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#4 Feed birds.

June 13, 2018

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#7 Reconnect with an old friend.

Here's an old friend I wish I could reconnect with. His name was Stan Clark, and when he was in college he saved my life. He was a long way from his home in Connecticut when he attended a church college in central Kansas. We met there in the band program. I played saxophone; he played percussion. He paired up with a couple of brass players in the band, one of whom dated my roommate. The five of us did a lot of hanging out together. He was never going to be my boyfriend. He made that very clear -- someone was waiting for him back home -- but he did take me to my very first concert, Three Dog Night in Wichita, and, in the Student Union where we hung out, he tried his best to help me improve my ping pong game. I don't know if I ever told him that back home in Iowa my high school band instructor, almost forty years my senior, was waiting for me to finish college. I wasn't announcing it to anyone else -- in fact, I kept it a shameful secret for thirty years -- so I very likely ...

Spontaneous at the Ready

I employ a health coach. Before each appointment, I think about ending our professional relationship, thinking there couldn't possibly be anything more to learn or discuss and couldn't/shouldn't I spend money elsewhere, but she always manages to say the thing that leaves me inspired and hopeful. I originally hired her to help me lose weight in an effort to ease my arthritis pain. I didn't lose much weight, but I did learn to be happy. (Note: In 2019, I was told to schedule surgery on both knees immediately, but with massage, and acupuncture, and learning to be happy, I haven't had surgery.) Unhappiness is a big impediment to weight loss, so with my improved attitude, we have returned to thinking about improved health. She carefully steers me away from any eating plans that come with restrictions and guides me instead to things that make eating joyful. My only current self-imposed rule is "eat less than my husband." I had fallen into the habit of filling ...

37 Ways: The 2021 List

Here's this year's list. Many of the items remain the same year after year. I've thought about increasing the length of the list to reflect her age: "42 Ways to Remember Gretchen, 43 Ways..." But I'm going to leave it at the number I assigned it in the first year of its invention. There's something in the rhythm of thirty-seven ways, and a list of fifty, sixty, seventy ways would be daunting to accomplish in a week of remembrance.

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#4 Feed birds.

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