Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
The day we drove back to DC from Charlottesville, Virginia, we took a little time to explore one corner of the National Mall with the Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and a great view of the Washington Monument across the water, right as the sun was setting.
The statue of Lincoln has sat across from the reflecting pool for nearly a century. I wish he could tell us stories about all the things he’s witnessed there.
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Every few years, my mom decides it’s time for a Thanksgiving picnic.
We’re kind of spoiled here in the Phoenix area by almost always having gorgeous weather on Thanksgiving Day. I guess we kind of pay for it with the crazy hot summers.
Anyway, ever since I was a kid, some years we have traditional Thanksgiving with a whole turkey and a dining room table, and other years we have turkey sandwiches at a desert picnic table.
This year, it was just my parents, Phillip, and I. We kept things super simple and picnicked at Usery Mountain Regional Park.
We still had the boisterous, house-full-of-people experience with Phillip’s side of the family the following Saturday.
But Thanksgiving Day was all blue skies and saguaros.
After picnicking, we took a short hike, chatting some and listening to the gravelly trail crunch under our feet, a cactus wren calling to us, and far off coyotes howling. The sun dipped low to backlight the landscape, putting glowing edges around fuzzy chollas and creosote bushes with their tiny, fragrant leaves, and making the evening seem magical.
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News of the attacks on Paris is heartbreaking. And the rumors about attackers having entered Europe as refugees, having been saved from a sinking ship, rocks my core and tests my belief that kindness changes people.
And yet, as individuals who are not world leaders or aid organizations, maybe the best we can do is still kindness – to give a stranger directions, be patient with someone who is struggling with your language, invite someone over who is far from their hometown.
Maybe kindness can’t prevent every violent act. But, in the long run, I think it’s our best hope.
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Images made with Stamen Design mapping utility. CCL. (Heart added with Skitch.)
This is Frida. We realized after naming Frida that the colorful Bettas with the long tails are actually males. But I’m pretty sure fish don’t care about our gender norms.
After some research I learned that (a) Bettas like having plants in their tank – both to hide in and to keep the water oxygenated (b) they can tear their fins on plastic plants (c) they can coexist with live pothos plants. There are other plants that are even more recommended for fish tanks, but I thought I’d start with what I have and add a pothos cutting to the tank. Frida likes to swim around it and sleep on top of a leaf near the surface like it’s a hammock.
Bettas are more interactive than a lot of fish. They notice you and recognize the people that feed them, doing a little happy/feed me dance when you walk by.
I seriously didn’t know one little fish could make me smile so much.
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Right as plans were really falling apart for an Italy trip this year, an event popped up in my Facebook feed.
The authors of the Four Windows project (including my brother) have all finished the novels they’ve been writing over the past year and would be doing a reading in Seattle.
I saw the invitation for their reading and thought, “I wish I could be there.” Then I realized I could.
Turns out that, when you’ve been trying to figure out how to get from Arizona to Italy, getting to Seattle suddenly seems very doable and inexpensive by comparison.
In fact, by the time you read this, I plan to already have been there and come back home.
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