Enjoy Every Second (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

Artwork: Thomas Eakins

Hello, Blogosphere!  Yep, I'm still around... even though it's been about six months since I posted here.  Oh [six-second-pause] well.  As we all know, Life Happens... and some of it's been challenging (🤐) and some of it's been joyful (Joni Jam in Seattle... 💖) and some of it's been balanced (☯) and, honestly, we wouldn't appreciate the ups without the downs, would we?  I continue to be grateful for every second I remain on the planet, hopefully effecting change, creating positive vibes, learning and growing.

Yesterday was my 69th birthday... and my initial plan was to read all day (have we met?... 😉) and I did, a bit... but mostly I had wonderful phone calls with my three amazing adult children as well as a few other friends and family... responded to birthday texts... and personally replied to each and every social media post (don't you just love birthdays on Facebook?!?... 🎂)

So, for this next trip around the sun, I vow, in true Leo I-want-it-all-and-I-want-it-now fashion:  MORE connection with family and friends... MORE reading... MORE gardening... MORE moving... MORE stillness... MORE beach time... and MORE Colin (I absolutely adore my just-turned-five-year-old grandson... 💞)

P.S.  I actually created a Birthday Fundraiser (a pinned post to my Facebook page) for the most fabulous True North Project; I am beyond honored to be a board member!  Please consider a donation if you're so inclined... 🧭

SONG:  Enjoy Every Second by Michael Franti & Spearhead

BOOK:  Daily Magic: Spells and Rituals for Making the Whole Year Magical (Witchcraft & Spells) by Judika Illes

POEM:  This Body by Joyce Sutphen

When I stepped ashore in this body

I was recognized at once

and given a name.

My bones were smaller, but the shape

of the cheek and the chin

are the same.

This is the only body I know: this color

my eyes, this color my skin.

Every scar is mine.

I have become as tall, as slim, as old

as I am. My voice has carried the weight

of what I had to say.

Words were scattered along the way: words

on gravel roads, in hallways and staircases.

Words on a wire.

Somewhere in a field, my hair. Somewhere in a lake,

my skin, some rooftop where my gaze rested,

some star, a wish.

This is my address on earth: temporary, fragile,

a name in the phonebook,

at the moment, alive.

QUOTE(S):  “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

“No, my friend, you are not ‘too old’. You’ve only grown into a hand-me-down lie. You are younger than your tomorrows, wiser than your yesterdays, confident in your now, centuries ahead of seconds, stronger for all you’ve conquered, and deserving of the levels you have reached. It’s about time to admit that you are timeless.” ~ Broms the Poet

Work Hard and Be Nice (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

Other than a pesky crick in the left side of my neck (caused by a two-hour phone conversation with a dear friend; still worth it!), which turned really painful, causing me to spend most of the last few days in a regimen of a handheld massager/Aleve/Cryoderm/heating pad, a super-hot Epsom salts bath, and a visit to Massage Envy... it's been a good week.  Hung out with Brian for three hours in the park, sat with DonnaG's kids while she attended a tele-appointment, Zoom with Nancy and Judi, an authors-who-also-own-bookstores livestream, Pool Day with Nancy, and just wrapped up an Ellis Paul music event celebrating songs inspired by books.

Sunday is Mother's Day so, if possible, check in with the woman who physically brought you into this world, as well as the special people in your life who tend and nurture you.  I miss my Mom every day, and wish I could call and/or visit her (she passed in July 2009), but I do have plans to get together with my daughter and her kiddo, which I am very much looking forward to; a gathering with my sons will have to wait for another time, since they are both in the restaurant business, which is historically crazy on this holiday!  More on those events later... 💓

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

~ Brie Larson Pivoted to Video:  The Oscar-winning actress has found therapeutic refuge on YouTube.


~ Side Effects of Walking Just 10 Minutes Per Day, Says Science:  Here's how taking brief but brisk walks can help your focus, self-confidence, and lifespan.


~ James Taylor - Remembering 1970: BBC and Joni's Jag:  Topics include: travels to London in the same year that he released album "Sweet Baby James", playing at the London Palladium, Lenny Bruce, driving cross-country with @Joni Mitchell​, bunking with Warren Oates, Two-Lane Blacktop, visiting the Hopi Indian reservation--even dancing with snakes! James also solves the BBC "In Concert" mystery: "who knitted that green sweater"?! Test your JT trivia chops!


~ Inside the ‘Jeopardy!’ Guest Host Rotation:  This season’s experiment with a carousel of fresh faces has forced the stalwart quiz show—and its contestants—to rethink much of what they know about ‘Jeopardy!’


~ Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them:  Bob Ross painted more than 1,000 landscapes for his television show — so why are they so hard to find? We solve one of the internet’s favorite little mysteries.

NR:  Sarah's Key by by Tatiana de Rosnay

SONG:  Work Hard and Be Nice by Michael Franti & Spearhead

BOOK:  Deep Kindness: A Revolutionary Guide for the Way We Think, Talk, and Act in Kindness by Houston Kraft

POEM:  The world you see is just a movie in your mind by Jack Kerouac

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.

Rocks don't see it.

Bless and sit down.

Forgive and forget.

Practice kindness all day to everybody

and you will realize you’re already

in heaven now.

That’s the story.

That’s the message.

Nobody understands it,

nobody listens, they’re

all running around like chickens with heads cut

off. I will try to teach it but it will

be in vain, s’why I’ll

end up in a shack

praying and being

cool and singing

by my woodstove

making pancakes.

QUOTE:  “There are three ways to ultimate success:  The first way is to be kind.  The second way is to be kind.  The third way is to be kind.” ~ Fred Rogers

I'm On Your Side (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

[Finally!  June 3, 2020 update:  Attorney General Keith Ellison upgrade charges against officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck; charged other 3 involved:  The charges come just days after Gov. Tim Walz asked Ellison to take over the prosecution.]

8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody:
The Times has reconstructed the death of George Floyd on May 25. Security footage, witness videos and official documents show how a series of actions by officers turned fatal.


My sister Mari initiated a thoughtful conversation, via text, with me and my daughter Sarah a few days ago, which allowed me to state my feelings on the George Floyd situation in particular, and racism in general.  I disagree with the vandalism, arson, and looting but, to quote Leonard (below), "Enough!".  If this is what it takes to be heard, I understand.  It is crazy that we live in a world in which Jogging While Black and Driving While Black and even Breathing While Black are reasons for murder, by police or anyone else. I can't fathom why people are more outraged by the destruction of property than they are by the senseless killings of People of Color, for decades... centuries.

Why are blacks’ anguished cries of “Enough!” never enough to stop the brutality? | Opinion by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

My new favorite word, as used in Leonard's column:
quiescent [ kwee-es-uhnt, kwahy- ]
adjective
being at rest; quiet; still; inactive or motionless:
a quiescent mind.


It is a matter of being aware of the injustice in the world, and how we, from our entitled place, can help but never truly empathize.  I felt helpless as well as enraged watching that video.  thankyoujesus for cell phones recording the truth.  At this point the officers have been charged, and we will wait to see if they are convicted (as many are not).


And, from Glennon Doyle's recently-published book Untamed, p. 206-210 (thanks to my daughter Sarah for reminding me of these passages):

"  “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.”

   I was adamant and righteous. But I’d forgotten that sick systems are made up of sick people. People like me. In order to get healthy, everybody has to stay in the room and turn themselves inside out. No family recovers until each member recovers. 

       Soon after that conversation with my friend, I sat on my family room couch and patted a spot to my left and one to my right. I said to my daughters, “Come here, girls.” They sat down and looked up at me. I told them that while they were asleep, a man who was white had walked into a church and shot and killed nine people who were black.

   Then I told my daughters about a black boy their brother’s age, who was walking home and was chased down and murdered. I told them that the killer said he thought the boy had a gun, but what the boy really had was a bag of Skittles. Amma said, “Why did that man think Trayvon’s candy was a gun?” I said, “I don’t think he really did. I think he just needed an excuse to kill.”

   We sat with all of this for a while. They asked more questions. I did my best. Then I decided that we had talked about villains for long enough. We needed to talk about heroes.

   I went to my office to find a particular book. I pulled it down from the shelf, came back to the couch, and sat between them again. I opened the book, and we read about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, and Daisy Bates. We looked at pictures of civil rights marches, and we talked about why people march. “Someone once said that marching is praying with your feet,” I told them.

   Amma pointed to a white woman holding a sign, marching in a sea of black and brown people. Her eyes popped and she said, “Mama, look! Would we have been marching with them? Like her?”

   I fixed my mouth to say, “Of course. Of course we would have, baby.”

   But before I could say it, Tish said, “No, Amma. We wouldn’t have been marching with them back then. I mean, we’re not marching now.”

       I stared at my girls as they looked up at me. I thought of my dad in that therapist’s office all those years ago. It was as if my girls had turned to me and asked, “Mama, how do you imagine we might be inadvertently contributing to our country’s sickness?”

   A week later, I was reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, famous essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and I came across this:

       "I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.”

   This was the first time I had encountered language that defined the kind of person I was in the world. I was a white person who imagined herself to be on the side of civil rights, because I was a good person who strongly believed in equality as the right idea. But the white woman Amma had pointed to in that photograph wasn’t staying home and believing. She was showing up. When I looked at her face, she didn’t look nice at all. She looked radical. Angry. Brave. Afraid. Tired. Passionate. Resolute. Regal. And a little bit scary.

   I imagined myself to be the kind of white person who would have stood with Dr. King because I respect him now. Close to 90 percent of white Americans approve of Dr. King today. Yet while he was alive and demanding change, only about 30 percent approved of him—the same rate of white Americans who approve of Colin Kaepernick today.

       So, if I want to know how I’d have felt about Dr. King back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about him now; instead I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Kaepernick now? If I want to know how I’d have felt about the Freedom Riders back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about them now; instead, I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Black Lives Matter now?

   If I want to know how I’d have shown up in the last civil rights era, I have to ask myself: How am I showing up today, in this civil rights era?

   I decided to read every book I could get my hands on about race in America. I filled my social media feeds with writers and activists of color. It became very clear very quickly how strongly my social media feeds shaped my worldview. With a feed filled with white voices, faces that looked like my own, and articles that reflected experiences like mine, it was easy to believe that, for the most part, things were fine. Once I committed myself to beginning each day by reading the perspectives of black and brown people, I learned that everything was, and always has been, quite far from fine. I learned about rampant police brutality, the preschool-to-prison pipeline, the subhuman conditions of immigrant detainment centers, the pillaging of native lands. I began to widen. I was unlearning the whitewashed version of American history I’d been indoctrinated into believing. I was discovering that I was not who I imagined myself to be. I was learning that my country was not what I had been taught it was.

   This experience of learning and unlearning reminded me of getting sober from addiction. When I started to really listen and think more deeply about the experiences of people of color and other marginalized people in our country, I felt like I did when I first quit drinking: increasingly uncomfortable as the truth agitated my comfortable numbness. I felt ashamed as I began to learn all the ways my ignorance and silence had hurt other people. I felt exhausted because there was so much more to unlearn, so many amends to be made, and so much work to do. Just like in my early days of sobriety from booze, in my early days of waking up to white supremacy, I felt shaky, jumpy, and agitated as I slowly surrendered the privilege of not knowing. It was a painful unbecoming.

       Eventually it became time to speak up. I started sharing the voices I was reading, and speaking out against the racism of America’s past and the bigotry and strategic divisiveness of the current administration. Every time I did this, people got pissed off. I felt okay about this because I seemed to be pissing off the right people. "


So, what can WE do to effect positive change?

RevAmy mentioned this in our "lovestreaming" UU church service yesterday: 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle

Now is definitely a time for growth opportunity for those whose hearts are in the right place.  I am a long-time peaceful protester (mostly feminist- and environmentally-related) but, much as I want to get out there, I will not risk my health by taking to the streets.  Because of my decimated social life, I have extra money, and have decided to donate to Together Rising, Glennon's organization. She speaks her truth, which also happens to be mine.  I trust her judgment as to where she allocates the money.


SONG:  I'm On Your Side by Michael Franti and Spearhead

BOOK:  Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century by Barbara Ransby

POEM:  Choke by Karim Eltawansy

A tattoo of birds
in the cage
of my throat.

I can’t breathe.

The world
is an eye
open to the

sun.

How many poems
do you have
by dreaming

of fire? of water

too late, too little
of breath
on the feathers

a naked cat

is sculpted into a
sphinx.

Tell me: the sculptor
was using his
fingers as

a ruler: his palm

a throne. I hold
all of life in
my throat. I hold

the 7th heaven

on my devil’s whisper. A genie says:
what a genie says:
I’m not available right now

get in the car.

The lamp holds
nothing to the candle
wish of tongue, holds

a shadow in the corner
of my eye: blink
thrice if a baton chops

because someone says, gravity. I’ve heard

a lot of songs about misery, but
never felt a bullet
slash through my body’s

grass limbs. Had I

to describe this membrane
what its body looked
like in breath

in its lover’s casket: I say,

brave, one syllable drops
at the speed of exhale: one
Marlboro tastes like

a carcass: if you ask
me about Africa I’ll
point my thumb down

the chamber, stick my
head in the camera
lens, fall into

black, black, black
everything—birds
included.

QUOTE:  “Breathe. Breathe deep and pure and smooth. Concentrate on it. Breathing is the pace you set your life at. It’s the rhythm of the song of you. It’s how to get back to the centre of things. The centre of yourself. When the world wants to take you in every other direction. It was the first thing you learned to do. The most essential and simple thing you do. To be aware of breath is to remember you are alive.” ~ Matt Haig

This World Is So F*cked Up (But I Ain’t Never Giving Up On It) (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

Happy April 1!  No pranks or foolishness today, as our lives are already one big joke.  Sneeze, you're it.  The Governor has *finally* issued a statewide 30-day stay-at-home order, beginning midnight Thursday (tomorrow).

My new favorite word, from the Urban Dictionary:

Covidiot
Someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety.
A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbors.
Did you see that covidiot with 300 rolls of toilet paper in his basket?
That covidiot is hugging everyone she sees.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, April is National Poetry Month and, when I was on Facebook, I prided myself on posting a poem a day throughout.  After I deactivated my account, I worried about what I'd do to honor the occasion, not realizing at the time that I would revive my blog.  I've enjoyed discovering new poems (go back to 2007 and 2008 to find some of my old favorites), and am delighted to be sharing them.

Did the Seniors Publix run again this morning (sounds like a geriatric 5K, right?...  :-) They actually had someone out vetting the shoppers.  Needless to say, with my white "professional highlights", I did not get carded.  This may be the last time we take advantage of their respectful option, as we're seriously looking into Instacart from now on.  After staying home for almost three weeks (with a few ventures outside our gated community), it is becoming too stressful, not to mention risky, to engage with the world.  I feel almost agoraphobic lately.

But, we said we would, and we did.  Our friend Reba (who just turned 83 a few days ago) a snowbird with Autotrain reservations back to Maryland for the end of April, has wisely decided to stay in Florida indefinitely.  I checked in on her yesterday by phone and said that, if she'd send me her grocery list via text, I'd be glad to do her shopping and drop it by her apartment, which I did this morning after I unloaded my own groceries into freezer, fridge, and pantry.  Thought about buying her a plant or some flowers as a belated birthday present, but got her this instead...  :-)

Stopped at a gas station on the way home to fill up my car (just in case), which had signs on the pumps saying that they had hand sanitizer for sale inside.  Went in and bought four small bottles.  Thank you, local Chevon on University Drive!

Honestly, other than meeting up with my kids in the grassy area of our complex once or twice a week, or walking the trails around the golf course (almost daily), or hanging out at the pool late-afternoon every other day, I am more serious than ever about sheltering-the-f*ck-in-place.  I don't want to be a statistic.

P.S.  I enter Goodreads giveaways pretty regularly and, good news, I finally won a free book.  Zippity!


SONG:  This World Is So F*cked Up (But I Ain’t Never Giving Up On It) by Michael Franti & Spearhead (thanks times a bazillion to Melanie, who shared this song, and graphic above, with me!)

BOOK:  Your Journey to Calm: A Guide to Leaving Anxiety and Panic Attacks Behind by Maggie Oakes

POEM:  people are panic-buying chickens like they did toilet paper** by Maya Stein (**I borrowed this line from a recent New York Times article entitled “America Stress-Bought All the Baby Chickens.”)

The salons are closed. Yoga mats lie curled at the corners of shiny floors
at the downtown gyms. The baking aisles’ staples have begun to disappear: flour,
yeast. There are lines past the sliding glass doors for the eggs that may not be there
when our turn arrives. And so, we are retreating to the source, the future yield
of still-unplanted gardens fervent in our minds as we dig through overstuffed garages
for the tools we are certain live on the back shelves. Some of us may succeed,
find ourselves the shepherds of a new, burbling flock, or the tenders of salad greens
that will outlast an apocalypse. Others will dream of the cakes our mothers made,
reach a fingertip into a phantom bowl where a memory of batter still coats the sides.
And the rest will notice, for the first time, how yellow the daffodils are.

QUOTE:  "Panic causes tunnel vision. Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options." ~ Simon Sinek