THANKFUL FRIDAY

Gratitude in list form.

• For three out five days, I have ridden my bicycle to work. Last week after the last ride of that week, I had 585 miles on my odometer and I told Michael that I wanted to put 600 miles on the bike before the end of riding season. I did that and more. Honestly, I didn’t set a high bar for myself but at this point setting any kind of bar and then reaching that bar is spectacular. I am just as proud of myself now as if I had set the bar at 700 miles. I also learned that I do not like 45 degree temperatures for bike riding, but maybe if I wear I hat I will like it a little. I am grateful for these rides not just for physical health but also for my mental health.

• We are having some issues with Mom and my sister is struggling to get those issues addressed. There have been talks of moving her to some different places. Hospice has been suggested and before my sister met with hospice, she asked for a list of questions to ask. I paused and then remembered that my lovely friend, Lauren, is a hospice nurse. I asked her some questions and she responded back immediately and with some really helpful information. I am so thankful for Lauren. Also, Mom is better and the hospice care is helping. I am grateful for my siblings, especially my sister, who have been dealing with all of this.

• A friend/colleague’s mom routinely makes us batches of what we call Magic Bars. They are a delicious chocolate nutty cake bar. He brought them in once and we all went crazy over them so now his mom brings a batch of them every time she visits and we love her for it. Those magic bars got me through some tough days this week and I am grateful.

• Last Friday, Josephine got a haircut and an allergy shot. She’s extra sassy cute right now and no longer itchy. We have had morning cuddles this week since she is back to sleeping under the comforter. Our bedtime routine after Michael turns out the light is for me to roll to my side and then lift the edge of the comforter so Josephine can dive in, which she does with great enthusiasm. It’s adorable and she’s wonderful.

• Last night, the cat ran across the living room and pounced into my lap. Once he settled, Michael and I were talking about how the cat should not be alive. Then Michael looked up the average lifespan for an indoor/outdoor cat and discovered he most definitely should not be alive. The average lifespan for an indoor/outdoor cat is four to five years. Albus is at least ten years old and he was hit by a car once. I don’t think he ventures too far from the house these days, but I caught him eating a squirrel in the backyard on Sunday. So he’s still doing wild animal cat stuff. I’m grateful he’s still around and there is a sneaky satisfaction in knowing he prefers my lap to anyone else’s in the house.

• I end every yoga class by telling my students to have gratitude to themselves for being present in class and doing kind things for their bodies. This is something I need to tell myself each night when I lay down in my bed for the night. It particularly holds true for this week. I did something kind for my body every day this week and I was fully present in each day’s tasks. I am ending this week with gratitude to myself.

Usually when I end up writing my gratitude post in list form it means I’m struggling. I think, like many of us, I’m just barely keeping my head a float. Last night Michael repurposed Sunday’s leftovers into our dinner. Then he said “Look at us! Using our leftovers like we’re living in the Depression Era.” I reminded him that we are currently in a depression era, but we laughed about it. Really this is all we can do. Basically, we’re fine. Existentially, we’re struggling.

If I’m stuck, I’ll start a list. The thing about making a gratitude list is that once I write down one thing, I come up with more things to add to the list. It’s like peddling a bike up a hill, starts out slow and there is some effort required. But that moment you reach the top of the hill and then start your descent down the other side feels like a joy ride. This list is an ‘in spite of’ list and the only way to beat the algorithms designed to divide us is to flood our social spaces with goodness, peer reviewed science, and multiple sourced news.

My gratitude is my activism.

AGING AND WOMEN AND PINK PONIES

I hadn’t planned to go the Chappell Roan pop-up concert even though I wanted to go. I glanced at the concert ticket lottery but dismissed it immediately. First, I’m going to Paris. This has been my mantra all year whenever I think about spending money. Secondly, I lacked the energy required just to get the tickets. Then a couple of weeks ago Melissa sent me a text saying her friend had an extra ticket and asked if I wanted to go with them to the Saturday concert. My heart screamed “YES!” while the rest of me said “Let me consult the financial advisor.” Which used to be a magic 8-ball until Michael showed up. I have been teaching extra yoga and I used that as my leverage and that’s how I ended up on the Liberty Memorial Lawn with about 30,000 people Saturday night, dancing around to the tunes of Chappell Roan.

I took very few pictures and most of those were not great, but I was more focused on being present than filming. The concert was great. The ADA services could have been better. Melissa was able to see most of the concert from a big screen, but we had limited access to food and water. Mostly water. The water station was in the middle of a grassy median surrounded with curb, no ramps. So….there’s room for improvements, but all in all we had a really great time. The people watching was spectacular and spotting bare butts (lots of wardrobe choices that included thongs and ass-less chaps) became a drinking game. After the show, Melissa and I sat in the backseat of her friends’ car doing running commentary on the poor choices in footwear for those who walked miles to the concert. We watched one girl take off her boots and walk down the street in her socks. Melissa and I could both recall moments in our youths where we were that girl in sock covered feet, walking down a street.

Oh…youth. I don’t envy it but I envy it a little and here’s why.

During my youthful concert going days, women artists where not the big show. They were the opening act, but not the big 30,000 sold out ticket show. Women were never even marketed for such a thing. Women I’ve seen in concert because they were the opener include Traci Chapman and Annie Lennox. Annie fucking Lennox was an opening act for the Police reunion tour. I would have paid those ticket prices just to see her. Sarah McLaughlin built Lilith Fair while people were telling her that no one is going to spend money on concert tickets where women were the headliners. Lilith Fair toured for two years with sold out shows at every venue. The media was merciless the whole time mocking the event with terms like “lesbian fair” and making fun of the artists based on their appearances. Does any one remember how crazy people went over Paula Cole’s unshaved armpits? As if this is something we should even care about, but it sticks. That gets filed away into the brain of a young girl into a folder labeled ‘Never’. That folder holds all the rules for our bodies. Never get fat. Never be too skinny. Never have hair growing on arms, pubic area or armpits.

It’s a big fat file.

But the current generation of youth gives zero fucks about that stuff. They fully embrace all that is their bodies and it is lovely and beautiful. And quit frankly, makes me jealous because of the amount of time spent wasted as a young woman worrying about some aspect of my appearance. Granted, I have now reached an age where I also give zero fucks about how my body might look to others, but that wasn’t always the case. There is so much about being a woman that involves concealment of one’s self, wrapping ourselves up for invisibility but also approval. In 1991, Demi Moore posed nude with a large pregnant belly for the cover of Vanity Fair and people crawled out of the walls to bitch and scream about the indecency of it all. “How dare she?!?” they cried out. “How obscene!” they yelled. Baby Tate, the opener for Chappell Roan on Saturday, stepped out onto the stage in a two piece outfit that showed off a 34 week pregnancy belly and the crowd screamed with joy. They basked in the glow of it. As they should have.

The frustrating part is how long it took us to get here, to a place where woman can be truly happy in their own skin without the judgment. Okay, I know there are still people out there who like to leave their judgy comments about appearances. And yeah, I know a number of those people are women, but those women, those people, don’t get far with their comments before others come in to defend. They quickly get shut down because the world is filled with enough negative noise, we don’t want to hear any more of it. I do not have time or brain space to have the audacity to judge another person’s appearance or read other’s judgy comments.

And I heard that there's a special place
Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day - Pink Pony Club, Chappell Roan

The Pink Pony Club doesn’t have to be a place of fiction or an imaginary club. It doesn’t have to be delegated to one tiny crowded building. We may be taking baby steps against the patriarchy and the hate mongers who call themselves christians, but we are making progress.

We are building a Pink Pony world.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a lecture by Dr. Jane Goodall at OCU in 2007. Some people flip out upon seeing a celebrity, requesting autographs and selfies. They define ‘celebrity’ as a person famous in the entertainment business. While Dr. Goodall was not a famous entertainer, to me she was a celebrity scientist. Watching Dr. Goodall in Nature documentaries on PBS as a child fueled my curiosity and wonder of this amazing planet. I was raised on the cusp of that whole “Girls Can DO Anything” movement when it was just getting it’s footing. No one ever really said to me that girls can do anything, but no one ever said to me I couldn’t do stuff because I am/was a girl and Dr. Jane Goodall was proof that women could be scientists.

She was also proof that a woman can move through the scientific community with grace and passion.

Jane’s willingness to collaborate was critical for the success of all our work. She was a true scientist. - Dr. Beatrice Hahn

I was so giddy that day I went to hear Dr. Goodall speak. I was like a teen going to see their favorite boy band. I’m surprised I didn’t attempt to cosplay my outfit to match something she would have worn out in the field. Being a fan of a celebrity or sports team or anything happens when the individual forms a phycological connection to that person, place or thing because they can identify with that person place or thing. I am not one to attend vigils or bemoan the loss of many a celebrity. Sure, it’s sad and the talent and entertainment they provided for the world will be missed, but I don’t get choked up over it. I was deeply saddened when I heard the news of Dr. Goodall’s passing. I even cried at my desk and this is when I understood the phycology of a fan. Dr. Goodall was someone with whom I could identify.

My friend Lauren said “A part of me is grateful she doesn’t have to live to see the world come further apart.” It is true that Dr. Goodall was a champion for this planet and while her voice was quiet, her message came through as if spoken through a megaphone. We are terrible stewards of this planet and if I were a god believer, this in itself would be enough to abandon us. I mean, it was the very first thing he gave to us, this divinely appointed act to care for this planet and we’ve done the opposite. So maybe there is something to be said for Lauren’s gratitude. Dr. Goodall lived a long, full and active life right up to the end and she made good use of her time here doing good and leading with kindness.

his alone is an attribute to be admired.

I am truly grateful to have had that opportunity to hear her speak, but I am also grateful to have lived in her timeline. She greatly influenced my science trajectory, but now I’m thinking of her methods in activism, how she advocated for science and the planet without screaming and was still heard. If you speak with authority in a quiet voice, people tend to lean in to hear you. She was a master at this tactic. I’ve started following more scientific journals (the real ones with peer reviewed articles) on Instagram. I’m changing my tactics in the battle against misinformation by flooding my Insta stories with science from those peer reviewed accounts. No more arguing or doing the research to fact check other’s latest dumb meme. Just flooding the interwebs with actual science.

I am learning to speak quietly with authority.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Something bigger than a bee zipped by me during one of my morning walks this week and it took me a moment to realize what I had seen or was seeing. It was a hummingbird moth and it stuck around, competing with the bumble bees for the nectar in these Lantana. But briefly. Hummingbird moths move quickly and do not hang out, savoring their meals. They’re nothing like the hummingbirds that frequent my feeder. I have one that sometimes just perches there for long minutes at a time. The hummingbird moth never perches and is extremely difficult to capture on camera.

I was lucky.

This particular hummingbird moth is also known as a hawk-moth or sometimes the Sphinx moth. Those large brown or green caterpillars with posterior horns that you you sometimes pull off your dill or tomato plants eventually turn into one of these moths. They’re great pollinators and according to my research, they are not rare. Yet, they seem a bit rare and elusive to me. This is the first one I’ve seen all summer and this is the very last week of summer.

This is the very last week of summer.

Early in the year, I struggled with finding a reason to do much of anything. All I could do was worry about my job and what would I do if I lost this job. The more hits and restrictions that this administration put out on the NIH and the CDC, the more I stressed. I knew that there would be a trickle down effect in their restrictions and worried about that impact. As a result, I threw myself into my work like never before, to the point of having dreams where I am troubleshooting microscope problems. Someone at work joked with me about this recently and said I was living the dream. While I am not as worried about losing this job as I was at the beginning of the year, I am still very busy.

The threats are different now. The disappointments are greater. I never realized the number of people I know who have been hiding their own homophobia and racism, while calling that hateful rhetoric “the Lord’s work.” I always think the best of people and then they go and show their true colors by posting some stupid meme of support for the latest Nazi in the spotlight. I wonder how it is I could have believed they were good people to begin with. And for some time now, that disappointment of knowing people who support racism and bigotry, has been a weight, an embarrassment really.

Now I think about that hummingbird moth, zipping around the Lantana and sharing space with bumbble bees. It stayed focused on it’s one task of gathering nectar. What task can I stay focused on? It’s certainly not changing people’s minds or removing the sludge and hate from their souls. I’m not a miracle worker, but I am pebble. I know what happens when a pebble is dropped into a body of water. I know about wave theory and objects in motion. Supporting and helping my community to help and support young people in the LGBTQ+ communities creates a wave. Supporting my local TV stations like PBS ensures that I have access to unbiased news sources and educational programs creates a wave of knowledge. Supporting and voting for candidates who serve their communities by promoting policies (health care, public transportation, appropriate taxes, school systems) that better our communities, leads to even bigger waves.

This year will be over in a blink. All of this is temporary. I truly believe that if we focus on caring for those people this administration is targeting (Brown people, Black people, LGTBQ+ people, our unhoused people, our people in poverty) we can make great waves of good change. But in order to do that, we’re going to have to filter out the noise coming at us through social media and that includes some people you thought you knew. We cannot control other’s action, but we can control our own actions and how we respond to those actions.

I am finding ways to make my heart feel as light as a hummingbird moth while being a pebble.

WHAT SHOULD WE BE TALKING ABOUT

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

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

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

Places that can use our help right now:

• Pride Haven KC

• Lion House KC

• Our Spot KC

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

And I’m one hundred percent here for it.