tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397659737145222602024-03-05T01:20:55.900-08:00And I'll Raise You 5And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.comBlogger949125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-81221862332832527162024-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:002024-01-17T10:18:53.171-08:00Open A Drawer<p>Today's 15 minute writing exercise, from <i>The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers</i>, by Naomi Epel</p><p>______________________</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErk_9j-R9HFp73iks-BB6RwQejQwrRL6NyANdBN4skXDBAyGU1IdanHaBYf97Lq7LWo-xmKoFWVPZ5KousyioKELGWjPecWpD3dKABf8ASoEW6-v0dd2Knoj2tU2yM7wSi2hc04ukGG0JrAkvvHCfSy9qKcVVNh75ZnrdTWgYWUxvnnI10C1aHa3UfJsP/s750/Observation%20Deck.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="563" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErk_9j-R9HFp73iks-BB6RwQejQwrRL6NyANdBN4skXDBAyGU1IdanHaBYf97Lq7LWo-xmKoFWVPZ5KousyioKELGWjPecWpD3dKABf8ASoEW6-v0dd2Knoj2tU2yM7wSi2hc04ukGG0JrAkvvHCfSy9qKcVVNh75ZnrdTWgYWUxvnnI10C1aHa3UfJsP/s320/Observation%20Deck.png" width="240" /></a></div>I thrust my hand into the deep well of life -- in this case, the drawer of my office filing cabinet -- and came out with a parking ticket. That I have not paid.<p></p><p>Ah, the metaphor right there. The things not attended to. The niggling pieces of life that cause shame and denial. Shame, you say? Denial? It's a parking ticket. Pay it and move on.</p><p>Why does a slip of paper like a parking ticket, or the memory of getting it (read: not paying attention enough to realize I couldn't park in the miracle spot I thought I found), evoke such negativity and self reproach?</p><p><b>Option 1</b>: It really is representative of the ways I don't pay attention, the ways I let life's small responsibilities and annoying demands pile up in ways that come back to bite me.</p><p><b>Option 2</b>: It actually represents the ways in which "the man" is working every day, in every way, to keep. us. down. Control. Rules. Restrictions that thwart us at every turn. The capitalistic enterprise, squeezing pennies and dollars out of us every chance it gets.</p><p>Either way, this particular slip of paper makes me mad. Mad at myself, mad at the SFMTA, mad at inflation. Plenty of anger to go around, thank you very much.</p><p>What to do in the face of that anger? How to navigate the downward pull of self and municipal loathing?</p><p>RESIST. Everything is resistance. Instead of giving in to the loathing, ground myself in the sure knowledge that I am more than the profit I generate for the state, that I am more than a cog in the economic machine, that the parking ticket does not define me. Seems silly, no? Seems silly, yes. But it's the little things, man, that pile up and bite us, the little things that layer one on top the other. </p><p>So what is the work? The work is to <b>be the artisan</b>, laying other, better things one on top the other. Do not let the parking tickets, and the missed train, and the leaking tire, and the Christmas tree decaying in the corner of the yard be the things that build up on your precious frame. Decide what belongs there. Make creative choices. Choose colors, forms, mediums that you love. You don't have to say why you love them. You don't have to justify a single choice, because it's your precious frame and your wild, precious canvas, and you can layer on these things: paella. fire in the hearth. goal in the back of the net. fiddle callouses. children. carmelized onions. music. crunchy gravel. all the things that reveal the great beauty all around you, in you, breathing between you and the ones you love.</p><p>Do not let T*ump or the utterly, shockingly, mind-numbingly disappointing political landscape occupy a single centimeter of your canvas. Layer beauty upon beauty and watch the slings and arrows -- and parking tickets -- bounce and slide right off.</p><p>* * * </p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-34083185902877824242023-05-14T17:49:00.009-07:002023-05-15T09:35:02.404-07:00My Mother Gave Me Permission<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_RIJQidmrxpeX5CKyohVEWMp4_E3WTf56TTKhRazg2V7MuyAsYqkg0VfnxkMFwPbRanP4OwQnZfWHMg4bYFZmq0J0S9geHnNbhmrqGgpso6pfwEThPBCHehbXD-inN_TOtimqRtOlL40so348oDGVUcimbbFFQGpXdSOu5EQDcHuF_g65vSTdF0Hug/s320/Mom.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_RIJQidmrxpeX5CKyohVEWMp4_E3WTf56TTKhRazg2V7MuyAsYqkg0VfnxkMFwPbRanP4OwQnZfWHMg4bYFZmq0J0S9geHnNbhmrqGgpso6pfwEThPBCHehbXD-inN_TOtimqRtOlL40so348oDGVUcimbbFFQGpXdSOu5EQDcHuF_g65vSTdF0Hug/w200-h266/Mom.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>This memory exists in sharp detail: Nine-year-old me, lying on my bed in a sweltering attic bedroom with sun-yellow walls and a nubby, multicolored rug. I'm listening to the radio: country music of course. I don't recall the name of the song that was playing, just that it was incredibly sad. A story of lost love, heartbreak, and loneliness. <p></p><p><b>I felt all of it. </b>I felt the devastation and the overwhelming grief. The pain of loving and losing. The longing in the singer's voice. At 9 years old, years away from truly understanding a broken heart, that song made me deeply, massively sad.</p><p>I dissolved into tears, weeping little girl tears over grown-up heartbreak, tears of recognition that the world--and specific people within it-could stomp on my heart. I remember drenching my pillow and feeling bewildered. Where was this strong reaction coming from? I knew I was too little to really get it, but my heart went on that journey anyway. And once I started, I couldn't stop: the wailing went on far longer than the song.</p><p>My mother must have heard me. Suddenly, there she was, sitting on the bed beside me, concern on her face. </p><p><i>"What's wrong, Mon?" </i></p><p>I told her I had just listened to a really, really sad song and it made me cry. As a mother now myself, I imagine she might have been relieved. No broken bones, no blood, no trauma, just good old-fashioned sadness. She asked what the song was about.</p><p>I felt silly, but blurted: "<i>Someone broke up with the girl, the singer, and she was really sad about it, and the song was the story, and it was SO SAD!</i>" Fresh tears erupted, rendering me a puddle once more.</p><p>She hugged me, rubbed my back, and let me be sad. She told me she understood, that songs can really make us feel things. I felt silly telling her why I was crying, but she didn't treat me like I or my feelings were silly. From a mother's point of view, she did a mundane mom thing: made a kid feel better about something kind of small. But this small thing has stayed with me my entire life.</p><p>I have often wondered why. It was a tiny moment in a busy, loud, sarcastic household. It was a blip, a sliver, a shred. There was no postscript or profound conclusion. It remains just a snapshot of a moment in time.</p><p>But the little girl who felt so much in response to a song? That's who I have always been. I've always been a crier. Tears come easily and I treasure them, knowing and trusting their cleansing power. My heart is stirred by the tiniest slivers of things: curtains lifted by a breeze, revealing a wall of family portraits; trash collected at the side of a freeway on-ramp, items once used, or loved, or needed by someone; a broken down barn on the side of a road. Always, I yearn to know the stories hidden in these blips and slivers, and frequently, I'm stirred to strong emotions by them. That's who I am, and that's who I was as a little girl.</p><p>My mom let me be that girl that day. As I grew up, I took pride in being "a feeler." It became, and still is, a big part of my identity. Being a feeler has helped me forge strong connections with my wonderful network of dear and plentiful friends. It has helped me be a mom when I see strong emotions in my kids. It has always been a portal to understanding other people. </p><p>So maybe I remember that tiny moment because it was a memory of me being just 100% me, all in my feels and wailing away, and because my mom's response was to let me be 100% that person. Maybe I remember it because her hand on my back, and her soothing words, told me I could let myself feel everything, that I could just be myself. Maybe each time I remember that day, and see that 70's snapshot in my mind, she is still telling me to be exactly who I am.</p><p>Life is lived in the slivers and shreds that stay with us.</p><p>Happy Mother's Day, mom.</p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-56587376638183031502023-02-09T21:03:00.004-08:002023-02-10T07:26:58.237-08:00Antidotes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LbyRT5sVpSOXafkQQfGQs5RlJyMfjRjXa6Ccmow3jNn9O98Ajd1wZHY5Ybxd08SASu2D_ARSGa4-SHvlqpBcv7pOpXhpYHbggwd_XfMqY3sC60gWrHpaZNq5AKTqNgW0x7mWXB2wb2Z0SoZ3KWaYrNNeqZrQxcZwjDUAelC-5AWC1goQH1hoz2ZKFw/s2695/Portuguese%20Beach,%20Feb.%202023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2021" data-original-width="2695" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LbyRT5sVpSOXafkQQfGQs5RlJyMfjRjXa6Ccmow3jNn9O98Ajd1wZHY5Ybxd08SASu2D_ARSGa4-SHvlqpBcv7pOpXhpYHbggwd_XfMqY3sC60gWrHpaZNq5AKTqNgW0x7mWXB2wb2Z0SoZ3KWaYrNNeqZrQxcZwjDUAelC-5AWC1goQH1hoz2ZKFw/s320/Portuguese%20Beach,%20Feb.%202023.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><b>Take comfort.</b><p></p><p>Those things that make you breathe again are happening, even as your pulse quickens and your chest tightens. Even as gelatinous anxiety looms and threatens. The smallest, most important things are taking place right now.</p><p>Somewhere, a scruffy-headed kid squinches her face to the sun as she stretches for a blackberry.</p><p>Somewhere, a high creek rushes past, sweeping nettles downstream.</p><p>Somewhere, a single-engine airplane rumbles through a warm and cloudless sky, coating the land with suspended time.</p><p>Waves paint white foam on massive rocks. Onions sizzle and carmelize over a fire. A cellist draws his bow, steady and sweet, across a C string. </p><p>These things exist. You can breathe again. </p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-87349557678712769682022-09-27T23:24:00.001-07:002022-09-28T14:49:54.151-07:00Why Books Matter<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwyie9guZeNbrEbnyHGX7aSt4z5E8asx2QEQi35yRJka5wR5v_G_enu7K08BMqPSNcZrsw5zhjdIXinHeHScAOLdwpN7uYkwDG2jkpc8vHtj351PScJo175mBcxuhLaWFVxpvO66_d8maF-hvEFp677RH6SDac6Pvvxgd3i68lAaC72ybw-CUO4mQDQ/s5616/books.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3744" data-original-width="5616" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwyie9guZeNbrEbnyHGX7aSt4z5E8asx2QEQi35yRJka5wR5v_G_enu7K08BMqPSNcZrsw5zhjdIXinHeHScAOLdwpN7uYkwDG2jkpc8vHtj351PScJo175mBcxuhLaWFVxpvO66_d8maF-hvEFp677RH6SDac6Pvvxgd3i68lAaC72ybw-CUO4mQDQ/s320/books.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>On Mother's Day several years ago, Rick gave me a Nook e-reader. Before that, I was a “real book” snob. “<i>But the feel of turning the pages</i>!” I said. “<i>The smell of the paper and the binding</i>!” I said. I eschewed e-readers like any self-respecting purist should.<p></p><p>But that summer, my new Nook in its lovely green case delivered voracious reading to me at a furious and satisfying pace. From its glowing screen, I read <i>All the Light We Cannot See, the House on Mango Street, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Just Mercy</i>, several New Yorker articles, and other things I can’t remember. As long as I charged that magic device every night, I had the world at my fingertips. I discovered the joy of carrying an entire library around in one slim volume. When my kids were small, one of our favorite bedtime stories was a book called (aptly) “Always Room for One More.” The title echoed in my brain: there is always room for one more way to read!</p><p>Years have gone by since that summer, and my relationship with my Nook has seen fewer peaks and more valleys. I can go months without even knowing where it is. I wish I could say this is because physical books and I got hot and heavy, but it’s more honest to say that my iPhone and I have been caught in a co-dependent spiral, spending far too much time together, both of us getting some kind of sick benefit from the countless wasted hours.</p><p>And so, in an effort to re-kindle (pun intended) my love of reading, I recently charged up the Nook and re-read Just Mercy. Even the second time around, it was definitely a can’t-put-it-down experience. I quickly tumbled into one of those delicious, all-consuming reads that take up residence in your mind and command all your attention. And along the way, I figured out the price we pay for reading on e-readers instead of with books in our hands. </p><p>While I was devouring this book as if it were manna from heaven, like it was oxygen, water, life itself, no one in my family could tell what I was reading. No one could see it. I realized this when Bryan Stevenson’s name came up by chance with one of my daughters (probably prompted by NPR), and I jumped at the opportunity to talk about Just Mercy with her. </p><p>She returned my enthusiasm with a blank stare, having no idea what I was talking about. I had to stop and explain that I was reading Mr. Stevenson’s book, and that it was amazing, and that she should read it. It was incredulous to me that she wasn’t familiar with the book that had been looming so large in my world. Here I was, reading a book that felt life-changing and urgent and essential, but because I was using an e-reader, my family was utterly clueless. Sure, they could tell that I was reading, but no one could tell <b><i>what</i></b> I was reading. </p><p>If I were reading the physical edition of Just Mercy, they would know. The book would be living beside us, taking up space. It would sprawl on the couch next to a throw blanket, linger on my bedside table, sit patiently on the kitchen counter while I cooked. It would be visible. The title, the cover, the promo blurbs–all of those would seep into my children's brains. That’s what we lose when an entire library exists in one slim volume. If all the books stored in my nook were instead on my shelves, my kids would know more authors’ names and see more book titles around them. They would be surrounded by more possibilities for how to spend their time, each book peppering their consciousness with so many seeds. </p><p>It’s not that my kids have not grown up around books; they have. My youngest takes pride in the fact that every year in school, when her English teachers assign new books, we rarely have to buy them. We usually already own them. But when it comes to Just Mercy, I was saddened that that book, in particular, was not on our shelves, helping me raise my children just by being there. It felt like a loss. </p><p>The Red Pony. The Accidental Tourist. Amityville Horror. The Cracker Factory. Where the Red Fern Grows. James Joyce. William Butler Yeats. Erma Bombeck. Charles Dickens. Agatha Christie. Those are just some of the books and authors who raised me from their perches on bookshelves and coffee tables. Their presence signaled to me that the words they contained were valuable because my parents valued them. And now, they are part of the fabric of my childhood, part of my memories and my own family narrative.</p><p>So bring me real books please, and lots of them! Because as much as I love the convenience of my e-reader, taking up physical space matters. Real books actually live in our homes. They talk to us in conversations that begin before we ever crack their bindings and echo for decades. They help us raise our children and stay with us for our entire lives. Therein lies the difference: E-readers are fabulous for individual, solitary reading, while the books we hold in our hands shape the living, breathing communities we live in. </p><p>I guess I’m still a “real book” snob after all. I do enjoy my Nook, but my physical books are family.</p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-23931828593452846352022-08-26T19:04:00.007-07:002022-08-27T09:33:56.230-07:003 Cheers for New Neural Pathways!<p>Anxiety, thou art everywhere, all at once. </p><p>Everywhere we turn, people are talking about anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. Pick your topic: The economy: Will it tank? The country: Will it collapse? The next election: Will we survive it? The pandemic: WTF?</p><p>Racism. Guns. Abortion. Masks. Vaccines. Police violence. </p><p>Being alive right now, well, it's a doozy.</p><p>As the mother of a passel of Gen Z-ers, I see how much the cluster f--- that is our culture is weighing on young people. Many are cynical about the world and the future, and boy, do they have a right to be. I desperately wish I could convince my own offspring that there are reasons to be hopeful, but I also know I cannot relate to what they have experienced in the past 6 years. Us older adults have been through those same years, but from a vastly different vantage point. The formative years of young adults -- those years between 10 and 25 when we are weaving together so many notions about how the world operates -- have been steeped in a soup of chaos, vitriol, racism, opportunism, violence, and too many other confusing and scary things. I cannot imagine what it is like to grow into adulthood right now.</p><p>It is a privilege to have emerged from my teenage years with optimism; this is not a privilege many young adults share—or come by easily. </p><p>I sometimes feel at a loss for how to help my kids navigate the anxiety that comes with waking up each day in this fraught and frightful world. I got a little help this week from, of all places, the Marketplace Morning Report on NPR. I say "of all places" because Marketplace (morning and afternoon) is a money, economy, NASDAQ, stocks, bonds, financial program, and I'm not a money, economy, NASDAQ, stock, bond, financial kinda girl. Most things econ-related are like mysterious black boxes to me. Even so, I've long appreciated Marketplace and its hosts for talking about the economy in ways that are interesting even for non-business-y people. This week, I appreciate it even more for a little segment on recession anxiety and for their guest Angela Sasseville, a Denver-based psychotherapist and executive coach. She captured the essence of what I see right now among young adults in this quote:</p><p><i>"Over the past 6 years the American public has experienced an unprecedented number of circumstances that have created uncertainty and caused them to feel anxious." </i></p><p>THANK YOU! Yes, we sure as hell have and it's distressing in the extreme. She goes on: "<i>Current data indicates that upward of 40% of American adults are currently feeling anxious or depressed, . . .a 29% increase from pre-pandemic levels</i>." Yup. I feel that. I see it in the people around me. I bet for young adults, the numbers are even higher. </p><p>Even better than just naming the elephant in the middle of the country, Ms. Sasseville offers us a way forward: "<i>Fortunately, the strategies that are effective [in addressing anxiety] will work for the recession or any other issue that you're feeling anxious about. You can use the same neuroscience principle to install a new neural pathway that helps you experience a positive emotion instead."</i></p><p>We can create new neural pathways to fight anxiety! While not new information, it was the reminder I needed. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, and also tell my kids and get them as excited as I am about this good news. </p><p>I tried. I got blank stares, eye rolls, and garden variety annoyance. They are still close enough to their teenage years that I am perhaps not the best messenger for life-changing strategies. So I guess I'll just have to use this wise advice on myself instead. If I can't save the next generation, at least I can save myself. Here's my grand plan to build those neural pathways:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Play the fiddle more. (Remind me to tell you about the new band I'm in!)</li><li>Exercise more. Use it or lose it is becoming uncomfortably relevant to me of late.</li><li>Read and write more. Also known as, those things I say I'm all about but don't do nearly enough.</li><li><b>Put. My. Phone. Down. </b></li></ul><div>I've never been more convinced that art -- making it, enjoying it, spending time with it -- is resistance. I know we are all finding ways to create the world we want, even if only in our little human-sized plots of space and time, and I'd love to hear yours. Sharing these small acts can only help us collectively stand against the machine that seems intent on grinding us all to a pulp. What are you doing to resist the prevailing culture of dread and fear? How are you creating optimism for yourself? What new neural pathways are you building day by day?</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, I am picturing a tiny, badass, all-female construction crew in my brain, energetically building new roads and connecting isolated sparks of creativity and consciousness. They seem like a trustworthy bunch: I'm sticking with them.</div><div><br /></div><div>My kids may not be ready to listen to me, but the ones who still live here can't avoid listening to my fiddle. I do love a captive audience.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/feeling-anxious-about-a-potential-recession-youre-not-alone/" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank"><i><b>Link to Marketplace Morning Report segment</b></i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh44kW0FBX-Ti-aZQCuIuXpc5OakA-t4rQPDvsWa4U5K8zyRGWjtvkPMXxkolmACxj0CH7GcYDVrB5imQge8CKgqqKOkrp0iv6in-2IVYkjDC8dzWHQA51y5A44S_aJfHDq_LEYKHDj92wOgQnGqtOgfc7BFmMrCmJjnTHrYfrLWTj7JvrBC7uK3N_Fww/s934/Neural%20Pathways.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="934" height="415" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh44kW0FBX-Ti-aZQCuIuXpc5OakA-t4rQPDvsWa4U5K8zyRGWjtvkPMXxkolmACxj0CH7GcYDVrB5imQge8CKgqqKOkrp0iv6in-2IVYkjDC8dzWHQA51y5A44S_aJfHDq_LEYKHDj92wOgQnGqtOgfc7BFmMrCmJjnTHrYfrLWTj7JvrBC7uK3N_Fww/w620-h415/Neural%20Pathways.png" width="620" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-51681179691923974622022-02-20T16:47:00.001-08:002022-02-20T16:47:27.126-08:00I AM FROM<p>My daughter Tallulah is our guest writer today! Please enjoy this poem she wrote last November, as well as the art she made to go with it.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>I AM FROM</b></p><p><b>by Tallulah Alatorre</b></p><p><br /></p><p>I am from long days in the yard lost in my imagination.</p><p>I am from a minivan stuffed full with 5 whirly children and two exhausted parents.</p><p>I am from the sound of NPR echoing in the halls on Sunday morning.</p><p>I am from apples and peanut butter served on a smooth wooden cutting board.</p><p>I am from trips to the beach with hot cocoa.</p><p>I am from hikes and creek explorations.</p><p>I am from long nights spent on a soccer field with the feel of an icy chill on my face.</p><p>I am from the evening sun hitting the yellowish walls of my home, illuminating the living room.</p><p>I am from the warm sweet smell of dinner preparing in the oven.</p><p>I am from walks to the corner store and soccer tennis at the park.</p><p>I am from hand-me-downs and everything used and loved before me.</p><p>I am from the crackling of the fireplace during winter time.</p><p>I am from doing my homework at a table splattered with paint and carved initials.</p><p>I am from lemonade stands and making cookies.</p><p>I am from warmth, love, and devotion. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9M-Pc4vF4f3Wm7lqodx_4J0WxmX2vXJu6eFi6X5OxAuG4AFnKadG-Vq5Gny815mte7oeEpZ1pdZt2Mpuba_U6ddcsQmh-T2lYrX9_D9VlmkjRCBd0jl2JqqFFCJNj82V3OfvMsHem3hc6SW7TiqVNnE8osx3Qs0QjYBGOEztIKtPyEkG_hujW0bXMBQ=s2950" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2950" data-original-width="2285" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9M-Pc4vF4f3Wm7lqodx_4J0WxmX2vXJu6eFi6X5OxAuG4AFnKadG-Vq5Gny815mte7oeEpZ1pdZt2Mpuba_U6ddcsQmh-T2lYrX9_D9VlmkjRCBd0jl2JqqFFCJNj82V3OfvMsHem3hc6SW7TiqVNnE8osx3Qs0QjYBGOEztIKtPyEkG_hujW0bXMBQ=s320" width="248" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>-----</p><div><br /></div><div>Maybe we got some things right. Thank you, Tallulah!</div><div><br /></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-59713499474817455372022-01-29T11:06:00.007-08:002022-01-29T15:59:59.684-08:00Tiny Rituals<p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwVA5GmAer7JfnOC4pOShnIo5M8zN3XBxyJJupbBZ1JhIddPcxd8CDaIzbGLJghJnOw1qYEi15lJIXdR5Vd080006N0q4g_LBW4wKjPGFGVDhDNK4B_eoMfo8UgDJF3Y1GlrOguv_4RPemLos-FdLqlp6BYV4Y___5_quIbxSlQ8sI6BkgPQ9u7NiOg=s504" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="504" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwVA5GmAer7JfnOC4pOShnIo5M8zN3XBxyJJupbBZ1JhIddPcxd8CDaIzbGLJghJnOw1qYEi15lJIXdR5Vd080006N0q4g_LBW4wKjPGFGVDhDNK4B_eoMfo8UgDJF3Y1GlrOguv_4RPemLos-FdLqlp6BYV4Y___5_quIbxSlQ8sI6BkgPQ9u7NiOg=w197-h197" width="197" /></a></i></b></div><b><i>Dateline, 2015</i></b>. We rise early in the morning, my feisty 8-year-old and I, and head out to a soccer field. As the youngest of five, she is <b>all in </b>for this gig, having tagged along to her older siblings' games and tournaments since she was born. Now it's her turn and she is beyond enthusiastic. Rabid might be a better word.<p></p><p>Early mornings are her favorite time to head out to a field, and games at least an hour away are the best. She loves to get up while it's still dark, pile her soccer backpack, pillows, and blankets into the car, and doze on our way to a game, holding a warm cup of hot chocolate and watching the sky lighten through half-closed eyes. We trundle down I-80. As we come around the wide curve in Albany, Golden Gate Fields appears, floating on the edge of the bay off to the right. She perks up, stretches her body as high as she can, and starts to look for horses.</p><p>Golden Gate Fields is the local race track and in the early morning, trainers and jockeys are busy. From the freeway, we catch glimpses of horses practicing on the track, walking amidst the stables, or circling around a hot walker. We count as many as we can and as we pass the fields mere minutes later, we announce our findings: A 4 horse morning! A 2 horse morning! A 9 horse morning!</p><p>Zero horse mornings are always a disappointment. </p><p>On mornings we aren't together for her drive to a game, she excitedly reports the total to me later. Her siblings – older, cooler – roll their eyes. I gush with enthusiasm and tell her how many I saw on my travels that day too.</p><p>-----</p><p><b><i>Dateline, 2019</i></b>. It's way too early in the morning. I'm trying to get my 12-year-old out the door. Turns out, she did not, as she assured me last night, have her entire soccer uniform and she still needs to find one blue sock. Frustrated, I growl something about how it's her responsibility to be ready for her game and it's not me who will be late to warm-up. She growls something that may or may not be actual language. She doesn't eat the food I made. I don't have any encouraging words to share. We each glare and fume and think uncharitable thoughts.</p><p>The car is thick with silence, and neither of us so much as glances at Golden Gate Fields as we drive by. This is most definitely a zero horse morning of our own making. Forty minutes later, she slams the door without a word and disappears into the misty morning. I sit in the car grateful to be by myself and generally annoyed that she's such a bi–– ...bitter little pre-teen. What happened to my sweet girl? When did we become adversaries? Why did we stop counting horses?</p><p>-----</p><p><b><i>Dateline, 2022</i></b>. My fifteen-year-old leaves in the morning with her older sister, who is now her main chauffeur. That precious car time we used to have so much of vanished one day without warning, and it turns out that I miss it. Mommy Brain has blissfully erased the frustrating mornings from my memory bank. I have time for other things now, but I know that her high school years will break the sound barrier as they whoosh past me. So as the car pulls away, I am both grateful for a quiet house and also a little melancholy about the nearly grown girls speeding down the street and away from me. Being a mom is confusing that way: always two competing emotions at once.</p><p>I settle into a comfortable chair with a hot cup of coffee and my laptop. I'll get some work done this morning and then take the dog for a walk, or play my fiddle, or binge-watch All Creatures Great and Small. I am positively giddy at the options. All my kids are old enough to do their own thing now and they need me less. Or at least <i>differently</i>.</p><p>Thirty minutes later, I am absorbed in a good book, when my phone pings with a quick text from my youngest. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJG9Ov7NpwF2vtVUq3Vyu3GChqnI-PjKntjCgPxNHafh7I6ykyiJSVXw_Fo_m_7ByYZfH0Onq9x1IgEfWvWhY5GdTe2jhnXLgWG24B9jSrWB8CnFsBHVVsR9z_pQ_H2qmp1hjWVm8i9QJCl86gKSygPkitRZ9kZvNGaSeRrfxdnLlMdNF_OjRojoiAVQ=s750" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="750" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJG9Ov7NpwF2vtVUq3Vyu3GChqnI-PjKntjCgPxNHafh7I6ykyiJSVXw_Fo_m_7ByYZfH0Onq9x1IgEfWvWhY5GdTe2jhnXLgWG24B9jSrWB8CnFsBHVVsR9z_pQ_H2qmp1hjWVm8i9QJCl86gKSygPkitRZ9kZvNGaSeRrfxdnLlMdNF_OjRojoiAVQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Time stands still and then rewinds, back to those lovely early mornings, back to the simple fun of counting horses and sharing the numbers with each other. Who knew it would stick? Just for a moment, there are no competing emotions, just gratitude: for horses, for her, and for the tiny little rituals that bind us together. Smiling, I turn back to the good book. All is right in my world. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">-----</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><i>Note: Shoutout to Hideout and Suede, the handsome boys in the photo at the top; photo cred to my friend Janelle who is busy every day with these two.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><br /><p><br /></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-81102154743792365382022-01-26T16:33:00.002-08:002022-01-26T18:41:27.119-08:00The Truth is True, Even When It's Not<p><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFo0zp10qUOQQJ8zxBJ3DVzBHjh-7UgiIlHKLI4cLLrRIpjvLS9BHwKhCEGkgFBFz0w-4b0tInHm4UkBA7AIQ6p8x16uKTcAg_kQZcLJJcf2Zsyi1mTQ_1cnZVSZfVRPGopimbPY535oms5QGRZQd6Sq10IcWwO_qzrwMx82g5tArWrfAGsZBKjWDmAw=s1024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="1024" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFo0zp10qUOQQJ8zxBJ3DVzBHjh-7UgiIlHKLI4cLLrRIpjvLS9BHwKhCEGkgFBFz0w-4b0tInHm4UkBA7AIQ6p8x16uKTcAg_kQZcLJJcf2Zsyi1mTQ_1cnZVSZfVRPGopimbPY535oms5QGRZQd6Sq10IcWwO_qzrwMx82g5tArWrfAGsZBKjWDmAw=w718-h195" width="718" /></a></b></p><p>I have been cleaning up my laptop lately and finding really old files of all kinds of things. Today, I am posting one of the things I found. I have absolutely zero recollection of writing this piece, but apparently, I wrote it in 2018, during Lent. 2018 was a shit show: not only did it follow the single worst year of my life (2017), but our entire country was dripping with Trump droppings. Maybe that's why I don't remember writing it – I may have tried to erase that year entirely from my brain. </p><p>Anyway, this is what I wrote back then. It is imperfect and sloppy and not entirely sensical. And it was good to find it today.</p><p>----------------------------------------------</p><p><b>The truth is true, even when it’s not.</b></p><p></p><p>I have been praying the rosary every weekday morning during this Lent. The first time I did it, I was flooded with relief. Spending time so differently—without noise and clamor and news and the distress that comes through my radio and my smartphone—felt like a gift to myself.</p><p>The quiet, the repetition, the reverence for things eternal: all of those seemed to bring me back to myself in a way that actually made me cry. It felt right and just to be spending my time in that way.</p><p>I know why I thought of doing this in the first place: <b>because of Ann</b>. She loved the rosary, loved Mary. She had what is called a “devotion” to Mary – a special connection to the Blessed Mother that buoyed her and sustained her. When she was sick, she and her family visited Lourdes, looking I’m sure partly for a cure and also for peace. She didn’t find the cure.</p><p>I started doing the Rosary to feel closer to Ann. Or maybe to be Ann. When I am feeling the weakest and the least confident, I try to channel the people I love who have qualities or characteristics that I aspire to, like my dad’s ability to charm people and make them feel special. When I’m feeling socially awkward or overly self-conscious, I think: “Channel Larry.” And sometimes, I find a way to turn it around and focus my attention on other people. It’s not a nice thing to do for others: it’s a survival mechanism for myself, a self-care strategy that has the added benefit of making other people feel good.</p><p>When I’m feeling disconnected and lonely, I think: “Channel Ann.” And sometimes, I find a way to imitate the way she radiated love and goodness and made other people feel just plain blessed in her presence.</p><p>So I started doing the Rosary, so that I could maybe start to understand why Ann loved it so much. To find in the repetition something of the deep peace she radiated. </p><p>As the days have gone by, I have struggled a bit with the practice. It feels odd to be repeating words like “save us from the fires of hell” and “pray for us sinners,” even though I have no problem with the idea of sin. It feels both out of touch and relevant at the same time—a dissonance that is sometimes OK with me and sometimes, for lack of a better word, really weird.</p><p>It makes me wonder what Ann would say if I could ask her: “Why do you love the Rosary so much?” But of course, I cannot ask her that, and realizing that I can’t ask her that, or any other question, ever again, brings on waves and waves of regret and sorrow. That I didn’t ask her more questions when she was here, that I took for granted our friendship, that I behaved as if she would always be there for me.</p><p>She isn’t here anymore.</p><p>Yesterday, as I was saying the Rosary, I kept thinking about something the priest said at Ann’s Rosary, the night before her funeral Mass. He was describing her, and he talked about how our gathering to pray the Rosary was so fitting, because of Ann’s special devotion to Mary and her own love of the Rosary prayer. An unwelcome thought crossed my mind: “Was Ann perfect? No one is perfect, but the way this guy is talking, it sure sounds like she was perfect.” I’m don't know why I had that thought. I think it all felt unreal to me: Ann dying. Us being gathered there, participating in a death ritual. And it felt like we were celebrating a saint, a mystic...a unicorn. But the truth is, Ann was better than anyone I've ever met at actively, purposefully loving the people in her life.</p><p>And then I thought about eulogies in general, and how when we talk about the people we lose, we talk about their perfections. It is true that Ann was perfect. She was perfectly Ann. </p><p>Did she have annoying qualities? Was she ever impatient with her kids, or too tired to do one more thing for them? Did she and Eric fight, or did she ever feel like a failure, or did she ever give in to weakness? I’m sure some or all of those things are true. And still, she was perfect. The truth is true, even when it’s not.</p><p>Not sure if I'll keep the rosary thing in my life, but I'm grateful for all the things doing it each day has made me think about, and especially grateful for the ways it is keeping Ann present and close.</p><p></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-12742671332997655972022-01-09T11:20:00.003-08:002022-01-09T11:20:36.730-08:00Daybook: 9 January, 2022<p><i>Outside my window, </i>the sky is piercing blue, the air is sharply chill. The planting beds are heavy with recent rains and replete with weeds that I should be pulling.</p><p><i>I am thinking about </i>many many things: Aren't we all? I'll share the first five I can think of. (1) the stupid pandemic and how radically it has altered all of our lives; (2) the pile of laundry I need to get through; (3) my goal (at work) to raise $375,000 this year from individual donors; (4) the three large manual typewriters on my dining room table that have been there for two weeks (rendering the table unusable) and how I want to sell them so I can get rid of them and so I can use my table again; (5) the fact that I can never seem to get up early anymore. I used to get up at 6 or 6:30, and now I can barely crawl out of bed on the weekends before 9 or 10. Is it the cold winter weather? Is it the pandemic? </p><p><i>I am thankful for </i>the beignets my husband brought home this morning for all of us to enjoy, from <a href="https://www.devilsteethbakingcompany.com/" target="_blank">Devils Teeth Baking</a> in San Francisco.</p><p><i>From the kitchen: </i>Coffee and beignets.</p><p><i>I am wearing </i>grey yoga pants and a long-sleeve black shirt. So, basically, my uniform.</p><p><i>I am creating</i> space. Always, forever, trying like hell to create space.</p><p><i>I am going</i> to play my fiddle today if it's the last thing I do before head hits pillow tonight.</p><p><i>I am reading </i><b>About a Boy</b>, by Nick Hornby, a light-hearted fun read after the much heavier book I just finished: <b>Killers of the Flower Moon</b> by David Grann. I recommend them both!</p><p><i>I am hoping</i> that my two adult sons get their own place soon. They moved back to the Bay Area and into my tiny house three weeks ago. They/we are actively looking for an apartment for them, and we all need it to happen soon.</p><p><i>I am hearing </i>the beeper on my microwave going off every 60 seconds, indicating that someone heated something up for themselves and then forgot to retrieve it. It's anyone's guess how long we all just let the beeper go before one of us deals with it.</p><p><i>Around the house</i>, there are too many piles of my two adult sons' belongings.</p><p><i>One of my favorite things</i>: My dog. She's not a thing, but she's my favorite. She is sitting on my feet right now as I type.</p><p><i>A few plans for the rest of the week</i>: figure out how to practice my fiddle and get exercise while also working full time. It's very challenging to do it all.</p><p><i>And a picture</i>: My daughter sent me a photo of her desk at college; she goes to the University of California, Santa Cruz. I absolutely love this photograph: it is so her. :)</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjumACli5eb16jE1yfj5Llq6S8wQb5HOFmpfmR93t6n7QWh4pYkQ69h5Jy7hXZCQceSdkj39jXxSnySW-6ezyrYt7ItPqVrEtMED_zb0CaQa2FQmchIpJDqrDEb4grEx0fvDExp_6mcEFChvQ-9GIbiYtXKROZOEemeDsXHTSMVi4yI0rLN40J2Ticx_w=s4032" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjumACli5eb16jE1yfj5Llq6S8wQb5HOFmpfmR93t6n7QWh4pYkQ69h5Jy7hXZCQceSdkj39jXxSnySW-6ezyrYt7ItPqVrEtMED_zb0CaQa2FQmchIpJDqrDEb4grEx0fvDExp_6mcEFChvQ-9GIbiYtXKROZOEemeDsXHTSMVi4yI0rLN40J2Ticx_w=s320" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ahhh, college life!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I invite you to join me by posting your own daybook; the <i>text in italics</i> are your categories (or you can make up your own).</p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-45574436017702560752021-12-30T21:34:00.006-08:002021-12-30T21:34:51.868-08:00From the Flagstone<p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #141414; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8BTzlYoY37soLgMZ5fWj659J6MkfX5tj8qs6G9_4rPUddp-3QAmvkEGN7zBhdF6qNe9PAB5g2q71Gl2QBDzrXHs8Pfa2Xkf9dUp_nIIPtvbX3BTuYlHf9uxcX_LDonzcMO21JP_MWS0NUIxIhkmgjLMqQZALBFAHTR1r5ftSK67oL-t44thxons6WKQ=s997"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8BTzlYoY37soLgMZ5fWj659J6MkfX5tj8qs6G9_4rPUddp-3QAmvkEGN7zBhdF6qNe9PAB5g2q71Gl2QBDzrXHs8Pfa2Xkf9dUp_nIIPtvbX3BTuYlHf9uxcX_LDonzcMO21JP_MWS0NUIxIhkmgjLMqQZALBFAHTR1r5ftSK67oL-t44thxons6WKQ=s320" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>From the flagstone in the far corner of the garden<br />All I see are flames leaping from the copper pit and<br />Manzanita branches, sketching dark lines against the not-yet-night sky.<br /><br />I’ve been sitting here for hours, finally just sitting,<br />Letting night descend, letting plants seep and mingle into darkness.<br />Listening to the irises and the ribes.<br /><br />The dog runs back and forth, shimmying in the November air,<br />Tearing through fallen leaves,<br />Dancing in the disappearing light.<br />She has taken over for the bees, dashing from plant to plant<br />while they sleep and wait for the sun to rise again.<br /><br />This patch of earth and stones and trees and grasses,<br />Is ours. Our place apart from concrete and cars, electrical lines and insatiable billboards.<br />Our place to sit, to stare, to listen.<br />At rest in a world of bees and flowers and shifting light.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-28600660015337308722021-10-22T10:10:00.001-07:002021-10-22T12:53:20.740-07:00Rope Swing Summer<div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihn7s3FMSbQ6gqgCy4w5ZaICiyHXSrl05w8GYBUGDg026sX9z5XHg_4ibt9VBfzDBzrE0DdHP75hSxrDRhGyKZGZWBSGmbGBFSh74UVWMj15TYLcRswJ67iV5uPigRvXcKxeUN_zcTm2v0/s1280/trees-g46c60ceb7_1280.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihn7s3FMSbQ6gqgCy4w5ZaICiyHXSrl05w8GYBUGDg026sX9z5XHg_4ibt9VBfzDBzrE0DdHP75hSxrDRhGyKZGZWBSGmbGBFSh74UVWMj15TYLcRswJ67iV5uPigRvXcKxeUN_zcTm2v0/w640-h426/trees-g46c60ceb7_1280.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #191b26; white-space: nowrap;">Image by </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/users/bednuts-4856413/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2154844" style="background-color: white; color: #191b26; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; margin: initial; outline: none; padding: initial; white-space: nowrap;">bednuts</a><span face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #191b26; white-space: nowrap;"> from </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2154844" style="background-color: white; color: #191b26; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; margin: initial; outline: 0px; padding: initial; white-space: nowrap;">Pixabay</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Near the far end of the back forty,</div><div>Off to the right,</div><div>A space opens up in the brambles that line the creek.</div><div>He swishes through high grasses to the opening and enters. </div><div>From the top of the slope, he can see the rock slab at the water's edge and</div><div>the thick worn rope hanging from a branch stretching across the creek. </div><div>He climbs down to it, reaches out, grabs hold. The sturdy length gives him enough slack </div><div>to pull it all the way back up the slope.</div><div>The worn path at the top makes room for two or three steps before push off.</div><div> </div><div>He flies through the summer day.</div><div>Air rushes by, smelling of dust, heat and dry grass.</div><div>He feels the rough hew of the rope in his hands; </div><div>It catches the grooves of his calluses, promising to hold on.</div><div>He glides back and forth, again and again,</div><div>Over the sweet blackberries on the slope,</div><div>Over the water tumbling across the creek bed rocks.</div><div> </div><div>This is not the day the branch will give way and snap, </div><div>landing beside him with a crack on the hard slab.</div><div>This is the day he snacks on garden apples and blackberries, </div><div>snags his jeans on thorny branches as he pushes further in</div><div>to snatch the plump ones just out of reach.</div><div> </div><div>This is the day he enters the opening and disappears for hours,</div><div>So far away he’s in another world, free to be anything, do anything.</div><div>It’s up to him when he finally drops the rope.</div><div> </div><div>And when that moment comes, he watches it swing a few times before coming to stillness again. </div><div>Sweaty, purple fingertips, he climbs back up and into the back forty.</div><div>Crosses the dry grasses and salutes the garden apple trees. </div><div>He slams the screen door on the way in.</div><div><br /></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-12374721869543347092021-10-17T12:45:00.009-07:002021-10-22T12:53:10.201-07:00Knuckleheads, Home From the Dance<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAb5prs-fB-lwFT8sNX__UYZ_nqpFEqpSN_D85Uqw_8b3mztBxbYiFv2oYEyTvuis97NB50INHCVOmPOd4aT_xY5Wiw3_9CVXeHWdObdk2wkl0HY0omJcq08ipGpGkMdAI4gkbg4aUedxB/s600/Volkswagen-Camper.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="600" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAb5prs-fB-lwFT8sNX__UYZ_nqpFEqpSN_D85Uqw_8b3mztBxbYiFv2oYEyTvuis97NB50INHCVOmPOd4aT_xY5Wiw3_9CVXeHWdObdk2wkl0HY0omJcq08ipGpGkMdAI4gkbg4aUedxB/w272-h144/Volkswagen-Camper.png" width="272" /></a></div>My parents were the cool parents: they let me drive around in our sleepy one-horse town before I was officially licensed. Emphasis on sleepy. Nothing ever happened there, so they figured nothing would ever happen to me.<p></p><p>And they were right...until they weren't. Until one night at 2 am, when my friend Samantha and I returned home from a dance in the next town over. No, they had not let me drive that far, but they did say I could take Samantha home once the friend who had driven us there dropped us both at my house. So we had enjoyed the dance and then a party afterward–no alcohol for me–and then arrived back at mom and dad’s. </p><p>We hopped in the orange and white Volkswagon van I learned to drive on and headed across town. She lived up in the hills, relatively far away (but still: sleepy town, nothing going on, you get the idea). I had never actually been to her house, so did not know that she lived at the top of a very long, very steep driveway. We pulled up to the bottom, and I pondered the hill before me, one hand on the gear shift of the van. </p><p>Now, the smart thing to do would have been to have Samantha hoof it up that hill. We were both quite smart teenagers, so let’s just say it was a glitch in the fabric of the universe that we did not use our smarts to make the decision in front of us.</p><p>Let’s do it, I suggested gamely, and up we went. </p><p>The driveway had wide curves in it, and I did fine through the first one. On either side of us, the brown grasses of the Valley of the Moon waved in a gentle nighttime breeze, their carpet punctuated by scrub oaks here and there. I had enough speed going to be fine...at first. As the slope continued, and the second curve was upon me, I couldn’t keep the speed up. The van stalled, shuddered, and died, with little ole unlicensed, inexperienced me, gripping the steering wheel. A flush of panic headed up my spine, my hands trembled. </p><p>We looked at each other. Nothing to do but try to start this bad boy up again, so I gave it a go. But after I started the engine, there was the small matter of needing to take my foot off the brake in order to give it some gas. Years later, I would become a bad-ass San Francisco driver who would have scoffed at the challenge, but I was not yet that driver by a long shot. I tried; I failed; I panicked. And the van started to roll backward. </p><p>“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I wailed, completely unsure which way to turn the wheel to stay on the driveway. </p><p>“Go forward, go forward!” Samantha screamed. “I’m trying!” I screamed back.</p><p>Mayhem ensued as the van gained speed. I had no idea what to do, so naturally, I did nothing. I let the van go where its heart would take it, which happened to be off the left-hand side of the driveway, down over the waving brown grasses, faster and faster, until halted in its trajectory by an oak tree, that keeper of the California hills.</p><p>We stopped with a bang. Not injured. Not harmed in the slightest. Just completely freaked out, with the specific intensity of teenage girls. I burst into tears, while Samantha looked stunned and frozen, both of us entirely dreading whatever might come next.</p><p>Way up at the top of the driveway, a light went on. We looked up to see the silhouettes of her parents, pajama-clad, shoulders bunched-up against the cold night air, staring down at the Orange Blossom Special resting against one of their trees. </p><p><br /></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-37135003783438113152021-10-06T21:59:00.007-07:002021-10-06T22:33:59.209-07:00Sleepless in the Kitchen<div class="separator"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8oE5UhkMUuicEjKENXVgLKUgPiPkzwKX09lO2QM-jsoG0yMKyi_H8zN0A1SOoWcrIjfYqWH7vX4dnN9tDD70sAe4tVS9uR7kkyTInJ2E27l8mnJPq-cis6VDfTj9CSCU21Hf5VRTEppxf/w193-h238/43France.JPG" /></a></div><p><span style="color: #141414; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p>From her perch on the landing at the top of the stairs, she listened to the grown ups enjoying their dinner. Between the three couples, several courses, and many bottles of wine, there was a lot to listen to. With the nubby orange-brown carpet beneath her and her pink flannel nightgown pulled tight over her knees, she reveled in every minute of her eavesdropping. <br /><br />They talked about small town news: “Did you hear that Jim is drinking again? I don’t think Susan will put up with that anymore.”<br /><br />About the upcoming election: “Will you be at Kathy and Bob's election night party?” “Of course! We wouldn’t miss it–can’t wait to see Reagan lose!” <br /><br />About their kids: “Yeah, we tried telling him not to go out, but what can we do? He’s a teenage boy, and he’s just not listening to us! Little bastard!”<br /><br />Sometimes they laughed so hard the walls shook, their voices building off of each other and blending in raucous shouts that filled the whole house. She loved listening to them like that: happy parents, enjoying their friends, in a warm house. Spying on the dinner party gave her hope for her life and future.<br /><br />After they left, all six of them spilling out into the night for a late cocktail, she tip-toed downstairs in the suddenly quiet house. Dishes and serving platters filled the table. Used cloth napkins, empty wine glasses, and mismatched silverware splayed everywhere. The adjacent kitchen looked as if it had fed an army, with dirty pots and pans, used measuring cups and ingredients occupying every surface.<br /><br />She didn’t want to go to sleep, as her siblings had done hours ago. She wanted to inhabit the space where all those noisy, happy grownups had been until a few moments ago. She trailed her finger on the table, glanced at the sink full of dishes. And then she started to clean. It took her a long time and she did it with care. She wasn’t normally one to volunteer for extra chores, but cleaning up on this night seemed like the best way to say thank you to her mom and dad for hosting the happy dinner party, for creating a soundtrack of friendship for her to grow up with. She put away all the food, scraped the leftovers off of the plates and stacked them in the dishwasher, and gathered the table linens and started a load of laundry. She wiped down the dining room table and all the kitchen counters. Saving the best for last, she finished up by polishing the chrome on the old Wedgewood until it gleamed.<br /><br />When the kitchen was finally clean, it was very late. Her parents would be home soon, she knew. Flicking off the downstairs lights, she climbed back up the stairs to the landing and sat down in her usual spot. Pulling her nightgown back over her knees, she smiled in anticipation and waited for them to walk in and find her thank you gift.And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-8913901463914151142021-06-21T15:09:00.006-07:002021-06-21T17:00:25.255-07:00Daybook for 21 June 2021<p><i>Outside my window</i>: there is a hazy blue sky that cannot decide if it is presiding over an uncomfortably hot day or a strangely cool one.</p><div><i>I am thinking about</i>: my job. I work in development and communications for a charter school network, and the summer is always a time of reflection and planning. What did I and my team do well last year? Where can we improve? Remember the beginning of each new school year, when you had sharp pencils, fresh binders, and big plans to "be better" this year? Working for a school system means that I still have that experience. The <b>big plans</b> part starts early...that's what's on my mind these days.<br /><br /><i>I am thankful for</i>:<b> </b>the beautiful game. We had an epically long, hot weekend of soccer with our youngest child, a weekend like we haven't had since before the pandemic. Between Thursday night and Sunday night, we traveled many miles, ate lots of takeout, watched 320 minutes of girls pounding up and down the pitch, took one dip in a hotel pool, used many bags of ice to soothe sore muscles and to battle the 100-degree heat, talked soccer, watched soccer, thought about soccer, planned for soccer,...you get the idea. On Sunday night, finally home and drifting off to sleep, when I closed my eyes I saw shadowy figures zig-zagging back and forth in my vision. And all three of us -- myself, my husband and my badass 14-year-old soccer player -- enjoyed every angled minute. We keep talking about how much fun it was. We are grateful for this thing that has pretty much taken over our lives, so I guess that makes us very fortunate indeed. </div><div><br /><div><i>From the kitchen</i>: sadly, nothing special. I am trying to plan for a better kitchen week.<br /><br /><i>I am wearing</i>: black yoga pants and a dark purple and black striped shirt. And really clean shoes, because my husband oxy-cleaned my favorite tennis shoes for me after they had been on one too many hikes.<br /><br /><i>I am creating</i>: epic to-do lists for my week. My to-do lists are divided into four categories: (1) work stuff, (2) household and family tasks, (3) stuff for me, that makes me feel good, and (4) cooking and grocery shopping. Lists pretty much keep the whole AIRY-5 enterprise careening through the universe.<br /><br /><i>I am going:</i> to pick up my daughter from her first day of high school summer school. Hoping we get along better on the way home than we did on the way there.</div><div><br /><i>I am reading</i>: too much Twitter, not enough actual books.</div><div><br /><i>I am hoping</i>: that my daughter gets the Trader Joe's job that she interviewed for!<br /><br /><i>I am hearing</i>: an Amtrak train as it blows its whistle and barrels through West Oakland.<br /><br /><i>Around the house</i>: sooooo many messes. Too much dog hair on the floor; too much laundry to fold, too many projects left unfinished by too many people. Must muster the strength to get them all to help me.<br /><br /><i>One of my favorite things</i>: I'm going to repeat myself with this one and say soccer. We really did have a great weekend, and I can't wait for more.<br /><br /><i>A few plans for the rest of the week</i>: I plan to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary with my favorite person in the world! Good thing that person is also my spouse. <br /><br /><i>And a picture</i>:<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTGZ7vceoOCt5Tg4yVNEIaqBtjejEXN0RPTwlHfrORfRI37HcCpeI9z9RV9zHcqDw7RPRhWg3mzNQWHjY-8at_cKhmxHePafpsn0ueGBdO46R9kOsAv5JXVVUlAm6OJrgDQghsy6-7kgs/s2048/Davis+Sunflowers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTGZ7vceoOCt5Tg4yVNEIaqBtjejEXN0RPTwlHfrORfRI37HcCpeI9z9RV9zHcqDw7RPRhWg3mzNQWHjY-8at_cKhmxHePafpsn0ueGBdO46R9kOsAv5JXVVUlAm6OJrgDQghsy6-7kgs/s320/Davis+Sunflowers.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sunflowers next to one of our <br />soccer fields this weekend.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><i><br /></i><div><i><br /></i></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>I invite you to join me by posting your own daybook!</div></div></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-82467099067231786022021-06-18T22:41:00.011-07:002021-06-20T19:39:01.728-07:00An Unlikely Pair, Linked Forever<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-Gl1kUHEXoGXOWkbBWEobn6PVxSFdWMoFJUuMMdSgwFuAp3JtbhG9WQJ-9H43uAenHdCfP-XZNeCmti-uNf52vEVjeVpmv95U6Avyt94QrSlBwkRmTeALGxnE8XrktDBls8dsIecO_lE/s1280/Linked+Forever.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1280" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-Gl1kUHEXoGXOWkbBWEobn6PVxSFdWMoFJUuMMdSgwFuAp3JtbhG9WQJ-9H43uAenHdCfP-XZNeCmti-uNf52vEVjeVpmv95U6Avyt94QrSlBwkRmTeALGxnE8XrktDBls8dsIecO_lE/w400-h194/Linked+Forever.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A strange combo, to be sure. Read on.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br />When I was thirteen years old, I got my first job working at a deli market. Two doors down from Sonoma's historic plaza, the deli was a popular lunch destination for all kinds of people: shop workers, construction guys, tourists, and laborers. Jim, the owner who hired me, was a great boss. He was the picture of decorum during business hours, until the older employees went home and the teenagers were left to close up. Then, he would swear like a sailor–always in jest–to horrify and entertain us. We loved him.<p></p><p>The "older employees" consisted of three or four women who became like a whole fleet of grandmothers to me. They were good country folk, hard-working, no-nonsense women who taught me how to make egg salad, prepare all the sandwich fixins, and slice deli meat on the giant electric slicer. They teased each other, but not me: they were strong, plain, kind, and funny.</p><p>Shone's Deli is also where I met Ann, the best friend a soon-to-be high schooler could possibly find, and we quickly knew we would be by each other's side for life. Landing the deli job was a hugely positive development in my young life.</p><p>My first day of work, however, was not an auspicious beginning. At first, everything went fine: I was soaking up all the training, figuring out how to make a roast beef sandwich just like the customer ordered, and ringing up orders at the ancient cash register, all while managing not to freak out when cute boys came in. But then, on my first solo voyage with the meat slicer, disaster struck. The tip of my left index finger got in the way of the spinning blade, giving the roast beef a little something extra as my A negative plasma spurted all over the slicer's gleaming chrome.</p><p>I did not react well to the sight of my own blood; the wooziness began immediately. Thankfully, the grandmothers jumped right in. One of them, Helen, whisked me away to the back room, magically producing a glass of ice water to calm me down. A couple more cleaned everything up lickety-split: no customers were the wiser. Helen bandaged me up like the experienced farm hand/mom/grandmother she was, and sent me home a wee bit early from my shift – and slightly lighter than when I'd arrived, now missing the tip of my finger.</p><p>I always felt kind of stupid about that injury. I had wanted to do well at my new job. I didn't want to cause any problems or draw too much attention to myself. Bloodying up the workspace was not exactly the kind of value I wanted to add as a new employee.</p><p>But rather than making a big deal out of my mishap or lecturing me too much, Jim and the grandmothers just welcomed me back the next day. They were as matter of fact as you'd expect good country folk to be, and we all just got to work, smiling at customers and taking orders. The slicer and I got along fine after that and I never had another work place injury. I went on to work there for four more years, until I graduated from high school and went to college. It was a great, easy job, with fun people, and it put spending money in my teenage pockets. All that's left now of that first day is a hardened, crescent-shaped scar on the tip of my left index finger.</p><p>I have developed an absent-minded habit over the years of circling the crescent with my thumb, almost surprised every time I feel how calloused and un-skin-like it has become. Every so often, I recall the day I got that scar. I can hear the whirr of the electric blade and feel the sharp pain and the rising wooziness. I also remember feeling stupid and silly, embarrassed about causing a ruckus on day one. Tiny as it is, it has always been a quiet rebuke to me over the years.</p><p><b>But then</b>. Then something happened that might make me believe, for the first time in my life, that Everything Actually Does Happen for a Reason: I took up the fiddle. Two years ago, I started taking fiddle lessons after years and years of wanting to. Learning to play those beautiful strings has been one of the greatest joys of my adult life; it has also been extremely challenging. Those lovely sounds that professionals make? Those are the culmination of an incredible about of practice, coordination, skill, and technique. There's so much more to it than I ever anticipated, and I find my brain, body, and creativity stretched in multiple ways. My new hobby is a lot of damn work.</p><p>Happily, it turns out that having a pre-installed callous on one's left index finger is quite beneficial to the whole endeavor. One of the first things you have to accomplish when learning a fiddle is building up the necessary callouses on the second, third, and fourth fingers of your left hand. Thanks to Shone's Deli, I came to this party ahead of the game. Yes, I still needed to build callouses, but my index finger was already a seasoned pro. Pressing hard with that finger produced no pain at all, and the little scar's moment to shine had arrived. Now, when my left thumb circles the hardened crescent on finger #4, I don't think about shaving off the tip of that finger with a meat slicer. I think instead about how that scar helps me play the D note in a A major scale. I think, with pleasure, about how my whole hand knows how to deftly move its fingers in order to play St. Anne's Reel and Angeline the Baker and many other traditional bluegrass and celtic tunes. I freakin' love that scar now.</p><p>Who knew that something that happened when I was 13, something I had only ever seen as residue from an episode I'd rather forget, would play such a central role in one of the most positive developments of my middle-aged life? Not I, said the duck, but I'm endlessly grateful to have experienced this happy convergence of events.</p><p>It makes me wonder what else in my life might be acting in this mysterious way. What strange scars and bumps have morphed into something beautiful and beneficial? Which ones will do so in my future? What gratitude am I missing? How have the experiences of my life layered one on top of the other to get me where I am today, mother of five, wife of (still just the) one, fiddler, writer, pray-er, friend? It's a lot to ponder. All I know is that I find great comfort in discovering that something painful has become something joyful. There is so much hope in that discovery.</p><p>A tiny scar. A life-changing new practice. Linked forever, and beautifully.</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-23580847590194010422021-06-14T11:39:00.003-07:002021-06-14T11:45:19.878-07:00Daybook for 14 June 2021<i>Outside my window</i>: A perfect June morning is wrapping my neighborhood in its fragrant, warm arms, and all the birds are singing their appreciation. <div><br /></div><div><i>I am thinking</i>: that I need a new attitude about my job. My current attitude has me unmotivated and unexcited about the tasks and projects on my work to do list. This happens to me every now and then, and could be related to the end of the school year.<br /><br /><i>I am thankful for</i>: <b>birria tacos</b>. Specifically, the ones I got from <a href="https://www.la-santa-torta.com/" target="_blank">this taco truck</a> last night at <a href="https://www.eastbrotherbeer.com/home-1" target="_blank">this taproom</a>.<div><br /><i>From the kitchen</i>: literally nothing. I made a very thorough meal plan and shopping list on Friday, but it turns out that the essential step is actually going grocery shopping which I did not do. There were too many other fun things to do this weekend.<br /><br /><i>I am wearing</i>: black yoga pants and a cute linen, flowered top that I got at a thrift store. Actually, I also got the pants at a thrift store. Thrift stores are my jam.<br /><br /><i>I am creating</i>: this post.<br /><br /><i>I am going:</i> to the <a href="https://blackbirdpresents.com/concert/outlaw-music-festival-tour-2021/" target="_blank">Outlaw Music Festival</a> in October! Really looking forward to it.<br /><br /><i>I am reading</i>: <a href="https://centralrecoverypress.com/product/my-grandmothers-hands-racialized-trauma-and-the-pathway-to-mending-our-hearts-and-bodies-paperback" target="_blank">My Grandmother's Hands</a>. A beautiful book. Why I am reading it is the subject of another post. I should plan to write that. <br /><br /><i>I am hoping</i>: that my daughter gets a job for the summer. Quickly.<br /><br /><i>I am hearing</i>: the birds chirping in the perfect June morning.<br /><br /><i>Around the house</i>: all of my daughter's stuff that she brought home from college. We haven't figure out where to store it all yet, and I think she is coming home with approximately three times the amount of stuff we moved her into the dorms with back in February.<br /><br /><i>One of my favorite things</i>: Music. Listening to it, playing it, singing along to it, watching it live...all of the music things are my favorite.<br /><br /><i>A few plans for the rest of the week</i>: Lots of soccer! No summer off for this soccer family.<br /><br /><i>And a picture</i>:<br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCdh0zIK8xAqn55OVEdiKhPKwU_IzY3P4ccgESP5HE2W9mvlyRctVxi0RhzuQSaxq3Y_h5b4bcFpCMmYgXFYmo7gD8KSJ1i-Wu72zweiSjrqokJJCqKV5PisV3YuQZNytJGTSUa8ordvc/s2048/IMG_7267.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCdh0zIK8xAqn55OVEdiKhPKwU_IzY3P4ccgESP5HE2W9mvlyRctVxi0RhzuQSaxq3Y_h5b4bcFpCMmYgXFYmo7gD8KSJ1i-Wu72zweiSjrqokJJCqKV5PisV3YuQZNytJGTSUa8ordvc/s320/IMG_7267.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what I saw when I looked up from where<br />I was sitting at last Saturday's soccer game.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>I invite you to join me by posting your own daybook with these categories (or any others you choose).</div></div></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-40572736807614862232021-04-19T14:52:00.005-07:002021-04-23T13:23:54.230-07:00White People: This is Not About You<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj07Cf3tLiYUhWVp0gStq7unSEegSK1x5gQKpucmFb7_f630N6W-90Sud9rKwmxfJZ5CmzBX61206XTBSJXn6bHZqUba1XulLj6OxdQFtwClByE558wNlcUN8eMf4kQyDMJtXCGNfVu0Tg0/s1200/CP-BLM-Feat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj07Cf3tLiYUhWVp0gStq7unSEegSK1x5gQKpucmFb7_f630N6W-90Sud9rKwmxfJZ5CmzBX61206XTBSJXn6bHZqUba1XulLj6OxdQFtwClByE558wNlcUN8eMf4kQyDMJtXCGNfVu0Tg0/s320/CP-BLM-Feat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />When my kids were little, one of my daughters had a little bit of an issue with her sibling’s birthday celebrations. With all of our attention being lavished on one child, she would act out. She would be meaner than usual to the birthday kid, demand things from mom and dad in the middle of the party, and exhibit negative behaviors so that we would turn to her and away from the guest of honor. We would have to remind her that on HER birthday, we get to focus on her, and on her sister’s or brother’s, we get to focus on them. “This day is about someone else, and that’s OK.”<p></p><p>Typical stuff. Typical for a kid to have to learn how to navigate jealous feelings and how to have a generous spirit, even when you want things for yourself. She was little: three or four, maybe? It can be hard when someone else is getting all of the attention; it can be hard to be three.</p><p>But when her brother had a bad fall that injured his kidney and sent him to the hospital, when we were so worried about him, and when all other family activities and considerations were put on hold, she didn’t do any of that. She didn’t say “hey, what about me? Why is everything about him?” I never once had to tell her “This is not about you.” But that's what really needs to be said now, in this moment, to anyone who thinks All Lives Matter is a valid response to police brutality or protests for racial justice.</p><p>To my fellow white people who think that somehow you are being ignored, slighted, passed over or excluded when Black people and those who stand with them say #BlackLivesMatter, I deeply want you to hear the words “This is not about you” and figure out how to not be insulted. You are not less important because someone else stands in particular need of solidarity and support. I need you to take a moment, be quiet, and focus attention outside of yourself and your immediate world. Take a moment to consider the possibility that something more immediately critical is going on and that’s why the focus is not on the rest of us right now.</p><p>You may have heard the house fire analogy: Yes, all of the houses on the block are super important and beautiful and it absolutely matters that everyone’s house stays intact. But the house down the street is engulfed in flames and that’s why the fire truck is there and not parked in front of your house, or my house. That’s a great analogy for why saying “Black LivesMatter” is not racist or exclusionary and why the All Lives Matter response is moronic and exasperating.</p><p>I also think about families, and how families can inform us on societal issues. A family is filled with different people and relationships, different experiences, just like society at large. And in a family, when one child is suffering, parents don’t turn their attention to the ones who aren’t suffering and take care of them first: parents take care of the child who is suffering first, and then they help the other children. If one of them acts out and tries to shine a spotlight in some way on themselves, the parent says: “This is not about you right now.” When my son was in the hospital and we didn’t know yet how bad the damage was to his kidney, I didn’t prioritize my other four kids and tend to their needs first: I focused entirely on him until I knew he was in good hands at the hospital, and then I turned to help his siblings manage their own responses to his accident. Significantly, some of them didn't really care all that much, which is also instructive vis a vis society at large. </p><p>If you object to someone saying that Black Lives Matter, I wonder how you respond to other human suffering. If you assert All Lives Matter, I wonder why you think that the Black experience does not warrant the same kind of compassion as people who look like you. Why on earth is it necessary to bring the focus back to you -- or even to some hazy concept of "everyone" -- when a specific person or people is in crisis? I can only conclude that you don’t see Black people's suffering as valid. I can only conclude that you are ready to explain it all away, or assert that vandalism and looting are just as bad as murder, or that you simply are not hearing Black parents when they describe “the talk” they must have with their kids to try to keep them alive. I can only conclude that you are racist, even if you don’t know it, because you are not listening to or seeing the experiences of fellow Americans with Black skin. </p><p>When you say All Lives Matter, I’m right back there with my toddler, looking at her in exasperation and thinking “What the hell is wrong with her? Of course we love her, but it’s not about her right now. Why can’t she just let so-and-so have the spotlight?” It’s annoying as hell when it’s just a kid’s birthday party: it’s frightening and dangerous when it’s about people’s lives.</p><p>My once 4-year-old daughter long ago grew out of her jealous, self-centered reactions and learned how to lift up someone other than herself. When will white people in our country do the same?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-2446803276688973072021-03-27T08:00:00.001-07:002023-04-02T12:42:46.981-07:00Nitty Gritty Little DittyTonight I cannot write a post<br />
Because my brain has turned to toast.<br />
The day has worn me to a nub,<br />
I need to sink into the tub.<br />
But can't because I'm too darn beat,<br />
And find I cannot move my feet.<br />
<br />
It's all their fault, this state of woe,<br />
As every mom does surely know.<br />
Theirs, the fault for my malaise.<br />
Theirs, the fault for this dark haze.<br />
For in the space past 5 o-clock,<br />
My children hover and they stalk<br />
Each other just to make me scream<br />
So they can say YOU ARE SO MEAN.<br />
<br />
Tonight the girls did cry and fight,<br />
And test my patience with great might.<br />
And bicker, bother, pick and poke<br />
And hassle till my heart done broke.<br />
They are nasty, brutish, short:<br />
Hobbes was right, sad to report.<br />
<br />
My spouse is out, I'm on my own.<br />
Herding cats, all alone.<br />
Then a toilet I had to fix.<br />
And toss a dog into the mix.<br />
(I found her <b>on</b> our dining table.<br />
Chaos, people, is here enabled.)<br />
<br />
And then I had to feed the crowd.<br />
The complaints were both too many and loud.<br />
Feeding ingrates ain't no fun,<br />
Like bitterness inside a bun.<br />
Breaking bread should be a blessing<br />
But tonight, it ain't, I'm just confessing.<br />
<br />
The boys: no better were these two;<br />
They made me want to eat my shoe.<br />
Oh yes, they're teens, it's DE VEL OP MENTAL<br />
It's hormones, or it's elemental<br />
Call it what you must or will,<br />
Then call me in from the window sill,<br />
Because mothering teens might do me in<br />
And send me to the looney bin.<br /><br /><div>
I think that I am being clear:<br />
<i>Do your homework</i>. I think they hear.<br />
But then they don't, and then they start<br />
To make up ways to test my heart.<br />
They obfuscate, evade, and lie<br />
They manipulate, they plead and cry,<br />
They make me crazy, sho' enough.<br />
I must leave them in a huff,<br />
So that I do not scream and yell<br />
Cuz them that do, don't parent that well.<br />
<br />
I closed my door: time out I took.<br />
And closed my eyes to take a look<br />
Inside my heart, inside my brain<br />
To find and soothe the place of pain<br />
That comes from having angst and strife<br />
With the ones for whom I'd give my life.<br /><br /></div><div>
I made some vows, I shed some tears,<br />
And then I reached across my fears.<br />Through the door, back to the fray<br />
And darned if I didn't hear myself say:<br />
"What did you say, honey? What do you need?"<br />
Cuz I gotta remember, they'll follow my lead.<br />
Grace under pressure, and patience galore.<br />
That's what I'll pray for, evermore.<br />
I'll need a ton of both, for good,<br />
If I plan to make it to grandparenthood.<br />
<br />
They kicked my butt 10 ways to Sunday.<br />
But I'll keep raisin' 'em up till someday,<br />
When they have young ones of their own,<br />
And apology texts pop up on my phone.<br />
<br />
* * *<div><br /></div><div>Written 8 years ago. </div><div>2021: Different problems, same exhaustion.<br />
<br />
<br /></div></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-25038365942502664092021-03-14T12:53:00.003-07:002021-03-14T12:57:53.033-07:00A Field of Mustard, a Climbable Tree<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiaPJy0p7sL5-Uo_kDYOsFxwj8yWxk5uMOrmUIOgtqiEJpMQkqQpQn-nc5-LfbprDRc4AsTTDoD2YwCq8XYQ5dcn8D6YovtagsJwYU92qU30TI4luIevPiwZGogUGG87_y5x5-4oYn_6z/s526/Mustard.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiaPJy0p7sL5-Uo_kDYOsFxwj8yWxk5uMOrmUIOgtqiEJpMQkqQpQn-nc5-LfbprDRc4AsTTDoD2YwCq8XYQ5dcn8D6YovtagsJwYU92qU30TI4luIevPiwZGogUGG87_y5x5-4oYn_6z/w320-h320/Mustard.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>We walked up and into the bright, cold, late winter morning, rolling hills of green in every direction. My calves, tight and rusty, objected as I huffed and puffed up the narrow trail, quick daughter at my side. She stopped to move a rolly polly off the trail and into the tall grasses, the tiny creature now safe from less observant hikers. </p><p>Our mission: find cows. At the top of the first steep incline with another just ahead, multiple paths offered themselves. We stood catching our breath, already sweaty in the bright sun. She was sure, having been here the week before, that if we went left, down into the small copse below, we would emerge on the other side in a field of mustard where the cows would be. Off we went, following a cattle, not people, trail (they know all the best places).</p><p>We arced down and to the left, then back to the right. We ducked under a low tree branch: <i>how did the cows traverse this part</i>, we wondered to each other. Then through a tiny meadow, not much more than a shallow bowl of grass. Twenty feet ahead, a small climb would take us up towards the mustard meadow, and between us and it, plenty of mud. We mucked on through, unprepared, wearing our everyday shoes. At the top of the small climb, Tallulah cleaned the sides of her shoes in the tall wet grass at the side of the trail, and we kept going. A blaze of yellow burst into view; we gained the mustard field!</p><p>I grew up in the Valley of the Moon, where yellow mustard heralds the spring and vacant lots and vineyards alike are brightly carpeted every February. I have driven miles and miles on roads flanked by this invasive weed, a conqueror that slipped in hundreds of years ago and dazzles us to this day. But in all those years, I had never before walked <i>through</i> a field of mustard, until the day my quick daughter and I went looking for cows. Stalks of mustard are more spare than I would have guessed–less chock full of yellow petals than they look from a car window. They danced at our knees and blew in the breeze, and I could see each individual stem, like walking through a party and making eye contact with each person instead of just looking from afar and seeing a dense and teeming crowd. </p><p>No cows, though. Just patties announcing they'd been there recently.</p><p>On the other side of the mustard, we stopped briefly at an immense concrete water trough, felt sorry for the cows who drink that muddy swill, and kept going up and to the right, still searching.</p><p>We turned a corner just as a fluffy brown beast ambled up and over a crest, large watery eyes unimpressed to see humans in her way. She stopped and considered us, her massive sides heaving with resignation. We considered her, all smiles and delight on our part. We had gotten what we came for. </p><p>We stood there a long time, letting her lope past us at her own pace. When she finally moved on, so did we. We followed her path, up and over the hill, and came upon a small opening with a young calf in the middle of it, munching wildflowers and meandering aimlessly. We must have surprised her: she raised her head, trying to see past the hill we had just come over. From where we stood, we could see the calf and we could see the mama, but they couldn't see each other. The calf let out a bleat; the mama answered with a deep moo. Privy to a bovine conversation, now we got more than we came for. We scootched on out of there so the baby would have a clear path to maternal safety.</p><p>In front of us, seemingly endless hills rolled on, dotted by stands of trees and hints of creeks, and way off in the distance, on top of the tallest rise, a bench. Occupied, unfortunately, but perhaps empty by the time we got there? It would be lovely to look out over the hills from that perch. We headed towards it.</p><p>The narrow cow path that carried us forward joined with a wider one meant for people. Pretty soon, we entered a grove of trees, welcoming the cool shade. My quick daughter is 14, but trees still talk to her. She cannot resist a good climb, and there, halfway through the grove, was a tree that seemed to have purposely grown limbs like a ladder just for her. She answered the call. In a flash, she was high above me, standing on a branch, leaning against another, tossing her sweater down to me, and telling me about the incredible view.</p><p>I've gotten used to waiting for her at the bottoms of trees. I found a fallen log to sit on, and grabbed the moment to catch my breath, inhale the winter afternoon, and try, again, to plant perennial gratitude down in the deepest part of me. I am forever making this attempt, it seems. A constant battle–my anxious mind and restless heart, not to mention my ever-scrolling to-do list, conspire to make the ground where I would plant a non-committal host. </p><p>Catch the breath. Slow down. Look up into the tree to see your daughter there. Imitate her ability to stay in one place and take in the view, never the first to say it's time to go. Of all the many things I do each day, the hardest is to quiet my mind and simply be present. My quick, climbing daughter is a good anecdote, if I let her be.</p><p>My fallen log sat 15 feet from the path. Between it and me, the tree that held my daughter stood, the tallest tree in the grove, offering along with its brethren a shady respite to the urban dwellers who hiked up into the rolling hills each day. I watched them pass the tree, in ones and twos and threes. One couple spied the girl high up in the tree and laughed with delight. "Well hello up there!" they called before continuing on. Others didn't see her, and I thought how wonderful it would be to be up there with her, listening to conversations rising from the path, the speakers oblivious. This man, thinking about leaving his job; that woman, who just keeps calling and calling but he won't answer and it's just not even possible that he's not with his phone that much! </p><p>Along came a woman and her granddaughter. They entered the grove, coming upon the first climbable tree, a small sturdy one that might get a kid a couple feet off the ground. A starter tree, if you will. The girl, seven or eight, ran right up to it, excited to climb. "I don't think that's a tree you can climb," the older woman said. "Oh, I think it is!" said the girl. </p><p>"Nooooo, I don't think so." </p><p>"But why not?" </p><p>"Oh, I just don't think it looks safe." </p><p>"I could do it!" said the girl. </p><p>"I don't think that's a climbing tree," repeated the grandmother. </p><p>The little girl stood for a moment or two, contemplating the very climbable tree in front of her before giving in to her grandmother's opinion. They continued. Then the girl saw the ladder tree: "Oh wow!" she said. "Look at <i>that</i> one!" And her eyes traveled up and up and up until they landed on my daughter, way up in the branches. "HEY! LOOK AT <b>HER</b>!" </p><p>The grandmother looked up too. "Oh my!" she exclaimed. "How did you get all the way up there?" </p><p>"Just climbed," Tallulah called down cheerfully. </p><p>"How are you going to get down??" </p><p>"Not sure yet: same way I got up, I guess!"</p><p>I smiled at them, smiled at the little girl in particular, a meager attempt to encourage her obvious love of trees. She stared up in awe; the grandmother kept walking, already finished with the whole climbing foolishness. </p><p>"I don't see myself ever doing something like that!" the girl said definitively, mostly to herself, before turning to rejoin her grandmother. Their backs to me, her self-assessment hanging in the air, I heard the grandmother reply: "Me neither, sweetheart!"</p><p><i>Yes, you can</i>, I thought as loudly as I could. Yes, you can climb this tree, and you can imagine yourself doing anything at all, and God, do I hope you have other voices in your life besides your loving and limiting grandmother. She wants to keep you safe: you want to climb. Find a way to climb, kiddo. Walk with people who see the places you want to climb and say: <b>go for it</b>.</p><p>My own climber eventually came down. We made it to the now-empty bench. We sat, looking out over endless hills, eating oranges and plotting our next move. We stayed out there in Wildcat Canyon for another hour or so, she sitting in the middle of one particularly beckoning hill drawing in a sketchbook, me continuing on to add more steps to my middle-aged day, searching for more fertile ground for my fledgling gratitude seeds. I made a big loop, eventually winding back to her hilltop perch. As I hiked, I could see her from far away, a tiny shape hunched over her sketchbook, the sun glinting off something shiny next to her. I took a photo from far away–pointless, because my iPhone couldn't capture what my eyes could see. </p><p>By the time we came down out of the hills, the sun was setting into the gritty neighborhood beyond Wildcat. The chill in the air signaled an end to this suspended time. Soon I would be in my cluttered kitchen, trying to make dinner, trying to herd feral distractions and demands. </p><p>Savoring every crunchy step, we walked back down to our car and back into the dense and teeming world.</p><div><br /></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-18701559623285134782021-02-25T20:06:00.002-08:002021-02-25T21:47:07.451-08:00A Conversation with My Daily Affirmer <p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: -36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8sqKUPcQdBKGdooiow7SeKfufhDl3uQAMvHQnSDzrLH0z29aLF4PWF6Bt3f_i-pkG_QejMllp-lf6f3BcXlhYEpnNPTkcCGnb_iFz1jNyaKXL6os5FUa8VPHfV4_SnVq9DQk_BqHRpec5/s456/Conversation+bubbles.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8sqKUPcQdBKGdooiow7SeKfufhDl3uQAMvHQnSDzrLH0z29aLF4PWF6Bt3f_i-pkG_QejMllp-lf6f3BcXlhYEpnNPTkcCGnb_iFz1jNyaKXL6os5FUa8VPHfV4_SnVq9DQk_BqHRpec5/s320/Conversation+bubbles.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Her: <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: -36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hi there! You’re doing great!</span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-28740a59-7fff-4907-23bb-1ae150338d80"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-indent: -36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-indent: -36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whatever. Why are you here?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because you need me! Also, because you are wonderful!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whatever. Will you be staying long?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, I think so. Or, for as long as you need me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cool. Well, then, you should know that I don’t need you. You are free to go.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow, you are so strong. That’s great. So glad to hear it.
</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
So then, is she leaving too?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who? What are you talking about?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That chick over there with the storm cloud over her head and the scowl on her face. Is she staying? Cuz, if she’s staying, I’m staying. I love a party.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her? I hardly even notice her. Don’t stay on her account.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow, how can you NOT notice her? I mean, she’s actually growling at you.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look, I didn’t invite you here, I don’t even know how you got here. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">playfully</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] Oh, so you invited </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> then, did you?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What? No! She’s just…she’s always been here. At least as long as I can remember. Look, she and I have an understanding. A long standing unspoken agreement. She’s fine. She gets to stay. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK, you’re the boss! She stays! So, what does she do?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do you mean, what does she </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? She doesn’t </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> anything. Just hangs out. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her:<span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And talks, right? Seems like she talks too. Can’t you hear that? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, well, yeah, she talks. Kind of a lot, actually </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And LOUDLY! She’s working herself into quite a lather over there! </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s not always that loud. I think she’s trying to be heard over YOU. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cool: I love a good competition! So what’s she saying?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does it matter? Don’t worry about it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh I never worry. Not about you, anyway: you’re a strong, incredible, smart woman. But I’m super curious – curiosity is kind of my thing: what is she saying? Can you translate that growl into something intelligible?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s just…giving me her opinions. Like, all of them. It’s OK though, I’m used to it. It’s fine. And anyway, she never actually gets OUT...just hangs out and makes a lot of noise.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hmmmm. Yeah, call me crazy, but I think that’s the whole problem. The whole “never gets out” thing. Doesn’t that mean that she spends all her time in here, shouting or mumbling or whatever? In your head? That’s a lot of growling and scowling to be happening inside one person’s head. Oh my, now she’s spitting at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At beautiful you!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, I think you’re upsetting her. She’s sort of used to being the only voice around. I try to leave her alone and let her do her thing. You should do the same.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh I see...her thing! What is that exactly?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[blank stare]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean, what does she do for you, that she’s earned the right to be the only voice that gets to stay? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[long pause] </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well...she...um...she...keeps me accountable? And..uh...humble. And..um, stuff like that. Keeps me in line, so to speak.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fascinating. Accountable, huh? And humble? Those are both great things to be! I’m so curious how she does that when she seems so...nasty and un-fun. Where’s the love, man? Where. Is. The. Looooooove? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The lo—oh geez, it’s not enough you’re always cheerful, you gotta be a hippie, too? Let’s just say she doesn’t let me get too big for my britches. Like, when I am a little too confident, she brings me down a peg or two. Whips me back in line and keeps me safe.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[raised eyebrows]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She can be a little harsh, I guess. But she keeps me safe.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, safety is cool. Love that. We all want to be safe. Harsh doesn’t sound so good though--who needs that? And how exactly does she keep you safe?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh for cryin’ out loud, what’s with all the questions? She just does, OK? She tells me stuff. Stuff I need to be aware of. You know, she tells me the truth.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is…?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Damn, you just don’t quit. Honestly, it’s annoying, especially with that perky smile plastered to your face. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Haha! Yes, I do smile a lot! It’s my favorite thing EVER. So, what’s this big truth that whatserface over there bestows upon you?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, I DON’T KNOW. Just, she keeps me safe, she keeps me here, she tells me what’s what, that I’m better off inside. No risk, no failure. No risk, no rejection. Also that I’d screw up if I tried anything anyway so what’s the point. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[pregnant pause]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ME: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That sounds bad. It’s not like that. She keeps me a realist. She keeps my expectations in check. Protects me from rejection. It’s a valuable service, OK?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodness gracious, who on earth would ever reject YOU? Ha! Only a crazy person! That doesn’t sound like the truth to me!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, why does rejection matter again? I mean, if you’re out there just doing your thing, why does it matter what someone else thinks? You’re just being your beautiful self, right? Not hurting others, not breaking any laws? Just being you?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, yeah, but…</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just know it matters. I can’t explain it. It just matters.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, I don’t think so. Also, you’re fantastic and there’s no wrong way to be you. You’re great, and I’d love to see anything you want to do in the world happen.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh for pete’s sake, knock it off. I see what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work–it’s just a bunch of bubble gum psycho-babble.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love bubble gum, don’t you? [smiles teasingly] Or do you prefer deep, dark, liver-and-onions psycho-babble? Me, I’m going for the bubble gum every time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You would.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Actually, bubble gum or pilates. They’re both pretty great, if you ask me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">True. I do enjoy a good pilates sesh. Feels so good.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right? Oh my goodness, pilates is just the best. I wonder what </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> thinks of pilates. Have you asked her?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. Like I told you, we have an arrangement; she wants to say so she gets to stay.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK, it’s your psyche! You can have anything you want in here.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey, does she have a name? No? Oooo, let’s give her one! Not like a real name, cuz we don’t want that whole Karen thing to happen. Everyone deserves to love their own name, don’t you think? But something we can call her...like...I dunno...how about Blah Blah Blah? LOL. I like that! We can refer to her as exactly what she sounds like anyway!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, I wonder what Blah Blah Blah thinks of pilates? I mean, who could be anti-pilates, ammiright? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uh, I have no idea what she thinks. She’s usually not around during my Zoom classes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Really? Isn’t that interesting??? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, honestly, sometimes she tells me I look ridiculous while I’m trying to balance on one leg, or that there’s no way I can do that plank move. But then she goes away. Mostly, she’s not around.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well I think that’s just fascinating. Blah Blah Blah is mostly not around during pilates….you feel good during pilates...think there’s a connection?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh good grief, do I have to think about this?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh gosh no: you don’t have to do a thing. You’re already doing so much! Honestly, you’re like a super woman, I don’t know how you do it. Your job, your family, pilates, dealing with Blah Blah Blah over there–that alone seems like a full time job and it’s only ONE of the many things you are managing every single day! So impressive. So inspiring.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Fingers to my temple, eyes closed] Oooooookaaaay. I get it. You’re here to prop me up. To counterbalance the negative voices.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blah Blah Blah. Say it. It’s super fun.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ugh whatever, you’re here to counterbalance Blah Blah Blah. OK, you’re right, that was fun. And yeah, I admit, she is pretty annoying sometimes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I KNOW, RIGHT?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes. Fine. She’s annoying. And mean. And nasty, like you said. The other day, she told me I’m never going to get any better at fiddle: that made me sad. But maybe she’s right and I should just give up.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She SAID that? Geez, she just interrupted you like that, while you were playing? How RUDE!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, it wasn’t while I was playing; she’s not around then. I think she started talking about it cuz I haven’t really been practicing that much and feeling kind of bad about it; I think she was trying to help–to give me a reason to stop and just let go of it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aha! THE PLOT THICKENS!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gonna regret this, but what are you talking about?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s not around during pilates; she’s not around when you’re playing the fiddle. Those are things you really enjoy and make you happy! Seems like there’s no room for her then!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want a nickel for that insight? I can’t do pilates and play the fiddle 24/7 now can I?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now THAT would be pretty awesome, LOL, but I guess you’re right. What else has she said to you?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, there’s the thing about how I’m a not that great of a mom, how I’m a disappointment to my friends, how my writing is stupid, my opinion irrelevant, yadda yadda yadda, then there’s a whole topic about how socially awkward I am–that’s a popular one. That one can keep her spinning for days, it feels like sometimes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[another pregnant pause]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just sayin’, I’d never do any of that to you. That’s all bullshit and you know what? I think you already know that.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[a third pregnant pause]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow, she’s kind of a nightmare: a noisy, never shuts up, really awful nightmare. God, why do I let her have the run of the place? Why can’t she just shut UP for once?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OMG, I freaking hate her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right ON! Me too! She is literally no fun at all. No one wants someone around who just gnashes her damn teeth and predicts disaster all the time.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, she’s so totally wrong about you. And really, that’s why I’m here.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m gonna give it to you straight, no bubble gum, no cheery cheeseballs, no fairy dust up your backside, just truth: you got this. You got EVERYTHING. Life is gonna be sad and boring as HELL if you listen to BLAH BLAH BLAH and don’t do things just to avoid a little rejection or failure. And the POINT, to get back to your point, of trying things is to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">enjoy them</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve got a million things you love to do and want to do: I know that about you. And wow, you have so many people you love and who love you, and not a single damn one of them wants you paying any attention at all to Blah Blah Blah when you could be out there living life and being your badass self. No one wants you to hide your light under a bushel. Well, Blah Blah Blah seems to want that, but she’s a bitch and half in heels.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oooo, that made her mad! Now she’s spitting AND throwing a tantrum! Wow, I think she might be barfing a little bit too. GROSS! Ooooo, girlfriend is a MESS! Hahahahahah!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whoa. Look at that. She’s slinking away! She’s–actually–</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">leaving! </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had no idea that was even possible! How did you do that?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like I said, I like a good competition, and I looooove to win. Ask enough questions, and those nasty bitches get tired of not being center stage. While you’ve been “wasting your time” talking to me, she just did her spoiled only child thing and stomped away all mad. Pretty awesome, don’t you think?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[silence]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow. Listen to that. Listen to the silence. I didn’t even know she was spewing out all that noise pollution until it was gone. I could get used to this; it’s sort of beautiful.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[silence]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course it’s beautiful. It’s you.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[rolls eyes.]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[more silence]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow. I feel so peaceful. She's...gone!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She might come back. But I can too. I can come back whenever you want or need me to, you beautiful person, you.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wait, what? She might come back? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my experience, Blah Blah Blah doesn’t give up quite that easily. Yeah, she’ll be back, at least for a while; she’s had quite a home here for a long time. But I’ll come back too and we’ll deal with her together!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uh..do you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to come back? I mean, this is kind of embarrassing, that I even needed you to be here. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey, you do you! Just know that I can come back anytime at all, and I’m pretty sure if we start talking about pilates, or music, or the sunset, or some heartbreakingly lovely thing one of your kids did, or really anything that makes you happy, we can kick her ass to the curb whenever we want. Whaddya say? Sounds fun to me!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[resigned sigh]</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> OK, fine, sure...I guess...but can we keep this whole relationship just between you and me? No self-respecting sarcast wants the world to know she’s got a...what are you again?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A daily affirmer! The best friend you’ll ever have! Also, I’m available daily, weekly, monthly or on demand.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right, well that just made me cringe myself into next week. Seriously, I’ve resisted this whole daily affirmation thing my whole life.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine if you’d put all that energy into resisting Blah Blah Blah.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Got it, you’ve made your point, she’s a total bitch and I don’t need her. So, we can keep it to ourselves? Our whole relationship?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh sure. Whatever you need. You’re in charge here, and you’re SO GOOD AT IT. You’re amazing, you know.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OMG alright already! Just Stop! Except don’t. I mean– I know you’re right, it’s just– WEIRD, all this affirmation is so WEIRD and unfamiliar, and like water in a desert and so strange at the same time– I mean, OK OK OK:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I AM amazing! Hell, yeah! I got this, and I can pretty much do anything I want!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And for now, my work here is done! God, I love my job: career satisfaction is AMAZING, let me tell you. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So happy for you.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you! I’m happy for you too! So what are you going to do now?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gosh, I don’t know. I feel pretty great right now. I’m thinking of picking up my fiddle and playing for a bit.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course you are: that is so like you, to want to CREATE something.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: <span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s true. That is like me. If you’ll excuse me, my axe awaits.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-34061199373495240692021-02-22T21:39:00.006-08:002021-02-22T21:51:27.424-08:00If You Stick It on the Dining Room Table, They Will Use It<div class="separator">Not quite as lyrical as <i>If You Build It, They Will Come</i>, but just as true and wonderful!</div><div class="separator"><br /></div><div class="separator">* * *</div><p>Have you seen my dining room table? (You know, like, before COVID...) It is quite a sight. A good percentage of it is covered with paint, marker, glitter, colored pencil, hot glue, and more. Since COVID, graffiti has also popped up, including "Tallulah Likes Cake" in black sharpie. We rarely enjoy an actual dinner or any other meal on this table, because it's typically full of art and projects of all kinds. From where I sit in the next room, I spy a large mirror frame that needs to be fixed, a half-finished clay fairy world, and several rocks in various stages of being painted.</p><p>I have often yearned for a dining room table at which I and my family actually dine. It is a yearning, in part, for normalcy, a wish for something that feels like what "normal families" have and do. But of course, we should always be careful what we wish for, and today I was reminded of this nugget of wisdom. Here is the story of how I came to be thankful that we do not have a normal dining room table. </p><p>A week or so ago, Rick announced that he was going to put one of his manual typewriters on our dining room table, in the hopes that our kids would use it. In typical Rick fashion, he outdid himself, with not one, not two, but THREE typewriters! As I write, there is one on the table and two on the floor next to the table. His timing was endearingly typical of us, in that the machines landed in the dining room just as one of my Normalcy Yearnings was ramping up: I had been eyeing the dining room longingly for the last couple of days, plotting to finally and yet again clean it, organize it, transform it into a place where people eat their meals and give thanks to the chef and then get up and cheerfully do all their chores without even a reminder. So I had that moment -- perhaps familiar to some of you -- where you <i>like</i> an idea your partner has suggested, but it means you won't get to make <i>your</i> idea a reality, at least not for awhile, and so you just sort of roooooollll with it. I rolled. I like typewriters. I like my kids. I love Rick. So yeah, sure, let's put a typewriter on the dining room table and see what happens.</p><p>What happened was this: after threatening for days to become another place for mail and dust to collect, today the typewriter got its moment to shine: Tallulah decided to learn how to type. As with All Things Tallulah, there were many questions: "How do you put the paper in?" "How do you do capital letters?" "Can I make it type in different colors?" "Can you come get my hair out of this round thingee where the paper goes?" (At least she got to learn the word <b>platen</b>!) </p><p>Once her head was no longer stuck in the machine and she had the basics down, her imagination began to flow and her fingers started to dance on the keys. In no time at all, she had a story! I am proud to present her breakthrough type-written work, entitled, simply: <b>RICK</b>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWNOCl-CZVa5MxVWNmTCUwKcDImSEUYAqL2lkVCRnk74k_ZdV8ZsAAGGBnTHXY3CkGq5AHSCz1I3GiE_IGJ9QceqF4TNFm0lIfI8LT1_FQe_sVde8SJGpeWN7_dL55F7tstTjnBo36vjsn/s2048/IMG_6610.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWNOCl-CZVa5MxVWNmTCUwKcDImSEUYAqL2lkVCRnk74k_ZdV8ZsAAGGBnTHXY3CkGq5AHSCz1I3GiE_IGJ9QceqF4TNFm0lIfI8LT1_FQe_sVde8SJGpeWN7_dL55F7tstTjnBo36vjsn/w640-h480/IMG_6610.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I'm sure that's hard to read, so here's the text, exactly as typed:</p><p><i>This story is Called : <b>RICK</b></i></p><p><i>By tallulah Alatorre</i></p><p><i>There once was a little man named rick. He love d food, poetry, his five kids (although he loved his youngest the most) books, art, soccer, and so much more. HE was really really really short.</i></p><p><i>THE END</i></p><p><i>P.S. His shortness was charming.</i></p><p>That right there is straight up literary art, and today I love my dining room table and the creativity that emerges from it, and I don't care if I never eat another meal there if it means I can have more of this fabulosity in my life. I say <b>PFFFT</b> to yearning for normalcy, and <b>YAY</b> to embracing the little wierdnesses of my family, and I say we are all weird and that is as it should be.</p><p>Also, if you would like to try a little experiment of your own: <b>Put stuff out.</b> Leave it there. And watch what happens. Perhaps one day, your experiment will bring you great delight. </p><p>Enjoy more bounty from our table:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4gavzWLvcYuD8yiNzRiLq-AzITa01fyOgybBhxuMCCmeaUlUj58CEzS7uxHAbl0M2x0PmruC_Wl05WapZFUVp-JjL_wA6JNH7Guuqdgv8_QXdUteP8S2K8zy8OaHNOWBkhKANq_gQsjY/s720/DR+Table+4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4gavzWLvcYuD8yiNzRiLq-AzITa01fyOgybBhxuMCCmeaUlUj58CEzS7uxHAbl0M2x0PmruC_Wl05WapZFUVp-JjL_wA6JNH7Guuqdgv8_QXdUteP8S2K8zy8OaHNOWBkhKANq_gQsjY/s320/DR+Table+4.png" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcxrMeoh8xByqzKxIgJI2PonEKW9wEDWqpQKmm90jcTYgWLYQMCFlmtEFZOhRaUi-RbDbJlIIAVq_WZvCzL0BtmATNd0gaC38Kz9SQcdRK3IxOGX3azNLNlau95oRGqEbmz8k8Xe2Tu27G/s720/DR+Table+1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcxrMeoh8xByqzKxIgJI2PonEKW9wEDWqpQKmm90jcTYgWLYQMCFlmtEFZOhRaUi-RbDbJlIIAVq_WZvCzL0BtmATNd0gaC38Kz9SQcdRK3IxOGX3azNLNlau95oRGqEbmz8k8Xe2Tu27G/s320/DR+Table+1.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8pavqJW8qmSGenhuUxah3tDbbeR4oCfY8HSukx4YMmGfpfq1UUD-Sc3kmJsQDNBqVZwi7CAZ3ye-iXPyrzo6fEKDxuJqNc8lq64gGAFrdGxEbW1TJNTEfL-hDSxofVTGMVI0_oO3ynBK/s720/DR+Table+3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8pavqJW8qmSGenhuUxah3tDbbeR4oCfY8HSukx4YMmGfpfq1UUD-Sc3kmJsQDNBqVZwi7CAZ3ye-iXPyrzo6fEKDxuJqNc8lq64gGAFrdGxEbW1TJNTEfL-hDSxofVTGMVI0_oO3ynBK/s320/DR+Table+3.png" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-SXpLW5ynoil38ciitDIuXZlfbHGuR5WzKxyP5RR2DZvV5BCn8WBOrWLQrFkzagJl4hIU0z41LttGRT6kKnO0jbfnQ554cfSKT6W3nvSGE9ozo3YMjEEeQkn5tUk3FESoE_G1KIptqAlT/s720/DR+Table+2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-SXpLW5ynoil38ciitDIuXZlfbHGuR5WzKxyP5RR2DZvV5BCn8WBOrWLQrFkzagJl4hIU0z41LttGRT6kKnO0jbfnQ554cfSKT6W3nvSGE9ozo3YMjEEeQkn5tUk3FESoE_G1KIptqAlT/s320/DR+Table+2.png" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKjewILSIfhYPK_n6Acl4Yc_NJIKNHfPOCXw0xzp9qZzHW7cbJjgiQagSAFMoZ0NHoSfnhk36UI1GR0ZrNfEGqYa8Bhu45YTQZ5B09P4lWAaUUI67vAmDsjheOnjZpC5jM42Vnkyi7Iyh/s720/RockPainting.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKjewILSIfhYPK_n6Acl4Yc_NJIKNHfPOCXw0xzp9qZzHW7cbJjgiQagSAFMoZ0NHoSfnhk36UI1GR0ZrNfEGqYa8Bhu45YTQZ5B09P4lWAaUUI67vAmDsjheOnjZpC5jM42Vnkyi7Iyh/s320/RockPainting.png" /></a></div><br /><p>And yes, I have a tablecloth that works nicely for the very rare holiday meal where I make everyone sit down to eat and they all look at each other like I'm conducting some weird psych experiment and no one knows how to act.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-87458935696127682552021-01-08T16:41:00.000-08:002021-01-08T16:41:23.963-08:00Embrace the Face<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOdLwHqgnbYc-Era8ehhfl678DI2HTqIvxQ_MtV4UAF5IUACHwWoDDe13zvDJNaU0nKDt-g2goksPX0QMRgop438Pgiu-j74Mi9-YB96lWQVPI363qyCytI__L1DSEABXpRlEBxTYEk0S/s332/manifest.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="152" data-original-width="332" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOdLwHqgnbYc-Era8ehhfl678DI2HTqIvxQ_MtV4UAF5IUACHwWoDDe13zvDJNaU0nKDt-g2goksPX0QMRgop438Pgiu-j74Mi9-YB96lWQVPI363qyCytI__L1DSEABXpRlEBxTYEk0S/w320-h147/manifest.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Every wrinkle, a memory.<p></p><p>Every crease, a story.</p><p>Every line and bump and spot and blemish, part of the soulful journey of my life, the trips around the sun and to the grocery store, the steps taken in joy and in pain.</p><p>Every imperfection a testament.</p><p>I embrace them all, and wear them as badges of my strength, power, resilience, and capacity for love.</p><p>Age, I embrace the lessons you have to teach and the joy you have to cultivate.</p><p><br /></p><p>* * *</p><p>Whatever. I don't believe a word of that, but my teenage daughters are all about manifesting shit, and what the hell, it's free, I thought I'd give it try.</p><p>If you need me, me and my wrinkles will be over here waiting for transformation.</p><p><br /></p><p>* * *</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://quantumstones.com/5-secrets-manifesting-reality-easier-think/" target="_blank">image source</a> </span></p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-33284211080346739342021-01-02T13:09:00.002-08:002021-01-02T13:17:49.070-08:00Recipe for a Happy Life<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggt88Yz_IaEHRpzowAHncZnT1bxtGmlf_-c0BTXH_JDiaSMH6Zujg9qkVvq4eYaWh5JgkhSnhPKFtW7StI1CWYlw-pi2582wBvhCvgFS2uH57ulcmFm6stZBLkZGPwjhLbw0_WjtrSmFlU/s524/Arctostaphylos-manzanita-St.-Helena.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="524" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggt88Yz_IaEHRpzowAHncZnT1bxtGmlf_-c0BTXH_JDiaSMH6Zujg9qkVvq4eYaWh5JgkhSnhPKFtW7StI1CWYlw-pi2582wBvhCvgFS2uH57ulcmFm6stZBLkZGPwjhLbw0_WjtrSmFlU/w278-h193/Arctostaphylos-manzanita-St.-Helena.png" width="278" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://xeraplants.com/plants/arctostaphylos-manzanita-st-helena/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">image source</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><i>For Rick on his birthday. </i><div><i><br /></i><div>Find someone who delights in words, marvels at them, picks them up like precious stones, turning them this way and that to see colors and variations.<p></p><p>Someone who sees possibilities in angles and spaces and movement, for whom patterns are beautiful.</p><p>Someone who protects and curates your bottle cap collection, even if you don't have one.</p><p>Someone who wears work shoes for work purposes.</p><p>Someone who speaks, who gives voice to what needs to live out loud; you won't always understand, but you will be more grateful with each passing day, week, month, and year.</p><p>It also helps if he loves — truly loves, with deep devotion — a tree. </p><p>Find someone with the gift of thrift, who will discover perfectly soled sambas, sturdy backpacks, the sweetest little ceramic bowls, more glassware than any kitchen cabinet can hold, and endless treasures you did not know would bring you joy.</p><p>Someone -- that special someone -- you can't wait to annoy for the rest of your life.</p><p>Someone who is interested in the world, in art and ideas, culture and stories, in how things get made and how beauty is created. Someone who knows that books, poetry, and music are essential, and introduces you to sounds you've never heard before. </p><p>Someone of faith, who knows that endless mercy has the power to see, understand, and bring us home.</p><p>Someone who will be present and steadfast on bumpy roads, in sickening pitches, and through sudden, harrowing turns. You’ll need it. </p><p>Find someone who will heal, perfect and exalt you, and for whom you will do the same.</p><p>Stir yourself with this person, day by day simmering and changing with the pressure and intensity of being alive, and together you will lay the table of a happy life.</p></div></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-51616215665660763482020-11-26T09:12:00.005-08:002020-11-26T09:18:21.933-08:0010 Things I Am Still Grateful For, Plus a Few More<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacToUhw4MjpP9XmhlP2YItPusEx7sP0BxpOK4-uypZq9KVZwMsun51i3O8O4AVC0VbI2LJWwIG9PHBuZoFqiAbFZ1RfLM3z4kaa3Uef6Ng0vJ1xSg-xrran7ZyBRvI64XuU1hLzUxVPrR/s1600/gratitude.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacToUhw4MjpP9XmhlP2YItPusEx7sP0BxpOK4-uypZq9KVZwMsun51i3O8O4AVC0VbI2LJWwIG9PHBuZoFqiAbFZ1RfLM3z4kaa3Uef6Ng0vJ1xSg-xrran7ZyBRvI64XuU1hLzUxVPrR/w255-h143/gratitude.jpg" width="255" /></a></div> Seven years ago I wrote a post on Thanksgiving with a list of the things I'm grateful for. Today, I am grateful for that list, because in this crazy mixed up totally effed up year, it's nice to see that some things remain true. Actually, it's not just "<i>some things</i>" but the most important things -- those remain solid, constant, more true than ever. I am still grateful for every single thing on this list, so I am reposting it, and adding a few wonderful things I am newly grateful for, since 2013. Here's what I wrote in 2013:<p></p><p style="text-align: center;"># # #</p><p>I have only 16% power left on my laptop and I'm too tired and comfy to get up and find the power cord, so I better rip off a thankful list right quick. And so:</p><ol><li><b>NPR</b>. My life would be less than it is without everyone at NPR. Thank you from the bottom of my well-informed heart.</li><li><b>Coffee</b>. My children would be in danger without coffee. Thank you for keeping me sane, which in turn, keeps them safe.</li><li><b>Good pillows</b>. Nothing feels better than laying down my weary head to rest each night. I usually sleep with two pillows, but one of them has been missing for weeks. I finally found it in the dolly crib today, and I'm back to pillow bliss tonight.</li><li><b>Friends who give pie</b>. Every Thanksgiving, some friends of our give us pumpkin pies from Bake Sale Betty. This year, I am especially grateful for these pies because we are not hosting Thanksgiving, and I get to bring the pies to my sister-in-law's house tomorrow, meaning I did. not. bake. or. cook. a. single. thing. I like to cook, and I've enjoyed hosting in the past, but this year? It's a blessing of monumental proportions that I don't have to do a damn thing.</li><li><b>This blog</b>. Because I get to write about whatever I want, silly, fun, serious, thoughtful, boring, or sentimental, and it's MINE ALL MINE. And I like it when people like what I've written. That's pretty awesome.</li><li><b>My awesome job</b>. I love my job. I have a job I love, doing things I am good at, learning things that are helping me grow, with people I respect, in a family-friendly environment, for a good cause. See? Awesome.</li><li><b>My kids</b>. Seriously, yes, even the kids. They are impossible. But I guess that's why I'm grateful because they show me that the impossible is possible, every single day. Sometimes, that runs more towards the "Is she REALLY going to refuse to put away the Rush Hour game, just to mess with me? Is she REALLY going to take the smallest possible steps between here and the bathroom to brush her teeth, just to see my head spin around on top of my neck???" Sometimes, it's more of the heart-catching variety, where I see a child of mine do something good and generous, or I get to the end of the day and realize I did more good than harm (score!), or the questions they ask challenge and stretch me as I try to answer them and then the gift of a great conversation comes my way…all of it seems impossible. All of it happens anyway.</li><li><b>My husband</b>. Not because he makes delicious pizza, and delicious hot toddies, and awesome old-fashioneds; not because he vacuums like a maniac; not because he makes sure all the doors are locked and lights are off each night. Because he is the other half of me and I know he's mine forever. We are not a fairy-tale husband and wife; we annoy each other greatly pretty frequently and his snoring alone makes me want to rip my ears off my head and serve them to him for breakfast. But he's not going anywhere, and I'm not going anywhere, and I'm grateful that he is my constant. </li><li><b>My mother and father</b>. Five days ago, we moved my mother into a board and care facility; it was one of the hardest days I've ever had with my parents, one of the hardest they've ever had themselves. I am grateful for the privilege of being present to them both during the past several months of struggle.</li><li><b>The ability to change the wi-fi password</b>. Because nothing says I love you to my sons like turning off the wi-fi in the middle of an Instagram post so they can get some sleep and keep growing strong and healthy. </li></ol><div><p style="text-align: center;"># # #</p></div><div>For 2020, I would add that I am grateful for:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Fiddle</b>: Playing it, listening to it, seeing the beautiful instrument in my house, sometimes on a pile of laundry. And for <b>Maria</b>, who made my life long dream of being a real live fiddle player come true.</li><li><b>Kids who drive</b>, because it's every mother's dream to get actual real help, even if that actual real help also comes with a side of terror.</li><li><b>My fingers</b>. They do a lot of good things for me, including typing.</li><li><b>My dog Zuzu</b>, who is proof positive that happiness doesn't come from things being perfect: happiness comes from love and messiness and neurotic pets who are way more work than even you --the mom, who should know better-- anticipated.</li><li><b>Friends, </b>so many friends, who save me every day, which has never been more appreciated than in this whacked-out cluster of a year.</li></ol><div>What are you grateful for?</div><div><br /></div></div>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-839765973714522260.post-78741702280481257562020-11-20T08:53:00.001-08:002020-11-20T12:30:32.621-08:00My First Beautiful Thing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVfRn-L55jUov3rATilRz4BhIapy1s-POe1TSdnqc0bSEBZW3n_Xmuwwls_7sddEi9ozclJZjF4EBo028TE1KANs8HBtMyc0Op8w5Mo2MWCeDqr_6xYH8cZI7r9tXI9znmHLeM4FP3hqW/s2048/IMG_5975.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVfRn-L55jUov3rATilRz4BhIapy1s-POe1TSdnqc0bSEBZW3n_Xmuwwls_7sddEi9ozclJZjF4EBo028TE1KANs8HBtMyc0Op8w5Mo2MWCeDqr_6xYH8cZI7r9tXI9znmHLeM4FP3hqW/w200-h200/IMG_5975.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>Cold kitchen, whistling kettle: the water is ready, the ground awaits.</p><p>Now for the pour-over: watching steam rise, Chemex fill, and sparkly diamonds dance as the water settles and filters – suspends me every time.</p><p>I lift the good, heavy pot from the gleaming chrome and pour.</p><p>The warm, puddle-y sound, quiet but lifting, rising in pitch as the mug fills, is dark and swirling.</p><p>A splash of cream and voila! At this early hour, </p><p>I've done my first beautiful thing.</p>And I'll Raise You 5http://www.blogger.com/profile/04807118403081664721noreply@blogger.com0