It's October! <3

You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing. - Hélène Cixous

Finally, finally, finally there's rain on the roof!  It feels like it's been forever since I've heard rain on the roof. 

This week I've been thinking quite a bit about... well, stuff that doesn't make for very interesting newsletters.  I got hit by a Microsoft Update bug (they've fixed the release since), but it wiped out nearly two days of work because it hit around 50K people and IT was swamped with people. Yesterday was useless trying to get in line.  I went straight there this morning, and was told it was a four hour wait, so you can imagine my delight to hear my name after not quite two hours!  Lots of people thought they'd come back later or something and missed hearing their names called, probably 20-30 of them, so... yay me!  And then the rest of today I spent setting up my computer again. I think everything is mostly in place at this point. 

I guess the other thing that I've been thinking about this week is the nature of change.  You can't really control it, so you just have to hang on and kind of go with it and see where it leads you. 

Noodling around as M2 has been reading the Odyssey for English, I learned something I didn't know about Medusa.  She is, of course, the mother of Pegasus and Chrysaor, born from her neck after Perseus cut her head off. Pegasus went and lived on Olympus and brought Zeus the roar and death stare from Medusa when he wanted them.  Which is to say, thunder and lightening.  Lol - and right on cue, there's some thunder and the rain pours harder... Anyway - who doesn't freeze in their tracks - at least a little bit!? - when a bolt of lightening or a roar of thunder catches them unaware?  At the moment, I'm totally enchanted by this idea that thunder and lightening are Medusa's roar and stare.  

Mmm. I keep getting lost in the sound of the rain. Rain and change and change and rain and the only thing that can be done is to identify the next small step in the right direction and just keep on moving. Which is pretty much always the case after all things are always changing and there is always only the eternal now. 

With love and rain and curiosity,
--Susan

The Cat is OK

“We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are, and what our relationship is to life and death, what is essential, and what, despite the arbitrariness of falling beams, will not burn.”  -- Madeleine L'Engle

I spoon fed her all weekend because she just didn't want to eat.  There is a song that goes with spoon feeding a cat and apparently now I sing it absentmindedly to myself when I'm deep in concentration - I caught myself singing it to myself when I was down in the weeds of a taxonomy question today.  Monday I took her to the vet because not eating is problematic for cats, and spoon feeding a cat is problematic for me in terms of time management and interest level.  Even with a song to sing while I do it.  It's boring and sort of annoying for everyone involved.  

And so the vet checked her out, took some labs, like you do... and pronounced her fine just not eating.  We came home with a prescription for a cat anti-anxiety/depression that also works as an appetite stimulant. Before I gave her her meds, when we got home, Lissa Tortilla The Cat got the heck out of her carrying case, promptly ate a good bit of food, went and drank a bunch of water, then walked down the hall to M1's room.  I let her in to look around and reminded her that M1 was at college.  She made one last check of the room looked at me, and I could almost see her shoulders slump, and she went back to her cozy spot in the living room and went back to sulking.  It was so sad.  She misses her person. 

The meds are doing their job though and she's more back to her usual self than she's been in a while. Like pretty much since M1 started packing in earnest. And the best part is that her dosage (a ridiculous 1/8th of a tiny pill every other day), can be stuck in a fabulous extra tasty cat treat and I don't have to spoon feed it into her!  Worst case, the eighth of a pill can be mashed into a terrible tasting powder and wiped off one of her teeth or her tongue or the inside of her cheek and she can't spit it out.  Muwahahahaha.  

So that was my Monday.  Most of the rest of the week I've been trying to figure out how to explain to people the difference in how you tag for a team that produces a product and the product itself.  Conceptually the team is different from the product itself and it seems obvious but apparently it's not obvious and my job is to help them.  I *think* I have an answer to propose tomorrow, but it requires reconsidering a different part of the taxonomy that we've been discussing. I don't think it's been built out yet? But anyway.  It's the sort of thing that causes people's eyes to get wide and they slowly start backing away. 

Someone accidentally saw the corporate taxonomy today and said, "that looks like something an accountant would make. It doesn't look very user friendly" - which with over 75K terms, no, it's not, and it's not meant to be, it's meant to be system friendly, which it is.  And terms don't live in a place that mapped to his mental model (because big org mental map is wildly different and way more comprehensive than one relatively tiny area of the org).  So I said, it's pretty complex, it's supporting a lot of different things and it's architected in a very specific way based on very granular definitions, and as he was backing away, he says, "Yeah, it starts out seeming obvious but it gets heavy really quickly."  :D  Yes. That's what I love about it.  So much love for this stuff (even if sometimes helping people understand why and how to break things apart so we can put them back together in different ways...  It's... what I do.

Which is way more than I had intended to talk about the information management part of my world.  But there it is.

With love and categorically delightful curiosity,
--Susan

Settling Into a New "Normal"

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.  
-- Amy Tan

It's a stretch to call my little family "normal" in the best of times, but here we all are, adjusting to our new weird. :)  Going pretty well, all things considered, so far. 

This week, I've been thinking about routines and habits and what happens when they get shifted.  

I've been keeping a close eye on one of our cats, Lissa Tortilla.  She's normally super food motivated but sometimes she "goes off her food".  Sometimes we've been able to figure out why-ish, and sometimes not so much.  This time, I think she's pining after M1.  She'll eat, but only if I've been petting her and sitting with her... I've been calling it purr therapy.  I think I under-estimated how much attention and how closely bonded M1 & Lissa Tortilla are/were.  Lissa's lying over on her heated pet bed with one leg hanging out, ever so relaxed right now.  

Yes, I know cats not eating is problematic for a lot of reasons, and because she does this we have a routine with the vet (and we've been this >< close to calling the vet and then she perks up again), but this too is becoming a routine that bears paying attention to.  So watching and waiting, with plenty of chin and belly scritches and ear rubs and brushing and whatnot.   

I think animals, and probably plants and mycelia, all have way more emotional lives than we give them credit for. I get not anthropomorphizing things (not that it stops me), but bonding and pining is bonding and pining...

Same too, walking down a hall towards a bedroom that used to home a person who is now having her own adventures. Who do I watch youtube with now!? Is just not the same watching them alone! 

And some things are... slowly shifting. Maybe? Except that there's an M2 in the house who is now in high school and homework is still a thing so late nights are still a thing so that getting to bed earlier is... slower than maybe I anticipated, but then again, sneaking suspicion. I've never been a morning person... 🦉

With love and curiosity,

--Susan

Ready or Not

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our ... We are made of starstuff. - Carl Sagan

I just left my oldest at college for the first time.  Sort of Captain Obvious, part of having a baby, is that you don't really know quite what you're getting into, even though it's pretty obvious, duh, you're having a baby.  But what exactly that means isn't entirely apparent until you're deep in the thick of it.  Leaving a kid at college for the first time is the same way - you know it's coming, you're kind of excited, kind of dreading it, and you don't really realize exactly what it means until you're in the thick of it and even then when you say it out loud... it's like... well, right, we knew that...

There are things that you "know" and things that you *know.* So one of the things I've been pondering this week has been embodied knowledge.  You can know what is involved in having a baby/leaving a kid at college, but there's the embodied knowledge of coming home and seeing the detritus of not quite having the ends wrapped up, there's the tears that well involuntarily when a band she likes comes on, there's the empty room, the cats staring reproachfully about their missing chin scritches... Is all obvious and yet...

I'm sure I heard this idea from elsewhere, and I can't remember where. I think about it a lot.  Having kids is like wearing your heart on your sleeve.  And even more than wearing your heart on your sleeve, it's like setting your heart free to wander out into the world.  The embodied knowledge of what it's like to send the hearts of your heart out into the world... Oof. It's a big thing.

Walking across the campus, which was at one time also my campus, I crossed upon a bronze compass plaque.

A swirly leaf footprint next to it is mine walking along absent-mindedly, marching myself back from the furthest away parking lot to the dorms. Brain says, whuwhuwhuwhoa, there, backup!  Wherever you are, if you pause and take a breath and look around, there is always a guiding star to help orient you.  Sometimes you don't even have to pause or be paying attention, if you need it, it's right there and will catch your eye or the tiniest bit of your attention and snap your head right back to it.  

I see so many indications that we've given her the tools to find her own guiding star/s, and also indications that she must still grow into her ownership of being the one who finds her own guiding star/s.  We are each our own stars, each borne of stardust, from whence we came and to which we will return. This is how it is, time and time and time again.  So many star hearts running all over the world!  ✨💕✨

Just like there are things you 'know' and things you *know* - the same is true with being ready.  What does it mean to be ready?  I so often want a solid plan, at this point I've learned though that even the best laid plans are sometimes thrown to the wind in the face of reality. You can think you're ready and... is anyone ever really ready?  I think sometimes yes. And sometimes... with joyous wonder and curiosity, you just have to be unready in the moment and allow everything to unfold in its own time. 

With love, and joyous wonder of curiosity, and maybe just a bit of stardust in my eye (so dusty in here lately!), 

--Susan  

Love

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. -- Carl Sagan

M2 is reading parts of Edith Hamilton's Mythology, specifically tonight on the creation myths of the Greeks. This jumped out... "Love created Light with its companion, Radiant Day... With the coming of love and light it seemed natural that the earth also should appear." There. *Love* created the world. Best creation story ever.
 
I kind of just want to leave this whole newsletter with that thought. Love created the world. 

But this is the power of stories. Cosmologies and mythologies and theologies all tell stories of why and how things came to be, how things are, why they are, and give advice on how one might (and might not) successfully navigate the uncertainties oif life. The beginning of this particular cosmology is love. Granted, it's Greek mythology and things go sideways pretty quickly, but still. It starts with love.

💕

Atypically, this is a classic book on the topic I have not read yet. Not that I've read everything, far from it (#goals, y'all!), so I think my reading list just shuffled this to the top to see what other bits of loveliness and wisdom she casually drops into the midst of all the goings on...

With love and curiosity and an ever growing reading list,

--Susan

Architecture and the Great Unknown

We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. -- Carl Sagan

What a shift into the school year.  Fires ablaze, hurricanes awash... I noticed the other day that the maple leaves have started coming down, perhaps not yet in earnest, but definitely with great sincerity.  The birds seem to be eating through the bird seed faster now too, as they prepare for fall.  And on my way home, a blue heron glided serenely over my car, seemingly unaware of the chaotic state of the world.  

Endings begin as we head into fall. And in the ending are new beginnings, because that seems to be the way of things. So what have I been thinking about? Endings and beginnings and beginnings and endings and waxings and wanings and cycles of cycles. 

But besides that, I've been thinking about how we use frameworks to understand the world.  We put structures in place that help us create perspective.  Sometimes we see flowering and fruiting of things connected to structures, beauty and benefits.  And sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in these structures, these webs we weave, and forget several things. 

The structure is no more the thing than our skeletons comprise the entirety of our selves.  Our skeleton gives us shape and provides resistance and structure our muscles work with and against that allow us to move, but they are only one of many components that comprise us.

There are many layers of structures, starting out with sub-atomic and growing to universal structure - and everything in between.  There are structures all the way down.  But it is still important not to lose sight of the fact that the structure is still not the whole.

The flowering and fruiting may be of the structure but are likewise components of the structures we create.  But there are structures that we don't create, that we may not even know about, and they function fine without us, and they may (or may not) flower and fruit.  And the sum is still greater than all the parts.  

When things  seem too big, too much, and even the structures I use to try to frame and understand things seem too big, that's when I go for a walk and find my feet connected back to the ground beneath me, often by the water, under a big sky, with the wind dancing and swirling around reminding me that there are things bigger than our frameworks, things more whole than our structures, and things that have been here for ages longer than we have been here, and will be here longer than we will be here.  Somehow, when faced with structural chaos, remembering this brings me some semblance of peace.

May the road rise up to meet your feet, may the wind be ever at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, and may the rain fall soft upon your fields.

With love and curiosity that are bigger than the structures that would wish to contain both,
--Susan

Almost Back to School!

Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul... but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October. -- Peggy Toney Horton

The seasons are changing again - it was misty this morning, and as I've noted elsewhere, the smell in the air has changed from warm, ripe blackberries to leaves that are preparing for winter.

It must be changing, I finished the shawl I started last spring.  I think the weave is a little looser than I intended and I think I may have miscalculated length by about 8-10 inches, but not so much that it'll be a problem - I think I planned for 60 inches and I think next time I do a shawl, I'll aim for 80 or 90. Regardless, it turned out pretty well for a first time plaid attempt.  :)  I think I also need to knit a new pair of gloves for this winter. I lost a pair last winter, of a pattern I like knitting, so... maybe they'll be done by next summer. LOL.  I also need to figure out what to put on the loom next.  I am gathering ideas. I have quite a bit of yarn left over from the shawl - I thought I was going to use all of the yarn and... not even close.  Math was never my strongest suit... at least I had plenty of yarn left over rather than running out early!  Gloves for the win!

And one of the many other things I'm thinking about is Back To School.  A kiddo going to high school and a kiddo going to college (eek!).  Big changes for all of us!  New schools bring new kids and new teachers and New School Supplies!  EEEE! We get to go into office supply stores!  I love those stores.  Too. Much.  I don't buy pens so much any more since I switched to fountain pens, so that holds a little less appeal, though it's always fun to stand in the test pen section and mess around with the different pens. But looking at all the different blank notebooks and paper and sitting in the chairs and wandering up and down all the aisles looking at things. Gotta be prepared for new teachers and classes, y'know? 

Mostly just looking forward to this week being over. It's been a long week, everyone I've talked to is just shaking their heads about this week.  Hard drives dying, computers blue screening, last second fire drills, surprise departures, and etc.  And that's all without looking at the news. A fellow I work with was saying he was going to go home tonight and sit and rock catatonically while watching the Seahawks and pretending this week just never happened.  Fair.  Totally fair!

So yes - looking forward to this weekend and back to school shopping, and some good family time!  Because it's Labor Day weekend!  And you know what that means?  That means it's going to be MUSHROOM SEASON SOON!  So excite! Also: Halloween!  But first things first, back to school and an equinox. :)

I hope your week has been shockingly smooth and calm, and if it hasn't may it be so soon.

With love and curiosity,
--Susan

Wonder

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. -- Socrates

Back to school, going to school, fall is coming!  

So what have I been thinking about this week?  Wonder.  I was walking the other day and contemplating, as I do when I walk, and I started thinking about wonder.  Both the awe-filled state of wow! as well as that state of wondering and curiosity.

I was thinking about this in part because I was so fascinated by the picture of the back of my eye at the eye doc's, and how weird it is to adjust to new glasses (3-D is bizarre!), and really it just sort of spirals out from there because the eclipse and the universe and the world and the big things are so huge and complex and the tiny things are so tiny and complex!  There's really never any end of things that I can find to wonder about.  Curiosity and wonder go hand in hand.  

As I was flipping through my cards looking for something to send to a friend (hey, I have good intentions!), I found a card that was decorated with the quote, "Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. --Socrates."  Which then gave me occasion to wonder about that, but without that spark of wonder, that leads to curiosity, which leads you to wanting to learn more... of course, how else would you progress to wisdom?

And of course there was an eclipse.  What was most amazing to me was how bright it was with 94 or 95% of the sun obscured.  Just the tiniest sliver of the sun was visible and... still really pretty bright!  The other thing that sort of surprised me was how many people reported feeling really emotional about it.  Like the disappearing of the sun was really unsettling.  There were actual astronomers who talked about this effect as well.  And on the third hand... I shall come in again. Another other thing that surprised me was how many people left right as soon as the peak of the eclipse was over.  That's like leaving at the half time show!  People are so strange sometimes.

So, that's what I've been wondering about this week.  How 'bout you?

With love, wonder, and curiosity,
--Susan