Let's begin by imagining something

Beginning

Right now:  imagine dying.  Make it what you want.  You could be in your bedroom, on a lonesome hill, or in a beautiful hotel.  Whatever you want.  What is the season?  What time of day is it?  Perhaps you want to lie in sweet summer grass and watch the sun rise over the ocean.  Imagine that.  Perhaps you want to be cuddled in a soft bed, listening to Mozart -- or Beyonce.  Do you want to be alone?  Is there a particular hand you want to hold?  Do you smell the faint scent of baking bread -- or Chanel No. 19?  Close your eyes.  Feel the grass.  The silk sheets.  The skin of the loving hand.  Hear the long-held note.  Dance a little.  Smell the bread.  Imagine that.

Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying ~ by Sallie Tisdale, 2018, planning, 242 pages

Sallie Tisdale offers a perspective on death and dying that is informed by her many years working as a nurse with more than a decade in palliative care.  From the sublime (the faint sound of Mozart as you take your last breath) to the ridiculous (lessons on how to close the sagging jaw of a corpse), she leads us through the peaks and troughs of death with a calm, wise, and humorous hand.  This is more than a how-to manual or a spiritual bible: it is a graceful compilation of honest and intimate anecdotes based on the deaths she has witnessed, as well as stories from cultures, traditions, and literature around the world, including:

What does it mean to die “a good death”?  Can there be more than one kind of good death?  What can I do to make my death, or the deaths of my loved ones, good?  What to say and not to say, what to ask, and when, from the dying, loved ones, doctors, and more.  What you might expect, physically and emotionally, including the limitations, freedoms, pain, and joy of this unique time.  What happens to a body after death?  What options are available to me after my death, and how do I choose — and make sure my wishes are followed?  In other words, she offers the resources and reassurance that we all need for planning for the end.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thinking about birds today

I've downloaded the Bird Buddy app so I could see the birds who use the bird feeder on our patio here at the Crown Center.  Now I have to figure out how it works.  This week has been busy as I got some paperwork finished and turned in, so I have not read nearly as much as I usually do and this is a very short post.

Added on Friday:  I deleted that app, because it will only show me the birds landing on a bird feeder I buy myself.  So I can watch the birds that come here, but not on my phone.

Unicorn Day

I just noticed that today is International Unicorn Day.  While looking for an illustration, I learned it is also National Unicorn Day.  Wow, people must really be fascinated by unicorns!  I've always associated the word with children's toys.

Word of the Day

u·ni·corn = /ˈyo͞onəˌkôrn / noun = 1.  a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead.  2.  something that is highly desirable but difficult to find or obtain.  Example = "An album like this is something of a unicorn."

Two views of the Mona Lisa

I just learned that "umop apisdn" is "upside down" spelled upside down with different letters of the alphabet.  While looking for an example, I noticed pictures of the Mona Lisa upside down.  Yes, she's recognizable even upside down.  Then I was surprised that one "upside down" Mona Lisa has an upside down mouth.  What?!?  Yeah, take a look at the original article, HERE.  I turned these pictures upside down and back again a few times.  Her mood may have changed, but it made me smile.

Have you visited the Smithsonian?

The Smithsonian Institution ~ by Gore Vidal, 1998, historical fiction, 260 pg

A teenage math and physics prodigy is summoned to a secret laboratoy in the Smithsonian in 1939 to help work on bombs for the coming war.  Once there, he discovers that parts of the Smithsonian enable him to move through time, that the exhibits come to life after hours, and that he is doomed to die in combat if the US enters WWII.  As he brainstorms with Robert Oppenheimer, he gets a glimpse of the coming war.

Working in secret to avert the war while working with the laboratory to help win it, he is helped along the way by a cast of characters from around the museum and US history including a pottery-obsessed President Lincoln, the bored and amorous wife of Grover Cleveland, soldiers and citizens from history, and the mysterious James Smithson himself, the founder of the museum.

Protesting in 2025 and marching in 1918

My friend Jane was among a group protesting on a nearby overpass Saturday.  She called this "the smaller group."  I called and thanked her for doing it, since there's no way I can do that sort of thing anymore.  The book I'm reading is about an earlier protest, so these two subjects are perfect together for my post.  Click HERE to read about other protests in all fifty states.

The Women's March: A Novel of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession ~ by Jennifer Chiaverini, 2021, historical fiction, 352 pages

Twenty-five-year-old Alice Paul returns to her native New Jersey after several years on the front lines of the suffrage movement in Great Britain.  Weakened from imprisonment and hunger strikes, she is nevertheless determined to invigorate the stagnant suffrage movement in her homeland.  Nine states have already granted women voting rights, but only a constitutional amendment will secure the vote for all.

To inspire support for the campaign, Alice organizes a magnificent procession down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. on the day before the inauguration of President-elect Woodrow Wilson, a firm antisuffragist.  Joining the march is thirty-nine-year-old New Yorker Maud Malone, librarian and advocate for women’s and workers’ rights.  The daughter of Irish immigrants, Maud has acquired a reputation — and a criminal record — for interrupting politicians’ speeches with pointed questions they’d rather ignore.

Civil rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett resolves that women of color must also be included in the march — and the proposed amendment.  Born into slavery in Mississippi, Ida worries that white suffragists may exclude Black women if it serves their own interests.

On March 3, 1913, the glorious march commences, but negligent police allow vast crowds of belligerent men to block the parade route — jeering, shouting threats, assaulting the marchers, and possibly endangering not only the success of the demonstration, but the women’s very lives.

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. On Monday, I mused about walking, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I posted about things (and people) I'm grateful for, HERE.
3. On Tuesday, I also posted the Active April calendar from the Action for Happiness folks, HERE.
4. Wednesday was National Walking Day, HERE.
5. On Thursday, I wrote about everyone being welcome (or not), HERE.
6. On Friday, my book beginning was from the book by the woman who rescued Anne Frank's family, HERE.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Beginning ~ in dark and terrible times

Beginning

I am not a hero.  I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more — much more — during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of us who bear witness.  Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then.

Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family ~ by Miep Gies with Alison Leslie Gold, 1987, World War Two history, 272 pages, 10/10

For more than two years, Miep Gies and her husband helped hide the Franks from the Nazis.  Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims.  She found the diary and brought the world a message of love and hope.  From her own remarkable childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange, checkered diary — Anne’​s legacy — into Otto Frank’s hands, Miep Gies remembers her days with simple honesty and shattering clarity. Each page rings with courage and heartbreaking beauty.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Eat dessert first

Have you heard the saying "Eat dessert first"?  One day I ate Greek yogurt for breakfast, along with what was left of a blueberry muffin from our Café.  Both taste sweet, and I remember thinking, "I'm eating dessert for my first food of the day today."  But Greek yogurt is supposed to be healthy with those probiotics.

How can a school classroom being welcoming of all of its students be a violation of district policy?  Anne at My Head Is Full of Books shared a controversy (and a video) about a poster like this one (saying that EVERYONE is welcome) that has gotten a school teacher in trouble.  People are asking, "What kind of country are we living in?"  Click HERE (or HERE) to see an interview with the teacher.

National Walking Day

National Walking Day is every year on the first Wednesday in April.  That's today, so here is a question for you to ponder while you walk:  Would you rather walk through a city or through the woods exploring nature?  I'd have to see whether the sun is shining or it's raining.  I enjoy walking outside when there is not too much pollen in the air.  I use a Rollator, so I no longer walk in the woods, as I once enjoyed.  Just keep walking to stay as healthy as you can.

It's April again

Although I haven't been posting these monthly calendars in a long time, I'm still receiving the daily Action for Happiness texts on my phone and monthly calendas like this on my computer.  Today, I decided to share it again, so here it is.  Click to enlarge it, so you can read what it suggests we do each day.  You can find previous monthly calendar suggestions by clicking HERE.

A book and a dozen things I'm grateful for

Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks ~ by Diana Butler Bass, 2019, sociology, 256 pages

We know that gratitude is good, but somefind it hard to sustain a life of gratefulness.  Bass takes on this “gratitude gap” and offers up surprising, relevant, and powerful insights to practice gratitude.  She explores the transformative power of gratitude for our personal lives and in communities, showing how we can make change in our own lives and in the world.  She says gratitude as a path to greater connection with others.  It’s time to embrace a more radical practice of gratitude — the virtue that heals us and helps us thrive.

What am I grateful for today?

1. I'm grateful for my friends.
2. I'm grateful that my eyes are not as itchy as they were recently.
3. I'm grateful that I can walk to our Café without going outside at all.
4. I'm grateful for sunshine.
5. I'm grateful for blue skies, when they come.
6. I'm grateful for the Clean Speech St. Louis booklet, which this year trained our brains to be grateful.  It's why I ordered the book above.
7. I'm grateful that I can read and explore the world of ideas.
8. I'm grateful for the friend who forgot to meet me for lunch in the Café yesterday, wondering if and when she'll remember.
9. I'm grateful for my bed when I want to nap mid-day.
10. I'm grateful for my easy chair in the corner, where I can blog or read while sitting beside my window.
11. I'm grateful for that window, where I can see the world go by, as people walk or jog or carry home bags of groceries.
12. I'm grateful that I can close my door and be alone.  (I am an introvert, though some don't quite believe me because I'm friendly.)