30 Days of Thanks: Integration

When I was a student at Concordia College, there was a subset of courses offered which we referred to as Integration classes.  They were, fittingly, indicated on our transcripts with an X following the course number.

The purpose of Integration coursework is to juxtapose two seemingly different disciplines in order to discover the common concepts between them.  This is really the essence of any Liberal Arts education, in my mind, and why I preferred a B.A. to a B.S.  To graduate, we needed to take one Integration course--I had the good fortune of working three into my schedule. 

347X - Biomedical Ethics (one of only two night classes I took)
318X - Women, Religion, and Literature (in Greece)
315X - Evolution and Religion (my favorite--which shocks no one)

Of all my studies, Integration courses were the most challenging, and most enjoyable.  I have carried this framework of thinking forward, and am mindful of it so often in daily life.  It gives me great pleasure to see two things--be they organisms or ideas--which appear to be fundamentally unrelated, suddenly relate.

I swear, Mom.  College wasn't all partying.  Although...there was a lot of...nevermind.

During The Thirty Days of Gratitude Project, I wrote 25 blog posts--more importantly, I ended up with a very vivid snapshot of how dynamic the human condition is.  For those who followed this project, we started at espresso and fireflies before a side trip past the Constitution and Election Day, only to plummet all the way down to the tragic passing of my sister's beloved Charlie.  Climb back up to the gorgeous, vibrant, rugged Baja California.  Octavio Paz!  Well, hell--at that point, what's left but to circle around to the stomach flu and full moon walks with the dogs?!  This is surely an up and down existence for us all, my word.  If you mapped out anyone's November, it would look just like a sound wave, the growth and death of a plant on time delay, or how the pages of an book opened to the center curve to their edges.  The same patterns that are so persistent across all disciplines, across all people.

My challenge this month was to integrate gratitude with what is, frankly, a pretty ungrateful world.  I was up to it.  You were, too.

Thank you for reading, it held me accountable to my writing when it is so easy to push aside.  I am humbled by the number of views my little blog has been granted. 

This project is complete, but the opportunities to be thankful aren't--so get out there and be grateful. 

30 Days of Thanks: A Cold Driveway

We have an attached garage--often, I don't park in it.  Sometimes, it is full of remodeling materials and our cars won't fit; lately, I have just been lazy.  Our neighborhood is very safe, so I have been leaving the Outback in the elements.

This morning, I walked out to a frosty windshield, and it was my day to drive for the carpool.  I decided to start the car and let it defrost instead of scraping the windows, because then the seats could warm up, too.

Which bought me just enough time to snap this photo from the driveway.

Totally made my morning.  :)

Three cheers for laziness!

30 Days of Thanks: Nurturing

Home sick!  For only the third day in over eight years, boo.  Lame.

Thankful for Mac, who snuggled with me all day.  It really did help. 

30 Days of Thanks: Frost Moon

My favorite nights come when the days shorten and the temperatures drop.  Last winter, when Mac was an "only dog," I would walk to the nearby park where he would run while I sipped hot chai.  I loved how the heat from his paws left prints on the frosty grass, or how I could see his breath from across the soccer fields when the moon was fat.  Those trips were a crisp and quiet end to the day.

This week, we started up the night walks again--just in time, too, as the Frost Moon was coming full this morning and into tonight.

Today, I am grateful that I can no longer take hot chai on our night excursions. Because I need a hand for each leash, for there are two black shapes streaking across the park again this year.  Two sets of paws on the grass.  Double the frosty breath.  Mac is happier that way...and we are, too.

It is good to be a family of four again.

Tonight's Frost Moon -- with a little added style this time!

P.S.  Yesterday, I was just glad I had a painless first day back at work after vacation.  That is usually a real drag of a day, and I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was good.  :)

30 Days of Thanks: Zzzzzzz

Well, we all knew it would happen--I missed yesterday's entry.  :)

Yesterday was a long day--driving north from Ensenada, crossing the border in Tijuana, heading to San Diego, flying back to Minneapolis, and thumbing a ride home from our neighbor, Cy.  But it was SO good to be home.

The Gunderson Love Nest -- although not this week, since there is a light dusting of snow now. 

I love everything about our house.  I remember so clearly the excitement in Jon's voice when he called me over nine years ago after seeing it with our realtor--or how he drove me by it after he was under contract, and we saw Cy cutting his kids' hair in his garage as we pulled into the cul de sac.  Our house looks very different now than it did on moving day as we have extensively remodeled it--something we did together.  Ok, well, we didn't always agree on everything, and there was that whole fireplace incident.  Or the ceiling fan incident.  Or the mouse incident.....or the day we found out the reason the bathtub was so cold was because there wasn't any insulation in the wall it was against, or......forget it.  There are too many.  We have painted all the rooms a couple times, Jon asked me to marry him in the back yard on a spring morning, and all of my Flat-Coats have lived here.  It is a good place.  Better than good.

What I enjoy most about coming home is the smell of our house.  Everyone's house has "that" smell, doesn't it?  The mix of cooking and laundry detergent, candles and our lavender mint soap.  In the midst of all that life can give, be it good or bad, home is a refuge. 

Mac and Apolo were SO excited to see us!  Apolo made some noises that I haven't ever heard him make before.  :)  Mac snuggled next to me until I fell asleep, and again this morning after Jon was up making eggs.

So, yesterday I was thankful for home--and today, lazy Sundays.

30 Days of Thanks: Erosion

Jelena...unaware of my camera.  :)  Click!

 After the first full day of our trip, Jelena and I went down to the cove at sunset as the tide was low.  The waves started to come in gently, and I scooped up the purple shell of a sea urchin.  I am not real big on collecting anything beyond photographs, but I thought it might be a pretty thing to leave behind at Casa Meiodia.  The next day at the cove, I snagged a worn shell of a different sort.  I set it on Jelena's towel to dry.  She, in turn, gave it to our hostess, Irene.

The cove by day.

Irene and I were drinking coffee the next morning, and she thanked me for spotting the shell, because she is working on a project she calls "Erosion Art."  She is collecting sea shells that have been shaped in different ways by time and nature--sand, waves, salt, sun, wind.  She has a glass vase that holds the pieces neatly arranged, so we started looking through them.  Isn't that a really cool project?  Those are the broken shells everyone throws back, because they aren't deemed the prettiest.  They are just fragments, while so many of us only want the most complete, most perfect ones.  Her collection is splendid, I was honored that she shared it with me.

The scientific concept of erosion tends to have an "over time" connotation, as well as a negative one.  I held the shell I had picked up--this time, looking with new eyes.  It was easy to see where the sand had settled inside it, pitting and wearing away the inner nacre (or possibly porcelain, too hard to tell now.)  Time and force had worn its edges and diminished its color, leaving only small markings of purple.  This shell, ground down and changed, is all that remains of the mollusk it used to house--of the life it used to protect.

Over the past few days, I have given erosion much thought. 

What erodes us?  What erodes you, me, anyone?  Is erosion always bad?

What am I thankful for today?  The list I made earlier in the week, the one detailing what grinds down my inner nature.  What wears me away, the forces which change me.  It was kind of an ugly list to be frank.  A few items I would rather have glossed over in an attempt to pretend they didn't really belong.  I encourage you to do the same, for what erodes me isn't necessarily what erodes you at all.  And it's important to know the difference.

Maybe more important is the quest to determine what elements put us back together.  What makes us whole.  And how to tip this very precious balance in our favor.


When you are gone, a shell will remain.  Your mark on the world will persist.  Possibly to be the inspiration in the hand of another.  How much of that shell any of us can choose to build in beauty, and how much may be shaped by the relentlessness of nature, will likely remain a mystery.

30 Days of Thanks: The Obvious

My heart is grateful for my friends, my family, my dogs, my education, my health--for these things are my life. 

I am deeply thankful.  So, so thankful.

30 Days of Thanks: Authenticity

The inward look unfolds and a world of vertigo and flame is born

in the dreamer's brow:

 blue suns, green whirlwinds, birdbeaks of light pecking open

the pomegranate stars,

and the solitary sunflower, a gold eye revolving at the center of a 

burnt slope.

-Octavio Paz, "The Broken Water Jar"

Translated by Lysander Kemp 

O.M.G.

Occasionally, I find myself in a moment so vibrant and real, I forget to think.  Today, I had one of those experiences.

Irene Noon, one of our hosts, took us to the local Mexican market in Maneadero (Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada.)  Which was an amazing experience!  We parked, ran across a busy road, and were immediately immersed in an explosion of smell, dust, color, and language.  Added bonus: we stuck out like sore thumbs, because we were.

The incredible thing about the market?  You basically would never have to go anywhere else, you could totally sustain yourself for a lifetime just by showing up here once a week.  There was a stunning array of fruits and vegetables, fish tacos for $0.80 each, haircuts, tables of neatly folded undergarments, honeyed nuts, old chainsaw parts, bicycles, birds in cages, tanks of goldfish, sheep, a row of vehicles, a makeshift pharmacy, and blenders.  No joke--blenders.  And coffee makers, and soup pots--used, but clean.  A kilo of tomatoes was five pesos, a papaya twenty.  There were children's shoes, parkas, Christmas trees, fresh tamales, olives, an elderly woman chopping cacti.  Children played marbles in the dirt without hovering parents, we felt safe walking separated from each other, and most of the men wore dirty farming hats.  The dogs certainly didn't wear collars.  
   
If you can dream it, it exists--in this market.  It was crazy and oddly functional all at the same time.

My faith in all that is authentic is restored.

30 Days of Thanks: Daybreak

Two things happened today that never happen!

1) I saw the sunrise.  (If I'm not at work, I'm asleep.)

2) I was the first to the coffee pot.

Fist pump.

30 Days of Thanks: The Power of the Unknown

We are going to revisit Octavio Paz tonight, but first I want to tell you something about my grandfather.  On my mom's side.

My Grandpa Sandy was a brilliant man--an inventor, a philosopher, an environmentalist.  As a child, I asked him many questions.  Often he answered.  Just as often, he would look down, shrug his shoulders, and say, "I don't know."  He taught me that there is truth in not knowing, not shame.

Culture compels us to have an answer.  Culture compels us to be correct.  These compulsions stand in contrast to the realities of daily life--I would add stark contrast to the large questions we face as a society.

Why does poetry intimidate us?  Because we want so badly to be right.  To have a metaphorical box, and to pack our life experiences neatly into it.  To have our favorite sports team, or the guy we voted for, win.  To know the exact value of an item at the market.  To understand why someone we love must die.  To force every complex moment into simplicity. 

To have.  To know.  To force.  To understand.  These are strong concepts, and are the cravings of a strong people.  Yet our lives are not to be that way, and we must strive--if not struggle--to embrace that.

Poetry conforms to none of these desires, yet challenges us to open ourselves to the possibility that two people can read the exact same poem, and it can have an absurdly different meaning to each.

The Street

A long and silent street.
I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall
and rise, and I walk blind, my feet
stepping on silent stones and dry leaves.
Someone behind me also stepping on stones, leaves:
if I slow down, he slows;
if I run, he runs.  I turn: nobody.
Everything dark and doorless.
Turning and turning among these corners
which lead forever to the street
where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,
where I pursue a man who stumbles
and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.

-Octavio Paz, Puerta Condenada, translated by Muriel Rukeyser

What do I know in this moment?  What do I have, do I force, do I understand?  It is dark, and the stars are ablaze.  I hear the waves.  The breeze lifts my hair, there is a sea lion barking her frustration at the tuna in the nets, just out of her reach.  Dew is already dripping from the rooftop.  The man I love--who I have always loved, even before I knew him--is asleep beyond the glass of the door behind my patio seat.  On the surface, these are precious few things. 

Yet, take heed--for in truth, these things are everything.  Whether I choose to pause and notice or not. 

Do not be afraid to not know yourself, others, or the world.  Be not afraid of your shadow.

With baby Apolo.  xoxo

30 Days of Thanks: A Poem With No Name

Bliss.

 A prolific surrealist and existentialist, Octavio Paz was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.  He was born, and died, in Mexico City.  In the span of his life, he was a writer/poet, spent time in New York while exiled with his family, and was a Mexican diplomat.  Amongst a host of other things...the most insignificant of which is the title of "Jess's favorite poet."

I usually take Paz with me on vacation, and this trip is no exception.

This morning was glorious.  We drank coffee on the deck overlooking the ocean.  The hummingbirds buzzed around the trees.  Yellow butterflies floated on the salty sea air drifting up the mountains.  When the records stopped spinning, there was no sound save the wind in the trees.

Paz grounds me.  Reading him in his native Mexico, where color and sensuality drench the earth, grounds me even more.

Over the next week I will likely share a few of his poems, this one couldn't have been more perfect for this morning.  I will refrain from personal analysis, as you should see how the lines speak to you for yourself.

(Untitled)

At daybreak the newborn goes looking for a name
Upon the sleep-filled bodies the light glitters
The mountains gallop to the shore of the sea
The sun with his spurs on is entering the waves
Stony attack shattering clarities
The sea resists rearing to the horizon
Confusion of land imminence of sculpture
The naked forehead of the world is raised
Rock smoothed and polished to cut a poem on
Display of light that opens its fan of names
Here is the seed of a singing like a tree
Here are the wind and names beautiful in the wind

-Octavio Paz, Semillas Para Un Himno (Translated by Muriel Rukeyser)

Breakfast.  AMAZING!

Thank you, thank you...to a man I never met, for sharing his view of the world through his verse. 

Paz's Nobel Diploma

30 Days of Thanks: Hospitality

There is a record player near the dinner table.  On the shelf are around 900 LPs.  With the candlelight and music come amazing stories, local table wine, and home cooked food made from only the freshest ingredients.

I woke up to the sound of sea lions, and am falling asleep to the silence of stars.  This is the Mexico I always knew existed, but the Mexico I had yet to see.

30 Days of Thanks: Technology

I am blogging from my phone outside of Gate G20 at MSP.  How cool is that?!

Where will technology take us in the future...I can't wait to find out. 

30 Days of Thanks: The Moon and Recollection

My mom tells a story of me as a child, I was riding in the back seat of the car while she was driving at night.  I told her, "I think the moon likes me."

She inquired, "You do?  Why?"

"Because it is following me home."

I brought Mac and Apolo to my mom tonight, because my parents are watching them for us when we are vacationing in Mexico (we fly out in the morning.)  On the way home, the moon followed me again.  Tonight it was a tiny sliver as the new moon was only two nights ago, on the 13th.  I love when it is a little sliver, because it reminds me of a melon rind, or the tip of a fingernail.  I was glad for the company as I was lonely without my boys.

As an aside, while I was wandering through Target today, I suddenly recalled (for no apparent reason,) that my passport was still in my glove compartment from our Vancouver trip this summer.  Good thing, too, because I traded vehicles with my mom...that would have been pretty a pretty horrible discovery while packing tonight!  I am always amazed how the human mind works "in the background" in ways we are unaware of.

I didn't blog yesterday, which is not to say I forgot this self-imposed project.  I rested, and was thankful for deep, restorative sleep.

The moon from our driveway on September 19, 2012--fatter than tonight!

30 Days of Thanks: Grace

This past August--on the heels of college graduation, moving, starting a new job, and divorce--my sister opened up our intra-office classifieds.  She saw a dog.  His name was Charlie.

He was a nine year-old Australian Cattle Dog, and was in the care of a staff member from a different hospital in our system.  He had belonged to her elderly father, and had recently made the trip from Washington State to Minnesota.

Leslie said, "This dog is supposed to be my dog."

Maplewood State Park -- October 2012

We went to meet his caretakers.  When they said she could adopt him, she got tears in her eyes and stood up from her chair.  I remember vividly that she was wearing a black and white, short, vintage dress--with her black hair and red lipstick, she appeared to have stepped out of a movie.  She crouched down on the floor, her skirt swirling, and enveloped him in her arms.  Charlie closed his eyes, and was hers.

That is a memory I will always hold.  It was moment out of a dream.  Out of a glass globe--except instead of snow, there would have rose petals.

No one could have known that Charlie had adenocarcinoma, and that in three short months, he would be gone.

What I am thankful for today is grace.  That deep, profound understanding that can only stem from a person's inherent fabric.  My sister gave Charlie an incredible gift.  She selflessly opened her heart to an older dog, without regard for the possibility of such a staggering and fast loss.  She left herself unguarded.  They went for walks, had picnics, took car rides.  She read him Shakespeare and took him hiking.  They sat outside coffee shops together, and enrolled in training class so they could be better partners.

In the end, as in the beginning, the choices weren't about Leslie.  They were about Charlie.

It would have been easy to step back from this writing project today.  To say there is nothing to be thankful for. 

With eyes closed, I tell you truthfully: there is everything to be thankful for.

30 Days of Thanks: Vision

"Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?" -Ecclesiastes 8:7

Today, I am glad I don't possess a crystal ball, or the ability to use it.  Because I would be tempted to look, which would cause me to live my life differently.  With fear.  With trepidation. 

The vision would compel me to advise others to live their lives differently, too.  It would sacrifice today in trade for tomorrow, which is the wrong path.

Some turns wait for us in shadow.  It is better that way.

30 Days of Thanks: Military Veterans

Grandpa Joe - unmarked photo from New Guinea

 
Today's entry topic was so easy--I assume every Veteran knows I am thankful for their service.  Which is not a substitute for saying it out loud.  (I've been talking a lot about "out loud" this month, haven't I?)  I am grateful for the men and women who have fought and died so I can exercise the 1st Amendment--and all the other Amendments for that matter (remember 19 from a few days back?)

It is with a greater understanding now than I had even a few years ago that I reach for USAF Colonel Walter Hitchcock's famous American idiom: Freedom is not free.

A year ago today, I posted one of my favorite blog entries, Armistice Day 1942.  I took some time today to upload a few other photos from my Grandfather's WWII service, as well as his discharge papers.  Because I love his thumbprint.  I hope you find them amusing, I know the photo from the swimming hole sure made me laugh.

Remember last year when I speculated on his use of "native?"  I must have been correct!

Bet you anything they just wore the suits for the photo...  Heh, heh.

Thumbprint.  LOVE.

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY!

30 Days of Thanks: The Inauguration of a President

On the heels of Brack Obama's first Presidential Inauguration, my mom made me promise that we would attend in 2013 if he was reelected.  We booked our flights and lodging today.

It's easy to say, "It's too much hassle," or "Let's just pass, it will be easier to watch in on TV anyways."  It's always harder to follow through.  So, today, I am grateful for promises fulfilled--and the chance to be in this mass of humanity on the National Mall.

January 20, 2009 -- photo by Senior Master Sgt. Thomas Meneguin, USAF

30 Days of Thanks: Officemates

My co-workers are truly amazing people.

When I was first hired as a Cytologist, I wasn't sure how long I would stay at the hospital I work at in downtown St. Paul.  I was just out of school and had done my clinicals at the UMN, so I was attached to the group across the river, and really wanted to be affiliated with a university setting.  I started out thinking I would stay for a year, so I figured there wasn't much point in putting up any photos at my desk.  Then my goal became five years, you know--so I could be vested and all that jazz.  It's now been over eight, and I probably couldn't fit one more photo in my cube.  (I don't mind cube life, by the way.  Office Space gave it a bad name.  But I do love that movie...)

Anyway, back to gratitude.

The people who work in my department are a brilliant mix of witty, compassionate, and bold.  They are fierce "behind the scenes" advocates for patients, never asking for (or wanting) any credit.  I never get tired of the huge role we play for strangers we will never meet, and I am inspired by the excellence of those around me.  We also have an abundance of nerdy/scientific office humor, which I don't find anywhere else.  We can "leave the office at the office" and still enjoy each other as friends.  As family.

Could I do my job anywhere?  Sure.  But I don't care to.  Eight years going on....?

Lunchtime 5K with my carpool/microscope partner, Suzi!  Trying not to catch my Washington wig on the banner.

30 Days of Thanks: Solitude

I am grateful for a couple things today--first, that I am not afraid of the dark.  Second, that I enjoy being alone.  Although, to be fair, it's hard to ever be "alone" with Mac and Apolo around.

Jon is at our Utah place getting it ready for the ski season, so I had tonight to myself (part of last night, too, after dinner with a friend.)  In addition to being a night owl, I like to stay up late because it is a nice way to have some quiet time for reflection.   As we approach the winter solstice, it is peaceful to go for an evening run under the stars, barely able to see my breath when passing beneath a street light.

30 Days of Thanks: The 19th Amendment

My grandmother, Ruby Wampler Sedivy, entered the world on April 22, 1919.  It is unfathomable to me that she was born in a time when women's suffrage was still partial--or worse, non-existant--across the United States.  The notion that half of our citizenry could be politically silenced is foreign to me.  I call that progress.

America is a great country for a multitude of reasons.  We engage--repeatedly--in snarky, grinding, political debates on a national stage.  We freely show our best and our worst to the world.  Eventually, we get it right.  But "getting it right" is always a process, and it is rarely for the faint of heart.  The 19th Amendment was part of that process.

Katherine Milhouse's "It Doesn't Unsex Her"

In the voting booth, we are all equal.  We are all part of the struggle, the dynamic furor that continually melts down and reshapes American Society.  Your vote is your voice--stand up, speak out, be counted.
 

30 Days of Thanks: Our Nephews

I am so thankful for these three!  Happy Birthday to Trenton...he is seven today!

Trenton (7) - Nick (15) - Zach (10)

30 Days of Thanks: Fireflies

Last July, Jon was out east touring Civil War battlefields with his mom, but I needed to get my car serviced before I took my mom and the boys to Vancouver.  So, I drove the Subaru down to the local place that takes care of our vehicles.  Then I ran the 4.4 miles home.

I don't tolerate hot and humid.  It was 85 degrees (despite being 9pm,) and still humid.  Not my kind of weather.  Jon was gone, and I was missing him because our trips were going to overlap, meaning we wouldn't see each other for three weeks.

Part way home, I went through a low spot, and it was filled with fireflies.  Which reminded me of late nights at the lake growing up, when the fireflies were thick in the summer air.  And it reminded me of a night here in Farmington that I sat outside in the grass with Jay and Mac while the fireflies twinkled--that memory is just priceless to me.  Those fireflies last July really cheered me up.

We had to drop Jon's car off tonight, so we decided to run home together (low 40s here as opposed to mid 80s...yay!)  When I went past the low spot, I remembered the fireflies, and was grateful for them.

30 Days of Thanks: Days 1-3

I have several Facebook friends who are participating in the "Thirty Days of Thankfulness" this November via their status updates.  I figure it's a good bandwagon to jump on, but I am opting to do it here instead (I will inevitably miss days, and it is just easier to catch up on a blog.)

November 1:  Not gonna lie, I was so tired on Thursday--I was grateful for espresso.  You think I'm starting out lame right out of the gate, don't you?  "She should be thankful Iran hasn't launched a nuke at anyone, and she's throwing out coffee."  Well...yeah.  I am.  The coffee place in the hospital where I work is amazing.  The amount of money I spend there is not amazing.  On a dark morning, there is nothing better than walking over to the baristas for a vanilla latte, maybe with a little honey in it.  It gives me some exercise, a chance to talk football with the valet, and the windows overlooking the garden are a beautiful connection to urban St. Paul.  Along with the espresso shots, I am thankful for the handful of people I typically cross paths with on that morning walk.

November 2:  Dr. Mark Askew.  Who is this mystery man I have never mentioned, you ask?  The surgeon who repaired both my torn ACLs--our first (of six) trips into the OR together happened on November 2, 1995.  Why am I able to hike, ski, run, suffer through P90X, or wear high heels?  Because of this guy.

Don't tell Jon how much I paid for this coat.  BUT, IT WAS ON SALE!

November 3:  I have a whole list today!  One thing I am grateful for is a quirk I inherited from my mom.  Her body makes an abundance of platelets, and mine does, too.  I gave some away this morning--I hope they help a sick person feel good enough to make memories with a loved one, or to see a sunrise.  Then I had lunch with my cousin and her daughter, who I haven't seen in way too long.  We wrapped today up with a recipe for chicken tortilla soup my friend Amy gave me.  I still have the copy with all her handwritten notes on it, and it is one of our favorite meals.  So, I am thankful that she was willing to share it.

Negativity is easy...but gratitude is easier.  Looking forward to hearing what YOU are grateful for throughout November, too.