Okay, let it snow…

02 Dec 2025 Leave a comment

***

We knew this would happen, and “all the sudden” here it is! December 1st arrived yesterday and brought with it a brief heavy snow, so it’s official: For those who celebrate, Christmas is on its way and so is winter. I played the Old Card and chose to observe the first snow of the season by abstaining from the gym and my Monday workout, which turns out to have been the wise decision. When Kim got home from pickleball he said the streets were crazy and so were the drivers, and then I read that parts of town looked like a parking lot. This lil’ troublemaker didn’t need to be leaving tracks out there, so home and fireplace it was and it was lovely.

By now you know I’m not a holiday fanatic, or even much of a fan, but I do love the seasons, warts and all. Cold, heat, rain, snow, all good in their time because I’m fortunate enough to have a safe place that’s in out of the weather, and when I walk around town I realize what a big deal that is. The world has changed immeasurably in the new millennium, but the milk of human kindness hasn’t entirely soured yet. Every day on our local Facebook page I see proof that we still know how to love each other. Some typical posts:

“I have a bag of potatoes I need to share with someone while they’re still nice. Can you use them?”

“I found a wallet on the sidewalk today. If you’ve lost one, please provide pertinent details and we’ll git ‘er done.”

“I’m new in town, single mom, and my car’s sitting in my driveway with a flat tire. Can somebody recommend a reliable service for me to call?” (Gives general area of town.)

Followed quickly by: “Ma’am, I’m close to your neighborhood, I’ll be over in just a few minutes, no charge.”

“I have one less working guy to feed this evening, so if you need/want a plate of hot food, stop and get it on your way home.”

And on and on every day, the little stops and starts, the deep breaths, the choices made, the life sustained. They’re the golden threads, the tiny veins and capillaries that nourish this great human mating ball and keep us from annihilating our species. They’re the stuff life is actually made of and we don’t see a fraction of it.

On this sunshiny, sparkly day, though, things seem a little clearer… just for a bit… and it feels nice. I still have enough Pollyanna left to hope for a profusion of sparkly days ahead… and to hope we’ll know what to do with such abundance.

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Image by Judy Smith

Month by month…

06 Sep 2025 2 Comments

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Abundant August rains have brought us to a lush September, and fall should be a show of color. I love all of autumn but I may be prejudiced toward the month of September since it contains my birth date (today) so just know I’m doing some extra thinking. I staggered into a Facebook site last week called WDNC, populated by women WhoDoNotCare, and it’s as therapeutic as you might already imagine. In that vein and a spirit of celebration:

IDNC that I’ve never, in all these years, managed to fit the mold. Full disclosure, I still don’t even know where and what it is, so I guess that gives us the pertinent information right there, hm.

IDNC that on the little things I’m wrong more often than right, that’s just bad luck. On the BIG things I’m far more often right.

IDNC that I alone can say what qualifies as large or small in life.

There are many things I genuinely no longer care about and most of them are things I should never have cared about at all, so passing birthdays are good for perspective and a few other concepts like longevity, which reminds me… I’m not old. Not yet. Both of my grandmothers saw 96 with their minds in working order and I call that incentive. My mom had me in the same September in which she turned 20, so I always knew exactly how old she was. This year she would be 98 and likely still wouldn’t be “old,” so there’s some more perspective.

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The state of human existence being what it is, I offer one piece of advice from this vantage point: Whatever it is, do it NOW.

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And everybody still gets one special birthday wish, right?

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Image by Judy Smith

Totally random…

05 Aug 2025 Leave a comment

***

Soooo, we’re into yet another new month, for good or ill. It’s still summer, it’s still gonna be hot, and the world is still in a wackadoodle state of mind, but happy August, boys and girls, the countdown to Christmas has begun.

Our summer skies have been just this side of eerie, and I finally realized that we were getting smoke from Canada’s fires. At times we can smell it in the air and it hangs heavy over the river. This is fair trade, considering that Canadians must feel like they’re living in an apartment above a meth lab most of the time. Thank you for your grace, northern neighbors.

It’s been a summer sprinkled with small discoveries of great import. I learned that choosing a new doctor just might provide fascinating (i.e. life or death) tidbits concerning certain meds and their dosages. I am now acing the test on that chapter. A second discovery has to do with people and their faces. Most everyone with distinctive features reminds me of someone else, and I finally realized it’s because I’ve been roaming the earth long enough to have seen those features in endless combinations on a never-ending succession of faces, thus making them all seem somehow familiar. It’s comforting except when it isn’t. Full disclosure, there are a few faces I’d rather not see again in this lifetime.

A key summer discovery was that coffee and herbal tea are not the same animal, and that caffeine has much more to say to me on a daily basis than I knew. Got a wild hair to see if I might feel more serene internally without the influence of coffee, so I quit cold turkey. Started drinking a delicious herbal tea. Felt somehow healthier. Cleaner. Let’s face it, righteous. By the time I’d slept away five afternoons in succession I was pretty disillusioned about the whole thing, so caffeine it is, at least for now, just less of it. I am not above accepting a little help with daily living.

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These are hard times, so do what you can to entertain joy, which is mostly found in the simple things. Good coffee, lovely tea, excellent food, kind and astute friends, love shared… it’s all joy. And there are always flowers somewhere.

“Wildflowers” by Aoife Dowd, Irish artist. Oil on canvas.

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Image by Judy Smith

Seems like just yesterday…

25 Jul 2025 Leave a comment

Photo by Kim Smith 07/2025

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This week we’re celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary, a number that might confound the skeptics but makes us happy. Yesterday we had lunch in the Rozelle Room in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, a space that lends itself to retrospection… perspective… and projection. I wondered out loud if we might have another 21 years in us and neither of us laughed, so we’ll see. I’d be 99 years old and Kim would still be the kid he’s always been, but what’s life without the challenges, right?

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The Rozelle Room. It’s casually elegant and the museum is a 3-day experience, so we’ll be going back soon. Yesterday we primarily saw the Egyptian exhibition and the one for Photography, half of which is currently closed for renovations. It’s a pretty wonderful place and good for getting steps in if you’re counting.

So… starting on the next twenty. Can’t wait.

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Image by Judy Smith

Hello out there…

25 Apr 2025 2 Comments

***

Remember blog posts? Somebody who sounds a whole lot like me has stopped by here a handful of times since Christmas, left a few thoughts on the page and disappeared again, so I’ve wondered if it’s even still a thing. I finally caught up with her today and she and I absolutely agree that inspiration is hard to come by lately… it hides in the details, staying elusive just to mess with us, as life would have it… but the story is always ours to write.

Speaking of life, it goes on. Things occur every day that we’re only vaguely aware of, things that slowly but inexorably make change happen, until one day we’re shocked into a renewed awareness of our world, both personal and global. “Wait, when did they: build that, institute that, decide that, CHANGE that??” We looked away and things happened because they weren’t our job, man, and we aren’t in charge of the world, which I hope doesn’t distress any of us too much.

Winter has changed to spring here in glorious ways. That bad boy of the tree world, the Callery or Bradford pear, was EVERYWHERE with its white blossoms, nearly matched by the sweet Eastern redbuds. And now they’re all covered with brilliant green leaves. The rains have been faithful, turning the East Lawrence forest into a big ol’ showoff in its finery, and it glows when the sun’s ray find it. Nice change.

Day by day, change of every kind has its way with us, repeatedly delivering one of life’s hardest messages: Move it or lose it, change or die. Anyone who thinks life is fair hasn’t lived it yet.

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I’ve started living life on the ASAP plan and liking it. Helps keep the angst down to a whisper some days…

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Baby sister was here and the three of us enjoyed a lovely Ishtar lunch, graced by the tulips Kim brought home from Farmers Market, so there’s been much good change, good life, good love… all of it still in vogue and waiting for the stories to be told.

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HAPPY SPRING

Image by Judy Smith

Ah yes, the New Year…

31 Dec 2024 Leave a comment

***

This morning, because her words reached me and are doing their intended work, I’m borrowing from Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer), Midwives of the Soul, with deep appreciation for her gift.

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~ This year, dear friends, may we all lose weight!

The weight of expectations. The weight of self-criticism. The weight of disconnect that fills us with a deeper hunger. The weight of not always loving. The weight of a worn and weary world. Of not always accepting, seeing, and inhabiting this precious and sacred body that we’re in.

~ This year, dear friends, may we all exercise!

…our holy will! Our sacred sense of purpose. Our vision and hard-earned wisdom. Our discernment and our shining hearts. In ways that enrich connections, with our bodies, our souls and those we love. And even to the world. ❤

~ This year, ah yes… may we all start the work of quitting…

…that collective Kool-Aid. The negative self-talk. The small-assed living. That cacophony of cockatoo-voices that drown out our souls. And old habits: Those used to stop us hearing our pain, our disappointments, and all things much better loved, seen and accepted right down to the very bottom ~ and to find true freedom, through a connection with our deepest souls.

And…

~ This fine new year, (well, here’s the best…) May we all be rich!

Yes, utterly and completely rich. Wildly and unapologetically. Rich in love. Life. Connection with one another and all that really matters. Filled to the brim and bubbling over; more again and spilling over that. Full of laughter, acceptance, joy, and less of worry. Less of sorrow ~

Rich in renewed experience, of a whole new year! ❤

Happy 2025, dear friends!

~Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer)

Midwives of the Soul

Image by Judy Smith

Fractured fairytales…

27 Dec 2024 1 Comment

***

Once upon a time, strange as it may sound, Christmas happened in a world that wasn’t ready for it, making things discombobulated and odd from the start of the season. Planet LOOK.AT.US. was out of sorts and feeling aloof from the whole affair. Things were not right in the kingdom and no one knew how to fix it. Such a different holiday it was shaping up to be, with far too much sadness in the mix.

But wait… since the task of Christmas is to lighten hearts and gladden the soul, I must give you, instead, the story of The Four Farmer’s Daughters… have you heard this one? Get another cup of coffee and pull up a chair, it goes like this:

Long ago, in a previous century, four daughters were born. Two sets of sisters, farm girls all. After high school came the usual endeavors that send people their separate ways… college, extensive travel, careers, partners, children, life. Circumstance and the passage of time eventually conspired to bring the four together again some years into this century, hours spent realizing how alike they are in their world view and code of living.

These four women, now mostly past 70, have not lost touch since, and won’t. In the midst of this barren-feeling lonesome Christmas season, everybody listened to their inner angel and they spent hours… again… sharing food and conversation and knowing nothing’s changed. Oh, out there in the world, everything’s changed, but real friends don’t. That’s a supreme gift to open, one that makes everything seem possible. Keep it real in 2025.

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Image by Judy Smith

We were festive…

26 Dec 2024 2 Comments

Just not THIS festive.

***

Christmas Day this year was sweet and special in too many ways to list, but you know I’ll try. It’s hard to sort out what the whole thing is about for me now, but what remains… always… from the past and forever… is the love. It’s entirely a feel-good day if we can do it right.

Rita was here, she and I wore our Christmas jammies, the Chiefs won, and dinner was amazing.

The traditional cheese ball I hadn’t made in 30 years. The recipe holds up.

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Salmon filets in cream sauce with spinach and cherry tomatoes over Jasmine rice; candied carrots, and cheesy biscuits. And vino. Dessert was warm fruit tarts with ice cream.

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The usual suspects.

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Today we’re being hugged by a heavy fog and indoors is where it’s at. Perfect.

Let quiet and peace soak into your bones, and savor every blessing.

Image by Judy Smith

Let the light always remind us…

21 Dec 2024 Leave a comment

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… that the sun will soon return.

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Image by Judy Smith

Things that matter…

27 Nov 2024 Leave a comment

***

Holidays are hard. There… I said it. As kids we rarely pick up on the nuances of family gatherings, we’re just there to see our cousins and eat fun stuff. And then life changes, as it is wont to do, and we learn how to celebrate on a different scale, how to hold room for our memories and feelings, how to appreciate everything. It’s a lot.

Some years ago we stopped trying to live up to the noisy food-laden holidays of yore and brought the house down a little with simple, and simply wonderful, comfort food, the National Dog Show, football, the chill weather, and much laughter. So as it turns out life is in great part about taming expectations. Kim and Rita cook and bicker in the kitchen while I keep myself available for mindless tasks, and behold, a luscious meal appears. It works seamlessly, and we’re appropriately thankful for various things all day, no stress required. I love it. The mood couldn’t be more comfortable.

Still. Our hearts remember the old times, and we think of them as having been magical… everybody happy and full of love, hugs all around, nothing but peace and goodwill. With everything hanging in the balance this year, we yearn for the unity and unconditional love we think we remember, and we try to go back to a place that was never really there… kind of like Brigadoon. Silly us.

If you’re still with me, thank you for indulging this minor fit of melancholy, which I shall now attempt to put back in the box with the double-secret code on the lock. Nobody needs that stuff on a day we’re just grateful to spend together, alive and well, so tomorrow will be about the right-now, the life we have, and the people we love.

I wish the same for you, complete with everything you need.

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Image by Judy Smith

The way we look to a distant constellation…

18 Oct 2024 2 Comments

***

You know… if we hang around long enough in life it’s possible to learn a lot and pick up crucial perspective in the process. Some of the lessons are painfully, embarrassingly slow… some hit us between the eyes and demand immediate remedy. Life isn’t always a supreme challenge, but I admit to being shocked by how consistently it’s the same ol’ stuff over and over ad infinitum. This year has brought a succession of skin cancer surgeries, the most recent of which is still receiving scar therapy from the comforts of home. Other physical taunts, presumably related to the aging structure inside this skin suit, have raised their cheeky cries for attention to such an extent that I’m getting used to them, while not thrilled by their existence.

I’ve recently been reminded that some twenty-five years or more ago I watched my dad’s first cataract surgery on closed-circuit TV in Garden City, Kansas, with pioneer in the field Dr. Luther Fry, whose techniques at the time were cutting edge.

This week it was my turn and the technology has only improved by leaps and bounds since my experience with my dad. One eye down, second next week, followed by weeks of light therapy to fine-tune my vision. Meanwhile, until at least past Christmas, it’s my job to keep sunlight from invading my eyeballs, which in a 4th-floor loft with top-to-bottom east-facing windows is a challenge. The wooden blinds leave lots of leeway for sunshine, so until the sun makes it past the peak of our building every morning I’m schlepping around in here in my Official Old Person Post-Surgical Giant Black Glasses. I know Karma when I see it so I’m sure this is payback for all the times my friends and I giggled about the sweet lil’ oldies in their Double-Secret Agent glasses, but this seems a little excessive since our intentions were pure.

Everything feels slightly discombobulated at present, which will pass. The operative eye is nearly clear 3rd day post-op, but I’m caught between glasses and no glasses, so neither eye is 100% at the moment. Stuff that lands on the floor has to stay there unless I want to do deep-knee bends, which would no doubt benefit my skeleton. There’s laundry waiting to be folded, and my desk is looking very lived-in, but I can’t be bothered. I’ll get to it all when the disorientation fades a little more.

Our eyes and the rest of our senses are too precious for words, as are the brilliant dedicated people who help us keep them for as long as possible, which prompts an astounding realization: Somehow we humans have managed over eons to fashion a world that’s more good than bad, more joy than sorrow, more sweet than sour. Mostly. Sort of. Anyway, all things considered, it’s a place I’m not pining to leave, and I’m looking forward to seeing everything these eyes have been missing along the way lately.

Okay, having reached my max word-count on NICE, here’s this…

Truth.

Image by Judy Smith

Everything’s coming up sunflowers…

21 Sep 2024 Leave a comment

***

Favorite kind of Saturday. Soft, quiet… rain showers moving through. Muted conversations below us as people go back and forth to Farmers Market all morning. We sat on the balcony with our coffee at 6:30, counting the seconds between spectacular lightning flashes and their answering thunder, guessing how close we were to getting fried. I mean, if you’re not livin’ on the edge you’re takin’ up too much space, amirite?

Kim went over to the Market at the crack of 7:30, which is opening time, so he could be first in line for the flowers. So competitive this man, which is reassuring. He’d save me from any oncoming threat, no hesitation, so I’ll take it. He said the lady hadn’t unpacked yet because of the rain, but out of three or four crates of flowers there was only one bouquet with a sunflower in it, which of course had his name on it. Mission accomplished, home to make breakfast. It’s been twenty years of the same old Saturday morning breakfast, same old incredible flavors, same blessed comfort food, every single week, thank you Universe! I’ve signed up for another twenty, with option to renew at any point in time.

This week was the “time to pay the piper” kind. Had my sixth MOHS procedure yesterday and am waiting to get a look at my surgeon’s handiwork after enough hours have passed. They’re all the result of childhood sunburns and each is a unique challenge. This one will likely leave a decent pirate-slash scar, but it’s where I’d have to call someone’s attention to it or they’ll never notice it. Likely. Hopefully. Doesn’t matter. Slings and arrows are proof that we’ve lived. Stickin’ to that story.

Since most of life involves zigzagging between the whizzing arrows and tossing off the slings, I’m sending kudos, hugs, love, and respect to all the brave women of every age, wherever you are, who are doing just that. Don’t stop, girls, we’re earning our stripes with this one.

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Image by Judy Smith

Aging with exuberance…

12 Sep 2024 Leave a comment

***

A lot of things have taken place over the past couple of weeks, one of which is that smiling and laughing are suddenly de rigueur again, praise be! For someone who was unceremoniously told, decades ago, that she laughs like a chicken, it’s like being let out of the henhouse to roam free! Be YOU, you crazy lil’ bandy-legged chick, nobody CARES!

So while our Sister in Joy and Laughter was busy making history, this girl here turned double 7s, which I believe is highly lucky. If you know otherwise, please don’t spoil my illusions, thx. I love the fact that I’ve made it this far, but already being within binocular range of 80 is messing with my head a little, so adjustments must be made and you know what THAT means… she’s thinking again.

I started blogging some 15 years ago on another platform in response to my son’s suggestion that it might be therapeutic. He was right, I loved it immediately, and when the original site folded I found Word Press and kept cranking out whatever was on my mind on any given day. Obviously, over that many years changes have taken place… and age has joined the chat. Profound shock. There is absolutely nothing other than being old on the inside (a tragedy) that could truly prepare a girl for her third trimester of living, nothing. But I’ve been here sharing insights for a bunch of years now, and been painfully honest with you in what I’ve said, and that won’t change… so buckle up.

“These are the days of miracle and wonder

This is the long distance call.” P. Simon

These are the days of the medical Rolodex, the recurring appointments with doctors and their teams, keeping the vehicle running. These, if you’re lucky and spoiled, are the days of pedis and haircuts and massages that truly do extend life by making it better.

These are the days of steroid shots in the joints, extra attention to the chompers, and various other things which, much like the Spanish Inquisition, NO ONE EVER EXPECTS.

These are the days when your optometrist skips most of the preliminaries and says “Let’s talk about your cataracts.”

These are the days of skin cancer paybacks for those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. The ones we thought would never end.

What gets your attention is the acceleration. One day you’re like “Well, not too bad so far. Doin’ what I can,” and the next you wake up to major mayhem that apparently occurred while you were sleeping. This spiral of crepe here when I turn my arm… when did that start? And these bingo arms! There are jowls in progress? How rude! The supreme sense of languid laziness every single morning when I’d planned to be a ball o’ fire for a change… it’s ubiquitous, as is the faint whiff of guilt that attends my daily existence. Welp, girl, that’s the way it is, walk it off.

After an incredible nine years of turmoil and division as a people, combined with the introspection it has sparked, this is a true statement:

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Kids, here are the facts this morning as I know them. Our world is getting better not worse. Joy and laughter are not buried forever under the rubble of political correctness and planet-wide catastrophe. We’re still HERE! That means hope is alive and well. I’m catching this bus.

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Image by Judy Smith

What I did last summer…

06 Sep 2024 Leave a comment

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To be perfectly legit about it, fall doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, but it’s already making its imminent arrival known. I haven’t checked the record books, but August seemed more fall than summer this year, with cooler days and nights outpacing the hot ones.

It was a summer of change in myriad ways, many of which I’m still processing. Things I know for sure at this point: I like joy more than doom, happiness more than rage, hope more than despair, and WE ARE NOT GOING BACK.

A harbinger. This tree was the first on our street to turn orange last year, but only precisely half the tree. Today it’s already in full-on fall mode, so here we go.

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What we did this summer in lieu of a vacation was take day trips. I’ll tell you a little about those, complete with Kim’s photos, in a future post, hopefully soon. The thing I want most to do these days is write, but it mostly isn’t happening. Too much still hangs in the balance and I can’t focus. But HOPE is holding its spot in the universe and life is still the place to be.

Back with “travel” pics ASAP. Meanwhile, I don’t like to lose touch with you…

Image by Judy Smith

What nourishes you?

13 Aug 2024 Leave a comment

***

Delicious morning. It rained in the night, with increasing darkness after 8am and rain continuing for a few more hours. Southwest of us Emporia got 5″ of rain this morning, flooding their downtown and other areas, so an extra hour or two of early darkness for us is nothing. As a farm girl and incurable melancholic, rain is a lifetime friend and my happy place. It’s been summertime only every other week or so, days in the 90s and 100s interspersed with cooling, nourishing rain, to the point that in midAugust everything in sight is still green and glowing.

The lush tapestry outside my windows only adds to the sense of hope that’s been let loose in the world over the past month. Joy feels so much better than gloom and doom, and it suddenly feels okay to hope… to cautiously believe things will improve instead of digging deeper into hell. So yeah, rain, happiness, hope, love, it’s all cool, and the coffee tastes extra rich this morning.

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Image by Judy Smith

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