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Pandemically Inclined

My head hurts. My heart hurts. My feet hurt. This pandemic has not been easy. Not that I have been through more then this one pandemic but I don’t think I expected that this was going to take such a toll on my health and my spirit.

I’ve tried so hard to keep my own spirit up. I’m still trying. I took up new hobbies. I read more than a few books. We’ve isolated ourselves, my husband and me. But you can just throw all that out the window. My job has forced me to spend many hours in the presence of others who may or may not be trying to be safe from the virus. I am not so much scared as I am angry about that one.

I am studying some new subjects. I like that. Not everyone will feel safe with my new knowledge, but that’s OK, I study for me not anyone else. I am also trying to learn excel….yeah, that just sucks so bad. Not that the subject is difficult, I haven’t gotten that far into the course yet…I just cannot sit down and make myself do the work. I’m even paying for this course on my own, not a free class. I don’t like wasting money, yet here I am with a few minutes of free time…writing. Ah well, I’ll blame it on the pandemic.

I am writing on my new computer. I needed this piece of equipment to get serious about my podcast. Did I say that yet? I am going to start recording a podcast. I am not committed yet to a host company for the podcast and now I am scared again. I know that it will cost money so I want to choose wisely.

I bought the microphone and teeny tiny mixer board already….not that I have even opened the boxes yet. But I am starting to get excited about this again. I totally wanted to be on the air by now but in March, when the world shut down, so did I. I am going to record, going to schedule and upload a podcast….I am not sure who will listen to me. I don’t know that anyone wants to hear what I have to say. It doesn’t matter.

The next thing I have to learn is how to marry my blog, my domain, and my podcast together. This is starting to sound like a job….but it is a job I want to do. All of this sounds like a hoot to me. It has for awhile. I don’t know how much longer everyone will have to stay away from each other, but I am tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen…I will happen. Plus, I have conscripted my daughter to help me. (I don’t think she knows it yet.) I ask questions and all of the sudden she is helping me with great suggestions….haha.

For now, I will just keep on keeping on….dreaming, hoping, putting ice on my foot, you know….

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Contemplation, death, Family, Life, Me, Native American Women

Rock and Roll Payday Memories

I spent the day on the road. Total miles logged was 230. When you spend that much time alone you have a tendency to think about things that normally you do have time to think about. Today I spent my time thinking about my parents. There are just certain things that trigger memories and then when I am driving I have time to let those thoughts keep running.

My mother died 3 years ago. Her passing was not easy. She was ill and she had suffered a heart attack. She lingered for two weeks in a hospital that was far from her home. She was not alone, one of her daughters and her husband were there with her. My father died several years prior to her passing. His passing was not easy. He suffered complications of diabetes after a surgery. He was not alone, two of his daughters, his sisters and several of his nieces and nephews were there when he passed.

I think of this and I am glad to have been an intimate part of that passing. I wish that I had been able to be there for my mother as well but I am glad that the same sister who stood with me while my father passed, stood by my mothers’ side as well. I can think of no greater expression of love than to be present at the passing of a loved one. To hold that hand and to say “I love you” or “thank you” or whatever is on your mind to say at that last moment.

The first thing I do is to plug in the ipod and cue up Janis Joplin. I play the entire uploaded album as loud as my factory installed speakers will allow while singing along with Janis and I smile because she was one of my mother’s favorite musicians. The I look for a convenience store, any one will do as long as they sell Payday candy bars. I buy the biggest one I can find and I eat the whole candy bar, savoring every bite and I smile because this was my dad’s favorite candy bar.

While I complete these little rituals I have established for myself I wonder about my parents. I wonder where they are? I wonder what important works they are working on these days? I wonder which of their heathen children they are watching closely today?

I hear so many people lament over the loss of a loved one that spend so much of their lives espousing their belief in a Creator and an afterlife that promises to be so much better than this life we live on this world but when push comes to shove…what they actually believe is far from what they have espoused. The absolute lack of faith explains so much to me.

For me, blaring Janis Joplin and wolfing down a Payday candy bar are the traditions that I hope I am passing down to my own daughter who someday will face these things. Someday she will think of me. I trust that she will just play the music she knows I love and eat a candy bar that was my favorite and smiles knowing that my new adventure has begun. I hope she wonders what I am up to and I trust she knows that I am having a blast.

She will then take everything that I have given her and pass those things on to her daughter and that makes me so happy. I know deep in my heart that my parents are happy about this as well, whatever they are doing today.

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Family, Life, Me

Surviving America

Ok, so I survived another holiday weekend. Oh I know that technically the holiday happened during the week but it was close enough that many people tacked on the weekend as well. There were numerous office populated with the dreaded skeleton crew. Some of us who ended up working while others were off playing. Yes, I was one of those who worked on Friday…but it was nice so I did not mind. On the plus side there were not nearly as many emails as I normally would have to read during the weekend.

I accidently started a family tradition years ago and now the 4th of July is my daughters very favorite holiday. I always found this highly unlikely because I do not know ANY kid who picks July over Christmas but I have come to accept over the years that she really does like the 4th of July more than Christmas!

When my baby was young I started taking her to fireworks displays in town, the big ones. We had two big displays in Fort Wayne each year. The first was at the traditional end of the Three Rivers Festival and, of course, the 4th of July show. She named each of the fireworks big booms by the sounds that accompanied the flashes. I was not a fan of the backyard do-it-yourself shows put on by the dads and granddads. Oh not that they were not fun for the kids (and yes, that is supposed to be the target audience) but it was not so much fun for me.

These shows became such a thrill for my daughter that even after her father and I were no longer married she still insisted on going and by then it had become his tradition as well. I liked that for her. Some years we would meet up during the show and some years it was my turn to take her. She was just happy to be out and looking up into the night sky those hot summer nights.

Over the years I have found myself sitting on some grassy knoll waiting for the sun to set and the show to begin. I have noticed that, over all, the fireworks have not changed so much. Probably safer for the pyro techs and computers have made some of the shows interesting with music blaring along with each big bang but essentially, they are unchanged and I think that this is one of things I like the best.

These days I am heading out to find “my spot” alone. My husband does not find the excitement that I find in a good old firework show. But I am never lonely. I chat with my camped out neighbors and we share snacks and drinks from time to time. I meet new people who have also found what a nice spot we have all discovered. There are always the new people in town who did not realize that our little town offers such a great show.

This year I sat with my girlfriend and her son as well as several other friends. She is an Ojibwa woman. We were quite the sight, two full-blooded Native women sitting in the grass in our camping chairs eating snacks and drinking pop waiting on a celebration we aren’t so sure about but we like the fireworks. We laugh at the irony and we clap at the really cool displays. Her son heads out to scout the crowd and see who is around, not that he knows anyone, he is one of those guys who finds a new friend everywhere he goes. He comes back exited that he found a Di’ne woman sitting on the hill. We are three now. Native women who sit in the crowd celebrating the birth of America, who would have thought?

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