Moodboard

If we simply hide inside our bunkers, evil will continue to advance.

As I stood on a tiny oasis of time between all of my yesterdays and everything that comes next… the most surprising prayer came to me.

From Day One, I wanted to know all the secrets about the homecoming mum tradition. Ask all the why’s, and get all the answers. Until there was nothing left unsaid. No moment unnoticed or underappreciated.

Under my tent I learned what it meant to be a working artist. To watch people walk by without a glance, and to hear personal stories from people who were moved to tears by my work…

Years from now, I’ll look back at photos of me in my Edna Mode glasses and laugh, but I’ll also remember the superpowers I had back in 2024 and marvel at how small they seem by future-me standards. Edna wouldn’t have it any other way, because she never stops creating and never stops believing and never stops evolving into an even more fabulous version of herself.

In his extensive research, Lopez learned that only 50% of people measure high in hope. But he also found that hope can be learned. And that gives me hope.

In 1984, J.L. married my sister Judy. Kindred spirits with tender hearts, J.L. and Judy regularly and quietly performed countless acts of kindness for the people in their lives. J.L. never asked for anything in return, except maybe a Snickers bar or the exchange of funny stories. J.L. excelled at kidding around and teasing the people he loved best.

I’m here to advocate for coasting from time to time. Because coasting isn’t sitting still. It’s forward motion. Effortless progress. Most importantly, coasting can allow you time to rebuild energy so you can start pedaling again. Like the relationship between potential and kinetic energy: within movement there’s potential, and within potential there is movement.

To my surprise, I discovered that being bad at ballroom dancing doesn’t matter. With so few places left in the country to cha-cha-cha, dancers of all kinds and skill levels are welcomed with eager, open arms. Everyone who tries is adorable, and anyone who’s pretty good is amazing. It’s a happy place, that dance floor.

“If I can see you, I can hear you.” If you want it to be, this could be a message to the world. It might also be a fundamental tool for practicing mindfulness. To me, it’s just helping my sweetie and me spend more minutes in the day looking into each other’s eyes.

Chuck did not play on the surface of his work, his photography, his interests, his relationships, or himself. He was the kind of person who dug deep. He’d study and study something until he realized it was impossible to know everything, but it was possible to understand what mattered.

If only I could speak with the world’s greatest authorities on the pandemic, but they just need a little more time to process. They are in grade school right now, living through it.

We’re like a group of kids perched on the side of a swimming pool: some are diving in gracefully, some are still testing the water temperature, others are tip-toeing in one step at a time, and others are taking the cannonball approach: spuh-LASH! There is no one right way to get back in the swim.

This is life. This is family. This is the bad with the good, the anxiety with the anticipation. And after the fact, you can choose what to do with the memories you make from the experiences you had.

Irwin and my Dad were first cousins, and while they saw each other only occasionally because they lived far apart, they had an incredibly strong bond. They laughed just alike, requiring lots of oxygen at first then later handkerchiefs to dry their guffaw-induced tears.

May is nature. May is flavor. May is community. May is new beginnings. Because in May there’s nearly no chance of winter coming back, I will frivolously buy at least one new sundress because I know I’m going to go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. To sum it up, May is grounded in joy.

What are your favorite Springtime traditions? Here’s a new one: on the first day of April, I always buy a bunch of bananas in honor of my Mom.

Simply by paying attention, people start interpreting more things that go their way as being “lucky.” But what if they paid attention to every conspiracy that happens to them? Or curse? Or blessing? Or miracle? In this way, you do make your own reality. If you look for luck, it’s there. So are conspiracies, curses, blessings, or miracles. I say, let’s all look for the good stuff.

What I can grasp, dear Judy, is that in a world of jumpy attention spans and relationships with fine print, you are the real deal and so is your legacy. You can’t manufacture your kind of love nor can you fully measure its impact.

Having resolve is different than making a resolution. A resolution is the stated goal. Resolve is what gets you there. Having resolve, we believe, is the kind of mental state which can lift us up from a year like 2020 to whatever lies ahead.