What do I know?

Not much, truth be told...

I don’t know a whole heck of a lot. I’ve only lived in this one body for 85 years—white, female, American, comfortable so far. Billions of other humans live in different bodies in different places and circumstances on this planet and lead very different lives.

But in this troubling and chaotic time I do know a few things:

Every moment is a gift.

Untie the ribbon, open the box and take the moment out for a spin. This is an exercise we do in improv class—we go around the circle passing an imaginary box to the person next to us, who opens it with great anticipation and tells us what they found inside. It’s also what we do when we’re trying to figure out what the most interesting thing our scene partner has just said or done that we could build upon to take the improvised scene to a new level.

Try it In Real Life (IRL) in any conversation or experience to open new possibilities. But you must pay close attention to the moment, or you’ll miss the gift.

Gathering with other people matters.

It’s much harder to vilify The Other if you spend time in community—sharing stories, sharing food, singing, hiking, dancing, laughing…
One of the reasons I started taking improv classes was I wanted to expand the scope of my local community, and have fun doing it.
I’m also trying to create some sense of cohesion and connection in my building—a condo with 164 units, including about 30 rentals. Most folks are busy working. We have no real central gathering space, so we’re lucky if we encounter each other at the mailboxes or in the elevators. Before the pandemic we had a First Friday Happy Hour, hosted by various willing owners. We’re just beginning to come out of our shells and a committee is working on new ways for us to gather, but damn… it’s hard.

Priya Parker, who wrote the best-selling book, The Art of Gathering,: How We Meet and Why it Matters has lots of great ideas… starting with lowering your standards as to host performance. I’m working on that 😁.

“Just do it!” cuz YOLO

I don’t have a fear of public speaking, as long as I have a script. But I love personal stories sooo much, that I really wanted to try my hand at it. You can spend all the time you want shaping and scripting it so it has the effect you want, BUT then… you are supposed to stand there and tell it. No script. I’ve never been good at memorizing, so I ruled out story-telling. But then I got a notice of a 4-week story-telling class at Third Rail Repertory Theatre, which is in my neighborhood… I told my self “YOLO” (you only live once) so I signed up.

Let me say—crafting a story worth telling is a whole new art form for me, and it’s a lot more intense work—both inner and as craft—than I expected. Like a years worth of therapy in a month. Tonight was the performance and I survived. In fact it went much better than I expected. Anyway, a friend took this picture, and I look like I’m actually having fun.

Put Yourself in the Way of Beauty

I end every newsletter this way, because seeking what is beautiful to me keeps me grounded. [The phrase is from Cheryl Strayed’s mother—her deathbed advice.] They say ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’; I find a wild variety of things “beautiful.” For me, it means that when I behold the object/person/moment, I’m moved, or feel real pleasure—a ”wow, isn’t that cool.”

Last night I walked back from an event in downtown Portland at dusk

And the trunk of an old tree that reminds me of a cable-knit sweater:

Finally, a beautiful story from a kids’ audiobook narrator on Facebook that moved me to tears (the story is to the right of the photo).

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Note: Not one mention of President Let’s-Start-a-War until this instant! The chaos and destruction he’s caused globally is unfathomable… and coincidentally just as the Epstein discoveries point ever more directly at his raping underage girls.

I hold us all in my heart. We’ll get thru this.
Sending love, Joy