Take Heart Friday Round-Up

My husband has decided that he must give me this hat for Christmas. I already have beaver mittens and mukluks – both of them replete with beading and bought from native Alaskan vendors. My husband, for a thousand different reasons, is enamored with all things Alaskan. Me, less so, mostly because to wear some of these things catches so many stares and there is a part of me suffering about cultural appropriation and another worried about wearing a cocktail dress to a bowling alley. But, if I open a box on Christmas morning that has this hat in it, I will put it on my head and be thoroughly glad of it.

I tried to take a picture of a plane flying low overhead but it didn’t work. I tried to imagine being in the plane and seeing people below looking up and how I used to have that feeling that if we were that close to earth, it would probably work out okay if the plane blew up. After all, it wouldn’t be that far to the ground. Except it would. I see that now.

This was the week I learned that a dream can become a burden. For years, I’ve envisioned myself drinking a cup of coffee looking out the window of an RV. I’d have my laptop set up, write great words, be on the move all the time. But then the weight of it – the cost, the maintenance, the parking, the hoses for this and that, and the driving around in a vehicle with furniture in the back, it was too much. All of it made me want to go hug my tent. So now we can be “Look at those sweet old people and their dogs in that tent!”

Speaking of dogs, my beloved Swirl found my lipstick, carried it downstairs, and put it on his blanket. Yesterday, he moved a glass table on our back porch, removed a big wall hanging from the porch wall, brought it to his bed and chewed the corner off. Three sombreros -that was the wall hanging – is now hidden in the closet awaiting mending and an eventual rehanging. Higher.

Things are going to get crazier and then they will get better. Keep your head down. Wear your mask. Stay away from everyone – even the people you love who you’ve not had more than a five-minute conversation with in seven months. Make a plan to vote. Don’t lose heart. Take heart.