THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today is Veteran’s Day and last week I was surprised to discover that I have the day off. I don’t believe this has happened before. Veteran’s Day feels like an overlooked holiday, which sounds about right for this country in general. Most veterans I know don’t walk around in uniform or carry signs depicting their service to this country. I think there’s even a large number of our population who hears the word “veteran” and conjures up an image of an older white man. Military service is distant and remote to many.

The last time I was visiting Mom, she gave me a storage bin filled with my Dad’s old Air Force uniforms. My high school letter jacket was in there too. I took two of the military coats along with the letter jacket to the cleaners. The rest of the bin contains the jumpsuits he wore while replacing breaks on fighter jets. When I was a kid, one of those jumpsuits could always be relied upon as a quick costume. Roll up the pant legs. Roll up the sleeves. Put on a pair of boots and aviator glasses and viola. You were now a fighter jet pilot. Every time I pulled on one of those jumpsuits, zipping it up, I never once thought about my dad as a soldier. He wasn’t. He was a mechanic.

This is my naivety on display.

Our veterans are not just gun totting soldiers. They are medical workers, chefs, mechanics, teachers, aid workers, veterinarians. They don’t have to have seen a battle or have been in the thick of artillery fire. They still served this country.

Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans—living or dead—but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.

I have plans to meet a friend for breakfast before getting as many chores done as I can so that the rest of my weekend is truly free for whatever I want. This is a privilege and one that is afforded to me because of a veteran.

Thank you to all veterans who served this shit show of a country during war and or peacetime.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I hate public speaking of any kind. As soon as standing on a stage, singing or playing an instrument, stopped paying for college, I walked off the stage with a sigh of relief. I am surprised that I do not have these same feeling when I’m standing in front of a class of yoga students, but I stepped into my yoga teacher self with ease and comfort. I loved it, but I also really loved the break I gave myself from teaching after moving to Kansas City. I have been reluctant to step back into my yoga teacher self. That break gave me space to cultivate my own personal practice that was so much sweeter than the one I had before when I was teaching all the time. I did not want teaching to interfere with that and I’ve done well at keeping my set boundaries.

I’ve been teaching yoga classes at work for some time now. What started out as a last minute fill-in for another yoga teacher, turned into a regular schedule. The yoga classes I teach have morphed and changed based on requests and needs. I now teach a chair yoga class once a week. When I was first approached to change my Wednesday samatva yoga class to a chair yoga class, I said ‘yes’ immediately but was a little disappointed. I wasn’t really into the idea of teaching a chair class, but I asked for the class to remain a forty five minute class as opposed to cutting the length down to thirty minutes.

I love my chair yoga class. I didn’t think I would love teaching it as much as I do, but it is my favorite thing to teach now. My friend Melissa, who has a spinal cord injury and is wheelchair bound, comes to my class and she is a willing (Guinnea pig) participant. This class has become the most soothing class for me to teach, as well as the most challenging. I have always struggled with a forty five minute time frame for a yoga class because it never feels like I have enough time to do the poses I want to do and give my students a decent final relaxation. I do not have that problem in chair yoga. When my chair yoga students peel themselves up from a ten or fifteen minute savasana, I can feel their peace and calmness radiating from them.

This brings me joy.

I recently sat down with the director of our fitness facility, Amie, to talk about my classes and ideas for January. First, I can’t believe we are already planning for the next year. What the hell happened to this year?!? Anyway, here we are barreling right on into 2023 like a truck with no brakes. Class attendance for my Thursday evening class is pretty low to absolutely empty and I told Amie that it should probably be cut from the team. She agreed that the timing for that class just wasn’t working and then she proposed an idea of teaching a six week beginning yoga course starting on Monday evening in January. My feeling about this idea registered on my face before it really hit me in my heart because Amie said something about how my whole face lit up with excitement.

Y’all?!?! I LOVE teaching a beginning yoga series!

I think it’s because of my first yoga experience and how my practice was born from just muscling my way through class after class. Yoga teacher training was a V8 for my personal practice because I learned how to do those poses without muscling my way through it. Then I learned how to teach this to other people. This knowledge of how to teach people the safe way to get in out of yoga poses makes me want to buy the world a Coke, but instead of soda make it a yoga mat. My six week beginning yoga class is for every person who ever said to me “I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible.” It is for every person who as ever walked into a class and felt overwhelmed because they had no idea what was going or what even the teacher was saying. I could go on and on, which makes me realize just how excited I am to teach yoga again.

That’s a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

More often than not, when I sit down to write my Friday gratitude post, it turns into a list of complaints. I just start writing about all the difficult and annoying things that happened during the week. The aches. The pains. The exhaustion. The list of things I didn’t accomplish. All of this flows out onto the page with such ease and I will have whole paragraphs of complaints written before I even realize that I’m complaining. Then, I’ll sit back and really read what I wrote and I will select all and hit ‘delete’. It’s not that I don’t feel like I have a right to complain. We all have complaints. Complaints are valid. It’s just that there is something therapeutic about writing it all down and then destroying it.

In a way, this whole process of writing is like cleaning out a closet. I’m getting rid of all the things that I don’t need and leaving behind the good stuff. But I am also making space for extra goodness. A few weeks ago, we received our Gene Keys for Self Care Circle. I have no idea how my gene keys were determined. It has something to do where and when I was born and the website descriptions make me roll my eyes real hard, but the results that came back to me are not untrue. In fact, there is so much not untrue things in my results that I have struggled to read them all completely, but I am going to share with you a few things that really stood out for me.

In the section on what keeps me healthy, it says that one of the most important factors in my well being and longevity is my ability to laugh. When I read this, I thought about last year’s October camp and how much laughing I did. At the end of camp, we went around the circle sharing what we got out of that camp. One woman said that she didn’t come to camp thinking she would end up laughing so much and I looked over to see Amani poking a finger at me, outing me as one of the causes of all the laughter. And it was all true. Last October, I rediscovered my laugh and my ability to see the humor in the ridiculous. This is important because the next thing my gene key says is that “life for you is about finding lightness and humor, especially in difficult or challenging circumstances”.

Shut.

Up.

Sometimes it takes me writing paragraphs of complaints and then deleting them in order for me to make space for finding the lightness and the humor under any circumstances. Especially in difficult and challenging ones.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

In my Self Care Circle group, we’ve talked a lot about ways to incorporate movement and cultivate joy in our every day lives. Roze gave us all the gift of the one song dance party where for one whole song, you dance with abandon, like no one’s watching. I’ve never been shy about moving my body to a beat, but I did find it important enough to remind myself to get up and dance. So I put it on my calendar and every day at 2:00pm, I get an alert that it is time for a dance party at my desk. I scheduled it for this time because I start to get sluggish and sleepy in the mid afternoon. It might not make sense to force myself off my butt to dance when I’m slumping, but dancing is an energizing exercise. So at 2:00pm, I can be found shaking off my mid afternoon slumps by wiggling my hips and flailing about like a wacky wavy inflatable tube guy.

There’s a scene in Beetlejuice where he makes a group of people at a dinner part start dancing. I’m sure you are familiar with the scene, but the dinner party guests all start involuntarily moving their bodies to the beat of the Banana Boat song and looking all confused. I become one of those dinner party guests, except with less confusion, whenever a song with a good beat starts playing. I can’t help myself and do not ever wish to help myself. At concerts, I will look around me while I’m flailing about and see most of the audience just standing motionless. I want to grab ahold of the nearest person and yell “MOVE YOUR BODY! HOW CAN YOU STAND STILL TO THIS BEAT! I MEAN, CAN’T YOU FEEEEEL THIS MUSIC?!?!” That’s the thing. I don’t just hear music as much as I feel it physically inside my body.

Every morning when I get out of the shower, I poke my head into the living room and say “Alexa, play some music.” Because there are three of us on this music account with various listening preferences, I usually have to poke my head out into the living room again and say “Alexa, play a different station.” This week, I told her to play songs by the Scissor Sisters. I have danced every morning this week while brushing my teeth, putting on makeup, drying my hair and getting dressed. Then Josephine and I dance while I’m getting her goodbye treats and I pretty much dance right up until I ask Alexa to stop so I can leave the house.

This simple act of adding music that makes me dance to my mornings is what has made this generally normal, just a week kind of week, more than just a normal week (side note: on two separate occasions this week, I had at least one article of clothing on backwards). I often sneak vegetables into our meals because getting Michael to eat something other than corn is challenging. Well, adding dance music to my mornings is like sneaking in vegetables, except in this case joy is replacing kale. I have been sneaking joy into my life each morning with dance music.

I highly recommend it.

Also, I highly recommend kale.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Fall blue skies are like no other season’s. Sharp, vibrant, fierce. On particularly clear days, the sky can look unreal, like flat backdrops to a stage production. They are so brilliantly blue and crisp that it cause the eyes to squint to look at it. These skies are deceptive. There is no way of knowing by looking out the window what the temperature will be like when you step outside. It could be perfectly wonderful out there or chilly with a cold wind that you can only feel on your ears. Fall skies are strikingly beautiful in an almost painful way. It is as contradictory as my feelings. I love the beauty of it and I hate the cold that comes with it.

The mornings this week have been so dark. Wednesday was the worst for it. It started out with rain and thick, heavy clouds. Josephine and I had to skip our walk, which she didn’t seem to mind since she crawled under the comforter when the alarm sounded. But even when it was time to get up and into the shower, the sky was still dark. I drove to work in the dark. I walked the building for my morning coffee in the dark. It was just …dark. Then I looked out the windows and in the distance, I could see a clear division line between gray clouds and blue sky. It was if we were playing a game where we had covered ourselves and the whole city with a blanket and now someone was slowly pulling the blanket away, not just revealing ourselves to the above, but opening our eyes to a blinding blue sky.

Friday morning as I drove to work, the radio starting playing Be Sweet by Japanese Breakfast. I turned up the volume and sang along with my whole heart. That song makes me think of those ridiculous plastic charm necklaces that we all collected as kids, side pony tails and ruffled skirts. I’m wearing my KSwiss tennies, baggy jeans with strategically ripped knees and an over size sweater and felt all the angsty tween feelings while belting out “I wanna believe in you. I wanna beelieeeeveeee.” The sky around me was that blinding blue sky of Fall. Not a cloud was visible as the sun broke over the tops of the trees, sun rays sparkling on glass and turning the fall leaves into a kaleidoscope.

Be sweet to me, baby
I wanna believe in you, I wanna believe (be sweet)
Be sweet to me, baby
I wanna believe in you, I wanna believe in something

These are the days for sweaters and wool blankets. These are the days for wrapping ourselves up in warmth while sipping on hot drinks. These are the days for reveling in the almost painful beauty of those kaleidoscopes of leaves. These are the days to be sweet to each other.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Right as you walk in the front doors to our local Trader Joe’s is a display of pumpkins, two large crates full of decorative gourds and on the first day of October, this display is a traffic jam of aggressive women filling their carts with these pumpkins and gourds. After successfully maneuvering my shopping cart through the pumpkin gauntlet, I ran smack into a display of dwarf olive trees. There were eight of them and a woman was scooping all of them into her cart. I managed to snag one of the eight even though I had no business buying an olive tree. I kill house plants. I have had plants rescued from my house because I am not a plant witch. I grabbed that olive tree with a fierce determination to keep this thing alive and so help me, I’m going to do it. In three years, we will be eating olives that I grew.

Then I went home and hot glued one hundred googly eyes onto my Halloween wreath.

This was how Michael found me when he got up. I was sitting at our table, hot glue gun in one hand and a bowl full of googly eyes in the other. He suggested I take a break by going to get lunch. I agreed and pointed out the olive tree and that needed a pot and potting soil. We also needed to decide Saturday’s dinner. I glued the last eye onto the wreath while Michael was in the shower and then the two of us drove off in search of food and planting material, which didn’t take as long at it usually takes us to do Saturday things. This meant that I was able to get all of the things done, the cleaning, the planting, the Halloween decorating, all of it accomplished before dinner. I did the things that I usually put off until Sunday and so on Sunday, I didn’t have to do anything.

So I went to a yoga class, a rare treat for me.

I’m telling you all of this now in a Thankful Friday posting because all of those things that I did last weekend have played a big role in helping me tackle this week. I woke up Wednesday morning and thought “It’s only Wednesday.” Michael sent a text to me that he had only poured hot water into his travel tea mug, no tea bags or sugar. I forgot my smoothie. The day was gray and cloudy. And all I could think was we still had two more days of this week to get through. This week has been long and uncomfortable.

Every time I have walked up to my front door, I have chuckled at the one hundred googly eyes looking back at me from my wreath. It is my reminder to allow for silliness and the healing power of laughter. Walking past the dining room window and seeing my olive tree still looking happy has brought me joy. That olive tree, a symbol of peace, is also a reminder of resilience. Making it to an actual yoga class set a precedent for my own practice this week, which has gotten a little wonky lately because of teaching and schedules. Josephine and I even made it out for our morning walks every morning this week. Sticking to these routines have been a source of grounding and have kept me present.

I am thankful that this week is nearly at an end and that I have this weekend to refill my buckets with good things.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Every time we camped in Colorado, I would set out our hummingbird feeder. There were times when I would be stepping out the camper door with the feeder in my hands and I would be swarmed by hummingbirds. They had no fear of me as they perched on the feeder I was holding. I would spend hours watching them buzz in and out of our campsite. If there are magical creatures, the hummingbird must be on that list. They truly are a marvel of evolutionary design and I don’t think I will ever grow weary of watching them, but they are migratory. They chase the warmth of the sun, a need I can respect and desire for myself and have been known to travel over 3,000 miles in their migrations. Every night, hummingbirds slow their metabolism down as a way of saving energy and enter a state known as torpor, a hibernation state of deep sleep. They often use spider webbing and lichens to build nests. They sleep in beds made of spider silk. And that sounds like a magical fairytale all by itself.

I took my hummingbird feeder down this week. It has been days since I have seen a hummingbird. For a while there, I had three of them fighting over my feeder. They were my favorite things to watch. One would perch on the cable line and keep watch. When another bird would fly near the feeder, the one hanging out on the line would zip down and off they’d go. Like fighter jets zipping around in the air. In the quiet moments, when they were not arguing over who gets to eat, you would have the privilege of watching one of the hummingbirds hover by the feeder, taking tentative slurps from the sugar water. Sometimes they would get comfortable enough to perch at the feeder. In the evening, the sun reaches a level where it shines directly from the West into our yard. It can be blinding, but this is my favorite time of day to watch the hummingbirds. Their wings are almost translucent as they filter the light.

My hummingbirds are not as bold or brave as the hummingbirds I have met in Colorado. They are tentative as they approach the feeder and any sudden moves sends them darting off. In order for me to watch them, I have to sit very still. I have to be still to watch their wings beating at a rate of eighty eight per second. It seems almost comical to me that this fast tiny bird creates stillness within me and I will miss them through the winter months. But, oh the gift of joy that I receive when they return in the Spring. I am building my own nest of spider silk to tuck these memories into so that I may hold them close as the days grow darker and colder.

Today I am grateful for spider silk nests.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Don’t let yourself only love one thing. Because if you only love one thing and that thing goes away? Well…then you’re left with nothing. And that sucks. - Bunny Folger, Only Murders in The Building

When I heard this line while watching Only Murders in The Building, I made Michael rewind the scene so that I could accurately jot the line down in a notebook. The words seemed important to me for some reason. While the character speaking the line was referring to her life’s work as the board director for her apartment building, I feel that this line goes deeper than just one’s life work. It can be easy to turn all your love and devotion onto one idea.

I wonder how my life would be now if I had only allowed myself one thing, one interest, one person. I probably wouldn’t notice how I had limited myself until the one thing was gone. I drank the kool-aid of interdisciplinary curriculum during my undergraduate years and made it a point to surround myself with more than science, building my own circus family in the process. Except, in a way I did love one thing. A person. It is no secret that I still love that person even though he’s gone and has been for awhile now. I think the thing Bunny failed to realize on her last day of living was that you can love just one thing. You can devote your life to it, fully immerse yourself into it and soaking in it so that your fingers are perpetually wrinkled. You can do all of that just as long as you recognize that everything is temporary. If you can love that temporary thing that much, then you can love something else when it is gone. All that is required is that you keep your open to the idea of something else, something more.

If anything, loving one thing teaches you that you have the ability to love.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I did a long list of chores on Sunday, but there are still projects that I need to do around the house. It is time for a deep cleaning, washing rugs and sweeping behind furniture. I would also like to paint our dining room hutch since Ikea is never going to have the replacement cabinet in stock. I am taking a week of vacation time to do all of those things, but before I dig into cleaning, I’m escaping for the weekend.

I signed myself up for an all women’s retreat in Hot Springs, AR and two of my friends from camp will be riding in the car with me. We leave in a very short few hours and I can’t really wait to hit the road. When I left work yesterday, I left behind some smoldering fires. The 488 laser is out on our spinning disk confocal and people are supposed to be here (supposed to be) today to start in on the repair. The plate loading robot for our high content confocal is currently stuck holding a plate because it lost connection with the microscope and as much as I tried to communicate with tech support for this, I was unable to get any answers or replies. I did the only thing I could do and that was to throw my hands in the air and walk out of the building.

I almost feel the same way about home. The lawnmower is in pieces and we’re still fending off raccoons. Michael trapped one yesterday. I think it was Ralph. Emerson is bigger and I have yet to determine if there is a Waldo. I was told that if you think there are two raccoons, then there are really four or five of them. The light for Micheal’s new ceiling fan is not working properly and might involve an electrician. Instead of sticking around here and dealing with this current state of chaos, I’m hopping into a car to spend a weekend digging crystals and doing yoga. There’s some sort of moon ceremony happening. Basically, I’m playing witch for a weekend. Or pretending to be a little bit Scarlet.

Today is about trust. I leave here having to put all of my trust in other people to handle the smoldering fires until I return. I have to trust that Michael will remember to close the dog doors at night and that the techs who are supposed to show up will actually show up and fix the laser. It’s okay if some of those fires are still smoldering when I return. I have to trust that other people will tend to the smoldering fire to keep it from becoming a full blaze before I return.

Now I’m off to dig up some crystals.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

After holding my egg up to a candle, I discovered that there wasn’t anything growing inside of it. No puggle. No puggle with dragon wings. Nothing but egg goo. The egg wasn’t stinky and rotten though. So, I cracked it open, scrambled it up with some green onions and cheese, and I ate it. It was delicious. With every bite, I pondered my reasons for even picking up the egg in the first place and what I could learn from the experience of holding onto the egg. It’s a lot of analogy and vagueness for conveying that I am not moving to England.

Instead, I have thrown myself deep into my work and I am focusing on learning some new tricks.

If the egg was a lemon, I’d be making lemonade.

It seems fitting that I am shifting gears and focus right as we move from August into September. The fireflies gave way to the cicadas and crickets a month ago, but in the last two weeks I’ve noticed a stillness in the mornings that doesn’t always exist in the hottest months. Nothing has started buzzing yet and the sun is just barely up when Josephine and I return from our morning walks. The sidewalks are littered with cicada bodies. A few trees are getting patches of yellow leaves. The air smells different. Everyone but me is leaping into it all and saying “hurry up, Fall!”. I’m over here whispering '“not yet.” I’m not ready for the end of summer not just because I’ll miss the weather. I’m not ready because I want more time to marinate in this current mental state.

I want to formulate some new goals and edit my old goals. I haven’t felt this relaxed about making life changes in years. Usually, the thought of even attempting to make a goal made me so anxious that in the end, I would drop it because I am just going to fail anyway. This summer, forty six years into my life, I realized that I can fail at lot of things.

Every failure here branched off into a success for another Evelyn in another life. Most people only have a few significant alternate life paths so close to them. But you, here, you're capable of anything because you're so bad at everything. - Alpha Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Maybe I’m not bad at everything, but I don’t I have to be good at everything either. I can have lots and lots of eggs. Some of those eggs just might contain something wonderfully magical. Most of those eggs are going to be filled regular egg goo, but even those eggs will not be a waste.

I know how to make a lot of things with eggs.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Beans.

I’ve been trying to write this post of gratitude and all I can come up with is that I am grateful for beans.

When Michael and I came home from Vancouver, he decided that he was going to eat a specific meal plan and this has turned us into a fend-for-yourself household. I kind of love it because I get to go back to eating all the meals I would fix for myself in my single days, the kind of meals that when I tried to put them on the weekly menu, Michael would screw up his fast in disgust. Sunday night, I made a pot of purple hulled peas with stewed tomatoes and kale, Monday was pan-fried gnocchi with zucchini and cannellini beans, and Tuesday was a southwestern bowl of sweet potatoes, black beans, spinach and avocado. Every meal this week has featured a bean.

You might be thinking “Cindy..that’s a lot of beans. You must be very gassy.” I am not. My guts are feeling great.

These are the kind of meals that make me feel whole and grounded, meals that require a bit of meditation while preparing and only have to please me. Making the weekly menu has become so much easier. I don’t think I can express just how difficult it has been to sit down every week and create a meal plan that Michael will agree on. He might say that he is not a picky eater, but his words do not match his actions. Most of the meals I have suggested over the years have been met with a frown and a heavy sigh, followed up with a passive aggressive “I guess…”. He is not an easy person to please. I didn’t realize how stressful making the meal plan had become until this week when I’ve been able to eat beans every single day and not hear any one complain about it.

So…yeah…beans. I’m taking a moment to be grateful for beans.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I found an egg that was still warm to the touch and decided to sit on it in hopes that it might hatch. The thing is, I don’t know what kind of animal laid the egg in the first place. Will this hatch out something with feathers or scales or fur? Half of you read that and shook your heads while thinking “Oh, Cindy. Furry things don’t come from eggs.” Duck billed platypus. They’re the only mammals that lay eggs and freshly hatched babies are called puggles. How freaking adorable is that? I sure hope this egg is holding a puggle. It is more than likely that there is nothing viable inside this egg, but I’m staying on it anyway. It’s either going to start stinking, at which point I will get up and walk away or it’s going to hatch. Then I will be left to figure out how I’m going to raise whatever creature hatches. Maybe it’s a dragon! Maybe it’s a puggle with wings like a dragon.

It’s almost just as fun imaging what might be inside the egg.

Making the decision to sit on this egg was an impulsive one. The other day, I saw an add for tethered hot-air balloon rides and I immediately, without pausing, bought myself a ticket. I didn’t even think of buying two tickets. I knew Michael would not be interested. Heights are not his thing. Particularly being in a basket that is being lifted by a giant balloon is not his thing. I sent a text to Michael telling him what I had done and he replied that we had the kid this weekend. So I scrambled to get a second a ticket, but they had already sold out. Even though I have been waiting forty four years to ride in a hot-air balloon, I was willing to give my ticket to the Cabbage. As it turns out there was a schedule change. We don’t have the Cabbage and I am riding that balloon. Michael said he wouldn’t have let me give the ticket to the Cabbage anyway.

Both of these impulsive decisions are direct results from feeling my heart explode with a resounding “YES!” Roze told me recently that I am on the bus. She said to just stay on the bus. Now, I am all for a good touristy bus ride around a new city to get my bearings, but this bus ride is not one for tourists. It’s fast and furious and bumpy with a little bit of clutching hold of the seat for dear life. I almost want off the bus, but the thrill seeker in me is all “No…Roze is right. I need to stay on the bus.” So here I am making impulsive decisions and on the bus with my egg that may be filled with unfertilized goo or a puggle with dragon wings. And IT’S FREAKIN’ TERRIFYING! But also exhilarating.

It feels vaguely familiar. Like the difference between just existing and really living. That whole really living thing is something that I’ve either been forcing myself to do or not doing at all. It is a pre-loss feeling. I feel like I am leaning into the person I used to be. That right there is something I can truly be grateful for this week.

Thankful Friday

I have struggled to keep track of days and times ever since we got back from Vancouver. One day last week, I thought I had over slept so that I couldn’t take the dog for a walk. I jumped out of bed and rushed to get ready for work, but when I walked back into my room to get dressed, my clock read 6:20 AM. What it should have read was 7:20 AM. Not knowing what else to do, I finished getting dressed and I went to work. I repeatedly refer to the current day as the day before. This week, I arrived to an appointment an hour early truly believing I was ten minutes late. Michael has spent the last two weeks telling me what day it is and what day it will be tomorrow.

I have also gotten into a habit of not even taking a glance at the weather reports. Wednesday morning, I rode my scooter to work even though I could see dark clouds in the west. I just shrugged and figured they would move on and it was just going to be another typical hundred degree day. Instead, it rained and rained. At around three in the afternoon, Jeff checked the radar and said that now was the best time to get home without getting rained on. I raced home, feeling a few drops of rain hit my face and chest. I pulled Valerie into the garage and shut the garage door just as the downpour hit.

Time is just something I have stopped noticing while I focus on other things at the moment.

The earlier version of me would be really annoyed with myself for not being able to keep track of time. This version of me is only mildly anxious. I have meticulously put things on my calendar and my daily list appears on my desktop. I have reminders for appointments and Michael to remind me of what day it is. I am just organized enough to be able to know what’s happening and when. This is good enough for me. The gratitude here comes in the form of letting go. It’s like I am slowly popping off the restrictive rubber bands that I have wrapped around my own body. Each band represents some ridiculous rule I’ve made for myself.

And it feels really good to break those rules.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This has been a big week for vulnerable moments. On top of the vague thing I did in the middle of week, I also submitted a photo to the New York Times in hopes that it will be featured on their Spelling Bee Forum page. Then a co-worker/friend asked me if they could have a photo or two to use in their presentation on the intersection of Art and Science at the Innovation Festival. After a moment of hysteria, I provided them with a small handful of photos to choose. Then the big vague thing contacted me and asked me to complete a few tasks and that is where I am today. I am in the rare position of wishing that the work week had an extra day to it. I think I will be spending a few hours with my laptop at a cafe somewhere this weekend.

There is a lot happening.

Rose sent out more information on Human Design and Split Definitions this week and there was one part that really hit home.

You naturally draw in people that bridge your split and spark collaborations

Once, a long time ago, Michael said something about I even know some of these people. He was referring to my friends, ones that I made here and those from before. At the time, I just shrugged and said “I collect interesting people.” Michael laughed at this and said that I should wear a button that says that. Since that conversation, I have added to my collection and what a wonderful collection it is. I realized this week that these are the people who are my bridges and sparkers. I feel you cheering me on and supporting me while I do the big vulnerable things.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve hit a little bit of a writing wall. This is why you are not seeing anything new here this week. I’m leaving Sunday for a science conference and I’ve been spending a lot of energy looking over the program and making calendar notes for the sessions I want to attend. I have not attended a conference in person since December 2019 and I’m really excited to be going because online conferences are a struggle for me. I need to be in a room filled with people who are excited and fascinated with what other scientists are doing. This is where my brain space is right now, planning and packing.

The summer before I started my senior year of high school, I was away at so many different camps that I was only home for about two weeks before school started. There was a time when my summers were filled up with travel. As an adult, that shifted because I was no longer held to school time calendar, at least not until Michael came along. Summers are the only times he can travel and it seems like we fill up every summer with it. This one is no different. We’ve been to camp. We’ve spent time at a lake house. There’s a quick getaway planned in August to see Andrew Bird in St. Louis. Michael and the Cabbage are tagging along with me next week and playing tourists while I play science. I did schedule in some breaks from the conference for myself so that I can meet the two of them for dinner or lunch, as well as some tourist time of my own.

I’m grateful to be able to travel again for science reasons and I’m grateful that I can drag Michael and the Cabbage along. I am grateful for all the travel we get to do in the summer time, but I am aware of how all of my travel seems to be limited to this one season. So I am making plans to remedy this with some solo adventures. Solo adventures used to be a common, unquestionable thing that I did and not just after Chris died. We were both really good at the practice of JOMO. It is time that I allow myself to do these things again without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings by taking off without them.

Look at me, securing my own oxygen mask.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

“We haven’t had our anniversary dinner at Bella Napoli’s yet. Let’s go this week.” he said. He says this every year in June, the month we met. We are usually off on what the actual day was because we can never really remember. This year we were off by a few weeks. Michael had to look it up. He’s better at keeping track of these things, anniversaries and lengths of time. When he suggests Bella Napoli’s, I always think of the song for the opening credits of Parent Trap (the original one with Hailey Mills).

To set the bait, recreate the date, the first time cupid shot ‘em. - Richard M. Sherman/Robert B. Sherman

I met Michael at the restaurant Tuesday after work. He got there first and I parked my scooter next to his. He walked up as I was taking off my helmet and I immediately apologized for being late. I’d texted him telling him that I was leaving work in five minutes, but five minutes turned into fifteen. He leaned in to kiss me and said that he was worried and was just about to come looking for me. We went inside and were seated at a table with a view of the front door and patio. We ordered a bottle of wine to share and I people watched. This is a neighborhood place. People walk here from home and there is a diverse crowd of elderly couples mixed with young families. Small groups of teenagers sit outside, sharing pizzas.

I watched as the owner greeted familiar faces, asking how a trip was or when the grandkids were visiting. “How long has Bella Napoli’s been here?” I asked as I swirled the wine in my glass. Michael shrugged and answered “Twenty years?” Michael asked our waitress when she came back with our order of steamed mussels, telling her that we had been coming here for about nine years. She confirmed that Bella Napoli’s was a little over twenty years old. Later, when she brought us our check, she said “You guys have been coming here for nine years?” Michael told her that this was were we met on our first date. We watched as our waitress turned to goo and then exclaim “Oh my gosh! This was the place of your first date and you’ve been coming here for nine years?!? That’s so cool.”

It is a bit of a romantic story.

The last three years have not been easy. There have been moments when the words around ending things have rested on the very tip of my tongue. The space between our emotional and intellectual planes has felt too vast. Yet every time those words have rested on my tongue, I have refrained from speaking them out loud. I have paused to remind my self to find empathy and understanding. Next year is a contract renewal year and he has mentioned this a number of times. He ends his sentences with ‘if you want to renew the contract’. It is never if he wants it or if we want it. The renewing of the contract is all on me. My response to this is never with full confidence for a number of reasons. It shouldn’t just be my decision, but I suppose he wouldn’t bring it up if he wasn’t into renewing the contract. Recently, I rediscovered my voice and requested some changes, changes he immediately started working on. Those words no longer rest on the tip of my tongue and I am getting used to the sensation of that lifted weight.

He will jump through hoops to make this relationship work.

He will jump through hoops for me.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I did not know Amani or Sarah until last year. I didn’t know Erica or Jenn who live in my neighborhood, until last year. There is a really long list of people that I could write down here that I didn’t know or love until last year. Tavia and Xander. Abbi and Lucas. Roze. Rose (who did an amazing drawing of my singing bowl experience). Dee! Man, that woman will inspire you to get on the hiking trail. Jess and Jade, our lifeguards. Michelle or camp photographer. I’m afraid to continue listing names because I know I will leave someone out. We all met each other at Camp Wildling. One of my concerns about moving to KCMO was making new friends. How do you make new friends after the age of 30 particularly if you do not have children? There are 491,158 people living in this city. How do find the ones who get you and love you for being you?

You go to camp.

At opening ceremony for Camp Wildling, everyone is invited to place something on the alter we set up in the shala and you are encouraged to say a few words about the item. Things placed here represent what you hope to get out of camp or what you’d like to leave behind at camp. People place pictures, rocks, charms. All kinds of things. This year I placed the print that I had written a note on for Granny. I said that the picture represents two things. One is to never hesitate to send the note, to reach out and connect. The other thing the picture represents is the connections and relationships that can be formed at camp. I attended many different summer camps as a young person and I always made new friends. We would all end up being pen pals for a while, but eventually the connections would fade out. Remember your tween self for a moment, living in the age before internet and cell phones and imagine maintaining long distance friendships. Even with technology, it takes effort.

It’s worth the effort. More than worth it.

The friendships I have made through Camp Wildling are important to me. Not just because I have collected some really great people into my life, but because it helps me maintain and foster old friendships. When I send a message to Tania telling her how awesome she is and that plant she pointed out completely stopped my bug bite from itching, I am reminded to also send a message to Steph to ask about her trip to Mexico. There is a song we used to sing at 4-H summer camp. It is a simple one line song that we would sing in a round. It was usually the last campfire song of camp. It is my first lesson on the importance of connections and relationship.

Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.

It is not lost on me how fortunate I am to have such a group of fantastic people in my life or how important is to keep them in my life. Both the silver and the gold.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Yesterday, I pulled up a Harry Styles playlist on Amazon and had a fun, joyful and a bit silly yoga practice. There were dance breaks between surya namaskars. There were a number of surya namaskars that flowed along with the music. I laughed at myself and I smiled a whole lot. When it was time for savasana, I opened a guided meditation from Sarah Blondin entitled “You are Allowed”. I set myself up in supported fish and settled in, feeling my heart thumping at the base of my ears. As per usual, whenever I listen to a guided meditation, the words being spoken flow in out of my consciousness. I kind of pay attention to them and then I don’t and then I do and then I don’t. I had stopped paying attention to this meditation but then Sarah said something that brought me back with a jolt.

Can you remember when you stopped allowing yourself to feel? Can you remember when you began coping instead of laughing, can you remember to your one? What caused you to leave the seat of your heart?

Coping instead of laughing.

I think those are the words that smashed down the hardest on a nerve, though all of those words hit something. I know that in the last ten years, I have spent more time coping and less time laughing, but sometimes I laugh in order to cope. I know in the last ten years, I have spent more time purposefully not feeling. I know what caused me to leave the seat of my heart. I know that the seat of my heart is forever changed and settling into that space is not as comfortable as it once was. It is like how I am still struggling to find my comfortable seated position after tearing my ACL. I just can’t seem to sit still and be comfortable for long periods of time. While I have been working and stretching within my yoga practice to get back to a comfortable seated position, I have done nothing to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space or even an inviting space.

How can I rearrange to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space?

Don't talk to me now, I'm molting
Don't tell me that it's revolting
Every inch of us
Every inch of us
Every inch of us, a walking miracle

-Andrew Bird, Inside Problems

Every inch of is a walking miracle. We can do more than just cope. I can do more than just cope. It might be time for some molting, shedding some things that no longer serve me or give me comfort. The seat of my heart does not have to be plush. It only has to be comfortable enough to spend some amount of time there.

Summer projects.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

For some of us the concept of joy is illusive. I was having a serious conversation recently with someone who said to me “I don’t think I even know what joy looks like.” I’ve been thinking about this for days because I have seen this person laugh and smile with authentic joy. Yet, that very same person doesn’t know what joy looks like. Joy did not become an illusive thing for me until after J’s death. In the days, weeks and months after J’s death, I felt nothing at all. I did not know what joy looked like, but I also didn’t know what any emotion looked like. My ability to process any kind of emotion was shut down like an old computer. It took me longer than it should have to realize that I was feeling numb, but I was fortunate enough to have a partner who was supportive. Chris was a great support, but besides being patient and supportive, Chris was a master at seeking out joy. I believe he became a master at seeking out joy because he learned way before we even met that joy is illusive. It took time and effort to bring myself back from the void of nothing and I really feel it would have been impossible if not for Chris.

Here are some activities that helped me cultivate joy in my daily life: gratitude practice, photography projects, scooter rides, my yoga practice, teaching my yoga practice. Of all of these practices, I will say that my gratitude practice and my photography projects have been the most important activities. Joy is not only illusive, but it is a master of disguise. It can hide in the tiniest, strangest of places. Joy can be right in front of your face and so well disguised that you don’t see it. But I also think we have this disillusionment or predisposed idea of what joy should look like, that makes it easier for real joy to disguise itself. We don’t know what joy looks because we are bombarded with contradicting voices telling us about the things we are supposed to need to be joyful or how we must look in order to be joyful. In the quest to have the thing or look the look, we lose sight of what joy really looks like. Both the gratitude practice and the daily photo project helped me to recognize when I was looking at a moment of joy.

Your brain has to be trained to see joyful moments.

If you watch TV, spend time on the internet, read the news…you know, the things we all do every day… you will not see that there is much to be joyful about. If you are passively waiting for joy to jump out of its hiding space and yell out “I’m Here!”, you should be prepared to wait and wait and wait. Joyful moments, at first, need to be actively sought out. It is only after you learn to recognize joy, that joyful moments be can be spontaneous moments. My joy this week has been found in the moments I have been able to walk outside in between rain storms. It is seeing Josephine recovering well from dental surgery this week. I have found joy in teaching my yoga classes this week and seeing new faces in those classes. Joy has been present in the moments when I have truly helped someone with their science on a microscope. I had some good writing time this week, which doesn’t always fill me with joy, but there is joy in making progress. The last two weeks have been hard. Really fucking hard. Not just for me, but for all of us. Joy is wearing its best camouflage right now and you’ve got to look really hard to see it.

But it’s there.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

List of US Senators who have taken the most amount of money in campaign donations from the NRA can be found here: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/national-rifle-assn/recipients?id=d000000082

Calling, texting, emailing your senators daily or at least weekly. Tell them to prove their claims of ‘pro-life’ by actually doing something to protect life. Tell them how embarrassing it is that this country is number one in deaths from gun violence in all of the first world countries.

You can support victims of gun violence by donating and or volunteering with Every Town, a non for profit group working for reform on all levels and providing mental health resources to families affected by gun violence.

Change will not come by posting memes on social media. Change will not come by raising our voices in protest. Thoughts and prayers are not going to solve this. Ever. The fight is in supporting candidates who will prioritize the health of the people of this country. The fight is ensuring that every American has easy access to voting. The fight is at EVERY election.

Vote like a parent who had to wait for DNA results to identify their child who was killed by a mass shooter.