All in Miscellany
“About forty years ago, I gave myself one of the finest gifts ever: the reframing of an interior life that was dark, depressed, and negative. Learning a new habit to choose a fresh, upbeat approach to my days was demanding work… Gradually, I was able to build a new way of life…”
“On the evening of the 2016 election, I decided to entertain myself with a contest to see how long it would be before I heard the word “2020." It happened (no surprise) in minutes. In so many ways, it’s been a long four years.”
Just now, while renewing my morning tea, waiting for it to steep, Tuesday’s dinner drifted back into my awareness. Looking around at what there was in the kitchen, I polled my tastebuds, wondering, “what would be good?” The idea of Mexican food bubbled up, seemed interesting, appealing. “Hmmm,” I mused, “maybe that’s a good idea.”
“It was three days before Christmas, 1953. In an era when women often spent many days in the hospital after childbirth, the doctors told my mother to go home, to be with her family for the holidays. Her new baby was going to die anyway.”
“Normally, sleep comes easily and lasts well for me. However, for no discernable reason, one night recently, I woke up at 2:15am, and didn’t slumber again until after five o’clock. As soon as I was up for that regular nocturnal bathroom trip, I could tell that I was unusually wide awake.”
“Sometimes the sky is a great escape, a place where a person frazzled by the terrestrial world can send thoughts that seem to have nowhere else to go. Looking at the sky raises my eyes up, away from the fuss and bother of whatever is before me.”
“Who would have thought I’d feel like such a rule-breaker for having a scone and a cup of coffee. Yet there I was, delighting in these things while idling in the cocoon of my car on the city street, seeing people — people!—walk by, jog by, drive by.”
“One of my favorite Facebook posts of the pandemic was the one in which the human world exclaims, “There’s no way we can shut everything down in order to lower emissions, slow climate change, and protect the environment.” Mother Nature’s reply: “Here’s a virus. Practice.”
“When someone who otherwise self-identifies as a good human knows that a term can be offensive to another human nonetheless uses such hurtful words, I fail to understand why. This question has now reared its ugly head with the use of the term, “Chinese virus.”
Daily life and regular plans were set aside recently and a full-house church of people came together in Denver to honor a man I was honored to call my step-dad.
“It began for me on September 12, but that was back in 1986. Ever since, this has been a week-long stretch of honoring things past. After all, one loses one’s mother only once.”
“Imagine entering a profession notorious for its soul-sucking nature. You maybe didn’t really understand what that would mean at the start, but it doesn’t take long to realize.”
“As I huffed and puffed my way up… the memory of what it takes to climb a mountain flooded back to me.”
“…in those days, we compared notes with people traveling in the opposite direction. The result was fresh word-of-mouth insights & important travel tips.”
Where am I? I don't know. I don't know, but it doesn't really matter. I know I am lying in unfamiliar air with a big, open window.
“Adventures are all about challenging myself to step beyond the everydayness of daily life…”
“In the individual moments of our lives, each of us faces endless choices about how to move forward. We don’t—can’t–always know whether things will go well or not.”
“In the ‘olden days’ there were these things called watches, devices one wore on the wrist so as to keep track of the time.”
“She is a teacher. Her career traversed interesting times, beginning as it did in September, 1942…”
“Facebook is such an...interesting phenomenon. Many people I know have a real love/hate relationship with it. The best way I’ve seen it described is this: It’s the 21st century equivalent of the local coffee shop.”
