Here Where I Stand at the Turning of the Years

I've been meaning to post something for a couple weeks, not wanting to let an entire calendar year go by without acknowledging my little corner of the internet still exists... and yet here I am, just over three hours until 2023, finally writing something down. What's about to come out of my brain? Let's find out.

In the past I've occasionally regretted, at the times I thought about it, the "lost years" of this blog, the 18-ish months that are creeping up on two decades ago when I stopped writing for a while. And now I've done it again. But I suppose the last two years have been lost years for all of us--so many plans unrealized, so many dreams unfulfilled, so much time unused... and so many lives gone out of reach forever. I have nothing new to say about this except to acknowledge that we're all still stuck in this time of collective grief over what we've lost and it's no wonder some folks have turned to anger and others have withdrawn into themselves. (Mind you, I make no excuses for the bad behavior committed out of anger. Everyone is still responsible for their own choices and there is no excuse for lashing out. If you won't behave yourself, stay home instead of forcing your poor choices on others.)

All that said, I haven't even decided whether to create goals for 2023. I have some ideas, things I'd like to do a bit differently from what I've done before. But I also know that until I write them down, they'll stay vague ideas. So perhaps the best way to kick off 2023 will be to come back here and see if I can't let some thoughts start to take shape. Perhaps I'll see you here tomorrow, then.

I tried finding the original source of this quote. No such source exists, which is to say, everyone has said it at least once. I guess it's my turn.

In the meantime, may you and yours have a safe and happy new year.

Past vs Present

Austin has a new library. It's fantastic.

I'm in Austin this week, visiting my sister and seeing some of the beloved people and places that have helped make me who I am. It's an ongoing joke/truism in Austin that things around here change in a hurry, and not always for a better in the eyes of the locals. And while you don't have to leave for a couple years to see it--just waiting around one's own neighborhood for a few months will do--coming back to visit every six months is a fast way to muddle all the mental maps I used to have.

New pedestrian plaza on UT campus

Capital Metro, for instance. A bus system I once knew as well as the inside of my own apartment. I knew that major changes were coming--there were signs up at every bus stop when I was last here in May, plus I keep up with the Twitter chatter around transportation in Austin. But last night Denise and I were driving home from "my" HEB (which has also been rearranged, by the way) and talking about buses that are rerouted and stops that we used to use that are now gone altogether. I had no sooner said aloud, "I need to look at the CapMetro map and see what's changed," than I saw a sign for the upcoming Austin Marathon, indicating that the route is going through East Austin, a place it never went in the years I was running, volunteering, or spectating. So I added, "And I guess I need to look at the marathon map, too."
 
Places adapt and change. Kids grow up. People move away. Businesses close up shop and others open, buildings are torn down and new ones spring up. This is true everywhere, not just Austin--I've seen it happen plenty in the short time I've been in Cincinnati. And while I have my own reasons for clinging desperately to a time that is gone, the truth is that I know full well those days are never coming back again. My first Austin bus route is gone forever, the local supermarket can't serve customers who don't exist, and I'll never go back to one of my former apartments, open the door, and find Chadwick on the other side waiting for me to come home. The world is moving on and I've already gone with it, whether I like it or not.

Ai Weiwei's "Forever Bicycles" is here on a long-term
loan. For that matter, it may be gone; I haven't been
round to look yet. It's new since I lived here and will also
be moving away again.

On the other hand, the Austin Half Marathon course has reverted to the one I ran for the first time and loved back in 2009, and while I'm not going to be here in two weeks' time to experience race day in
person, there's nothing to stop me from running some of those miles this week. Not for the sake of reliving the past, but rather to get all the joy I can out of the present.

And I hope that's what you're doing this week, too.

Well.

Enough folks have asked what's happened with my blog that I'm acknowledging it's probably time for a check-in. And I have a few minutes before Rent: Live begins.

So! What's happened? Well, everything. It feels inappropriate to be light-hearted when the world is on fire, as I've mentioned before. I'm not a political blogger and don't want to be, at least in part because there are not a lot of major policy issues about which I have a level of expertise for rambling on for 500 words or fewer. (Transportation. That's it. That's my area.) I realize this is a small bother that doesn't really stop many folks, but it stops me. I won't be that person.

That person, however, exists. That person is a lot of people I care about. I've sought offline conversations rather than this format for nearly a year now, because engaging with that person is both depressing and wearying. Please, let's all be less of that person. Being informed is good. Educating one's self is good. Getting locked into an echo chamber or sharing dumb, baseless memes on Facebook is terrible.

You know what they say about lighting a candle instead of
 cursing the darkness. Source: Sorina Bindea
on freeimages.com.

But so is withdrawing altogether, and I like to do what I can. What I can do is pick up again on a regular dose of the B things I know (why do they all start with B? No idea): books, bikes, buses, and Broadway. If that's what you like, here I am. If not, well, I can't imagine why you're here, but hello there! *waves* You are most welcome.

So should you come by in a few days, or weeks, or months, and think, "My goodness, she has a lot to say about utter drivel when there's serious work to be done,": yes. Yes, I do. Please know that I'm not unaware of the world around me and I'm doing my part in as many offline ways I can find. In the meantime, here is a space to be lighthearted. And wow, do I have a bunch of theatre to tell you about.

Not right now. Rent: Live is about to begin.

Start Again

Do you make Daylight Saving (no really, there's no 's' at the end) resolutions? Because I'm thinking it should be a thing.

In all my years of living in places
that observe Daylight Saving Time,
I've never been more ready for more of
this than I am this year.
 Bring it on, DST. Source.

I mean, if you did make a New Year resolution, we're two and a bit months in, and that's a great time to reevaluate, refocus, and perhaps redo. If you didn't, now's a good opportunity to consider what you'd like to do with all the non-winter days ahead of us, perhaps especially things that go well with longer sunlit evenings.

And here's a bonus for folks like me who enjoy hibernating in the winter months: Saving Time lasts 8 months. So if I make a Saving Time resolution, then I can make a Standard Time resolution for the other four months, when the days are short and my motivation to do anything at all is low. Managing my own expectations, as it were. Plus, that beats the rush for the next round of New Year resolutions--I'll be saying, "Already been going on this one for a couple months, thanks!" while everyone else is writing their hot takes on why they set goals instead of making resolutions.

I'm thinking today of my wise friend Ruthie's words about Lent a year ago: "I love that the opportunity keeps coming around. ... I love that even if you've forgotten New Year resolutions, you can start again with new habits/determination/focus to be a better you." Indeed--even if a DST resolution isn't your thing (and seriously, when it's abbreviated that way, it kinda sounds like a drug), maybe there's another time that is. New year? Beginning of summer? Beginning of the school year? Random Tuesday?

Whenever you start a new goal, Ruthie's point still resonates-- you can always start again. Don't give up.

To See the Face of God

Last week, I picked up A Million Miles in a Thousand Years again and have been re-reading it. You know, because when you have 1000 books on your to-read list, and 30 on the real, live to-read shelf in your living room, why wouldn't you reread something instead of trying something new?

There's probably a whole post in that last sentence, but it is not today's post.

So! Reading A Million Miles, which is all about the story we're writing with our lives, always reminds me of bishop from Les Misérables. Now there's a guy who was living a great story. His treatment in the musical version is brief but beautiful:


Now seems like a good time to say that this version, while great (Colm Wilkinson! What's not to love about that guy?), has nothing on the stage version. Ramin Karimloo as Valjean in the scene with the bishop remains one of the most powerful couple minutes of theatre I've ever seen. This is a moment that is best experienced live, and if you're very very lucky, from close enough to the stage to clearly see the actors' faces.

In rehearsal and on Broadway. I don't have the words for how incredible
Ramin was in this scene. (Adam Monley as the bishop also amazing.) The
whole plot of forgiveness and redemption really begins right here.
Image sources: Rehearsal, Broadway.

Anyway, the bishop--Monsieur Myriel--lived an amazing story, and it's that story that he invites Valjean into when they meet. My beloved Signet Classics edition of Les Misérables has 1460 pages. I don't usually recommend that people read the whole thing--it's quite a slog for the modern reader and you have to really hang in there through some completely unrelated and quite lengthy chapters--but Monsieur Myriel is the star of the first 104 pages. If you want to read about someone who used his life to write a great story, that's the part you should read.

To love another person is to see the face of God. But the better task, I think, is to choose to see the face of God when we see those standing before us. Seeing the face of God on someone else will surely call me to love that person as myself--as a human being, as a fellow traveller on this planet, as someone else who is also doing the best that she (or he) can to navigate a world gone mad. A great story, indeed.

Edited to remove a video of Kyle Jean-Baptiste as Jean Valjean that is no longer available on YouTube.

Just Be

I took a couple days off at the beginning of the week, which turned out to be a fantastic choice when Cincinnati got up to 79° on Tuesday. My bicycle was happy to finally go somewhere interesting after weeks of sitting around when we set out to run a few errands.

Despite my tendency to forget it from time to time, I was remembering well that I live in Cincinnati now, and this week's warm temps were not here to stay quite yet. So, to avoid bitter disappointment later, I kept reminding myself, "Don't get carried away. Just be here in this moment." Normally, that is a strategy that doesn't work well for me.

I ended one of my errands at an intersection of two one-way streets, both going the opposite direction from where I wanted to go, so I thought I'd just go a block and then turn.

Well. This is one of the few times in my life I've managed to convince myself of something and make it stick. A few blocks later, I realized I'd completely forgotten to turn because I was having such a good time rolling right along. There's a great deal to be said about being in the moment and ignoring everything else--not thinking about what I'm doing later or making a mental grocery list or imagining the stack of paper my coworkers were cooking up in my absence. From time to time, it's a good thing to just be.

It's less of a good thing when your sense of direction depends on you being able to think at least a couple minutes down the road, but one can't have everything. But going the wrong way meant I found a thing. Last spring, I did a Cincinnati-themed A to Z Challenge, and when I got to Union Terminal I learned about the mosaics that were specially commissioned for the building. I read at the time that some of them had landed at the Duke Energy Building, and I lodged it in the back of my mind to go look harder for them one day, since I'd been around and inside there a couple times and had never seen them. Guess where my wrong turn took me?

I had crossed the street and was admiring the Firefighters Memorial Park when I happened to glance over and, had I been walking, I would have stopped in my tracks. As it was, I said aloud to absolutely no one, "Wait! Is that them? It has to be!" And crossed back over to see them. They are every bit as amazing as I had imagined they would be.

I only took pics of these two, because the glare made them not look so great.
I'll head back on a cloudy day and get them all.

So there's one more thing to be said for being in the moment. You never know what you may find.

To Be Happy You're Alive

Reading my Facebook memories in the days leading up the anniversary of Chadwick's last day is a bit like, well, a Crockpot fire. It's like Mrs. Landingham leaving the office to go pick up her car. It's like Henry getting on that chopper. I get the same jolt of realization as I do when I watch beloved characters going about their normal business with no idea that their lives are about to be irrevocably shattered.

Last year, I wrote about what went down that day, so if you've never heard the whole story, that's where you can read it. I'm not writing all that down again.

There's nothing not to love about this picture. Even if you
didn't know him, this pretty much says it all.

A few months ago for Chadwick's birthday, a dear friend sent me a message addressed to him that read, in part: "You are with her everywhere. Every adventure she takes, she takes you along." I certainly hope that's true. For all that I can't make up my mind about whether I like the idea of his spirit hanging around, I hope I'm living a full enough life for two people. If nothing else, I want to honor his spirit by experiencing every moment as fully as I can, even the moments when I'm frustrated or disgusted by this world we're living in.

This life isn't fair. Some days, nothing goes right. This is one of those days. In a life gone horribly wrong, I'm doing my best just to keep going. And I hope you are, too. That's the least we can do for those who've passed on from this life and who are no longer allowed to participate, but who may well be watching.

Post title is a line from "Light," from the musical Next to Normal, which is still basically my life anthem. You're on your own if you watch any more of it than that song.

Carded

Humans, we need each other. We need connection. We need someone who cares. We need to know we aren't alone.

This is a pretty tall order. Due in part to our current disconnectedness, it's not always easy to know who needs a word of encouragement. Or who the person is who I can make a difference for. And who doesn't have more things going on than hours in a day?

I don't have a solution, except that my usual throwing my hands up in the air and retreating into a book to avoid actual human emotion is probably not one. But I do have a teeny tiny thought.

Some of the postcards on my ribbon board. It's possible
one of these is not so much a postcard as me showing off
that I got a thing.

This thought started when I was perusing my Facebook memories a few days ago, and found an old comment of mine that sending a postcard instead of a Facebook message is only marginally more expensive and you get a pretty picture, too.

Remember when we used to send letters? I loved writing letters in pre-internet days, but that dwindled away until the only person I was writing letters to was my grandmother, who is no longer around to receive them, so for the last three years I've sent the odd postcard from D.C. or NYC, and that's it. I think it's time to change that.

How is this an environmentally friendly idea? I don't know, but what I do know is that the postal service runs whether I'm using it or not, so I may as well give them something to carry that isn't junk mail. It is possible to tear the front off a card you've received that you weren't sure what to do with later (does anyone else have this problem? I can't bring myself to recycle a card, no matter how many years it's been gathering dust) and use that as a postcard, so that's a good way for a bit of reusing to sneak in. Plus, happier humans = better planet, at least I certainly hope so.

So I'm challenging myself starting right now to send out at least one postcard a week in 2018, and to do that I need your help. Want a postcard? Send me your address via DM and I'll put you in the queue. Why am I doing this? Because I care about you and want to brighten your day a little bit. Because we need a bit more connection in the world today. Because I want a reason to go buy some postcards.

What will you do today to make the world a more connected place?

The Replacements

Ash Wednesday is upon us. Not ready? It's not too late. Really. I've started late a few times, and had to re-start more often than that. Tomorrow is always a new day.

So! I'm not sharing my fast, because I don't. And this year's fast was really quite an easy choice. The more difficult preparation for me was deciding what to do instead.

I will definitely fall into this hole if given half a chance.
Source: Asif Akbar on freeimages.com.

Maybe other people don't have this problem. If you don't, I salute you and hope you'll write your own blog post about how you succeed. But for me, I can't just take things away and be done with it. I have to have something to fill the space, or the same old things will fall in again when I'm not looking. If I want a change to stick, even if I decide this one is only for the next six weeks, then I need a smooth surface to build on, not one riddled with potholes.

My process was pretty simple: I looked around and thought, "What are some things I've been neglecting that I can give attention to during Lent?" I'm going so far as to create myself a pretty list to hang up on my wall for when my brain starts getting tugged in the direction of something that's off the table until Easter, because I will forget without something there to remind me. I have, it seems, learned some tricks for accommodating the gaping holes in this brain of mine. This is similar to my practice of not bringing chocolate into the house so I won't eat a ton of it in one sitting, except from the opposite direction.

Here's what I came up with:
1. Reading
Kevin Tuerff's Channel of Peace is on my shelf and ready to go. I have Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together on hold at the library. And I realized earlier this week that my skills at finding something quickly in a paper Bible are almost non-existent after many years of using an ebook version, so I have one likewise on a shelf where I will see it and remember to open it up.

2. Writing
Between this blog, the Women in the Marketplace blog I've neglected even more than this one, and a still very much unfinished school story that I would really like to find out how it ends, I have plenty to keep my keyboard busy. Incidentally, sad blog posts are coming this weekend. I know some of you only come round for those, but if that's not you, I won't be offended if you run away until the sad stuff is done.

3. Crafting
I've lost track of how many projects I have in progress, but there are three in particular that I'd like to finish soon, and one I need to start because it has a hard deadline.

I'm not certain what this hand is doing, so I'm off to a
good start. Source: John Hughes on freeimages.com.

4. And some other things...
There are some things on my list that I think it's best that I keep to myself. Things that should remain, like the fast itself, with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Maybe after Lent is over I'll share some more. We'll see how it goes.

How do you deal with changes you'd like to make in your life--temporary or permanent? Do you fill up the gap with something else right away, or are you able to leave it alone and let it heal on its own?

Almost Time

If you're planning to observe Lent this year, but haven't worked out how yet, now's probably a good time to think about it. I mention this because I have a tendency to think I have more time than I really do for most things, and it's possible other people have a similar affliction. 

Don't forget: we already know this
story has a happy ending.
Source: George Bosela on
freeimages.com.

I write pre-Lenten posts not because I'm any kind of an expert on Lent, but because I got a few years' head start on most of my previously non-observing acquaintances, so people tend to ask me relevant questions. The least I can do is share a few things I've learned on this journey, in case you were wondering but don't have anyone to ask. So, here you are:

1. Are you judging me for not doing Lent?

No. I don't have that kind of mental energy. You do you and I'll do the same.

2. Do you have any Lenten resources to recommend?

I do not, but if there's a particular area of your faith that you'd like to explore more, that's a good starting place. Your local library probably has a decent religion & spirituality section.

3. Should I announce my fast on Facebook?

People are a little weird about this one, which is probably why I've heard a lot of strange reasons in favor of blowing a virtual trumpet on Shrove Tuesday. Here's what I got:

• Before you decide, please read Matthew 6:16-18 and carefully consider your motivation for announcing your fast.
• If you're asking me as someone who's done this many times and has some experience of the value of people knowing my fast vs not: no, you shouldn't.
• If you're asking because you're hoping that announcing your fast will start faith-producing conversations: you may have misjudged the medium if you expect a productive conversation on Facebook, but if you have an exceptionally open-minded audience, go ahead and try it. Best of luck.
• If you're asking because you're looking for some accountability: I'd suggest you find an offline human, or if it must be online, that you approach someone you trust via private message.
• If you're asking because giving up Facebook is your fast and you want to let everyone know where you're going: I'd only do it if your absence will upset someone. Again, this is probably best done via private message rather than a public announcement.
• If you're asking for spiritual guidance, I refer you again to Matthew 6:16-18.

4. Do I have to go meatless on Fridays?

Are you participating in Lent as part of your faith tradition, and if so, does that faith tradition ask you to go meatless? If so, in order to fully participate with your community: yes. If you're creating your own community or going it alone, then you have a bit more leeway to decide which elements, if any, of the traditional fast you're going to adopt. 

5. Did you know it doesn't really add up to 40 days?

Yes. Sundays don't count as part of the 40 days because Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection on those days, and that celebration supersedes the mourning/fasting of Lent. (Sundays aren't meant to be days "off," though. Lent isn't a diet with cheat days built in.)

6. Does it matter what I give up?

Yes, it matters, but maybe not in the way you're asking. (And it's okay if you haven't decided yet.) Some things to consider:

• What are you trying to learn from Lent? What areas of your life need growth? Think about that and let that shape your fast. Also keep in mind that your fast, if it's helping you learn/grow, may not be something you want to stop at Easter. You can absolutely use these six weeks as a starting point for something more permanent.
• Some folks are under the impression that people only give up sins that they should have already been trying to remove from their lives. Now, if Lent helps you do that, I'm not about to tell you not to. Six weeks of focused intent may be you push you need to finally deal with that thing. 
• You may feel like giving up chocolate or TV or something small is silly. But if you're a first-timer or you choose something small that will be a genuine challenge, there's no reason to feel less than because you gave up coffee. Growth can come from small things, too.
• It's not so much what you're giving up; it's what you replace it with. So before you say, "Got it!" take some time to consider what you're adding to your life during Lent.

7. What if I don't start on Ash Wednesday or fizzle out by the end?

It happens. That's why the Israelites prayed, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (That's Lamentations 3:22-23.) Make a new beginning as often as you need to.

8. What else do I need to know?

Get in there and do it, and be open to what changes in you. If you have a community to do this with, by all means, embrace that community whole-heartedly and do this together. God has placed you in a community for good reason, and fasting together as a shared experience can multiply your joys and divide your struggles. Do not neglect your community this Lent. Embrace them.

You still have a couple days to get ready, but try not to wait until 11:50 Tuesday night.

Be a Light

How do you make the world a better place?

I'm wondering this because I first started making Friday my environmentally friendly theme day many years ago, when over the course of many conversations it became evident that easy earth-friendly things I thought everybody was doing were in fact quite the opposite. So I started writing them down. Some stuff is just so much fun to do and I'm bummed that everyone hasn't figured it out yet. You can turn kitchen scraps into dirt! Old clothes into pillows! Why wouldn't everyone want this kind of magic in their lives?

It's choose-your-own-metaphor day here at Cheekyness.
Source: Sorina Bindea on freeimages.com.

And despite the fact that I intend to continue making my footprint on the earth as light as possible, current trends in governmental thinking be darned, I don't want to lose sight of all the other ways of making the world a better place.

I would like people to recycle more and litter never. I would like, in this place of abundance, for everyone to not waste so much stuff. I would love for the people who think it's no big deal to send other people death threats on social media to retreat into the lifestyle of an internet-free hermit and let the rest of us get on with being not-horrible humans. We could probably do all those things at once.

Make the world better for your having been in it today. I'll do the same and we'll meet later to talk about how it went, okay?

All the Steps

How do you start something when you don't really wanna?

This has been a thing for me for my entire running life. I'd almost always rather have run than not, and once I start running, I'm usually happy in the moment and willing to continue. I'm just challenged by getting started. The first step is the worst one.

So even at the best of times, I don't feel like starting, and a few hours after watching Roger Federer's Australian Open win at an unholy time of day is not my best of times. The only way I talked myself outside was by deciding to change up my route to include the city steps to add a bit of interest and pain, I guess.

This picture is not from my run. It's from my walk to church
yesterday morning. But it's outside, so here you go.
By the way, those aren't storm clouds. The fog was very
thick yesterday morning. I was trying to capture it,
without a lot of success.

It went like this: my legs complained about being stiff from running the day before, and I told them to give it a few blocks. Then other parts of me wanted to just give it up and head home, and I reminded myself that I was going this way to enjoy the city steps and to turn around before I reached them would defeat the purpose. Then it was, "I'll get all to the 1-mile mark and see how I feel." After that, I reminded myself that I was headed toward the downtown bus plaza, so I could always run along the riverfront and bus home instead of turning around and going back up the steps. I talked myself through three miles' worth of running until all that was left to do was decide whether I was really going to tackle the steps in my worn-out state. 

I did, because I was so close to home at that point it would have been silly to get on a bus instead of pushing through the final mile. Lo and behold, I pep-talked myself through four miles one tiny bit at a time, and my reward was the post-run feeling of accomplishment that I wish I could bottle for days when the first step feels like jumping over a building.

Some days, one tiny bit at a time is the best any of us can expect from ourselves. Whatever great things lie down the road, we'll never get there if we can't get through what's right in front of us. By telling ourselves that we just need to do this next thing and not thinking about the hundred things that follow. By giving ourselves permission to take a break when necessary. By knowing that we'll get there when we get there.

One step, then another, until it's done.

Last Day. First Day.

I knew this day was coming. I thought about it briefly the day I turned 39, but in the past few weeks this milestone has loomed up and thrown its shadow over my entire life. I didn't expect it to be this big of a deal, which was obviously my first mistake.

Today's the day I outlive Chadwick.

I'm a member of a couple widows' groups and we talk about everything imaginable, plus some things you're all better off not imagining, but how it feels to outlive a spouse is a thing there's probably not a word for. So I once again have no idea how I'm feeling, except for my overwhelming desire to just stay in bed. Forever.

Last night I went to an FC Cincinnati game, finally, but before I headed out I tried to pinpoint when I last went to a professional soccer match. I'm pretty sure it was when I lived in Scotland, and the longer I thought about it the more the absurdity of that realization dawned on me. Despite all that I've left undone and all that's still to come on my bucket list, the fact is that my 39 years have been pretty amazing, mostly by accident, and the best part of it all was the 13 I spent with my Chadwick. Who had 39 pretty amazing years himself.

Today's the last day I can say I spent one-third of my life with him. From now on, that percentage will shrink. Today is the last age (39 years, four months, 14 days) we will ever have in common. Tomorrow is the first day I shoot without a script. Maybe I still have time to write one great solo.

Maybe I still have time. Maybe there's more amazing to come. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to pull myself out of bed one more time.

What I Read: August

After I finished the blanket I'd been working on since April at the end of July, I suddenly felt like I had all this time for reading. Which I promptly filled with other things, because I'm still me in here and my brain is apt to wander off from time to time to see what's happening in the next room, so to speak.

However, August was at least better than the last few months have been, so that's something.

As always, all links and images are from Goodreads. Let's be friends and you can see all the things I've read. Books are in alphabetical order, not the order I read them in, because chronological is so 2016.

First-time reads:
Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, Daisy Hernandez & Bushra Rehman
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World, Bob Goff
Nurse Matilda: The Collected Tales, Christianna Brand
Our Bodies, Our Bikes, Elly Blue & April Streeter


Re-reads:
Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save The Economy, Elly Blue


Books by women:
Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, Daisy Hernandez & Bushra Rehman
Nurse Matilda: The Collected Tales, Christianna Brand
Our Bodies, Our Bikes, Elly Blue & April Streeter


Goodreads challenge: 20 of 52 books in 2017


What are you reading?

The Longest Wait

A few months ago, I finally took the plunge I've been thinking about doing for far too many years and sponsored a child through Compassion International. When you sign up to sponsor a kid, you can sort by age, gender, country, and probably a few other things, so I did the only thing I could think of: I sorted by length of wait and clicked on the kid who'd been waiting for a sponsor the longest.

First letter from Juan Diego.

And then when I went to the next page to finalize my transaction, the clever-clever web folks at Compassion had one final question for me: did I want to multiply my efforts and sponsor another kid from the same area? Of course I did, et voilà, I'm now the delighted sponsor of two little boys, Nelson and Juan Diego, from the same town. I don't know if they know each other yet. I hope they will get to be friends along the way as they're growing up together. They're both very young, so I'm going to be sponsoring them for a long time indeed. It's gonna be great.

First letter from Nelson.

Since I went for "longest wait," it was just by accident that I got Spanish-speaking children who I can write to in their native language, kinda. I hope I'm at least saving the Compassion translators a bit of time and energy. My sponsor packets arrived on my birthday, which was the coolest birthday gift I've received in years.

So, I blog and I'm a Compassion sponsor--does this make me a Compassion Blogger? Haha, no, although I'm thinking about joining that group, so stay tuned. It's not like I don't have enough words to do that--I can probably scrounge some up.

If Compassion International isn't for you--and I do recognize quite readily that joining forces with a Christian organization is not for everyone--please find some good work that you can support. Maybe it's your local food pantry. Maybe it's an advocacy group advancing a cause that's close to your heart. Maybe it's disaster relief, or education, or leaving a bag of groceries on the doorstep of a struggling family in your neighborhood. Whatever is the best way for you to make this planet a better place, find it and do it. Don't wait too long. Make today the day.

Let's leave the world better than we found it.

Conscious Choices

I took my own words to heart last week and decided that if I'm going to call it quits with running, that it has to be a conscious decision. Otherwise, I have to make the decision to lace up and head out every day. But either way, I wasn't going to let inertia decide for me.

Surprise, surprise-- I love running and am not ready to put it behind me yet. I signed up for the local Turkey Trot and renewed my subscription to Runner's World all in the same day.

That was the easy part. The hard part is still suiting up, stepping out my door, and putting in the miles, which I haven't completely forgotten how to do. Fortunately, not a lot of miles are required to train for a 10K. It's not like I signed up for a marathon and therefore signed hours of my week away for the next four months. But I've survived worse things than having to get up the first time my alarm goes off. I can do this.

We only get so many of these, after
all. Source: Benjamin Earwicker
on freeimages.com.

One of the benefits of running is that its lessons spill over into other areas of life. The realization that I was once again slipping into living my life by default, instead of taking hold with both hands of the time and abilities I have and stretching them in every possible way, has jolted me enough to take a look at other areas of my life. My social media use definitely bears more looking at--I've already backed away from Facebook about as much as I can, because that's not a pleasant space any longer, but I can still get lost in Pinterest for hours. My to-do list of art/craft projects is longer than my ta-done! list, again, with supplies kicking around waiting for "someday" to arrive. Community opportunities that would require me to occasionally leave my house and go do things keep coming my way.

I hear there's an eclipse to watch, with appropriate care, today.

Whichever of these things I choose to do, or not do, I want to at least engage my brain long enough to make a choice. I want to be present in my own life, and not on autopilot.

What choices are you making today?