THANKFUL FRIDAY

The month of July is a subscription renewal month for me. My Yoga Alliance membership is due, along with teacher insurance. I have to renew my rights to my old domain name and also my current Square Space account. Every year, when I get those reminder emails about this or that automatically renewing and billing my card, I think about not renewing any of it. It is a moment of pondering about gain. What do I gain from all of these subscriptions?

Of course if I want to teach yoga, I have to stay up to date with all of the yoga stuff. There was a time I was maintaining all of that while not teaching because I felt that I would probably eventually go back to teaching. Which I did. I’m not teaching much, one class a week, subbing a class here and there, but it is enough. I feel content. I have been considering the idea of approaching a studio about doing a yoga enhancer workshop (incorporating yoga props into a practice), but this is something I don’t want to take on until after October. Keeping the domain and Square Space account feels a little splurgy. There is zero financial gain here. Maybe I’m helping someone. Maybe I’m teaching someone something new. I have no idea. But I do it. I blog because I love it. I teach yoga because I love teaching yoga. The answer to that question about gain that I ask myself every year is that I gain mental health and joy in inspiring others either in their own yoga practice or through my writing.

I am thankful to have both of these outlets.

That being said, it is nice to take a break every now and then. There is a lot of giving of myself when I teach yoga and when I share I my thoughts here. Sometimes it is good to step away and recharge that giving battery. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m stepping away for two weeks, hopefully filled with with fresh thoughts and pretty pictures.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I missed the Kansas City Pride Parade this year because it was happening while I was flying back from Massachusetts. I keep seeing Insta reels from friends who walked in the parade and I get a little sad that I missed it. We did manage to take the Cabbage to Pride Fest the next day, but I didn’t really say anything about it. In fact, I didn’t post anything about June Pride and instead I’ve been over silently collecting Pride stickers to put on the scooter and bicycle.

So can I call myself an advocate?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I have made an attempt to write something regarding trans rights and this garbage dumpster that is Missouri Government many different times this month. I watched a beautiful story on CBS Sunday Morning about a family with a child that started second grade identifying as female. In response to the ban on gender care in their state, the mom said “I guess we just have to live in fear for a little while.” And my heart broke for this family. Once again we have a group of individuals who know and understand nothing about the science and medicine around the topic of the thing they are creating laws for. I could dive in real deep into the science of gender dysphoria and how there are five (only FIVE) mRNA transcripts associated with gender, but I don’t think I need to do that for my audience. The bottom line is that it’s your body, your gender identity, your sexual orientation and that is nobody’s fucking business unless you choose otherwise. And none of these things require governing.

Now, me sitting here typing all of that out does not make me an advocate. Voting. Respectful use of pronouns. Plain old just being respectful. These are things that make me an advocate. While there is a part of me that is experiencing some left behind feelings for not being in the group walking in the parade, the better part of me knows that walking in parades doesn’t make me an advocate. Instead of filling up space in social media with stories of advocacy, I was quite and left space for my friends and loved ones in the LGBTQ+ community to tell their stories. The common themes in every story I have heard or seen are bravery, love, and hope. It takes real bravery to be open about who you are in a world filled with people who hate you. It takes real love to be your true self and infallible hope for a world without the constant fear of those people who hate you. In every story, I have seen faces filled with joy and love because events like PRIDE month with parades and festivals provides safe environments for this community to be their true selves. Their joy is contagious and bolstering.

So as we wrap up Pride Month, I’d like to say thank you to each of you for your bravery in sharing your stories and filling my world with color and light. These stories are the things that I think of every time I think about skipping out on an election day. Those happy, joyful faces are my reminders that I am not too lazy and tired to write and contact my senators and representatives.

Your bravery is a contagion the keeps me fighting against hate every day.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

The longest day of the year happened on Wednesday and we have official entered the time of year when all I want to eat is some kind of a salad. I’ve spent my free time this week collecting salad recipes into my NY Times Cooking app. Most of them are just variations of tomatoes and mozzarella tossed in a bowl with olive oil and salt. I plucked a red cherry tomato off of the plant in the garden this week and handed it to Michael. He promptly popped it into his mouth and exclaimed “Holy crap! That’s so much better than the flavorless cherry tomatoes I bought from the store!” The plant is loaded with tomatoes. The problem is they are ripening slowly, one at a time. I shouldn’t complain. Last year, I planted two tomato plants. They grew tall and leafy and green, but they did not produce a single piece of fruit. This year, I have a plethora of green tomatoes.

And I’m going to eat them. With mozzarella.

I’m normally not the type that pays much attention to solstices, but this year I couldn’t help but notice that the longest day of the year happened in the middle of the week, a short week for some. Short weeks are tricky because they always feel like extra long weeks. Maybe it’s because I try to cram in all the work I didn’t do on Monday into the rest of the week. Wednesday is that day of the week that is generally harder to get through on it’s own without making it the longest day of the year. It is a rough place in the week for that amount of daylight.

I have ridden my bicycle to work every day this week with the exception of today. Fridays are for scooters. By the time I made it home on Wednesday, I had decided that I was done with the bicycle for the week. I was tired. It was hot. My bicycle was still making a rattling sound like it was about to fall apart. Michael had already tighten up all of the things and determined that the sound was coming from the battery being a little loose in the housing. Nothing a piece of tape or velcro couldn’t fix. We just hadn’t gotten around to doing it and once I knew my bike wasn’t going to fall to pieces while I was riding, I didn’t care about the rattle. But Wednesday felt different. For some reason, probably because I was tired and hot, that rattle was the worst. Plus, I just wanted to be home. That night, without any prompting, Michael went out and fixed the rattle. It turned out to be more than a loose battery situation. A screw fell out of the battery house when Micheal took the battery out to check things over. The rattle was indeed, my bike falling apart.

I still wasn’t convinced that I would ride the bicycle on Thursday though. I sat slumped on the couch and told Michael that I wasn’t going to ride the bicycle for the rest of the week. He asked me why and I said “Because I’m tired.” He told me that was a valid reason, but even though I was moving a little slower than usual the next morning, it was the bicycle that I pulled out of the garage. I did for a micro second almost change my mind when I had to turn around a block later because I’d forgotten my helmet. I spent most of my ride peddling away while lost in my own thoughts. The morning weather was pleasant. I was exercising without really exercising and I wasn’t mad about any of it. I’d just finished mentally scanning the grocery list and reminding myself to add ‘coarse ground coffee’ to the list when I looked up to see that I was only a few blocks from work. I felt really proud of myself because I had made a goal at the beginning of the year to ride my bicycle at least three to four times a week to work. Michael even purchased the things my bike needed to install a basket and bought me the case that fits on the back of my bike so I have something to carry my lunch box. He did that so I could ride to work. This is week four of consistent bike riding meaning at least three days a week I have ridden my bike to work and this is the first week I’ve been on my bicycle four days in a row.

This makes me want to high-five myself with gratitude.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

My cabin at Woods Hole was about a mile and a half from the MBL. They have a shuttle that runs between cabins and the main campus, but I was always off schedule in the morning. I either had just missed the shuttle at the stop or I was too impatient to wait for the shuttle. So instead of waiting, I’d walk a trail through the woods that lead to a paved bike path and then walk the bike path all the way into Woods Hole. The path conveniently ends right across the street from Pie in The Sky, a coffee shop and bakery with delicious popover breakfast sandwiches. It is an easy and pleasant walk and then there’s breakfast right there at the end.

The bike path is called the Shining Sea Bikeway and stretches from Woods Hole to the neighboring town of Falmouth. A long stretch of the path runs along the ocean, though from where I would start every morning, the view was more forest than ocean. The path sort of combines with a parking lot for overflow ferry parking as you get into town. An old church and cemetery sits on one side of the parking lot/path and every morning I saw the same deer grazing around the headstones. Once you pass the cemetery, there is a highly graffitied bridge to pass through. The graffiti art is not commissioned, but much of it is so well done that it should be commissioned. The last bit of graffiti appears as you exit the tunnel simply read: You will die. Make art.

I read this every morning as I walked into town.

I remember when my niece-in-law announced her intention to remarry. At the time, I said to Chris “It seems fast.” His response was “We’ve all learned, in a very horrible way, that life is short. Why wait?” And he was/is right, of course. After J’s death, Chris and I worked really hard at living our lives differently. There was less talk of things we wanted to do and more actual doing of the things. I have tried to maintain this approach to life even after Chris’s death. I met Michael one year and five months after Chris died. There are people out there who would gasp, clutch their pearls and remark on the suddenness of my relationship. There is a misconception that we must leave time to grieve as if grief is similar to a broken bone and heals within a given time frame. The reality is that grieving is endless. If I left time to grieve, I would still be spending my evenings alone on the couch with a bottle of wine and a sleeve of saltine crackers. Eleven years later. I have learned to leave space in my every day life for grief while continuing to live my life.

Lately my talk of things I want to do sounds more like a chore list than things that I actually want to do. That’s why I finally booked an appointment for that tattoo I have been wanting for the last eight years. I bought a really good backpack for my camera so I feel more comfortable carting it around and using it. I was determined to start riding my bicycle to work and I’ve ridden three time to work this week. Just recently I said to a friend “Life is short. Get a puppy.” I never once thought about turning this philosophy of life is short/ do the thing around onto my art. When’s the last time I told myself “Life is short. Write the book.” or when’s the last time I printed out a batch of pictures just for myself? I used to do this seasonally. A collage of photos of Josephine in various sleeping positions has been hanging over my bed for two years now.

You will die.

Make art.

So, thank you to this mysterious graffiti artist for this nudge to snap out of this creative funk I have wrapped around my shoulders. It’s summer and too hot for wraps.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

For the last few weeks, my Instagram and Facebook feeds have been filled with pictures of graduations. I have scrolled through pictures of old high school friends celebrating their child’s graduation from high school, some even from college. There is a woman in the blogging community who I have followed since her oldest was a baby and she just this week posted pictures of that baby graduating high school. My heart swelled up for the young man and if I could do so without making it weird, I’d reach out and tell that woman she’s doing an amazing job at parenting.

The Saturday after Quinn’s graduation, Traci and I were floating in the pool conversing on how hard it is to encourage young people to do anything right now. This was not a complaint about young people today or rant of “in my time…” We both agreed that it is so hard to encourage young people because of the dumpster fire of a world we’re sending them into. We’re telling them to go to college so they can get a good job when so many of those jobs require so much more than a college degree. We’re sending them out there with our visions of the American dream of having a good job with health benefits and home ownership when the average cost of a home is unaffordable. Between the effects that climate change is having on food sources and human displacement, plagues, hate crimes and book bans, this world looks a little bit more like the dystopian fantasy worlds of Octavia Butler every day. It’s real difficult to tell a kid to be true to themselves when governments are making it illegal for them to do that.

People really struggle with the concept of inclusion and keep confusing it with indoctrination.

I recently finished watching A Small Light, which tells the story of Miep Gies and the role she played in helping to hide the Frank’s from the Nazis during the occupation of Amsterdam. Miep and her husband Jan played vital roles in not only hiding the Franks, but in smuggling Jewish children out of the city and into safe foster homes. We all know what happens to the Franks in this story. Otto Frank was the only survivor. One of the things that truly spoke to me in this story was how Miep continuously under played her role in saving the people she saved. In her mind, all she did was a keep a secret, but the reality is she kept a secret and managed to procure food for eight people with rations all while avoiding the gestapo. Years later, when she would speak to groups of her experience and the Franks, she would end her talk with this:

But even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room. -Miep Gies

In spite of how sad and depressing it was to watch this series, it gave me hope. The rise in hate crimes and government bans on anyone not cis-white is evidence that history tends to repeat itself. If and when the time comes, I am prepared to hide and keep people safe, but in the meantime, I am grateful for the sea of new graduates that I see in my social media feeds. Because in each one of them, I see their potential. I can see them thriving and succeeding. I can see them doing more than turning on a small light. I can see them turning on so many lights, making a room so bright we all have to squint at the magnificence of it. Now, this is not to say that we should just dump all the work onto theses young people. Far from it. What I am saying is that it is nice to have a new wave of help in flipping on some light switches.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

First, I’d like to start off with a list of some accomplishments or sort of accomplishments for this week:

• I rode my bike on Monday. My intention was to ride at least three times this week. On the way home it sounded like it was rattling apart. Michael asked me about the ride because he knew I was hesitant about my ability to ride a bicycle. I told him that it was great except the rattle. He told me to not ride again until he could look over it this weekend. Even though I only rode once, I feel like this is still an accomplishment.

• Dog walks every morning.

• Mammogram

• Completing safety training for my visit to MBL in a couple of weeks

• Refraining from murder

• Quality yoga mat time every day this week (probably helped with whole not murdering thing)

This is Michael and The Cabbage’s last day of school, which means we start our summer schedule next week. I’ve already made an Excel spreadsheet of all the chores I do, organized by weekly, bi-weekly, every other week, number of times a day. I’m ready to hand this spreadsheet over to the two of them and relinquish the majority of my chores. I’ve been anticipating this moment for weeks and thinking about how it feels like a freedom. Michael asked me what I was going to do with my Saturdays if I don’t have to go grocery shopping and I said that I might find a morning yoga class. There’s a vegan bakeshop in Brookside that doesn’t open until 10:00 AM on Saturday’s. I’ve been dying to get brunch here, but the timing is always wrong. Now, I could go to yoga and then to the bake shop afterward. Or I could beg Sarah to take me kayaking and then the two of us could get brunch after. Or I could go roller skating at the outdoor roller skating park. Or I could grab my big camera, hop on my scooter and zip around the city taking pictures with the morning light. Or I could print out every thing I have ever written in regards to a book, find a cafe and sit down with these pages and a red marker and start to put something real together.

All of these options sound like a vacation to me.

I think I’m making this my song for the summer. I don’t need the whole year, but I need these next three months. I need three months of making as few decisions for other people as I possible can get away with and focusing less on other people’s needs. I need three months of not being so dang considerate. I need three months of not my usual chores so I have time for the chore of cleaning out my closet and the rest of the house. I need these three months because I can’t tell you the last time I lounged in my hammock in the backyard.

And the next three months are something to be grateful for.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

By the time you read this, I will be driving through Kansas on my way to OKC for Quinn’s high school graduation.

That’s a heavy sentence to type.

It is surprising to me that Mental Health Awareness month has been so mentally difficult. There is nothing special about the month of May, no birthdays or anniversaries. Yet it has contained difficult losses and bittersweet memories and there’s still basically week left. All along the way, a voice has been whispering “Chris should be here.”

First of all, don’t feel bad that I’m gone. While I will miss spending time with each of you, I’m sure it will be an interesting time for me and I look forward to seeing all of you when you come over. To each of you I send my love. If on this side of life I’m able to watch over and help you out, know that I will. If I can’t, I’m sure I can at least be waiting for you when you come over. This all may sound silly to you guys, but what the hell, I’m gone—and who can argue with me?

Life is meant to be fun, and joyous, and fulfilling. May each of yours be that—having each of you as a child of mine has certainly been one of the good things in my life. Know that I’ve always loved each of you with an eternal, bottomless love. A love that has nothing to do with each other, for I feel my love for each of you is total and all-encompassing. Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it.

Jim Henson
Letter to his children, to be opened after his death

There is a generation of us who grew up watching Sesame Street and The Muppets, a generation who were molded and shaped by the creative works of Jim Henson. As I drove to work on Tuesday, the radio DJ went through a list of events that happened on May 16th. One event is that it has been twenty five years since the release of Torn by Natalie Imbruglia. Ouch. The other event he mentioned was Jim Henson’s passing in 1990. He passed away on May 16th from streptococcal pneumonia at age fifty three. I remember being in the checkout line at Walmart and seeing the cover of a magazine with Kermit the frog sitting next to an empty director’s chair bearing Jim Henson’s name. Tears streamed down my face whileI handed the cashier my money for my purchases. It was soon after the DJ’s announcement that I noticed various Jim Henson related stuff on social media and the above letter to his children caught my eye.

Years and years ago, Chris and I made our only just the two of us drive to my grandparents home in Mississippi. All previous trips had been with my parents, but this was the first time Chris and I had to make the trip on our own. My Pepaw had passed away and my parents had rushed out of town to get to my mother’s home. This would end up being the last trip I would ever make to Mississippi other than to drive through to get to someplace else. The first town we came to after crossing into the state was Greenville, the birth pace of Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog. They have a tiny little Jim Henson museum and though I had driven through this place countless of times with my parents, we had never stopped. I can remember mentioning this to Chris as we came in to town and he immediately pulled over and into the parking lot for the museum. The museum is so small; we only spent ten or fifteen minutes in the space. Most of our time was spent reading over the hand drawn Christmas cards he would send to the museum every year.

Life is meant to be fun, and joyous, and fulfilling.

These are words that Chris would be telling Quinn today as we celebrate his move into new adventures and I have a feeling that Quinn knows these words to be true already. I would not be surprised if these are words that Chris has whispered into Quinn’s ear while he’s sleeping. So, to that voice that keeps whispering to me that Chris should be here, there is no need for you to whisper them.

He’s already here and in some ways has never left.

I am so grateful for the timing of this trip because I need some time away from my current responsibilities. More than anything I am grateful to be part of the celebration for this boy/man. He used to have the most violent sneezes and a disproportionate amount of snot would come out of his tiny nose to cover the lower part of his face. It was traumatizing to him and everyone else involved in the clean up process. There were times I was concerned that actual brain matter was coming out of his nose. So to see him succeeding and have legitimate life/career plans fills me up with joy. Traci and her Chris have raised a successful human. This does not amaze me, the idea that these two would in fact raise a successful human, but they are just as deserving of celebration as the graduate.

I raise my glass to them for doing the work while continuing to live a life that is fun, joyous and fulfilling.

WE WERE BLOGGERS

A month ago, I started writing a blog post where I waxed nostalgic about the old days of BlogHer. I had been thinking about how nice it had been to be in the room with these women I follow online and meeting new people, hearing their stories and reasons for blogging. I would walk away inspired to do more with my blog, be a better writer, take better pictures. That conference was something I never expected to be drawn to attend, but I never really expected to be a blogger. When Chris built my first blog in 2000, I looked at him with a raised eyebrow and said “What am I supposed to do with this?” He told me that this was a space where I could keep our friends who had scattered themselves across the state and country up to date on what was going on with me. I did not think that the blog would ever be anything more than that.

Over the years, this space has been my soapbox, my navel gazer, my practice in creative writing and my therapist. When Chris built that blog, he opened up a world of other voices and I found a community of women who awed me, inspired me, made me feel hopeful, and made me feel like I was a part of something. Many of those women I never spoke to in person, only on the rare occasion when I would be brave enough to leave a comment and maybe a word of hello at BlogHer. I never failed to fan girl geek out whenever I was face to face with some of these bloggers who I considered to be celebrities. I knew I would never be as cool or popular as these women, but I could cheer them on from the sidelines and buy their books. Even though I didn’t know these women in real life, a number of them reached out to me when Chris was sick, sending cards of support and care packages. I’m not sure I ever really expressed my gratitude for their thoughtfulness. Then things changed. Most of the women I followed in the blogging community have stopped blogging and have moved on to other things.

Except me. I’m still plunking down words full of navel lint as if anyone else might still be paying attention. 

When I saw the news of Heather Armstrong’s passing this week, I immediately reached for my phone to text Chris. Then I was just standing there at my desk, my phone in my hand, blinking at the screen. I felt untethered and between worlds. The one person I knew who would understand what I was feeling was no longer available. Heather Armstrong of dooce.com was one of the first women in the community of bloggers I followed and it was through her blog that I found other women like Maggie Mason, Alice Bradley and Karen Walrond. I wanted to meet women like her, women who bravely shared their ups and downs with us on the internet. Without even knowing she was doing it, she challenged me to be a better photographer and her words inspired me to keep writing. I have her books prominently displayed on my bookshelf along with the books by the other women bloggers I follow. Her words gave us all permission to be honest and open about our flaws, but she was also hilarious. I mean life can be a real shit show. We are better off finding the humor in it all and Heather Armstrong was pretty good at doing this. I never met her in person. I only very rarely left a comment on her blog. There is a small subset of women in the blogging community who did know her personally and seeing them sharing their memories of their time spent with her has been beautiful and sad. While Heather Armstrong could be a magnet for internet trolls and haters and she sometimes said things that we disagreed with, we can’t deny the impact she had on the internet and communities that were formed from her influence. I mean, dooce became a term we used for someone who got fired for their blog. It was a Jeopardy! answer. She opened up space for talking about uncomfortable things.

In the beginning, I remember having to make explanations about what a blog is or why someone might blog. People outside the blogging world thought we were crazy and often met the word ‘blog’ with some disdain. “Oh…you blog.” they’d say as if they had something sour in their mouths. There were people who just couldn’t understand why or how we could write about personal things and share it for the world, THE WORLD, to possibly read it. Whatever. Blogging is not for everyone, but I will say that we were the beginning wave of a mental health revolution. Women read about other women struggling with parenthood, jobs, sexuality, anxiety, depression and so much more and they could see that they were not alone. Many of those women bloggers normalized talking about mental health. We normalized talking about our bodies and all the weird things they start doing with age. We normalized talking about the hard adult things. I count myself as one of the smallest voices in this revolution. I’m grateful to the women like Heather Armstrong who were some of the biggest voices in this revolution, even if she was messy and flawed. And while it may seem odd to mourn the loss of a woman I never met, never really knew, I find that my grief over her loss encompasses the way things used to be. She was a part of that.

It is a more than unfortunate loss and I can imagine how unfathomably difficult this is for her family. 

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States. 988lifeline.org

THANKFUL FRIDAY

A long time ago, at a blogging conference, I went to a panel discussion on bullying and the internet. I was not being bullied online or receiving ugly comments with every post. I went to this discussion because I followed the women who were on the panel and I thought, still feel, they are the bees knees. I wanted to hear what they had to say about dealing with a constant barrage of hatefulness. There was one woman on the panel that I didn’t know, someone I now follow on instagram. Shauna Ahern is “a writer, teacher, inciter of joy.” Those are her words, but they’re true. This woman is devoted to kindness. During the panel discussion she shared stories of the hate mail/comments she received on a regular basis and the things people would write to her shocked me. I was absolutely floored by the amount of hatefulness.

Michael and I were watching a re-run of Saturday Night Live recently. The musical guest was Coldplay, a band I happen to love. Michael said something about it and I told him this: Snow Patrol and Coldplay started around the same time. They have similar sounds and I love them both. Snow Patrol tends to be heavier, with lyrics that stab me in the heart. Coldplay is light and more spiritual. Coldplay feels like the good parts of church. So Michael sat with me and listened and then he said “Oh…oh…I think I get it.” Then he asked why was it that so many people hated on Coldplay. It’s true. It’s not just a criticism of the music, there’s people that put out some serious hatefulness to all that is this band.

My answer for Michael was simple. It is because it is something good. The same reason why people send out hatefulness to bloggers who spread kindness and light. I don’t know what makes a person inherently hateful. It could be a thousand reasons, but I suspect all of the reasons lead back their own self. Seeing other’s joy and light makes a hater feel inadequate because they can’t see their own goodness. They lack joy in their own lives. They lack the ability to find comfort in their own true selves and they lash out at those who are brave enough to be true to themselves. It is a human trait that has been with us since the beginning of societal groups.

The choice to remain a person that continues to look for the light and share joy can at times be exhausting. Sometimes it feels like you are the underdog in this fight, that there is no way you are ever going to win.

Gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable. - Michael J. Fox

Everyone loves an underdog story.

I know that Shauna Ahern has a gratitude practice and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the members of Coldplay also have their own gratitude practice. In every interview I’ve seen of Chris Martin, he has shown genuine gratitude to his fans. Gratitude really does seem to be the key to maintaining optimism. I am grateful for those who inspire me to keep up this fight against hatefulness. I am grateful for those who remind to look for the light, seek out the joy, and be brave enough to be my true self. This gratitude gives me the strength to see straight through the bullshit for the good that is on the other side.

There is always going to be this war but every time I find myself on the other side of that bullshit, I am winning.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Josephine and I have made it out for our morning walks every day this week with the exception of Monday. During our walks, we have seen rabbits, opossums, one fox, two deer, and one raccoon. We heard one owl. The raccoon almost doesn’t count as a walk sighting because he was in our backyard. Josephine treed him in our big walnut tree in the back. Now all of our pet doors smell like fox urine because I have sprayed all of the entry ways with it to discourage another raccoon kitchen party.

I have made a personal connection with my yoga mat every day this week. Meaning, I have gotten my yoga mat out for other reasons besides when I am teaching in some time. My personal yoga practice has been trash for weeks. On the few times I’ve been on my mat, when I lay down for final relaxation, I last five minutes before I’m up and turning the timer off. Thursday, I stayed a full fifteen minutes without fidgeting or falling asleep. My body is pleasantly sore from planks and lunges.

My physical health has seen better days. I’ve allowed myself to fall out of some good habits I created a while back and the result is that in addition to feeling mentally blah, I’m feeling unpleasantly pudgy. It is time to roll my body out of stationary mode. To help me do this, I have created a whole new color coded calendar I call Healthy Body and it’s devoted to everything from walk schedules to doctors’ appointments. I feel really smart for doing this, so smart that I am going to create another calendar for just writing and maybe for photography. I’m going to give myself some deadlines because I am deadline motivated.

I kind of marinated for longer than usual in a state of blahs knowing full well that I’d feel better if I’d just move my body. It was a trap. This state of the blahs. The longer I marinated, the harder it was to motivate myself into motion. I’m not saying a week of movement has brought me out of the blahs, but I will say that I am seeing more in color and feeling a little more than nothing. May is Mental Health Awareness month and I just realized that May is here in two days (depending on when you’re reading this). I told you that I am highly motivated by deadlines. I’m kicking things off a week early.

Today I have deep gratitude for my morning walks with Josephine and my yoga mat.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I have written and deleted three different versions of today’s Thankful Friday post. This either means I found an abundance of gratitude this week or I’m reaching to find much of any thing. I suspect the later. Michael is working with his school drama department as the assistant director for the Spring play. Recently, he received a certification to teach drama and debate and would like to eventually transition into teaching more drama and less math. Right now, he’s content with helping out as an assistant. The kids are performing Rumors by Neil Simon starting next Friday and so Michael has had many late nights as they work on being ready for opening night. Every evening, he’s sent me texts telling me when he was going to be home and each time he includes his gratitude for me being so supportive of this new venture he’s taken on.

While I appreciate his gratitude, I am a little surprised. My feelings are that of course I would support this. This is what people do in relationships. Unless it is racist, homophobic, trans-phobic, or general hate for those who do not look or talk like you, you support your partner. This also reminds me of just how different our past relationship(s) have been from each other. There are a number of things I learned from my parents marriage that discouraged me from wanting to be married. Then Chris came along and things changed. This also opened my eyes to the things in my parent’s marriage that were good. I saw how they often worked together as a team. When Mom worked late, Dad made sure I made it home safely from school and took charge of dinner. Dad worked early hours and Mom took over morning duties with making sure I had breakfast and was at school on time. While it didn’t always look like they lovingly supported each other, they were still doing the work together.

I am grateful for the lessons I have had in supporting the ones you love. Those lessons in return, I believe, have made me a better person, a better partner. It is important for me in my daily practice to have and find gratitude for things/people in my life. It is rare and somewhat difficult to accept gratitude from others. My instinct is to brush the gratitude aside and make less of the effort I have made to support or help that person. Deep down, I think I do not deserve the gratitude because my actions seem simple, like something anyone would do for another human. Everyday the news and general interactions with society reminds me that simple acts of kindness are not everyone’s normal. Self-help books and gurus all tell us that we are all deserving of love, but how often do we hear that we are deserving of gratitude? We are all deserving of gratitude for our conscious and unconscious acts of kindness.

The next time someone thanks you, don’t brush it aside. Simply say “You are welcome.”

THANKFUL FRIDAY

It is time for my annual Oh My God, It’s Spring post. Except I don’t feel as excited about Spring as I usually have in previous years. I mean, yes I love all the color and the warmer temperatures. My Instagram feed is filling up with pictures of tulips of all shapes and colors. I can’t help myself. I cannot pass by a tulip with taking it’s picture. I have ridden my scooter almost every day this week and it has been glorious. Josephine and I have not quite made it back to our regular walking routine. We are not walking every day, but we are walking on some days.

Which is enough for now.

I don’t think I’m tromping around this year saying “Finally! Winter’s over!” with a heavy sigh because Winter wasn’t really that bad. I feel a little guilty for saying it, but it’s true. Sure it was cold, miserably cold, but I only had to shovel the driveway once. I have friends in Utah who had to shovel so much snow that their shovel broke. People are still dealing with Winter weather even though the calendar has declared it to be Spring. I’m also a little hesitant because I have been fooled a number of times by April/May snow showers, an event absolutely unheard of during my years in Oklahoma. My collection of frozen tulip photos is my reminder that Winter doesn’t move on easily.

But for now, I’ll bask in this Spring light.

I find myself struggling to write these days. My focus has been on the mundane tasks of being an adult. Paying my taxes. Reminding myself to print out the form to renew my passport. Making up the weekly menu. Last week I was buried under a pile of slides that I had to batch image and process. This week I’ve been planning my trip to the Marine Biology Lab in June, a month and half away. Then I remember that I also need to make plans to go to Oklahoma for Quinn’s graduation. I haven’t even mentioned this to Michael. There hasn’t been time.

We are both busy.

My tether of thoughts and mental lists seem to only break apart when I step outside for a walking loop around the building. The moment the sun hits my face, my focus shifts to photographic possibilities. I know that rays of light are leading to me something and I keep my eyes open, my senses sharpened. Like an easter egg hunt. Often, my hands itch for my bigger camera which I hardly ever take with me to work, but maybe that needs to change. Sunday, Michael bribed me into riding my scooter with him all the way across the river to where he works. He’d left something in his office that he needed for a paper he had to write for his CE class. Except when we got there, he couldn’t get into the building. So we ended up riding all that way for my bribe which was ice cream (always and forever). I hadn’t been prepared to leave the house on Sunday and didn’t really want to go on this ride, but as I was flying across the MO river, I desperately wished for my big camera. These are feelings that hibernate during the winter, this desperate urge to get the camera out and fill the memory card with pictures.

Right now my world is shifting from words to pictures. Right now, I see my world in vibrant colors and I’d rather capture it on a camera than with words.

Side note: Events have happened since writing this entry. Josephine was mauled by a dog last night as we walked to meet Michael. The owners of the dog were fast in collecting their mut and concerned for us, gave me their number, all the things. Josephine’s ear was bleeding and ears bleed like crazy. I had blood all over my hands. She had it all on her head. We stopped at Terry’s to get cleaned up and take breath from trauma. We cleaned Josephine’s ear and I washed my murder scene hands. Terry recently purchased some singing bowls and played the singing bowls to calm us. Then we went on our way. I am so grateful that Terry lives in my neighborhood and I’m just grateful for Terry. He always seems to know how to sooth. Josephine got a bath. Her wound was just a small puncture and she’s fine. This could have been so much worse for everyone involved.

Gratitude all around.

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.