Hallelujah (HAIM)

Okay, raise your hand if you're tired of me saying:  "It's been one month... six weeks... three months... [fill in unit of time measurement here] since my last confession... um... blog post".  I've been busy but I've also been cocooning, if that makes a bit of sense.  RHG and I were talking the other night, reminiscing about the years I suffered from Full Plate Syndrome, and I worked hard to eventually scrape many things off my dish.  I laughed that now, when I add something, it's not a heaping helping of mashed potatoes, but more along the lines of one... pea... at... a... time.  And I'm good with that... 😍

I recently attended a livestream with Anna Quindlen, moderated by Kelly Corrigan (more about her in an upcoming Mother's Day post).  I have been following AQ's writing since first reading her Life in the 30's column when we lived in Puerto Rico (1985-1989), followed by her novels as well as non-fiction works.  There's just something about her "voice" that is simple yet beautiful; her new book (non-fiction) is called Write for Your Life (see link below), and is geared to those who love to write but don't do it professionally.  I related to so many things she said, especially:  "I don't send you a letter to *tell* you something; I send you a letter to *give* you something."  Whoa.  Wow.  Goosebumps.

If you are a friend, or a follower of my blog, or both... you are long familiar with my can't-do-anything-in-25-words-or-less philosophy.  I mean... I can, but I don't want to... not when there's a whole language and vocabulary out there just waiting to be used and highlighted.  This is where I shine; I have missed writing... and her livestream fueled my desire to get back to blogging too, even if only once a week.  

So, here I am.  Rather than recap from where I left off (mid-February... really?!?), I will Begin Again... in the Now... possibly sharing tidbits of that Bermuda Triangle of lost time... or maybe not.  Life is pretty d*mn lovely.  I still read, walk, garden, hug my Colin, sip my hot tea, count my blessings.  Hope there is joy in your days as well, whether bestowed-by-The-Universe magical or earned-tooth-and-nail (equally valued).

It is indeed Feel Good Friday and, as is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten/enlighten your day/weekend/week.  Enjoy!

~ MacKenzie Scott Has Pledged to Donate Half Her Net Worth to Charity:  It's a pledge her ex-husband, Jeff Bezos, has yet to make.

~ Love the Hit Game Wordle? Try BRDL, a Bird-Inspired Spinoff:  The daily word quiz that has taken the internet by storm now has a version for birders. Just make sure you know your banding codes.

~ Break a Leg but Never Whistle: How Stage Superstitions Live On:  The return of the Scottish play (that’s “Macbeth” to the rest of you) is a reminder of the idiosyncratic rituals and routines that bring actors comfort.

~ The Best Teas, According to Wirecutter’s Obsessive Staff:  A great cup of tea can make everything better. Even though tea is not as popular as coffee in the US, we think it deserves its place as the second-most widely consumed beverage in the world (water being the first). 

~ 70+ Perennial Vegetables to Plant Once and Harvest for Years:  Edible perennial gardening is a way to grow delicious crops while saving time, money, and effort. 

NR:  One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

SONG:  Hallelujah by HAIM

BOOK:  Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen 

POEM:  What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen

to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took

questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets

that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep

without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe

the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing

how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts

are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am

is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation

look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking

for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

QUOTE(S):  "When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life." ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.”

Thich Nhat Hanh 

“Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.” ~ Katherine May

I Know Alone (HAIM)

[thanks again to Lesley Anne Numbers for this brilliant graphic!]

About six months ago (maybe more, maybe less), I ran across a saying that became my mantra:

Whatever you
Are not changing, 
You are choosing.  

Read that again.

It helped me transform some bad habits into positive motion, and I stayed on track for a good while.  Then... coronavirus (dum dum dum dum!).  I continued my focus for another two months, but have recently found myself straying from the path, even falling into wallow and roly-poly modes, two of my biggest downfalls.  Woe is me.  What's the point?  Where's my purpose?  I wrote to a friend the other day:

"It's raining again here.  How appropriate.  Almost two weeks of daily downpours.  You are the unfortunate recipient of my fatigue:  coronavirus isolation; marital relations; social injustice; missing live music, browsing the library shelves, hugging my grandbaby, going to Publix instead of having strangers do my shopping, sitting in a booth at my favorite Thai restaurant to enjoy veggie Panang curry.  Do you yell at the TV when people shake hands? ("no, you can't do that now!").  On the few occasions I am in the car, and see people driving while wearing masks, I wonder if I've just been dropped into a nightmare/science fiction scenario, and pinch myself to wake."

Time to recalibrate.  Much to be grateful for.  So many blessings.  Started last night with a Dar Williams livestreaming concert, celebrating Patty's (her manager's) birthday, in which Dar played "deep cuts".  Wow, what a setlist!  I was invited, and eventually migrated over, to the Old School Dar-Listers watch party, connecting with dear friends I've had for decades, forever-bonded over our favorite singer-songwriter.  I am committed to carrying that spark of joy back into my daily life, and adding in more yoga, more stretching, meditation, more phone calls with long-distance friends and family, walking, even leisurely (gone by the wayside because of my sciatica), natural VitaminD, whether at the condo pool (socially-distanced, of course) or the grassy area in front of our building, kinder words, deeper understanding, open heart/closed mouth, more radical self-care, increased vulnerability, letting go of past hurts.

Forlorn/lonely... begone!


[updated at 5:30 p.m.:  I uploaded this post a bit after noon today, and since then, after doing much thinking, as well as having a productive conversation with a friend, I realize that so much of my angst comes from *struggling* with the times we're in.  I am attempting to push back against an immutable situation, a *global* pandemic... clinging to my old life, fighting "the new normal", when what I really need to do is to find acceptance (I swear I had it at one point!).  I keep talking about "the other side" of this, when there is still so much uncertainty, and no one knows where we will land, and what it will look like.  I seriously need to stop drawing a line in the sand, visualizing there and here, Point A to Point B... and rather look at it as a journey, circuitous at best, winding along with perhaps no immediate plan in place, other than to connect the dots One Day at a Time, making the smartest decisions possible ("do the next right thing", as Glennon would say), and maintaining a Buddhist attitude of acknowledging there is pain and suffering yet striving toward non-attachment to the outcome.  I feel better already...  :-) ]

P.S.  Another joy-sparker tomorrow night:  Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, and Bill Murray will remember the life and music of John Prine during an all-star online special on Thursday. Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine streams June 11th at 7:30 p.m. ET via Prine’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.


SONG:  I Know Alone by HAIM (lyrics in the link; thanks to my son Rob for the heads-up to this song... 💓 )

BOOK:  On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff

POEM:  Quarantine Day 35 by Jaime R. Wood

The online coronavirus survey asks
if you’ve experienced hair loss
and you laugh because just yesterday
you took brand new clippers to your scalp
and sheared off enough hair to help someone
with cancer feel human again.
Your friend told you over Zoom happy hour
to hug yourself to trick your body
into feeling less lonely, so you wrap your arms,
right to left and left to right,
across your chest until your hands reach
your shoulder blades and you can feel
your heart beating inside you
as if it belongs to someone else,
but you know that hasn’t been true for a long time.
You stay up all night watching hospital dramas
because you want to know who will live
and who will die.
And one morning you wake to find out via email
that one of your students died in her sleep.
All day you tell people again and again,
“She had kids. She had kids.” Plural.
But it turns out she only had one
five-year-old daughter. Singular.
But what does it matter?
Every child is a universe.
And one morning one small girl in Portland, Oregon
woke up without her one very important mother.
Sometimes my hands shake with all they cannot hold,
and I don’t know how to measure what it means
for time to pass. Which simile will do?
Like a heartbeat?
Like a million fine hairs falling from a head?
Like a mother who slept through the night
and then stopped, her universe carrying the weight
of her through all the days of her life?

[Jaime R. Wood: “The ongoing event that we’re all experiencing right now is social isolation in an attempt to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19, and some people, like me, live alone, and so the isolation is profound. Last week, I learned that one of my students died in her sleep, and of all the things I knew about her, the thing I kept thinking about was the fact that she was a single mother and that her kids were young. I knew that, but I couldn’t remember how many kids she had until someone told me that she only had one, and at that point, it didn’t really matter to me. The loss is great, no matter how you calculate it. The loss of this one woman, and my feelings about it, can be multiplied many times over and applied to each of us. We wake up and fall asleep to loss, and there aren’t adequate words to measure it all.”]

QUOTE:  "And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about." ~ Haruki Murakami