Lisa's Camera

Through my looking glass.

[lisascamera]

MERICA

Happy 250th birthday, America. Hooo, what a shitshow we have going on in this country. I worked at a state historical society in graduate school— in another life I could’ve been planning and working America 250 celebrations this weekend.

Instead, I had yesterday off from my job working in healthcare admin and celebrated my own independence by not making any plans with anyone or anything during the day. I read in the morning, ate lunch, went to the gym because it’s way too hot to exercise outside here now, and practiced and played violin.

I recorded the above video a couple days ago. Two years ago, I found easy sheet music for our national anthem, and learned to play it because my MIL had a gathering for the 4th over at their house and they wanted to hear me play. At the time, it was a little tricky for me to play this— a lot of it is played on the E string, the highest string on the violin. It sounds super squeaky if you’re a beginner. I remember as I practiced this, one time when I finished it, C was in the basement and when I got to the end he yelled, “play ball!” I cracked up. So funny.

It’s a bit bizarre to me that the National Anthem is played at the beginning of all sporting events here. Baseball, it makes sense, because that’s “America’s Past Time.” But it’s also played at the beginning of things like horse races. I’ll never forget one year when I was a Kentucky Derby photographer, I was scrambling to get to my post for the race, at first turn. It’s crowded as fuck on Derby Day and while I had a ton of time to get into place, I felt a sense of urgency. I was walking during the first part of the National Anthem, partially because I wanted to get into place, but partially because I had to walk in front of a ton of people to get to where I needed to be, and I was blocking their view. I was trying to be considerate. Some old codger just starts yelling at me, shaming me for walking during the Anthem. Ugh. Okay, okay. I realize this is a Sacred Moment now, so whatever, I’ll drop everything and shut up during it henceforth and forevermore. It’s silly to worry about “blocking someone’s view.” I’m 5’2.”

Now, when I pulled this music out to see if I still remembered how to play it, I felt mighty conflicted playing it. In many ways, given how America was founded, it’s not surprising at all to see the status we’re in 250 years in. Same as it ever was. A few improvements! I am a woman and I can vote now! And have a checking account in my name. Did you know that women could not have a checking account in their name until 1975?! That’s the year I was born. That’s crazy. Slavery isn’t legal anymore, but the downstream effects of that awful regime are still felt. Same deal with the Native American population.

Most of my ancestors came to the US over 150 years ago. They were mostly German Catholics, and they fled Europe because of religious persecution and to find a better life in the US. My patriarchal ancestors were also German Lutherans and Irish Catholics. My Irish ancestors came to the US because of the Great Famine, which was known as the Potato Famine. We were taught that they starved because the potato crop failed. But it wasn’t just that. It was because the English stole all of the farmable land in Ireland. Tyranny was everywhere. It still is.

It’s not “as bad” as it used to be, or could be. I have the freedom to write something like this and not have the Thought Police show up at my door. At least, not yet. Come at me, bro. Are we heading to that point? I don’t know, man.

I know it was all mostly wealthy white Anglo Saxon men that founded this country. Rebels in fine clothing with connections to money raising their not-so-tiny fists against the tyranny of the English to found this country. The American Mythology is so toxic. Everyone can get their payday, just as long as you pull yourself up by the ‘ol bootstraps. Sure.

But I do respect the rebel spirit. And now, I think the most effective rebellion is to be kind. To try to look out for our neighbors and those who do not have the same advantages and privileges that we have. There are a multitude of small ways we can do this. Can it stave off the collapse of Western civilization? I don’t know. I am an American because my ancestors left their homelands and came here. They all, for the most part, did make better lives for themselves here. I’m a product of their labor and the end of the line. All I have is now, this one life I get to live. And so I do the best I can. I play the National Anthem mostly but not completely in tune. Perfectly imperfect.

[lisascamera]

The Cat Days of Summer

It’s so hot here. I did my due diligence and researched how best to run the air conditioning so as not to break the bank or suck maximum usage out of the power grid. I have the mini split upstairs running “low and slow” and I have blackout curtains on the windows and skylights up there. I hate to cover the skylights in the summer, but doing that helps with the heat enormously. I turned the AC temp up on the unit that cools the rest of the house a bit during the day, during the week, because I spend all day upstairs working. I have my soaker hoses set up in my garden and run them in the morning every few days. I had laundry to do today, so I did that in the morning too.

The heat wave is supposed to break over the weekend. Then there’s going to be a ton of rain. As long as it’s not severe, I’m good with that. It’s a bummer when it’s so hot like this— you can’t enjoy being outside.

So far so good with my garden this year.

My coneflowers bloomed while we were gone. They’re so pretty! I need to photograph them with my good camera to add them to my garden photo collection. My basil is super happy. I need to start cooking with it. A few of my cherry tomatoes are ripening, and I have a cucumber that’s almost ready. My pepper plant is still Not Dead But Not Doing So Great, so I don’t think I’m going to get peppers this year. It’s weird— I had them in copious amounts the first few gardens I planted here, but the past few years— nada. I don’t know how well my large tomatoes are going to fare either. We’ll see.

Poe was excited that I was doing laundry. He loves warm laundry. He’ll come running when I dump it onto the bed and immediately start tunneling into it. It’s pretty cute. Lookit his little beard on his chin. ❤️

It was a good day to get caught up on work. The 4th of July weekend is this weekend, so it’s been pretty quiet.

I have stored my violin in its case under the bed since I started learning. The temperature fluctuates too much upstairs to keep it up there, and the HVAC vents run from the basement up through the closets in the bedrooms downstairs so I can’t keep it in there either. The case for my rental was made out of the same fabric that suitcases are made of, and the cats were all too interested in sitting on it or scratching it, so I couldn’t just leave it out, so I kept it under the bed because I really had no other option. The case for my current violin is an even more tantalizing to Fitz for scratching, so I keep it under the bed as well. Last week, I experimented and evicted some sweaters from my dresser to see if it would fit in there.

It fit perfectly! So now I’m gonna have to find another storage option for those sweaters. This is a much better storage option than under the bed. The temperature is good too. After leaving it in there for a week while we were gone, it was still mostly in tune when I got it out to play yesterday. It’s the little things.

[lisascamera]

C attended his fraternity’s biannual conclave last week in Charlotte, North Carolina and also wanted to visit his cousin, who lives in the Raleigh area, so I went with him and we made a little vacation out of it.

The conclave was at a Marriott next to the UNC Charlotte campus. There were a couple of days when he was busy with sessions and such during the day, so I was on my own.

Some people would not like exploring an unfamiliar place by themselves, but I love it. We took our new car, and I could’ve driven somewhere, but I wanted to walk around and not drive, so I explored the UNC campus and nearby area both days.

The first day, I walked over to the botanical gardens, which are on the campus grounds. They are actual gardens and not a building like some botanical gardens are. I didn’t realize that until I found them. It was hot— not as hot as it is now, but hot enough. I brought workout clothes on the trip and wore those. Walking through the forested areas had a bit of a rainforest vibe. It’s plenty humid down there in the Carolinas. The gardens were lovely.

The UNC Charlotte campus was nice too. I’d never been to Charlotte before, other than catching a connecting flight. It’s an American Airlines hub, and being as you can’t hardly fly direct anywhere from Louisville’s rinkydink airport, I think I’ve flown through there quite a bit. Walking around campus, which was deserted because it’s summer made me wonder what it would’ve been like to have gone to a real college. All the colleges I went to were suitcase colleges/commuter schools. The “student life” was pretty lifeless. UNC Charlotte was sprawling, full of stately red brick buildings.

The second day, I wandered campus again, thinking I’d go back to the botanical gardens, but I saw an inviting walkway which led to another walkway which lead to a paved mixed-use trail. I wished I had my bike. Alas, I did not, so I hoofed it. I’d packed my tennis shoes and my AirPods, so I had a nice ramble. It was so pretty, and I got moving before it got too hot.

After both my walkabouts, I took luxurious showers and lounged in the hotel with my Kindle. I follow the writer Suleika Jaouad on Instagram and I’d never read her memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, so I read that. She and her husband the musician Jon Baptiste made a movie together, American Symphony, and I watched it when it came out. They are two extremely interesting and talented people. Now that I’ve read her memoir, I need to rewatch that movie and get a copy of her other book, The Book of Alchemy, because I know I’ll love it. After I finished Between Two Kingdoms, I started reading another memoir that I’ve had on my list for a while, Violin Dreams by Arnold Steinhardt. Some people might think, “dude you spent part of your vacation reading in your hotel room?” and yup, I did and it was awesome. I don’t often have big chunks of time free to read like that.

In the evenings, we dined with C’s brothers from the fraternity that he’s stayed close with since college, and their wives and family. One night, we all attended the Conclave banquet. I’d never been to an official fraternity event before. The chapter C and his friends belonged to is no more, but there are active chapters at other schools, mostly in the Midwest and surrounding areas. The CEO of the fraternity is gay, and is married. C and I had a delightful brunch with the CEO and his husband when they were in Louisville earlier this year. It’s definitely not an organization for jocks and dudebros. Both the CEO and outgoing president talked about how fraternities help address loneliness and social isolation in the male population, which is something I noticed too, as I’ve listened to C tell me about the programs that they do. It’s a brotherhood for college age men but also for all of these alumni that were there, ranging from recent grads to men C’s age to a few elderly brothers. The notion of community has always been important, but I think it’s especially important now. It’s interesting to be a part of an event like this. Those of us attending as spouses or family had “friend of Sig Tau” on our lanyards.

After the Conclave concluded, we headed over to Goldsboro, NC, to visit with C’s cousin and one of his sons. C’s cousin has ALS, the same condition that his mother died of years ago. We saw C’s cousin and son in Delaware this past February, at C’s uncle’s funeral. His cousin was mostly okay then, and used a cane. When we saw him this time, he was using a walker. He’s still himself, though, could converse and have a meal and a beer with us and his son, who is a stellar young man— a firefighter with a Carolina drawl that is helping his dad out and spends time with him regularly. They said they’re going on a cruise with C’s cousin’s sister and her grown children and her boyfriend’s children next week, I think. That’s really good. For me a Hail Mary bucket list trip would be to Paris, but for this man, a cruise to the Caribbean with his kids and family is that, for sure. In August, C’s flying to with his parents to see these cousins. They were all close when C and the cousins were growing up, and now that both of the cousins’ parents have passed, my in laws are as close to parents as they have. That will be good too.

We started for home yesterday, stopping for the night in Asheville, NC, which was kind of halfway. We left there this morning and got home this afternoon. The cats were very happy to see us.

[bisexualhunterbiden]

Starting a list of things that make me proud to be an American.

1. Big drink

2. Air conditioning

3. Biscuits and gravy

[curliestofcrowns]

country large, many landscapers

wacky characters in history

song about presidents

the night Obama was elected

most of Abraham Lincoln

Matilda Joselyn Gage

tv show The Nanny

[hopefulmisanthrope]

BBQ

Blues music

Sequoias

Water bottle refill stations

Dolly Parton

The Great Lakes (shared glory)

[lisascamera]

Copious amounts of ice available for cool drinks

Bluegrass music & heritage

Air conditioning (especially now)

Five million varieties of everything available everywhere

So much wide open space

[justme--48]

27

[shelbyjoe]

37

[sugarpuss69]

31

[hesbythecampfire]

35

[kangamommynow]

32. Not bad

[justanothermiddleagedchick]

25

[lisascamera]

26

[lisascamera]

The other day I was practicing “The Kesh Jig,” and Fitz kept hanging around, and he jumped on my chair and meowed at me. “Do you like this one,” I asked him. I don’t think it was the violin or the song, he probably just wanted attention. He’s so funny.

The Kesh Jig is one of those spritely Irish fiddle tunes. There are two popular Irish fiddle song types, jigs and reels. Don’t ask me what the difference is. 6/8 rhythm is common. After 2 1/2 years I finally figured out how to count 6/8, but I definitely don’t have that rhythm, or any rhythm embodied. Tutorials I read go on and on about “feeling the pulse.” Okay. That does not come naturally to me at all. But with a peppy Irish tune, yes, yes I can hear the bounce, but OMG I cannot play it. That’s why I didn’t even attempt trying to learn a jig or reel until now.

When I first started learning this one, ooh, it sounded like ass. Now it sounds slightly less like ass, but in order to try to play it with the bounce, I need to memorize it. I realized the other day that I do have the first part memorized. Songs like this are repetitive so memorization isn’t as difficult as it would be for some things. I’m probably going to play this for the fall recital, as a companion for Hallelujah, instead of playing Hallelujah and the Game of Thrones theme. I might still do GoT, but it would be more fun to have one moody piece and one peppy piece. Plus GoT is hard. I don’t know if I could play that one for an audience without screwing it up. We’ll see.

Poor Fitz better buckle in and get ready to hear the Kesh Jig at least 100 more times.

[melbush]

i love finding out what degrees my mutuals have. like what the fuck do you mean you do law? you’re a doctor who blog

[lisascamera]

Lisa’s Camera is also a violin. 📷 🎻 🥰

[lisascamera]

I dream about our old house fairly often. It was a 1910 shotgun that spent most of its early life as a rental and when we sold it, it became a rental again. It’s well taken care of, though. Sometimes I ride by it on one of my bike rides. Once, there was a cat in the window, last weekend, there were little plants in the front window.

The other night, Fitz was curled up next to me in bed. He doesn’t usually sleep near me because Poe likes to sleep on or near me too, and he will bother Fitz because he’s a stinker. Predictably, Poe came along and he settled in right next to Fitz and there was cat peace. It was really sweet. They like each other, but they don’t snuggle next to each other like that.

The weather continues to be pretty decent and my garden is happy. Soon, I will have some cucumbers. My pepper plant is still Not Dead But Not Doing Great, so I don’t know about it, but the tomatoes are doing okay. They have at least another month before they’ll ripen.

Orchestra season starts back July 12. We are playing “World Music,” but don’t know what that will entail yet. I’ve spent all summer thus far drilling myself on flat notes, since we had so many last season and I was completely unfamiliar with them. I also finally cleared a major mental block about reading rhythm in sheet music, so I hope to not get completely schooled by the repertoire. I’m learning a jig too, so it would be great if “World Music” included a tune from the Emerald Isle, but we shall see. I haven’t played anything like a tango or anything middle eastern or Asian or African either, so it’ll be a good learning opportunity. I have serious doubts that I can actually play a tango. I can’t really play a jig either, though!

The levels of learning a piece of music are:

Can you read the notes?

Can you read the rhythm?

Can you play the notes?

Can you play the rhythm?

Can you play the notes in tune?

Can you play the rhythm correctly?

Can you play it at tempo?

Can you play it at the tempo the orchestra is playing it?

Can you play it with feeling?

OMG. It’s a lot. But it’s so nice to be preoccupied with thinking about all of that instead of whatever fresh hell is happening in Washington, DC or World War III or the collapse of Western civilization (which might not be a bad thing, actually, were it not for the fact that chaos would ensue and despots even worse that the ones we have now would take over) or work shit or obligation shit, real or imagined.

When I took up the violin, I had no idea that it would give me something I’ve never really thought I could take up: space. It’s also undoing other things I thought about myself, including that I was not meant for the stage; that I belonged backstage. I got yanked offstage in seventh grade and never even questioned it. I never saw the parallel to my overall life pattern either. Eldest daughter. Helper. Good girl. Honor student. Project manager. I’ve spent my whole life supporting other people. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, I left nothing for myself, thinking I didn’t need it. As long as my family, friends, colleagues, pets, the checkout people at the grocery, my neighbors, the committee, that random bird singing in a tree were happy, I was happy. Right? I’m not saying I’m going to change my entire way of being, but yeah. Maybe I am meant for the stage. And it is my right to get up there and play, unabashed.

I mean that both literally and figuratively. I am who I am and I don’t want to be a soloist or the loudest voice in the room, but I do want to assert influence where I can. And that’s subtler than it seems. I’m learning how to work the system at work to secure my lot as best as I can. I have volunteered to help with fundraising for the music organization I belong to and with sponsorship for our professional development day that the local project management chapter is having this fall. I did not volunteer to do any creative work. I did not volunteer for either of these things because I felt I had to. I did it because I wanted to.

It feels radical to seize agency in your own life, but that’s what I’ve been practicing lately, in addition to violin.

Wild Mountain Thyme

[lisascamera]

It was my dad’s idea to have children. My mom told me the story about how they were having dinner at a local fish restaurant early in their marriage and how he said, “what do you think about kids?” And my mom said, “with you? Yes, I think I’d be okay with that.”

My dad taught me how to ride a bike, but when it came time for me to learn how to drive a car, he offloaded that duty to my mom.

One of my most cherished memories is of him holding the back of my kid’s bike, sans training wheels, as I navigated the sidewalk in front of our suburban bungalow. I remember that once he sensed I had my balance, he let go, and I looked down with amazement as I soared down the green tunnel of my parents’ street all on my own.

I grew up in the 1980s, and until I was 10, my mom stayed home to raise my little sister and me. She entertained us, taught us all of the practical things, kept us in line. We were pretty good kids, but every child gets on their mother’s last freaking nerve at times, and I remember days when Mom had had enough, and scolded us, when my dad came home from work, I’d run into his arms. “Daddy’s home!”

My dad served in the Army before he married, and he and his buddies took a trip to Japan while he was overseas in Korea. He bought a Yashica rangefinder camera and he faithfully photographed our entire childhood with that camera. To the point that when he died, Mom didn’t have a huge amount of photos of him to choose from when I scanned them to make a little digital memorial for him.

My dad was supportive when I decided to go away for grad school. He drove a rental truck full of all of my worldly goods over the mountains to Richmond, Virginia. He listened compassionately to my stories about my uncaring professors and mailed me a set of earplugs to “help me with Dale’s (my MFA thesis advisor) carping.”

When I first started dating C, my mom loved and accepted him right away. My dad was slower. He had to give him the up and down and side to side, tip to tail examination and ruminate on him for a bit. I think he sensed that this was the guy I wanted to be with for keeps, and as a girl dad, he needed to make sure C passed muster. Of course he did.

C and my dad had a lot in common. My dad loved listening to NPR as he got ready for work in the morning. C listens to podcasts on his phone when he gets ready for work. Dad was always there for everyone at his work, and C is the same way. My dad never formally managed a team like C does, but he was everyone’s go to.

Dad and his family enjoyed long, leisurely meals and gatherings, and he instilled that value in C and me. Our favorite thing to do together is to enjoy a round or two of drinks before a meal and then enjoy the meal, after. Mom and Dad had cocktails every night before dinner, and they would always sit at the kitchen table and talk while they had them. Drinking might not be the best habit, but sitting down and talking with your spouse and best friend— giving them your undivided attention— is.

Dad wasn’t perfect. He was of 1/2 Lace Curtain Irish ancestry, and 1/2 taciturn German ancestry. He was born in 1942, so he was part of the Silent Generation, and so they were. Feeling your feelings wasn’t a thing. Anything unpleasant, you just swept that under the rug. That generation’s parents didn’t raise children with much demonstrative affection. Dad’s repressed emotions would sometimes emerge after a cocktail or two, when he’d pound the kitchen table to express a point, or sometimes unleash wrath upon an inanimate object. He rarely got angry at people. He’d sometimes snap at my mom if she interrupted him when he was speaking, and he’d yell at my sister and me to “stop thumping,” because our bedroom was right above the kitchen and our boisterousness interrupted the peace of his cocktail hour. He was also a cultural snob and judgmental at times. I inherited those traits, so I thought that was part of his charm.

In the last years of his life, he was not forthcoming about his physical maladies and decline. Not to us, not to Mom, not even to himself. This was where I was grateful Mom is pretty much an open book, because she told me. I saw him fade. So did C, so did C’s brother. He was five years older than Mom, so I always knew he’d go first. That, and no man in his lineage has lived past 80. Dad was 78 when he passed.

I am so very grateful that the last meaningful conversation I had with him— I think it was in August of 2020 when I took a sack of homegrown tomatoes from my garden over to their house for their anniversary on August 5, all masked up because of the pandemic, and they let me in. We sat in the kitchen and talked, masked. My dad told me about one of his childhood best friend’s children— and he described her as “a force, like you.” Dad would never say outright anything other than I love you, but to hear him acknowledge me like that meant the world to me. And I carry that through these days without him.

They say when your father dies, you look for him everywhere, and that’s true. I look for him in things— music, food, cocktails, the neighborhood where he and I grew up, at Mom’s house, at my house.

But I also look for him in people. If you lose your father, there is this father shaped hole in your heart. I find him in C, who cares for me unconditionally. I find him in my boss at work, who is a dad of 4, and who listened to me last year when I needed to peace out of a toxic project. I find him in my violin teacher, a dad of two and stepdad of two, as he works with me patiently as I try to learn a difficult instrument in my middle age. I find him in my conductor, a dog and cat dad and music dad to over 100 musicians, as he begins our orchestra rehearsals with punny Dad jokes. And I find him in some of you guys, several of you dads and dog and cat dads, as you read and heart my posts. Thank you for listening to me. ❤️

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and for anyone else who’s missing your dad, I understand and I see you. If you’re lucky, and I sure was, there’s no one in the whole wide world that loves you like your daddy did. But those dads live on in us, and in our beloveds and bona fides and that’s something.

[lisascamera]

I was practicing/playing violin earlier and Fitz thought I was taking too long to take a break and give him his wet food dinner, so he took a 💩 in the catbox we have upstairs, which is right outside my studio/ office. Faugh! Okay, okay Fitz. I went downstairs and fed him & Poe and scooped the catboxes and then went to playing.

After I finished, I was sitting in my office chair watching some videos I recorded of myself playing (it’s good practice to do this to analyze yourself and also make future you feel good that you’ve progressed when you watch the video a year or more later) and he jumped onto the back of my chair. “Pay attention to me!!!!” he said. He’s such a Velcro cat.

On this day, 6 years ago, we adopted him. Happy Gotcha Day, you little stinker. Literally! 🐈💩❤️

[lisascamera]

Look at that! They used the photo I took for the sandwiches section in the DoorDash menu. I got paid a whole three bucks for it, which is more than I got paid from some of the freelance photography gigs I did back in the day. This was more fun, because I could help out this local business and also eat the subject of my photo. I definitely recommend subbing onion rings. Mmm.

OLT stands for “Old Louisville Tavern.”

[lisascamera]

Tin for Ten

The organization that the community orchestra I belong to is a part of will celebrate its 10th anniversary this fall. It is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide music lessons and opportunities to anyone who wants them for free. The organization’s headquarters is in downtown New Albany, a little Indiana city just across the Ohio River from where I live in Louisville. The HQ building has classrooms, office space and recording studios. In addition to the orchestra, the organization also includes a choir, a Big Band group and probably some other functions that I don’t know about. I’ve only been involved with them since January. They do all of this on a shoestring budget.

I have been involved with the nonprofit sector for over 25 years. I’ve worked for three nonprofit organizations, I’ve served on a nonprofit board and my husband has spent his whole career in the nonprofit sector and is currently a senior director at the nonprofit where he works.

I had to run two employee giving charitable campaigns at work for eight years as a part of my first full time role at the company where I work. That’s the job that’s most responsible for my creative burnout, but some net positives I took away from that are: extensive knowledge about volunteering in my community and also fundraising experience.

Once I rolled off the arts nonprofit board in 2019, I had a long hiatus not being involved in anything. I quit that charitable campaign job in 2018, rolled off the board, and then the pandemic happened, my dad died the next year in 2021, and I got reorged & demoted in January of 2022 and spent that entire year applying and interviewing for jobs until the clock ran out and I got RIFd in November. Thankfully I got my Hail Mary pass and found a new job at my company that December.

All throughout 2022, though, as I tried to find another job, I also searched for community. Another nonprofit to volunteer for, another board to serve on, maybe somewhere I could teach. I didn’t find anything. I applied to volunteer at a local animal shelter, but they never got back to me. I deliberately did not apply to volunteer at the Humane Society because they required more hours that I could give working full time. I did a couple of Habitat for Humanity builds in 2021-2023, but I was looking for something a bit less hard core physically and something that I could supplement by working on it from home, too. It’s difficult to squeeze in volunteer work when working full time.

I found a few things along the way. I volunteered at the local botanical gardens. They have a very well run volunteer program and the gardens are not far from my house. I started volunteering for an organization that serves the local immigrant community when Trump was reelected. They don’t have regular volunteer opportunities, though— they mostly have quarterly events where they need help getting ready for community resource days or staffing for those actual days. My work gives us 8 hours of volunteer time off each year, and I save those hours for this organization. I helped them this spring and will help them again next month for a back to school event.

My work has revamped its employee giving methods since those dog days of charitable campaigns I ran. Now instead of that, they encourage us to give to organizations that we choose. And they had this back in the day— they offer us an opportunity to give to nonprofits via paycheck deduction. I give to the immigrant organization and our local parks via paycheck deduction.

For me, though, just giving money isn’t enough. I’ve been searching for community through philanthropy as well. Though I love and support the immigrant organization, I am not a part of that community— I’m an ally. That’s important, but I needed something more.

My husband has volunteered for several years for his fraternity, and now he’s on their foundation board. His fraternity is unique— it’s small, scrappy and more diverse than the stereotypical dude bro fraternities. His alumni friends that are a part of it are: a retired solider, an active Guardsman who just made Colonel, a career government worker, and some of the other alums include: a retired math professor from Tennessee who has the best colloquial accent and way of speaking ever, a couple of conspiracy theorists and a retired football player. The CEO of the fraternity is gay and C and I had the most delightful brunch with him and his husband when they were in town recently. Watching him work with this organization, I had FOMO. I wanted something like that too.

When the community music organization sent out an email earlier this year announcing its 10th anniversary and plans to celebrate in the fall, they asked anyone had any ideas about how to help them celebrate to email them. They also sent out their board update, which mentioned a $3K budget shortfall that I noticed happens most months. Though their mission is to provide free lessons and musical opportunities, they do pay their teachers, and also have general operational expenses. I immediately saw that this 10th anniversary could be an opportunity to fundraise to shore up their cash on hand and take care of that monthly budget shortfall. 3K x 12= 30K. (Actually 36, I know, but 30 is more achievable) That’s really not a ton of money in the great grand scheme of things. I sent the director some ideas.

Welp, my ideas earned me an invitation to their board meeting this week, along with another woman who has a lot of fundraising experience like I do. I could’ve Zoomed in, but I went in person because I’d never been to their HQ. Our orchestra rehearses up the highway at a church. I expected to enter a big board room where there were a lot of people there and on Zoom, and I’d even typed up my thoughts because I figured I might have a hard time getting a word in edgewise.

Friends, it was the polar opposite of big boardroom/many stakeholders. I got to the building, which is a cozy old historic building in the heart of downtown New Albany, and was escorted in by the director himself, who is also the conductor of our orchestra, a pianist and piano teacher, composer and who knows what else. He’s polymath for sure. He led me to the tiny room where he, his partner who I recognized because she plays bassoon in our orchestra, and the other lady who does fundraising were sitting. There was a recording booth, a piano and a two screen workstation where the Zoom meeting was pulled up in there with us. “Are you okay with dogs?” he asked. I was like, “yes?” And then I was enthusiastically greeted by Draco, he and his partner’s rescue dog who was a black doodle mutt. I’m not a huge dog person, but I pretend to be when necessary. I didn’t need to pretend with Draco. He was adorable. They said they’d only had him for 3 months, but he was so good. On Zoom, were some of their board members: a young woman who plays harp (!), a woman who didn’t have camera on because she was under the weather, a woman who plays French horn in our orchestra— I recognized her because she’s my friend who invited me to the orchestra’s section mate, and a guy with long gray hair who joined from his porch or a walk around his neighborhood and took like five minutes to get off mute, but was also getting ready to go to New York to play with his band later this month.

Not only did I have plenty of time to get a word in, I had to hush because I didn’t want to be That Guy who yammers on for too long. Me and the other fundraiser put that $30K goal on the table and I put my idea that they should riff on “10,” when asking for donations or designing programming since it was their tenth anniversary. There was a hilarious moment after I said, “you should riff on ten,” where the director looked at me quizzically. “What do you mean?” He’s British, and though he’s lived in the US for a couple decades, he lives in Indiana, not Kentucky, and the organization is based in Indiana. And though Indiana is just across the river from Kentucky, only a 13 minute drive from where I live, the accents are different. I quickly realized he thought I was saying “tin.” Because that’s how “ten” sounds when I say it with my Kentucky accent. LOL. I laughed and said, “ten, as in the number ten. I’m from Kentucky!”

We came up with a plan for the fall celebration and a few other things and are going to do a silent auction. The director sent out minutes from the board meeting, including next steps for the 10th birthday celebration last night and this morning sent out general information about the celebration planning to the organization’s mailing list. I think I have found my community. ❤️

[lisascamera]

There was an opportunity to get a credit for taking a photo of the food I ordered, so I got my Fuji mirrorless camera out & took a photo of my chicken sandwich with a side of onion rings.

[lisascamera]

Here are my backyard lilies, blooming with enthusiasm. We had a storm last night that knocked the ones on the right over, so I tied them to my neighbor’s fence this morning.

They get so top heavy. I bought stakes for them this year, but I think I need even moar stakes, because I’d rather not tie them to the neighbor’s fence, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I have my knockout rose bush bungee clipped to the neighbor’s fence too. That part of the fence is definitely on our property line. The other one might be too, but it was there before we moved in, so whatevs. Not like I would dispute it anyway, you have to coexist with neighbors.

Poor C, that storm woke us up at oh dark thirty because I have a weather radio in the living room and it went off fifty times. It woke me from a dead sleep. There was eventually a tornado warning, so we had to herd the cats into the basement and they were stubborn and squirrely, so that was annoying and I don’t do ass-crack mornings so I was extra crabby. Thankfully the danger passed and I went back to sleep.

I just remembered we have tomorrow off work for Juneteenth. Woot! It’s nice of work to acknowledge that holiday. They had a guest speaker the other week give a webinar about it and I attended it. Wow, I was pretty ignorant about Juneteenth. I had no idea it was about events in Galveston, and I knew Galveston was in Texas, but not where, and I looked on the map where it is, a seaport, so that makes sense that that city played a part in colonization and all the fallout that comes with it. They didn’t teach us any of that in school. Looking back, it’s shameful how whitewashed my history education was. I’ve learned about a lot of other things in addition to the bare bones that they taught us, but admittedly I am more interested in my own historical heritage, so I can tell you all about Tudor history, but only bits and pieces about American Black history. I wish I could say kids these days will get a more realistic and holistic education about it, but alas. Our country clings to its xenophobic and patriarchal roots. Oof.

The thing that resonates with me, personally, the most is how complicated tracking your genealogy is if you are a Black American. As you know, I’m really interested in my own genealogy and genealogy and heritage in general. And in a diversified way- I don’t believe my white Anglo-Saxon ancestors are superior to anyone else. We’re just part of the melting pot of humanity. But I have really enjoyed being able to trace my ancestry back to their origins in Europe. And the fact that so many Black Americans don’t even know who their ancestors are is heartbreaking. DNA testing is a great thing, in my opinion, for circumstances like that, because even if you can’t find your individual ancestors, at least you can get some clues about their motherland.

Life is complicated. History is so biased. Not sure how I strayed from the topic of backyard lilies to American History and All of Its Many Faults, but there you go. I am glad my work acknowledges this holiday and I appreciate having a day off to get a bunch of adulting done.

I appreciate a break from work in general too. My job now is ten thousand times less stressful than any job I’ve had, well, ever, and my sanity benefits. I have more time to reflect on things as I manage a bunch of online things as a part of my job. An online information portal, editing training documents with my copilot, wrangling our portion of the cloud. All very unsexy but necessary tasks that require my particular set of skills, which are not nearly as exotic as Liam Neeson’s skills.

In between the churn, I notice that the workplace is changing. It’s Not Good Bob. But there’s no choice other than to roll with it, unless you have enough money to just peace out. And even then, that money is probably in the stock market, so ugh, let go and let God. There’s no point to panicking, though. Corporations rattle on about “resilience” and “change management” and “agility.” That’s right. Unless you can find some way to roll with all that, the system will chew you up and spit you out. I spent several years around and after the pandemic in a low-grade panic because we got reorgd three times and then I eventually did get RIFd, but I was lucky and found another job at the company. I kept panicking for a little while, but then I turned 50 and stopped giving a fuck. You gotta be laser focused on what matters: relationships, and your own unique knowledge. The latter won’t save you, but it can help render you somewhat indispensable. But it’s always been and always will be who you know. Nothing has ever really been guaranteed in the workforce, but now it really isn’t. And that’s the new world order. So I have learned to practice non attachment and I have always been ready for chaos and the other shoe to drop, but now I really am. I know my number will come up one day. And when it does, I’ll be ready. One positive thing I have noticed— older employees like myself who have good networks always find another opportunity. It’s the people who don’t have networks or who speak too plainly on LinkedIn that have trouble finding the next “opportunity.” You gotta keep it positive over there. I talk about “my career garden” and the local project management chapter on LinkedIn. I don’t talk about how the system is rigged and we’re all sort of or a lot fucked unless you’re part of the 1%. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Rumination and discussing global ruination— that’s what tumblr is for!

[lisascamera]

I saw this on Instagram the other day. A lovely notion. My garden is absolutely bursting with flowers right now. I have hydrangeas in the front garden, and flowering hostas, and in the back, I have a profusion of lilies, my knock out rose bush is going strong, my daisy is blooming, the marigolds are doing well and my coneflowers are getting ready to bloom. The only casualty I’ve had so far is the red coneflower I planted. I think the damn squirrels killed it. I don’t know what color the other coneflower I bought will be.

This evening, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a monarch butterfly flitting around the garden. So pretty. My butterfly bush is doing well too. I didn’t see the monarch on that bush, but nice to know my flowers might have caused it to pay my yard a visit.

Soon, I’ll have to put my soaker hose system to the test. The weather has been pretty decent this week. But Hot Season will be here and here to stay until October. During high summer last year my garden really suffered. I’m going to try to water it more this year.

This afternoon, I snuck out for a bike ride on my lunch break. I almost didn’t, but I get an hour lunch break, I didn’t have any meetings until much later, nothing was on fire, so I suited up and went. That was so nice. I created route that combines two of the lunch time walking routes I do. It’s fun how you can cover so much more ground on a bike. I like to ride around the neighborhood and look at people’s houses and see what they have growing in their gardens. It’s really great that I can do this during lunch.

Truth: I have been slowly, but surely reclaiming some of the time I gave up years ago when I was working myself to death. I used to feel guilty being away from my desk. Not anymore.

The quote above is right. We can’t hold on forever, and the way our society is, you really have to make a concerted effort to stop and smell the proverbial roses. I am trying. Though right now in my garden, you can’t really smell the roses due to the sheer volume of lilies in bloom. They are super fragrant. And beautiful. I’ll have to get some photos of the full plants. They are really happy this year.

[lisascamera]

It’s both a blessing and sometimes also heavy to live in the same town where you grew up. Often, I’ll include some nostalgia into my bike rides.

Today, I set out on my ride, thinking I’d just do my standard route, to the park and around neighborhoods etc…. But as I rode to the park, I thought about how they don’t allow bikes in Cave Hill Cemetery, where a lot of Louisville’s VIPs, and some of my ancestors are buried. I get it, Cave Hill is big and historic and lovely- it’s an arboretum too- and it would probably be full of cyclists all the time if they let us in. However, there’s no such restrictions for the Catholic cemeteries of Louisville. One of them is on one of my well trod routes- it’s where my dad is buried. Every single time I take that route, I pop into the cemetery and pay my respects. I park my bike by the tree in the section where Dad is buried, and I hike down to where his headstone is, and I sit down on the grass for a few minutes. I don’t linger; Dad would not want me to. Last weekend, I did that route.

If you are reading this and are a dad or parent, I hope you have kids that are as sentimental and kooky as me. We will visit your grave, clad in bike gear, and sit for a minute. Trace the letters on your headstone. Acknowledge our love for you. And then get back on the bike for the rest of the ride.

Today when I thought about Cave Hill, I thought, oh, I can alter my standard route slightly and go visit the cemetery where my grandparents and my great aunt and uncle that we were close to growing up are buried. It’s not far from my house. It’s not far from where I grew up, from where my dad grew up, from where his dad grew up, and where his dad’s dad grew up, and from where his dad’s dad’s dad grew up. My paternal ancestors have lived in this neighborhood for over 150 years. So I headed over there. It was mostly a smooth ride save for a stretch on a somewhat busy road where I had to pedal like I had the hounds of hell behind me, telling myself to be freaking careful; I don’t want to end up in the cemetery myself.

Once I entered the cemetery, all was peaceful. Some people think cemeteries are sad or creepy, but I don’t. I love heritage and lineage (and not in a xenophobic way) and ancestry so cemeteries are really interesting to me. The one where my grandparents are buried is lovely. It’s not Cave Hill (Colonel Sanders and Muhammad Ali are buried there), but it’s green, serene… a beautiful final resting place.

My relatives are all buried sort of near each other. My great aunt’s grave is first. She never married, so she is buried by herself. Unfortunately, her plot is kind of in a ditch and the headstone is flat, so it gets covered in dirt, mud and grass from when they mow the lawn. We created a unique headstone for her when she died. Pink granite with a Celtic cross and shamrock— she was part of our Irish Catholic line. We also had two champagne glasses clicking on it because she loved champagne. She would remark about its bubbles in her elder years. This was my Taurus eldest daughter soul sister that travelled the world. I was fortunate to know her. Today, her headstone was covered in grass and mud, so I took a stick and cleaned it off as best I could.

Then I went over to my grandparents’ plot. I have been thinking about them a lot lately because I found a photo of myself playing violin in a talent show with some other kids when I was 10 in my mom’s archives recently. I didn’t remember the talent show, but I was wearing the same dress I was wearing for my 10th birthday, when my grandparents took me out by myself, without my parents or sister, to celebrate my birthday at a restaurant that at the time had a resident violinist. He came over to our table to play happy birthday for me.

After that, I thought I remembered where my great grandparents were buried— my grandmother and great aunt and uncle’s parents. I found them. Anna was my great grandmother and the ring on my finger in the photo is made from the mount that her engagement diamond was in. I had it made into a plain gold band I wear on bike rides and when gardening and sometimes when playing violin. I wear the actual diamond in my engagement ring, which I had made when I inherited the stone from my grandmother when she died. So I have a connection to this ancestor who died years before I was born, before the war, before Dad was born.

After that, I went up the hill to pay respects to my great uncle. This was the only place where I encountered another living soul. There was a jeep going slowly down the road. I don’t know if it was another person looking for ancestors or security maybe. I ignored them and parked my bike at the bottom of the hill where the mausoleum where my great uncle is laid to rest is. They either paid me no mind or wondered what in the heck this person on a bike in bike gear is doing. It’s so much nicer to visit cemeteries on a bike though. You don’t have to worry about your car blocking the road, plus it’s nice to leave less of a carbon footprint, you know? And I love to slowly take in all the names I see, reflecting the melting pot of heritage that we have here.

I left the cemetery and rode past the house my dad grew up in— a Cape Cod his dad had built after the war. When we were kids, we often dined at a nearby restaurant. Every single time we went there, Dad drove past his old house after we ate. Now you know where I get it, this nostalgia.

Dad’s childhood home is looking a bit worse for the wear. It’s a rental property now, and it has an air of shabbiness. He wouldn’t like that. I am glad he’s not here to see it. You can’t go home again.

The middle school I attended is right down the street from where Dad grew up. As I approached the fence around the school property, I saw a gate in the fence that was open. I rode in, bumping over the grass. My middle school is a century building. It’s still an active middle school and is well taken care of and looks mostly the same. On the left side of the front of the building is the porch of the auditorium. Where we were banished to in seventh grade orchestra class. I parked my bike and the foot of the steps and walked up to peer in the window. I was able to see in. It looked exactly the same and the visual in front of me and my memory of that connected. 39 years and several lifetimes later.

Some people move around a lot. You never have the opportunity to retrace the steps a younger you took. But I can do that here all the time. It’s surreal, it’s comforting, it’s complex.

I rode on from there, headed back to my standard route, finished my ride, showered, and played my violin. Right now I am learning a fiddle tune for the online studio’s summer practice challenge, and a jig, the Game of Thrones theme and “Hallelujah,” at my weekly lesson. The other day I played some of the exercises in the book that we used when I was a kid. I found it online and ordered it. It’s the book that was on our music stands in the photo from the talent show. I don’t remember what we played in that book. I paged through it, trying to remember, playing some of it to try to jog my memory. I don’t know. I do know we never got even halfway through the book, though. There are exercises about the low second finger on the A string and playing with the fourth finger (your pinky) and I know I never learned any of that when I was a kid. But I’m learning it now. And the low first finger, and not just the D major scale, but also G major, C major, A major, E flat major. And on and on.

I wished the ghost of myself on that auditorium porch well, as I wished my ancestors well… or at least connected my present day with their legacy. The sound of my breath as I pedaled up hills, the sweat forming at my temples as I biked in the heat. The sound of my Garmin Varia as I moved away from my bike to visit their graves. What would they think of this modern age, my ancestors? I took off my bike gloves to take the photo at my great grandmother’s grave. I set my phone down for a minute on her headstone. A woman in her time would not have had any of what I have— a bike, bike clothes, time to ride for two hours on a Saturday, a smartphone, autonomy. She died when she was 57 years old, 6 years older than I am now. Her life was hard, as were many of the lives of my ancestors. We are all part of this same web of humanity. Legacy, memory, nostalgia… I’m glad I have the time and space to think about these things. It’s important to remember where you came from, and how far you’ve come.

[lisascamera]

Had to photograph the cats while I had a good camera out.

Sweet little faces. 🐈🐈‍⬛❤️