Things I Learned in 2023

-A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance. Now that is a bullseye collective noun!

-Attending a wedding reception that has a 360-degree photo booth makes my crazy neighbors even more fun. 

-I am a newly minted US national park geek.

-For someone who hates long car rides, driving over 2200 breathtaking miles and visiting many national and state parks in Northern AZ and Southern UT in March taught me that I do have some car travel tolerance. 

-An October leaf-peeping car ride of 2000 miles through VA, NC, TN, and WVa had more unexpected vistas than I could have imagined. Thank you Shenandoah NP, Great Smokey Mts. NP, and New River Gorge NP.

-I believe I'm being groomed by a long-distance car travel endurance program.

-iPod earbuds can go through a full wash cycle and continue to work flawlessly one year later.

-Jim James of My Morning Jacket is my fantasy Kentucky BFF (he doesn't know it yet) Seeing MMJ twice this year fed my soul.

-"You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town."          ~Author Anne Lamott

-I can hold my own standing in line with enthusiastic children also waiting to stamp their national park passports.

-Pink, a true rock star, is the goddess of stadium concerts. Sing with me now:   Na-na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na.

-An unseen benefit of having family working abroad for the US State Department is the use of their car - thanks to Beth and Aaron!

-One big personal plus from touring the high desert is frizz-less hair - Every. Single. Day. Ladies, I know you hear me. 

-Wedding vows are usually solemn and sweet. When a bride’s vows noted one of the things she loved about her groom was his unrecognizable attempt to use a British accent and then goaded him into sharing it with their guests (which he did) I learned that wedding vows can also be very entertaining. 

-Staying one day/night in Pigeon Forge TN delighted me until I saw that Dollywood was closed on that one day/night. Next time Dolly!

-Sean Hayes' dramatic portrayal of a dour Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar was formidable with an equally formidable finale as he played Rhapsody in Blue.*

-The Smartless podcast guys – Jason, Sean, and Will – are this year’s additions to my fantasy dinner party. It will be a second seating with just those three delightful knuckleheads b/c their antics will definitely dominate the conversation.

-Author Abraham Verghese (The Covenant of Water) is also invited to my fantasy dinner party - first seating. 

-My car has a keyless entry.  I learned this after driving a friend’s car (with keyless entry) and wondering why my car didn’t have this feature. Alas, it did/does. Yes, it is disturbing to discover this 15 months after purchasing the car.

-Cars are complicated.

-I am more of a dilettante than a sports enthusiast except when a Philly team is in the championship hunt. Red October was an extremely joyful/painful time.

-I am shocked to write that I am a regular listener to the New Heights weekly podcast. Ahhright nah.  

-When James Taylor is a last-minute sub for Noah Kahan at the Newport Folk Fest, it makes me wonder who else is on Executive Director Jay Sweet's phone contact list. 

-Raised garden beds surrounded by chicken wire proved vital for a bombastic zinnia season. 

-A performance by Diana Ross, who is nearly 80 years old, is a marvel and a love fest.  

-Overheard while hiking in Zion National Park as a tired, exasperated youngster told her parent, “Mom, allllllll the rocks look the saaaaaame.” She’s not wrong. 

-The James Webb Space Telescope brings universal wonder into focus every day. I believe the images confirm we are playing a silly short game here on Earth.  https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery

-Andrea Gibson’s poetry is relentlessly powerful. Please consider adding You Better Be Lightening to your list of “must-read” books in 2024.                                                                                      

-I was reminded of Tommy Smothers' incredible talent. I love this clip.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghxf-HS6go 

Thank you dear Reader for making it this far into this annual vanity project. Time becomes more precious and vexing each trip around the sun and I love the following advice from a favorite author. May time be a worthy companion for you and those you love.

How to stop time: kiss

How to travel in time: read

How to escape time: music

How to feel time: write

                                       How to release time: breathe                                       From the novel Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 

*Sean Hayes as Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar playing Rhapsody in Blue. 

Dear Diary

This is a story about a young girl and her diary. 

Think for a moment of the book - Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. 

I've read that famed memoir several times, seen a local theater production twice, and watched a Netflix documentary. All of them display Anne's elegant gift for writing. Her words act as portals to her confined, unsettled world at war. Her memoirist skills belie her youth.  

Now set those thoughts aside because this blog post is most definitely not about Anne Frank's diary. 

It is about a set of diaries that are at the other end of the memoir spectrum (if there is a spectrum.) 

It is about my pre-pubescent diaries.

During the height of the pandemic in an attic cleanout, I found the small colorful booklets written when I was 11-13 years old. I flipped through them briefly and chuckled at the rudimentary thoughts, facts, and often angst-filled events recorded in them. I promptly returned them to my memorabilia bin. 

In another more recent attic cleanout (does it ever end?) I came upon them again. And this time I read each entry. 

                My three diaries                    

                              

While they are inelegant, they are mirrors. The entries show lockstep recollections of what any day held, including terse facts about my family, friendships, school happenings, and trying to figure out boys (and some pop culture references randomly tossed in.)

For example, here is a sampling from 4 different days:

Woke up at 9:00 AM.

Joe (my brother) left for college.

We went to the shore.

I watched the Ed Sullivan Show.

As a lover of storytelling, it's clear that my intense need to write is tempered by little craft.  It is a sizable slice of humble pie. 

The entries double down on the mundane sounding more like a fact sheet than a memoir. I loved a solid declarative sentence. 

For example, these are actual full entries written at age 11:  

April 19 - Dear Diary, Going to Washington DC on the 22nd. Bye, Dee

April 20 - Dear Diary, Going to Washington DC. Bye, Dee 

April 21 - Dear Diary, Going to Washington DC. Bye, Dee

April 22 - Dear Diary, Went to Washington DC! FUN I bought writing paper and I slept on the train home.  Everything fascinated me.  Bye, Dee

We'll never know the specifics of those fascinating things. At least the verb use is noticeably fancy. Or should I say fascinating?

Other entries have a different focus. Boys, and, I use this next term loosely - "relationships" (such as they were in grade school) dominated my thoughts.  Who likes whom - who is talking to whom - who isn't talking to whom - who is walking home from school with whom.  

Did any homework ever get done?

Reading through the litany of likes and dislikes about girls and boys is relentless, especially in my 12-13-year-old diary. And each time (and there are many in the arbitrary world of pre-teen coupling) that I move from the liked to unliked column, I repeatedly write, "I don't care - it's better to be free!"  

How I wish I subscribed to that in my late teens and early twenties!

It is reassuring to see how powerfully important my friendships were.  That has been a constant thread in this girl's life. I still see three of these daily mentioned grade school pals frequently - Marianne, Pat, and Joan - and their impact fills me up in ways that my tween self couldn't see coming. I love this so very much.

Some use of sixties lingo makes me smile. Good things are Boss! and clever things are Cool or Groovy. Flower Power doodles were also very popular. I also had an affinity for using the Italian-American slang Agita (heartburn, acid) when things were upsetting though I consistently spelled it Ojida which naturally gives me agita reading it!

                        

                                        Flower Power                            Groovy!

Predictably, the start of each school year always brought even more agita. 

The 9/7/68 entry (below left) has an especially angsty tone. It's the eve of my first day of 6th grade and I am hyper-focused on Sister Alma, a teacher I do not want to have. Alas, the 9/8/68 entry(right) tells the sad tale 😊 (FYI - "Bleach" is an attempt at "Bleah" as used by the then very popular Peanuts character Linus)

                                                    

                  

Note: The "+" at the top of each page represents my catholic school education. Every paper we touched in school started not with writing our name but rather making the + at the top. The cross came first. The + infiltrated this early diary but the next two were +less. Maybe I was showing some independence? 

I write to Diary as though she is a person and this delights me. She's that secret keeper who holds no judgment and is always ready to listen.  She's the perfect confidant. This feels on point.

Report card ribbons, movie ticket stubs, and newspaper clippings about CYO sports add to the diary heft. An August 4, 1969 ticket stub (from the old Charles movie theater on Atlantic Ave. in Atlantic City, NJ) for the film "Funny Girl" doubles down on my teen love of Barbra Streisand. It would take me 37 more years before I would see her concert performance in Philly. Fan-girling Barbra has deep roots for me.

An odd keepsake is a Gino's french fries wrapper tucked inside the July 29,1969 entry. My brother Joe worked at that fast food place for a time in high school. Gino's burgers and fries were what my friends and I ate at my 13th birthday party. 

It was a big deal to me that we ordered food from Gino's! (Remember the jingle "Everybody goes to Gino's, 'cause Gino's is the place to go!) In an Italian household where every meal was homemade, saving the wrapper was my way of signaling the importance that Gino's food came to my house for my party! 

We always want what we don't have even if what we have is exquisite. Thanks to my Mom for indulging this newly minted teen and her friends. 

                                             

One of my favorite entries is a test drive of my signatures in June of 1967. In the month where the Vietnam War raged on, the Six-Day War in the Middle East ended, and the Beatles released the Sgt. Pepper album, my 11-year-old brain was set on figuring out what would be the best way to sign my nickname. 

Priorities.  

I often say I wish I could revisit the everyday pieces of my childhood by discerning them as a detached observer. To see, hear, and smell them at this stage in my life from a third-person point of view - as a sort of time-traveling witness - would be rich. 

Reading these diary entries begins to answer that wish and will have to suffice as a small window to what everyday life was like for me in the late '60s/early '70s. What they lack in powerful content, they deliver as a reminder of how dear and uncomplicated life was for this tween/teen girl. 

Dear Diary...thanks for the memories. Bye. Dee

Things I Learned in 2022

 The first thing I learned in 2022 was that, like many of us, I felt depleted from 2021 and subsequently did not post a "Things I Learned" at the year's end. My tank is a little more full and I am grateful, so here we go:

- As long as your musical North Star is alive, keep hoping that you will see her perform in concert again. Thanks, Newport Folk Festival, Brandi Carlile, and Joni Mitchell for the surprise of a lifetime this summer! Folk on! 

- Leaving a job you enjoy is bittersweet but it has its perks like not rushing out the door every dang morning. 

- There has always been an emoji search bar on my phone. 🙄

- Austrians who live in Salzburg love Mozart, meat, and pastry and I love them for it! They care little for The Sound of Music movie filmed in and around their gorgeous city in 1964.

- Visiting those famed movie locations ignited my giddy delight (and perhaps some singing!)

- Bombas socks & slippers are the bomb.

- Midterm elections can be satisfying. The wave I always want to see is a sane, thoughtful one where facts matter. 

- The TV show Yellowstone has elements of Breaking Bad: cinematic location shots, ruthless main characters, and lots of secrets.     

- The NYTimes Spelling Bee is an addiction that I feed daily. 

- Banning books instead of informing children is misguided parenting. 

- Sunrise and sunset are two shows a day I continue to love attending at the beach.

- Upgrading my 2012 car to a 2020 version opened up the world of Apple CarPlay for me. I gleefully told anyone who would listen, "My car has CarPlay!" to which they answered, "Diane, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e has CarPlay!"  Oh.

- Travel expands the spirit. 

- Guns are the #1 cause of death in children ages 1-19 in the United States. Repeat aloud. https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/

- Author Amor Towles and Actress/Author/Activist Jenifer Lewis are the newest invitees to my fantasy dinner table. 

- Being both an officiant and a guest at a wedding is double the fun! 

- I really like Bavarian beer! 

- German schoolchildren must visit the Dachau labor camp once during their 12 years of schooling. Education is valued even when history includes loathsome periods. 

- There is a lesson in there for us in the US re: teaching the truth about one of our loathsome periods - slavery.

- Stanley Tucci's series Searching for Italy and his book Taste ignite my primal Italian. (My 2023 hope is that some smart media outlet picks up Searching...)

- There is no shame in watching three seasons of Derry Girls more than four times. It's grand!

- I secretly love when my family enumerates the kinds of seafood prepared for Christmas Eve's Festa dei Sette Pesci (there were 10 this year!)              

- Everyone should read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

- "Expectations are resentments under construction." Anne Lamott

- Human rights activist and Holocaust survivor 97-year-old Gerda Weissmann Klein died in April. Please read my 2011 post about her incredible life as a protest to rising antisemitism   http://asubjectforconsideration.blogspot.com/2011/07/noble-be-man-merciful-and-good.html

- South Korea seems less distant while my firstborn visits my youngest in Seoul. 그것은 나를 행복하게 만든다

- SEPTA has a senior fare card that allows you to ride all routes for free and is funded by the PA Lottery. Buy those lottery tickets folks. 

- A new term - "angertainment" - accurately describes parts of social media, political rhetoric, and the attraction to outrage. It's dangerous. 

- Officiating at a wedding in a 17th-century castle in Ireland sets the bar pretty high for destination weddings. Maith-thú Meg and Ronan. 

- My first visit to see a concert at Johnny Brenda's is not my last. 

- Airbags and seatbelts are amazing life-saving devices in our cars, especially when tested by your spouse, who miraculously walked away after veering into a telephone pole to avoid hitting a deer.

- Mauritius is an island nation off the coast of east Africa. I now know this b/c my nephew-in-law is working there.

- Lesotho is a landlocked kingdom encircled by South Africa.  I now know this b/c my niece will be working there in 2023.

- The furthest I've ever worked from my home was a 27-mile train commute to Center City Philadelphia.

- The inevitable wax and wane of friendships is both a challenge and a gift.  

- It is reasonable to hold the seemingly opposing thoughts of being equally freaked out and grateful to be my age.

- We are definitely not alone.  https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/11/17/interactive-universe-map/

- Seeing Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell each perform in person, albeit separately, in the same year is sweet symmetry. "Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time" Sigh.

*********

Thanks, dear Reader for your time and indulgence to view this somewhat annual vanity project. Here's to 2023 and whatever she has in store. 

As we round out 2022, let's sit with singer Nina Simone's thoughtful meditation before her 1969 performance of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" at NYC's Philharmonic Hall:

"Sometime in your life, you will have occasion to say, "What is this thing called time? What is that, the clock? 

"You go to work by the clock, you get your martini in the afternoon by the clock and your coffee by the clock, and you have to get on the plane at a certain time, and arrive at a certain time.

"It goes on and on and on.

"And time is a dictator, as we know it.  Where does it go? What does it do? Most of all, is it alive? It is a thing that we cannot touch and is it alive?

"And then, one day, you look in the mirror - you're old - and you say,

 'Where does the time go?'"

Lastly, 2022 was all about Joni for me.  

Here is a taste of her playing the melody to "Just Like This Train" at the Newport Folk Festival.  She's still got it. 

 As the seasons go round and round, Joni gets the last word from "Circle Game" 

...'til you drag your feet to slow the circles down...

                        Here is the audio link to Nina Simone's soulful live performance of  Who Knows Where The Time Goes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlJfrpuhlPI

Happy Anniversary - to Texting!

      

I know I have lived through a time when there was no such thing as texting, but to see this handy form of communicating hit the 30-year-old mark has me SMH and LOL.

According to businesswire.com, "Infobip, a global leader in omnichannel communications, today, announced new data from its 2022 '30th Anniversary of the SMS" survey, which sheds light on how, where, and when Americans are communicating with each other."

First things first: I had to look up the meaning of SMS. And I hear you, 'c'mon, it is obvious!' Alas, I never thought about what it meant for all these years and feel no shame for it.  To those of you still reading this, it means short message service. 

Some of the texting survey highlights include:

-Americans of a certain age prefer texting to calling - SOSO. 

-Texting and driving are deadly and still sadly very popular.

-Sexting is a popular element of romance used primarily by millennials, then GenZ and GenXers, and lastly by boomers. Again, no surprise. Men (52%) send sexts while 38% of women partake. 

-Texting while drunk continues to include the element of regret. ROTFL

-Businesses incessantly hungry for our eyeballs use texting as much as possible to communicate brand info with us. 

While my email has transformed into a repository for shopping confirmations and sales reminders, texts are a sacred space.  I try to keep my text world protected by using it to chat solely with my people (and for the occasional hair appointment reminder/confirmation - I did say sacred, right?) 

One mistake I made when I began to text was including abbreviations like "u" "cu" and "k" for a while. Texts took on a hieroglyphic feel which displeased me so I happily returned to mostly using the English language. 

Emojis are a kind of hieroglyphics in the text world and I try to use them judiciously partly due to trouble in locating a specific one - let's say a horn-blowing confetti that can be found in the middle of mailboxes and bed emojis. 

Sadly, this year is the one where I "discovered" the emoji search box that has been there ALL THE TIME! Sad face emoji. 

My beef with texting is the l-e-n-g-t-h-y practice of the text chain. The ability to reach many folks at once is tainted with so many replies/comments/blah blah blah. And yet, this week I was the leader of a text chain pack to nail down a December meeting with eight of my fellow book club members. 

Do as I say, not as I do.

Another beef I have (that is ironically also a plus) is the three texting bubbles. They percolate during a text exchange relaying that a reply is imminent - until it isn't. My soft sensibilities cannot take seeing those bubbles of hope only to result in no reply text. Sigh. I'm just a girl waiting for a friend to reply.

    

And to be fair, I've accidentally left my cursor in the text box, potentially giving false hope to the recipient. Apologies to my dearest friends. 

Morning Brew Newsletter's musings today include a tidbit about what if texting had been around throughout human history. It prompted the idea for this blog post and offered a few ideas:

Cleopatra to Mark Antony: "u up?"

Francis Scott Key to his buddy: "Does 'rockets red glare' sound dumb?"

This activity delighted me and I offer these:

Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton: "STFU!"

Israelites to Moses: "Where are u?"

 Harry S. Truman:  "Venmo me" 

Neil Armstrong and Apollo Mission Control: 

   

As a kid, meeting friends locally or walking to school with them required a phone call the night before to set a time to meet the next day.

I walked to school for 12 years (uphill both ways as my kids like to tease) and met up with my cohort along the way. 

As I roamed the neighborhoods toward school, my friends would be ready and waiting (or not, which meant we'd wait a minute or two and move along.) A very simple plan.

Today, texting would improve this dated process with real-time info, hands down. We have however lost our ability to just wait - to pause and give people time. (heck, I am antsy sitting at a stoplight anymore!) 

I appreciate that a "see you in 10" or "go ahead w/o me" text removes ambiguity and frustration which is the best of texting, but I do have a soft spot for the frills-free days of "be there at the appointed time."

I'm sure I am romanticizing something that texting has clearly made better. There is, however, an irresistible patina of simplicity in the long-ago days of no texting. 

Happy 30th to texting! You've been a real part of my life for almost half of it. I hope this post wasn't TLDR.

UR the bomb. 

Link to the businesswire.com article:    https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221202005008/en/Infobip-releases-30th-Anniversary-of-the-SMS-Report#:~:text=The%20report%20was%20commissioned%20to,said%2C%20%E2%80%9CMerry%20Christmas.%E2%80%9D

Link to top 100 text abbreviations:      https://messente.com/blog/text-abbreviations

Link to Morning Brew Newsletter: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/issues/latest

We Practice

Monthly fire drills 

Lockdown drills 

Shelter-in-place drills 

Like most schools in the US, the staff and students at the elementary school where I work practice all of these drills. 

We diligently, quietly, and respectfully practice. 

We are 600+ students and over 100 staff members. 

We range in age from 5 years to 70+ years old and represent a spectrum of abilities. 

We practice where to go in an emergency; where the 'safest’ part of the classroom or other gathering areas is located. 

We huddle together, in silence, when sheltering in place. 

We report via laptop if anyone is missing. We report via laptop where we are. 

We deal with blocked exits so we know what to do if that happens during a fire. 

We stand outside in silence as teacher-by-teacher reports their class status via walkies. 

We must pass a series of clearances on a regular basis: an FBI clearance, a state police background check, a child abuse history clearance, and an arrest/conviction certification report. 

We know that anyone entering the building must first ring a doorbell at the school entrance where a camera sees who is there. 

We ask the visitor questions and for legal identification before granting entry. 

We practice lining up by class all the time. This keeps things organized but the subtext is safety where we can quickly account for every child if we are anywhere else but the classroom in an emergency 

We practice, practice, practice for all of this. 

We comply with these safety procedures because we value the safety of our children and those who care for them.

We teach and reinforce safety every day.

Yet we fail these same people because the world of guns and danger is real and woven in a hideous relationship with elected officials and money compromising the best intentions of a safe school environment. 

When are we going to turn the tables and make access to assault weapons difficult? 

Our country is horrifically unique in the world when it comes to our fetish for assault weapons and unfettered access to them. 

When you turn 18, an assault weapon can be yours. Just like that. Why? This is not sportsmanship.  This is a weapon for mass murder. 

These very assault weapons make a 4th-grade victim unrecognizable and require parents to supply DNA samples on the worst day of their lives. 

We watch as the collectors of ‘donations’ from the gun lobby/NRA/various political action committees for gun rights in Texas send their soulless 'thoughts and prayers' to the elementary school families.

 

We watch as a Texas senator, Texas governor, and a former president plan to speak at an NRA convention on Friday. 

The Robb Elementary School shooting was the 30th such mass shootings in 2022. 

We are 145 days into 2022.  

In nearly a quarter of those days, a mass shooting took place. 

Brady United lists the elected officials who accept NRA money to support their elections. 

https://elections.bradyunited.org/take-action/nra-donations-116th-congress-senators

It is a non-profit gun control group created after then-President Reagan’s press secretary, Jim Brady, was among those shot in an attempt on the president’s life in 1981. He was permanently disabled and his death in 2012 was correctly ruled a homicide due to those injuries. 

We are strangled by wildly distorted views of gun control instead of liberated and united by sensible limits to what firearm access should be. Step one: ban the sale of assault weapons. 

The answer is NOT more guns. Too many guns have placed us right here. 

Meanwhile, the smallest, most vulnerable of us practice. 

The smallest, most vulnerable of us look to the adults and we fail them. 

Until this country deals with the unchallenged access to assault rifles, mass shootings are not a matter of if, but when.

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/

https://www.everytown.org/

Roadrunner

This blog post mentions suicide.  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255 available 24 hours in English and Spanish. 

Well, of course, I loved him. 

I loved him along with all others who followed his travels around the world and virtually placed themselves in the seat across from him, watching and listening as he flicked on the light of his curiosity.  

Anthony Bourdain shared his worldview as a storyteller.  He loved the strength of well-honed phrases  His rat-a-tat-tat verbal delivery sated the moment. He could have been writing songs he was so lyrical.

This oral finesse along with his bass timbre, lanky gate, commanding height created a navigation system that seemed unbeatable.

But, as we all know, that is the lie. No one is unbeatable.  We all need serious scaffolding to hold us up.

I recently watched this summer's release of Roadrunner, A Film About Anthony Bourdain, and Bourdain's suicide hurts my heart as much today as when he died in 2018.  

The film left me feeling surprisingly untethered; a reminder that the bruises of suicide don't necessarily heal for the living - even those of us watching from the very, very cheap seats.  

Bourdain first popped up on my radar during his No Reservations show on the Travel Channel followed by CNN's Parts Unknown. His appeal was as the cool kid who could lure the viewer into his shenanigans.  We were invited to be his co-conspirators and we could almost hear him utter, "Psssst....come see this!"

A favorite Parts Unknown episode for me aired three months following Bourdain's death.  W. Kamau Bell (I am a big fan of his United Shades of America show) and Bourdain traveled to Kenya - a country neither man had ever visited. Bell's middle  name - Kamau - is Kenyan meaning 'quiet warrior.'

Bourdain savored Bell's discomfort watching goat's head soup being prepared for him. Bell knew the time and space shared was precious and noted this arc while the two sat perched before the golden vista in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. It cemented a connection to each other, to Kenya, to Nature, to Life, to feeling small in the raw, wide world. 

I saw it as another perfect example of how Bourdain drew in his guests, his guides, and his viewers determined that they experience the marrow of the moment.

As someone who loves to cook and bake, who delights in reading about food, who pours over recipes, and follows chefs, cooks etc. on social media, I was naturally intrigued by Bourdain's iterations of travel/food television shows. I watched and listened intently always appreciating his ability to straddle being relaxed and edgy as he sought to unspool the essence of location - always appreciating it with a touch of humility. 

I had never read Bourdain's insider Kitchen Confidential until after he died. While I prefer to read the print version of books, I deferred to the audio version listening to it each night as I prepared dinner at home. I chopped, seared, blended, and mashed paying a small homage to this cook turned chef turned author turned TV host turned famous man of the world.  I reveled in the many faces of Bourdain.

My choice of an audiobook had a singular motivation: I hungered to hear him spin tales.

It was excruciatingly clear while watching Roadrunner how Bourdain's many friends and co-workers who appeared in the film did so because of their shared craving to reminisce, to wonder, to search for answers.  Not one of them had yet to find someplace to rest their grief.  

The film's power for me came from this repeated universal need to experience their compadre; to talk of him in shared pain and joy; to utter their loss and struggle as they felt impotent in knowing he slipped through the bonds of their friendship.  

Bourdain insisted he was not a good friend ("I'm not going to remember your birthday") and yet many lined up to be his. He was the guy they all wanted to be around.  And now they couldn't. 

In the 2017 Tony award winner for Best Musical The Band's Visit, the final song's lyrics titled Answer Me bubbled up as I watched Roadrunner.

All alone,

In the quiet,

Ah, my ears are thirsty

For your voice,

For your voice,

Can you answer me?

Criticism of the film's intent noted it as "a snippy tell-all" pointing to heavy focus on Bourdain's TV shows and too little focus on his hefty career in restaurant kitchens and heroin addiction as a young man. I did not see it this way but I understand how the author arrived here. All loss leaves a mark.    https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/07/15/roadrunner-anthony-bourdain-documentary-review  

The article's critic included a spot-on bit from comedian Dave Chappelle's 2019 show Sticks and Stones that referenced a sort of celebrity sleight-of-hand when we think we know how good life must be for famous, rich folk. Chappelle reminded us that Bourdain's death telegraphs one truth: "No matter what it might look like from the outside, you don't know what the f--- is going on inside." 

In 1980, I visited my brother Vincent in Maui for three weeks. His newly claimed home blew open my worldview.  We saw the island from the sea, air, and land and the boxes of slides that resulted in my unquenchable thirst to capture it all numbered in the "way too many" range.  I wanted to share all of it upon returning home and did so to a very patient group of co-workers held hostage by my "you gotta see this" slide show. I easily fell into the 'vacation slides sharing' trap.  (I again apologize to those lovely co-workers.)

I offer this only to say it's easy to overshare.  Bourdain did the opposite of this. He managed to lure us in as travel companions even in this world where any internet search will provide easy context for all things exotic.  We wanted him and his point of view to guide us. 

He managed to deftly describe important moments, making them important to those of us who loved his work. 

Morgan Neville, Roadrunner Director created a 100-song playlist of favorite titles randomly mentioned by Bourdain with some added by the chef's friends.  

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/anthony-bourdain-roadrunner-playlist-1200455/

Listening to it while I meandered through this post I was unsurprised by the 

beat-thumping, electric guitar-laden push of Patti Smith's High on Rebellion, Elvis Costello's Lipstick Vogue, or New Order's Blue Monday.  

These seemed to represent Bourdain's velocity.

Also notable were unexpected softer choices such as the Beach Boys' God Only Knows, The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane, Earth, Wind, and Fire's That's The Way of the World, and Kevin Morby's Beautiful Stranger. 

I think these, like much of his offerings, pulsed from his soul.   

Roadrunner isn't perfect and neither was Bourdain. We are all just fragile humans. 

Two more links to Roadrunner reviews:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/anthony-bourdain-movie-roadrunner-doesn-t-allow-life-s-loose-ncna1274895

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/movies/roadrunner-a-film-about-anthony-bourdain-review.html

Article on the use of artificial intelligence technology to replicate Bourdain's voice in the film:

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016838440/ai-brought-anthony-bourdains-voice-back-to-life-should-it-have

Things I Learned in 2020

 There has been sooooo much learning (and other spicy descriptors that I'll leave to your imagination) this past year. Let's get to it. 

In 2020 I learned:

- how incredibly naive our traditional New Year's Day meal of 'good luck' pork and sauerkraut felt as the months passed

- how to sew a mask, wear a mask, what makes an KN95 mask desirable, and what social distancing means

- mask wearing during a pandemic is good citizenship - period

- seeing crinkly eyes on an otherwise hidden face is heartwarming/reassuring

- social skills are not to be taken for granted.  They require practice   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/style/self-care/feeling-socially-awkward-even-extroverts-are-a-little-rusty.html?searchResultPosition=1

- wedding ceremonies can be micro sized and continue to have macro impact

- elementary school students wear their face masks all day (even during outdoor recess) with little complaint b/c being in school with friends is very reassuring to them!

- hiking with my eldest daughter in Hawaii is a gift

- everything that includes Hawaii is also a gift

- Zoom

- Kahoot

- nothing - absolutely nothing- can stand-in for a proper hug

- 81,283,485 American voters chose sane, thoughtful leadership in wanting better for everyone in our country; 74,223,744 more voters need to find their way to this 

- losing 59 out of 60 lawsuits (and counting) is the sign of a colossal loser

- having my brother Joe stranded here for six months while awaiting entry back to his South African home served up the gift of connection.  Amen to all of it!

- the world now understands that teachers do whatever it takes, whenever it is needed, however it is possible, with relentless passion.  Ditto for all essential workers

- parents navigating life with school aged children during a pandemic are rock stars 

- livestreaming a cooking class via airbnb Experience with a South Korean cook/travel writer instructing from Seoul was a super satisfying and clever gift from my younger daughter - I feel seen

- kimchi has many, many uses

- makgeolli (milky rice wine) is kimchi's worthy sidekick

- black lives matter - no additional qualifiers needed

- white privilege means a lack of inconvenience.  It is blinding.  It has impact. It needs to be tamed

- having my mom on the planet for 93 years still wasn't enough time; ditto for my 90 year old mother-in-law and 89 year old father-in-law

- a weekly zoom date with four college pals is free therapy

- gratitude begets optimism

- with lyrics like ~ well you never know how far from home you're feeling until you watch the shadows cross the ceiling ~ John Prine's Summer's End goes to my core https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbEFTv9zr0

 

- reading Circe ignited an unexpected appreciatation for Greek mythology.  Brava local author, Madeline Miller 

- my love for writing and my lack of results begets frustration

- using "begets" twice in a blog post makes me simultaneously chuckle and roll my eyes

- Sweet & Satisfying Tip: "Reminder that if you bought an advent calendar the day after Christmas when they were heavily discounted you can now count down the 25 days until Inauguration Day with chocolate." from @Kaitlin_Benz on Instagram

- democracy is a deliberate action - not a place

- the glory, joy, and humanity of all six seasons of Schitt's Creek (I came to this brilliant show so darn late!)  This clever "adapted for 2020" year-end video brings out the best of these memorable characters and makes me smile over and over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTenLwKVlxc

Thank you dear, patient reader for indulging this year-end vanity project. May 2021 be satisfying. 

I'll let WH Auden have the last word.

 

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

from "The More Loving One" by WH Auden