Our Most Renewable Resource
there are a lot of stories of scarcity going around right now. When I hear the word, scarcity, it always makes me think of its sister word, scary.
The Story of Our Stuff
As I have slept on hospital recliners, created calendars for coordinating treatment transportation and meal drop-offs, and called on networks for everything from emotional support to equipment donations, one clarion call keeps echoing in my ear. We are not doing elderhood the right way around here. It is terrifying, isolating. It can break your back and your bank.
Stranded at the Drive-In
A few years ago, I started letting go of many films in my ritual because, as someone pointed out to me, I ostensibly wanted to bring change into my life and perhaps doing the same thing over and over again was not serving that purpose. And, hello, watching He’s Just Not That Into You on Valentine’s Day was perhaps not the most efficacious way to find my semi-permanent dance partner.
Prepared
Being helpful and prepared was like a silent mantra. She yearned for the day when someone would need…something…and she would pull the (exact) (right) object triumphantly from her car’s trunk as if it were Mary Poppins’ purse. Yes, let us enjoy our spontaneous picnic with the blanket I have right here!
Tip Me Over & Pour Me Out
Somewhere in the middle of that discussion, I was hyperlinked back in time to this moment in my early twenties when I had yet another temp job, sitting in the lobby of an insurance company. I was subbing in for the receptionist who was on vacation. On the final day, I listened to the staff upstairs as they enjoyed their holiday party while I sat and looked out the window, watching ice pile up on my car…
Nostalgia, Purpose, and Change
As the election season has dragged on this autumn, I’ve found myself falling back in time to that time four years ago when the wheels of change were starting into motion for me. The actual week of the election I was still trying to juggle my full-time job as the managing director of a dance company while also conducting a storytelling residency at Virginia Tech.