The future?

Dear you in 2020,

Moving on is on my mind today.  My morning push-ups are noisy, meaning my shoulders make strange noises during the activity.  And I am using  massive amounts of coconut oil all over my body.  Literally.  All. Over.  But literal aging is not the thing I am pondering. I am head-tilting at change, evolution in general. I am thinking about the great Tom Brady and the Patriots' loss during the NFL Wild Card game last weekend.  New players and new teams are moving on to the big games.  He and the Pats are not.  And I am a bit blue about that.

Why?

Life is not cement.
Life is fluid.
We cannot stay in one place or in one crowd forever.
Even Tom Brady knows this.

So, again, why am I blue?

Because.

I will miss watching him work with that team, throwing bullet passes.  I will miss watching him mess with the opposing team's defensive strategy.  I will miss the way he and his pals and that fabulous coach (cranky) somehow always figured out a way to win.   It  made me believe "loss" was not the norm and forever there would be a happy ending.  Fade to black and seal it in cement.

But, on the other hand, there is something better than sentimental blues: expectation and surprise! Nothing is over.  Tom Brady certainly isn't.  And neither am I.  Where does he go next?  What will his "game" be?  Where will I go next?  What will my "game" be?  I don't know.  I don't care that I don't know.

Because.

Life is not cement.
Life is fluid.
We cannot stay in one place or in one crowd forever.
And even I know that.

Love,
Joyce

Making stuff up . . . 2020 predictions!

Dear you,

It is coming, another big year.

2020.  The number is attractive to the eye.  A certain symmetry.  I am fabricating my version of 2020, a kind of wish list or wishful predictions as follows:

#1: That is the ticket as featured below.  Let it be.  (Added wish:  Joe does not do the word-salad thing during debates with the Donald.)

#2:  Fake jobs included in our seemingly hot economy and low unemployment rates will be replaced by creative pursuits that produce more than t-shirts, tech-toys, car mats, and desperation.

#3:  I will turn 65 and refuse to sign up for Medicare because I stumbled on to the secret to healthy immortality.

#4:  Shepherd Smith will take over the Fox News propaganda machine and Donald's 63 million will come to their senses, actually seeing and hearing what is really there.

#5:   The ASPCA will have nothing to do because cruelty to animals will cease to be.

#6:   All men will embrace the untucked aesthetic and none shall sound like Larry the Cable Guy.

#7:  All women will decide to relax and use their bodies like athletes and not give a damn about SPANX.

#8:   I will finally buy a house so I can stop complaining about how annoying the condo-world is during vacationer season.

#9:   Genetic therapy will rock something amazing out.

#10:  Pope Francis, Pitbull, and Kim Kardashian will form an unlikely alliance and save us all from _____________________ (fill in the blank .  . . they can do it all).


What do you think, dear you?

Here is to 2020 and the art of the possible.
Love,
Joyce XO

One psychological drama after another . . . and still thankful !?!

Dear you,

The above is compliments of a Google image search, prompted by my "challenging" week.  Clearly, my problems are first world in nature:  virus in laptop that pushed me into paranoia about everything (dude who invaded said laptop called himself "Dave"), rumor from weird local that an equally weird local named "Darrell" said he was my boyfriend and future housemate, spreading this "exciting news" to the nosiest condo owners here.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  And look at those problems.  Hardly life or death.  Although they did/do create high anxiety because, you know, WHO THE HELL IS DAVE?  And WHO THE HELL IS DARRELL?

They are Dave and Darrell, somebodies out there somewhere who think this is the best way to handle their business.

Sigh.

And so I am off my ass handling mine, doing whatever security interventions I need to do on both fronts.  Indeed, a first world kind of drama . . . stuck in my head.

So, back to Thanksgiving, here's the list of things to be grateful for:
1. Health/fitness!  I can still knock out push-ups and run around like a child.
2. The feline pet, Miss V.
3. This library where I am typing now filled with books and not weird people.
4.  Friends, even remote in location.
5.  Every odd thing I have ever done.
6.  Every odd thing I will ever do.
7.  My dental hygienist.
8.  Publix supermarket who literally cooks for me.
9.  The Gulf of Mexico.
10. Journalists (the ones from Earth 1, not Earth 2).
11. Athletes and artists.
12. And in some strange way, the Daves and Darrells who remind me I am not immune to the bull**** everybody deals with.

Joyful Thanksgiving to you all.
Love,
J

Write with your phone....oh, hell no.

Dear you,

Never

 Blog with a phone keyboard.  Here is a flower.  I have that. In the phone file.  Don't ask about the automatic centering of the text.

Epic fail!

Love...

J

Missing things . . .

Dear you,


For months here in Seagrove Beach, we had no rain.  We did have merciless, blazing sun and tourists grilling, setting the occasional fire due to flying embers.  Then finally, we got rain.  But we also got days of too much cloud cover and continual, depressing drizzle, see today.


My point is not to be The Weather Channel, but to contemplate missing something, then getting it, and then wanting it to go away.


Is this a shared trait or just part of my Goldilocks syndrome?  This gal only wanted “just right”.  But I wonder if after she found the “just right” she really enjoyed the gift, the thing she wanted/missed?

We are mysteries to ourselves.


I am a bit bored with the Seagrove Beach scene but never, ever, tire of the Gulf of Mexico.  When I drive a few miles in country to continue my search for a quiet, freestanding house that is “just right”, I can’t wait to get back close to the water.  Yesterday, returning from a showing and contemplation of a house purchase, as soon as I got close to Highway 30A (our coastal road), everything felt light.  Sort of just right.


But still . . . I am missing something like the rain during dry days.

Maybe I should aim for and accept “happiness” instead of vision-questing for perfection.  I guess happiness is not my idea of “just right”.  


And that remains a mystery to me.


Meanwhile, news of the California fires is on the television.  I see people on the run and leading scared horses to safety, wherever that may be.  Poor California, one of our paradise states, the place where everything is more than “just right”.  Even there, things burn.  And rain is not falling to douse the flames. 

Missing rain in California.  Missing something everywhere.


Maybe it’s time to go Buddhist and overcome desire, the constant striving for “just right”.  But then again, what would it feel like to simply BE?  I would probably miss the feeling of longing for that missing something.


Okay, enough reflection.

Time for a few pushups, playtime with Vivo cat, and then a big Subway sandwich for lunch.  No thinking, or missing, required.

XO

Joyce

Getting over . . .

Dear you,


What a week.  Meteor showers in the sky and another war on the ground.


My country abandoned the Kurds.

My president did this.  I cannot stop him.


Now, I hear on the news that there are proposed sanctions against Turkey for attacking the Kurds.  Proposed, being the key word.  My president creates chaos/death and then wants to act all heroic and stop what he started.  


Surviving all this (psychologically) requires a special kind of exuberance.  A kind of resistance to a newly minted “reality”.   When I feel how I need to feel in the face of all this nonsense, it is like this:

 Are you ready to jump?


My previous blog was all about taking a knee, in sorrow, in honor of what we are losing.  Now it is time to get up and GET OVER. The vaulter in the photo is about to get over that little bar.  He is looking up at the meteor shower, universal reality of time and beauty, and with the help of a pole (tools/technology/knowledge) and sheer force of will (exuberance) he will GET OVER.


As will we.

Keep the faith. 

Keep the exuberance.

JUMP!


Love,

Joyce

Take a knee . . .

Dear you,

Life in Trumpland . . . our POTUS is creating his own little kingdom, day by day blatantly confessing to aberrant behaviors.  And it is feeling like he might just get away with it, yet again.  It feels like a really depressing sports movie:


Setting: football stadium, sold out crowd, major game

Plot/conflict:  From the opening quarter to the last, one team is openly vicious They horse-collar, rough the kicker, rough the passer, tackle out of bounds, grab facemasks, and those are the softer actions.  They also spit in the referees’ faces, reach inside helmets and break noses, kick the “enemy” mascot, scream ‘fuck you” at fans, and when one brave ref finally makes a call and beckons the offender over for a conference, he says “YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?”  The ref backs down.  And the bad guys win the game.

Subplot:  The majority of the fans in the stands support the fouled team.  They have faith.  They suffer the blows, aghast at the lack of rules or decency.  They have hope.  “This can’t last much longer; good will triumph in the end.”  But it doesn’t.  They are simply shocked and worry about the future of the sport.

Climax:  Post-game press conference features the quarterback of the bad team.  He is righteously indignant when questioned about his team’s rouge behavior.  And he goes further.  “They were cheating, not us.  They always cheat.  We have a right to do whatever we need to win.  And besides, they’re not patriots.”


Fade out and roll credits.


So, I take a knee this day for something bigger than a football game.

Good luck out there.

XO

Joyce