nakedjen

There's More Than One Way To Have It All

 

"There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors."

 

• What I am reading   Proving that everything that is old is always new again.  Or, perhaps I just got really bored and stopped paying attention and this industry never actually died.  I'm sure there's at least one person who remembers when I worked for Camera Cafe.  I knew this world. It actually was part of the impetus behind #nakedfridays and my own wish for everyone to love themselves as they are.  I'm not surprised that the world is dangerous.  It was then, it can only be more so now.  We forget that people are actually HUMAN BEINGS. 
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• What I am eating  I have to make something to take to a party.  Who doesn't like chocolate and caramel?  I mean, some people obviously do not, but I'm pretty certain this will just disappear and I won't have to deal with bringing home leftovers. 

• What I am Listening To Stella is missing her brother. I'm thinking she might even need a heating pad with a heartbeat in it, if I can find such a thing.  She used to sleep wrapped around him and now, well, now she sleeps with her head burrowed under her blankets. Times are tough.  The music helps. 

• What I am watching   Feeding my Gilmore Girls habit. However, it's even better because Amy is not constrained, has a far bigger budget and, well, we get to go on a deep dive without commercials.  Stella joins me on the couch for every episode. Also, the New York Times gives us this fab list of reading material to add to the fun.  

• What I am thinking about The money quote: “I hope — I pray — we don’t have to use this fund,” DeAngelis said. “But odds are we will.”  
  
  What they do not really mention in this article is that the State of Colorado is creating a 501(c), based on the generosity of others, to take care of victims of mass tragedy in their state.  While I know that we're human and we all respond with caring hearts when mass tragedy happens, what bothers me most here is that why not also fund this fund by collecting additional dollars from the sales of guns?  Maybe?? Or does that cross some line drawn in the sand.  Or even with additional fees for gun licenses?  And, yes, I know that most mass tragedies occur at the hands of people who probably had illegal access to guns in the first place.  However, I'm a big believer in helping to make the entire community (in this case gun owners) take responsibility.  
  
  If you're going to need a FUND for the victims of Mass Tragedy and you want people to donate to fund the fund in advance of the tragedy that you know is inevitably going to happen, why not also ask for money from the makers of the guns that will probably also contribute to the tragedy.  It just seems like common sense to me. 

• What I am really feeling: Like I want to throw up. Pleasant, I know. However, it's the truth. And I'd like to think when I read this however long from now in the future that I'll perhaps not feel like throwing up because things will have somehow sorted themselves out.  A girl can hope. 

Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

 

"Something is significantly wrong with a world that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences."

 

• What I am reading   Farmers are my friends.  Especially small farmers who grow sustainably and provide food with a mind for not only our bodies but our future and the health of the planet.  Those farmers are the farmers we should be supporting.  You can learn a lot about your own government when you read something like their Farm Bill. Hidden in the pages are exactly what corporate interests want to see and what small farmers never are going to get.  

 

 

• What I am eating  Coconut Apple Ginger Dal. Again. This time with feeling. But, honestly, snow's in the forecast. The air is ugly in Utah. Sustenance is on the menu. 

 

• What I am Listening To  Pitchfork gives us an intimate conversation with musicians we may not actually have heard before. Give a listen with a cuppa. 

• What I am watching  

• What I am thinking about It feels like ages ago, and it is over 15 years ago, when I was blogging regularly, I had imaginary friends whom I loved fiercely and visited regularly at their own blogs. Our blogs were literal portals into our lives at the time and we really were like a small love army who knew one another (or thought we did).  The thing is these were the days before GoFundMe existed and if someone NEEDED something, we just all pitched in and made it happen.  One way or another.  Because it is the season, today I thought of Blue Witch. Who also blessed me with Feast of the Cash Register a very long time ago. She is the one who put it down first and I have whispered it aloud to those who will even bother to listen to me as I fuss about how I do not CELEBRATE THE SEASON. 
  
  I prattle on and on about how I gift in other ways. When I choose to gift. That I'm a stealth elf.  Showing up with just what is needed when it is needed or JUST BECAUSE, not because the calendar has flipped to the day we deign PRESENTS should be presented.  Ahem.  
  
  I'm thrilled that Blue Witch is still blogging. I'm still there in her sidebar as a friend.  Reading her today was, well, good medicine.  FOTCR, indeed. 
  
  P.S.  If you ARE in the mood for giving right now, I will suggest that you participate in THE NINTH ANNUAL JAMES GARFIELD MIRACLE. I do participate every year. It's totally worth it. xo  

• What I am really feeling: In the too much information department, I'm tired of waking up every night at 3:00 a.m. wanting to rip my clothes off and wandering the house like a mad woman.  Why haven't women told each other about menopause and all the things that happen to our bodies when it happens?? Why?!?!? What purpose does it serve to keep all of this a secret? I feel like there's some big conspiracy that says, "Right, let's not talk about THIS!!"   
  
  Well, I'm here now. I've arrived. So you know what?  I'm going to talk all about it.  

Noisy.

There's been all those articles lately about "what not to wear after you're 40..." and now there's this article about "women who are naturally loud".

I'm loud. Really and truly very, very loud. I'm 52. I'm a woman. I'm also, as was pointed out to me yesterday incredibly TINY (or SHORT, because I think that person was just being nice) and, well, according to one person at my clinic, I am not only TINY, but HOT. Ahem.

Here's the thing. Yes, I am all of those things. Every.single.one. For goodness sakes, beautiful loving friends. Life is so full of every kind of different. Let's stop with the comparisons and the shaming. Instead, let's just hold out our arms and our hearts and embrace one another with a, "I am so incredibly glad that YOU are a part of my little speck of this vast universe because you make it that much more interesting!"

Really.

I mean it.

It is precisely all of our differences that allow us to put this puzzle together, to make this world spin on its axis every day, to solve the problems that need to be solve, to find our way home to the centre of our hearts. Without every one of us, sharing our differences, being loud, being quiet, wearing whatever it is we wear, choosing to participate in ALL.THE.WAYS. we choose to participate, this world stops spinning. I don't want to live in a world where all of you are not spinning with me.

I appreciate you choose to share your hearts with mine and that you chose to show up today exactly in the way that you did.

You go be you. It's perfect. Exactly like that.

Loud, tiny and very proud. ~ nakedjen