THANKFUL FRIDAY

Wednesday

Josephine and I have been hitting the pavement for our morning walks right around the time the sun is coming up. It’s hard to believe that there is a little over a week left in August, but I can clearly see September on the horizon. The morning temperatures have required long sleeves on our walk and a jacket when riding the scooter. The sun is setting a little bit earlier in the evenings and it is a little bit slow to rise in the mornings. As we crossed Troost to head towards Tower Park on Monday morning, I looked at the sky to the East and it was beautiful. So I stopped and took a picture. Because that is what I do. Later when we got home, I sat down to upload that picture, labelling it ‘Monday’ and then I decided that my photography project this week would be a view of the sunrise every day this week.

When I looked up at the sky on Wednesday to take a picture, I was a little disappointed. The sunrise was not all that spectacular. This was the first thought that entered my brain as I went to frame the shot. Then I repeated that thought out loud so I could physically hear how stupid that sounds. Any morning I am up to see the sunrise is spectacular. The fact that the sun rises and sets at all every day is spectacular. After all of these months, you would think that there is nothing left to be taken for granted. Apparently sunrises are something I can still take for granted. For six months out of the year, the sun does not rise in Antartica. Once the sun finally shows up, it stays up for another six months. If you lived in Antartica, you would only see the sunrise once a year. When Talaura and I visited Maine that one year, we made it a point to be at Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in order to watch the sunrise. We were not the only people present and there was a sense of excitement and anticipation for those very first rays of light to make their appearance. I can only imagine how those feelings would be intensified for that sunrise in Antartica.

The earth turning and the sun rising and falling is one of the only constants I have right now.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Monday

There was a Facebook reminder that popped up this week that I did not share. It was picture taken ten years ago of Talaura and I unlocking a lock inside a church. It was the first time I had visited New York and Talaura had the keys to the city. Those keys let you unlock secret places like the power box to a lamp in Bryant Park, which I did. When I opened that box, it was full of notes from others who had been there before me. This was the first time I had spent any length of time alone with Talaura and we had such a wonderful time as she toured me around, showing me her city. Then I dreamed about Talaura. She was showing me the ropes of the new office I had just started working in. She was glowing, healthy, relaxed. She seemed happy. I don’t know what else happened in that dream. All I know is that I woke without an urgent sense of dread and worry, which is rare these days.

Talaura called me from somewhere in Arizona that very same morning after my dream. Her sister is moving to Hawaii and the two of them were driving the family cars to California to be loaded on a ship. Talaura called me to specifically tell me about all of the things she knew that I would want to photograph. She talked about the landscape, the sparseness, the poverty and all the random shacks of people living off the grid. Talaura said “I know you would want to stop all the time to take pictures.” As she talked of all that she was seeing on this drive West, I wished with my whole heart that I was sitting in that car with her. I told her that I would never make it to California because of all of the stopping. It was so good to hear her voice, but it was more than good to hear the joy in her voice. It made my heart swell. It does not go unnoticed to me that this memory and that dream would show up at the same time; nor does it go unnoticed how well Talaura knows me. She saw the magnificent landscape around her and thought “Cindy would want to photograph all of this.”

Hearing joy and excitement in the voices of those you care about is infectious. Having a friend who knows you so well that they call you with joy and excitement because they know you would appreciate the description of the view they are witnessing is priceless. I am a very fortunate human being.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Roar

I went to bed and laid there waiting for sleep. I could hear a heated basketball game happening at a house somewhere behind our’s. The thumping bass of a car stereo vibrated my heart as the car rolled up the street. Josephine softly growled at the dog we could hear barking somewhere in the distance. I finally drifted off to sleep with the sounds of the neighborhood as my lullaby. Then I was standing in a bar with Michael, who had been carrying a crate of junk. He set it down and said he was getting a drink. I was annoyed. He was supposed to be taking me home. I looked at him and said “I guess I’ll call an Uber then.” He got bent out of shape because I didn’t want to sit at the bar and drink with him. Josephine was with us and I set her down to call for an Uber. When I hung up, Josephine was gone and I spent the rest of my time desperately calling her name and looking for her. I woke, disoriented and patting around on the bed, searching for my puppy. I sighed with relief when my fingers touched her warm soft body. Then I looked at the clock.

I had only been asleep for an hour.

The rest of the night continued in this pattern of nightmares and waking every other hour. The losing Josephine dream is the only one that I really remember. Probably because all of it is plausible. I remember all too well when Josephine went through her escape artist phase and getting a call from animal control while I was on a plane to NYC. Josephine has caused my heart to seize up in fear more than once or twice. The problem is that I might just love her too much. Dr. Mary and I discussed this when I saw her this week. Dreams and dogs. She told me about a movie she saw where the recent widow had to then bury her dog. I told her about how I had to do the same thing. We were both crying by the end of it all. Then I told her about the dream I had about sitting next to Stephanie as she lay in a hospital bed. It was a terrible dream that had me texting her the next day. Checking in. Touching stone. We are living in an environment where we are all too aware of what we have to lose. Some of us are living in an environment of loss and are clinging desperately to things we know we could lose.

My friend Sarah’s new mantra: Pandemics are hard.

I have been thinking about what exactly makes a pandemic life so difficult. This has been a battle week, a week of fighting brain fog and sleep demons. I burned my kitcheri in the Instapot because I forgot to add water. Yesterday, Michael refilled the water bin for the chickens and without thinking, closed the door to the pen on his way out. The chickens couldn’t put themselves to bed and when I went out there to check on them, they were freaking out. Two were fighting for space in a window well. One, Foghorn our flyer, was on top of the pen. Margaret was huddled under a chair and made a beeline for the pen as soon as the door was open. The remaining three had to be herded into the pen and they talked about it the whole time. They were tired and they just wanted to go to their bed and they had complaints. The chickens are creatures of habit, just like us.

Pandemics are hard. First there was the loss of a habit, your daily routine. Then there was a moment of mourning that loss, which might sound silly or trivial. But loss is loss. You go through all the same emotions as any other kind of grief. Sadness, despair, denial, anger. Sometimes tucked in between all of those is a moment of joy and eventually we get used to the loss of our routines and daily habits. This week I have felt that shift where I am not necessarily grieving for the loss of my routine as much as I am preparing myself to grieve for the loss of something more important than a daily routine. I am very aware of what I have lost. Who I have lost. It is only natural for me to be fearful and anxious about what else I could lose. I am all too aware and so I spend my nights dreaming of holding onto the things I could lose with the tightest of grips. I need to loosen that grip.

Today I am thankful for the reminder to relax my grip and to stop holding so tightly to what I could lose.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This is the only copy I have of my thesis. I've come close to throwing it out so many times. A researcher at a company contacted me this week asking me for information about this work. I had to dig it out of the back of the filing cabinet to answer his questions.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever read.” That is what my advisor told me as I handed him the key to his lab while balancing a box of my belongings on one hip. It was my last day. My departure date had been written into his calendar for more than two months. He chose this moment to tell me that he wanted me to completely re-write my thesis, the same thesis he did not read until after my defense. I left in tears, enrolled in another semester of thesis hours and then moved to start a new job. My advisor said that he would give me notes and revisions, but months went by without hearing from him. So, I started working on it on my own, mirroring the style of journal articles. I sent my revision to my advisor, but never heard anything back. Finally, Chris camped outside the man’s office with the final copy and sign-off form. My advisor signed the form. I don’t think he ever read any version of my thesis. Two years later, my advisor died from a heart attack. One of his then graduate students contacted me with a manuscript that he wanted to get published. It was written in the style my advisor preferred, but by then I had some experience and new something about the writing style of a journal article. I told the student that the data was good, but that the paper would never get published written in that style. The graduate student replied that he didn’t want to change the style in honor of our advisor.

My work in that lab was never published. I never heard another word from that graduate student. I never received any notification of publication.

Graduate school wrecked my confidence and self esteem. I left with my masters, pretty sure that I was never going back. I told myself that I was not smart enough to get my doctorate and I wallowed in my failure for a few years. I had been under the impression that graduate school was meant to wreck you, but I have seen time and time again that this does not have to be true. I just had a bad experience. I have also worked with enough PhDs to know that I am smart enough to get a doctorate. The reasons I have not gone ahead with it now has more to do with a lack of interest. It wouldn’t get me anything but bragging rights, but I will admit that I’ve always held on to some bitterness over the unpublished work I did in graduate school. I do not have any digital copies of my thesis. All that is left is a hard copy, a thick stack of papers that I have been carting around with me for twenty years. Every time I clean out the filing cabinet, I think “I should just throw this out.” But I never do.

This week a researcher from a spectroscopy company tracked me down to ask about the work I did in graduate school. I was at work and I sent a text to Michael asking him if he would see if my thesis was still in the filing cabinet. He dug it out and sent me a picture of it so that I could confirm his discovery. I replied “Holy shit. That’s it!” I still can’t believe I never threw that thing away. That evening when I got home, I skimmed through it so I could find the answers to some questions the researcher had asked me. I cringed the whole time while reading through it. It still holds the taint of being the “worst thing” I’ve ever written, but I found the answer to the researcher’s questions. I don’t know if they’ll end up using any of my data or information, but there was something validating in their request for information on my work. Maybe finally it will actually be put to practical use.

And it only took twenty years.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday

Just about a block down the street, there used to be this large overgrown patch of land that was often a dumping ground for garbage. It’s where people left old mattresses and broken chairs, tires, anything easily tossed from an open window. Then one day the city came in and cleared the whole lot. They replaced the overgrown unofficial garbage dump with a park. The did this in a few areas of my neighborhood. The parks are part of a pilot water drainage system designed to take the stress off of the street gutters and funnel that water into useful irrigation. The one they built to the south of me is bigger, includes a playground and a new metal art structure. All of the parks are filled with native plants that require little maintenance and have nice walking paths that meander around and through. The parks have been a wonderful addition to this neighborhood.

Two or three times a week, my walk with Josephine takes us through the neighborhood and includes a walk through the park at the end of my street. We see rabbits and snails and birds. Yesterday there were muddy deer tracks crossing the sidewalks. This week, Josephine and I have arrived at the park around the same time as a group of black women. This group of women range between the ages of thirty something to sixty and they come dressed for working out. Which is what they proceed to do. Someone sets a timer on their phone and the women start walking the loop of the whole park, round and round until the timer beeps. Some carry small hand weights. They all have masks and wear them. Every time I see these women, I smile and say “good morning!” and they respond cheerfully with their own chorus of ‘hellos and good mornings’. Josephine and I move on and leave the park to them, but on the inside I am high-fiving and cheering these women on.

According to the U.S. Department of Health, four out of five African American women are overweight or obese, which leads to higher probabilities of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. There are many factors, mostly socioeconomic, but a lot of it has to do with having access to affordable healthy options. Keep in mind what I said before. These parks are a pilot program. They didn’t start it in the expensive neighborhoods like Brookside or the Country Club. They started this program in the poorer communities. The city saw the value of investing in healthy spaces in poorer communities because when we create healthy spaces for communities, we create an environment for healthy living. Regardless of race. This group of women is proof of that. Every time I walk or drive by one of these parks, I see people walking the paths. These people are proof of that.

I feel very fortunate to live in this neighborhood.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Not social distancing mushrooms

There was an article this week about Japan banning screaming on roller coasters as they move to reopen amusement parks. Their message is “Please scream inside your heart.” and I have taken this message as my new mantra. It might even be a new tattoo once that is a safe thing to do again. I have been screaming inside my heart for years, but to have it worded so politely makes me giggle. I can image using that sentence at someone who is in the process of directing their rage towards you. Holding up a hand and gently saying “Please. Scream inside your heart.” is a great way to diffuse a situation.

Or get yourself punched in the face.

I thought the week should have been over by Wednesday. It has been an intense week with my first COVID test and signing up for research testing on top of trying to work from home. The thing about taking this virus test is that you have to wait at least three days for your results. It is not instantaneous. So, you go fill up a tube with spit and then drive home and wait and worry. Because the results of that test do not just effect me. They have an impact on this whole household. That is a heavy weight to carry around on one’s shoulders. Then I was contacted again by the Y about resuming my yoga class and I again had to tell them ‘no’ because infection numbers are only going up. Working out is very aerosolizing, meaning there’s a lot of heavy, open mouthed breathing happening. The COVID virus loves group work outs because it is the best way to spread itself all around. I felt terrible saying ‘no’ but I just couldn’t in good conscious be part of potentially spreading COVID around, particularly when so many of my students are older adults.

My concern and care for the well being of others is greater than my frustrations over not being able to lead the kind of life I was living before the pandemic.

I am happy to report that I am COVID free and I plan on staying that way.

Wear a mask. Keep up with social distancing. Consider the greater good and do some screaming inside your heart.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Delicate wishes

This is what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Well…it isn’t the only thing I’ve been thinking about, but it has been taking up a lot of brain space this week for some reason. I’ve been thinking about what this pandemic would look like if Chris were here. I talked to Dr. Mary about this on Tuesday. I talked to Dr. Mary about a lot of things on Tuesday. I only see her once a month now. So the minute I sit down in her office, I just start babbling. It feels more like I do a lot of complaining and after I finish whining about something, I try to end it with something positive like “at least I still have a job.” Because that’s no joke. I complained a lot before I got to Chris and imagining an alternate reality.

The thing I miss the most at this moment is his sense of humor. Good God, I miss the way we would just laugh. He had a way of taking those dark serious parts of life and turning them into something we could laugh about. Not in an irreverent way. Okay…sometimes in an irreverent way, but we knew when to be respectful. Mostly. I have spent this week desperately curious about his take on our current events. I miss the sharp razor blades of his wit and I miss his silly antics. You know his face mask would look re-damn-diculous. I came across that picture of him in Chad’s jeep the other day. His face all dorky and hair messed up as he played the part of Rosco the Hitchhiker. Imagine that face wearing a face mask. He could make me laugh like no one else and he saw the value in the need for laughter.

The value in the need for laughter.

Life is a struggle. At times it is a grueling slog. We are living in a dumpster fire right now. I have friends who have lost jobs and have had to make some really difficult decisions. Science has been politicized in such a way that it has put peoples lives in danger. POC are still being murdered by police. STILL. It feels like we’re on a hike that went horribly wrong and have ended up trudging through a swamp up hill with only one good hiking boot. We’ve run out of water and snacks. The compass broke, it’s raining and we are being swarmed by mosquitoes. I one hundred percent guarantee you that Chris would have us in stitches with a running gag about that one boot and that broken compass. Of course this world needs more empathy, more compassion, more understanding of otherness. Of course we need those things. But we also need laughter. If Chris taught me anything, he taught me this.

To tell you the honest truth, I don’t even know if all of this would be happening if Chris were still with us. I still believe that his death altered our timeline significantly. One thing is for sure though, he would still be making us laugh.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Heart

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We bought a new blender because I broke my old blender. I mean I buhroke it. About a year ago, I went on a cleaning bender and collected all of the kitchen appliances that only get used when every other planet aligns and carted them to the basement. My arms were full of appliances, including the blender, and I took one step down the basement stairs when the blender pitcher toppled off the base. It bounced all the way down the stairs and shattered on the basement floor. At the time, I just sort of shrugged it off. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had used that thing. I don’t like margaritas.

Just before the dumpster fire that is the current state of affairs, Micheal and I started intermittent fasting during the week and we just stuck with it. It means skipping breakfast and having a snack around 10:30 am. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, my snack has been some cottage cheese with some fruit. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it’s avocado toast with a boiled egg. (Shut up. I know I am lulu crazy pants.) Then, I started to get a craving for a smoothie. Not just any smoothie. I wanted a really green smoothie. One with kale and spinach and maybe a bit of celery, a squeeze of lemon. The more I thought about it, the greater my craving became until I finally decided that we needed to buy a new blender. So I told Michael that I was going to buy a new blender and he said “Wait a minute. Don’t you think I have a say in this?” Then he went down a rabbit hole of research into blenders. By the time I woke up the following morning, he had ordered one and as soon as the delivery person set it down on our front porch, I grabbed it up. I pulled it from the box and then immediately sliced open my finger on the blade while I was washing it. Appliances work better after they have been given a blood sacrifice.

That was two weeks ago. Now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I put half of a banana, a stalk of celery, a handful of kale, a handful of spinach, a dollop of plain yogurt, and some ice into one of the individual blender cups that came with our blender. I squeeze half of a lemon into it and then blend it all up. Michael thinks it tastes like a pasture, but I love it. I drink it up, relishing the gritty kale bits, while watching a tutorial on electron microscopy or Numpy coding crap. Then I go do about an hour and a half of yoga before lunch. I just realized as I re-read those last two sentences that it sounds like I have fully gone granola hippy chic. Don’t worry. I’m still shaving my armpits and using deodorant that is not made of crystals, but I am one pound away from just barely being in the ‘healthy weight’ section of the BMI chart.

And I know that all of this sounds like a really lame thing for a gratitude post, but this week has not been easy. The dumpster fire has gotten worse. People are not wearing masks and social distancing. The lack of effort makes me think the worst of them, that they are either so selfish or too ignorant to separate science from politics. I had a phone call with my mother that had us both crying and neither one of us handle tears in an effective manner. I have been short and snappish with others. I have been disappointed with myself for not handling things better or doing more or walking more steps or just more everything. Many times a day have been a practice in containing the rage that threatens to boil up and out of this body and exploding over the smallest incident like the inability to put recyclables in the recycle bin (the kitchen counter is not the recycle bin). I know we are all feeling the strain and stress and frustration. Our lives are different and change is hard, but some of the most rewarding transformations come from the hardest changes.

The other evening, I held a firefly tightly in my fist. I watched its tail light blinking through the cracks between my fingers. When I finally opened my fist, the firefly crawled out to the tip of my index finger. It sat there, flashing yellow-green light, for two or three breaths and then it floated up and away. That is how I am approaching the feelings of this week. I’m going to take a moment to squeeze them in my fist and then I am going to gently release them. I am going to find gratitude in green pasture smoothies that bring me joy. I’ve never been a part of the ‘healthy weight’ section of anything. So I’m going to take a moment to celebrate that.

I am going to take today to see gratitude in tiny victories.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael once asked me what camping trips were like with my dad. When I pull up every camping trip from my memory bank, I see Dad puttering. He was always messing with this or that on the camper or the truck. On our annual fishing trips to Colorado, he’d have us up before the sun. He would be loading the truck up with fishing supplies while we rubbed sleep from our eyes and ate breakfast. After half a day of fishing, we’d come back to the campsite where Dad would unload the truck and start cleaning fish. Then he would get his little grill set up. He would cook fish while Mom would make side dishes. When dinner was finished, we would all help with cleanup, then sit down at the table where we would spend the last of the daylight prepping lines and lures for the next morning. I think I have one photo of Dad sitting in his camp chair enjoying the campfire. It was taken during the summer of my Senior year. Dad made a big deal about that trip and about going to a campground called Fun Valley. The two of us joked the whole time about how fun it was at Fun Valley. He painted ‘Fun Valley’ on one of our campfire logs and gave it to me at the end of that trip.

A few weekends ago, Michael and I went down to my brother’s cabin and set up our camper that we had parked there for the winter. My brother and sister-in-law joined us a day later and we got to spend the weekend together hanging around their cabin. My brother would sit down for a few minutes and then he would be up, puttering around, digging through their shed or moving stone pavers. They had spent the whole week there recently as their vacation and Katrina told me that as soon as my brother got home and sat down in his chair, he fell asleep. I see so much of Dad in my brother Randy. Dad was rarely still. The only times you would see him sitting still would be in the evenings. That is when he would sit down in his worn-out recliner and promptly fall asleep while reading the paper. Unfortunately, after he retired and started up his peanut roasting business, evenings were spent roasting peanuts for the next day. He would get a batch going in his roaster in the garage and then come inside, sit down in his recliner and fall asleep. Dad burned many a batch of peanuts.

Because of our age difference, Randy has often taken on duel rolls of big brother and father figure. I guess that is why I always try to send him something for Father’s Day. Even though I give him a hard time for his choice of ‘news’, he’s still the man in my life that I look up to. He’s still the man in my life who I know will always be there for me. I miss Dad and his ridiculous dad jokes and his constant puttering about. Randy may not have the ridiculous dad jokes, but he’s got the puttering part down. When I see Randy in puttering action, I smile because I see our Dad and then I’ll see Randy do something that is completely and totally Randy.

In that moment, I’ll think to myself how lucky I have been to have them both and how lucky I am to still have my big brother.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Chickens

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Every morning, I walk into the backyard while carrying a cup of coffee and I open the door to the chicken pen. Then, as I turn and start to walk back to the house, all four of the chickens follow me to the center of the yard where they start to peck and scratch. If I sit out there with them for a brief moment, Marguerite will peck her way to me, stand just out of reach and tilt her head at me while murmuring a song. They spend the whole day roaming the back yard or laying in the shade. There is a pile of wood scraps and pallets near the fire pit and sometimes you can look out the kitchen window and see Foghorn standing on top of the pile, surveying the land. There is one particularly good dirt spot in the yard and all four of them will take a turn rolling around in it. At night, just before I head off to bed, I go out to the pen to shut the door. I always take a moment to lift the hatch on the coop and count the number of chickens. One, two, three, four. All four present and accounted for, I close the pen and then put myself to bed.

I knew nothing about raising chickens. I just knew that I wanted some backyard chickens. I had a romantic vision of a backyard farm with chickens roaming free and walking up to me for an occasional cuddle. The reality was a bit different. That was mostly our own fault. The old chicken coop forced us to work harder to care for the chickens; not smarter. The chickens turned out to be ambivalent to our love. There were discussions about what would happen when they all moved on to chicken heaven. The result of that discussion leaned towards not getting more chickens. We did it. We raised some chickens. Now let’s move on to something new. After building the new pen, Michael and I both agree that there will be chickens roaming the backyard for many years. We learned a lot with this first group. The new pen makes chicken care so much easier and the chickens are now living their best chicken lives.

Michael and I met seven years ago in June. After Micheal’s hickup, he threw himself into things (maybe unintentionally) that would make me happy, like buying a scooter. Then he built the chicken coop. He didn’t build it because I had asked him too. He built it because he knew that I wanted chickens. Michael did not know any more than I did about raising chickens, but he dived into learning about chicken husbandry. The chickens are probably more his than mine, though he can never remember their names or who’s who. Our relationship is like the chickens. A lot of times we worked harder for it than smarter. We learned a lot about how to communicate with each other. We had to expand and stretch ourselves to encompass this new relationship. A relationship that is different from previous ones we both had. But I think we have both settled in. I mean, it’s not perfect. There’s no such thing and at times I still find myself working harder, not smarter, but we have found a rhythm. Michael mentioned a few weeks ago that this is the longest relationship he’s ever been in.

So I guess that means we’re doing something right and that we are also living our best chicken lives.

THANKFUL THURSDAY

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Sunday marked the 99 year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. You can find information on the Tulsa Race Massacre here and here and I am sure there are many other resources out there. It is often referred to as the Tulsa Race Riot, but really the events that took place in June of 1921 was a massacre. White men completely destroyed a prosperous and thriving black community. If you click on one of those links, you’ll see pictures in which thirty five blocks were left in charred ruins. A town was left in charred ruins with, what historians now believe, 300 people dead. This event is considered to be one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the U.S. and it was not even mentioned in any of my school lessons. Not even in Oklahoma history. I grew up in the Tulsa area and had no idea that this had happened until I was probably in my late twenties or early thirties. At the time I learned about the massacre, I had someone tell me that “the blacks instigated it.” Implying that it was all their fault. It was up to me to research this topic thoroughly to find the truth because not for a minute did I believe that the black community was responsible for the destruction of their own town. I can see why white people would like to sweep this bit of history under a rug because the why and the what happened in Greenwood that day shows the ugliest side of white people and the destruction of their racism. It is shameful. But that’s what white people do, re-write history to make it look so our actions are justified.

When I found out about the Tulsa Race Massacre, I started asking myself “What else don’t I know?” I learned about George Washington Carver in middle school. The history books told us he was a peanut farmer, not an agricultural scientist and the developer of crop rotation as well as numerous other inventions. George Washington Carver was a scientist. Yet another tidbit of information that the school system did not teach me. What about Henrietta Lacks? How long had I worked with HeLa cells before discovering that I was working with a cell line taken without permission? Too long. But I read about the injustice towards the Lacks family and I educated myself. That is my responsibility, to stay curios, to stay informed and to use my knowledge to stand up against racism and injustice.

I follow number of African American women in social media. I am not saying that as a brag. I would follow and support these women no matter their color because they post beautiful and inspiring content. This week many of those women have shared their stories and reading material. They have done this for their white followers who have been asking “what can we do? how can we educate ourselves?” As a scientist I know how exhausting it can be to have to explain science to non-science people, but I am sure it is no where near as exhausting as having to explain privilege to white people. Yet these women, while having to deal with all of this shit on a daily basis, have indulged us and provided us with resources. To all of those women, I want you to know that I know it is my responsibility to educate myself and to not lean on you. You need to be able to lean on me. To those women, I want you to know how grateful I am for the stories and reading material that you have shared and that you continue to share.

I see you. I hear you. I stand with you. I stand beside you as a pillar to be leaned on in times of need. I will willingly lift burdens from your shoulders. Not for just this week, but for always.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

When you wake up and decide to make blueberry muffins.

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I am not much of a baker. There was a time in my youth when I did a whole lot of baking, often for 4-H related events. Mom always had a pantry stocked with cookie ingredients so that chocolate chip cookies could be whipped together at a moment’s notice. Over the years though, baking has fallen into the bucket of things that I used to do mostly because I had to do them, but now I don’t have to do anymore. Like singing on a stage in front of an audience. I rarely have a pantry stocked with the things one would need to bake a cookie or a cake or even cornbread. The few baking tins that I have yet to donate to Goodwill are all crammed into the cabinet above the refrigerator. In order to access them, I have to stand on a step stool and pull down all the wine boxes/bottles just to open the cabinet door. I have a sourdough starter that I feed irregularly sitting in my refrigerator that I mostly only use for making pizza crust.

Saying that I don’t bake is not the same as saying I can’t bake. Pies are generally my specialty and about twice a year I will make some sort of fruit or lemon meringue pie. I do this to only to keep my crust making skills honed, because I might only eat a small sliver of the pie before I take the rest to work for my coworkers to devour. Cakes and pies go to waste in this house. They just don’t get eaten. Michael is not big on baked goods and the Cabbage only likes six things (poptarts, cherry tomatoes, cheese pizza, refried (no spices!) beans, mac-n-cheese, candy). I don’t bake for people who will not eat the things I bake or who complain about the thing I have chosen to make. But like many of us during this pandemic, I have discovered a renewed joy in creating a baked good. It started with an angel food cake a few weeks ago. I had purchased a large carton of strawberries meant for snacking, but thought about how much better they would taste on top of a fluffy slice of angel food cake. We had two dozen eggs sitting on the counter that needed to be used up and for once, I had all of the things in my pantry for baking except the cream of tartar, which was easy enough to get ahold of. I carefully separated ten eggs to make this cake, knowing that the tiniest bit of yolk contaminate would prevent the egg whites from whipping up into soft white peaks. That was the only time consuming part of the recipe and the truest act of mindfulness because I do not have an egg separator. The result of that mindfulness was a mixing bowl filled with beautiful, soft white fluff. That fluff was folded into dry ingredients and then baked, creating a cake so light that when it was done I was surprised it didn’t float out of the pan on it’s own. For a whole week, we ate angel food cake topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Or at least I did.

Tuesday night, as I sat on the couch, I started thinking about the blueberries I had purchased that I knew where not going to get eaten. I thought “blueberry muffins sound nice.” The last time I made blueberry muffins, I used Bisquick and used the recipe on the back of the box which is basically just add sugar, milk and egg and blueberries. This was years and years ago. I can’t even tell you the last time I bought a box of Bisquick. I looked up a recipe for blueberry muffins online and ended up using one from the food section in The New York Times. It was simple: mix flour, baking powder, salt, in separate bowl cream butter with sugar and then add two eggs and vanilla, stir into dry ingredients with a half cup of milk, fold in blueberries, bake. Wednesday morning, while everyone else was still sleeping, I spent my morning meditation following that recipe and making blueberry muffins. As I spooned the batter into the muffin tins, I knew that these muffins would not get eaten. The Cabbage might eat one. Michael might eat one, but the rest of them would sit in a container until I threw them out. None of this seemed to matter to me because I realized as I slid the muffin tin into the oven that I was not doing this for any one else but me.

I’ve eaten six blueberry muffins since Wednesday.

No…maybe, but I didn’t make those muffins so that I could eat a blueberry muffin every other hour. I made them for the shear joy of baking, the mindful process of blending ingredients to make something lovely. I think I have started baking again for the satisfaction that comes from doing something well. It is a way to compensate for not being well adjusted to working from home. I can’t solve any problems on a microscope today, but I can bake a beautiful and delicious angel food cake or soft and lovely blueberry muffins. This is something I can put on my list as something I can do well right now.

That’s all I need for today.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Turns out, if you're very careful, you can use a Spirograph on your iPad.

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Tuesday evening, I stood at our bathroom sink blankly staring at my reflection in the mirror while brushing my teeth. As I shifted my toothbrush from one side of my mouth to the other, I had a thought that maybe this was the first time I was brushing my teeth that day. Did I do this when I got up that morning? I paused to really think about it, listing my day’s schedule in my head. I had gotten up and showered. Then I think I brushed my teeth. No…I’m sure I brushed my teeth. Then I had to ask myself if it was still Tuesday. It felt like I had done more than one day’s worth of tasks. That morning, I sat through about twenty minutes of video for class and then I presented a paper for Journal Club. Then I started working on my last mini coding project for the class I’m taking. I got tired and frustrated with it around two in the afternoon and so I went outside to haul dirt to the east side of the house. I spent the next two hours hauling, grading and tamping dirt. Then I went inside to shower again and work on the computer some more before making fish tacos for dinner. I cooked. I cleaned and then we played a few rounds of Boggle.

By the time I was standing in that bathroom, brushing my teeth before bed, I was literally swaying with exhaustion. I suddenly realized that I have been doing a lot of manual labor. On top of my job, I have been taking care of the inside of the house, grocery shopping, doing the laundry, maintaining the yard, taking care of chickens, dog, cat, sometimes people, cooking dinner most evenings, no…cooking TWO dinners most evenings because of the Cabbage (that’s coming to a halt), and helping Michael build a retaining wall by hauling dirt and gravel and twenty five pound pavers. I am tired. So on Wednesday, I only did my job. Other than washing my own plate or bowl, I did not clean the house. We fend for ourselves for dinner on Wednesdays any way. So I didn’t make dinner for anyone but me and I didn’t go outside to help Michael with the wall. I was there to witness him place the last stone, but I did not touch a shovel or lift a finger except to take a few pictures.

It was great except for the guilt that would nudge in every once in a while, but I got good at shoving that guilt back. I finished my mini project and graded four assignments. I met with a science teacher in New Hampshire who wants me to talk to her seventh graders next week about my career path. I payed attention and took notes for at least half of the Wednesday Lecture Series. I started pulling microscopy images to show to students next week and travelled back in the way boat machine to find images of the things I did when I worked with Margaret and Phillip. We did a lot of cool stuff in that lab. Then I surprised myself by becoming excited to talk to kids about being a scientist. When I went to brush my teeth that night before bed, I was no longer questioning what day it was or when the last time it was that I brushed my teeth. I was simply getting ready for bed.

The majority of the wall is complete. Michael wants to cap it, but we need to buy those stones. We still have a generous portion of dirt that needs to go somewhere, along with leftover gravel. The neighbors may take some of the dirt and there are a few spots around the yard that could be filled in. We need to order mulch and plant grass seed. We are down to just the final touchups of this project. I am thankful that the neighbors are going to be the ones shoveling and hauling dirt away. I am thankful that we are mostly done with the retaining wall. It is a project that has consumed us for longer than necessary. I am thankful to be finished with my first Python coding class so I can now move on to learning how to use Python in ways more pertinent than game building. I am thankful for the opportunity to share part of my story with a group of seventh graders.

But mostly, today I am thankful for Wednesday.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

For three days this week, I have hauled dirt from the west side of the house, all the way around to the back side of the house. There is only one way in and out of our backyard right now and it is on the east side of the house. The first day of loading up the wheel barrow with dirt and dumping it in the backyard felt like I was moving dirt a teacup full at a time. I looked at the pile of dirt that we excavated for the new retaining wall and felt defeated. I had hardly made a dent. The second day, after losing count of the number trips I had made, I looked at that pile again and felt a little better. By the third day, I had moved enough dirt to regrade the backside of the house. Which I did and then I tampered that dirt down. My bones felt like they were made of jello by the time I had finished. I get to do this all over again for the east side of the house, but I’m waiting until the wall is finished and we’re not having to traipse back and forth through that space. The weather was also predicting rain all day for Thursday and the rest of the week. So Michael and I both gave ourselves a break from wall building for a few days even though the rain didn’t happen until much later.

Even though my body hurts and my fingers go numb if I sleep on my back, there is some satisfaction in taking on this task myself. I am reminded that I have tackled so many piles of dirt in my lifetime. Mental piles of dirt and physical piles of dirt. They all start out in the same way. At first, it looks like I’ve done nothing. Like I’ve only moved a tablespoon worth. I tell myself that I can’t do this; I can’t move all of this on my own. Sometimes I don’t have to do it on my own. Sometimes I have someone to help shovel, but a lot of the time, particularly with those mental piles of dirt, I’m on my own. It is all up to me. So I keep shoveling. Eventually that teaspoon worth has become a teacup full and then buckets full. It starts to sink in that I can do this. Sure, there might be some dirt left over to deal with at another time, but I’ve handled the bulk of it. And in time, I’ll handle the leftovers as well.

Today, I am thankful for every pile of dirt I have had to move in this lifetime.

I am also thankful for the break we gave ourselves.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Gifts. Thank you @mistikae

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I am going to make a confession that Michael doesn’t even know about. After every grocery shopping trip, when I have everything loaded in the car and I’m sitting in the driver’s seat, I take off my mask, rest my head on the steering wheel and cry. I know. It sounds dramatic and depressing. I am not crying over the trauma of grocery shopping. I am not fearful of contracting COVID-19. I take it seriously, but it does not strike a cord of terror in me like it has for others. I am crying because I am mourning a way of life. I cry for the way things used to be. I cry because grocery shopping has become an actual chore. I also cry over the good parts, the way everyone is so respectful of each other’s space. I cry over the grocery workers who I know are exhausted, but still manage to greet each person with a cheerful ‘hello’. I cry over how polite we have become to each other, the patience we have with each other as we shop for the things we need while maintaining our distance. I also cry for this moment I am alone in my car.

And I am grateful for those tears.

While I miss things like going to the office everyday and my Saturday morning grocery experience and being able to sit in the same room with friends and family, I feel like I am settling into this new routine. I spend Mondays and Tuesdays in Python class and coding my assignments. Wednesdays are spent watching an Illustrator tutorial on figure preparation for journal submission and reading the manual for the electron microscopy image processing software. Thursdays have become grocery and cleaning days and Fridays are lab meeting, reading the paper for the next Journal Club meeting and Friday Science seminar. Then there are slots of time between all of those things for me. Every morning around 9:00 AM, Josephine pats me on my leg while I work at the computer. That’s her way of saying that it is time for her walk and I take her on an exploration of the neighborhood. I still take a moment every Monday for my Buddha Board project and once a week, I mine the tarot cards for writing some short fiction. Then there is that hour in the middle of the day when I roll out my yoga mat. My yoga practice has gotten hella strong. I do up to twenty to thirty rounds of sun salutations with warrior I and warrior II. I work on poses that I never really do because they’re too much of a challenge. The other day, I was in a wide leg forward fold with my forearms on the floor and I just spontaneously popped myself up into a head stand. Then I started laughing at myself and fell out of it, but when Michael came in I said “Hey! Watch what I can do!” and did it all over again.

So, I can take my moment to mourn. It’s really just a tiny slip of a moment that is growing smaller each week, and then I can resettle myself into this new routine, new life, and this new version of myself.

I am doing a fucking great job.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Curb side vet care at Noah's Ark Veterinary in Brookside. Josephine's fine. Just needs shots.

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I took Josephine in for her annual checkup on Wednesday. Our vet clinic is doing curb side vet care. You park, call them, and a technician comes out and gets your dog. Then you wait in your car while they examine your pet and administer the necessary shots. Do not be fooled by that look on Josephine’s face. Though she looks really unsure about what’s about to happen, right after I took this picture, Josephine turned her head and started kissing the tech right on her face mask. I sat in my car, playing Animal Crossing (because that’s what I do now), until the veterinarian called to discuss Josephine’s exam. The vet said that Josephine has lost a pound and half, but she still thinks we need to count more calories for Josephine. Last year the vet recommended having Josephine come in for an expensive teeth cleaning. This year Josephine’s teeth looked so nice that the vet said that the teeth cleaning thing wasn’t necessary. Then she wanted to know our secret to Josephine’s clean teeth. She has a cow bone she gnaws on all the time and occasionally she gets a Trader Joe’s denta bone.

The vet said Josephine was healthy and then she said “I have to say, it is such a joy to have Josephine in here. She was so happy to see all of us and so sweet.” I smiled and thanked her. Then the tech brought Josephine out to the car. As she was depositing Josephine into the passenger seat, the tech said to me “She is the sweetest, most loving dog.” I nodded my head in agreement and thanked her. I looked at Josephine and said “Everyone loves you!” Well…maybe not everyone, but Josephine sure is a little fur ball of love. There were mornings where I would give Josephine love and treats before putting her in her crate for the day and think about how nice it would be if I could take her to work with me or just stay home with her all day. Now, I can tell you that it is nice to stay home with her all day.

Since the stay at home order went into effect, Josephine has not been far from my side. If the weather’s nice, the two of us go for a walk sometime around 9:30 in the morning. She has started reminding with gentle paw taps when it’s time to go for that walk. The bed I have for in the bedroom that she rarely sleeps on has been moved to the floor in front of my desk so she has some place comfortable to lay when I am working. Sometimes I move my workspace to the bedroom where I set my computer on my cedar chest and I sit on a meditation pillow on the floor. Josephine follows me and during Zoom work meetings she can be seen laying on the bed right behind me or in my lap on the floor. She’s right there either on my mat or next to it while I do my yoga practice. When I lay down for final relaxation, she curls up between my feet and watches over me. She lays next to me on the couch and if she gets too hot, she lays on the floor under the couch, directly beneath me. Josephine is my shadow and I am a little worried about what it’s going to do to her when all of this ends. Right now I am doing my best to soak up this time I have with her because we all know that we don’t get to keep them in our lives forever.

I have a lot to be grateful for this week. I’ve focused on changing my attitude and being a kinder person and I’m ready to have the Cabbage back with us. Actually, I almost suggested we go get her on Tuesday. Supplies for re-building the retaining wall on the west side of the house all arrived early. There are two pallets of pavers, one of sand and a mound of gravel all organized at the top of our drive way. Our incentive to getting the project completed quickly is being able to get to the scooters inside the garage. Though, I think I can just barely squeeze my scooter out, which you all know that I will attempt to do so. Then, my friend Kristina contacted me about buying a print this week. I was able to respond in a some what professional manner with pricing information instead of “Uhhh…..” A print was ordered. Money exchanged digital hands. Then I started singing “Wow” by Beck because it’s like wow; it’s like right now.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Poops

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While most people are posting their high school graduation photos, I am sharing a photo of a food grinder. This isn’t just any food grinder. I’ve had this thing since early middle school. It was an important tool for a serious 4-H project where me and a few other girls talked about Oklahoma grown stuff. We would set up tables at county and state fairs. Someone talked about dairy. Another girl focused on pecans. I believe there was even a table about cotton. My table was all about wheat and showed the farm to table process from growing it in a small bucket to making it into bread. I used that little food grinder to grind up wheat for making bread that I would hand out as samples. Sometimes, the dairy girl would churn butter and there would be butter for the bread. I did this because I was Lisa Simpson. I am 100% certain that an episode of the Simpsons exists with this very same story line. Any way, the project ran its course and the little food grinder got put away in the far recesses of my Mom’s kitchen cabinets. Occasionally it would make an appearance to grind up something like chocolate or nuts.

When we cleaned out the old house, Mom finally let me have the grinder, like she felt that by the age of forty I had finally proven myself responsible enough to take possession of it. I use it about as often as it was used after the wheat table ended. Mostly, I use it to grind up spices and the flaxseeds I use to wash my face (yes…I am hippie). The little grinder has been getting used daily now that I have to grind my own coffee beans. Then, the other day, my trusty little grinder broke. That black piece laying there on the side is meant to be attached to the lid and is required to make the grinder grind. That very important little piece broke. I know what you’re thinking. How can this possibly be something for a post on gratitude?

Well… I can think of a couple of reasons why this is something to be grateful for.

First of all, the grinder still works! I can hold that little black piece in place and engage the ‘run’ button. Sure, it’s janky, but who cares as long as is it still gets the job done. Secondly, it reminds me to be grateful for the little things that make our lives easier. I am privileged to have coffee beans and I am privileged to have a means for grinding those beans. Heck, I’m privileged to have any kind of coffee at all. I am stocked up on coffee right now. So I don’t want to wait until I am almost out or completely out of something to be grateful. My little grinder is The Little Engine Who Could and I don’t want to wait until it can’t to appreciate its usefulness. I mean, that’s usually when we notice those things. When we are without, we realize how much we appreciated something. I want to remember to appreciate stuff now, while I have it, while it is working.

If I remember to do that, I can remember to be grateful for the big stuff.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Yoga outside

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The week before they officially closed the Institute was really hard. There were just three of us left in my department, which left me dealing with all eleven of our microscope systems as well as a handful of small microscopes we keep on a different floor. We still had scientists using these systems. The Institute is a home for many graduate students and postdocs who’s research and experiments are vital to them being able to graduate and move on. The lab is their life. Near the end of the week when my supervisor finally closed all of our microscopes, I spent the rest of my time telling people “no” and “I don’t know.” The look of despair and disappointment on their faces when they realized that would not be able to do just one more experiment, wrecked me. I sat at my desk crying while reading texts from Jeff and Sarah, my coworkers who were already working from home, telling me to go home.

I just felt defeated.

There was more to it than just the feeling of defeat though. So much of what I do is hands on work. My job is centered around solving other people’s problems. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself or how I was going to be of any value by working from home. Michael has serious fears and anxiety over contracting the virus. He dreads the odd errand that has him leaving the house. My fears and anxiety are centered around not leaving the house. So, I had to do something to ease those fears and soothe those anxieties. I had to find a way to fill up my day with something of value. The Python coding class I am taking does some of that. My department also meets for a Journal Club Zoom meeting once a week and there is a tutorial on using a new image processing software that started this week. We have lab meetings on Fridays, as well as Friday Science Club.

I am busy.

My job has shifted from solving other people’s problems to solving my own problems. The shift has been a HUGE adjustment. I can’t remember when I have ever had a block of time to just focus on solving my own problems and at times I am literally solving problems. Coding is hard. Getting that imaging processing software installed on to my work computer was hard, but I did it. I am doing it. My group all meet in Zoom for tea time earlier this week and some where saying that they kind of like working from home. I smiled, but shook my head. I do not like it and I look forward to going back to solving others’ problems. That’s okay. I don’t have to like the current state of things. I do things I don’t like all the time, like torture class for example. I do those strength training exercises because they are good for me; they make my body a better body. I like to think that spending this time focusing on my own problems is going to make me better at solving those problems for others.

I love myself and see challenges as a way to grow stronger — Manifest Your Unlimited Potential, Mark Guay

I have stuck pretty well with this week’s goals. I’m working. I’m taking a moment in the day to be creative. I am somewhat active. At least, I seem to be shrinking. The number on the scale was a happy surprise this week. Little by little, the new enclosure for the chickens is coming together. My yoga practice feels strong. I got myself (safely) into a pose that I have not been able to do since I turned forty. At the end of each day, my body and brain are so exhausted that I have no problems going to bed at my usual hour. The day to day of things sometimes wears on all of us in this house and there have been some snappy moments, but there have also been moments of stupid laughter. So the gratitude for this weeks comes in the form of settling in to the things I don’t like to do.

And the moments of stupid laughter.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

We've been busy

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Stuff that I am grateful for this week:

• avocado toast that just appears magically before me right at the exact time I need to eat something or kill everyone in the house

• every single time I get on my yoga mat

• a backyard that is now very neat and tidy

• making the highest score I could make on my Python class quiz because Michael helped me to understand a math concept I should have learned in middle school

• that one evening where I made everyone dinner while Micheal started burning off yard crap and the Cabbage and Michael ate outside while I ate inside all by myself and watched the latest episode of Little Fires Everywhere.

• music

• a simple glass of wine

• my chiropractor

It’s been a long time since I have resorted to a list for my Thankful Friday post. I couldn’t figure out how to narrow this week down into one tidy little box of gratitude. Mostly because I don’t think it is possible. If you are like me, struggling to just get through the week, you are going to find gratitude in all of the things that have gotten you to Friday. Like that moment when Michael asked me to hold up the garden hose so he could mow right up next to the house. I stood there holding the hose over my head and yelled “I love you so much right now!” He gave me an inquisitive look because he couldn’t really hear me with the mower going and his headphones in, but I think he got the message.

Last night I had a dream that my house ended up as some sort of quarantine camp. Multiple people were sleeping in one bed. You had to step over people sleeping on the floor and I didn’t even really know any of them. They were all friends of friends, some with babies and toddlers. Micheal followed me into the kitchen where some random person was helping themselves to the last of our cereal and said “This has to stop. Who are these people anyway?” I nodded my head in agreement. Then I grabbed a pan and a wooden spoon. I started banging the pan with my spoon to get everyone’s attention. Then I said “Anyone who does not know my middle name has to leave right now.” Then I started kicking people out of my house. Things could always be worse.

There could be more people in this house.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This is what is currently happening behind me while I'm starting my first day of Python class.

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Well, it is day four of me working from home and I am happy to say that I am settling into a routine. Meditation happens every day. Yoga happens every day. I shower and put on a bra every day. Twenty minutes of some sort of cardio/strength exercises happen twice a week. I spend my mornings in a Python coding class. Then I take a break for lunch. Some people from work meet after lunch to watch some tutorials on electron microscopy. There is another meet-up in the afternoon to see what everyone else in the group is up to and then the whole family goes for a walk. The Cabbage chooses a game for us to play after dinner and then it is close to bedtime. I read some before getting ready for bed and then I get up and do it all again the next day.

There has been surprisingly little TV. In fact Michael and I are kind of behind on some of our shows. I also thought I would be spending more time writing or cleaning or re-organizing, but I haven’t done much of any of those things. I am surprised how I have managed to fill up my time. I think about this weekend and how that will be my time to do some chores and watch TV. I will sleep past 5:30 AM and maybe not wear a bra. Maybe I will spruce up the backyard and create some sort of hangout space. My Saturday is wide open. We have food and no place to go. I was worried that my weekdays would blend into my weekends and that I would start to lose track of time. Work/life boundaries would become blurred. So far, this has not happened. If anything, this experiment in social distancing is causing me to rethink my concept of time and how I choose to organize myself in those minutes.

Of course, I know this is only week one and as the days and weeks progress it will get more difficult to maintain boundaries, to take that shower after meditation, to put that bra on. I am not dwelling on the days and weeks to come. I am focusing on right now. One of Michael’s co-workers gave everyone an assignment this week to come up with a mantra to get them through this time. He loved it so much that he made the Cabbage and I participate. I keep hearing people say “this is the new normal” or “welcome to the new normal” and these words resonated in me. Normal seems to me to be one of those things that you make of it. So I typed up these words and placed them on a photo I had taken earlier in the week: Stop calling this the NEW normal; Just make it your normal; We’re still breathing, working, laughing; The environment just looks a little bit different.

This is my normal.

This morning, after my yoga practice, I stood at the stove waiting for the kettle of water to boil. I thought about how I could do this part of my morning every day. I could get up every week day and do a yoga practice before meditation. It would mean adjusting and tweaking a schedule here and there. I might have to make sure Michael gets up and into the shower before I sit down for meditation. I would get to work about twenty minutes later, but I would just stay twenty minutes later. This ‘stay at home’ practice may be a bit of a challenge but it is giving me opportunities to experiment with my schedule. I am finding out that there are parts of the way I was doing things before that could use some tweaking and adjusting.

It is kind of like taking that horrible tasting medicine. You don’t want to. In fact, it is so gross, it makes you gag, but you take it. You do it because it is good for you and it is going to make you better.