The new year dawning

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

'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.

Surely Joy: The Book

Update January 2020: Surely Joy is sold out! I may someday do a reprint, a revised and expanded edition, or an eBook--and I'll update this post if I do--but for now, they're gone. Thanks to everyone who supported 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.

I didn't plan it this way, but I just counted the chapters in Surely Joy and there are 56, one for every year I've been alive (though about half come from the past five years). There are writings from newspapers, magazines, and my earlier blogs (Red State Rebels, Sidewalk 208, Carfree California) as well as from this one (and you may recognize the cover photo if you've been reading this blog for a while).

Whether you've been reading my stuff for decades or you've just found me, thank you for your support of my work.

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.

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 ~ Julie

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. 

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.

Southern California coast, October 2017. Photo by Julie Fanselow