On a recent walk to Catawba Falls, I walked past a little boy as he casually remarked, “So, you know how monarchs are going extinct?”

“Dude, I’m standing right here…”

I tried to keep my cool as I strolled on by, though my heart cartwheeled in my chest while my brain shrieked: “Holy shit, monarchs are going extinct?!??!” [Full disclosure: I have paid very little attention to the news for about a month. I just can’t with the…everything. Truly. I can’t. I hit a wall. So when I heard that kid’s offhand proclamation about monarch extinction, I panicked. Of course I’ve known for a while now that monarchs are in dire straights, but my initial thought was this: Sometime in the past month, it was announced that monarchs are officially, well and truly going extinct. Like there’s one left, it’s got a bad upper respiratory infection, and things don’t look good.]

I leaped online as soon as I got home and quickly discovered that nothing significant has changed with the monarch situation. They’re not even listed under the Endangered Species Act yet (although that seems ridiculous). I heaved a sigh of sort-of relief, cursed that little boy for his callous, inaccurate words, and realized that, despite my greatest wishes, I’ve got to start paying attention to the news again. I can’t keep my head in the sand all the time. Even the most reluctant ostrich needs to face reality, even if the first headline she sees is about a woman getting sucked out a plane window.

Sigh. 😑

I work for a nonprofit that matches volunteer mentors 1:1 with kids. The other day, as I spoke with one of our mentors over the phone, he reminded me of an important lesson on language. “I’m here for the family if they need me,” he said. “I mean, if they ever feel like…I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it seems more and more common these days, so here goes: If they ever feel like reaching out…”

When the volunteer used that particular turn of phrase, he didn’t just sound irritated. He sounded like he might barf. I shared this story with my husband JR, and he said he’d had a similar interaction with my father recently. I guess my dad had called someone and left a message, and when the guy called back, he said, “Thanks for reaching out,” which did not sit well at all with Dad. Recounting the unpleasant experience later, Dad explained to JR, “I wasn’t reaching out. I just called him.”

“Reaching out” is one of many bits of therapeutic lingo that counselor-types throw around with reckless abandon. Last week, I received an email from a school social worker, and she used variations of that (apparently) egregious phrase three times in one paragraph. I’m sure she meant no harm by it, as I mean no harm when I use similar jargon like “circle back,” “checking in,” “on the same page,” or any reference to an individual’s “toolbox” or “path.” (In my defense, I never mention categorical “buckets” or the need to “unpack” anything, so I’m not a total loss.)

I suppose I can understand why some people take exception to “reaching out.” Perhaps to them, those words imply that the speaker believes the listener requires help, like a toddler who’s fallen down and hurt himself, and they don’t appreciate the phrase’s insinuations of vulnerability and neediness.

Or maybe they think of it in a more sinister way, like:

AAAAAHHHH!!! Save yourselves! She’s reaching out!!

Regardless of their reasoning, what I’ve learned from all of this is that it’s possible to annoy someone to the point of abject disgust when all I’m really trying to do is say hi. While that’s pretty damn funny, it also speaks to the power of language. My new plan is to take the time to say what I mean with less of a reliance on jargon. Used consistently, this strategy should reduce the number of times I horrify people completely by accident.

When a loved one dies, a familiar bit of counsel to receive is this: Hold onto your memories; they will give you comfort. At this point in my life, I’ve lost enough folks to know it’s good advice. At first, the memories may feel like a razor slicing through your heart, but after some time, they soften and grow kinder, and while they’ll likely trigger tears, they may raise a smile as well.

A few days ago, my 95-year-old grandmother passed away. She was the namesake of her grandmother Alice, a cold and distant woman she never liked, but the name she went by was Jill, as she had a twin brother named Jack. The name by which I knew her, however, was Gaga.

Gaga with her daughters

My sister Katy was the first grandchild, and when she tried to say “Grandma,” it came out as “Gaga” (her articulation has improved since then). Thus, my grandmother was named, and from that point on, all the grandkids called her Gaga. For many years, mentioning this name to others (particularly my peers) led to snickers and raised eyebrows (“Gaga? You call her Gaga? Like goo-goo, ga-ga?”) but several years ago, the reaction shifted to: “Oh, like Lady Gaga? Right on.” So that was helpful. I really don’t know much about Lady Gaga besides the fact that she did a kickass Super Bowl halftime performance and once wore a meat dress, but I’m eternally grateful to her for legitimizing my grandmother’s title.

Happy birthday girl ~ her favorite food was sweets 🎂 🍩 🍨 🍪 😋

Unlike her own grandmother, Gaga was the epitome of cheerfulness, warmth, and encouragement. Oftentimes, when a camera was aimed at her, she would strike a wildly enthusiastic wave-and-smile pose, despite my grandfather’s reproaches (“Jill, why do you do that? You look deranged!”). But she didn’t care. She just wanted folks to know she was happy.

Here I am trying it out. Gotta say, it was pretty fun.

Gaga had a wonderful sense of humor. About 20 years ago, a county in Texas decided to change their official greeting from “hello” to “heaven-o” so their God-lovin’ citizens wouldn’t have to say the word “hell” so often. From the moment Gaga heard that story, she adopted “heaven-o” as her own personal greeting as well, not because she minded saying “hell,” but simply because the whole thing was so hilarious and absurd.

Gaga with her BFF Nancy. These two were like a live action comedy duo.

Although she was nonviolent, at least in practice, whenever Gaga heard a story about a person doing something terrible, she’d say, “Get me my gun!” She didn’t really have a gun (thank goodness), so one year for Christmas, my parents bought her a Lone Ranger toy gun set.

Gaga got her gun

It was all fun and games until my grandparents went to the airport to fly home. After Gaga walked through the metal detector and retrieved her screened carryon from the conveyor belt, she turned to Papa with a big smile and said, “They didn’t get my gun!” Homeland Security was unamused, but kind enough not to drag her off to jail.

Many of my Gaga memories center around Christmas, a holiday we spent together for almost 40 years.

Gaga & Papa on Christmas morning

Gaga filled our Christmases with laughter, as she had a habit of forgetting what was inside gifts as soon as she wrapped them. Therefore, this exchange occurred pretty much every time someone was handed one of her gifts:

Gaga: “Oh, isn’t that pretty! Now who’s that from?”

Person holding gift: “It’s from you!”

Gaga: “WHAT?!”

Climbing under the tree in search of gifts she won’t remember

Looking at photos of my grandparents brings to mind this little dialogue my mom overheard during a phone call with Gaga years ago, right after she and Papa had returned home from a town fair:

Mom: “So what did they have there?”

Gaga: “Oh, you know, Christmas ornaments, painted magnets, ceramics, candles…”

(Papa says something in the background. Gaga sighs, then continues in a cranky tone.)

Gaga: “Your father says it was a bunch of crap.”

Papa: “I said it was a bunch of crafts.”

😂

Mortality is irritating. While I realize it’s necessary, I’m still not a fan, as death has claimed some of the best people I’ve known – people who were uniquely wonderful and made this world a better place. I have my memories, and they do offer a harsh sort of comfort. But at the same time, I am left with this truth: There is nothing, nothing at all, that can replace the singular magic of grandparents.

Gaga & Papa making music together 🎶 💖

After the presidential election, I put on about a thousand pounds of dead weight. I don’t mean physically, although that was certainly an issue right after the election, when my stunned and desperate internal voice could offer only one coping strategy: Eat! Drink! Consumption will make you feel better! And if it doesn’t…eat and drink some more! Hey, look – chocolate and vodka! Woo hoo!

Needless to say, ingesting 5000 calories a day and staying drunk all the time didn’t make me feel better (at least after a few months). So I curbed that behavior, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the key. Even after my body returned to normal, the dead weight remained, affixed to my heart and soul, crushing my motivation. In order to shine a clear light on this useless baggage, I gave it a name. I call it my Trump Weight.

It’s hard to move with an anvil on your chest, even if it’s metaphorical. So as the calendar flipped to a new year, I looked at myself in the mirror, declared, “This asshole administration does not get to control my body!” and resolved to kick the Trump Weight to the curb. The first step was clear: limit the inundation of opinions regarding every asinine move of the current administration. It’s enough to know what’s going on without drowning in everyone’s assessment of it. I’m sure I could lose an entire day (and gain another hundred pounds or so) on the “shithole countries” debacle alone. So that has been my primary weight loss strategy: stay informed, but limit the chatter, no matter how clever or nuanced that chatter may be.

The day after the election, I was out walking my dogs and ran into a neighbor. The look on her face perfectly reflected the rage and dismay that clouded my every sense. But what she told me was this: “Go outside and go within.” While I appreciated her advice at the time, I’ve really taken it to heart while determining other ways to shed this dead weight. These have been some of my tactics:

1 – Go to high places and stare into the distance ~

2 – Take a feisty fairy into the forest and set up photo shoots ~

3 – Paddle around in a palm tree hat ~

4 – Engage in meditative activities ~

5 – Explore with friends and find cool stuff ~

6 – Take a baby to the beach ~

In general, I’ve found that spending time with kids and animals is the best bet for shedding the weight. Even with the best intentions, adult humans cannot keep themselves from talking in circles about politics. Kids just want to talk about Legos and bike riding and cookies and cartoons, and pets don’t talk about anything.

The good news is that the weight is slipping off. I can sense it, like a dim but persistent glow piercing through the darkness to guide me back to myself. At this point, I figure I’ve got about a quarter ton to go, but I have hope. The other day, I met a young woman with a shit ton of obstacles between her present and her dreams, and the whole time we talked, she remained upbeat and gracious. When I asked what academic subjects are challenging for her, she named one, then said, “It’s cool, though. I love challenges.” Which brings me to Resolution #2 for 2018:  Emulate that girl. She rocks.

Soon after I moved to the South, I was exposed to an unfamiliar turn of phrase: “might could.” In my rigidly grammatical mind, “might could” is not acceptable, as it comes straight out of the Department of Redundancy Department, and that shit drives me nuts. Granted, it’s not as egregious as “also too” (OH MY GOD THOSE WORDS MEAN THE SAME DAMN THING JUST CHOOSE ONE YOU ARE FIGURATIVELY KILLING ME), but it’s still bad.

Earlier this week, I had the unfortunate experience of seeing a video about the GOP’s fancy new tax plan. About halfway through, my hands balled into fists of rage, I heard a voice suspiciously like my own drawl these words:

“Well. I might could lose it.”

And you know what? It was weirdly comforting, perhaps because, in my head, I sounded a bit like my Papa Walden, a lovely Southern gentleman who was known to say, “Well,” thus capturing the attention of everyone in the room, then follow it up with complete silence, as if his intention was to reign us in for a moment of quiet introspection. (In reality, I think he’d say, “Well,” kind of by accident, then forget it ever happened.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – absurd times call for absurd responses. So go ahead and try it, folks. The next time you feel like you’re about to lose your freakin’ mind, drawl out a nice, long “might could” (or its kissing cousin, “might should”). While you’re at it, throw in a “galdurnit” just for fun. Who knows ~ it might could help.

Taking pictures is one of my lifelines. Whenever I catch myself slipping into the icky muck of hopelessness, I go outside and take pictures as a reminder that the world is full of beauty and wonder, which helps to counterbalance stupid crap like hatred, greed, hypocrisy, and all those other words that appear way too much in the media these days.

When I lived on Orcas Island, photo shoots were a focus of my daily hikes, and I posted lots of pictures. After a few weeks, my husband let me know that he liked the nature photos, but he really wanted to see pictures of me. Since neither my dog nor cat was particularly adept at photography, I started to take pictures of my shadow and send them to him with captions like: Shadow Me in the front yard. Shadow Me in the woods. Shadow Me at the ocean.

Shadow Me on Mt. Constitution

In my current state, I think about Shadow Me quite a bit, as I seem to have entered a shadowy, undefined time. Nothing brings this more to the forefront as when I meet new people and they ask, “What do you do?” thus triggering a long, rambling response that causes their eyes to grow wide, bleary, and eventually vacant. By the time I come at last to a breathless close, they’ve usually wandered off, and who can blame them? “What do you do?” is a cornerstone of cliché conversation, not an invitation to hear someone’s life story.

Part of me wants to panic about my relatively new lack of clarity, but another part looks back on all of those Shadow Me shots and thinks, Cool.

Shadow Me may be a faceless blob of darkness, but she seems to get around and have adventures. Sometimes, she even manages to find company.

Reality is based at least in part on one’s perspective, right? Therefore, I have decided this Shadow Me experience is not a midlife crisis (although it really might resemble one). No, this time is about eschewing definition to embrace the silhouette. And I imagine that’s just fine.

[Also, I may be in a midlife crisis. At least a little one. And that’s probably okay, too.]

Jonas Jonasson is the author of many true and funny quotes, and this is one of my favorites, particularly given the current state of humanity:

…if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: “You are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.”

Yup, that’s a fact. I’ve spent lots of time with all sorts of people, both as a social worker and on a personal level, and I can tell you this – everyone, even the dumbest person on the planet, thinks other people are stupid. It’s amazing. And it’s also a problem.

See, this is what humans do: when it comes to poor behaviors, we interpret other people’s as indicative of their personality traits but make situationally-based excuses for our own. In other words, if someone does something we perceive as stupid, we think, That person is stupid, but if we do something stupid, we think, That was an anomaly. I just don’t feel well. Must be coming down with something. Or maybe it’s because I skipped breakfast. Or I didn’t get enough sleep. Or I’m stressed about work. Or…

The strategy of being overly generous with ourselves and overly critical of others creates a maelstrom of overblown and irrational discord. Doing something stupid doesn’t make you a wholly stupid person. We all make errors in judgment, and while that is a part of who we are, it’s not all of who we are.

Perhaps if people were more candid about their foibles, it would help us to be more honest with ourselves and forgiving of others. In that vein, I will now share a handful of stupid things I’ve done in my life. Please know that I am in no way implying this is a comprehensive list. Over the past four decades, I’ve done thousands of stupid things. Here are five:

#1: I bit a baby at a baseball game. I already wrote about that mortifying event several years ago and cannot bring myself to do so again. If you really need the details, you can find them here.

#2: I threw a marshmallow at a raccoon. This was in an effort to frighten it away, which obviously did not work. In my defense, I was young and hadn’t yet learned that raccoons are totally badass and laugh in the face of airborne confections. In fact, the one at whom I threw the marshmallow caught it in midair, then stared at me like, Wow. Just wow, human. For those of you who haven’t had a similar experience, I can tell you it’s pretty humiliating to be shamed by a raccoon.

#3: I got a tattoo in the dead of summer, two days before a planned lake trip. New tattoos = no sun exposure and no swimming, so I clearly didn’t think this through. Also, we planned to paddleboard on the lake, and I forgot my paddle. So I ended up having to wear sleeves on a 90-degree day and paddle around with a broom.

#4: I embarked on a 15-mile hike with no provisions besides a cup of coffee and two mini muffins. Over the years, my outdoor adventures have included hundreds of stupid acts like this one. Here’s another: I once coaxed my dog to charge down a long, steep hill, and as a result, we both almost fell backwards off a cliff. I swear, it’s kind of a miracle I’m still alive.

#5: I bonked myself in the head with a mallet. One evening, after downing a few cocktails, I thought it would be a good idea to build a bamboo fence. I knelt down, placed a stalk of bamboo where it needed to go, and hit the end soundly with a rubber mallet, which then bounced back and clocked me right in the forehead. It was my very own slapstick comedy moment. It was also incredibly painful.

All right, that’s enough. This is getting embarrassing. But the point is this: we all have strengths, and we all do stupid things. We need to stop making excuses for ourselves while we globalize other people’s blunders as indicative of their character. Until we get to that point, we may never move forward as a species, and forward is the direction we really need to go.

(P.S. – I also may have looked directly at the sun during the eclipse. But only a little.)