THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday morning, I got up at 5:00AM to walk Josephine. I knew it would probably be our only walk this week. Our weather is tumultuous at the moment, with rain and thunderstorms, hail and possibly snow this evening. It is such a mess that Chad and Jess canceled their visit. They travel in a camper van these days and driving in high winds is terrifying. We’ve penciled in some time in June, but only with a very light pencil. Any way, right now it is impossible to know if you need your coat outside or not but everything is blooming into lovely shades of purples and pinks. While Tuesday morning was a bit brisk, Josephine and I had a lovely walk around the neighborhood.

It had been decided weeks ago that April 1st was going to be our next Ladies Who Skate night, but as the day went by, the texts started trickling with cancelations. Eventually it came down to me, Jenn and her oldest, Salem. Jenn and I are very similar about bedtimes. We both agree that a weeknight 8:00 PM skate date is a challenge, particularly when your typical bedtime is 9:00 PM. Sometime around six, Jenn sent a text asking if I still wanted to go and I could hear it. This was going to be the moment where we play the game of who says no. I did not hesitate in my yes even though I had been up and moving since 5:00 AM and here’s why. I recently bought and installed new bearings on my skates and I wanted to test them out. Also, while I was tired and could have easily gone straight to bed at six in the evening, I knew with my whole heart that doing this skate night was good for me.

It’s good for all of us.

And Jenn and I are not amazing skaters. We’re basic and we know it, but the minute the wheels are on our feets and we’re on the rink, the weight of our day, our lives, lifts up and floats away. So, even though I was tired, I said “Yes!” Tuesday evening, the three of us skated around and around the rink for a good hour. We talked yelled with each other over the music about books and movies. We danced and laughed. We marveled at the not so basic skaters on the rink. Then when we’d had enough, we sat on the carpeted floor, taking off our skates and putting the date in our calendars for the next skate night. We finished our evening with ice cream and singing along with ABBA on the car radio. In that moment, I swore to myself that no matter how tired I might be, I would not skip out on a skate night.

Nazi Germany called them Storm Troopers or Brown Shirts. They would come and just take German citizens ‘away’ for speaking out, for their religion, for the color of their skin and hair. In the US, we call them ICE. We live in a country where a group of men without identification can literally snatch people off of our streets because they protested to end genocide or their skin is not white. These people have legal status and the rights to free speech, yet they are still being deported to horrible conditions. We live in country where a growing number of citizens cannot afford health care and our government has fired thousands of federal health workers. These are people who keep our foods safe, protect us from diseases and aid in research. Those workers are there to help those who cannot afford healthcare. This administration has made it very clear that they do not care about the poor, even the middle class, or people that do not serve them. They behave in a manner opposite of Christ like. What they are doing is wrong. Not left or right. It is wrong. Meanwhile there are those people so adamant in their support of a Tyrant that they are more concerned with what celebrity may or may not be a communist than how they are going to afford the car parts for a vehicle when it breaks down. So while we’re repeating bad history, we’re going to throw in the whole McCarthy era witch hunts too.

I wonder what it is like to have that kind of privilege.

Being a witness to the dismantling of a country I believe in, a country my family sacrificed a precious member to, is unbearable. The constant calling of senators and representative, the micro aggressive email sending, the constant research and digging for the absolute truth is exhausting. This feeling is a million times worse than that time Chris and I did campaign work in Oklahoma. I have a constant sense of drowning and feelings of job insecurity because what they are doing will have some sort of impact on my livelihood. These are incredibly dark times and because of that, no matter how tired my body may feel, I am going to say yes to activities that bring me joy. If art and finding the good in people are my weapons against tyranny, then joy is the fuel for those weapons.

No one knows more than I that life is short. It’s too short to waste on this administration’s bullshit, for sure. So I’m getting out the camera. I’m sitting with my new Fortune Cookie Journal and I’m lacing up my skates. I’m grasping onto every opportunity for joyful protest. I am grateful for those people in my life who get it and who understand how we are propping each other up.

Hey Forrest, I'm going to lean right back up against you and you'll lean right back up against me that way we don't have to sleep with our heads in the mud".  Bubba Blue

Sometimes the simplest thing we can do is lean against one another.

LOVE THURSDAY

Toe pick

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The day is cold and overcast. It is the kind of day that is best spent curled up in a nest of pillows and blankets, a mug of hot cocoa within easy arms reach and a good book. This is really what I'd like to do today. I've just started Cheryl Strayed's Wild and after slugging through the first chapter dealing with the death of her mom, I'm ready to move on to the hiking the trail part. That first chapter was a hard read. Her mom's cancer was the kill you fast kind like Chris's. I just want to read on to the grueling part of her slugging her way along the Pacific Crest Trail with zero previous hiking experience. Instead, I get up and go to work. It is the day of our department Christmas party. We are going ice-skating, which is the opposite of the snuggled laziness that I would have liked. 

I know I have been ice-skating at least once or twice. It seems like something that I would have done in a church activity. Yet it's something that happened so long ago, I don't remember if I was any good at it. Ask me about roller skating. I was a roller skating princess with my own skates and pink pomp-poms on those skates. I could do the limbo and the Hokie-pokie (that's what it's all about). I could skate forwards and backwards and figure eights. Every Tuesday night was dollar night for American Airlines kids and that's where we all went and skated to Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Michael Jackson, and Cindi Lauper. Sometimes the DJ would toss in some disco, but mostly it was everything you can remember from the 80s. If it wasn't Tuesday, I'd be at the roller rink for some kid's birthday party or yet another church outing. Those Southern Baptists may not be into dancing, but we could out activity any dance party. If it wasn't the roller rink, we all ended up at Crystal's Pizza Place. The pizza and spaghetti were good. Mom loved the salad bar. Dad loved listening to the live entertainment from Hank The Bear. I loved playing skee-ball and watching the Three Stooges in the little theater. All of those places are gone now. I think there was a fire at Crystal's and they decided to take the insurance money and run. The roller rink is now a carpet store. 

I was good at roller skating. I was unsure of how I'd be at ice-skating. Earlier, when we discussed the idea of going ice-skating, someone in our group said "Of course you'll do fine Cindy. Of all of us in the group, you'll probably pick it up the fastest." This is their assumption of me, that I am nimble from years of yoga and have the balancing skills of a cat. Well it's true that years of yoga has made me bendy and I've always had mad balancing skills. I'm not sure if this qualifies me as a natural for the ice and as I carefully hobbled my way towards the ice rink I was feeling pretty positive that I lacked all qualities needed for ice skating. A wave of insecurity and fear flooded me. I am at an age where if I fall, I could really really hurt myself. I could break a hip. Things don't heal back as quickly or as easily as they did ten or twenty years ago. I am no spring chicken. I clung to the wall as I took my first tentative steps onto the ice and I knew I'd be clinging to that wall for the entire outing. I looked up and saw others from my group, ones who had gone on and on about how horrible they were going to be on the ice, setting off right out onto the rink without a glance at the wall. They just stepped out. No fear. And then I thought "WAIT A MINUTE!" I am that no fear girl. I am the cliff diver. I am the daredevil speed demon on a scooter. I am the one that says "Yes! Let's do this!" What the fuck was I doing clinging to this stupid railing?!?!

And so, I let go. 

Happy Love Thursday.