Mary Beth Writes

Check out Fresh Air for March 7, 2022: 'New Yorker' cartoonist David Sipress. He mentions this cartoon that he created back in the 1990's. 

 3/8/2022

Boy, the news, huh? Pretty easy right now to feel overwhelmed. Ukraine is sucking up all the air in the room and if we stop being fascinated and aghast at that story – we remember the other stuff. Local dirty politics and where’s Covid and global climate meltdown and let me see – am I going to say the rising cost of gas is our place to be in solidarity with the people of Ukraine-  or is this oil companies gouging us while blaming it on a crisis? (Read more here.) 

I keep asking myself this question, which I will not be precisely answering for you because I don’t know how.

What does my spirit need? What do I need to get or do or be to enjoy my life and be a helpful person on this earth?

Not - how shocked and angry and astounded am I - but what do I need?

I am very sure we are not here to be outraged and depressed – though we are not going to fault ourselves and our friends when this is where we end up.

Being a human in any time and in this time is a gift, a disaster, a trick, and a challenge. 

..

Here are two things to remember if you, like me, feel assaulted and tired.

1. Go outside. We are animals who we need to walk around in our world. We get sick if we don’t.

I sometimes think all the messages about exercising and speed walking and running marathons and weight lifting and treadmills and YouTube yoga, yadda yadda, are valuable because obviously, we need to move. But these messages have also trained us to think that going outside requires specific outside activities.  We have learned to think of the world as a place to drive through or a gym where we exercise.

I remember my long-gone days when I smoked. A half dozen times a day I’d go outside to sit on my front or back steps with a cigarette and then not think about much for seven minutes. I’m never going back to smoking but I did love and still do, sitting outside by myself, watching the world flutter. We don’t always have to have a purpose but we do need to let the universe touch us.

2. Be generous.  Send money, donate stuff, give to worthy causes addressing the crises in our world. Bring home bakery cookies to give to the neighbors. Buy your pets treats. Give flowers for no reason. Maybe to yourself.

ICYMI today is International Women’s Day. I remember when I was a girl feeling ashamed of being a girl because it meant I was not going to be as valuable or important as a man.  Not kidding, I thought this. Thank you to all the women who risked their comfort and safety to show girls then and girls now how awful and stupid sexism is.  Just saying, none of us are strong all by ourselves.

If you feel like commemorating today, when you go outside to sit on your steps (see above) don’t come back inside until you’ve remembered some of the women who helped clear the path for you.

National Red Dress Day, the first Friday in February, is the day to wear red in honor and support of women’s heart health. (I knew it was out there but I had never really logged in on what day it was.) 

In January I had 2 1/2 days when my heart fluttered weirdly and my new Apple watch ECG app said my heart rate was “inconclusive.”  One thing and another, today I am wearing a Holter monitor which a very nice tech stuck on me yesterday. It’s small - about the size and thickness of half a granola bar with a thin 3” tail - all of it is stuck to me. Tomorrow I pull it off, put it in a small box that fits in a postage paid envelope which I mail back to the cardiology department at the medical center.

Wow.

My dad died of a two heart attacks in three days in 1967; no one ever knew exactly what happened to his heart. He was not overweight, he didn’t smoke or drink, he even jogged sometimes for exercise.  His mother would die from strokes. My brother died of a heart attack in 1999. My uncle died of a heart attack. All these Danielsons worked hard, were bright and fine and loved, had some good and some bad habits until they keeled over way too young.

And now a watch and a little stick-on gizmo are going to tell me an enormous amount about the health of my heart. I expect my results to say my heart is fine. Nothing has thumped or fluttered since January.  I think I had too much coffee one morning and then I freaked out at the Inconclusive readings.

Anyways. If people around you talk about “the good old days” please thump them upside their heads.

While culture wars have been spinning on, scientists have been busy and we who have access to medical care are damn lucky.

.

And here is my latest cat scan.

 

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Comments

Hoping the miraculous Holter monitor brings reassuring information. One thing it cannot reveal is the miraculous nature of you and what you bring to us all with your writings. That miracle is revealed straight from your heart to our own.
Mary Beth's picture

Awww... I'm sitting here grinning. Thank you.

Looks good to me! And you have nice clear and bright eyes! Peace
Mary Beth's picture

Laughing..

You have a very good heart, Mary Beth. Sometimes in this difficult world, we are a bit irregular, why not? That will be addressed, if need be. But I am going on record saying your heart is good.
Mary Beth's picture

And you knew it when it was young....

Love this. A very good read!
Mary Beth's picture

Thanks, Pal!

What Karen K, said. I thank your heart. Patricia

Well, that has to be the most conclusive cat scan I have ever viewed. Just looking at the sweetness makes my heart rate slow down. Here's hoping your heart is in great working order and the weirdness is gone for good. I love the cartoons...I can relate to each one! Got my chuckle for the morning in. Thanks.

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A-Z P is for Procrastination

6/2/2023

Procrastination. Or how the American Revolution was won. 

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't grant him the serenity to accept the things he cannot change.” (Tweet by Bob Golen) 

P is the next letter to write about in this project to write an essay for every letter of the alphabet. Someone suggested Procrastination.

Guess what? I’ve been putting it off.

...

GNTL - So Many Words!

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The month of May might have been above my paygrade. I contributed to a weeks-long writing project in our congregation. I met friends more often than usual to talk and catch up. Two grandkids came for a sleepover last week. Our daughter and her little dog spent last Friday with us. Saturday another grandkid slept over.

GNTL - Kathryn's Garden

5/29/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives - Kathryn’s Garden

My friend Kathryn sent some beautiful photos of her garden to me this morning, I asked if I could post them here and she said yes. 

Some of you know Kathryn Rouse so you know this is not a garden-come-lately. She’s been building and growing her garden since, I think, the late 1970’s. The bunny in a hurry is a Bill Reid sculpture.

I think Kathryn's photos are the right frame for the poem.

A-Z Observation

5/24/2023   O is for Observation

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was a pre-telescope Danish astronomer who looked at the sky more precisely than anyone before him had done. He was obsessively careful about measuring what he saw and he studied the sky every night he could. To accomplish what he wanted he reinvented and fine-tuned the sky-gauging tools of his era – sextant and quadrant.

You may have seen these tools in paintings of old-time sailors. They would hold them up to their face, look at the stars, figure out where they were in the world.

GNTL - Squirrels & Gardens & the Sonoran Desert

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Grownups Noticing Their Lives

My garden thrives in ignominy.

Yesterday I posted some frugal things I’ve done lately at the Non-Consumer Advocate website. I do this because the kinds of people who try to be frugal are often (not always) people who I wish would come over here and read my website, too. I don’t write too much about frugal strategies but I write lot about values. We are in the same Venn diagram, right?

GNTL - Walk, Mounds, Spirit

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

5/17/2023 

The local TV weather folks talked about ‘a pneumonia front’ for two days. I’d never heard the term before but we all know temps can change fast, right? It’s more generally called life on planet earth. Keep a jacket handy if you can.

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