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 ~
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.
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.
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.
The calendar says we’re more than two weeks out since the election but there’s no way my brain could have told me that on its own because the markers have been few and far between. It’s always unsettling to sail through a state of limbo, precisely because of the inherent uncertainty. Also, the relative quiet compared to previous experiences with the former guy feels, may I say, a little ominous. We’re watching the potential for chaos build by the day with each nomination to what resembles a junk drawer more than a presidential cabinet, and we see plenty of concern to be had, but since we are simply the embodiment of “the vermin within” our input has neither been sought, nor will it. Our task is to survive bodily and to handle the changes as they come at us. None of us know yet how swiftly or drastically those changes will be implemented; therefore, limbo. I can’t decide whether to keep trying to make the world a better place, or look for a safe vantage point while we watch the drama unfold.
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I had hoped the following from Rod Serling in 1964 was true:
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We dared to entertain brave hopes of a nation once again united… but were we EVER that? I think not.
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It’ll make the happiest of old ladies grumpy.
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Things we know at this auspicious point in time:
Our daily reality as Americans will most likely look very different this time next year, and I’m pretty sure the general population is in no way prepared.
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Unfortunately, the country seems to have cornered the market on denial, so actual communication among factions is still at a premium. For nine years we’ve waited for his day to be done, waited to be free of his voice and leering mugshots, waited for him to disappear from our TV screens. Instead, this is life for the next four years, and maybe ’til I die, which pisses me off beyond words, as does THIS:
How dare woman-bots malfunction?! And then proceed to destroy civilizations, more’s the pity. I’m surprised we’re allowed to drive cars and raise the babies we birth. Now that I think of it, we could easily lose both of those rights before it’s over. Best to remain philosophical, right?
There’s still much to process so it’s really lame that my processor is on the fritz this week. Heart says “address this stuff,” brain says “let’s do another iPad painting.” I would describe myself today as uncomfortably numb.
It’s funny, I almost feel worse for the rest of the civilized world than for the U.S. population. We’ve been busy screwing things up, all the while they’ve continued to think we knew what we were doing. Surprise!
Don’t we all.
Some perspective:
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It only happens to “lesser societies,” right?
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Sometimes communication with people we care about suffers, not because we hate them but because we’ve made each other feel that the other doesn’t really matter, a sorry human trait.
So here we are. What was to have been a healing interval in American history will instead be an unsettling exercise in survival as a nation and as a population. The Reagan-era fascists hung in there like dogs, faithfully passing the torch to each new set of believers and simultaneously tearing away at the foundations of democracy until the Golden Goose of New York City fell into their hands, after which it was simply a matter of time. America won’t have to wait long before the effects start to show up; therefore, I’m leaving this here for posterity so we can all reminisce later:
Merry Election Eve, boys and girls, we’re finally almost there after a long tedious slog, but I must say this feels like the opposite of preChristmas excitement and more like existential dread. When the incident pictured below happened nine years ago that should have been the end of it. Instead it was the start of a continuous succession of unPresidential shenanigans, by which I mean crimes. He’s always showed us exactly who he is. Can we be done now, and will the tattered threads of democracy still hold?
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Since the day the polls opened here I’ve been antsy to vote early, but for once in my life tradition constrains me. Our official polling place is in the historic old Cider Gallery, now an art museum and event venue, so it always feels appropriately weighty to exercise our citizenship there, followed by breakfast at The Roost and maybe a Bloody Mary to mark the occasion. And then if all goes well, we’ll be on our balcony tomorrow night making noise.
The Cider Gallery
It feels like an eternity has passed since November 8, 2016, a date that truly will live in infamy. The events of that day, and all the ones to follow, have altered life for every soul within our shores, and ended the lives of over a million during the COVID peak. No quarter has been left untouched, no person unchanged. We’ve come close to losing everything that matters… and for no valid reason other than ego. Can we step back from the abyss now and come home to reality? Together somehow?
We’re tired. Exhausted from the effort required to hold it together for ourselves and everyone around us. We need peace and rest as a nation while we try learning to trust each other again. I hope we all find safe harbor.
How many times in your life have you hit cycles that required you to wait, and wait… and wait… sometimes for decades. And at no point during the wait did you know how it would all turn out. That’s the trick, being ready no matter what happens. Prepared, if necessary, to leave everything you’ve known and loved, for almost 80 years in my case, trusting that life will go on, as it always does.
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“All of the sudden,” the wait is nearly at an end, and it almost doesn’t seem real that after everything that’s happened over the past nine or ten years we’re within two weeks of knowing our fate as a nation. Less than two weeks to settle the basic question: Will we be a dictator-run oligarchy or a democratic republic?
Every part of who we are as Americans hinges on this election. We can’t erase what has happened, so what we stand up for NOW is who we will be going forward. The world is standing by, watching anxiously to see what will happen here. Will we still represent hope, or be counted among the rubble fascism always leaves in its wake? Just another domino in a succession of fallen nations with lofty ideals. How heartbreaking! Are people really willing to let us end that way?
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…
Remember the night of November 8, 2016? Remember the tears and how sick with dread we were, knowing life was about to become very difficult… and indeed it did. We were aghast that someone so awful had been placed in the White House… and he STILL refuses to go away and leave us in peace.
And now, running for president again, still, ad infinitum is this 2x impeached candidate with 34 felony convictions, how insane is that? As a convicted felon, he can’t vote. As a convicted felon, he can’t join the military, but as president he would be its “leader.” Makes my head swim. He’s a rapist, a pedophile, a career criminal, a friend to Putin and others like him. How did we get here?
After years of angst and concern, we’re within 21 days… three weeks… of knowing whether there will be a peaceful transfer of power this time, and who will hold what used to be the most important office on the planet. We have three weeks to climb down off the “undecided” fence and state with our vote whether we choose democracy or fascism, the only question on the ballot. As Americans we tend to think we’re fairly untouchable… magically blessed somehow. We aren’t used to facing stark reality the second we open our eyes in the morning. Reality, however, has come to roost on our doorstep and demands to be faced NOW.
The MAGA party is confronted with a classic bait-and-switch. The corpulent reeking hulk formerly known as King Drumpf is crumbling and decomposing before our eyes. Try watching and listening to one of his most recent rallies, which are now being held in the afternoon before he starts sundowning TOO badly. Even then things aren’t going smoothly in any way, and there was a credible report that he soiled his diaper during one recent speech, necessitating the spraying of a strong scent in his vicinity. This is a potential U.S. president. His diet is awful, his drug use rampant, his exercise nonexistent. Whether he’s drooling on his french fries by January, or face down in them, everybody gets JD by default, a fascist to the core and far more dangerous than the orange clown. It’s likely that JD or someone synonymous with him was the plan from the get-go.
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Since I’m not a compliant lil’ ol’ lady, and have said my piece all over the internet, I have to wonder if it would even be wise for me to stick around if the party of revenge were to win. JD says they’re going to send the military out to round up everyone who didn’t vote for them, so my voting record, let alone my words, would likely damn me to their version of hell. Crazy to think about, but they simply ARE crazy, so we’re on our own if they win.
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In my late 70s now, I have no urge to relocate and start over yet again, and leaving loved ones behind would be a bridge too far, so here we are. I would benefit at this point from a conversation with my great- and great-great grandparents who left Germany to keep nine young brothers from being conscripted into Kaiser Bill’s army and made a good life here in eastern Kansas. Even more, I’d like to talk with a German contemporary from the 1940s. What were the vital signs, both early and late? What kept you from leaving your homeland? If you could do it over, would you choose to stay or flee?
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This being no time to fall apart, I’ll pray for a dry spell and keep on keeping on, bearing in mind this admonition from a wise man…
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The idea that there are “others” who are not like us is what keeps hate simmering. Are we ready yet to turn off the fire?
It’s officially fall and the weather has been changing for a while now, by which I mean every day into something different from the day before. Apparently we’ve just emerged from a season called False Fall and are now into Second Summer. We’ll see where it goes from here, observing as spectators while Weather does what it will do.
Fall is always a melancholy reflective season, and true to form my thoughts have been a concoction of things heavy and light, happy and sad, profound and sublimely ridiculous. In the midst of all that I started a list the other day of personal do’s and don’ts in life’s third trimester. There’s no place I yearn to return to, so life has just one direction… forward. And I needed a little self-help with that, thus the list. The points are for me, not for advice, but if something resonates with you don’t hesitate to claim it for yourself.
So, in no special order, as they popped into my head:
I’ve stopped going to funerals, for all the reasons. My all-time personal hero oncology nurse showed me I’m not a bad person for skipping out. Do life while it’s here, no regrets, because if you’re not careful the ceremonies will overwhelm actual living.
I don’t give money to politicians unless they’re running at grassroots level and don’t have big resources. The rest start with kajillions and then ask ME for money? And then for MORE, repeatedly??
I try not to schedule morning appointments because they’re an unnecessary assault on my senses. There’s a window between lunch and dinner when I’m fully awake and human, so life outside my door is best if it happens during the afternoon hours. You know, if possible.
I don’t take advice from people whose moral code I can’t respect. People say lots of words, but when they give legs to their coldheartedness I walk away.
I don’t chase people. If you’re my friend you just are, end of story, and we always pick up where we left off.
I don’t argue online or anywhere else except for the shit I give Kim. Arguing is a demeaning process and rarely produces anything positive. People think what they think, me included.
To save misunderstandings and exhausting back & forths, I spare most people my presence most of the time. This Pollyanna has gotten over the delusion that we’re going to land on the same page and feel comfortable together again, if we ever were.
After being around older people forever, and taking care of six of them for twelve years, I had a pretty clear idea what aging would involve. Ha, ya’ think? Every day brings a surprise you weren’t waiting for, every year new challenges, things aren’t static, they change constantly, your body betrays you and so does your head. You can experience these things second-hand without absolutely KNOWING them, so expect the unexpected.
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9. Very little anymore requires my complete and undivided attention. I can still pull it up when necessary and I take it out for the occasional walk to keep it in shape. It’s on reserve, just behind the lala-life I prefer. But since complete and undivided usually denotes a problem of some sort I avoid it every way possible.
10. Mail is the bane of my existence. Doesn’t matter, snail mail or online, I can’t stick to my resolve to open every piece of information every single day, so I’m left with bulk mail that means nothing to anybody… except for THAT ONE PIECE that can’t be discarded on penalty of law!!!
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11. I have no energy for trying to convert people to a life outlook that begins with kindness. Those are the people who will talk their hair down trying to convince me how Christian they’ve always been, while fearing and despising everyone and everything not like them.
12. I’ve loved people all my life who have silently hated everything I care about while also finding me an entertaining source of gossip. That’s okay, Karma knows. The true challenges come when people I care about hate people I love. Simply a bridge too far, so adjustments have to be made.
13. If everyone suddenly liked learning new things and putting new ideas to work, the world would look shinier overnight.
There. A baker’s dozen, take or leave.
And one more: Everyone who doesn’t want fascism to replace democracy on American soil should have a current passport at the ready because we can’t see the immediate nor long-term future. The German population, right about now, thought everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t. Things are changing rapidly across our nation, which has been instantly reflected on social media, but all optimism has to be tempered with the memory of past horrifying October surprises and other killing disappointments.
The United States may continue as an intact entity or it may not. Either way, the election will be over someday, we must assume, and I’ll revert to Ms. Nice Person Who Doesn’t Talk About Things We Simply Don’t Talk About. And if the good guys win I’ll be a more accessible, less irritated old girl, more inclined to entertain the lighter side of living. What I will never be able to do is forget what so many people showed me and the rest of the world about themselves, people we once thought we knew and identified with.
It’s been an unnerving era, with ugliness abounding and hate winning out a lot of the time. I’ll open the door to my 80s in three years… how many of the wounds, how much of the heartbreak, do you think we could heal in that time frame, just for starters? I so hope the world won’t feel as cold and lonesome as it has over the past ten years and more. I’ve learned this much: being a nice person doesn’t cut it anymore, the world has changed. I’ve changed too… but I was raised to be nice and it feels okay as long as I don’t forget what truth looks like. Does America remember?
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.
What an amazing week this has been, and it’s only Wednesday. I’m trying to remember when my social media feeds last reflected so much fresh optimism and pure hope. My first and overriding thought, “Maybe this brave little experiment in democracy isn’t over yet,” is enough to keep me out of the slough of despond for the foreseeable future. Wish we could see ahead and know what that future looks like, but for now a flood of hope and possibility is more than welcome.
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It seems that once the scent of hopefulness hits the air, it pulls the atmosphere along with it and other positives start lining up. Yesterday we got some things accomplished and put behind us that have been like a weight around my neck for months. In an homage to having survived all that (always with the drama!), I’ve given myself the day off to do exactly as I please, which so far has been to make the bed and sit down right here. My “To Do” list now holds seven things rather than thirty-seven, and I feel like a kid out of school for the summer. Life gets really good sometimes.
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It would be tragic if the U.S. were to end on a sour note so I hope (see what I did there) that we’re all ready to choose hopefulness and run with it.
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If life has felt extra challenging to you of late, if you’re feeling drained and exhausted all the time, if everything’s a muddle in your head, if your heart aches… I, by virtue of seniority, hereby grant dispensation and grace to give yourself a day off, or an hour, whatever you can manage without making things worse. If you need a rest, take it. Get by yourself and let hope soak in for a while. Your world will benefit from the resulting ripple effect.
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Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Playing for Time 
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