I'M LEARNING FRENCH BUT DREAMING IN JAPANESE

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

Sort of.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THANKFUL FRIDAY

8/52 Buddha Board Project Fading octopus

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Prints have been ordered for my April showing and the large prints finally arrived this week. I was the most worried about these because I have ordred large prints before from some place different and they did not turn out well. The photo paper was the desired size, but the actual photo printed onto that paper was smaller. So when I placed my order for six 16x20 prints (costing me almost $100), I set the computer down and headed to the bathroom to throw up. I’ve been waking up in night sweats and mumbling ‘disaster!’ with a jolt of panic because I have had yet another nightmare about picture sizes. When they finally showed up, I hesitated in opening them, but they are good. Actually…they are really good. I am fascinated by the one of a Japanese beetle. The size of the image makes it possible to see the battle scars and scratches on his beetle armor. I am happy with these prints.

Of course, now that this worry has been removed from my plate, others have taken its place. Wednesday night, as I drove to teach my yoga class, I started to feel overwhelmed by all of the things. I have spent every spare moment this week taking online courses for CPR training and I will spend four hours on Saturday in more CPR training, which feels like a lot of CPR training. My class that I’m teaching at the Y is struggling with attendance and I have started toying with the idea of finding an alternative teaching venue. We have been going through the process of refinancing the house and it is taking months. I have called twice, been sent to voicemail and emailed twice about what is going on and I have heard nothing back. I made Michael cancel spa-birthday because our debt is out of control and a spa day is an inappropriate use of funds right now. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to hang pictures on a brick wall or figured out when I am supposed to get into the building to hang pictures. I need an HDMI cable and a way to hook up my laptop or even my iPad to a projector. I need to start putting together my lesson plan for my photography workshop.

Shut up! I know the workshop is not until June!

Michael has a comedy showcase Sunday night. March has Michael headed to San Fransisco for a conference and then he comes back to spring break. We need to pick up a chicken coop that JP has so generously gifted us. I need to figure out something really nice to give or do for him and his partner. I am behind on keeping up with people (Terry, how are you doing? You doing okay?). I think I’m volunteering for the AIDS Walk Open in a few weeks. At least, it is on the calendar. All of these things need to happen on top of normal day to day chores. I still don’t know who I’m voting for in the primaries AND I just got an email with a DIY video on how to tighten up your turkey neck that I have to watch. I also need to schedule my yearly exam, a haircut for Josephine, and an eye exam. When I think about all of it at the same time, my chest tightens and I struggle to draw a deep breath. I have been focusing on making mental lists and categories each morning during meditation to keep myself from hyperventilating. I have been mentally filing stuff into two major categories: things that I can do and things I have no control over.

Quite a bit of all of those worries have easily been placed into the things I have no control over category.

Thank goodness I got a firm handle on my meditation practice, particularly at a time when I have decided to fill my calendar with a whole bunch of things. The things I can do category is organized by timeline and what needs to happen first. I imaging these things in a manilla file folder, placed in order, and on the outside I’ve written with a fat Sharpie “SLOW YOUR ROLL”. I have assignments but those assignments are not due tomorrow. I am not, nor have I ever been, a procrastinator. I invested in a calendar so that I could keep myself organized and on task. All of the things that need to be accomplished and that I have control over will get done in the time it needs to be.

Slow your roll. And take a deep cleansing breath.

I’ve got this.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Morning

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Last week, I left work early to drive down to visit my Mom for the weekend. Since I was leaving early, I decided to take the old back way to her house and avoid paying a toll. It adds a little bit of extra time to my drive but does seem to be more scenic. I made it to Pleasanton Kansas where I was hit with a torrential down pour. It was raining so hard that I could not see the road ahead of me and I had to slow down to crawl. I was driving in the kind of weather that made me start to worry about flash flooding and tornados, but I just kept on going. I finally made it through the worst of it, but it continued to rain as I drove across Kansas.

There’s a section of this trip where I turn off the main highway and take a back country two-lane highway for several miles. I worried as I made the exit if I was making the right choice. I know that this part of the state is still recovering from flooding and I started to worry that I would end up hitting a section of road that was underwater and I’d have to turn around. I did see fields flooded with water, but the road remained clear. As I passed through Oologah the rain had completely cleared but I realized that I would be crossing through Tulsa right at rush hour. So then I started to wonder if I should exit the highway and drive through Collinsville to hook up with a different highway that would take me more around Tulsa rather than through Tulsa. I passed the Collinsville exit, stayed the course and had zero problems or slow downs as I crossed through Tulsa to Mom’s house.

How often do we all worry about the road ahead?

I never set out to worry about these things. It is not my intention worry, but it is still something I do. Most of the time the worry is not a crippling kind of worry that will render unable to make any decision or leave the bed. I still worry and I don’t think I am alone. It is part of our sympathetic nervous system. At one point the worry was pretty basic: food, water, shelter, avoiding predators. As all of those things became easier to come by (and in the case of predators, avoid) our sympathetic nervous system shifted it’s energy to other worries. It’s like the brain said we have to have something to worry over. Which is true. Worrying helps us solve problems and piece together puzzles. If the road ahead is flooded, then what do I do to get myself off that road and onto a safer one? There is, of course, a balance between stress and problem solving. You see, life has taught me that the road ahead is unpredictable. It can be a smooth ride or it can be treacherous.

Because of those lessons, I also know that I have the problem solving skills for whatever the road ahead brings me.

LOVE THURSDAY

Waiting

"Waiting"

It's been kind of a heavy week around here. The injustices of the world and ignorance of others has me feeling as though I've had an anchor tied to my feet and I've been dropped into the nearest deep body of water. I worry for those girls taken a year ago. I worry for the countless other young women whose lives are in danger of the same fate as those girls. I worry about the implications of Hilary Clinton's announcement and next year's elections. I worry about the HIV epidemic that's happening in Indiana with 95 confirmed new cases in just this month alone. I worry about what's happening in Yemen. I worry about this peace deal with Iran. I worry about the water in the basement. I worry about the chickens quickly outgrowing their current box. I worry about bills and debt. I suppose I worry about the same things many people worry about on a daily basis. Basically, I worry.  

My whole life I have been a worrier. The death of bees, the baby seals, the rhino population are all things that keep me up at night. I worry about the great big stuff and I worry about the teeny tiny stuff. Most of the time, I have it all under control. I am concerned about the big things, the giant global issues, but they don't keep me up at night. I am concerned about the little things too, but I don't fret over them. This week though, for some reason, I have felt all of the things. Each one a stone stacked on top of one another and I'm balancing them on my head. This is when I become overwhelmed with my insignificance and lack of power to do anything. 

Then I remember the ant. The average size of an ant is less then the size of a normal paperclip, yet they can carry up to three times their weight. One tiny ant makes up a large community of ants and they all work together for the good of the colony. After I think about the ant, I think of the snow flake. One snow flake sits with millions of other snow flakes to cover the ground with a blanket of snow. Next, I think of the ocean. One drop of salt water. One blade of grass to make up a field. One cell to work with millions of cells to form a human body. The ant, the snow flake, the drop of water, the blade of grass, and the one cell, each of these things on their own are insignificant, but look what they can do when they are combined together. 

Finally, I am reminded of the seed. The seed needs the nutrients in soil, it needs water and the warmth of the sun, but once these requirements are met it only takes one tiny root hair to start the process of growing into something amazing. As of yesterday, I have raised $275 for the Kansas City AIDS Walk thanks to your generous donations. Some may say that this is a very small amount, but I would disagree. That $275 makes up the $114,208.58 that the Kansas City AIDS Walk Foundation has raised so far. So, you see, each one of us is an ant, a snow flake,a drop of water. Each one of us is a seed. 

Here's to growing into something amazing and here's to a worry free Love Thursday!