Thanks for the reminder. Last month was my 5th anniversary on this instance. It was also the month I finally paid off my student loans (after 21 years). So, I just donated the equivalent of a student loan payment to my instance admin.
RE: mstdn.social/users/TechBean/st…
@shuttersparks One European starling has figured out that the eating is good on my balcony. I hope he keeps this find to himself and doesn't bring the whole lot of them and run off the house finches.
Here's an idea for all you tea drinkers. When we ordered a pot of tea in the café, they brought this three part tea timer. The different coloured sand timers are marked "weak", "medium", and "strong". When your colour of sand runs out it is time to remove the tea bag.😃
I'm inspired by lovely supportive friends including Becki who sent me this awesome rehab advice in the link (O is for Optimism), and also Kate Worthington of Raw adventures who told me about her #DailyJoy strategy for recovering from illness/injury. I'm starting a #DailyJoy trend right here. Feel free to join me!
Yesterday's #DailyJoy was snuggling on the sofa with Meg and Bo, who are Sharon and @GrahamUney 's lovely labradors. 🧡🧡
At this month’s partner/spousal bereavement support group, the topic came up of all of the moments of discovery or delight that are made more profound or joyful by having someone to turn to and share them with. This include big moments (like experiencing the recent eclipse), little moments (like learning a piece of trivia), commonplace events that are suddenly precious (like spending time with one’s children or grandchildren), and striking events whose meaning or appropriate response is hard to grasp (like finding an injured bird).
The absence of a kindred spirit who is committed to deeply knowing us forces us to find a new way of knowing ourselves and of making daily life still feel real, surprising, or enjoyable. It’s hard to stay buoyant and avoid taking ourselves too seriously without someone around interrupting our own thoughts with their silly and surprising observations.
@fitheach No bad news here. I volunteer as a facilitator for grief groups at the local hospice organization. I should have mentioned that!
BTW, I’m going to be wandering about the Highlands a bit in late May/early June! (Inverness to Skye to Glasgow.) I won’t have a car but my schedule is mine to set. I’d love to hear your recommendations on what I should do/see.
@fitheach I’ll get into Inverness on the last Tuesday in May and need to be in Glasgow by midday on Sunday. I figured I’d take the bus from Inverness to Portree or the train to Kyle. I haven’t figured out yet how to get around Skye. A friend who went 20 years ago hitched a ride with a mail carrier, but I probably shouldn’t count on that luck. Then take the train from Mallaig to Glasgow. But as of right now, I’ve not locked in anything but my flights.
I need to be in Glasgow for business on June 4. And I’d like to take a few days of leisure time to see what I can of Scotland. (I’ve never been.) I like mountains, not crowds. Pubs, not clubs. Nice views but I won’t have the time to do any trekking. Questions for those of you in the know:
What would you recommend for my itinerary?
How realistic is it for me to get around without a car? (I like riding on trains, but not driving cars.)
@That_One_Guy@KissAnne I work in a company that is 100% remote. That means everyone has to be equally mindful about communication and relationship building. It works great for us. And what we save on paying for offices can be applied to occasional travel (for team-building, strategy sessions, etc). I’ve worked hybrid in past jobs but got left out of key developments when I was remote because conversations that moved things forward happened spontaneously in the office. In my experience, the problem with remote work is not the remote workers. It’s that the people in the office don’t want to put in the effort or have the communication skills or presence of mind to include them.
This landed hard.
I love literature and the theatre. I love diving into other people’s work; I love creating my own. It has become increasingly clear (especially since the pandemic) that my work is not commercial and my “brand” (whatever that is) does not excite. I will never be on Broadway or off. But I have to live the life that is mine even though there is no goal beyond that. #writer#writerlife#playwright
I have a good view of the sky from my bed. It being a clear night, there are some pretty, twinkling dots that include an orange giant and a red supergiant, respectively 60 to 640 light years away, suspended in the cold vacuum of an uncaring universe. And I am a tiny speck, snuggled with gently snoring dogs, comfy under covers, in a warm house, in an ecosystem protected by an atmosphere and a magnetic field.
And, silly me, having spent decades thinking I need to be someone or do something impressive, I am relieved that I’m not special. There’s no need to impress anyone or be hard on myself or anyone else. The fact that any of us are alive and connected while zooming around the sun at a speed that would close the distance between London and NYC in 3 minutes while also collectively hurtling through the galaxy at nearly 7 times that speed and somehow we haven’t crashed into anything big enough to smash us smithereens in 4.5+ billion years is frankly astounding. It’s all temporary. So there’s no reason not to go ahead and let myself get a good night’s sleep and try again tomorrow to be kind and ease others’ suffering, little by little.
I bought myself a smart ring a few months ago, and it finally arrived last night. Apparently, it gets readings most reliably when worn on the index finger. And every so often, a red light glows from under it (to measure my pulse), which makes the flesh around the ring glow from the inside, giving me the notion that I could simply point at objects and zap them with my super power.
Anyone need an enemy to be smote or an obstacle vaporized? Now taking requests.
So we started chatting to this American couple in the pool, it took about ten minutes before the man went off on an anti-immigration rant. Apparently back in the day his Scottish and Italian ancestors had it tough getting into the USA but now we just let anyone in and give them all cellphones. I wanted to say, “national borders are a form of violence” but I knew Tom would never forgive me, so I artfully steered the conversation onto whether he had ever been to Europe in search of his family history. What makes people feel they can just spew their odious politics to people they have literally just met and be so sure that they are on safe ground to do so?
@purplepadma How disheartening. I once chatted with a young man and his mother while waiting for a dinner table in Lisbon. They were French, and I got to hear his anti-immigrant views to which he felt entitled because his father was Algerian. That table availability couldn’t come fast enough.
I helped co-facilitate a grief group yesterday for folks whose spouses/partners have died within the last year. It was a reminder for me of how a loss like that can redefine a person such that the only shorthand they have is with others who are going through it.
For those of you for whom today’s date is a reminder of a heart-shaped hole in your life—whether it is for a specific person or for a deep longing to be seen, loved, and nurtured—I’m thinking of you.
It's felt like a death, in that the grief doesn't care why the person who was your long term partner is gone. It just knows they're gone, and has to grapple with the fact they're not coming back.
So true. Having worked through a lot of grief (e.g., feeling all the feels—sometimes to the point of not being able to function—and then wrestling with who I am on the other side of the loss) has prepared me to hold that space for others. Most of my work has been with “disenfranchised grief” (when the loss or the degree of its impact is not visible or validated by society). But the process has some foundational similarities.
When it comes to losing a companion, there are all of the tiny triggers of the waves of grief, like reminders of them. But one of the things that has reminded me of how alone I am—single or coupled but lonely—is when something amazing happens and I don’t have someone that I can spontaneously turn to and say, Wow, did you see that?!?” and know that they would stop and appreciate it too.