The Art of Making Strawberries

 

I have been making Strawberries at Christmastime with my sister and mother as long as I can remember. This family tradition has an apprenticeship that I have brought my own children into. The shaping of the delicate strawberries is a fine art which is passed from one generation to another.

My mother presides over the whole affair, doling out the responsibilities each person is gradually afforded. The first job of a young Strawberry apprentice is grinding the nuts and coconut, or dying the almond sliver stems in green food coloring. Mixing the concoction is a more advanced position and one I was chastised for as recently as this year, for adding the ingredients in the wrong order. My mother claimed this affected the consistency and shaping ability of the batter. I strongly disagree, so do not be intimidated about trying this at home.

When the concoction is properly mixed, the apprentices sit at a table in assembly line fashion. An experienced (3-5 years) journeyman starts by rolling walnut sized balls between their hands and placing them on waxed paper. This job has one distinct benefit—when your hands become too sticky to roll balls, you get to lick them off, finger by finger, before washing your hands.

Job #2, is only given to Master Strawberry Makers (5-10 years). It requires experience and technique as you gently roll each ball first in red sugar while simultaneously shaping it into a conical form. One learns early to leave the top sugarless, so that when you dip it in green sugar for the calyx (you learned a new word, didn’t you?) it will stick. The youngest apprentice sits at the end of the table and pokes the green stem in.

My mother credits this recipe to Renee Pavey who was a neighbor of hers in Columbia, MO in the early 1960’s. Mrs. Pavey donated the unique treat to a church bazaar displayed in apothecary jars. She famously didn’t let her kids eat any of them. My mom admired them so much she got the recipe, and we have been making them as gifts for family and friends every holiday season since. And, yes the kids have always gotten to eat them, at times to the point of never wanting to eat another one.

Thought for the Day

 There is no better feeling than giving. You punch that gift order, mail that letter, send that gift card, make that last minute charitable donation, and you are in love with yourself for a moment. You never know the impact but the thrill of giving never gets old. Do it everyday! I'm serious. 

Adam

 by Betsy Vick, as shared with family on Thanksgiving Day

I attended the 2023 Suicide Loss Day on Nov 18, and we made collages to represent our loved

ones. Then we shared what our collages meant. I said Adam was the first grandchild and my

sister’s oldest boy, and she always called him her Best Boy. He was an amazing kid and

exceptional young man. I was always happiest when the cousins were together, and they share

so much history. They also had a lot of fun. Even though he left too soon, Adam’s life was well

lived. He always challenged me and inspired me to think. The impact he had on others was so

great, and we didn’t fully realize that until after he was gone, and we met all these wonderful

people in his life we didn’t know. If he were your friend, he would be your fierce defender, but he

could also be fiercely competitive and argumentative at times. The candle and sun represent

that Adam will always be a light in our lives. I also believe that where there is love, there is hope.

What I didn’t mention was the dream part, where I was going to say that it doesn’t happen often,

but that we look for Adam in our dreams. That night before I went to bed, I thought, “I wish I

would see Adam in my dreams tonight.” I woke up at 4:17 (Calhoun?) to go the bathroom. I

usually have trouble falling back asleep, but I fell back asleep right away and when I woke up, I

remembered the dream I was having.

Susan and I were with Eli, Cal and Emery at some kind of amusement park, but it wasn’t a place

we’d been to in real life. Eli and Cal were teenagers and Emery was around 12—about the same

ages as in the picture. We were on this speed boat going really fast and the spray was hitting

our faces, and we were laughing. It was wonderful. At the end of the ride, everyone got into

these into little floating capsules, and we drifted into a line to finish the “ride.” I wasn’t really sure

what the ride had been—other than the speed boat part—but we were gathered in this kind of

café area at the end, and in walks someone who looks like Adam in a shiny, black scuba diving

outfit and all you can see is his face. And then I remembered that the ride we had been on,

when you start, you give the operator a picture of someone and then they create this kind of AI

avatar and Adam was our protector in this ride/game we were in. If we were in danger, he would

jump in front of us to save us. When this avatar walked in, I ran to him and gave him a hug, and

said, “I love you” and he hugged me back and said, “I love you, too.” I knew it was a false

version of Adam, but it seemed so nice to hug him and sort of experience having him back. I

said to Susan, “I would ride that ride over and over just to get to the end and share that hug

again” and she said, “So would I.”

We left that area, and it was time to leave and no one really wanted to but everyone wandered

away, and I had won a case of Dr. Pepper somehow and I was trying to collect it. It turned out

they were out of Dr. Pepper, and I walked out of this area where I was trying to get this free gift

and I entered this video arcade type place—lots of lights and noises. I was kind of disappointed

about the Dr. Pepper and the day ending, and I saw this group of young men gathered shoving

each other. It was hard for me to tell if they were friends just joshing around or if they were

arguing, and out of this group, I heard a voice. I don’t know what he said, but I knew it was

Adam’s voice, and I shouted really loud, “Adam!” He emerged out of that group and came over

to me, looking mildly irritated and kind of sharply said, “What!?!?” as if I were bothering him. I

just stared at him because he was so real and unlike that avatar I’d seen earlier. He was wearing

a t-shirt and jeans, and his hair was falling in his eyes. I was so stunned. This was the real Adam

appearing at this amusement park. I said, “I didn’t know you were here.” And his face softened,

he smiled and he gripped my forearms really tight and I held his forearms and he said in that kind

of half-joking way of his…”Where did you think I’d be?” Then I woke up, feeling this surge of

gratitude that Adam must have heard me the day before talking about him and somehow knew I

asked him to visit me in a dream. Where did I think he’d be? He reminded me that he is always

with us, of course.

Core Values

 I ask my clients this so why not ask myself?

• Peace
• Health
• Purpose
• Giving
• Dependability
• Family harmony
• Fitness
• Caring for environment
• Creative expression
• Knowledge
• Wisdom
• Heritage
• Respect
• Diversity
• Kindness
• Optimism
• Authenticity 

I feel like I could go on and on. Is "Words" a value? I love words and vocabulary and putting words together in different ways. 

Values I need improvement on:

• Patience
• Vanity
• Selflessness
• Non-judgmentalism
• Positivity
• Simplicity
• Non-attachment to things

I could go on and on with this, too. 

Sir Richard

 Written by Betsy Vick and spoken at memorial service 2/28/20 

 

It was a dark and stormy night.  Ten of us were seated around the campfire when the captain said, “Vick, tell us a story!” and this is the story I told…

That was the start of a story my Dad would tell many times on stormy nights or long car rides and it’s a story I would later tell to my own son on many occasions. My dad would like to be remembered as a Soldier, Poet, Scholar, Teacher, but to me he was (Dad, Poppy, Richardo, miles g. coverdale, Poor Richard), a supreme storyteller and, of course, father.  His chosen epithets Soldier, Poet, Scholar, Teacher, are his own, but he lived them out in my recollection as a teller of tales and a role model for his children.

My father loved to sing and through his singing would tell us stories but also singing would figure in the important stories of his life, most significantly and oft told, meeting my mother in Madrigals in college, singing in theater productions (anyone remember Linus or Dusty Biffle?), harmonizing in the church choir (though he wasn’t that crazy about church, he went for the choir), playing his ukulele with us kids gathered to sing from the Burl Ives Songbook, Froggy Went a Courtin’ or Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, singing Christmas carols and rounds (Man’s Life’s a Vapor) with his grown children and grandkids. 

My Dad wasn’t the typical father of the 70s I’ve learned in talking to friends and acquaintances from the same era.  Because he taught at the university, he was often there in the mornings as we got ready for school, he could often be at home when we came home, he was ever present and ready to travel on holidays and breaks that were the same as ours (and, boy, did we travel;, he cooked many weekly meals and I learned as much about cooking from him as my mother (and both are fine cooks in their own right).  On occasion when I wasn’t feeling good enough to go to school but not contagious, I could go with him out to Western (and this was long before take your daughter to work day) and hang around the office with him and Dr. Logsdon or outside the classroom for his 50 minute class, sitting there quietly on a bench, swinging my legs, listening to his voice booming through the door, speaking in a language I couldn’t always understand.  Yes, he was a scholar of old and middle English and spoke old English with a beautiful lilt and quoting Beowulf (and others) until nearly the day he died.  I know we heard Grendl approaching over this past Christmas season.  At my wedding, he read the poem Alysoun, and while I can’t say I understood the words, through my life, I heard always from my father the story of love. 

Back in the day, on Saturday mornings he would bake whole wheat bread (and if we were lucky cinnamon rolls) and listen to the Metropolitan opera on the radio as he worked the dough.  He tended the garden alongside my mother, stooping his 6 foot five frame to plant seeds and later pull the weeds and then harvest.  He and my mother were true partners in most everything they did. 

He had a library in our house, where he smoked his cigars and his pipe, while preparing for class, grading papers, reading or holding me in his lap to play our favorite game, Baby and Great Eagle.  The hours I sat curled in a chair in that library with my father and sometimes without, (we were always welcome there) reading books I discovered on his shelves, including the entire Lord of the Rings series, Slaughterhouse 5, the poems of Emily Dickinson, listening to records of musicals (Man of La Mancha) and comedy albums (Stan Freeburg), are the stories of my youth, etched by my father’s love of literature, music and art.  These are the stories to tell our children.

My father taught us through stories how to be kind, how to do good in this world, how to be frugal and thoughtful, and he exemplified those stories through his actions. But he also loved to argue (he would call it debate) and his opinions were strong and not to be trifled with—you should come prepared.  But he was also a teller of jokes (some more raunchy than his daughters liked) and puns, and many were heard often to the point of annoyance (got any grapes?) but he could also surprise us with new ones we’d never heard before, just spontaneously erupting from him, like the one he told to my sister and me one of the last times I spoke with him over at Wesley Nursing, a rat walks into a bar and says “is the bar tender here?”  That’s it—if you don’t get it—ask me later. 

In eulogies, we commemorate the good in people, but my dad did not believe in fairytales and he rarely told those kinds of stories. There were meager times, there were many “nos”, there were plenty of slammed doors and I hate yous (shouted mostly by me, I think), bickering over things large and small, but looking back and reflecting on our lives, it seems to me best that we do recall those we loved in a cherished halo of goodness and allow the raw feelings and bruised egos to fall away, to let go the chaff and understand the true kernel of a person, and to me, that kernel of my father’s being was his family.

Because my dad taught tales of heroes, like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and because he knew many true heroes while fighting in Korea, men who gave their lives, he didn’t like the overuse of the word hero in the everyday; in fact, he objected strenuously to it, so forgive my indulgence here, Poppy, as I speak about someone I believe was your hero.  My dad would always give credit to his father for how he learned to be a father and while I didn’t really get to know my Grandpa Vick, not the man my father so admired at any rate, I understood that the story my grandfather told my father through his life was that if you lead your life with love, compassion and kindness, that will be returned to you, and so that’s what my dad did, he led his life with love, and the tales he told were heroic and inspiring, just like my father, even in the most mundane moments of life. 

 

 

 

 

 

O to 60

I'm not talking about power train speed, I'm talking my lifespan so far. Although sometimes it feels like I got here in accelerated time, and I am still that little girl with her nose in a book. 

60 is just 15 times 4, right? Interesting way to look back on my life that occurred to me today. 

0-15 forming my identity. I thought of myself as a pretty, book worm-y, fairly popular band kid. Quiet, an introvert, smart. 

15-30 whoa, those are some crazy years. I drank a lot, got married twice, divorced once and became a mom. I suppose I could say I laid the stage for some better years ahead. My identity was pretty shaky in this time frame. 

30-45 a move back to my hometown, parents nearby and raising 3 boys in small town mid-America. Working and just surviving, fixing up my old childhood home. I am still an introvert but craved social interaction. I quit drinking and saved my liver many years of toil. A wife and mother contained my identity. 

45-60 going back to school, focusing on career, building a solid work record when, bam out of nowhere, we lost Adam. All the boys were out of the house, graduated from college or close, bills were paid, we thought we made it. My identity became the face of suicide awareness and prevention, mental health and wellness. Eli and Cal thrived, got married, moved, and overcame the loss of their big brother. We all adapted in our own ways, but we stuck together and I felt the true strength of family, as I never have before. 

60-75 what will this period bring? My hope is to grow more peaceful, be more present, compassionate towards myself and others, and continue to live with purpose. I am certain I can handle whatever life hands me. I have realized my true strength.

Walk Season

 Out of the Darkness Walk season ended yesterday on a wonderful note. My heart is full of gratitude and amazement of the group that gathered in Springfield for Adam and suicide prevention. Our very own Team Tut ranked 5th in fundraising for the entire walk garnering us a shout out and our own whoop back. The synchronicity that the Walk has moved to the UIS campus where Adam attended from 2008-11 and met these incredible friends is not lost on me. Here we are minus our photographer Laura:

This was our largest group yet (25).   

The day started with me driving Adam's Uncle Kevin from Macomb to Springfield. He left Omaha at 2:00 a.m. to be here for this event. He has also attended several Macomb Walks in past years. We had convivial and pleasant chat; he cares and feels deeply. Tae and his delightful girlfriend Allison surprised everyone by driving in from Chicago. It was great to see him again. Jon has relocated to the Nashville area and drove up. That's some effort! I met Brittany and Laura for the first time, and Matt brought his fiancé Jillian all the way from Arizona. Could it get any better? Kallie and Brent arrived and a contingent of 8 from Edwardsville. Sarah came from Indiana once again. She's such a caring soul. A few friends still live in Springfield, but Zach was away for work and missed for the first time in 8 years. 

Adam, Sarah, Stephanie

It's something to see these kids adulting. 7 years ago they were starting careers and navigating relationships. Now they are successful adults in all areas. I love what they are doing and how they pick up where they left off with easy camaraderie. 

I had seen many pictures of Brittany with Adam, but we had never met. Laura lived in the apartments and was honing her photography skills in college. She eventually completed her MBA and has her own photography business. She told me she envied Adam's intellect and ability to put off school work and studying until the last minute then stay up for 24 hours and produce something "brilliant." Someone told me the picture below was taken by someone who had skills at UIS, so I'm pretty sure it was Laura:

Laura (first row, far right) got in the last picture when a random stranger offered to snap a shot:

Iconic monolith at UIS campus in background. Thanks for setting this up, Laura.

Brittany and Adam circa 2009

After the Walk, we go to a restaurant for fellowship, food and libations. I enjoy being in the position to pay the bill for everyone each year. I don't get to spend on money on Adam anymore, and we are fortunate to be doing well enough to treat everyone who shows up. 

Motorheads Route 66

Signs

Kevin got into Macomb in time to spend some moments alone at the labyrinth. He told me as he sat down on Adam's bench, his car alarm went off and he thought it was surely a sign from Adam and his mom, Colleen, Adam's beloved paternal grandmother. 

Springfield, IL Adam and Uncle Kevin

Aunt Betsy wasn't able to make it. She represented and accompanied my mom cross country to attend my niece Laura's wedding. Interestingly, as they were driving to the wedding at 3:20 Eastern time, just as we were completing our Walk in Springfield, she looked up to see Tuttle Road, a sign she easily could have missed, but didn't. 

Walk season is my favorite season of this journey in losing a child. It fills me with love and hope that so many support me, Adam, and this cause. I can do something to honor Adam and the lives he touched. 

The Walk

 

Here are some images from last year's Macomb Out of the Darkness Walk. It's pretty clear that people are starting to notice that suicide is a problem in our community. I'm proud and honored to bring this topic into the light (hoping for sunshine again this year).  We are having a nice article in the local paper prior to the Walk highlighting resources, signs, and our speaker this year, Dion Boyd, Jr. 

Depression

 I bet you think I'm going to talk about the illness, depression. No, this is about the Great Depression. I'm reading this book about the Great Plains in the 1930's. A family leaves Texas after multiple years of drought and dust storms that almost killed one of the children (dust pneumonia). A woman takes off in a jalopy with her kids (her husband had previously left her when she refused to leave Texas) and crosses the desert to the San Joaquin valley which is lush and beautiful but where they are treated like dirt and called "Okies" which they take great offense to.  

This family is among the lucky, they have one potato to put in their soup for 3 people. The mom works 10 hours cleaning a lady's house and is given $.40 and practically spit on. She signs up for "relief" and is told she can come back in a year for assistance, after she has established residency in California. This is hardship folks. Not that my Americano was delayed because no one cleaned the machine last night, not that I left my fuel saver card at the store, not a technology failure that screwed up my work for 4+ hours this week. 

Wow, I keep thinking about my dad's experience in North Dakota. We often heard the story of his father working as teacher/superintendent/janitor (all at once) of a school and the pay was a bucket of soup to feed his family. I'm sure he was grateful to have a pail of soup. Things eventually got better, but that depression era mentality stayed with my dad his entire life (and was passed down to some degree to me). We made fun of him for cleaning his plate with his finger, eating the leftover food off our plates, and (forgive me mom for telling this one), scooping the baby food off our faces and eating it after spoon feeding us. It's sinking in through my experience reading this book, what that might have felt like and it was not kind to ridicule that behavior. 

So, to put it lightly, this book is humbling me a bit. These are people that were alive when I was. I knew my grandparents who lived through this mess of a situation. It's amazing the things I will complain and be upset about when these people were absolutely destitute and living in tent villages and cars, not knowing if they could feed their children the next day. Somehow they persevered and the next generation recovered and for the most part prospered. This was situational poverty as compared the generational poverty we see more now, but that's a topic for another day. 

 A couple of things resonated with me over time about grief, child loss, suicide loss, my loss of my firstborn, Adam. The first was, "It doesn't get easier, but you get more used to it." Later, I adopted the idea, "you grow around your grief." It's a journey for sure, and I am drawn to those who have to go through this also. 

Ok, this post has sat for days, when this morning I had an awakening, after awakening. Last weekend I took Adam's watch to the local jewelry store for a new battery, probably only the 2nd or 3rd time I've had to change it in the 7.5 years I've been wearing it. While I was waiting, I was looking at watches and decided maybe I could get a new band. The leather is wearing out and it always slides around on my wrist, even on the tightest hole. I had the guy punch a new hole and order me a new watchband. Later this week, as I was putting it on, the band broke. My new one will be here today. Hooray! Someone was making sure I didn't go without my watch for long. 

A step forward in the Mommy-Daughter relationship: it seems like my mom and I get along best when we are doing something together. Cooking is most often the go-to. Last Sunday we were making Blintzes (blinis, crepes) together, and I showed Mom how to get the blintz onto the spatula by tipping the pan. She was Amazed. She wondered how she never thought of this in all her 87 years!

Pat gave me a gift this week. He was looking through his Kindle and found this picture I don't remember ever seeing. Probably taken within the last year Adam was here. I love it and am grateful for every remembrance that comes my way. 

Reflections

Please don't think my lack of blogging means I don't think about Adam every single day. I do. I am told there were four suicides in my small town this past week. It was not initially activating to me, as I might have expected. I began to put myself in the parent's shoes, and think about how I processed Adam's death and got through those first days, weeks, and months. 

I am not one to talk, even to my family. I did have a therapist already when Adam died, and I called her the day after we found out he was gone. She was a great support to me, a neutral but caring individual I didn't have to feel awkward with, though I know I did (am crying too much, too little?). Other ways I coped included the following:

• Making things. That first week, my sister and I painted coffee mugs and fired them in the oven that said, "Clear past the Twinkle Stars," as in how much we love you, Adam. Every time I look at that mug on my desk, I feel those pangs of new grief. I never want to forget that, nor do I want to live there.
• I did ceramics, collages, paintings, scrapbook pages, anything hands on as a way to express myself. 
• Writing, writing, writing. Journals, blogs, and letters. Writing thank you notes was very therapeutic for me. I had a friend address and stamp the envelopes. I made copious lists of everything. It was important for me not to forget anything, even how horrible it felt. 
• I had to go back to work quickly. I know this is not for everyone. 
• Giving things of Adam's to people I thought would appreciate it. He had a lot of shoes and coats, and we gave a winter coat to a friend of ours whom Adam had worked for, and it did my soul good to see him wearing that coat. 
• Saving quotes and memes that hit home. 
• Getting involved with AFSP, a suicide support group and eventually Compassionate Friends. These experiences have evolved, and I'm grateful for the friends I've made and support I've received being part of those who have shared experiences. 
• I collected photographs and stories from friends I didn't know I had, organizing and printing them, staring at them trying to figure out what was behind those beautiful eyes.
• Reading when I was able to (4-5 months later). First, the book I found in Adam's room bookmarked to the page he was on (Wild by Cheryl Strayed). Uncannily, it was about how she processed the death of her mother, and I found it comforting and inspiring. I then devoured many books, blogs and articles on suicide loss and surviving loss in general. 
• Noticing the "coinci-dinks" as my friend Kelley calls them, signs from Adam, and savoring every morsel of information I get from people generous enough to share their memories of Adam with me. 

Some things came years later like designing a headstone, using his ashes for jewelry, and getting a tattoo. I let those unfold in time, knowing they would happen eventually. Finally, after seven plus years, having a sense of Adam's spirit around me when I meditate each morning. I'm at peace most of the time, as the lovely plaque my sister gave me reminds me:

IN JOY AND SORROW

 LIFE WILL TEACH YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

**On Joy and Sorrow

Khalil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.And he answered:Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.And how else can it be?The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."But I say unto you, they are inseparable.Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

late March already

Here is what Cal was doing on February 2, 2023. His first tattoo and tribute to the boy King. 

Myself, I'm up at 2 a.m., no not partying. Drinking coffee, worrying about stuff. Balancing my checkbook. Reading mail that has sat untouched for a week. Ordering flowers for Mother's Day. 

Six more days until April. Then 14 days after that I will stepping onto the Riviera cruise ship in Trieste, Italy, bound for 10 stops in the Mediterranean. Americans are so damned rich. Not that this trip is super expensive. It's a good deal. But I haven't factored in the extras yet. Food, trinkets, tips, admissions, etc. I feel so happy to have this opportunity. Ever since I visited Malta in 2017, I have wanted to go back. The water is so clear and the culture so, well, old. Diocletian's Palace, in Croatia, for example, dates back to 291 AD. We will be stopping there at Split after our first night. I love boats; big, small, in between. Hope we won't have to test the life boats, though. 

Time keeps marching on. That is for sure. We have had some random weather. I'm not loving it. 

When I do get up, it's going to be time to wipe down all my kitchen cabinets with Murphy's oil soap. A task that is not as bad as it sounds. 

 

February 2, 2023

 Pat noticed I've been snippier lately. Probably the build up to this awful day. 

I noticed this yesterday, February 2 means something else to most people than it does to me. I started seeing and hearing the annual "Happy Groundhogs Day" and chatter about the inane movie of that name (which I have never seen and never will). First all, it's just stupid to wish someone a HGD, IT'S NOT A HOLIDAY PEOPLE.  Second, I'm not particularly happy on this day, even if I'm doing fine. Third, the whole prediction of winter based on a shadow, which seems to appear whether it's cloudy or sunny, is ridiculous. Winter is here until it's not here, PEOPLE. 

On the other hand, I received many message of support this past week, and I very much appreciate the thoughts. Together we have accomplished much, from the contemplative labyrinth, to the annual Out of the Darkness Walk, to the random phone calls, emails, and personal stories I am often approached with. I feel honored that people trust me with their questions, shares, and biggest sorrows. I'm proud to be the "suicide person" in Macomb and McDonough County. 

Peace out.

Old Man Winter

 Here we are again. The lead up to the worst imaginable news, the biggest shock of my life. Learning that my son decided the pain of killing himself was less than the pain of living with his brain, getting help with whatever demons he was fighting, will always be my lowest point. I wish to god I could have helped him face what he was struggling with. To think he felt so alone is beyond what I signed up for. 

I'm surprisingly not that contemptful of winter this year. It hasn't been bad. Walked the cemetery loop yesterday morning relatively comfortably. 

I'm soon to be 60. That's both terrifying and pretty cool. I like the ages with a zero at the end. I don't know what this year will bring, but I'm pretty sure I have the resources to handle it, and the resilience to find the joy. Inspire, dare, persevere. 

Dreams on the Edge

 What is this about?

riding a motorcycle without a helmet, fast

swimming with alligators

running into the ocean with a surfboard

The first two had me nervous, the third was delightful until my alarm disturbed the surf. 

2023

 This year I was thinking about not doing resolutions. I completed about half of last year's though honestly some were not easily quantifiable. Like "show more of my insides on the outside." 

I've been thinking about how it's stupid to wish people a 'happy' new year. Or a healthy one. Or whatever we usually thoughtless say. Why? Because most of us know you can't predict or control many of the things that happen in our lives. What I can hope for, and wish for others and myself, is the following:

Inspiration- to keep being creative, making things and creating programs and even having creative thoughts. 

Courage- to do what I'm afraid of, to do what I think is right even when it's difficult. 

Strength- to face and overcome whatever storms come my way. To help others who are being tossed about on a rocky sea. 

That is going to be my mantra for 2023. I think that about covers how I would like 2023 to go. What is your plan?