“It Really Is The Little Things”

Wee One (WO) and I stole outside one morning a few weeks ago, right before the rain. It was muggy but there was a bit of a breeze on the flat land of the playground. She was swinging and I was pushing her baby doll in the swing next to her – at her request – reflecting on pushing that same swing with her as a toddler.

There’s a stream that pops up near the playground and winds through the neighborhood. Pushing the baby doll was meditative, and I reflected on the relationship we had formed with the area.

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Oh, This Is Really Happening

Another college dream fulfilled: seeing Tori Amos in concert.

First, I eat at Veritas-a lobster roll and potato buds, a delicious rose cocktail.

Meet a beautiful woman, Kelly, as I eat. She shall become a character in a story: Dr. English, an anthropologist who studied tribal dance and left academia to become a massage therapist. As a healer both through movement and touch, she appreciates how plants can be healing.

Most of the people here look like me: women in their 40s, sort of hippie-ish. I wish I could tell me younger self: even if you feel like you don’t fit in, be you. You do. You’re glorious, and living your truth now will only reinforce your joy later.

Advocacy Win

You can take the girl out of social work, but you can’t take the social work out of the girl.

Omicron is doing what it’s doing, and school starts on the 3rd. I can’t imagine any scenario in which the school is not overrun with infections among staff and students, and I don’t want Wee One (WO) to fall victim to it. Just yesterday, I exited my five day quarantine in my room to be around people in a mask. (I’m fine, BTW. It was like a sinus infection. And the biggest thing for me and WO today was to snuggle.) But we did not sacrifice five days of snuggling just for her to get it next week. We have a wedding coming up and I don’t want her to get long COVID.

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Fireworks

I feel like I need to write tonight. Maybe an early Weekend Coffee Share. Maybe a Weekend White Claw share. (A WC share. Don’t mock; it’s a light something to drink in the summer.)

Fireworks are going off around me, and I kind of feel bad. When I was in the hospital for my gallbladder a few years ago, it was on July 3rd and 4th. I was on a floor for pre-op patients, but they also brought brought up patients in psychiatric crisis, too.

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Bucket Lists

I was looking back in my post archives, and came across this list, this travel bucket list. My ultimate places to go. I probably wrote this pre-2008 because, as you can see, I have done a few things. The italics are the old list.

The equator. Stand on both sides of it. See if water swirls in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.

What does it smell like in the Sistine Chapel? (TM Goodwill Hunting)

Ferry from Spain to Morocco.

Visit the Kilns and see where C.S. Lewis is buried.

Auschwitz

Northern Lights

Montana

Maine. Maybe go to Northeastern most post.

UP (Michigan)

Scotland

Italy

Boston

Things changed once I had Wee One (WO), and then again after COVID. Pre-COVID, Cohiba had to travel, often every week or every other week. I hated it. And pre-COVID, if we didn’t have WO, we wanted to go to places the farther out, the better. Hopefully some place I’ve never been.

I was in Missouri in May for the Central Missouri Renaissance Fair, (I got my COVID vaccines and feel comfortable having WO outside with people), and it felt so exotic. I haven’t traveled in so long. We got an air BnB in St. Louis for a few days, saw some friends, my folks, and some sights, then the fair. As my friends, Denise, Amy, and I were meeting with our kids (we are all couch surfers from way back and are new mothers now), we talked about traveling and where we might want to go, now that we’re vaccinated.

Our lists seemed so little. Like I’ll go back to St. Louis this year. Or they could come around me now in Ohio. Or like, go to Iowa City, where Denise and I had surfed before. It was so different from how it had been, and not just because of the kids. COVID has changed so much, and we have changed as we’ve responded to it.

How about you? Are you looking at things differently?