This week I learned that my sweet Swaggy is not well.  I raised my kids and thought that my empty nester life would begin when my children left home.  I never imagined that I would claim a canine kid as my own and consider myself his mother too.  He has been a loyal canine companion, always excited to see me when I come home.  Swaggy and I have enjoyed walks and car rides together.  He has tolerated me dressing him up in coats, costumes, bandanas, and the sweater that he hated.  The vet said that he is not a typical Yorkie because of his sweet disposition.  Swaggy has never returned barking and yapping from other disgruntled dogs with similar behaviors.  He is cool, calm, and collected.  He’s also one other “c” word – cute!

I wasn’t really excited about either option presented for his treatment regimen so I decided to let Swaggy be happy until he’s not happy and then decide what to do.  I also decided that he will enjoy more boiled chicken, chew sticks, and hugs until I can’t give them any more.  We will take our walks so that he can handle his business and smell flowers for as long as he can enjoy those walks.  We will take car rides and let him hold his head out of the window for what I call “big dog fun.”  Swaggy is not really a big dog so I have to make sure the window is not down far enough for him to be sucked out of it.

Who knew that we could love a little dog so much?  He has blessed our family and kept me company when everyone else is away.  I am truly shocked that he may say goodbye to us much sooner than expected, but his presence will live on in our memories.  To honor my sweet dog, I am reposting a blog post I wrote about him a couple of years ago called “Swaggy the Great!”  He is still great and one of the best friends I’ve ever known.

Here’s to my love for my sweet little dog, Swaggy:

http://wp.me/p6L8u0-3T

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As our country prepares for the Obama family to leave the White House, I am reminded of some of my most special memories from their time in office.  The first is my brief encounter with Michelle Obama in 2008 and the other was being on the phone with my mother during President Obama’s first inauguration.  My mother and father told me that I could be anything I wanted to be when I was a child, but my mother admitted to me that she never thought that she would ever see a president of our country who was not a white man.  I agreed with her and I honestly think that most of America would have agreed with that statement at that time in our country.  I also think that some people hung on to that disbelief and fought the reality of that truth for the entire eight years he was in office.  Unfortunately, because of this many folks missed the opportunities to support a first family who did not have a scandal created by them while they served us respectfully around the globe.  So many Americans missed the opportunities to applaud Michelle Obama for showing women that it was alright not to be the stereotypical size of the doctored photos of women in the magazines and that it’s alright to eat barbecue.  We saw the Obama family continue to have family time which we say we value as Americans.  We saw him be affectionate toward his wife and laud her for her Ivy league smarts.  We watched a family bring grandma to the White House to help keep a support system around the girls who grew up right before our eyes.

I used to think I wanted to be a politician, but after watching Americans (some of whom I called close friends) be so hateful and abusive toward the Obama’s made me thankful that God didn’t call me to that type of service.  I have never forgotten a friend referring to Michelle Obama as “that woman” when I mentioned that I was going to hear her speak during the primary campaign in 2008.  I couldn’t understand why my friend had so much animosity in her comment when the Obama’s were pretty new on the scene and stood for everything we say we love in America.  They came up without riches and fame.  They studied and earned their places in the Ivy League schools we hold in high esteem.  They kept cool tempers even in the face of hate, rudeness, rejection, and resistance.  They kept speaking about their desire to help ALL Americans have health care, including preventive health care.  They worked to end the food deserts in our communities by working with local drug stores to add fresh fruits and healthy food options where none existed.  Michelle Obama recognized the effects of electronics on our children and worked to get them moving and eating healthy to combat childhood obesity and the diseases that came with that unhealthy state of being.  They opened the White House to average Americans so that we could all believe that the White House belonged to us and people who looked and lived like us.  There are all sorts of things that we could argue President Obama did not accomplish, but he has said himself that he didn’t accomplish all that he hoped he would get done.  Please tell me which of us gets everything we think we will get done in a day for our own house let alone for our country.  I struggle to figure out why there has been such harsh judgment on this man and his family for being and living the “American dream.”

When I see the construction industry actually making plans to construct stuff, I remember when President Obama took office that not too many houses or buildings were under construction.  I remember the car industry was failing.  I remember that COBRA was the only hope for those out of work and not able to pay the high rates for insurance because they were struggling to pay for rent and food.  I remember that our country was in a couple of wars and a man who posed a significant terrorist threat to us had not been found by the prior administration.  I wish those who opposed him would just show some ability to say they found one thing to be grateful about during his presidency.  A girl can wish.

Regardless of what other folks say or think I am thankful that Michelle Obama was our first lady.  I am thankful that she took less than a minute of her time to say hello to me, give me a hug, and speak words of encouragement to my soul at a time when I needed uplifting.  She is a tall woman in stature and in spirit.  I am excited to see what the rest of her journey holds in store for her and her family.  In honor of her service to our country, I am reposting a blog written about my encounter with her in 2008.  May God’s favor continue to rest upon Michelle Obama and her family.

http://wp.me/p6L8u0-3u

‘Tis the season to be happy, jolly, and full of sugary drinks and food.  The holiday season not only ushers in the spirit of good cheer and festive living, but it ushers in the memories of loss, separation, and disappointment.  I miss my parents. I miss my siblings.  I miss my relatives who live many states away.  During the holiday season, the loss of my parents has weighed heavy on me at times and so has the distance from my family.  Through dealing with the feelings caused by the distance and separation, I learned the impact of success and professional and personal growth on the connectedness of families.

I have found that when we don’t have biological family members around us we work to create a network of people who can simulate the supportive, sharing network found in a family group.  These self-made families, for me, have been women on an adult women’s tennis team, women from a bible study group, people who live on my block, parents of the friends of my kids, people I work with, and sometimes people who work with my husband.  With the holiday season upon us, I spent time thinking about holiday decor, gift buying, family traditions, and the anticipation of having my kids and their friends around to light up my front room.  During this season, I also think about those families impacted by the football coaching carousel.

Most football fans don’t realize that when head coaches are fired or when they agree to separate from organizations, the assistant coaches and their families most likely find themselves pondering and waiting to figure out in which city their coach will find the next coaching opportunity.  Those families will make gallant efforts to have everything seem very normal in their homes for their children, spouses, and partners.  Those families will be considering the meaning of normal and asking how their normal became chaos and uncertainty.  Those families will be contemplating whether or not to pack the articles of clothing they fold in the laundry basket.  They will consider to whom they should donate the clothes and household goods the family has outgrown.  As a tribute to those families who will experience a wide range of emotions this holiday season, I offer a repost of a blog I wrote some time ago: “Moving Day.”

http://wp.me/p6L8u0-32

Mid October, I started a fitness challenge.  The idea was to get focused on establishing healthy habits before the holiday celebrations commenced in late November and took us into the New Year.  The fitness guru who addressed the group introduced us to a nutritionist.  The nutritionist offered us a menu that we were to repeat daily for a week.  We were also supposed to keep a journal accounting of our exercise and food intake.  Although I failed miserably at the journalism, I was a pretty good student.  As far as getting in more consistent exercise than before the challenge and consistently doing the requisite food preparation.  As a person for whom eating must be an experience, the struggle with cauliflower rice was real.  I don’t mean real in the sense that it existed.  I mean it was real in the sense that I really struggled with it from the minute I poured it out of that bag and into the mixing bowl.

The menu called for a bag of cauliflower rice in the mixture with ground beef, garlic, onions, and a host of assorted seasonings.  The end product was to be a meatloaf.  Let’s just say that I mixed the ingredients, patted that mixture into a rectangular mountain of beefiness and baked it in the oven.

I moved to this desert I call home from the south.  In my southern family, presentation was a large part of the food experience.  Presentation was so important that my mama’s friend put her “bought cakes” in a glass cake pan.  My mother and sister ate their cake slices on glass saucers.  My mother, her mom, and her sisters prided themselves in the spreads prepared for us Sunday afternoons at Mama Love’s house.  The table always offered food in bright colors.  The kitchen offered the aroma of a warm blend of spices and culinary decadence.  The aromatic preview preceded the call from the kitchen to “come eat!’  Excellent southern culinary artist trained up this child in the way that she should go for sure.  The cooks down south conditioned me to expect that presentation, flavor, and convenience could live in the same food space.  As a result, the idea that I had to resign myself to desert bland and redefine the meaning of beautiful food was more than I could bear.

Day one I ate the “meatloaf,” but I had the same thought my mom had when she met the turducken.  It, too, presented as a form of meatloaf and left me questioning the ingredients.  I questioned the triple threat bird because I honestly had no ida what was in a turducken.  I made this “meatloaf” and I questioned why I ever trusted the recipe.  Why didn’t I doctor that thing properly before baking it?  Was it really meatloaf if it didn’t hold the shape when cut with the sharpest edged knife in the drawer?  Was it a meatloaf if it tasted more like cauliflower than beef?  Was it meatloaf if the cauliflower changed the texture to a grainer consistency than any meatloaf I had ever eaten.  I’m not saying this experience wasn’t normal for some and doable for me during the challenge, but I knew day one that my day three would be different.

Day two, I tried again so that I could say that I did.  By day three, the good southern girl in me got out the chili powder, the cumin, some fresh cilantro, a little cayenne pepper, garlic powder, pepper, and salt.  I stewed some fresh vine ripened tomatoes and made the meatloaf into chili.  Suddenly, the air quality improved in my kitchen and I think the lighting got brighter. Well, maybe the lights didn’t get brighter, but I began to believe that I could manage the food challenge successfully to the end as long as I made some reasonable modifications.

By day three, I learned that the lesson I gave my kids applied to me in this situation:  It is beneficial to know what you don’t like early in the process.  Based on my week one “meatloaf” experience, I decided to bake salmon or chicken every week as a back up plan in the event I was not in love with the dishes on the menu given to us by the nutritionist.  I did not double the recipes again like I did week one.  (I know that I neglected to mention my not-so-smart decision to double the recipe earlier in this post.)  I doubled the recipe because I wanted to save myself time during the course of the week, but I only made that mistake one time during the challenge period.  The weekly go-to food item plan also encouraged me to live out another family rule: Go for what you know.

This holiday season please make healthy cost effective food decisions.  Food costs are tough on the family budget so make wise decisions with your spending and menu planning.  Don’t waste your food or your money cooking dishes you have never tried to cook or eat.  If you make the choice to play master chef and you prepare foods with ingredients unfamiliar to you, you might be laughing and sharing stories with me next week about your gourmet goof-ups.

Thank you to the friend who said, “You are global” before I really knew what that meant.
Thank you, Friend, for blessing my soul and planting seeds of positivity.
Thank you for making global thinking something cool, warm, and good for humanity.
Thanks to you the quest to understand what I didn’t yet know I possessed traveled with me everywhere I went.

Subconsciously, I sought to live up to and champion the aim of the global living.
There was an excited curiosity in applying my newly found gift to each scene.
I had to and I needed to understand.  What exactly did the friend mean?
I made active decisions to interact with all people with a spirit of openness and giving.

I didn’t know that this description of me would impact my life so.
And I am just thankful that the friend told about this uniqueness quality seen in me.
Thank goodness the friend used words to speak to the special quality that I could not see.
My friend awaked a part of my voice that the world needed to know.

Life is filled with opportunities to express opinion and judgment.
To spew rumors and second hand reports.
Then, life provides opportunities to use words to build forts
Around our hearts, minds, and villages with walls held together with resentment.

Somehow we let the sidebars become the primary narrative of the stories uncommon to us.
Like me, folks are too easily distracted.
We focus on that bright and shiny thing on that one station that works to silence the voices of those impacted.
Meditate on the messages and turn down the brightness on the monitor.  Filter the fuss.

We talk more than we listen.
We want the voices common to us to define and redefine the story lines of strangers.
We pretend to be experts on things more common to our neighbors.
Study the facts.  Get some knowledge for yourself. Listen more. Make that the mission.

Last week, a new friend from India said I was a lucky charm.
Then asked if I would bless his journey by letting him touch my feet.
I cried and thanked God for the chance that allowed us to meet.
And I thought of the other friend’s global insights and my heart grew mighty warm.

This week the concerns came from men and women who were brown, black, and white.
My time was spent listening and advising the young and old from places all over globe.
No matter the color, race, gender, or culture, people just needed some help carrying the load.
The load gets down to the basic needs: safety, family, community, stability, and fullness of life.

Respecting the person makes way for respecting the voice of one who speaks.
Respect the fact that just because it’s not your story doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Respect the fact that just because it’s not your testimony doesn’t mean it can’t belong to another one.
Respect cleans out the clogs in your head and your heart that have blocked communication for weeks.

For months.
For years.
And can feel like forever.

Understanding the complexities of our communities is tough.
But, do the hard work, dig deep and find reason to listen more than you speak.
Speak with clarity and purpose, choosing words that make us stronger, not weak.
Consider your outside words and the words in your head.  Don’t just speak off the cuff.

Speak with purpose and clarity.
Think unity, community, and hope in children with a future.
Like my friend, speak of the unseen and unheard of or a dream we can nurture.
Infuse positive messages that uplift even the least of the community.

Don’t send mixed messages or spew hate and divisiveness either.
Consider our freedoms and the how we limit the freedoms of others.
Lower your voices, tone down your emotions. Hear and respect opinion of another.
If not the risk of a divided village is steeper.

My friend’s words made me accountable to acceptance and open mindedness.
Those words inspired my spirit to welcome dialog about things and people I thought I knew.
Words have power and power is strength.
Let the power of our words strengthen our communities now and forever.

It’s not a secret that I am 50 years old now and it’s no secret that my family medical history gives me a number of reasons to make decisions to live and eat healthier.  I have shared reflections and insights gleaned during the year before I turned 50 and now there are insights to share about a landmark event that blesses the life of all who enter the fifty club.  I’m not talking about receiving the AARP invite to purchase a membership.  I’m talking about the colonoscopy.

In addition to being a member of the 50’s club, my family history mandated that my doctor order this screening procedure.  My doctor actually ordered it six months prior to me turning fifty, but I just got to it a couple of months after my birthday because the digestive health center told me that my insurance might not pay since I had not turned fifty yet.  The “might not” was enough for me to put this 50’s ritual off until 50.  So, I did all of the lab work and picked up that box of powder needed for the prescreening prep and waited for 50.

From the moment my doctor said she was ordering me to have a colonoscopy, I put on the face of a kid being asked to eat a plate of broccoli and gizzards chased with a glass of castor oil.  The doctor saw my expression and gave me a similar facial expression in response and added something like, “I know.  Sorry.”  She was partly sorry because she knew how undesirable having this procedure was for most patients and because we had just finished a discussion about my sucky family medical history that required me to undergo a number of screenings more often than the average person.  I followed her instructions and scheduled the appointment.  It was clear that the folks at that office had a special calling to provide this type of medical care.  The staff had a friendly type of no nonsense, methodical bedside manner like the organized, disciplined, pragmatic approach of a school librarian.  They listened and gave measured responses.  They made me watch an informational video and take home written  instructions about the next phases of the road to the dreaded, yet necessary colonoscopy.  This visit made me understand that  this entire process would be an examination of my body from the inside out.  The process  required me to just move and not think (pun intended).  I had to nod “yes” and say “ok” and keep doing what they said do.  In my mind, there was no fact scenario that would ever make my brain welcome this process or the procedure.

One day in August after a family member revealed the details of a health condition, I was prompted to call and schedule the appointment I put off for months.  Over the course of the months that passed, I lost the colonoscopy prep instructions.  I called the office a couple of days before the screening, went by to pick up the paperwork, then realized there were things I was supposed to have started doing a week prior to the screening.  “Oh boy,” I thought.  And there were instructions for things to “avoid” four days before the procedure too.  “Oh well,” was my next thought because I had eaten many of the foods that I was supposed to avoid.  I decided to figure out how to follow the instructions for the day before the screening procedure.  The plan for the day before the procedure required me to avoid “solid foods.” I made sure I had some chicken broth for the next day and purposed within myself to use water as my clear liquid beverage of choice.

While nothing about this journey seemed entertaining to me, I got  a lot of laughs from other people the closer I got to the procedure.  I don’t miss work very often so every time I reminded people that I would be missing work that Friday someone would ask, “What’s going on?” Every time they would ask I would answer, “I’m having a colonoscopy.”  I’m not sure if I was making funny faces when I told them or if I just attract sick and twisted friends like me who think that submission to this particular screening procedure is funny.  The reactions ranged from a smirk to giggles or laughter like I had told a joke.  When the laughter subsided, the stories followed.  “When I had my first one” and “when I had mine” streamed from their lips.  I felt like the little sister being teased by an older sibling who offered me support and encouragement after giving me a hard time.  I learned from my band of supportive hecklers that I had chosen the better facility of the facilities in town.  I also learned that there was some debate about whether orange jello was permissible.  If you didn’t know, red and purple colors were prohibited so I wanted to know whether orange was allowed since red was a base color of orange.  I don’t know how other folks answered the orange jello query, but after that cup of chicken broth wore off and my staff was enjoying birthday brownies they brought for a colleague, I ate the orange jello.  I ate both of the containers of orange jello.  I appreciated that my coworker who brought the chocolate dessert that made me almost hate the entire staff thought enough to bring me an orange jello treat.  She said that she had to visit two grocery stores to find a color other than red.  I told her that I learned that I could survive off of chicken broth, jello, and black coffee with sugar.  She laughed out loud and said, “Why would you want to?”  I definitely wouldn’t want to do that, but during the cleansing process many random thoughts went through my head.

I asked my husband whether or not he had the thought that he wanted to keep his colon clean when he underwent this procedure.  I told him that it was like the thought I have after I  get my  teeth cleaned.  I didn’t think that I was the only one who ever had that thought.  He agreed that he had that thought as he chuckled about my thought process so close to the time of my colonoscopy.  Although he admitted to having such a thought, he clearly had gotten beyond that thought because the night before my procedure when I couldn’t eat solid foods he had his back to me trying to conceal a bag of chips.  I’m not sure how he thought I couldn’t hear the crinkle crinkle of the bag as he worked like a surgeon to find the perfectly seasoned chips in the bag.  I told him that he needed to just turn around and walk over to the popcorn maker with the circling spindle rotating his popcorn kernels swimming in olive oil and wait to pour the popcorn he was making into the bag with his seasoned chips.  That brought a laugh too.  I should have been a comedian.  I was bringing the funny everywhere I went.  As he tried to pretend he wasn’t sneaking chips, he turned around with reddish orange finger tips and crumbs on his mouth.  I don’t know why I expected him to do some sympathy fasting with me, but some part of me thought he might.

Since I couldn’t have any of the snacks he ate, I looked in the pantry for some packets of flavored sweetener I could use to season my cleansing solution.  I found more than a handful of packets and I learned how much my family likes raspberry lemonade.  I bought those because I believed that was one of the best flavors, but now I was concerned about whether the raspberry flavor met the definition of red for purposes of the color prohibition on red.  I opted against the raspberry flavor and split the one orange drink flavored drink powder between the two containers of colon cleansing prep drink that  I had to mix and drink.  Fifteen minutes never went by so quickly.  I had to make sure that I drank eight ounces of the mixture every fifteen minutes until I had four cups downed that night.  I think my husband tried to act like I was invisible so that he wouldn’t feel any guilt for eating and snacking the entire night.  I think he was disappointed sleep overcame him and forced him to take a break from playing hide and seek with the snacks in the pantry.

He agreed to take me to the digestive center and wait for me to complete the process so that he could take me home.  Because of the medication used to sedate me during the process I would be prohibited from driving or drinking alcoholic beverages the rest of the day.  One of my friends who offered to take me to the facility if I needed her assistance with a ride.  The day before the procedure she reminded me of her offer and added that she would be glad to take me because she knew the risk of having to depend on a football coach who might get called away and forget about me or just not be able to get me there on time.  We both laughed at the truth in that statement and I started to speak out loud about my visual of myself sitting at the digestive center all medicated waiting like a kid for my parent to pick them up from after school care.  More laughter and head shaking followed.  I told him about this conversation and the football coach jokes and he assured me that he would not disappoint.  Well, he proved that  I ranked over football that afternoon (likely because there was no meeting or game).

We made it there on time and I got all of my paperwork signed.  I turned off my phone as recommended by one of the laughing friends referred to earlier in this post.  She said, “Turn off your phone so you won’t be tempted” to text, talk, or email.  She told me a story about how she emailed someone after her procedure while she was still under the influence of the medication.  The talk about medication made me ask a number of questions while I read and completed the paperwork.  I wanted to make sure that the medication would not require intubation and that it was not expected to cause nausea that would keep me from eating afterwards.  The next time I do this, I will try to get an early morning appointment as opposed to an afternoon appointment like I did this time.  I had gone almost two days without solid food so eating was a priority for me when I entered the center.  For some reason, I did things I don’t normally do when I go into a medical facility.  I actually read the HIPAA notifications and the documents related to anesthesia and advanced directives.  I even asked questions about all of them.  I needed to be sure that I would only have a short nap as a result of medication, that the medication would be administered through an IV, and that I would be able to eat when I came out of recovery.  The kind receptionist smiled a lot while she assured me and reassured me that it would be fine and that I would be fine.  I even asked her about the advanced directives and she handed me a copy of the written provisions.  At that point, I asked her to make sure she had my husband’s cell phone number and I went to him to make sure he would not be leaving until after I was done.  He smiled again and said, “I am not leaving.”  I nervously gave him my purse to keep for me and proceeded into the screening prep area.

A really cool lady who I will call Jae welcomed me into the well-lit prep room.  The room had at least ten wheeled beds with suspended rods that allowed the nurses and technicians to move curtains around the beds.  My bed was the first on the left when I entered the room.  She asked how I was doing and we both laughed when I told her that my greatest concern at that point was whether my husband could be trusted with my purse.  She said that the ladies out front would have my back because men in the past had gotten up to go out for fresh air or food and left purses in the lobby unattended.  We laughed about how I got to answer “no” to most of her medical history questions unlike my visit to the eye doctor.  The visit to the optometrist prompted a blog post entitled, “The Gift that Keeps on Giving” http://wp.me/p6L8u0-6B which discusses my family’s awful medical history.  The laughter continued as another nurse entered to prep me for the IV.  She pointed out that the questions from most doctors are about family medical history and these were directed to my personal history.  There was one positive from an awkward moment.  I also got a laugh when we talked about the fact that I could wear lotion and deodorant which is prohibited before a mammogram.  Perspective is everything.

I am grateful for the perspectives of my friends who kept my spirits up as I got closer to the day of my procedure.  I am thankful for the professionals at the digestive center who kept the mood light, including the nurse who made me laugh when she told the patients in the prep area that they (the staff) looked forward to “good gas” after the procedures and the nurse who told the story about her sassy display of admiration for a Mel Gibson when she once recovered from receiving anesthesia.  Thank you to the friend who told me the story about the colonoscopy procedure being performed without anesthesia and to the one who offered me a caffeinated clear beverage when I couldn’t have more coffee. I am thankful for the friend who made me laugh when she talked about her disappointment that the doctor who did her procedure was “cute.”  I appreciated the efforts of my friends and the health care providers to encourage me to keep the appointment and to laugh my way through this screening process.  I never expected the kind of supportive village I found on this journey and I never expected this journey to bring the funny out of so many people.

Peer pressure is not just a thing with middle school children and college students.  Peer pressure can influence the decisions of adults like me too.  The people native to Northern Nevada look forward to The Great Balloon Race every fall.  The balloon owners and their crews arrive in the area several days prior to the Saturday race events.  Even though the press reminds the city of the balloon race events, I forget about the race every year until I see the balloons in the sky on my drive in to work.

As a migrant to Northern Nevada, I had to work to figure out why everyone was so excited about the The Great Balloon Race.  There is childlike excitement in the community when people discuss the race.  Prior to the balloon race experience, the only time I had ever seen grown ups so excited about something that seemed like just a good time for kids was the anticipation of going to a world renown amusement park to visit the world imaginary animated characters. There is something about balloons that converts grown people to kids. Until this year, I passed on the opportunities to wake up a 4am and get to the field near the park to reserve my special place to watch the early morning light show performed by the dawn patrol squadron.  I generally make it my business to take part in the traditions of the city in which I find myself, but that 4am wake up call has been a deterrent for the last three years.  In addition to the early wake up call, the temperature had been low and and I didn’t have a crew to hang out with to take in the tradition.  As a result, it was easy for me to sleep in and go out to field late morning to experience the balloons and the fanfare in my own way.

This year I made a new friend.  The new friend has been a mentor to me, but I didn’t know until Friday, the day before the great race, that she has hosted a party at her home to celebrate the event for many years.  After receiving an invite less than twenty-four hours before the great race, I began to wrestle with the idea of whether to go to the race just so that I could say I did it.  A few times during the day Friday I said I didn’t want to go because I had a long work week and I was tired.  It was easy to justify sleeping in Saturday morning and not attending the race.  Every time I said I didn’t think I would go to dawn patrol or the house party someone would tell me that I should go because it was fun.  My friends encouraged me to go and then Friday evening my son added his opinion that I should go to dawn patrol.  They led me to believe that this was my year to get up early Saturday morning and find out why people have established a ritual and tradition of getting up for dawn patrol.

I went to bed Friday night still undecided about whether to get up for dawn patrol or not.  Honestly, the peer pressure was getting to me and the balloon race was at the forefront of my thoughts when I went to sleep.  As a result, I woke up almost every hour checking the clock.  I didn’t set the alarm clock because I figured that if I slept past 4 or 4:30 I would have a excuse for not going to the party.  After waking up several times throughout the night, I decided that I would just get up, collect some warm clothing, and a blanket then prepare to experience something new.  Not only did I go, but I fed Swaggy earlier than normal, gathered his harness, his leash, and his fleece sweater.  Swaggy and I headed out into the darkness looking for my friend’s house.

It was good for me that I didn’t live too far from my friend’s house because the foot traffic increased as I got closer and I had to exercise more caution in the darkness.  My friend warned her guests that the streets near her house might be blocked and that we should bring the invitation along in the car.  The traffic flow became more and more congested the closer Swaggy and I got to her house.  After waiting patiently in a long line of cars as I approached her street, I realized there was a traffic guard stopping cars to ask drivers to explain where they were going in to neighborhood.  When I told the man that I was going to my friend’s house and showed him the invitation he said, “Oh you’re good to go.  That’s a really big party.”  During the trek to her house I saw people walking briskly in the darkness on a mission to get to the field before the dawn patrol show.  People carried coolers, blankets, coffee cups, and folding chairs.  They wore pajama pants, sweat pants, jeans, sweatshirts, coats, and hats.  There were groups of people who appeared to be family members and some seemed like friend groups.  They walked, talked, and laughed while they hurried toward the field.  The ride to the party helped me understand the unifying power of the balloon race.  I began to realize the wonder of The Great Balloon Race.  The race presented an annual event for friends and families to celebrate having friends and family.  Although the dawn patrol show itself took less than thirty minutes, the preparation for the event by spectators was an investment that paid dividends in bonding and relationship building for thousands of people.  Once the dawn patrol show ended, the sun rose and the highlight of the day began for me.  I forgot about being sleep deprived and enjoyed laughing and talking with some friends I already knew while making new friends.  I can’t say that I will look forward to an early rising next year to attend the dawn patrol race.  However, I am looking forward to having breakfast in my friend’s backyard next year with all of the folks she calls friend.

This was the 35^th Anniversary of The Great Balloon Race.  The announcer of the dawn patrol show said that the Northern Nevada show is the favorite of the crews and pilots.  Who can’t get excited about a crowd of thousands of people welcoming you to a city to celebrate an aeronautical sky show with crafts guided by the wind and skilled pilots who have no steering wheels?  This event raised money for scholarships for college students.  Because of the sponsors and donations of those in the community the event is free to attendees.  The Great Balloon Race unified a community of people from varied backgrounds if not forever for a few hours and that was enough reason to participate.

This week someone asked me why I started my blog.  I hadn’t really been asked that question in a while.  More recently, I have been asked what my blog is about and how I got part of the blog published, but this questions reminded me of the first time someone asked me to ponder the why of my blog.  About two years ago, I sat down with a friend to discuss the idea of me as a blogger.  This friend’s idea for me was more of a directive than a cool idea worth sharing.  She said, “You are a really good writer and you have a lot of great insights to share.  You should have a blog.”  Prior to our coffee date, she told me that she wanted to talk to me about designing a blog site at our coffee date.  However, I saw no reason to process any thoughts about the subject of a blog or the design of the page prior to the date.  The truth was that I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time my friend advised me to become a blogger.  I had never considered having a blog and I didn’t follow any blogs.  So, it seemed odd to me to spend a lot of time on something I knew very little about.  It all seemed confusing and complex.  Prior to my blog, I used journals to record my thoughts.  I explained to my friend that I decided not to journal on a regular basis because people are nosey and I have had my privacy violated in the past.  As a result, the notion that I had to put my thoughts in a venue for people to read freely felt frightening and foreign to me.

For years people said to me that I should write a book about parenting because my kids were such cool kids.  This friend who was encouraging me to blog had littles and we often talked about the job of parenting and our lives in the shadows of our families.  While I understood her beliefs about my insightful experiences from my shadow living and those opinions of others may have been true, I was overwhelmed by the possibility that I might actually give myself permission to use my emotional energy and my time for myself when I had so many responsibilities with my family.  Since I couldn’t see becoming a published author of a book in my near future, I thought that maybe I could share some stories.  I wanted to share stories about lessons that I learned in the various support roles in which I have served.  Even after agreeing to begin the mental exercise associated with defining the why, I honestly got anxious just thinking about publishing my thoughts for the world to see, read and critique.  Despite my resistance, my friend continued to email me assignments, then she checked on me periodically via text messaging to encourage me to continue to take the steps that got me closer to going live with the blog.  She would ask me how things were going, had I thought of a name yet, did I find words to describe the takeaways I wanted for my audience, and what categories I would use to label the site.  Oh, the pressure.  It took eight months of strong nudging by my friend to force me to complete the project and click the “live” button on the blog site.

So, part of the reason I became a blogger was because someone said I should and I trusted her and decided to just try.  Once I went through the exercise of thinking about the nexus between my life experiences I felt worthy of sharing, I realized that in every role I existed in the periphery and out of sight for most people who thought their view of the experience was complete.  Yet, my role in the shadows was critical to the success of the event or challenge.  In most of the situations, I experienced loneliness because nobody acknowledged my presence or my contributions.  I considered that I served even when people didn’t know I was serving and that I served for the benefit of my family and my community without an expectation of financial reward.  In retrospect, I think the only thing I really needed as a shadow dweller was some type of affirmation or gratitude.  Instead, I heard things like this from the aunt who used to say, “Every time I talk to you you are volunteering somewhere.  Why don’t you find something that pays?”  Her comments initially aggravated me, but the voice of my friend encouraging me to dig deeper into the why of my journey helped me to see that serving the village was special and beneficial to many.  As a result, I found another reason to blog: I wanted to offer encouragement to folks who might be going through some things in life and feeling alone.  I wanted to offer the caretakers of family members a caring, sincere, transparent voice to empower and enlighten them.

The reason I wrote anonymously at first was because I believed that people needed positive messages and insights to ease the burdens of their daily challenges and in the ways of a true shadow dweller my identity was not necessary in accomplishing that end.  I did not believe it was necessary that the people knew my name and I had become comfortable in the shadows.  The writing was cathartic for me and that was my take away from blogging.  In the past, I had discussions with people about my feeling and issues with my shadow living, but once I started writing there was nothing that freed me like putting the pen to the paper to clear my head and realign my soul.  The idea that I could empower others and find a place to sort through my issues was enough for me.  Being forced to write in order to generate blog posts revealed to me that I needed to use my gift of writing for the purpose of storytelling.  Surprisingly, what initially frightened me because I didn’t understand it became a slightly addictive curiosity that drew me to the blog site to write and to learn more about how to manage the technical aspects of my blog account independent of my friend.  Confronting a fear without a need to control or see the end offered me growth.

I started blogging because a friend said I needed to blog.  I continued to blog because I found a safe place to share my heart and my experiences and because my words had the power to encourage, empower, and enlighten others.  Now, I believe I am called to blog because of the lessons I have learned from blogging.  I have learned that everyone does not possess the same gifts, talents, or testimonies which means the universe missed my unique voice when I choose to silence it.  I have learned that like many folks there have been times when I failed to use my gifts and talents because I was comfortable doing something else or because the time didn’t seem right or because I was simply afraid.  At different points in my life I have used at least one of these reasons to explain why I avoided exploring the possibilities of ways to use my gifts of oration, storytelling, and written communication.  I continue to blog because the blog posts rarely ends like I believe it will end when I start writing.  Learning that I don’t have to know the end for the thing to end beautifully provides some trust to live more freely in other aspects of my life.  Selfishly, I blog because that part of me that found pleasure and a thrill after accomplishing a goal or “fixing” problems for people enjoys the rush when someone likes, comments or shares a blog post.  I get super excited when someone says that something I wrote helped them in any way.  I continue to blog because I have learned that most people do not like to admit that they are flawed or challenged.  So, the fact that I share my challenges and pain with my outside voice has the potential to touch someone else in a way that might never happen if I remained silent.  I continue to write because dissecting my life has enabled me to think through some things with a new, distant perspective.  My blog opened a a creative window in my mind that I kept sealed shut most of my life.  My creative window was closed and sealed because I considered the limitations I anticipated.  I envisioned and rehearsed mental scripts that included all of the things and people with the ability to restrict my ability to be successful doing me.  Once the window opened, I have experienced a continuous flow of ideas related to ways that I can express my passion to encourage, empower and enlighten villages of people who support young people.  My blog has affirmed my passion for being an excellent villager and presented opportunities to enter villages I never anticipated visiting because other people can see the pureness of my passion and the consistency of my heart and my voice.  The verbal expression, through my blog, has generated more opportunities for me to serve as a catalyst for others to step out of the shadows into a more expansive territory too.  That makes my soul sing.  I never expected that my decision to make a step into a vast, unknown scary place would inspire someone else to dare to experiment with possibility.  I continue to blog because I remain hopeful that something I write will bless the lives of young people, provide tangible truths, relatable life experiences, hope, inspiration and support to people in places I have not seen or imagined.

My father was a man of conviction about whatever became his topic of discussion or interest. He loved his family, electronics and making people laugh. Daddy was a master story teller and champion dreamer.  My father was full of sayings and “reverse psychology” during parenting moments which was any moment that we were together. He was not a man who believed he was my friend so he didn’t worry about how I felt about the truth hurting my feelings.

He was generally delicate with the truth like when he didn’t like my outfit or he thought it was inappropriate for the occasion. He would say, “Where you going?…”Oh, ok.”… “Well, maybe your mother can help you find something more appropriate to wear.” I can remember thinking and saying with my inside voice, “Like what? A church dress?” I think I learned from him to give my kids some latitude about their wardrobe choices and reserve the strong suggestions about appropriate attire for select occasions.

I also learned from him to always encourage my kids to dream and believe in their abilities to be great at something.  My daddy used to tell us that we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up. I laugh now because there are really some things I just couldn’t have been either because I think those things are plain boring or because I suck at quantum physics and molecular science. He used to say that if we wanted to be professional gamblers he would buy us “the best pair of dice” he could find. I am certain that was simply to make a point and a true statement of intention. He didn’t want me to be an interior decorator so I can’t imagine he would have ever made good on the pink dice in a camel colored leather case to ensure that I looked like a pro.

My father grew up poor in rural Alabama. As a result, he made it his goal to own most of the things he couldn’t enjoy or afford as a kid. Before the small motor home there was the old van he bought as a fixer upper. The van was such an eye sore when he bought it that my mother made him hide it in the back yard until she deemed it acceptable for viewing in her yard.  With my help, he designed and built benches and cabinetry for the interior. He added new seat covers and had cushions made with matching fabric for the benches in the rear. He got my cousins in Gadsden to paint the exterior in exchange for him making a number of television repairs for them. Then, we took the van home and added stripes. We spent hours in the backyard pimping out his ride while we listened to BB King. My mom used to say she couldn’t believe he had her baby singing the blues. I loved every minute of it.

Before the van, there was the boat. We went to Connecticut once to visit one of his brothers and came home pulling a boat behind the station wagon. His brother gave him an old boat that he considered junk. My dad saw hope and asked if he could take it home. Daddy put the boat in the garage and then went to a boat store to learn about how to prepare his vessel for many successful voyages. We dedicated many hours to sanding, shalacking and painting before we were able to spend weekends riding the Alabama River together.

Daddy often told the story about being so poor that he never had a bike. He said he would fix bikes for kids he knew in exchange for the opportunity to ride the bikes. He said that if they didn’t let him ride, he would return the bikes to their original broken conditions. He loved tinkering with anything mechanical from the HAM radio to the televisions to the small electronic devices. The joke in the house was never to tell daddy if the tv was doing any sort of funny business because you might spend the entirety of your favorite show watching him try “one more thing.” And Heavan forbid if you became the runner to his shop to search for the part that would be located behind the door, on the third shelf in the orange box marked with some long serial number like XQGB125798FLMTP. “Got it?” “Oh sure, Dad” is what I would say in my inside voice as I rolled my eyes and headed to the shop to search endlessly for the part.

Daddy was forever teaching. He believed in making a fisherman of any person he encountered. He parented us and he parented the kids he taught (and their parents). He came home one day laughing about how he convinced some boys at the elementary school where he was the principal that it was not a good idea to pee in the mop bucket. As the story goes, three young boys made it a practice to aggravate the janitor by peeing in the clean mop bucket water before the janitor could mop the bathroom floors. After a couple of successful missions at soiling the mop water, the janitor reported the boys to my dad. Daddy promptly called them to the principal’s office to get to the bottom of the matter. The boys were nervous, of course, and denied any involvement, of course. So, my daddy picked up the phone and called the health department. As you might imagine, he taught the person who answered the phone at some point in his career so when he started telling this story about investigating the mystery of discovering who peed in the mop bucket the woman on the phone played along. He made it sound so official and he laughed as he remembered the fear that overcame the suspects who sat in his office. He summoned the janitor and briefed him on the discussion with the health department representative.  Daddy said they needed a sample from the bucket. When the janitor returned with the murky sample from the mop bucket, daddy told the boys it might be better to fess up and tell on the person who peed in the bucket because they would be in a lot more trouble if they made him drive that sample a town over and put the folks in the lab through all the trouble of testing the mop bucket water sample. The boys nervously confessed and were sentenced to apologize to the janitor, help clean the bathroom floor and agree not to ever pee in the mop bucket again.  It also gave daddy an opportunity to teach the boys about the value of the work performed by the janitor and the respect the janitor was due.

The boys heard a lesson that I heard a lot from my dad: Treat everyone with respect.  My father was a son who loved and respected his parents.  He was a Marine, a baseball player, a teacher, a principal and a mentor.  He was a coach of high school football, baseball, track and basketball.  He was proud of his HAM handle, WA4ZYS, and proud of all of the young folks who respected him like their dad.  I was blessed to have him as my father and blessed that he loved me.  I was blessed when he said that I would forever be his girl. With love, to my daddy.