I love odd, meandering dreams. I don't have (or remember) them often enough, but I woke up from one today just as a minor plot point had been revealed: There was a new "Wayne"--that is, Mike Myers was no longer the affable cable-access show host in Aurora, Illinois. Someone else would play him.
As if! I'm not sure where that came from, but my waking mind moved next to the idea of shedding one's skin. That's as apt a metaphor as any for the last day of 2017, and it's when I knew I needed to get up and write something.
New Year's Day is often a time when we commit to something new. I've recently begun a new practice I plan to continue in the new year: reading an essay on paper (not online) first thing most mornings, then writing a bit (also on paper) about what I've read, and maybe just a bit about what's happening in my life, too. I've mostly been reading works at random from The Best American Essays 2017. I'll recount a few themes from memory:
A woman pieces together the fragments of the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history, at Hawk's Nest, West Virginia, where hundreds of men digging a tunnel died slow deaths.
A man with cerebral palsy recounts acting in The Wizard of Oz as a boy, and meeting one of the Munchkins from the famous film.
A woman works a low-wage job in a hospital ER while paying off the five-figure debt she incurred trying to take her own life.
Two young men in Harare, Zimbabwe, try to raise money to come to college in America. They have scholarships, but they need travel funds and living expenses.
A woman and her two daughters abandon their life in California to seek a new one, with new identities, in Colorado. (This one had me at its early mention of that kid-lit classic The Monster at the End of this Book.)
A young couple from the Midwest leave their hipster town for life in a very cheap backwater along the Great Lakes.
I dream of someday reading for fun many hours each day. But since I must read--and read closely--for my work as an editor, I rarely take time each day for leisure reading. These early-morning sessions are my attempt to do that, and I love how the essays give me glimpses of how other people are living--and often how they're shedding their skins to do or be or see something new. To grow.
In last night's dream, I also remember recounting to someone the blogs I've written over the years. Well, today actually is the third anniversary of Surely Joy. I started it as a resolution of sorts with two posts at the tail end of 2014, and while I don't write here all that often, I'm grateful to have somewhere to write.
Happy new year, and may 2018 be a year of new insights, growth, and of course joy for us all.
via GIPHY
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
'How not to make everything worse'
Those were the all-capped words on the opening slide of Karen Yin's keynote talk earlier this fall at the Northwest Independent Editors Guild's Red Pencil Conference. "Thank you to the Guild for asking me to come talk about everything that's wrong with the world," said Yin, founder of the Conscious Style Guide, noting that life today seems like one horrific event after another. "There's no give and we're all getting crushed," she added.
Yin is also the creator of the AP vs. Chicago website, which hashes over how different sources treat things like spaces with em dashes and whether or not to use an apostrophe after a proper noun ending in "s." Yet as Editors Guild president Jill Walters noted in introducing Yin, "Nobody's really going to care if you split an infinitive on Twitter." Larger things than grammar are at stake in our world right now, and Yin offered ideas on how editors can conscientiously foster compassion and healing in a world that seems set on rage autopilot.
Among what she said: Toxins in our communication enter our system and create trauma. Handling language mindfully is part of our job. Yin proposed this four-point set of guidelines: Tell the truth. Don't exaggerate. Be consistent. Use peaceful language.
It is so easy to be pissed off all the time these days. I used to think of anger as righteous. Now I see the ability to keep my rage in check as its own form of resistance, not to mention a robust spiritual practice. It's the best I can do. Call out injustice, then cultivate calm.
It's heartening to see signs that the tide may be turning -- and of course the light is coming back soon, too. As Karen Yin told our editors' gathering, we can choose not to make everything worse. We can choose compassion and kindness, even as we share truths that must be told.
Yin is also the creator of the AP vs. Chicago website, which hashes over how different sources treat things like spaces with em dashes and whether or not to use an apostrophe after a proper noun ending in "s." Yet as Editors Guild president Jill Walters noted in introducing Yin, "Nobody's really going to care if you split an infinitive on Twitter." Larger things than grammar are at stake in our world right now, and Yin offered ideas on how editors can conscientiously foster compassion and healing in a world that seems set on rage autopilot.
Among what she said: Toxins in our communication enter our system and create trauma. Handling language mindfully is part of our job. Yin proposed this four-point set of guidelines: Tell the truth. Don't exaggerate. Be consistent. Use peaceful language.
It is so easy to be pissed off all the time these days. I used to think of anger as righteous. Now I see the ability to keep my rage in check as its own form of resistance, not to mention a robust spiritual practice. It's the best I can do. Call out injustice, then cultivate calm.
It's heartening to see signs that the tide may be turning -- and of course the light is coming back soon, too. As Karen Yin told our editors' gathering, we can choose not to make everything worse. We can choose compassion and kindness, even as we share truths that must be told.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Surely Joy: The Book
I'm very happy to say that Surely Joy is now a book, too.
For some time, I've been meaning to put together a collection of my writing. The first chapter dates from 1993, an essay for my hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The last is a previously unpublished piece I wrote especially for the book. In between, there are selections on parenthood, politics, music, and movies, along with a few travelogues and love songs to libraries.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Holiday feasting ... and films!
Two timely thoughts heading into Thanksgiving week:
I love this article from today's Seattle Times about a local cookbook author whose book has blown up in Japan. Bethany Jean Clement recounts how Kathleen Flinn's book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, was published in Japan with the hilarious title The Magic Cooking Classroom that Changes Bad Girls' Lives. As Flinn told Clement:
My editor and translator’s take is that in Japanese culture, women are expected to be able to do it all — have a career, be an immaculate housekeeper, a fabulous mother, a diligent daughter and an amazing individual with extensive hobbies, and a talented cook,” Flinn says. Dryly, she observes, “This may sound familiar to American women.”
I am not much of a cook, but this story is funny--and it makes me think even I might want to take a knife-handling class at Tom Douglas' Hot Stove Society. (Flinn has another book titled The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.) The article also has five tips for fearless holiday cooking, so if you are in charge of the holiday feast and feel some trepidation, you'll feel better after reading it.
I love this article from today's Seattle Times about a local cookbook author whose book has blown up in Japan. Bethany Jean Clement recounts how Kathleen Flinn's book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, was published in Japan with the hilarious title The Magic Cooking Classroom that Changes Bad Girls' Lives. As Flinn told Clement:
My editor and translator’s take is that in Japanese culture, women are expected to be able to do it all — have a career, be an immaculate housekeeper, a fabulous mother, a diligent daughter and an amazing individual with extensive hobbies, and a talented cook,” Flinn says. Dryly, she observes, “This may sound familiar to American women.”
I am not much of a cook, but this story is funny--and it makes me think even I might want to take a knife-handling class at Tom Douglas' Hot Stove Society. (Flinn has another book titled The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.) The article also has five tips for fearless holiday cooking, so if you are in charge of the holiday feast and feel some trepidation, you'll feel better after reading it.
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
A good time and place to think
Late fall is here. It's getting dark early. This is the season where, up here in the far left corner, in America's most well-read city, many of us get ready to burrow into our books.
My sweetie and I started an Airbnb space a few months ago, and it was booked solid from summer into early fall. Fewer people travel to this part of the world in the rainy season, so we have lots of dates open on our calendar for the next few months.Our place is close to Seattle but it feels far away from the city. It's modest but comfortable; my goal is for it to mirror the philosophy I write about here on Surely Joy, and for it to be a welcoming spot where you can rest, reconnect with nature, and hear yourself breathe.
Right now, we have a couple staying while they're in town on business; they have two weeks in our space for the cost of about three-and-a-half nights in a downtown Seattle hotel. But we also welcome people staying for long weekends or even just a couple of nights. And although no one but me has used it as a writer's retreat, I have a feeling others would enjoy it for that purpose, too.
Check it out if you need a place to stay near Seattle, or a place to rest and rejuvenate. If you're a first-time Airbnb user, use this link and you will save $40 on your first Airbnb stay of $75 or more. Thank You Gracias Merci Dank ~ JulieThursday, October 12, 2017
Dig it all
I got a new phone this week. Not the one that costs a thousand bucks, but an 18-month-old model that somehow is now already two or three generations old; I've lost count.
I'm a dedicated medium-late adopter, so by the time I get around to buying any hardware, the price has dropped and the bugs are fixed. This phone replaces one that served me well for (gulp) more than four years. I almost hate to let go of the latter since 50 months is by far the longest I've ever kept a phone and I really liked it, but the battery life was starting to fade.
Like my previous phone, this new one fits in one hand and in my front pocket, important since I like to go places without a purse when I can. (I don’t understand how some people carry their phone in their back pocket, which seems like an invitation both to butt-dials and theft. But I digress.) With twice the memory of my old phone, a far better camera, and a speedy processor, it's definitely a step up. It was time.
I know it’s important to back up your contacts before getting a new phone. I’d done that with my previous phones, but I’d never pared them down. I did so this time, culling my contacts by more than half. Gone are the dozens of duplicates. So, too, are the names and numbers of most of the big team of health professionals that helped my Dad through his final years.
So are contacts from jobs I had in the late 2000s, and the names and numbers of my daughter’s friends from the same era. (I'd inherited her first phone, an orange LG one with an inner keyboard.) As an aside, I really hated touch-screen smart phones when they first came out, but of course I got used to them -- and I wrote most of this in the Notes app on my new phone, waiting for the bus today.
I've recycled most of my old phones, but I still have that orange one, just because it is an awesome relic from the not-distant past. (See below.) And I still have its predecessor, a flip phone from near the turn of the century, just in case I someday need to live even leaner than I do now. But for now, I'm living large--for me, anyway--with my not-so-new smartphone.
I'm a dedicated medium-late adopter, so by the time I get around to buying any hardware, the price has dropped and the bugs are fixed. This phone replaces one that served me well for (gulp) more than four years. I almost hate to let go of the latter since 50 months is by far the longest I've ever kept a phone and I really liked it, but the battery life was starting to fade.
Like my previous phone, this new one fits in one hand and in my front pocket, important since I like to go places without a purse when I can. (I don’t understand how some people carry their phone in their back pocket, which seems like an invitation both to butt-dials and theft. But I digress.) With twice the memory of my old phone, a far better camera, and a speedy processor, it's definitely a step up. It was time.
I know it’s important to back up your contacts before getting a new phone. I’d done that with my previous phones, but I’d never pared them down. I did so this time, culling my contacts by more than half. Gone are the dozens of duplicates. So, too, are the names and numbers of most of the big team of health professionals that helped my Dad through his final years.
So are contacts from jobs I had in the late 2000s, and the names and numbers of my daughter’s friends from the same era. (I'd inherited her first phone, an orange LG one with an inner keyboard.) As an aside, I really hated touch-screen smart phones when they first came out, but of course I got used to them -- and I wrote most of this in the Notes app on my new phone, waiting for the bus today.
I've recycled most of my old phones, but I still have that orange one, just because it is an awesome relic from the not-distant past. (See below.) And I still have its predecessor, a flip phone from near the turn of the century, just in case I someday need to live even leaner than I do now. But for now, I'm living large--for me, anyway--with my not-so-new smartphone.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
How to be a survivor
The sun is setting as we leave Sacramento. I am happy to see this day end, happy to be on an airplane heading home after this double gut-punch of a day.
Morning started quietly, the golden California light spilling into our hotel room. We'd flown south to watch the Mariners play their last game of the season, and although we lost, we'd seen another MLB park, met up with some fellow fans, and enjoyed ourselves.
With a few extra hours between our hotel checkout and flight, we planned to go to a movie. But first, breakfast. At home, I never have the TV on anytime close to breakfast and I don't watch cable news. On the road ... is there a hotel breakfast room anywhere in the United States without cable news? At least the sound was turned down as we saw grave-faced Las Vegas officials speak behind the headline at the bottom of the big screen: 58 dead and more than 500 hurt at a music festival.
My first thought was of the woman we'd sat with on the flight south who was joining her brother and other family and friends in Las Vegas to celebrate his 50th birthday. My second thought was of the other violence at concerts and dance halls and movie theaters over the past decade, and how it's become almost routine to hear of madmen targeting people out for a good time.
We stuck to our plan and went to the movie -- Stronger, about Jeff Bauman, the Boston Marathon bombing survivor who loses two legs and eventually gains a spine through his ordeal. Josh Ritter's yearning, determined "Homecoming" plays during the credits. I feel a little better. Then, as we leave the theater, Tom learns via an email on his phone that Tom Petty has died. Yet another dose of heartbreak -- and of course, I take it personally.
Those of us who remain must wonder how many more senseless episodes like this are ahead of us. I say something to Tom about not feeling too sure how many more years of this world--as messed up as it is now--anyone might reasonably want to endure.
And he says the perfect thing, the only thing. He says it's yet another reminder to be mindful and grateful every day. Of course it is.
One of the most horrible things about Sunday's shooting was how it maimed 10 times as many people as it killed. These are the people who could reasonably question whether they'd rather be dead. Jeff Bauman had something to say to them via his Facebook page the other day:
To those who lost friends and loved ones—I’m so sorry. I know there are no words that can bring comfort but please know that the world is behind you.
To the victims waking up in a hospital right now wondering how life will ever be the same... I know your pain. The most important advice I can give is to remember that healing your mind is just as important as healing your physical, visible injuries. It took me too many years and dark moments to realize that and it is so, so important. You will walk again. You will laugh again. You will dance again. You will live again.
Please consider making a gift to the Las Vegas Victims Fund. Support like this is what got me through-every little bit counts in the days ahead.
If you are reading this, you are a survivor. Maybe the key to living through times like these is, indeed, to give. Some will give money, others will share words or hugs or comfort. It all matters.
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| Southern California coast, October 2017. Photo by Julie Fanselow |
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Fall housekeeping
So yesterday, when it rained much of the day, it felt sacramental. And especially at a time when people in other regions are suffering the after-effects of forest fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes, I will not begrudge whatever weather comes our way.
As much as spring always feels like a fresh start, so does fall. With our smoky skies cleared and our streets washed clean, with a new school year underway and baseball season winding down (giving me a little more free time since I am a seating host), autumn is one of my favorite times of year.
Today, I say farewell to two young women who have been staying in our Airbnb these past few weeks as they (successfully) looked for an apartment of their own. It's a challenge and an adventure to move to Seattle these days, so we were happy to give them a launchpad. We'll welcome our next guests in a few days -- but first, I'll enjoy the quiet of the space myself for a while.
Tonight, I begin a new session of the UU Wellspring curriculum I enjoyed the church year before last. I look forward to Wellspring as another opportunity for personal spiritual deepening, as well as the opportunity to walk now through next spring with a small group of kindred spirits.
I find that I blog a little more often during Wellspring, and I now have a little email subscription widget at the top right corner of this blog, if you'd like to see everything I write on here. (Don't worry; it'll still only be a post or two each week at the most.)
One more housekeeping note: I've been compiling a book-length collection of things I've written here and elsewhere over the past 25 years. It'll probably be out before the holidays, so watch this space for more news on that.
Wishing us all a lovely fall ...
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Back to the future
Five years ago this month, I launched a blog called Carfree California. I'd moved to Oakland from Idaho earlier that year and was finally able to live without a car -- something I'd long dreamed of doing.
When I moved to Seattle about a year later, I retired that blog and started this one. I continued to live without owning a car for my first two-and-a-half years here. But last March, I surprised myself and everyone who knew me by going out and buying a 2002 VW Jetta.
I did it on a whim; I'd just grown tired of not owning wheels. It was spring and I wanted to take some road trips without the expense of rentals. I'd received a nice tax refund and I paid cash, so there'd be no car payment. Part of me felt guilty for selling out on my ideals. Another part of me said "what the heck." As our buddy Walt wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
Fast forward to this week: I take the Jetta in for an oil change and 95,000 mile safety check. The garage calls me with very sad news: The car needs new front and rear brakes, plus a new timing belt and water pump. Ka-ching! After 18 months of spending little beyond gas and insurance, the true cost of car ownership has come due.
So what do I do? I've decided to let go of the car, but it's not a simple decision -- mainly because six months ago, I moved from Seattle to the suburbs, where I now live with my sweetie of four years. It's a lot harder to live here without a car, though not impossible. We have other vehicles in the household, there are bus lines, and I like to walk.
I don't feel like pumping endless money into a vehicle that's going to need many more repairs over its lifetime. And I have to admit: I'm trying to set an example that there are alternative ways to live. Many people view not having a car as deprivation, and after owning one myself for 18 months, I could easily feel that way, too. I get it.
But as I learned in my four earlier years of living without wheels, not owning a car is an adventure. I walk more. I see more. I spend less. I trade convenience for greater consciousness -- of the natural world and of my fellow humans.
Like many other things in life, it's not always easy, but with a good attitude, it can be pretty cool.
When I moved to Seattle about a year later, I retired that blog and started this one. I continued to live without owning a car for my first two-and-a-half years here. But last March, I surprised myself and everyone who knew me by going out and buying a 2002 VW Jetta.
I did it on a whim; I'd just grown tired of not owning wheels. It was spring and I wanted to take some road trips without the expense of rentals. I'd received a nice tax refund and I paid cash, so there'd be no car payment. Part of me felt guilty for selling out on my ideals. Another part of me said "what the heck." As our buddy Walt wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
Fast forward to this week: I take the Jetta in for an oil change and 95,000 mile safety check. The garage calls me with very sad news: The car needs new front and rear brakes, plus a new timing belt and water pump. Ka-ching! After 18 months of spending little beyond gas and insurance, the true cost of car ownership has come due.
So what do I do? I've decided to let go of the car, but it's not a simple decision -- mainly because six months ago, I moved from Seattle to the suburbs, where I now live with my sweetie of four years. It's a lot harder to live here without a car, though not impossible. We have other vehicles in the household, there are bus lines, and I like to walk.
But as I learned in my four earlier years of living without wheels, not owning a car is an adventure. I walk more. I see more. I spend less. I trade convenience for greater consciousness -- of the natural world and of my fellow humans.
Like many other things in life, it's not always easy, but with a good attitude, it can be pretty cool.
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| On a road trip last year in Idaho. |
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Take time for the sublime
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| Eastern Oregon during the total solar eclipse, August 21. Photo by Rebecca Hom. |
I keep thinking about the corona, a shimmering white ring around that perfect black disc. It looked like the eye of the universe, and afterward I wondered: What if eclipses like this happen every day somewhere, in some galaxy, but no one is there to see them?
Eyewitness. I'd seen photos -- and I'd made drawings -- of solar flares radiating from behind the moon's mask, but it was nothing like that. I'd read Annie Dillard's essay about the fearsome, fast-moving shadow she saw during the 1979 eclipse, and I was expecting something out of an end-of-the-world movie, but it was nothing like that.
Instead, we were draped in a blanket of incredible blue-violet, a shade I'd never before seen, which my friend Rebecca thankfully captured in this photo. (I didn't even try to get any photos during totality.) The corona shone over Eastern Oregon for a minute-and-a-half or so, then the show was over. It was amazing how fast it became daylight again, even with only a crescent sliver of sun.
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| Compadres |
Of course, I want to see another one. Argentina in 2019? Texas in 2024? Who knows? But even if I never get to see another total solar eclipse, I'm grateful I took time to see this one.
I also know that for every grand spectacle, there is some small moment of Zen available to us every day. I'll remain watchful for those, too.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Inexpressible privacy, silent and unambitious
When I wrote my last post and linked to it on social media, a friend commented, "Very nice, lots to think about. Write more." And that could be taken at least two ways, right? Write more in one post, or write more often. Maybe both.
I'm not sure why I'm not blogging at least a little more often. A dozen years ago, as one of the nation's busiest political bloggers, I posted constantly. But these days, when I have something to say, I guess I want to let it echo for a while.
Speaking of echoes, something Henry David Thoreau wrote has been reverberating in my head all this spring. It's in his Natural History of Massachusetts, just a few lines from his comment ("Surely joy is the condition of life") from which I named this blog. He writes:
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, Lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe ...
Oh my. Can you imagine what Thoreau would think of the din vibrating around us today? He goes on to say:
... When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life -- how silent and unambitious it is.
Those two phrases. Is it possible in 2017 to live a private life? This morning, I'm thinking about one private life that ended a few days ago when a young Seattle mother was shot by two police officers she'd called on for help. Her life mattered. I changed my Facebook profile photo to honor her today. It feels like the right thing to do. I get that.
I have written before that I am weary of politics. I am weary of the din. I know that it's a marker of privilege that I can go weeks and months without publicly weighing in on the daily acts of violence swirling around us.
But by heeding the call to contemplate nature and sit with my spirit, to be mostly private and silent and unambitious as a practice, every day, I am able to cultivate the kind of calm I need to face the madness of our world.
(Read more Thoreau here.)
I'm not sure why I'm not blogging at least a little more often. A dozen years ago, as one of the nation's busiest political bloggers, I posted constantly. But these days, when I have something to say, I guess I want to let it echo for a while.
Speaking of echoes, something Henry David Thoreau wrote has been reverberating in my head all this spring. It's in his Natural History of Massachusetts, just a few lines from his comment ("Surely joy is the condition of life") from which I named this blog. He writes:
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, Lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe ...
Oh my. Can you imagine what Thoreau would think of the din vibrating around us today? He goes on to say:
... When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life -- how silent and unambitious it is.
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| Monet's pond, Giverny. Photo by Julie Fanselow, 2017. |
Those two phrases. Is it possible in 2017 to live a private life? This morning, I'm thinking about one private life that ended a few days ago when a young Seattle mother was shot by two police officers she'd called on for help. Her life mattered. I changed my Facebook profile photo to honor her today. It feels like the right thing to do. I get that.
I have written before that I am weary of politics. I am weary of the din. I know that it's a marker of privilege that I can go weeks and months without publicly weighing in on the daily acts of violence swirling around us.
But by heeding the call to contemplate nature and sit with my spirit, to be mostly private and silent and unambitious as a practice, every day, I am able to cultivate the kind of calm I need to face the madness of our world.
(Read more Thoreau here.)
Thursday, May 18, 2017
'We're all just walking each other home ...'
At the start of this post, my first in a long while, I want to pause and say thanks to a few people:
Thanks to the civil servants who are speaking out. Thanks to the journalists who are speaking truth to power. Thanks to the everyday people who are doing whatever they can to keep this great spinning world more or less upright amid a lot of wobbling.
My little brother in California is reeling today from news of the death of Chris Cornell, the musician who was only 52 when he apparently ended his life yesterday. My cousin is in an Illinois hospital awaiting further word on a serious medical condition. I wish I could hug my brother and hold my cousin's hand, but sending love via email has to do.
The quote at the top of this post is from Ram Dass. I love it, and I've been seeing it weekly on the emails I get from Terry Hershey (whose "Create Space for Grace" e-course I'm eager to start next week).
"We're all just walking each other home ..."
What a lovely thought when none of us knows the way. We may think we do, or wish we did, but we don't.
Delicious ambiguity, the Rev. Marisol Caballero called it in her post at Braver/Wiser yesterday. She wrote:
The longer I live, the more I am taught he same lesson, over and over, by wildly different circumstances: the more I expect the unexpected; the more I roll with the punches of life’s tragedies and revel in life’s joys and victories; the more I give in to the reality that I am not as in charge of and cannot plan as much of this life as I would like, the more I can fully experience and even come to enjoy the deliciousness of my journey’s ambiguity.
Thanks to the civil servants who are speaking out. Thanks to the journalists who are speaking truth to power. Thanks to the everyday people who are doing whatever they can to keep this great spinning world more or less upright amid a lot of wobbling.
My little brother in California is reeling today from news of the death of Chris Cornell, the musician who was only 52 when he apparently ended his life yesterday. My cousin is in an Illinois hospital awaiting further word on a serious medical condition. I wish I could hug my brother and hold my cousin's hand, but sending love via email has to do.
The quote at the top of this post is from Ram Dass. I love it, and I've been seeing it weekly on the emails I get from Terry Hershey (whose "Create Space for Grace" e-course I'm eager to start next week).
"We're all just walking each other home ..."
What a lovely thought when none of us knows the way. We may think we do, or wish we did, but we don't.
Delicious ambiguity, the Rev. Marisol Caballero called it in her post at Braver/Wiser yesterday. She wrote:
The longer I live, the more I am taught he same lesson, over and over, by wildly different circumstances: the more I expect the unexpected; the more I roll with the punches of life’s tragedies and revel in life’s joys and victories; the more I give in to the reality that I am not as in charge of and cannot plan as much of this life as I would like, the more I can fully experience and even come to enjoy the deliciousness of my journey’s ambiguity.
Embracing and even enjoying ambiguity. Creating space for grace. These are the things we are called to do in this moment -- that and reaching out to people we love, however we can, to assure them they are not alone.
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| "Sequence" by Richard Serra, SFMOMA. Photo by Julie Fanselow, 2017. |
Saturday, January 21, 2017
One day at a time
Today is the first full day of the Trump era, and marches are happening all over the world. I applaud and support the efforts, and the me of five, ten, or fifteen years ago would have pulled on a pussy hat and been in the throng.
I understand the impulse toward protesting in the streets, but here's what I plan to do instead today and every day during these next four years: pretty much what I've been doing the past four years. How can I live every day in a way that defies the times in which we've found ourselves?
I'll try to be useful. My partisan days are behind me, but I'll look for opportunities to plug in and live my values. Yesterday, I volunteered with the Human Rights Campaign for a financial planning workshop at Year Up, which gives young adults life skills training.
I'll live large with a small footprint. At yesterday's session, we talked about how to plan a car purchase. The two bits of life wisdom I brought to the table were "ask yourself if you even need a car" and, if you do, whether you can pay cash for something that'll get you around without getting you into debt.
I'll seek out as much art as I can, in museums and on the streets.
I'll listen to music, and play some, too.
I'll take long walks.
I'll be a conscious consumer. I'll carefully curate my media consumption.*
I'll be as mindful as I can, and I'll try to be as kind as I can, too.
I'll love and be loved.
I'll believe in the long arc, even as it sputters two steps backward in our nation's journey. I'll be grateful that I live in a city and region where civility and progress continue to be our path.
* Here are a few people whose work I find to be inspiring, positive, and "worthy of my valuable time," as my sweetheart likes to say (and he anonymously tops this list):
updated May 2017 ... feel free to use the comments to suggest other sites that help you stay grounded
Austin Kleon
Braver/Wiser from the UUA
Chris Thile
Krista Tippett and On Being
Sabbath Moment from Terry Hershey
Seth Godin
Leo Babauta and Zen Habits
I understand the impulse toward protesting in the streets, but here's what I plan to do instead today and every day during these next four years: pretty much what I've been doing the past four years. How can I live every day in a way that defies the times in which we've found ourselves?
I'll try to be useful. My partisan days are behind me, but I'll look for opportunities to plug in and live my values. Yesterday, I volunteered with the Human Rights Campaign for a financial planning workshop at Year Up, which gives young adults life skills training.
I'll live large with a small footprint. At yesterday's session, we talked about how to plan a car purchase. The two bits of life wisdom I brought to the table were "ask yourself if you even need a car" and, if you do, whether you can pay cash for something that'll get you around without getting you into debt.
I'll seek out as much art as I can, in museums and on the streets.
I'll listen to music, and play some, too.
I'll take long walks.
I'll be a conscious consumer. I'll carefully curate my media consumption.*
I'll be as mindful as I can, and I'll try to be as kind as I can, too.
I'll love and be loved.
I'll believe in the long arc, even as it sputters two steps backward in our nation's journey. I'll be grateful that I live in a city and region where civility and progress continue to be our path.
* Here are a few people whose work I find to be inspiring, positive, and "worthy of my valuable time," as my sweetheart likes to say (and he anonymously tops this list):
updated May 2017 ... feel free to use the comments to suggest other sites that help you stay grounded
Austin Kleon
Braver/Wiser from the UUA
Chris Thile
Krista Tippett and On Being
Sabbath Moment from Terry Hershey
Seth Godin
Leo Babauta and Zen Habits
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