How Will I Be Remembered?

The older I get, the more precious I recognize time is.

I wonder, how will I be remembered?

Will I be remembered as a hothead, quick to anger and quick to pounce?

Will I be remembered as close-minded and stubborn?

Will I be remembered as selfish and self-centered?

Will I be remembered as a woman who could put any man to shame in a cussing battle?

I wonder because I've been all of those things.

My life has been littered with ugly periods.

Periods of self-pity and self-doubt.

Periods of lashing out instead of looking in.

But as I approach 60 years old, I appreciate life so much more, and I am better equipped to understand that I have choices.

I know now that I've always had choices.

I can choose to be miserable, or I can choose to be happy.

I can choose to be a b*tch, or I can choose to be a blessing.

I can choose to see the good in others, or I can nitpick and magnify every perceived fault.

I can choose to see life as a glass half full, or I can choose to see it half empty.

Quoting Oprah, here's what I know for sure.

I know that if I dropped dead today (heaven forbid), I have lived a magnificent life.

Not just because of this marvelous adventure I've been on for the past five years that has taken me around the world, but because of the people I've met along the way, and the family I was blessed to be born in, and the one I was even more bless to have.

I thank God for the little country town of China, Texas where I first learned to live alone in peace.

I thank God for my mother for the wisdom and understanding she imparted, and the wherewithal to finally "get" all of the things she was trying to teach us.

I thank God for my brothers who wrapped me in love and protection, especially Forrest, who has been more of a father to me than our father ever was.

I thank God for the segregated environment where I learned my worth when I was knee-high to a duck so that we when did integrate, it was rooted in my being.

I thank God for the experience of attending an HBCU, where there were thousands of black folks with one goal in mind, to be better so that we could do better.

I thank God for my ex-husband (believe me when I say I never thought I'd be writing these words) for the good times and bad because it was through these experiences that I was forced to grow up.

I thank God for my boys who are now men with families of their own, men that I'm so very proud of.

I thank God for my grandchildren.  What a blessing they are!

I thank God for this time of living and working in a foreign land and how it has opened my eyes and broadened my perspective in unimaginable and extraordinary ways.

So, here's how I hope to be remembered.

I hope that I'll be remembered as someone who loved to learn.

As someone who learned from her mistakes.

As someone who learned to be brave enough to speak her mind, not in anger and retribution, but in love and understanding (I'm still working on this one).

As someone who had faith in God and the goodness of humanity.

As someone who strived to be a blessing, and never a burden.

As someone who appreciated life and the many lessons it teaches us.

I hope that I'll be remembered as the flawed human being I am, always striving to be better.

Say What?

An excerpt from LifeHack - 

Science Explains How Camping For A Week Can Largely Change Your Productivity

When someone starts talking about productivity, and how to be more productive our mind often drifts off. We may think that to become more productive we need to undertake some difficult model of behavior or to adopt habits that we feel will be hard to stick to. However, recent scientific findings have indicated a week of camping can effectively change our sleeping patterns, which in turn can lead to greater alertness and productivity, because early risers are found to be more productive than night owls.

http://www.lifehack.org/405674/science-explains-how-camping-for-a-week-can-largely-change-your-productivity

Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran & Gary Clark Jr. Tribute Stevie Wonder

From BlackAmerciaWeb -

Top 10 Best Musical Tributes Ever



http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/06/22/top-10-best-musical-tributes-ever/

Portable Showers

An excerpt from Upworthy -

He turned a $5,000 truck into a mobile shower that's making a big difference.
JUNE 21, 2016

That's why Austin wants to make it easier for people in his city to get clean using an incredible mobile shower truck.

It's like a food truck, but for showers! Photo by Shower to the People, used with permission.

The brilliant name for his new nonprofit? Shower to the People.

Jake bought an old truck off Craigslist for $5,000, and after a successful GoFundMe campaign and help from a bunch of really smart people, he retrofitted it to house two private shower stalls with sinks and mirrors.

The unit hooks up to fire hydrants and heats the water using an external generator, meaning the truck can travel and provide free, warm showers pretty much anywhere in the city.

According to Austin, St. Louis has plenty of homeless shelters, but the showers are usually only open to official residents.

"Folks will save up what money they can find and try to get a gym membership. Beyond that they'll use public sinks, libraries, the river. Or they'll go into people's backyards to use the hose," he says.

The Shower to the People truck is an awesome, low-cost solution that offers more privacy, more convenience, better-kept facilities, and shower services for 60 people every day.

http://www.upworthy.com/he-turned-a-5000-truck-into-a-mobile-shower-thats-making-a-big-difference?c=upw1

Meet Atlanta's HeaveN Beatbox

My. My. My.

ESPN.  The Body Issue.

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/body/espn-magazine-body-issue?ex_cid=espntw

Broadway for Orlando - What The World Needs Now is Love - Music Video

http://www.broadwayrecords.com/shop/broadway-for-orlando-what-the-world-needs-now-is-love-mp3

Does It Matter?

Excerpts from Atlas  Obscura -

In Indonesia, Non-Binary Gender is a Centuries-Old Idea
Modern Western culture is slowly acknowledging gender fluidity, but "third genders" and other classifications have existed throughout history.
By Jessie Guy-Ryan

This week, an Oregon judge ruled to allow Jamie Shupe, a 52-year-old former Army mechanic, to list themselves as non-binary—that is, neither male nor female on their driver’s license. The ruling is likely the first time that an individual has been allowed to legally identify as non-binary in the United States, and represents part of a growing effort around the world to extend legal recognition to those whose identities fall outside the masculine/feminine gender binary.

~~~~~~~~~

The Bugis are the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are unique in their conception of five distinct gender identities. (Bold is mine). Aside from the cisgender masculinity and femininity that Westerners are broadly familiar with, the Bugis interpretation of gender includes calabai (feminine men), calalai (masculine women) and bissu, which anthropologist Sharyn Graham describes as a “meta-gender” considered to be “a combination of all genders.” In a 2002 article for the International Institute of Asian Studies’ Newsletter, Graham explains the key role bissu play in Bugis culture.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/in-indonesia-nonbinary-gender-is-a-centuriesold-idea

Sacrifices Made in the Name of Science

From Atlas Obscura -

Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, From ‘Caustic’ to ‘Blinding'

One passionate entomologist poetically describes and ranks over 70 species' painful stings.
By Lauren Young

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-colorful-pain-index-of-the-stinging-ants-bees-and-wasps-around-the-world

Yes It Is

Playing Piano on a Glacier

Only in Houston

An excerpt from the New York Times -

50,000 Cans of Beer on the Wall
By MANNY FERNANDEZ

Zoning is an easy subject to grasp in Houston: It doesn’t exist here. Houston is the largest city in the country without zoning laws. The significance of this didn’t sink in until last year, when my son was in kindergarten and he came up with the idea of turning our house into a public library. I’m not quite sure what he envisioned, and whether he wanted bookcases in all our bedrooms or just his, and whether we would be open on Saturdays or just on weekdays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/insider/50000-cans-of-beer-on-the-wall.html?hpw&rref=times-insider&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

8th-Grader Jack Aiello Impersonates Donald Trump In Presidential Graduat...

Yondr pouches help you turn off your phone and tune into life

Watch These NYC Subway Heroes Join Forces To Rescue A Man From The Tracks

Happy Father's Day

To all you dads, young and old.

To all you who are absolutely clueless, and know it, and to the seasoned veterans who have figured it out.

I think fathers have it harder.

Somehow, so much about being a mom is instinctive.

Fatherhood, not so much.

How else do you explain how a man can walk out on his kids, seeing them every blue moon, if then, and be OK with that.

Although it happens with women who walk away from their offspring, but it's rare.

So, for all of you dads who have stuck it out, kudos.

We don't need you to be perfect, we just need you to be there.

Even if you're separated or divorced, you can and should, still be there for your kids.

They need you.

They need to know that no matter what, you've got them.

They need to know they can depend on you.

You see, as much as we moms fill in the blanks and pull up the slack when you're gone, by choice or otherwise, it's no substitute for the real thing.

For those of you who would argue that some people are better off with their fathers out of their lives (those who are abusive, for example), I agree.  Many a mom has run away to escape the horrors in their home, but I'd like to think that this is rare, too.

I choose to believe that most people want to do the right thing.

Most fathers want to be there.

They want to be better.

So for those of you fathers who are there, trying, doing your best to make it work,

Happy Father's Day!

And for those of you who are not . . .

Come on guys, you got this.

Lessons Learned

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

I watched my dad work, and I learned about life
By Ted Gup

I had much to learn. Once I forgot to lower the beam into the steel brace securing the back door, leaving it vulnerable to thieves. Father was not pleased. He explained to me that our “livelihood” depended upon the store and that it was my duty to safeguard it. I had let him down.

But I also remember the Sunday when, on our way to the Stark County Fair, we stopped by the store and discovered that it had been broken into. The drawer to the cash register was emptied and smashed in pieces on the floor, and a rack of suits was gone. Instead of fuming, Father calmly phoned the alarm company and off we went to the fair. We cheered the tractor pulls, sized up the prize bulls and marveled at gargantuan pumpkins — but not another word was spoken of the break-in. A few days later my father took out an ad in the local paper, The Repository, offering the robbers free alterations for anything that didn’t fit and a standing invitation to return as paying customers. From that I learned that what really counted lay beyond the reach of thieves. And, yes, that humor could be found in unexpected places.

I liked working in the back of the store. My father made sure the bathroom detail fell to me. It was a message intended not only for me but also for everyone in the store who watched to see how the boss’s son would be treated. With brush and Comet, I proudly scrubbed away the stains until the bowl and sink gleamed. I broke up boxes and piled them high in the back alley for removal. I wielded a wide broom around and under the tailor’s shop and steam press, sweeping up fallen razor blades, bits of chalk, bobbins, severed cuffs, orphaned threads and discarded plastic coffee cups. It was also my chance to talk with the tailor, Remo, an Italian who always drove a new Riviera, and to steal a glimpse of his wall calendar that featured pin-ups. My father respected him and the hours he put in. Remo, my father explained, was an “immigrant,” a word he uttered as if it were a title of nobility and a synonym for sacrifice.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-i-learned-from-watching-my-dad-at-work/2016/06/17/455c2dcc-3308-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_bz-gup454pm_1-duplicate%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

This is Why

Excerpts from The Undefeated - H/T Ben

O.J. was the lesser of two evils
‘I was rooting much more against the LAPD than for Simpson.’ By Michael Wilbon

Now, as then, white friends and colleagues reacted with horror when they perceived we were “rooting for O.J.”

Why are you rooting for him to escape the police?

Why are you cheering his acquittal when there was so much evidence against him?

Why? Because there has been overwhelming evidence against white murderers and rapists for 400 years. and when black victims got no justice, there was usually zero national outrage. To quote Malcolm X, perhaps the chickens had come home to roost. Turnabout brought some teeny-tiny measure of a sense of universal justice, if not justice in our legal system. For every O.J. Simpson (and there seemed to be only one) there were thousands of Byron De La Beckwiths littering American history, as if the evidence against him wasn’t overwhelming after he murdered Medgar Evers and nonetheless walked for three decades.

~~~~~~~~~~

What Made in America has done, in my case, is hardened my original positions. It has nothing to do with whether I believe Simpson committed the murders (I do). But the fact that Clark arrogantly presumed that she would connect with black female jurors – as if she was Oprah – only to find out the black female jurors hated her. The fact that she and Bill Hodgman are still essentially lamenting on camera that they were unable to rig an all-or mostly-white jury enables anybody who looks closely to see their true colors. Clark isn’t as loathsome as Fuhrman, who is nearly as dangerous now as he was then. He proclaims on camera “They found a flaw in me,” as if his racist policing was merely a flaw.

http://theundefeated.com/features/o-j-was-the-lesser-of-two-evils/

Resilient Kids Read Father's Day Cards To Their Incarcerated Dads

I've Learned, Part 2

On most days, I choose not to give unsolicited advice, always remembering my Mom's words, "The folks who give you advice don't pay for your mistakes."

Having said that, I'm going to add to a previous post and share more things I've learned along the way.

Here goes.

I've learned . . .

To love myself.

I can choose to hate myself or embrace myself.  I choose to embrace me.  Love me. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that validates me, reminding me that I matter, just the way I am.

I've learned . . .

You're never too old for adventure.

I've learned . . .

It's never wrong to do right.

I've learned . . .

To listen to the dissenting voices, then make a decision.

I've learned . . .

That being happy for others doesn't diminish my happiness, but adds to it.

I've learned . . .

That the easiest thing in the world is just being me.  The struggle came when I tried to be someone else.

I've learned . . .

To bloom where I'm planted.  No matter how rich or how barren the land.

I've learned . . .

The value of reflection.  What worked?  What didn't?  What could I do differently? How could I have helped more?

I've learned . . .

The value of learning.  Of surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me.

I've learned . . .

That food tastes better when it's shared with others.

I've learned . . .

That before you can love someone else, you have to love yourself.

I've learned . . .

Not to make someone a priority in your life, when you're only an option in their's.

I've learned . . .

That some people are destined to be in your life forever, and some are just passing through, and either way, it's OK.

I've learned . . .

To own my mistakes.  To learn from them and move on.

I've learned . . .

How little I know.