These days I’m using my growing energy levels—hooray for being off Prednisone!—to actively improve my health, strength, and flexibility, both physical and mental.
My Discardian practice of late is equal parts letting go and upgrading. I’m paring away what I no longer need to or care to have on my list, and leaning into creative efforts that match my current activities and interests.
So, an appreciative waving of a handkerchief to cocktail writing and nerdery as that ship sails off, and then turning with delight to join friends for storytelling and adventure in our D&D games.
The oldest posts here can also slip away across the sea of time. Here on the departing boat is a baby, me, determinedly sucking a thumb as someone out of frame holds the other hand, apparently trying with limited success to get a spoon of food in my mouth. In the background, a chalkboard with a cartoon, evidence of the wit and creativity of my young mother. Forward slightly and a round-faced toddler, able to sit up and crawl, enjoys a blanket on a lawn in the sunshine. Child-me is wearing a little blue dress and has a white fluffy bunny stuffed animal. Probably Easter, because my mother is sitting on the grass in a little Chanel-style suit in a pale pink I cannot imagine her wearing today. White pointed shoes. Knees held tight together because the skirt stops 2 or 3 inches above them. The controlled femininity of the 1960s, tempered by the freedom to get down on the ground with her little one.
Hard to feel the last image on this page recede out of the public eye, to fade into the normal obscurity of old family photos, rarely stumbled upon. Toddler Dinah gazes up happy, excited, at my beloved grandfather Bob, seen in profile with the corners of his eyes crinkled looking down at me. So often I wish I could show him something I just found online. He would have been made as sad as any of us by the inequality and polarization of these times, but oh how he would have adored the myriad devices and the ascendence of nerdery. Just the other day, as Joe chortled over the sub-reddit “What is that thing?” I wanted so much to show it to him.
And so, there it is. The good parts don’t actually go that far away. What I enjoyed about him, what he enjoyed and we loved to share with him, those live on into the century he didn’t get to travel in with us.
The handkerchief I’m waving belonged to him.
MetaGrrrl 