Juniper Disco || no. 5

Winter activities for barflies, heated bird pools, + Mr. Barky von Spaniel

"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it." - David W. Orr

I started using this quote as a guiding principle to center my life around at the beginning of the year. Posted at the top of my daily list, it is the first thing I read every morning. I share it with all of you in case you need a reminder that the most important thing we can do is value the qualities we bring to this world, especially if they fit those easily overlooked categories above. It’s a new year, a new decade. Let’s all live well in our places.

2019 was the year I set only one goal: to knock down my ever-growing task list to a reasonable size. I put my head down in January and slowly and steadily finished things that had accumulated during the last few years while I was healing from surgeries and injuries. No longer limited by what my body could do, I got shit done.

2019 was also …

• the year I moved to maintenance mode with my health (just annual checkups! OK, ten of them, but still just maintenance)

• the year I procured the holy grail of referrals and met with a top-notch genetic counselor and two specialists at Dana-Farber who answered all my remaining questions

• the year I learned to enjoy eating vegetables (thanks to my nutritionist’s advice to roast the hell out of them)

• the year I finally changed my name legally (if men changed their names, there is no way it would be this complicated)

• the year I faced my fear of being alone in the woods and made a point of going out there every week to face it again

• the year I learned my way around the Cape by driving up and down route 6A from Ptown to Sandwich on a regular basis, exploring as much as I could

• the year I finally cleaned up my car, replaced that trash can we’ve hated for so long, and switched out our pillows for heavenly puffs of sleep

• the year I developed an organizational system that works for me

• the year I became a real bird nerd and advanced my amateur container gardener knowledge

• the year I reduced our use of paper towels by switching to Swedish dishcloths

• the year I celebrated writing Juniper Disco for a decade and started this newsletter

• the year I started reading poetry every day, something that just sort of happened without intention

• the year I kept a hiking backpack stocked and ready to go at all times

• the year we hosted guests in our home for a total of 68 days

• the year I learned to appreciate every season, even winter

• the year I finally changed the presets in my car and replaced country and Jesus with news and hip hop

• the year I planted native pollinators and used a rain barrel to collect water for my plants

• the year I started volunteering as a peer navigator for FORCE to help other people deal with hereditary cancer risks

• the year I FINALLY finished my Goodreads challenge! (you can see my 2019 reads here AND my just published 2020 reading list here.)

• the year I also read the equivalent of 150 books (!) in online articles according to Pocket

• “Inside The World of Interiors, Condé Nast’s Secret Weapon.” “The World of Interiors has a tiny staff of 13, many of whom have worked there for years, aging happily in place, after arriving in roundabout ways.” 

• “The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving.” “The 1984 World Chess Championship was called off after five months and 48 games because defending champion Anatoly Karpov had lost 22 pounds.”

• “The Artist Couple Making Ceramics on a 19th-Century Farm in France.” “‘When we arrived, it wasn’t in very good condition,’ she says. Nevertheless, the couple, both 84, have now lived and made ceramics here for 50 years.”

• “Tiffany Trump is About to Finish Law School. And She’s Getting a Lot Trumpier.” “The Trumps generally aren’t pet people. But until recently, Tiffany wasn’t much of a Trump.”

• “The Real Story of Black Martha’s Vineyard.” “Racism and prejudice still exists in this country, sometimes more so for successful people who have to be ensconced in all-white environments at work,” he says. “Oak Bluffs gives you a chance to let your guard down.”

The Super Mr. recently came home to find me folding our laundry and sobbing, heartbroken, into our socks. I had just learned that I was going to have to disassemble my beloved bird gymnasium. Forever. My new friend, a male downy woodpecker, would lose his suet snacks. My house finches and Carolina wrens and cardinals and tufted titmice and black-capped chickadees and blue jays would have to move on. The goldfinches hadn’t even gotten their winter yellow brilliance yet. The morning doves — the only birds Stephen barks at — wouldn’t be able to dine safely from the half-toppled tree that formed a haven around the bird gymnasium. And My Ladies, the four female turkeys who came by in the afternoons, would have no reason to visit me anymore. I cried for days.

Turns out bird feeders attract rats. And Provincetown’s rats have proliferated in several hotspots around town after the breakwater flooded. (Climate change is a heartbreaker.) One of my neighbors shared on our community Facebook page that she had been officially instructed by our town to take down her bird feeders. Provincetown is filled with people who do not like to be told what to do. What they do like, however, is to tell you exactly what they think YOU should do. So you can imagine what that exchange was like.

There are few things in life I love as much as I love my birds and, as I get older, I love those things much more deeply. Sometimes it feels like the back nine of life is about losing everything you spent the first half nurturing. It feels very cruel.

However, speaking of things I love, The Super Mr. surprised me this week. He found a solar-powered heated bird fountain — something the birds really need in winter. So instead of a bird gymnasium/rat feeder, we’ll have a bird pool this winter. And if the birds don’t come to me, I guess I’ll just have to go find them.

COOL STUFF

• The Moon List Wheel. A) I love paper wheels like this. So tactile. So analog. So my 2020 theme. B) I love thought-provoking prompts. C) It’s $12.

• Have you heard of the spiral jetty outside of Salt Lake City? It's man-made land art (I could stop there) that has perched at the edge of a lake since 1970.

• The Deep Sea. “ … a stunningly comprehensive interactive deep sea visualization that shows you the creatures whom reside at nearly every depth in the ocean, all the way down to the deepest point ever discovered.” Subtitle: “Those Things You Think Are Lurking Just Below Your Feet in the Ocean Aren’t There. Except Great White Sharks. Those Are Exactly Where You Think They Are.”

• Darth Vader Yule Log. You can spend five full hours watching Vader’s helmet burn. Because that guy was an asshole.

• Are you watching/reading/listening to …? The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian. Star Wars is a very physical viewing experience for me. I clap. A LOT. I cheer. A LOT. I cry. A LOT. This time I almost knocked out The Super Mr. with a sharp elbow at that one point in the movie (if you know me and you saw Rise, you know exactly which moment that was.) Grateful no one was sitting behind me to witness my complete meltdown. And The Mandalorian is fantastic! Baby Yoda is cool and all, but the relationships around which all Star Wars films are built is the real draw for me on this one. // Bye Bye Plastic. A short video featuring DJ duo Blond:ish who started a movement to end the use of single-use plastics (all those water bottles at festivals) in the electronic music industry by 2025. // Humans of Lanzarote. Lately I've been drawn to windswept places, like Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands. This intriguing short video series introduces us to people who live there. The last one profiles a woman who grew up on La Graciosa, a tiny island off the island of Lanzarote, and the special hat everyone wears there. Yes, a special hat!
  
  Five Books. If you are looking for book recommendations that aren’t going to overwhelm you, check out this visually appealing site that asks experts to recommend the five best books in their subject. // Odes to Lithium. I read a lot of poetry this year. This particular collection was stunning: “As a person who experiences bipolar disorder and has been hospitalized because of it, [Shira Erlichman’s] goal was to show the distinctness of each experience on lithium, every angle of the medication, whether it was in the doctor’s office, in letters to her family, or generally in her life as a queer woman.” // Between The World and Me. I finally read this as my last book of 2019. In an interview I listened to, Ta-Nehisi Coates shared his feelings about his book being carried around by white people as a symbol of their wokeness. He was really clear that he didn’t write it for white people and I had that in the back of my mind as I disappeared into his words. It’s only about 150 pages if you want to start your 2020 reading off on a strong note.
  
  Inside Star Wars podcast. Leading up to The Rise of Skywalker, I immersed myself in all things Star Wars. This is such a great story about how the original was made. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a jerk in real life, but also a very smart jerk who negotiated a small percentage of the profits as his compensation.
  
  2019 Tea Dance playlist by DJ Maryalice. Missing summer? You can pretend you’re at Tea Dance with resident DJ Maryalice’s best of summer 2019 playlist. //
  
  The Anjunadeep Edition: Best of 2019. Nine hours of deep house songs from the year. //

  Jessica Pratt’s Quiet Signs. There is something very special about her quiet acoustic-ish ballads and her sprite-like, this-might-be-what-Tinkerbelle-sounds-like-when-she-sings voice. //

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

• January 10. AJ and the Queen (Netflix). “Who’s Diana Ross?” “How dare you.” RuPaul’s Netflix show is bound to be entertaining. // January 12. The premiere of Sanditon (PBS), based on Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel. // January 23. Star Trek: Picard (CBS All Access). My friend, Allen, shared this guide to movies and episodes you should watch before the premiere.

• Winter is here. The Super Mr. gifted me some legit boots for Christmas (if you are short, but not a waif, I highly recommend these!) Take a look at “10 Ways to Enjoy Nature in Winter” if you are looking for some help getting through these tough months. Also, Bay Staters and displaced Harbor Loungers, check out the Outdoor Almanac series on the Audubon site for things happening in the natural world in our state.

Stephen has an alter ego, Mr. Barky von Spaniel, who made quite the appearance over the holidays. Stephen, while he loves visits from His People, also loves his routine, his space, his quiet, his snacks, and his monopoly on his mama.

I’ve been home with him more or less his entire life (even when we first adopted him, I had just given up an office on campus and was going into the office a few days a week for meetings while he went to the most magical doggie day care on the planet.) We have our days pretty set — mornings are chill, we have a Stephen Adventure mid-day, afternoons are chill, The Super Mr. gets home, and then we chill some more.

Watching his behavior change reminded me how important routines are to all of us, especially for us introverts. Mix our days up a bit too much and we all end up a bit barky. Add a few too many people to the mix and we can be downright snarly.

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade, everyone! May the force be with you!