. There has been time for my yoga practice and I made an edible loaf of sourdough bread over the weekend that was good enough to soak in the Sunday’s pot of beans and greens. I got us tickets to an event hosted by The Friends of Library this evening where we will picnic in Union Hill Cemetery and listen to ghost stories from some voice actor. When we still were not eating in restaurants because of the pandemic, Michael and I grabbed food to go from an area restaurant and had a picnic in this cemetery and it was one of my favorite things we did during the pandemic or ever. So I’m ending the week doing one my most favorite things.

This is week has been a reprieve from the chaos of my October Calendar, a moment of peace before I start running around like chicken for the next three weeks. I’m grateful for this calm before the storm.