Happy New Year!

Thinking about being grateful to be on the mend and bulking up

This begins my new “week in review” format. Herewith, the Isolation Edition.

I’m happy to report that the patient is steadily improving. Because he has a tube dangling from a hole in his neck (and because he is a menace), I’m unable to leave him. With the CWP away on a dog sitting gig, this means I’m confined to the house. I’m finding it very reminiscent of quarantine: the dawning recognition that I’m captive, the resistance and eventual surrender, the search for ways to make the best of it. Shout out to my neighbor/friend for offering all sorts of support.

Ways I Found Joy This Week

Sitting outside in the cool morning air with the nugget on my lap, listening to the birds

Soaking up a couple of impromptu visits by the CWP

Reconnecting with a favorite nephew

Watching the patient scarf down food for the first time in a month

Savoring a (okay, a few) Trader Joe’s Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwich(es)

Completing several jigsaw puzzles

Getting an outdoor “playpen” for the little menace so that I can relax (eventually even swim) without worry

Making graphics for the coming year’s mantra to place on my bathroom mirror

Things I Learned This Week

How to effectively manage all aspects of an esophageal veterinary tube (and that choosing to believe in myself does wonders)

All about Edmond Safra

That surrender and radical acceptance make life so much easier (I thought I’d learned this previously, but apparently I needed a reminder)

A bit about basic music theory

That 50,000 women around the world were killed by partners or family members in 2017 alone (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)

That the book I wanted to write already exists (see below)

Ways I Moved This Week

Stretching and strength training with the CWP

Speed walking “the gauntlet” (the path from front to back of my house) after meals and on phone calls

Using my magic circle and mat for some at-home Pilates

Quotes That Resonated This Week

Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.             Rilke

May you move more slowly and arrive more fully.  (Taoist blessing)

What I Watched This Week

Six Feet Under (felt wistful after finally finishing the series)

Murder in Monaco (still not sure who was responsible)

Love and Death (like watching a slow-motion train wreck)

What I Read This Week

Finished (bringing this year’s total to 155 books):

Cursed Daughters, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. An engaging story that follows generations of women in a Nigerian family and how they variously interpret a long-ago curse placed on them.

With My Little Eye, by Joshilyn Jackson. One of my favorite storytellers for her characters and wit.

The Covert Passive-Aggressive Narcissist, by Debbie Mirza. After seeing an excerpt from this book that stopped me in my tracks, I downloaded it and dove in. This is the book that I needed ten years ago. It’s also the book that I envisioned writing; now I don’t need to!

Still reading:

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder. A journalist’s examination of what has become an epidemic and its relationship to other societal ills such as mass shootings.

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Thanks for reading!

A humble request: for those of you who’ve read my book, I’d be grateful for any feedback you’d like to submit in the comments, along with your preference for whether I share your review (with or without your name) on social media.