The first time I saw this commercial, I wanted to know what was next. Who is the wife? How do they meet? Was that a restaurant he was going into? What did he eat? 😋
Since Back to the Future day is now behind us, I’ve been thinking about time travel this week and was reminded of this ad. I can’t be the only one who was intrigued by this commercial. Wonder if there will be a follow-up?
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Image: YouTube
Last week I found a new favorite podcast, Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m of big fan of hers in general and loved Eat, Pray, Love.
Her new book, Big Magic, is being added to my ever growing and impossibly long list of books to read.
Brene Brown is another favorite author. On this podcast from about a month ago, Gilbert interviewed Brown about her new book, Rising Strong. Also being added to the list!
The conversation was fascinating. When they were talking about creativity, they spoke about something that I believe very deeply. We are all creative. No exceptions. The issue is whether you are using your creativity or not.
In my life, I found that it felt stifling and self-harming to ignore my creative side. That is one of the reasons why I started blogging. Brown said, that unused creativity is not benign.
So much of the violence, turmoil and disease that exists in the world today could probably be at least somewhat alleviated if everyone took this to heart.
What creative thing have you done today? There’s still time to figure it out. If we truly want to be well, we must. Unused creativity is not benign…
My favorite Starbucks Reward is my free birthday drink.
Outside of that, I can’t be bothered with how many stars I’m going to earn for buying this or that.
I really like pumpkin spice. Since the weather was quite warm on the day I decided to get my drink, I enjoyed an iced pumpkin spice latte with soy milk. It was heavenly.
I’ve written about how it is so strange to me that the seasonal conversation about pumpkin spice centers around it being a thing for white people.
A recent blog post about pumpkin spice on Black Girl Dangerous gets to the heart of matter about how this conversation has seriously twisted the truth. It really makes me think about how for many years, as a person of color, I was made to feel strange for enjoying pumpkin spice.
The writer of the post, Sasanka Jinadasa, a Sri Lankan American, gives us a short history of the ingredients that make up pumpkin spice: cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice.
Below is a taste of her post, but I hope that you’ll click over and read the entire thing and learn why she wants to #decolonizepumpkinspice.
Sri Lankans are proud of their cinnamon, a natural crop with a violent history, in which Portuguese traders, Dutch “allies,” and British colonists used a combination of guns and debt to monopolize the cinnamon trade in my parents’ homeland. …
The same culprits (Portuguese, Dutch, British) monopolized South and Southeast Asian nutmeg through the spice trade. The same thing happened to ginger. …
As for pumpkin? A squash native to the Americas? Who do you think grew that first, the Pilgrims? Think just a little further back. …
It’s not pumpkin or pumpkin spice that’s the problem; it’s the commodification of our resources as somehow exotic when used in non-white foods and comfort when used in white foods. And when we mock certain foods as “white foods,” particularly in America, we’re capitulating to a lie—the lie that anything we eat in the diaspora isn’t touched and flavored by people of color.
Some topics you hope to never need to know too much about. They are difficult and sad. Most of us are juggling very busy lives in the best of times.
But bad luck, accidents, political upheaval, war and disease can burst in without a warning and disrupt what order and peace we may have been able to achieve. So many bad things can happen that I still feel blessed and thankful to have led a relatively easy and comfortable life.
But this past winter, amid work chaos and struggling to get around in the snow, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It has been a very difficult adjustment for me and my family. We continue to adjust and adapt.
It’s a process and a journey. Definitely not one that any of us would have chosen or predicted. Especially since my brother, my only sibling, has developmental delay and other physical issues.
There is not a lot of solace with this illness. Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease. I’ve struggled to learn how to continue communicating with my Dad. I feel helpless and lost sometimes.
He is in very early stages and still knows who I am and is sometimes very much himself. Except for not really. We can’t talk quite the same way we used to and I have to be careful to try and not upset him.
I was looking for books to read and found Inside Alzheimer’s by Nancy Pearce. It is a beautifully written, inspiring and uplifting book. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for answers about dealing with a loved one who has dementia. The tagline of the book is How to Hear and Honor Connections with a Person who has Dementia. Below is an excerpt from her website.
There is a person inside Alzheimer’s and any of the other dementias—a person, just like the rest of us. The person, no matter how progressed the dementia, maintains the ability to feel the joy and satisfaction that comes from being in the rhythm of human connection with others. The disease does, however, diminish that person’s ability to reach out in familiar ways which poses challenges for those of us who want to stay connected.
For over 25 years, I interacted with persons who have dementia and paid attention—looking hard at each interaction for the ways in which she (or he) had been affected by me, by others, and by the world even as she progressed through the disease. Each person guided me during all of the connections and disconnections toward understanding that connection is not so much about knowing what to do or say as it is about learning the ways in which we can “be with” the person in her world so that we can allow her strengths to emerge. Being in the moment and engaging the person with dementia in her world offers constant surprises and gifts of wisdom, insight and compassion—each of us moves beyond isolation and hopelessness; each of us empowered to move forward, to grow.
When I started reading this book I thought I would feel even worse than I already did, but more informed. Instead, I felt uplifted and confident that there would still be some good times ahead. I really needed to believe this, because I didn’t know how to cope otherwise.
The author writes about interactions that she has had over the years working with Alzheimer’s patients. She showed a lot of humor and joy along with the difficulty. I so needed to hear this.
Since my father’s diagnosis, we still have many good times together. He still has his deep intelligence, sharp wit and love of good food. Sometimes I feel like he is even more open and loving towards me and my brother now than before. Like a barrier has come down.
The future scares me, so I try not to dwell on it and focus on the good that exists now. The present really is a gift.
