A Bit of Relief
Ohthankgod, I woke up to a cool(ish) breeze and the sound of rain. It's only 75º F/ 24º C!
I'm sitting on the front porch this morning, feeling comfortable outside for the first time this hot July.
This house has central air, but it's wearing to feel trapped inside by the heat---I prefer the winter cold, when at least you can bundle up warm to be comfortable outside.
Only complaint this morning:
I neglected to buy milk yesterday, so I'm drinking my coffee with the oat milk on hand. (The home owner is gluten- and dairy-free.)
It's okay. I'd like to get away from dairy for the sake of the cows, but no other milk is anywhere near as good in coffee.
(Hm.
I'm seeing why I need to water the front hill, even when it rains--the spreading maple tree is an umbrella.)
American Question Mark
The store is closed today. Well, it's been closed since March 20, but I mean no workers are going in, which is a relief.
Talk about wearing---even with the improved mood, the store is depressing.
Too much need, not enough help.
I talked to a fellow who works at a mini-Target that got broken into (not the big one that got trashed), like we did. Unlike us, their glass is already replaced, and they are up and running.
Corporate power. It works.
We're more like a garage sale.
The sweet thing was, this young man from Target had stopped by our store to volunteer:
"You are part of the neighborhood. They're just Target."
Remembering the affection people have for the store keeps me going. Having something meaningful to do--that's lucky!
. . .
[American Question Mark,
"dan miller 1974",
plaque donated to the store]
I wake up in the middle of the night, afraid.
What's going to happen to the neighborhood, the city, the country?
Rocked by a lynching and civil unrest--
calling for the city and the country to be better!--
there's big hope, but also big need, and big resistance.
It's scary to see how fragile the infrastructure is.
Hundreds of people are now living in tents in the park near the store.
With a virus going around, it's not simple or obvious how to help. (Not that it ever is simple and obvious.)
Over and over, I answer myself with Mr Rogers' advice:
"Look for the helpers".
There are smart people working hard to make changes.
I'm inspired and comforted to see things like this upcoming online TownTalk, "Policing and Police Reform: Reimagining Public Safety" (Thursday, July 9, 2020 | 7 pm towntalksonnicollet.org)
And, . . . BE a helper.
Frustrating as the store is, it's a place where I can help. Simply by being there, I represent care and kindness. I WANT to be that. I painted it on the store, after all: Faith Hope Love.
But I run out of steam and sort of forget.
Helpers need help too.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta always said, The sisters eat first.
It's pure practicality: You can't work without fuel.
In these stressful times, I need to be just as strategic about taking care of myself as I was about handling my workmate.
I have to feed myself, physically and otherwise, or I run down.
Taking care of yourself is an art. It takes thought and effort--planning--something I don't always give it.
So . . . I'm going to think out loud here. WHAT HELPS?
NOTE: These are my preliminary ramblings.
Okay.
1. Food. Right away, literally, I need to remember Food Is Fuel.
Feeding myself well has never been easy for me. After my mother left when I was thirteen, I lived on Sugar Pops cereal and ice cream. I know how to cook––I worked at a whole-foods restaurant at nineteen––but I still default to fast-and-sweet and cheap.
Now more than ever, it's wise to make the effort--to pay for good food, and to prepare it.
If I'm strategic about it, I can get good food cheap, or even free.
The local market sells dented fruit and veg for 49¢/pound, and the store gets odds and ends of freshies from our food bank, free.
Last night I made hamburgers (local, organic meat) with sliced tomatoes and onion, and apple-cider-vinegar cole slaw.
I felt much better afterward.
I'm also taking tinctures. Besides their medicinal power, they have the power of the Act of Administering Help.
I love the ones with the squeezy tops that dispense drops. I'm sure those are extra potent.
2. Perspective
Seeing the larger picture helps me a lot. Up-close is a disorganized mess. Step back and patterns emerge.
Blogging helps!
Writing this out right now helps me get my thoughts in order. I'm a list maker--it helps me to give at least a semblance of order to the chaos.
If I go too many days without blogging, I miss it. Even just plunking a photo in helps.
What is it about blogging?
It's a reminder to me that there's a world out there--other people, other places.
Blog friends matter, of course. (Thank you!)
But it's something more impersonal than friendship.
It's ...let's see.... Today Blogger stats tell me that this blog has 116 views from Romania.
It's that. That feeling that I'm tapping into the mushroom network--the underground filaments that connect life in the forest.
Or, to go the other way, it's like looking at outer space in the Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA. (I just bookmarked this to remind myself to look at it more often.)
Today's photo: "Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Orion Nebula."
The other kind of perspective that helps me is historical perpsective---like sending Penny Cooper back in time to the Blitz.
Oh--here's another photo of the girlettes' evacuees costume.
Wool jacket by me; Mary Jane shoes by bink.
There will be nine girlettes thus outfitted.
Right now I'm loving Call the Midwife, a soap-operaish history of Public Health in London in the 1950s-60s. It's based on the memoirs of a real-life midwife who lived and worked with a nursing order of Anglican nuns in the impoverished East End.
The show is a Who's Who of medical and social ills.
Episodes have dealt with measles and polio, for instance.
They are both viruses that damaged or killed millions every year, until vaccines were developed.
Medical science has improved so much, scientists are working on Covid vaccines right now. Twenty-one vaccines are in human trials right now.
[New York Times vaccine tracker]
In the midst of a pandemic, it may seem slow. It will be too late for some. But it helps me to remember that in the history of science, this is super fast.
The US government even has a "Warp Speed" vaccine program. Warp Speed. Ha. That's from Star Trek, you know.
Nerds.
I'm with them.
3. Curtail My Media Diet
Media consumption is like eating Cheetos--hard to stop, and too orange.
I've cut way back on my media intake. I want to cut back more, for panic-management.
Q: What do I need to know to do my work?
A: Just the basics.
I joined the corporate boycott of Facebook for July (a lot of advertisers are calling for FB to act like a responsible publisher and rein in hate groups, etc.).
If I don't post, I don't look, and I feel better.
I have a FB account so I can post on social media for work, but I don't need to use my account, personally.
4. Seek Out the Soft Stuff
Sometimes I scoff at new-agey, self-helpy stuff as soft-brained goop. Sometimes it is.
But the truth is, it can help me do my work, and I want to seek it out more.
The other day after work, I was biking home on the Greenway bike path. A group of black teenage dudes came toward me, riding goofy bikes. One had a banana seat.
A normal sight.
NOT normal---as they biked past me, they called out,
"Jesus loves you, ma'am."
I am generally not theologically aligned with Christians who say Jesus loves you.
But you know what?
It was nice to hear something nice.
I smiled and called back, "Thank you!" and I felt better all the rest of the way home.
A little goes a long way, but I need to remember to check in on self-healing sites and the like.
This includes letting myself feel scared and sad.
That's part of strength too--being real about how you feel.
5. Seek Out the Steel
It helps to cultivate strength.
Not the strength of the brute, but the inner strength of the soft.
I always hesitate to mention Gone with the Wind, with its odious romanticization of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy,
but the character who comes to mind is GWTW's Melanie Wilkes.
I'm nothing like her! but I do admire her model of soft strength.
Melanie (Olivia de Haviland in the movie) seems like the ninny that the brutish Scarlett thinks she is––but in the end, Scarlett sees Melanie's had a core of steel all along, one that she herself--and everyone else--relied upon.
I feel sad and scared, but I can rally and be steely strong too.
That's what I did when I decided to get it together to help my coworker so I could stand to work with him.
My outer self was all aquiver, run away, run away.
But my core self was, "You can do this."
Remember to check with her, that core self of mine.
6. Friends
I feel this should be a stronger category, but friends are stressed right now, and you can't get together for a group hug.
Maura is still unwell, for instance. She doesn't have Covid as her doctor had thought. She's been undergoing weeks of tests to diagnose an auto-immune disorder. More to come...
Still, it's possible to carry someone else's burden awhile for them, and let them carry yours.
Sort of a burden swap.
And it's great to distract oneself with friends. Working on costumes for the Undaunted: Penny Cooper project with bink was a fun day.
⇒Invite more of that.
7. Sometimes you lose.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard:
I suppose you could say we all lose in the end. That is life.
It's not about winning.
I mean, I find it comforting to remember that losing doesn't mean I am/you are a failure.
Here, let me end of an upbeat note.
Here's one of those self-helpy quotes that I kinda cringe at, kinda love. From Hunter S. Thompson! Who knew he'd end up on refrigerator magnets!
Oh. I like this one too.
Ohthankgod, I woke up to a cool(ish) breeze and the sound of rain. It's only 75º F/ 24º C!
I'm sitting on the front porch this morning, feeling comfortable outside for the first time this hot July.
This house has central air, but it's wearing to feel trapped inside by the heat---I prefer the winter cold, when at least you can bundle up warm to be comfortable outside.
Only complaint this morning:
I neglected to buy milk yesterday, so I'm drinking my coffee with the oat milk on hand. (The home owner is gluten- and dairy-free.)
It's okay. I'd like to get away from dairy for the sake of the cows, but no other milk is anywhere near as good in coffee.
(Hm.
I'm seeing why I need to water the front hill, even when it rains--the spreading maple tree is an umbrella.)
American Question Mark
The store is closed today. Well, it's been closed since March 20, but I mean no workers are going in, which is a relief.
Talk about wearing---even with the improved mood, the store is depressing.
Too much need, not enough help.
I talked to a fellow who works at a mini-Target that got broken into (not the big one that got trashed), like we did. Unlike us, their glass is already replaced, and they are up and running.
Corporate power. It works.
We're more like a garage sale.
The sweet thing was, this young man from Target had stopped by our store to volunteer:
"You are part of the neighborhood. They're just Target."
Remembering the affection people have for the store keeps me going. Having something meaningful to do--that's lucky!
. . .
[American Question Mark, "dan miller 1974",
plaque donated to the store]
I wake up in the middle of the night, afraid.
What's going to happen to the neighborhood, the city, the country?
Rocked by a lynching and civil unrest--
calling for the city and the country to be better!--
there's big hope, but also big need, and big resistance.
It's scary to see how fragile the infrastructure is.
Hundreds of people are now living in tents in the park near the store.
With a virus going around, it's not simple or obvious how to help. (Not that it ever is simple and obvious.)
Over and over, I answer myself with Mr Rogers' advice:
"Look for the helpers".
There are smart people working hard to make changes.
I'm inspired and comforted to see things like this upcoming online TownTalk, "Policing and Police Reform: Reimagining Public Safety" (Thursday, July 9, 2020 | 7 pm towntalksonnicollet.org)
And, . . . BE a helper.
Frustrating as the store is, it's a place where I can help. Simply by being there, I represent care and kindness. I WANT to be that. I painted it on the store, after all: Faith Hope Love.
But I run out of steam and sort of forget.
Helpers need help too.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta always said, The sisters eat first.
It's pure practicality: You can't work without fuel.
In these stressful times, I need to be just as strategic about taking care of myself as I was about handling my workmate.
I have to feed myself, physically and otherwise, or I run down.
Taking care of yourself is an art. It takes thought and effort--planning--something I don't always give it.
So . . . I'm going to think out loud here. WHAT HELPS?
NOTE: These are my preliminary ramblings.
Okay.
1. Food. Right away, literally, I need to remember Food Is Fuel.
Feeding myself well has never been easy for me. After my mother left when I was thirteen, I lived on Sugar Pops cereal and ice cream. I know how to cook––I worked at a whole-foods restaurant at nineteen––but I still default to fast-and-sweet and cheap.
Now more than ever, it's wise to make the effort--to pay for good food, and to prepare it.
If I'm strategic about it, I can get good food cheap, or even free.
The local market sells dented fruit and veg for 49¢/pound, and the store gets odds and ends of freshies from our food bank, free.
Last night I made hamburgers (local, organic meat) with sliced tomatoes and onion, and apple-cider-vinegar cole slaw.
I felt much better afterward.
I'm also taking tinctures. Besides their medicinal power, they have the power of the Act of Administering Help.
I love the ones with the squeezy tops that dispense drops. I'm sure those are extra potent.
2. Perspective
Seeing the larger picture helps me a lot. Up-close is a disorganized mess. Step back and patterns emerge.
Blogging helps!
Writing this out right now helps me get my thoughts in order. I'm a list maker--it helps me to give at least a semblance of order to the chaos.
If I go too many days without blogging, I miss it. Even just plunking a photo in helps.
What is it about blogging?
It's a reminder to me that there's a world out there--other people, other places.
Blog friends matter, of course. (Thank you!)
But it's something more impersonal than friendship.
It's ...let's see.... Today Blogger stats tell me that this blog has 116 views from Romania.
It's that. That feeling that I'm tapping into the mushroom network--the underground filaments that connect life in the forest.
Or, to go the other way, it's like looking at outer space in the Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA. (I just bookmarked this to remind myself to look at it more often.)
Today's photo: "Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Orion Nebula."
The other kind of perspective that helps me is historical perpsective---like sending Penny Cooper back in time to the Blitz.
Oh--here's another photo of the girlettes' evacuees costume.
Wool jacket by me; Mary Jane shoes by bink.
There will be nine girlettes thus outfitted.
Right now I'm loving Call the Midwife, a soap-operaish history of Public Health in London in the 1950s-60s. It's based on the memoirs of a real-life midwife who lived and worked with a nursing order of Anglican nuns in the impoverished East End.
The show is a Who's Who of medical and social ills.
Episodes have dealt with measles and polio, for instance.
They are both viruses that damaged or killed millions every year, until vaccines were developed.
Medical science has improved so much, scientists are working on Covid vaccines right now. Twenty-one vaccines are in human trials right now.
[New York Times vaccine tracker]
In the midst of a pandemic, it may seem slow. It will be too late for some. But it helps me to remember that in the history of science, this is super fast.
The US government even has a "Warp Speed" vaccine program. Warp Speed. Ha. That's from Star Trek, you know.
Nerds.
I'm with them.
3. Curtail My Media Diet
Media consumption is like eating Cheetos--hard to stop, and too orange.
I've cut way back on my media intake. I want to cut back more, for panic-management.
Q: What do I need to know to do my work?
A: Just the basics.
I joined the corporate boycott of Facebook for July (a lot of advertisers are calling for FB to act like a responsible publisher and rein in hate groups, etc.).
If I don't post, I don't look, and I feel better.
I have a FB account so I can post on social media for work, but I don't need to use my account, personally.
4. Seek Out the Soft Stuff
Sometimes I scoff at new-agey, self-helpy stuff as soft-brained goop. Sometimes it is.
But the truth is, it can help me do my work, and I want to seek it out more.
The other day after work, I was biking home on the Greenway bike path. A group of black teenage dudes came toward me, riding goofy bikes. One had a banana seat.
A normal sight.
NOT normal---as they biked past me, they called out,
"Jesus loves you, ma'am."
I am generally not theologically aligned with Christians who say Jesus loves you.
But you know what?
It was nice to hear something nice.
I smiled and called back, "Thank you!" and I felt better all the rest of the way home.
A little goes a long way, but I need to remember to check in on self-healing sites and the like.
This includes letting myself feel scared and sad.
That's part of strength too--being real about how you feel.
5. Seek Out the Steel
It helps to cultivate strength.
Not the strength of the brute, but the inner strength of the soft.
I always hesitate to mention Gone with the Wind, with its odious romanticization of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy,
but the character who comes to mind is GWTW's Melanie Wilkes.
I'm nothing like her! but I do admire her model of soft strength.
Melanie (Olivia de Haviland in the movie) seems like the ninny that the brutish Scarlett thinks she is––but in the end, Scarlett sees Melanie's had a core of steel all along, one that she herself--and everyone else--relied upon.
I feel sad and scared, but I can rally and be steely strong too.
That's what I did when I decided to get it together to help my coworker so I could stand to work with him.
My outer self was all aquiver, run away, run away.
But my core self was, "You can do this."
Remember to check with her, that core self of mine.
6. Friends
I feel this should be a stronger category, but friends are stressed right now, and you can't get together for a group hug.
Maura is still unwell, for instance. She doesn't have Covid as her doctor had thought. She's been undergoing weeks of tests to diagnose an auto-immune disorder. More to come...
Still, it's possible to carry someone else's burden awhile for them, and let them carry yours.
Sort of a burden swap.
And it's great to distract oneself with friends. Working on costumes for the Undaunted: Penny Cooper project with bink was a fun day.
⇒Invite more of that.
7. Sometimes you lose.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard:
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.
That is not a weakness.
That is life."
I suppose you could say we all lose in the end. That is life.
It's not about winning.
I mean, I find it comforting to remember that losing doesn't mean I am/you are a failure.
Here, let me end of an upbeat note.
Here's one of those self-helpy quotes that I kinda cringe at, kinda love. From Hunter S. Thompson! Who knew he'd end up on refrigerator magnets!
― The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!'”
Oh. I like this one too.
Don't judge your taco by its price.Which reminds me---maybe the BEST HELP OF ALL is the humorous truth.
Fresca, your posts are often so useful as a bump upward when so much pushes down.
ReplyDeleteFood, yes. I thought of something from the life of the Buddhist teacher Milarepa. He’s a super-ascetic, meditating and turning to skin and bones, with a scroll on his head from his teacher Marpa. Finally, he reads it, and it has advice about meditation and the instruction to eat some good food. Eat! Mangia!
LOL--"Mangia!" Thank you for that, Michael. My Sicilian grandmother used to say that. Always twice: "Mangia! Mangia!"
ReplyDeleteTurns out she was quoting Marpa, eh? (I didn't know that story.)
I am moved to hear my posts are a bump upward. That's what I need, so I try to aim that way...