What is our new world going to be like?

It's very clear that we are living in a new time. People will probably talk about this year or these years like they talk about the Vietnam war or the Great Depression. Covid 19 is a thing that seems like it might permanently change everything.

It is uncertain right now if our country's financial structure is going to completely collapse or if healthcare will become an even more divided, system of privilege and poverty.

Will we ever get to smile at strangers again in the grocery store or hug someone who's having a rough day at work? Will we go people watching on a warm day for sport or gather with the neighbors for a friendly drink?

I'm not a traditionalist. I can embrace change, but not isolation. I worry that I can never pat a stranger's dog again in the park or join an Aikido class in person.

Is wrestling going to be a sport in the future? Will I be to scared to go to the hospital if I do get sick? How can I protect Satu from something you can't see? It seems unreasonable to be more worried about Covid than cancer. but you can't give cancer to your mom. Cancer doesn't close down your favorite places and put you out of work.

I wonder when the sun will come out? Will it be in time for us to meet Nick and Cat's new babies? Will more people at work get laid off? Will we be able to keep the house if our economy collapses?

This is a bit of a nervous post, but I am grateful that I have Satu to share this quiet, scary new world with. Stay healthy. Stay in love and keep laughing my sweet girl. You are the sunshine I need every day.

re-cycle

Satu can do a deadpan. She's clever and funny with a turn of phrase, but what tickles me most is when she plays it seriously, but does something completely whimsical.

After she spent most of the evening squirting me with the water gun we have to keep he cat in line, we revisited how I have absolutely zero hand eye coordination in my natural habitat.

That's weird for a person who is as physical as I am. I can put on my game face and perform all kinds of athletics, but in normal life I miss the trash can even when I am standing over it.

Satu thinks this is the funniest thing in the world. She can detach and ignore her body like no one I've ever known, but she is also incredibly graceful and powerful in her body. She can pick me up with expert balance, knows exactly how long her arms are and seems to understand exactly how I experience her touch.

We spent about 15 minutes on the instant slow-motion replay of me dropping a wad of paper next to the trash can and laughing . She's a wonderful clown and she can excavate comedy from every situation. She's a student of the art of goofy play time. It's part of the reason that she is super popular with all animals and children.

I love having a life that always has the potential for play at any moment. It's like getting to have a sleep over with your best friend at their house every night.

social distance sucks

But if I have to hide from germs, at least I get to do it with Satu.

The city is shut down. Craft stores are closed, restaurants are closed there are no shows, concerts, sports or parties to be had during this time of plague.

It hasn't really changed my life much though because the person I want to see most in the world lives with me. I don't care too terribly much about the rest of the world.

We put out our Easter decoration, just like normal times.

Yesterday, Satu seemed a little under the weather which is kind of freaking me out. She was still strong enough to pick me up and carry me around the house, so I decided that it's not yet time to get too worried. We are still full of hope, full of laughter and happy to come home to the coziest place in the world. 

Ice graveyard, moving art and shiny shoes

It's been a little bit since i have posted about my wonderful wife. Since the last post, we have had trips to Georgia, home cooked meals and weekend pajama parties (no guests.) The winter has been very warm and cozy. We are becoming cat ladies now with two inside ones and an outside one that talks up a storm to Satu, but runs away as soon as I poke my head around the corner.

Satu keeps herself busy. The last time it snowed, she painstakingly chipped up huge slabs of ice from the driveway and erected an ice graveyard along the side yard. When I came come at night, my headlights made long spooky shadows out of the jagged ice cemetery. For some reason, good enough is never good enough for Satu. Her shoveled driveways have to be completely flat with smooth lines along the edges. Her towels must be hung up wrinkle free, and her bread must be cut into triangles.

She's wonderful, quirky and she likes things the way she likes them. If it can't be alphabetized or color coded, then it will be grouped by theme. I bring so much chaos into that. I can not be grouped with anything else in her life, I have nothing but wrinkled edges and I barely know my colors. Still I feel loved and prized beyond anything else in her life.

Tonight she made me soup when my back knotted up and I had to move around the living room like a broken old lady. She drew me a bath and spent all day with me being still and watching TV.

Last week she made two pairs of my shoes look brand new again. I didn't even ask, she just did things for me for no reason. She's been keeping peace at the house and making sure everyone here gets the pats they need and the love she expresses differently to all of us. For the dog, it's gentle pats on the chest and tossing the toys about when he trots around the house with his tail up.

Basie has a spot to curl up and take shelter on the chair next to Satu. She gets a little rough-housing in the evening when she's feeling up to it.

She burbles softly to the kitten all day, giving him rides about the house on her back and keeping him out of harms way.

We have a fun home to come home to. Satu created a sculpture that sways gently in the wind and hangs from another sculpture over our TV. She needs to keep our private little world happy and alive by bringing new wonder to it from time to time. For me,  it's wonderful anytime she is here.

This Friday is Valentine's day. I think it will be our 13th together. Though neither of us care much about the holiday, I can't imagine ever spending it anywhere but in our warm home with her. I no longer really care that much about the things I cared about when I was young. I don't worry about what I am going to do next, as long as I can always do it with her.

Lately I have started thinking of what we might be like when we are old. Like when we are retired and I can't see at all and Satu has more grey hair than brown. I always imagine us laughing. It's what we do best together. We see the world in completely different ways, but we are the same enough to get the other's jokes immediately. She surprises me every day of our lives in a delightful, just starting to get to know you kind of way, but I feel like I have always been with her. I feel like myself when we are together and a little distant from the world when she isn't with me.

Satu, I hope you will be with me until we are strange, laughing old ladies, there is no one else I'd rather share these laughs with. The best years are ahead.

The spritzer is a high use Item again

It's Christmas time again and Satu has made the house seem like a wonderland. The wise squirrels are out. The silver llama are mingling with the reindeer heard and Satu's little iron Christmas tree is starting to get some small gifts at its roots. Amdist all the usual family coziness there is a new creature stirring.

His name is Barnie, which is short for Barnacle. In the foreground you may notice that the blue bottle of discipline has made an appearance again. It has only been used for hydrating cigars since Josie passed, but now it is a high use item again. Not only does Satu spritz the cat off of the window sills and out of the trash, but she has started to spritz me when I get a little too sassy too. It's pretty effective for turning whatever I was saying into a giggle, but I find it so funny that I want to sass more often.

Thanksgiving this year was wonderful. We met with Kirstie and friends at their lakeside house and then went straight to Nick and Cat's house to have friendsgiving with them and their kids. I love the family time that we sometimes get over the holidays, but truth told, I feel most happy and settled when it is just me and Satu. 

When Satu is with me, everything just seems right. When she holds my hand, I am always amazed at how she can make me feel so connected with the slightest amount of pressure. Right now she is siting on the floor gluing little plastic bits back on to 40 year old Christmas lights. Later we will cook something fun together and watch terrible Christmas movies in front of the fire. I love my wonderful life with her. I love that I can start a sentence with "Guess what," and she can immediately finish it with "Dollly Parton's America." 

Let's look at lights this year and every year together. Lets make a point of listening to Christmas music and cooking together. 

Satu, I love you so much every moment of the day that I am never not thinking about you in some way. I can't wait to start this new year with you. 

Fall down seven times, stand up eight

Recently, Satu and I joined a local Aikido Dojo.

When I was in my late teens and 20's, I practiced with a great dojo in Florida. Though I didn't get to stick with it for more than a few years, I always felt like that kind of training made me feel more like myself. Your brain can't worry about other stuff, and you get to just focus on trying to learn something and piece together all these little lessons about your body and movement and connection and balance. There is no room left in my brain to feel insecure and everyone's body and skill set is so different that I don't feel competitive or compared to anyone.

Satu is an introvert and completely new to Aikido. For her, learning this new thing is full of emotional sinkholes you would never know are there. I think it is just the way dojos teach this art. There aren't that many core techniques, but there are endless variations of the same interactions. She wants to know if the left foot goes first or if the right foot goes sideways or back before she can move on. That would work for Karate, because there are forms you have to learn and definite ways to do them. In aikido, you can spend decades doing different versions of the same technique and always be learning something new for each interaction.

Half of whether something works has to do with your partner. The other half is how you connect with your partner. You will not ever get it right the first time you try it, but that has to be okay. You have to not get embarrassed by where you are on any given day. No one ever expects the new person to get it right, they just want to show you a little piece every time and eventually you can start putting those pieces together in ways that feel more natural. It forces you to practice learning things that you don't know you are learning like how to absorb motion, where is the floor in relation to the rest of your body, how to hang on without anticipating what you think is going to happen and how to not feel embarrassed when you have o try again and again.

I hope that Satu can put down her expectations of herself and enjoy the art long enough for us to have some new ways to learn the world together, but I do remember how frustrated I was in the beginning. The techniques are long and confusing. No one told me on my first class that we would clap when we bow in.  People had to tell me to sit down or get lower when Sensai decides to break in and teach something. The first time I took a test, I ran off the mat as soon as it was over and all the black belts laughed at me and shouted for me to come back and bow out.

That was kind of embarrassing in the moment, but everyone has those moments and remembers what that feels like. That's why experienced people try to work with the beginners. It's not actually a drag. Learning to break down the complex moves helps you understand and be more intentional about what you are doing. No one gets every interaction right.

I don't know how to help Satu through the feelings she is having, but I feel like if she finds her way to enjoying the art and the people in our dojo, it will change her life in a good way. Maybe not, but that kind of emotion doesn't just spring up for no reason.

New neighborhood social

Recently our neighbors have started a kind of loose social club called the Gridley Rd Hoppers. It's a great excuse for all the neighbors to sit outside on a warm summer night and have a couple of drinks and tell our old stories to new people.

Satu, for some reason, always ends up as the child magnet. She spends 90% of the time drawing on the sidewalk and rescuing 2 year olds from eating bugs. It makes me wonder if it really is too late for us to adopt a child. She has such a warm heart and she is so patient and kind to kids. She may be the only grown up who still remembers what it is actually like to be a child. It opens her endless imagination.

She catches lightning bugs, chases frogs, talks to squirrels and never abides by bedtime rules. She is also funny, playful and curious. I can't until the locusts come out again this year and we have Halloween adventures at our local pumpkin festival. Being in love with Satu often reminds me of how happy I felt as a child learning about the world with my best friend. With her, I feel safe, loved and fully myself.

How lucky we are to have this summer together, to be safe and to be loved.