Eight Things
Well, it’s been over a month since I posted and while I don’t feel great about it, that’s the way the corn popped. It’s not been an easy month. It feels like so many people I love are dealing with hard things right now—with brains, bodies, and all kinds of bullshit. The Earth seems to be feeling it too. We’ve had lots of flooding here in West Virginia, which sadly isn’t that unusual, but also a tornado this past month. I can only remember that happening one other time here and on a much smaller scale. And then of course there are lots of tough times all over the world right now.
But tough times are nothing new for most. We all just do the best we can and when I take a second to think about it, there have been lots of good times in the past month too. It’s just our brains are wired to make a bigger deal of the bad stuff. I’ve been making more of an effort to take notice of the good things too, no matter how small. Here are eight off the top of my head. Eight because eight is one of my favorite numbers.
1: Solar Eclipse
Who doesn’t like to take a break from work to stare up at the sky? The solar eclipse just made it more of a communal happening. I like a thing that makes it feel like for a minute we’re all in it together--but, in a celebratory way--not in a scared-pandemic-tornado-election-disaster kind of way. I think it’s why I like most holidays and it’s what I can appreciate about sports, even though I don’t follow any. Nothing against sports, they were just never a big part of my life growing up. Once in awhile we’d play baseball in the yard with the neighbors and for a second during the Michael Jordan craze of the early 90s I thought I might want to play basketball, so Pawpaw put a hoop on the side of his garage. None of my siblings were interested, so I’d shoot hoops with Pawpaw and his 70-year-old neighbor Cluster. It wasn’t something I stuck with though. Somehow, even with six kids in the family, no one played anything regularly or even really followed any sports. But...
2: Little League Season
My nieces and nephews are breaking lots of family traditions, as they should, and are involved in way more extracurricular activities than we ever were. Last week was my nephew’s first Little League game of this season. He started playing a couple of years ago and it’s led to me discovering that I genuinely love going to games. I’m not sure if this would translate over to watching adults play sports, or really anything outside of baseball. I’m partial to the unhurriedness of it. There’s some competition with the kids, of course, but everyone cheers for everyone. One time the away team was short a good amount of players, so some of the kids from the home team played in the outfield for them, basically playing against themselves. It was wholesome and heartwarming, two things I’ll take wherever I can get. I might get a pouch of Big League Chew for next week.
3: Dean Martin - “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me”
I often like songs by people who can’t really sing that well in the traditional sense, but sometimes I really love a crooner. I was sitting in my office the other day, stressing about who knows what, and this song randomly popped up on a playlist. I no joke instantly felt relaxed, peaceful, and, yeah, a little sleepy (but that’s not unusual for me.) I haven’t seen Rio Bravo, the 1959 film this song is from and I probably won’t, unless Tracy says I should for some reason. Dean Martin--I never would’ve guessed it, but sometimes you find solace in the most unexpected places, sweetheart, darling.
4: Louisville
I took a very quick solo trip to my other home. I don’t mean that I’m a person with multiple houses--I mean like the other place where I grew up--spending all my twenties and half of my thirties there. I was there for less than 24 hours, but got to see so many of my all-time favorite people, many all in the same room. The city has changed a lot since I moved there 25 years ago, but it also always feels the same when I’m there. And I got to meet my friend’s son Frances for the first time.
5: DD BDAY
My ole ball and chain turned 40 last month. He’s worth celebrating, even if he didn’t want a big fuss. We kept the fuss little and went on a random drive to a small nearby city, ending up at a mostly tolerable brewery, listening to Candlebox and other grunge light hits play through the speakers in the ceiling. That might not sound great on paper, but we’ve never needed the perfect setting to have a good time. One of the most memorable, silly days we had together was when we were completely broke and our car engine blew up on the interstate. Yeah, we have good times. I’ve rarely laughed as hard as we did that day.
The evening before his 40th, we went bowling with some friends and pre-celebrated DD BDAY with hot dogs, mozzarella sticks, cheap beer, and a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. A big fuss.
6: Wax Plant Blooms
A nice woman named Karen gave me this plant--not all Karens are bad. It didn’t bloom for the first few years I had it, but now every year it starts in April and lasts for the next couple months. The flowers are small, but they’re so strong that I can sometimes smell them when I’m coming up the steps in our house. The smell kind of reminds me of a 1980s cheap perfume, but in a good way.
7: Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Last year I started a 24-week DBT skills training group therapy course, meeting once a week for two hours. I surprised myself by (for the first time in my life) having perfect attendance and doing my homework every week. Maybe I was trying to make up for high school behaviors.
If you’re wondering what the hell DBT Therapy is (I had no idea just a year ago) it’s a form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy that was originally developed to treat people with Borderline Personality Disorder, but now it’s used for all sorts of things, including depression and anxiety. At the heart of DBT is the dialectic between change and acceptance. There are four main skill areas taught: two are acceptance-oriented (Mindfulness and Distress Tolerance) and two are change-oriented (Emotion Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness.) That’s a simplified explanation of it. An even simpler explanation is that you learn skills that help you be a human in this world. It should really be taught in school, maybe instead of Algebra II or Calculus, with the exception of math geniuses.
8: Mystery Film
I had a roll of 120 film developed that I found in a forgotten pocket of an old camera bag. Turns out I had taken it on a trip to the Smokey Mountains in the fall of 2019. One of the best things about film cameras, especially the Holga, is that no matter what you’re expecting when you get the film back, you’re always surprised by some of it--even more so when it’s five years old. A little pre-Covid time capsule surprise.
For the record, I do think you should watch Rio Bravo, not for Dean Martin, but for Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson. And I'm glad you're enjoying sports watching.