Meanderings on writing, reading, walking, bicycling, and life
Author: thedamari
I live in Missouri, a more beautiful place than many realize. I love writing, reading, walking, bicycling, and making lists. I’ve written poetry since I was seven. A few years ago I branched out into short fiction and memoir pieces. I also perpetually have a novel in progress. My brain pursues ideas at a brisk pace, wandering all over the map. This blog represents one of my efforts to keep up with it.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been driving my car to get from point A to point B on most trips. I was becoming desperate for a walk in the fresh air. So despite the arctic temperatures
along with lingering patches of snow and ice from our recent winter storms, I took myself out for a short ramble around my immediate neighborhood this afternoon.
It was too cold to take many photos, but I did click one in an attempt to capture the feel of things.
Yep, that’s Winter with a capital “W.” But I know how to layer up. And now, I have something that’s a game changer for wintertime strolls.
My husband found a nice post-holiday sale on electric gloves. He ordered a pair for each of us.
No matter how insulated I was able to keep everything else, I always had cold fingers outside when the temp dipped below about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. But no more! These battery-powered beauties kept my digits toasty.
Now I only need to find some kind of electric nose tip warmer and I’ll be completely set!
I’ve had two different inclement weathers days off work this past week, which made me nostalgic for the snow days of yore when my kids were young. Sure, there was some inconvenience involved, but also so much magic and fun. I loved sledding, snowball fights and sculpting creatures to decorate our yard.
I admit, I also realize I took for granted the level of energy I had back then. The work of getting through winter takes more out of me now. But I still want to enjoy it. I wonder how weirdly people would take it if I showed up alone at one of the popular sledding hills in town all on my own, just this 60-year-old woman.
I’m still healthy and strong enough to wield a shovel. But the big yard where the kids could play when we bought our house came with a long stretch of sidewalk that takes a while to dig out. We have a shared driveway with an apartment building, and the owners hire someone to remove snow. However, for the Sunday/Monday weather event, he had equipment problems, which meant a huge mess at the end of the drive where the city snowplows repeatedly left a lumpy, frozen wall, and our neighbor with a large pickup kept driving through it.
Where the driveway ends you’ll find snowplow debris there.
I knew if we were to get our own cars out I had to move mountains before the overnight Monday freeze. My husband was wrapped up in telework deadlines while my son was under the weather. And I don’t believe any of the next-door tenants own shovels. So this heavy labor fell to me. I took a break for a photo about halfway through the job. After 90 minutes, I finally had it passable for cars.
After that, my arms were jelly, and I only wanted to sit quietly with a cup of tea.
Along about Thursday night, here came a second snowstorm, one that kept accumulating all Friday morning. For that one, the apartment owners found someone who had a heavy-duty truck with a plow on front. He got the apartment lot and driveway passable pretty quickly. But in the process, he walled in all egress points from our house. After the snow stopped, I went out our side door believing I only had to clear our porch steps and front walkway, but encountered this:
Fortunately, it was fresh with no melt and refreeze, so not tooooo difficult to work through. And then there was the wall blocking the front walkway from our porch to the drive and the wall built up behind our cars at the edge or our carport.
That snow wall is higher than it looks.
This all turned into another hour and a half session. However, the temperature was perfect for being outdoors in snow – right around 30 degrees with no wind. I was pretty tuckered again, but not so much I didn’t consider at least making a small snowperson.
However, I decided our block was represented well enough by the neighbors’ large one.
I was able to take a few minutes to enjoy the sights, so joy found its way through the drudgery. I do love the beauty of winter.
Good footwear is essentialSunflower/snowflowerArtfully draped
Someone else was traipsing through the snow.
But it wasn’t this guy, who doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.
He did keep me company while I rested up with a cup of tea. So he earned his keep in that way.
Fiction that ticked the categories for favorite of the year, most original, and book I wish I had written:
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone Labeling this is my favorite fiction read is really saying something because I had an exceptionally good reading year with amazing authors.
This is a time travel story, but not in a headache-inducing way that requires the reader to become a double-ledger accountant. Top agents from each side in the time war finally find worthy adversaries in each other and begin a prohibited correspondence, taunting each other to begin with. This is also an enemies-to-love-interest romance. The plot, such as it is, doesn’t center on the tides of the war. It’s very much about the evolution of the relationship, carried on solely through spy vs. spy type activities and letters delivered in increasingly devious ways. It contains lots of allusions to history, art, and other works of literature. Finding those little easter eggs is fun.
These lines hit me hard in light of current events. “Hope may be a dream. But she will fight to make it real.”
Author who was double dipped by me this year:
Emily St. John Mandel, with Sea of Tranquility and The Glass Hotel.
Sea of Tranquility is yet another time travel book. I guess that’s my theme for 2024? It’s the story of three different people experiencing the same eerie phenomenon at the exact same place in the Canadian wilderness – the feeling, sights and sounds of being in two places at one time, accompanied by the sounds of violin music and airship travel — but spaced out over centuries. It’s also a tale of a pandemic and humanity’s perpetual existential crisis, as embodied by a time traveler who is determined to unravel the mystery.
In The Glass Hotel , the narrative moves back and forth in time. But none of the characters time travel. I will read anything by Emily St.John Mandel because she knows how to tell a story, and especially how to take you deep into a character’s point of view. The glass hotel is the central “character” that serves as a hub connecting everyone else in the book. This is a character-driven narrative, but also a page turner. The 2008 economic collapse plays a big part in the plot, with its ripples spreading throughout many lives.
Climate fiction that shows how to hold onto hope amidst devastating loss:
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy is set in a near-future world of mass extinctions. Franny Lynch, is obsessed with following what is probably the very final migration of the few remaining arctic terns. Through flashbacks, we come to learn Franny’s story and ultimately, what is driving her fierce–one could even say maniacal–determination to see through her project. After she talks her way onto a fishing boat, promising the captain he’ll find fish if he follows the birds, we also come to know the members of the crew and see their relationships with Franny develop.
One of the early mysteries of the book is what happened to Franny’s mother, who disappeared when Franny was ten years old. Disappeared just like the birds and the fish and many animals are doing. Largely, this is a book about grief and how we can try to heal and move forward in the face of unfathomable loss.
Fiction that made me both ugly cry and laugh myself silly:
In Maame, Jessica George bestows a terrific voice on her main character, Maddie Wright, a 25-year-old Londoner who still lives with her dad because she has become his primary caretaker since his Parkinson’s diagnosis. Maddie’s mother spends months at a time in Ghana, purportedly helping with a family business. And Maddie’s brother James is just too busy. When the chance finally arises for Maddie to move out on her own, she has a lot of lost time to make up for.
Memoir that made me ponder the existential:
In My Time of Dyingby Sebastian Junger, who approaches his own near-death experience with the same investigative techniques he uses for other topics, weaving anecdote and feeling with background information. I was struck by his determination to try to understand how physics ties in with the possibility of an afterlife considering that his own event involved an interaction with his late father, a dedicated and accomplished scientist.
Quote: “Your pulse is your life, the ultimate proof you’re animate and have something rare to lose. Everything alive has some kind of flux and ebb, and when that stops, life stops. When people say life is precious, they are saying that the rhythmic force that runs through all things–your wrist, your children’s wrists, God’s entire green earth–is precious.”
Memoir that resonated with me so hard I talked about it in therapy:
The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon is a book I really needed. As an exvangelical myself, it was a deeply meaningful read for me. I think there’s a lot of healing in sharing stories and knowing you’re not the only one. I’ve been out of extreme right-wing evangelical Christianity for decades now (I do still consider myself Christian, just a different flavor) and am still unravelling all the threads. It might be my life’s work.
McCammon shares not only her own experience, but also words from other exvangelicals, many of whom point to their former church’s embrace of Trump as an inflection point for them. As one of the earliest of Gen X, I had a very similar experience re: Reagan. I wasn’t voting age the first time he ran, but I was just starting to tune into politics and couldn’t wrap my head around my elders choosing him over Carter because they believed Reagan was more “pro family.”
Quote: “Wounded people have a natural instinct to push back, to protect themselves. And for those of us who grew up in the culture wars–who’ve been trained to fight and to fight hard–laying down the sword, taking off the armor, and tending those wounds is one of the biggest battles of all.”
Nonfiction I believe will be useful in the coming year(s):
I wish there was no need for On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. But given the circumstances, I’m glad it exists. Each chapter is only a few pages and focuses on one piece of advice in dealing with authoritarian governments. The general format is directive/short explanation of what he means by it/ historical example of how people have done it effectively/practical suggestions for your own life.
There’s a lot in here about living authentically, embracing truth, maintaining empathy and building community. But it’s all succinct and easy to follow. I highly recommend reading it ASAP.
Onward to 2025! May our lives be full of joy, meaning, and books!
On today’s walk about my neighborhood I discovered a Christmas tree already abandoned for pickup. I also heard a murder of rowdy crows and later saw someone walking a tri-pawed little dog.
These photos are all the same tree, but each picture looks a little different. It’s all a matter of perspective.
My first thought on seeing this already-discarded tree by the curb was that someone is no nonsense about the holidays being over when they’re over. I imagined someone adhering to an inflexible calendar. But of course, I have no way to know why it’s been put out at least two days before it can even be picked up. I can imagine a dozen scenarios. The family usually leaves it up longer, but we’re leaving on a trip. That’s another possibility.
What we experience is such a small part of the world that surrounds us, but many of us–myself very much included–tend to fill in blanks with suppositions and stories to explain why, often never discovering if we were anywhere in the mark. We can fool ourselves into believing we know more than we do. All the information I really have is this: a green Christmas tree lay in the street — nothing about who put it there or when or why.
Likewise, my senses told me the crows were particularly loud today in one part of my community. I have no idea what was driving their behavior. Maybe they were having an argument or discussing where to find food. Perhaps a predator was stalking one of their nests.
Then the tri-pawed dog. So many questions. The missing limb was the rear right, and the little cutie seemed to be getting along pretty well, looking happy, which led me to believe it’s been missing that leg for awhile. I could have asked some questions of its human, but I’m shy.
I’ll bet I passed at least a thousand interesting stories today in my 40-minute walk without even realizing it. My mind can keep itself endlessly entertained spinning yarns about why I’m seeing or hearing the things around me. And this is pretty harmless, keeping it all in my brain as I have my little perambulation.
But for some reason, it’s been in my thoughts a lot lately that we can let it get dangerous, drawing conclusions and then assuming they’re correct without bothering to verify. I think it’s important for all of us to be able to draw the distinction between what we can see (the tiniest part of the picture) and know to be true vs. what we imagine to be the case. I’m working on it in myself.
However, if I ever come up with a coherent story incorporating the tree and the crows and the dog, I will share it here, being sure to label it fiction.
I look at some of my younger acquaintances who are starting families, and my heart breaks a little. I can’t imagine starting out my parenting journey in the world as it is now. The difficulties they will face, the battles they will have to fight.
I don’t say this to them, however. Maybe because I remember oldsters saying it when I was having my children, back in the mid to late 90s. And I heard it again when the internet came along and we had to be the first generations of parents ever to figure out how that fit into child raising.
We don’t get to choose the times in which we live. We only get to choose how we respond. I know plenty of Millennials and Gen Z who are foregoing parenthood, some due to the political and/or actual climate. I respect that. But I also respect and support my younger crew who are choosing to hope enough to go ahead and have the baby they want. I mean, is it ever really the opportune moment to bring a child into this messed up world?
Look at Mary. I’m sure there were people who saw a hugely pregnant teenager, not even able to secure lodging, and shook their heads. And with Herod in power? Didn’t she know how likely it was they would become refugees in pretty short order? Who would she expect to accept and take them in? What a time for anyone to have a baby.
Anyway, here’s a poem I wrote that I’m pretty sure I’ve shared before. It seems pretty relevant right now. (It’s an abecedarian poem, by the way.)
All the Troubles and Yet
All the troubles everywhere, yet a Baby brings joy, each new Child in my circle a welcome Discovery that the world goes on Each one accepted as the Finest example of what the universe offers Greeted with adoration and wonder Heralded with hope Imagine receiving that level of tenderness Just for being, freely given Love with no expectations Meaning found simply in connection No earning it or losing it Only a thereness Produced because it’s how we survive Quarrels most certainly will arrive Right along with disappointments Suffering and sickness There’ll be time to think on those Upsets later, rather than wasting the Velvet days of infancy with our minds X number of years in the future Youth speeds away but comes Zipping back to humanity again and again
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! May we be able to keep our focus on love and support for those in need, and may we celebrate the most vulnerable among us.
On Thanksgiving, I’m reminded to give my gratitude practice the effort it deserves. Here are some things for which I’m grateful, in alphabetical order.
Abundance in many areas of my life — food, love, and more.
Books! A foundational building block of my life and career.
Coworkers. I work with the best people. They are caring, talented, and fun.
Dishwasher. One thing I do not miss from my youth were the nights it was my turn to wash the dishes by hand. For a family of eight. I love having a dishwasher.
Exercise. I’m grateful that I’m still able to move my body pretty well.
Family. Obvious, but also true. I feel especially grateful that my two kids (in their twenties) have grown up to be people who care and do good in the world.
Graduation. I was able to hang in there for so many years fulfilling my educational odyssey, and finally saw it through to completion.
House. For all its quirks and frustrations, I love my 120ish-year-old house. It is one of a kind, with lots of character.
Ice cream. Enough said.
Jean jacket. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo to share, and I don’t have it with me right now. But I found the most amazing jean jacket at a thrift store about six years ago. People compliment me every time I wear it. Best $10 I ever spent.
Kettle. There’s something deeply comforting about putting a kettle on the stove to make my tea as opposed to the efficiency of the microwave.
Labor unions. My own workplace union has improved my life immensely. And goodness knows we need some way of leveling the playing field. Solidarity forever!
Monarch butterflies. They are beautiful and important pollinators. I’ve started seeing them in my yard again the past few years since I got some milkweed established.
Nightlights. For those midnight bathroom trips.
Ordinary days. May we still have some ordinary days in which the curse of living in interesting times is held at bay, and we can experience the miracle of the everyday.
Paint. For the color it brings to the world and being an easy way to freshen up a room.
Quicksand, lack of in my life. From the tv cartoons and shows I watched growing up, I thought patches of deathly quicksand would pose a major problem in my life. But so far, I’ve had zero encounters.
Rainbows. Every sighting is magical.
Soil. Good dirt grows good food.
Thrift stores. I love a bargain and sustainability.
Umbrellas. I walk a lot, even in wet weather. It’s nice to get to and from work without getting soaked when it rains.
Videos. Funny and/or cute animal videos, especially. They are my salvation when I need an escape from stress.
Woods to walk through. I’m fortunate to have a few options for this not too far from my home.
X – I’m thankful for having mellowed enough to allow myself a pass sometimes without fretting about it.
You. Yes, you who are reading this.
Ziplines. So much fun! I’ve only been on two, but they were wonderful adventures.
There are a couple of quick and easy routes from my house to the trail where I often ride my bike. Getting back home, however, requires an arduous climb coming back off the trail, either way I go. One is a shorter distance, but a steeper slope. That’s the one I took coming home today.
It’s only a block, but more vertical than I would choose. I have never yet had to get off and push the bike, but I do shift down into the very lowest gear. The saving grace to this stretch is that there’s usually little traffic, making it easy to ride in a switchback pattern. Today, however, people were getting in my way with their cars. I was forced to grind it out straight up the hill.
75% of the way, I questioned whether I would actually make it to the top, but I focused on each pedal stroke. One more and then one more and then one more. I made it! Not only that, but when I looked at my gear shifts, I discovered they weren’t on the very lowest setting. I had put them into the second lowest setting.
Whoa! I’m stronger than I thought!
I’m going to hold onto this thought as a truth. I’m stronger than I realize, and I’m accomplishing more than I give myself credit for. Even when stuff is hard, I can hang on.
You know what else is hanging on? These trees.
Their roots are all exposed on one side where the ground is eroded and slants down to the trail. But they still seem firmly anchored, holding on strongly on the other side. Hang in there, trees! You’re doing great!
I found them along the Hinkson Creek Trail, a different ride than Freida and I usually take. We had a nice, peaceful time of it, encountering few other humans today.
Wayfinding
Stopping to rest in and take in the ambiance of nature.
Freida taking a little rest
Hang in there everyone. You’re strong than you think and accomplishing more than you give yourself credit for.
This week is feeling particularly alternative universe to me, of the dystopian variety in many ways. How could we have time looped back four years and be reliving the nightmare?
On top of that, I received a text alert this morning as I was leaving my house for work telling me not to show up because there was a fire at the building. WHAT? Fortunately, it was small and quickly extinguished. Unfortunately, it was in one of the air handlers of our HVAC system, so that distributed the smoke pretty well throughout the structure, requiring some mitigation.
Bright side – it was a gorgeous fall day with temperatures in the upper 50s. My favorite weather. Might as well take advantage of the surprise day off to get Freida out of the shed and hit the trail, away from news and worries and automotive traffic…
A truck was present, driving down the trail.
Okay, trucks on the trail today. I understand it’s for good reason, just unusual.
Still had a pretty good ride and enjoyed the views.
Thank you, the Schmidt family, for this comfy bench!
Things seemed comfortingly normal and natural until I checked for the temperature on my phone screen and saw some news headlines:
Uh, yeah, we’ve slipped into an alternate universe.
What if we used to be the same person, you and I? Or will be the same person in the future? Or both — were and will be? These are the kinds of thoughts that can take over my brain in the middle of the night.
Several years ago, I read Bill Bryson’s popular science book A Short History of Nearly Everything. One point stuck with me, and I ponder it often, sometimes even in broad daylight. Since matter is never destroyed, only transformed, that means all of the atoms that make up our bodies used to form the essence of other things. Or people.
This insight rated an out-loud “wow!” when I read it. Some of my current substance could formerly have belonged to other people. It’s possible that atoms in my body right now used to be part of Isaac Newton or Sappho or Judas. I never believed in reincarnation as I understood it (or possibly misunderstood it.) But now I might? In a way.
I was already stunned enough knowing that the elements of us used to reside in stars — the hydrogen and carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, sent on their voyages billions of years ago. Those particles have been cycling and recycling through time, and now they’re us. Here we are, repurposed star matter.
I was sleepless the other night and musing on all of this existential stuff once again. Somehow, as many times as I’ve thought about the wonder of it all, and what it means on a spiritual level, my brain had never taken the next step. Until now.
If some of the atoms that make up my body used to belong to someone else, and some of the atoms that make up your body, dear reader, used to belong to someone else, isn’t it possible we both have previously owned atoms from the same source? What if we used to be the same person? What if we both were Sappho or Newton?
Even if we never were together in the same incarnation in the past, we could be in the future. We could be on a journey toward becoming one new person together a few hundred or thousand years from now.
When I gave birth to my first child, I looked at my husband differently. The two of us have had our relationship ups and downs over the years. Yet once we’d created a human life together, I felt we were forever bonded. Even if we eventually separated and never saw each other again, we would be together, still, in this new person.
Now I see this could be true of myself and any other human. Everyone who ever lived is possibly a forebear, even those who “died childless.” Every human yet to come is a possible descendant, of a sort. Here we all are, trading our component members back and forth like baseball teams, forming and re-forming into a multitude of configurations.
Since making this mental leap, my new middle-of-the-night ruminations center around what it means, or should mean, for how I judge others. I was raised in the Christian faith and am well aware of Jesus’ teachings on the topic. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” These words seem a lot more literal to me now.
Many faiths have similar tenets, of course. When asked how we should treat others, the Hindu sage, Ramana Maharshi answered: There are no others.
There are no others. We’re one with the stars. We’re one with each other. I’ve only recently become aware of this on the atomic level.
Nomadic Noesis 