All in Miscellany
“November! Already? Ahhh, November. To me, the arrival of this month is like smelling cookies in the oven—a happy, tantalizing thing. I welcome November because of its urgency, prodding those of us living in the northern realm to finish preparing for winter and come inside out of the chill air… Another reason among many: November hosts my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. Two of my favorite things, in one word: Thanks. Giving.”
“The topic of risk has been hot lately. Maybe it is age, maybe it is experience, maybe both, but it seems as if people are more cautious nowadays. This is simply an observation, said without judgement, but it makes me wonder: where has all our courage gone?”
“It’s gonna happen. You and I and the person across from you at the diner: we are all gonna die. It’s only a matter of time. For a few years now, one of my jobs has been as a Medical Examiner Investigator (MEI). The more I assist families in the wake of the death of a loved one, and the closer I get to my own Date of Demise, the more I ponder what my aftermath can be like in terms of the body my soul will be leaving behind.”
“Here, I’ll just say it: I love the Olympics. I just do. I love the Olympics so much that even when we couldn’t afford our own television in the summer of 1984, we rented one for the two weeks of the Los Angeles Olympics.”
“[After] starting the final load of laundry… I heard an uncharacteristic thumping sound and fretted distractedly that maybe the washing machine was going on the fritz. “I wonder what that is,” I thought… Something must have fallen into the dirty pile, maybe. As the muffled “thump, thump” continued, my curiosity was nudged a couple of more times, but only vaguely… Stupid washing machine...”
“In one year, something invisible without magnification has gripped the entire world in its clutches. Not a person on the planet hasn’t been touched, and will continue to be touched, by this microscopic enemy. Crazy.”
“…it is possible to employ calming balms during fever-pitch times of fear and anxiety. The choice to use them? Well, that’s yours. Wrapping yourself in calm is a self-directed strategy. But the effort can work well, and is worth the effort… When we’re able to step back from the fray, we gain perspective. When we quiet our minds, they can refill with welcome awareness.”
“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.”
