Look For Light

Just finished a perfect end-of-the-year article from the NYT. By Catherine Price, she espouses the idea of finding delight (instead of gratitude). 

I immediately thought of the little girl I saw as we drove to family on Christmas day. A much warmer 25th than normal, she was outside in a light jacket and a pale yellow 50s type dress - tight at the waist and flared below ending just at or a little above the knee. (We all had them if you're a female of a certain age.) With a stick in hand she was on her own, queen of the land and enjoying the moment. 

I smiled and later shared what I'd seen; in fact, I shared it three times. 

As a confirmed Pippi and Pollyanna, I try to be a thing finder and a positive person. Finding delight, well, is there anything better to find and share than that?

A Resolution Worth Keeping

Comics

Are Worth a Thousand Explanations

An Apt Description

A little after 4, dusk approaching and I'm going through town heading home. I see the SUV in front of me with a sticker. At the stoplight I lean forward and down, it being only 3" by 4" with smallish print very near the bumper. Looking like a state park sticker, I begin to read .... and burst out laughing. 

Me

Exactly

 

How I feel about IPA beers.

How I Look

One Man's Beliefs

I read an article in New Yorker this week that mentioned one of my favorite (but intellectually a bit above me) writers, Marilynne Robinson. On a poet and a christian, Christian Wiman, who has been living with and fighting cancer for 14 years, I saw why. His faith was of a piece with hers, at least as I read it. A professor, parent, husband and writer, it was a great article, bringing one man's beliefs to me in a way that, once again, like Robinson's novels, almost made me want to believe again. 

All that and then, one of Wiman's poems given in the article coupled to a moment I'd had. Just the day before, waiting at a red light in town, looking ahead and to the left, I saw a flock of birds rise from a tree and fly away. Certainly not as profound a thinker as he, I had been taken by the sight.  Wiman's poem captured my feelings.

Between the man portrayed and the poem, I felt I knew him, and most importantly, liked him.

Invites Connection

Same Cat

Biggie and Gus love the front deck. Two stories up, they survey their world and enjoy life in the wild, even if it is a contained wild.  During the summer we keep our two doors open so they can come and go as they please. In the winter, it's in and out and in and out and still, in and out. I count it as part of my morning exercise. 

This past week we had two mornings of snow. The first, Biggie was caught with his paw up. Unhappy with the cold and snow? Maybe. 

The next day, though, having gotten used to the climate, he released his inner pup, spied an adversary and attacked

                                                         .... a stick.

Different Days

AI: Safeguards

This week's New Yorker has an article about the debacle in the tech world of a few weeks ago. I, of course, knew little about it, the people, the upheaval and even which side was in the wrong, and in the right. 

In keeping with what the magazine tends to do, it took a few people, used their perspective, and then took us through the history of the people and the topic, to, finally, the conclusion (for now). My take-away was on the safeguards put in place building their AI and, also, their hopes for what it can ultimately do, not now but with slow and steady tweaking. 

If true - slow progress with rules, like laws (as they said) - we can hone our use and development to better human kind. 

Key words being, if true.  

And Usage

The Conclusion

Reading a review of a new play today, I'm reminded of another, not a play, but a person: Norman Lear, who died this week at 101. He was the force behind many of the sitcoms of my high school years, and so, a part of my past. 

The most important being All in the Family, a show with a father as a bigot who had a daughter married to a hippie, or, in today's terms, a progressive, and a wife who was a dingbat, as he called her (or a woman who has learned to keep her wits about her even while with a husband who constantly espouses nonsense). The show used humor to work at changing the norms of the day. If we could see the absurdity, we could change, and with that, life could also. 

From what we see, what we watch, what we listen to, what we read, we learn. 

The review said the same. 

Art Matters 

Showing My Age

Time came out with their Person of the Year. I have agreed with some and disagreed with others over the years. I'm not into highlighting the devils of the year, and I do tend to lean toward figures of import of import. 

This year it's Taylor Swift. And while amazing in her ability, her influence and her business savvy, and a woman, not a man, I still say, 

Really?

With all that's happening in the world, they choose an incredibly talented pop singer. Ukraine spending their country and lives to stop Putin, the trauma in the Middle East, our own disfunction here in America, and that is their choice. 

Wow.

Creative

And True.

True

Only, I'd add, and daughters.

Ukraine has its finger in the dam and what do we do? Quibble over money. Sad. So sad.

So True 

My Reading

An interesting article in New Yorker this morning on the CEO behind the company powering AI. 

But what did I get from it? With all his successes in high school, it's what he didn't have that he commented on. And that took me back to a friend's comment one Thursday night at the Glenwood after volleyball and pre-kids (So that says something right there, a long time ago!)

My friend basically said to me, when I said I never had a boyfriend in high school, that I was a nobody, because only nobody's had none. Funny then and still funny now. I guess I had a different perspective, or maybe I'd gotten past that idea, because, of course, during our teen years we do tend to define ourselves by what we don't have. 

It was my first laugh of the day. My teen me is in good company!

My Takeaway