THANKFUL FRIDAY

Last Saturday, I purchased $300 worth of picture frames and then I threw up on my shoes. Tonight, Michael and I are going to the art reception for the artist currently in the space where I will hang my pictures in September. I received a list of the artists and reception dates a while back and the line up is all women which is great. It looks like I am the only photographer (ha!) of the group which makes me nervous. I thought that moving my showing to September would give me time to settle in to the idea that I might be a little bit professional, but instead I just waver between confident and fake.

I’m a big fake.

There is a woman I met at camp who runs her own home organization business. She reached out to me a while back asking if I’d be willing to have a one-on-one session with her to teach her take better pictures with her phone. Scheduling for the both of us has been crazy, but we finally put it on our calendars to meet for coffee on Saturday. After we confirmed our date, I immediately started a mental list of things I wanted tell her, things I wanted to show her. I told her to bring a notebook. And for a few days now, I haven’t felt like a huge fake. The feelings I have around teaching someone the things I know about phone photography are very similar to how I feel when I’m teaching yoga. I feel like I know what I’m doing.

I am hesitant to admit that I know what I am doing.

I struggled with a return to teaching yoga after my many year hiatus because every yoga teacher I met when I moved here seemed more yogi than I felt. They often tossed around important yogi names like Pattahbi Jois and BKS Iyengar and even though I know who these people are, I do not follow their philosophies of yoga. I follow and teach an adaptation of these philosophies, but I have strong opinions about about yoga and our bodies and how we should move those bodies in yoga. And I know human anatomy. Despite all of that, it took me a minute to find my confidence in teaching again. I had to remind myself that I know what I’m doing, that I have always known what I was doing.

I quickly showed a coworker how to use a system he had never used before and as we walked out of the room he said “You’re the greatest!” I only hesitated slightly when I responded with a ‘thank you’. I said something about hesitating and he said “NO! OWN IT!” Not too long ago, while reading my book club book, I got to the chapter on celebrating victories and not down playing accomplishments. Like when someone gives you a compliment, you don’t respond with something like “yeah…I could have done a better job” or “It doesn’t look like the picture, but I think it still tastes good.” The whole point of the chapter was to stop giving yourself those little digs that we tend to give ourselves. I feel like ‘greatest’ is a bit of an exaggeration, but today I am owning it. I am the greatest in some things. To some people, this may sound conceited, but I will argue that recognizing the greatness in yourself teaches you to see the greatness in others.

Today I am thankful for small celebrations of self.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I did not wear a coat to work today because I did not need a coat.

We are officially selling our camper tomorrow.

My brother celebrated another year of living this week.

My brother and sister-in-law are visiting this weekend.

I got a two temporary crowns put on some teeth that are two close together yesterday and I’m happy my mouth doesn’t hurt as bad today as it did yesterday.

The tulips are beginning to bloom.

Michael and I got to see Hamilton.

Josephine and I made it out twice this week for morning walks.

I read three different reputable news papers every morning to stay informed. Once a week I look on the government websites to see what bills and proposals are being introduced and who voted for what. I spend some time writing my senators and representatives. Sometimes I feel like my gratitude posts make it seem as if I am unaware or ignoring the atrocities that continue to repeat themselves in this country. I went with a list this week to remind me that even though outside my bubble this country is a dumpster fire, I am fortunate.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael is on Spring Break this week and instead of the two of us going on a vacation, I became his driver for his first ever colonoscopy on Monday. This also meant that on Sunday, I could eat what ever I wanted because Michael was on a clear liquid diet. I made the most delicious pot of beans with kale. Michael looked over my shoulder while I stirred in the kale and said “You can have anything you want to eat and this is what you choose?!” He walked away in disgust, but I’m going to tell you that hands down, this was the best batch of beans I’ve ever cooked and because it was beans, I ended up eating it for lunch on two days.

I wasn’t mad about it.

When the nurses called me back to Michael in recovery, he was yelling “Lorraine”. I quickly discovered that Lorraine was his recovery nurse, except Michael didn’t seem to know this. When I told him about it later, he said “Who’s Lorraine?” Then I had to explain to him that Lorraine was his recovery nurse. Michael was slightly more alert when his seventeen year old doctor came in to tell us about the procedure, what they found, what to expect. They removed a few polyps, which was enough to make Michael a bit nervous. So when the pathology report came in on Wednesday with all good news, there was a bit of celebration. My back feels so much better this week, with only an occasional twinge. Michael received a clean bill of health. The cat is on the mend. Josephine, who’s only issue has been inhaling all of her food at once, is now mindfully eating from her new puzzle bowl. The Cabbage seems to be good. Right now, in this very moment, we are all healthy.

Wednesday morning, my friend/coworker Amanda and I walked over to the nature center across the street to collect pond water. Amanda’s built a microscope for taking out into the field. We call it the Planktoscope and we needed to make a video of it working for a presentation our boss is giving next week. It was a damp and foggy walk. The air was chillier than either of us had expected, but the walk was pleasant. We hadn’t made it far before I noticed the first tulip bud and said “we need to stop.” I snapped some photos and then looked at Amanda. “This is the hazard of walking outside with me.” I said. Amanda smiled and said “Strolling is my favorite form of walking.” I stopped us three more times on our little pond water collection adventure. It was enough to shine some light on my inner creative parts that have felt a bit dormant lately.

Today’s gratitude comes in the form of health. Both physical and mental. My yoga practice is slowly returning to normal. I feel like next week will be a good week to get back to the morning dog walks. Michael installed a rack and storage case to my bicycle this week and I’m truly looking forward to riding my bike to work soon. Like, my heart says ‘yes’ to this, which is unusual for me. I won the lottery for Hamilton tickets and we’re going to see Hamilton for $20 next week! The camper dealership made us a really decent offer for our camper and now we don’t have that to fret over. These are little things worth celebrating.

Good things are coming our way.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today, I’d like to celebrate the relativity of time. I know there is a lot of love/hate feelings regarding Daylight Savings Time and the idea of ‘loosing an hour’. My alarm is set for 5:25 AM (yes, it’s a specifically weird time to get up, I have my reasons), but for the last month I have been waking up at 4:25. This totally screws up any notion of getting up at 5:25. So, I thought that the time change was going to work in my favor.

It did not. Still waking up at 4:25, except now with serious low back pain.

Yay!

Thanks to this whole pain situation, I am constantly moving my body and have had the most consistent yoga practice that I have had in months. Stillness invites pain.

While everyone was celebrating Pi Day, somewhere in the Metaverse, Chris and I were off celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. It has been twenty five years since we graduated undergrad. I have had my Yoga Teacher Training certificate for fourteen years. I have lived in Kansas City for twelve years, one of those years was with Chris. A year and a half of that time was spent alone. Michael and I have been together for ten years this June. The Cabbage turns thirteen in September. All of this feels like yesterday. All of this feels like now. All of this feels like the future.

All of this is relative.

Rather than finding ourselves in everything, we are challenged daily to find everything in ourselves, till being human is evolving inwardly in the likeness of everything, shaping ourselves to the wonders we find, unlike birds, who have known this forever, we too make song at the mere appearance of light. - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Recently there was a video put together at work to celebrate International Women’s Day. I did not participate, but I watched and listened as a number of my colleagues listed all of the different hats they wear besides the scientist hat. I thought about my own hat collection and how we are all more than just one thing, how often we are challenged to be more than just one thing. I love all of my hats or at least most of them. There are some hats I would not own if time was different. There are hats in my collection because time is different. I do have one constant in all of this relativity. An hour ahead. An hour behind. Years ago and years ahead. In the right now. I have always greeted the day in search of light. It is not naivety, but self preservation.

This is the thing that guides me as I navigate the strange and wild passage of time.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Wednesday was a lot. It was dark and dreary and rainy, but when I came down the steps at work to walk towards the coffee machine, I was greeted with a bright, beautiful mandala that had been made in celebration of Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, Spring and Love. Wednesday was what would have been my Dad’s eighty fourth birthday, but at the same time, it is also my sister’s birthday. So it was a little bit sad because there are days when I really need my Dad and I miss him, but at the same time I love my sister and want her to know that every year she survives is one worth celebrating.

Wednesday was also International Women’s Day. It feels like a forced made up holiday, which it kind of is. Then I watched a TikTok of One’s CEO Gayle Smith discussing Women’s Day and she said that International Women’s Day is not so much a celebration of women, but a commitment to support women every day of the year. This is an idea I really like. In fact, it is a mindset I can apply to many of these types of celebration days. I’m generally frustrated with months that celebrate the history of cultures that should have just been included in my history lessons to begin with. So instead of being frustrated with limiting ourselves to a month, I can channel that energy into committing myself to the continued learning of Black History or Hispanic History or Women’s history or you know…ALL history.

Gayle Smith threw out some pretty yucky statistics regarding women and the pandemic. There was an increase in domestic violence and abuse, an increase in child brides and more women left the work force. During the lockdown, many women took on the roles of child care provider and teacher all while attempting to work remotely. Many of us were burning our candles not just at both ends, but by setting the whole thing into the fire pit. When the lock down was over, there was an increase in women not returning to the workforce. As a woman, it feels like every day is a little bit of a battle for equality, but I never felt like I was on a losing side of this fight until 2020. Since that time, the punches have gotten surprisingly harder. We’ve lost the rights to our own bodies. Missouri House of Representatives just this year passed a law that requires women to “cover their arms” while in the House. The law details a specific dress code for women without any mention of how a man should dress. One would think that the Missouri House of Representatives would have more important things worry about, but apparently not.

We are in the mother fucking trenches, ladies.

But ladies, there is no better company to be in the trenches with.

When you’re a woman, everything is political

- feminists cite millions of women in public and private conversations as the phrase's collective authors.

We are a collective of care givers and general life support, but most importantly, we are a collective of warriors. I’ve surrounded myself with a pretty kick ass collective of women warriors and today, I am thankful for every single one of you.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Monday evening, Michael and I picked Chad up from the rental car place at the airport. Then we picked up a to-go order of too much BBQ, took it back to our place and ate too much food while talking about all of the things. The next morning, I made Chad and I breakfast and we sat on the couch talking about even more things while Michael left for work. Chad had to be in Blue Springs at 10:00AM that morning to get training on and pick up his and Jess’s new camper van. I drove him out there and we unloaded all of his gear into a waiting room where we sat and talked about his workshop until an employee came in to discuss paperwork with Chad. Then Chad and I had the weirdest, most awkwardly rushed goodbye. We cried in front of strangers and then I practically ran from the building.

I had taken the whole day off from work because I didn’t really know what the plan was going to be. So when I got home, I cleaned the salty tear streaks from my face and made a lemon meringue pie. Because when life gives you lemons, you make lemon meringue pies. I had promised my coworkers a lemon meringue pie for Valentine’s Day and never delivered. This was me keeping a partial promise. I don’t make this pie but maybe once or twice a year. There’s just more work involved in making it then there is to quickly throwing together an apple pie. Ten of the eggs have to be separated, six lemons have to be zested and then those six lemons have to be juiced. I don’t have a citrus juicer and all of this has to be done by hand. The pie crust has to be made, baked and cooled before you start building the custard. And then making the filling requires me to stand at the stove with my bowl set up over a pot of simmering water, just constantly stirring until the contents of the bowl starts to thicken. That takes about fifteen minutes. The meringue is the easiest part. I start off in the double bowler, heating the egg whites and sugar just until the sugar melts. Then it gets transferred to the mixer and I can take a break.

But the end results are worth it.

I thought about our rushed, weird goodbye as I stirred pie filling and thought about other times I’d had to say hasty goodbyes to those I love. Nothing tops that one time Talaura put a giant cookie in my hands, said “Iloveyoubye!” and shoved me off the bus at LaGuardia. I don’t remember ever really saying goodbye to Chris. I remember when he stopped making any sense and being overwhelmed with not being able to do enough to ease his pain, but I wasn’t home when he died. The nurse called me ten minutes after I got to work. Chris didn’t even give me a cookie before shoving me off the bus and this is not where I planned for this post to go, but here we are.

Goodbyes are hard.

Chad and I had less than twenty four hours to pack in all the words and laughter, to actually look at each others’ faces while we told each other as much as we could about what has really been happening since the last time we saw each other or talked on the phone. I always want more time though, which adds to the difficulties in saying goodbyes. Today, I am concentrating on the time we were gifted and not the goodbye.

Today, I am concentrating on the art of not saying goodbye.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

February weather is the most oddball weather of all the other months. There are days that are below freezing followed with days of sunshiny warmth. One day it is raining and the next day it’s snowing. We turn the furnace up and we turn the furnace down. Some days it is all of the weathers at once. This is how February rolls. It is the beginning of months of unsettling.

Fitting right?

This week, I did my first outside loop walk of the year. It was a tad brisk, particularly in the shade, but the sun was glorious. Things are starting to green up and new growth has popped up in the garden beds not just at work, but I’ve noticed them at home too where I planted tulip bulbs. In years past, I always thought of these momentary warm weather days as a trick or a trap. I mean, today’s high is thirty six. Yesterday’s was even lower. The one really warm day of near seventy was also mostly rainy. The sun didn’t appear from behind the clouds until well after noon. The trap is being lured into believing that winter is done with us.

This year, I’m not falling for the trap.

The first year, when Chris and I moved here, it was in February. There were large piles of snow in all of the parking lots but there was nothing on the ground and time outside only required a light jacket. We thought nothing of it, assuming that the weather here was not too different from OKC. The next year, a month after Chris’s passing, I experienced my first real snow storm. I had to buy a snow shovel and I spent one day shoveling my driveway. The next morning, I got up determined to make it to work only to discover that the snowplows had plowed the snow from the streets to form a frozen wall of snow at the end of my driveway. I remember sitting down hard on my front step and crying. I mentally and physically could not handle it and that is when a seed of hate and dread started to take root and sprout. The seed flourished with every snow flake and temperature drop.

Maybe it is because this winter has been fairly mild or maybe it is because I’m just not good with plants, but this year feels different. Oh…I still have hate in my heart for snow days and freezing temperatures. I just feel more tolerable of those conditions and more patient with my wait for steady Spring like temperatures. If anything, I find myself savoring the days that are warm, as sporadic as they are. I know March isn’t going to be much better. I mean, we often see snow in April around here. It has taken me ten years to come around to it, but I think I’m finally getting used to the wonky messed up way this area transitions into Spring.

I am embracing the unsettling.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I am going out of town this weekend. Not for a solo adventure, but a weekend with two people I ave known and loved for a very very very long time. Late in 2021, I sent out a text to Amy and Deborah requesting a weekend getaway for my birthday. Then we dispersed to consult all of the calendars and star charts to find a weekend we would all be available to “getaway”. The three of us all agreed on a weekend in February of 2022 and gathered at a lake house in the Grand Lake area. It was spectacular. Deborah was going through a really difficult life event (still is, really) and Amy is always burning all of the candles at all of the ends. We spent the weekend lamenting difficult life events and what eventually happens when candles are burned. We laughed and laughed and cried a little. We drank and ate all the foods. By the end of the weekend, we all agreed that this had to be a yearly event for us. This weekend will be the second annual Women Who Have Loved Each Other Since 1995 Weekend Extravaganza.

I might need to shorten that title.

It dawned on me some time last week that our extravaganza weekend is the same weekend we were having Chris’s Celebration of Life service eleven years ago. There is something fitting about all of that. We are not close. We were closer when Chris was with us. We do not text each other every day or even every month. The intention is there for us to be close, but the challenges of navigating just the day to day life crap is hard enough. The lack of the amount of contact we have with each other has not lessened the amount of love I have for these women. I am so proud of us for making a commitment to spend a whole weekend with each other. And Thankful.

Today is one of those rare Thankful Fridays where I allow myself to be thankful that it is Friday. I know that the weekend will be filled with more laughter than tears. Definitely there will be cheese because I am taking leftover birthday cheese. We will eat, drink and be more than merry.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Chris turned fifty three on Monday. I tried desperately to not pay attention or say anything about it, but spent the day continually checking his Facebook memorial page to see if any one had left messages. Then I swallowed my ball of hypocrisies and posted nothing, leaving it with plain old lurking. Today marks eleven years since his passing and it has always felt like an extra layer of cruelty that we celebrated his birthday and said our final goodbyes all in the span of one breath.

Tiffany asked me on Monday what age Chris is to me, like is he the same age as when he died, younger, older? In general, Chris is at various ages in my head. I am surrounded with pictures of him during our life together, along with pictures of a much younger Chris before me. Those images make an impression. Mostly though, Chris ages with each birthday. I imagine him now with a bit more gray in his hair, particularly around the temples. Chris, even though he had Lasik years ago, needs readers now and it has become a big joke about how often he loses them on top of his head. He’s a little thinner because he took up running. He likes to run up to the coffee shop at seventy fifth and Wornall and he spends half his day there typing away on his laptop. There’s a comic book nerd guy that hangs out at the same coffee shop with his computer and he and Chris have become comic book pals. Chris has settled in here, found a group of his kind of people. He’s taken to smoking a pipe, not really because he likes the tobacco, but because it is ridiculous. Sometimes he replaces the tobacco with soapy water. You can imagine.

Chris is still Chris.

This, these anniversaries, it is not any harder today than it was last year or the year before that. That doesn’t mean it is easy. Like a habit, missing him has just become a way of life. It is just like the parts of my body that now ache when the weather turns suddenly from tolerable to freezing. It is a dull pain like all the other pains that come with an aging body, that I just live with. This is how I am now. Like the other day at work when I was hot. I am always cold at work, but the other day I wasn’t and I said out loud that I was hot and I didn’t know if it was because the room was being heated or if this is just how I am now. There is gratitude in accepting the things that I cannot control or change. Because while I cannot change the fact that Chris is gone, I can still imagine a life where he is still with us.

Imagination: the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.

The number of times I have heard someone say to me “I just can’t imagine…” My reaction was always “why would you even try to imagine?” Now I wonder if imagining a life without Chris would have actually prepared me for the inevitable. I have become more creative and possibly more resourceful, but not delusional. I don’t go home at the end of the day and expect to see him sitting on the couch, Empire Strikes Back playing on the TV while he pokes around on his computer. I no longer keep a chat window open for our daily random chats. Because while I can imagine all of these things, I know it is all just a practice in creativity and Chris was all about practices in creativity.

I am no longer mad at Chris. Releasing the anger has allowed me to see the gifts that he left me with.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve been having some left arm pain for over a month. It started with my shoulder, but after an adjustment the shoulder pain went away and moved into my upper arm. Before everyone starts yelling at me, it is not a heart attack. It’s my neck. Wonkiness in my neck is causing nerve pain in my arm. One of the ways my chiropractor is treating this issue is by making me wear a shoulder brace for hours at a time. The brace pulls my shoulders back, relieving some strain on my neck which has been working at keeping those shoulders up near my ears. When she first put it on, I though “Wow! This is great!” but after ten minutes of it, I felt like screaming. The thing about pulling the shoulders back, is that it also opens the chest.

Heart opening poses are great for physically stretching the front of the body. Mentally and emotionally though, it can be terrifying. Heart openers can make a person feel vulnerable. Lifting and stretching open the chest can release some emotions, emotions that have trapped inside a body for days or years. While releasing all of that pent up crud is good, it is also scary. Heart openers are an invitation to courage. You have to be courageous enough to be vulnerable. I’ve basically been walking around in a heart opening position all week.

The first day of my forced vulnerability made me want to shove all of the things away from me. I wanted to yell at people to tell them not to stand in front of me and not to look at me. The second day, I cried a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about episode three of The Last of Us and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing out on the most beautiful love story in television history. The third day, I stood at my desk all morning, occasionally dancing. I didn’t sit down until I went to teach my chair yoga class at noon. After that, all I wanted to do was lay down under my desk and sleep.

Does anyone remember the Care Bears’ cartoon? They would rub their bellies until light a beam of light would irradiate out from their centers. I think Teletubbies do this too. This was the Care Bears super power for thwarting evil enemies and healing those corrupted by that evil influence. That’s what today feels like. I feel like I’m emitting a beam of light from my chest and I have the power to thwart evil and heal all emotional distress. I am no longer fighting the vulnerability or crying uncontrollably at my desk. That’s something to be grateful for, for sure, but also…super powers.

I’m grateful for my new super powers.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I moved to a different cubicle this week. The new space is closest to the microscopy room, which makes me the first person someone sees when they open the door, looking for help. That’s one of the reasons for moving me here. I am the fixer and the helper and the make things better person. The new space is bigger than my old space and includes a large window. At first, when I moved all of my personal things over, I kept my self compacted as if I was still in the old space. It took me a day or two to spread out. It’s taken me all week to remember to stop walking over to the old space to set my things down. At first, when I was told I was being given this new space, I was really excited about the window, but then I got here and it has been cloudy and gloomy. The new cubicle also feels a bit isolating, like I am further away from my coworkers. It’s almost lonely over here.

Things and feelings changed on Thursday morning. The clouds had lifted and morning sunlight streamed into my cubicle. I stood at my desk, checking my calendar schedule and catching up on emails, and bathed in that morning sunlight. Then feelings flooded into my body and I had to really think about what those feelings were and when the last time it was that felt them. I felt joy and energy and was like “Oh my Gods! This day is spectacular!” The sunlight situation only lasted a few hours and then a new layer of cloud cover rolled in, but in those few hours I was reminded that we are very much like plants. Water and sunlight are essential to life. It is not as if I was previously working in dungeon. Our office space, in general, is open with tall windows on one side. My old cubicle put me in indirect lighting. I did not realize that I was a direct sunlight plant until I moved to the new cubicle.

No wonder winters are so difficult for me.

I am thankful for a lot of things this week. The whole office has spent the week snacking on cheese, thanks to the most epic birthday (cheese) cake Michael made me last weekend. The joy of his accomplishment in building this beautiful tower of cheese was almost better than eating the cheese, and the joy of sharing some that cheese with friends has been priceless. I started teaching a six week beginning yoga session on Monday and it feels real good to teach people how to make yoga accessible for their own bodies. I declined on an event with my self-care people because it is later this evening and there is nothing more I want to do on a Friday evening than be a potato because by the end of Fridays, my brain feels like mashed ones. That’s self-care in action. I allowed myself to be talked into a mustache waxing last Saturday and my upper lip is just now starting to look normal again. So I’m thank for that.

Most of all though, I am grateful for getting some direct sunlight.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today, I turn forty seven. I thought about this post last week and how I was going to say that this is the first month I’ve missed a period since I was maybe fourteen, but then my period started. It was almost two weeks late and included a little extra gore than usual. This had me doing an extensive search of medical journals to see how seriously I should take all this extra gore. It took an awful lot of digging to determine that it was probably due to a lack of ovulation. So, in honor of turning another year older, my ovaries are creeping into retirement and spitting out dust balls.

How fitting.

At first, I was a little sad because nothing really says “YOU’RE OLD” like an internal organ ceasing to function because it has reached the end of its life cycle. Then I got really annoyed at the level of research I had to do in order to determine that what was happening to my body is considered to be normal. Apparently, perimenopause and menopause are the real life Fight Club. The one thing I do know is that I have one to ten years of unpredictable menstrual cycles before it is really over. It is hard enough to get the appropriate attention for women’s health needs during their reproduction life stage, unless it is to restrict their reproductive rights. Forget any attention addressed to a woman’s needs when that stage ends. Remember when I said that thing about everything being a social construct? A woman’s aging body is so deeply rooted in a social construct of silence and invisibility that it will take multiple generations to rid this garden of the weeds.

But the revolution has begun. I’ve pre-ordered my copy of Karen Walrond’s new book, Radiant Rebellion (you should too) and I have a feeling it is going to be my handbook for fighting the war on growing older. It is not a war to fight aging, but a war against the negative ideas of aging.

Old, young, it’s all a perception and there are no rules. Recently, I was in the coffee line with a graduate student who was bemoaning adulthood and how difficult it was being a grown up. She is twenty five. Here was my tidbit of advice. I told her that there is no such thing as being a grown up. Sure, there are daily responsibilities that we didn’t have as children, but that doesn’t mean you now have to leave behind the joy and sense of play of childhood. I will even argue that you can maintain an aspect of being carefree. There are no rules other than the ones we place on ourselves. There may be outside voices with advice on how you should feel and act at a certain age, but they don’t know and really are probably only trying to sell you something. Take care of the basics like food, shelter, yearly health checks, and then do or behave any way you please.

I’m taking my own advice. Today is just a celebration of surviving another rotation around the sun. My aging body just makes me a target for the snake oil industry of anti-aging and as someone who tends to think of literal meanings of words, anti-aging sounds ridiculous and impossible. I will have none of that. Life cycle. Our lives are cyclic. My body is just cycling back to pre-teen age.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday morning, we all woke up around here to a thin layer of snow coating everything outside. The skies remained dark for most of the day, a stark contrast to the previous days. Our first week and a half of January has been fairly mild with temperatures reaching sixty degrees during the day and bright sunlight flooding in through all of the windows. The weather helped erase the memory of the deathly freezing temps we had around the holidays.

January is a yo-yo month for many reasons.

I received a card from my mother early in the week and I can see where she started to write my brother’s name, then my sister’s name before finally landing on mine on the envelope. This is an old habit. I do not remember a time when, while calling to me from another room, my mother didn’t run through the names of her previous children before settling on mine. I have always been some form of RandyJanellRaJaCindy. It has never bothered me because I know my mother was keeping track of all of the things at once, making sure we were at piano lessons or dance class or band or choir practice. On top of all of that was her career and maintaining a household. Sure, my dad helped out as best as he knew how, but he wasn’t the one laying on the floor of the sewing room while I attempted to construct my 4-H sewing projects. My mother’s only saving grace was that our age differences made us three separate children.

The lessons I have learned and continue to learn from my mother are invaluable. I have learned through her examples of strength and independence to be the strong capable woman I am today. My mother celebrates a birthday on Sunday, another year of survival. In spite of her beliefs and views on growing older, I am truly grateful to be able to celebrate another year of her life. My wish for her is that her day is filled with good wishes, sunshine that floods her windows and creates dancing rainbow reflections, ease, and the knowledge that she is loved.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Many of you may not know that I took the MCAT before I took the GRE to apply for grad school. I was still undecided about medical school. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted. Here is what I knew: I was flooded with excitement and wonder whenever I looked in a microscope and even the smallest scientific discovery made me clap my hands with glee. Life around us is fascinating and the tiny life forms of this planet are spectacular. I did very well on the MCAT, well enough to probably get in to medical school, but something told me that I would not find that life to be as fascinating.

When I started working for Margaret, I didn’t know anything about Dictyostelium, but I learned very quickly how to grow, culture and care for these little soil amebas, as well as manipulating them for microscopy viewing. When food is scarce for Dicty, they’ll send out a signal to other Dicty cells in the area. Then they all group together to form a slug that eventually transforms itself. The head of the slug becomes spores while the rest turn into a stalk with a fruiting body on the end containing dormant cells that can fall off under more favorable conditions. A large portion of the cell community dies so that some cells can live on later when there’s more food or the environment is nicer. We kept plates of Dicty in this form and I remember asking Margaret once about seeing them like this in the wild. She assured me that it was possible to find Dicty in the wild as fruiting bodies and since then I’ve been a little obsessed with the idea. 2022 was my year for seeing Dicty in the wild. First, Heather sent me a picture of them growing on her car. Then I found some hanging off my porch light. That sighting made me light up and immediately morph into Jordan from Real Genius. I excitedly told Michael all about the life cycle of Dicty while I took photos of our porch light.

Recently I’ve been talking to one of our graduate students about making miso. He’s been experimenting with trying to make his own koji (think starter, like sourdough, but with Aspergillus oryzae instead of yeast). This week he brought me a book on making koji and we had a long nerdy talk about trying to culture the powder koji starter that he has. I helped him get set up on a microscope and then went back to my desk. I started flipping through the pages of the book and came across some glossy prints of microscopic images and I got so excited. I ran back into the microscopy room and sat down next the grad student and started blathering about culturing and checking strains with microscopy and I got really excited about making my own miso. The part that excites about making miso has very little to do with making actual miso, but a whole lot to do with the science side of fermentation.

So here’s my gratitude. I am so grateful to be in a position where I have been able to maintain my excitement and enthusiasm for life sciences. With my job and the people I get to interact with every day, it sometimes feels like a dream. It is the difference between just having a job and getting to choose your job and that is a privilege.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

When I lived under my parents’ roof, we went to church. Both parents were devout Baptists and going to church meant twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays. Even though I was developing my own views on faith and drifting away from the restrictions and hypocrisy I witnessed within the church, I continued to attend service out of respect for my parents. There was one time a year, though, where I truly enjoyed going to church and that was always for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Everyone in the congregation would get their own little candle and then starting at one end of each pew, a candle would be light. That person would then light the candle of the person next to them and so on and so on until all the candles in the congregation were lit. As we lit the candle of our neighbor, we said “I pass to you the light of peace and understanding.” Once all of the candles were lit, we would sing hymns of joy and peace.

It was beautiful.

During our first Christmas together, as Michael and I were driving to pick up the Cabbage for Christmas, we heard a story on NPR about lighting the menorah. Michael said that we should celebrate Hanukkah. I heartily agreed and we went on wild hunt for a menorah. We’ve been celebrating Hanukkah ever since. This year, since the first night started on Sunday, we had time to really prepare a nice meal of latkes topped with caviar and roasted salmon. Every night this week, with out prompting or reminders, we’ve lit our menorah. Michael lights the candles while I say the prayers. My favorite section is always “Blessed are you, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season.” My second favorite part is when we stand for a moment after the prayer is said and the candles are lit and just watch the flames flickering.

The words behind lighting the candles in both instances is the part that I want to honor and celebrate. On one hand, you are taking a moment to have gratitude for just being here to celebrate anything. On the other hand, you are sharing your light with others. Lucia comes from the latin word lux. Names adapted from Lucia include Lucy, Luciana and Lucinda. Elena comes from the Greek Helene, meaning torch or light. My name is Lucinda Elena. I am literally named for the thing I am always searching for, the thing I am always celebrating.

Light.

Thank you for traveling with my through this year. I pass to you my light of peace.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

The most perfect snowflake landed on my windshield and I did not take a picture of it. I tried. I dug my phone out of my bag and started to set the macro settings, but in the time it took me to do all of that, the snowflake melted. I sat there for a few minutes watching little star shaped flakes collide with the glass but gave up on the idea of taking the picture.

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention. - James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the last few weeks, I have neglected to tap the shutter button or even get my camera out from under my bra strap (this is where I carry my phone, like a holster). I will admit that some of the reason for this is that I’m just not feeling it. The other side of that is that I’ve been fully engaged in recent activities as opposed to just observing from the other side of a lens. Stepping out from behind the camera is not unusual for me during this time of the year. The lack of color and sun in winter time is less than inspiring. At least for me. I do make an occasional attempt at stepping outside with the camera, but I can’t deny that I am a warm weather bird. Lately, it has felt more important to be part of the conversation with the group I have gathered with than it is to photograph the group.

In February of last year, Roze gave us all in the Self Care Circle an assignment to write a letter to ourselves. She gave us those letters last week along with a note to maybe write a new letter to ourselves before reading the one from February. I wrote a new note to myself on Sunday and in that letter I told myself how important it is for me to seek out beauty with my camera. In the last few weeks, I’ve had two different people bring up the topic of showing my prints. I am grateful for that time I spent not taking the picture of the snowflakes. They were beautiful, but it got me thinking. Beautiful things may not ask for attention, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve attention. I ended the letter I wrote to myself in February with “You are enough. Really…at the end of the day…this is the only thing you need to remember.” Those words meant something different to me then. Now, those words feel like a blessing, a whisper saying “your photos are beautiful and they deserve attention.” My creations are enough.

It is time to start considering my next showing.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Josephine turned nine years old yesterday. Nine! I can’t believe it. I watch my friends posting pictures of their kids on social media and I am always marveling at how those kids grow and change. It slays me. This week, my great-nephew turned twenty seven. He was born the year after I graduated high school. I sent him a birthday message reminding him about the time he was so little he could not stand up in the crooked house at Silver Dollar City. He just kept falling over and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Now he’s a grown ass human being with a job and a wife.

Ugh.

When Michael brought Josephine home, she was so little that she fit perfectly on his shoulder like a parrot. She didn’t stay small for long. All of her growing changes happened in the span of a year. So for the last seven years, Josephine hasn’t aged. She still looks the same. Mostly. Recently, I’ve noticed that when she gets up from laying in one spot for too long, she has to really stretch the stiffness out of her little legs. That’s the only visible sign of her age. She still chases the cat and attacks the vacuum. Her little legs do not slow down as we trek through the neighborhood on our walks and she can shake the stuffing out of any toy.

Sometimes Michael will say something about how it might be time to get another dog and I seriously consider it. I’ll spend few hours scrolling through adoptable pets online and will even find one that I think about making a call on. Then I think about money and the size of our house. I don’t think we can really afford two dogs. Our couch isn’t really big enough for two dogs. Josephine is so used to being the only child. I mean, she does well with other dogs with a few exceptions. She loves Sarge who will not give her the time of day and she can hold her own with Terry’s gang. I’m sure she would be okay with sharing her home with another dog. I think the problem is me. I’m not sure if I am capable of opening my heart even more to fit another dog. I realize how that sounds, but I honestly think I have a one dog at a time kind of heart. Josephine has filled it up. Of course she has! Have you seen her?!? She’s the most wonderful puppy in the whole wide world.

I am grateful to be celebrating another year of Josephine Boisdechene Clofullia.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I had a bag of dried lupini beans that I purchased on a whim from the local Halal Market the last time we were in, stocking up on spices. I didn’t know anything about them other than they looked like lima beans, so I thought I’d just cook them like lima beans.

This batch of beans started out with promise. I had sautéed onions, bell pepper and garlic before adding the beans and stirring in a tablespoon of miso with the water that I added for cooking. I tossed in some salt, cajun spices and a bayleaf (for no reason) and let the beans cook for about twenty minutes before I tasted the broth to check the flavoring. I sipped the broth and said “This is not good.” Michael was in the middle of his weekly lunch prep and turned around to say “That’s not true…let me taste.” Then he tasted the broth and said “No..it’s fine….wait…this is not good.” Then we went down the list of things I had added to make it so horrible and bitter.

Beans…I had added beans. Lupini beans have to be soaked overnight, cooked until just tender, and then rinsed and soaked again for 5-7 days in order to remove bitterness.

It was quite a blow to my ego. I was left staring at my cast iron pot filled with what should have been a delicious healthy meal, but instead was a pot of ruin. I’m good at beans. It’s in my wheelhouse of cooking superpowers. I felt terrible. We ended up ordering out for Indian food, but not before I was texting Heather about my bean fail. Heather referred to them as ‘sneaky beans’. She told me that I had not failed at cooking beans; these were sneaky beans. Of course, she’s one hundred percent right and I knew/know this. I know that the only fault I had made was thinking these beans were just like all the other dried beans, but sometimes you need someone to reassure you.

Heather is always a good source for reassurance and I am so grateful for her, but she is not my only source. I am very blessed and thankful for my group of supporters and I can only hope that I give as good as I get.

FAMILY AND GRATITUDE

Missy B’s

Gaels Public House and Sports

Woody’s KC

Side Kicks Saloon

Sidestreet

Buddies

These are all safe places for our LGBTQ+ community to gather and any one of them could be Club Q. Politics is just a symptom of the division in this country. It is a symptom of fear, an emotion that drives hate and jealousy. The people in this country who consistently support and elect government officials who promote hate are people who feel small and scared. They are jealous of those who live their lives authentically. They will go to their graves being fearful of those who are different and filled with hate for those of us who are brave enough to love. I’m not saying we should feel sorry for these people, though I do pity them. I’m saying that they will not be swayed into another way of thinking.

Our voices have got to be louder, our actions bigger.

Two-thirds (64%) of respondents had experienced anti-LGBT+ violence or abuse. Of those that had experienced anti-LGBT+ violence and abuse: 9 in 10 had experienced verbal abuse (92%). 3 in 10 had been subject to physical violence (29%). 2 in 10 had experienced sexual violence (17%).

Galop Hate Crime Report 2021

Ways to help Club Q victims:

• Colorado Healing Fund

• Good Judy Garage raising money for funeral and medical costs

• Blood Donations

Michael and I are spending Thanksgiving with the family I built, a group of men who introduced me to all of those places I listed above. When Richard Fierro was interviewed about tackling the Club Q gunman, he said that all he was thinking was that he had to protect his family. I can’t say that I would not do the same. I am so grateful to have them in my life. They make me a better human just by knowing their names. In a memorial service this week, one of our grad students said “I love all of you. I wish I had said this more often, but I am no longer waiting to say it. I love you.”

I love all of you.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This week, we saw our first real snow of the season. Technically, there was snow a couple of weeks ago, but it happened early on Saturday morning with only a handful of people to witness it. Me being one of them since I get up with the sun even on Saturdays. The day turned out to be sunny and warm though and no one believed when I said that it had snowed that morning. This week was real, honest to goodness, snow that quickly melted. Though there is still some on the roof of my car. The weather was warm enough for the snow to melt on the ground, but then quickly fell back into freezing temperatures for the rest of the week. Morning walks do not happen during such conditions.

I have wavered between getting up and onto my mat in the early morning hours when I am usually walking Josephine and snuggling back down under the covers. The snuggling back down under the covers has been the winner for most mornings. I get up to open the pet door for Josephine and the cat. Then I hop right back under the covers. It only takes a few minutes of being out in the cold for Josephine to have the same idea. She comes running back inside and jumps on the bed as I lift the comforter for her. Then she curls her little body up as close as she can to mine. This is where we stay for another hour or so before I get up to feed her and the cat. Then Josephine and I have moment of snuggling and tussling while I wait for my turn in the shower.

At first I felt really guilty about not taking the walks. Especially because Josephine gets so freaking excited just at the sight of her leash. These moments of snuggle and play time that we have had this week eases that guilt of not walking. Michael’s moms had to say goodbye to their little dog over the weekend and then a Facebook friend had to say goodbye to her best kitty. So, I feel pretty good about skipping the walks in favor of showering Josephine with extra love.

Treats for everyone.

Speaking of treats for everyone. Tomorrow is Michael’s birthday. He’s been talking about being in his late forties for months now, sometimes with a tone of excitement and sometimes with a tone of dismay. Michael changed up is diet after our return from Vancouver. Then he made appointments with doctors and scheduled routine tests. He’s checking his blood pressure and monitoring his salt intake. He eats a banana every morning. It looks like he has plans to live past the age of fifty. Sometimes, I’m really surprised he sticks around (for various reasons), but then he talks about our future together. A lake house. Travel. Retirement. I am thankful for his random acts of kindness like yesterday morning when I walked out to my car and Michael had scraped my windshield for me. I am thankful for his raccoon/possum/even squirrel trapping skills that he didn’t even know he had until this year. I’m thankful for how he insists on getting my car washed which is something I never bothered doing unless I couldn’t see out the windows. I’m thankful that in spite of those vague various reasons that he still sticks around.

Here’s to surviving another rotation around the sun.