I Really Really Really Really Like You

The  blessings in my life are always, always people. I was reading a book this week that hit on that idea nicely. The author said that the world often tells you that you need to get away from people to find yourself, but really, we should gather our people around us to find ourselves because they are the ones who confirm our identity (Rachel Jankovic, Loving the Little Years). My best friend Alan Wimmer and the people we made together and that I live to serve really do make me who I am. My parents and my siblings and my wonderful family I married into are some of my favorite parts of myself. And the friends who support, sustain and inspire me also help me be become more myself. Another book I read this week reiterated that idea. We are always with our ancestors, and with our descendants. Our bodies don't even belong to us, they belong to them--the people who produced it and who will be produced by us. We are only caretakers of our bodies and honor those ancestors and descendants by doing good with our bodies.  Taking care of ourselves shows love and appreciation to our families past, present and future (Thich Nhat Hanh, How To Walk and How To Eat).

So here are some of my favorite blessings this week:

1. Willa. I went swimming with Willa and Griffin and Eve almost every day this week. Willa hops around in the pool with me and it makes us both so happy to move and visit in the water. It reminds me a little of me and JoAnn in the pool. Griffin and Eve often try to join us, but we jump where they can't touch, so they are often in and out. 

School online is SO not fun for Willa, and this summer has had more migraine pain than most summers. It's really hard. But being in water, and her medication, and working hard to accomplish school even though it isn't fun, is helping. Not taking the trial away, but making it more manageable. Willa also got an adorable haircut from my friend Kelly Moore this week.

2. Dates with the family: walking and biking at Blue River Parkway and Loose Park after a fabulous Italian meal in Brookside with Alan. Checking out the Quindaro Overlook after a fun meal at BRGR with the family. Quindaro was a stop on the underground railroad on the Kansas side of the Missouri River in the mid-1800's. Now it is ruins, but the area close by is still populated by the descendants of the people who escaped across the river to freedom, some people with the native American blood that started there, and possibly even some descendants of abolitionists who helped forge the pathway to freedom. It is currently in disrepair. The statue honoring John Brown was vandalized and then covered up with a thick coat of white paint. The Vernon school across the street is boarded up. A sketchy dude nearby asked us for money and looked either high or posessed as I passed him ten bucks.

3. Dear friends. I have a text stream labelled SA Walkers, which is me and Jenny and Shawna--the ladies who used to meet at 5am and walk together in San Antonio 20 years ago. We use it to troubleshoot technical problems as we try to FaceTime and talk about thoughtful podcasts and visit and catch up. This week we mourned with Jenny as we learned her niece's two year old had drowned in a terrible pool accident the night before and talked about a Pulitzer winning, but also sad, podcast about immigration (This American Life, from Nov. 2019). I adore those ladies. Shawna's determined optimism and faithful friendship to me saved me while Mariah and Eliza were tiny and Alan was in residency. Jenny is responsible for several spiritual insights I've kept all these many years, and is so, so, so much fun. It feels like a giant blessing to reconnect with them every couple of weeks during this time in our lives. Another giant friend blessing is Claire Ford. She sent the cutest text inviting us to come to Addie and Emma's Drive-Through Market this week from 2-4. We decided to avoid the rush at the beginning and came in the middle--just as they had sold out of homemade fudgesicles and chocolate chip cookies! We bought their last sips of lemonade and then visited with them in their shady yard, which backs onto a church garden that the kids disappeared into. I wish I had pictures of what Claire does for you to see. The stand she helped her kids make was so perfect. The summer dress she wore, her one year old toddling around, the mostly frozen fudgesicles that were deemed unfit for sale they shared with us, the baby pool on the porch, the hammocks hanging in the back yard--all of it together felt idyllic as we sat and visited together. I like how Claire quietly declines things that won't serve her and her family, and I love that she is a kindred spirit.

And now for some pictures:

Some decidedly NOT perfect pictures of our remodel I offered in exchange for advice on homeschooling to another dear friend. (I am considering keeping G and E home with me rather than send them to school masked this fall).

Some houses (even some near us) have feline statuary guarding their property: lions with paws raised frozen in mid-roar. We have actual felines who hang out and chase off predators who guard our driveway.

Some books I have read in the last couple of weeks. I was getting bogged down in a wonderful long work of fiction, so I just stopped and started checking out anything I felt like from the library and whipping through as much as I felt like. These ones I actually finished. And I've been terrible about putting reviews on Goodreads since the pandemic.

Yes. Recommended.

Pretty good. Had a few shining insights I loved.

Not really recommended, but the title was funny and the topic timely for me.

Look at that pile of hair she ditched! Also, wearing merch from the organization that once sued her grandma.
(Lanner v. Wimmer 1978)