SUP Boarding

Sunday was a glorious day!! We spent most of the morning and early afternoon up at Horsetooth Reservoir with these two babies. Fun is not a descriptive enough word to describe our time there. Chuck literally said, "Why has it taken us 3 years to come up here and do this?" Horsetooth is known as a favorite local spot for boaters. Chloe has been up there several times with friends. I guess we never thought we could also kayak or paddle board there as well. We weren't able to take photos while on the water, but in the cove we were in there were several groves of trees in the water. We desperately wanted to go back to shore and grab our hammocks and hang them up in the trees while dangling over the water. It was so picturesque.

This is the beauty that surrounded us.

We only rented two paddle boards and each doubled up. These things are expensive! Can't wait till we have our own. Just for the record, it's much more fun to solo board. Come to find out, Chuck and I have different methods of paddling. Going straight is an issue for us. I did not expect to work on our marriage, this of all days, but lucky us...we got to learn better communication.

These people were old pros at paddle boarding. Actually, let me rephrase that. Bennett did a fantastic job taking them all over the lake. Chloe was good at sitting and not rocking the boat.

And then there were the shenanigans. I know this is a horrible picture, but bear with me. Chuck and Bennett (and Chloe a little later on) spent hours trying to knock each other off the board. The hilarity they got from this little activity was contagious. However, during their little escapades, I got to paddle around the cove all by my lonesome and enjoyed every minute of it.

Absolutely can't wait for the next time! Now we just have to figure out how save enough money to buy a couple of these babies of our own so we can come up here every weekend in the summer.

Big Changes

It all started with an idea. What if...?! What if I started a podcast where marginalized people could share their stories? What would that look like? Chuck and I sat around talking about the possibilities until the idea took root and became an actual project. It became my new job. I decided to name the podcast Gramercy. I had just come across this ancient word and loved it. I was hoping I would have the opportunity to use it somehow. The word means: Great Thanks. Isn't that incredible! There's a word that fits how I've lived my whole life - full to the brim of thankfulness. Any post on this blog will attest to that. But the question was, how does this title translate to a podcast?

Well, hold your horses, before we can do anything else we have to come up with a logo or it's not official. At least not in our family. You know the great importance logos hold in our life. Once we nailed down the logo, the rest seemed to just flow. I wanted it to be happy - thus the yellow. I wanted it to just be a "g", not the entire word. I wanted it to be lowercase and a little bit typewriter-ish. And this is what the world's best designer came up with. I know, I'm lucky. Chuck is the best at what he does and he nailed it.

Then he told me I needed to have a website - or at least a landing page, just for now. Again, we brainstormed together. I wrote all the copy, he created the site that put my heart out into the world. You can listen to the trailer here.

Truth be told, I'm scared out of my mind. This is the most vulnerable I've ever been. But despite my fear, my love and motivation to stand up for and be an ally with the marginalized of our society is greater. I can't not do this.

This is the direct result of starting another new venture in life - becoming an ESL teacher. I had no clue how to do that when I started either. Life is like that, sometimes you just have to try and see what happens. Becoming an ESL teacher opened my world and mind and heart up to a whole swath of society I knew nothing about. Now I don't ever want to leave these people. They've made me a better person for having known them. I want to share their stories in an effort to the fight the fear mongering that many would have you believe instead.

The quote that I have taped to my wall helping me make it through this new transition is by Rainer Maria Rilke, "Let everything happen to you, the beauty and the terror, just keep going, no feeling is final." It's beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.

Carpe Diem

Peaceful Protest

*Disclaimer: This post is very political. I understand if you don't read it. I respect the fact that we might not agree. But I cannot stay silent on these matters. Silence is complicity.

This past Friday, Chuck, Bennett, and I had the privilege of protesting police brutality alongside hundreds of others in Old Town Square in Fort Collins. I was moved to tears with the incredible sense of unity, outpouring of support for Black Lives Matter, and the positive effects of peaceful protest.

This is not the first protest/march I've attended. This is actually only my third. Each time I have felt that I am a part of something bigger than myself and it is so empowering and humbling. To be able to stand with others and show solidarity for whatever group of people or cause that needs justice is something I don't take lightly.

I was devastated to my core to hear the stories from those directly affected by the ugliness of police brutality and racism in the very town I live in. I'm so encouraged that peaceful protests are happening in cities all across our country and world. Hopefully, it produces positive change in the systemic injustices that are embedded in our society. At the very least, it has brought about a change in consciousness for white people to the reality of racism that African Americans live with on a daily basis. More white people are becoming enraged, our eyes are opening, we are learning to see the waters we're swimming in. The system can only change if white people stand in unity with black people and work to dismantle our broken, inequitable systems.

Thankfully, the Constitution guarantees the right for us to peacefully protest unjust laws, systems, leaders, organizations. But I also echo the sadness that many have voiced when protestors turned violent. Fighting violence with violence is counter-productive and ineffective. It only serves to prove those in power right (in their minds) and then they are able to justify violence being used on the protestors. Part of me understands where so much of the anger is coming from. If you get more angry that a building is burning or business are looted than you do when the police kill somebody in broad daylight, on camera, then your priorities are out of whack. People are infinitely more important than things. Things are always more complicated than either/or mentality. When children, students, people in general act out, it's usually because of an underlying reason.

Police brutality is not a new thing. It has been a serious problem for years. Now it's turned into the militarization of police. Our police are no longer peace keepers, but law enforcers. I have read and heard too many horror stories. This is more common than we would like to think. Just because it might not be happening to you, doesn't mean it's not happening. And the people it's happening to do DO NOT DESERVE it! I do not want to speak in generalizations. I realize there are many good police out there. But the loyalty of brotherhood in the organization is a dangerous mentality. The good police need to stand up to the bad ones. The excuse floating around is, "it's only one bad apple." But the rest of the saying goes, "one bad apple spoils the bunch." It is apparent that police reform is necessary, but it will be a very hard fought battle. Especially since the police union will fight it every step of the way since they feel justified in their use of deadly force.

I recently listened to a fantastic podcast by Malcolm Gladwell who wrote "David and Goliath." This particular episode dealt with The Troubles in Ireland from 1970 - 2000. It describes how the minority and lower-class Catholics felt when extensive use of unbridled force was used against them. This oppression was coming from the police, military, and Protestant society who felt justified in their actions and righteous indignation. In it he explains The Theory of Legitimacy as how it relates to oppressed groups of people who feel they have no voice in society. He says: "When people of authority want us to behave, it matters first and foremost how they behave. This is called the Principle of Legitimacy. Legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice, that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to b e predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from the other. When the law is applied in the absence of legitimacy it does not produce obedience, it produces the opposite, it leads to backlash." It is good to think on how that aptly applies during our present social upheaval.

Lastly, I can no longer stay silent about the pathetic "Christian" response that so many evangelicals are touting as the answer to all our racism problems: "Jesus is the answer". Really?! To me it's a copout. That is making several inaccurate assumptions: 1) If everybody would just pray, Jesus will miraculously fix it all (doesn't work that way - Jesus works through humans).  2) It assumes that those being affected by racism are 'bad' and somehow not 'good' or the 'good' police wouldn't be after them so much, so the black people need Jesus. (I can't even go there right now - that argument is so twisted. It is a complete 'us' vs. 'them' mentality. What they really mean is 'If you believed like we do, you wouldn't be having these problems.') 3) The police are always good and questioning them is unpatriotic. The nationalist religion that is now being called 'Christianity' has substituted The American Flag, Military, President, and patriotism for the actual message of Jesus. Jesus never aligned himself with power or the powerful. He was always and only for the outcast, underdog, marginalized, the have-nots of society.

It Finally Happened!

 

Chloe was despondent of this day ever arriving. She just knew her life had been ruined. For. Ev. Er! She was nev - ver going to get her license. (Am I imitating the drama well enough? Something I've noticed that teens do now-a-days is add extra syllables to emphasize words and feelings, such as: My finger is thuh - rob - bing!).  

We had to reschedule Chloe's driver's license test 4 times during the coronavirus because the DMV was still closed by time each date that we registered for arrived. We finally managed to work around the system and signed her up to take her road test with a private company instead of the DMV. But even though she passed her road test, she still had to wait 2 weeks before she could go get her actual license.

Funny story...she originally only had to wait one week. But she kept checking to see if she could find a timeslot that opened up at one of the other local DMVs that might be sooner that a week out. We were originally scheduled for a Friday at 8am. She ended up finding one at a different location that was the day before on Thursday at 2pm. She tried to make the switch and then accidentally ended up cancelling both appointments. Then she had to re-schedule, yet again, for the only other available appointment a week later. She learned her lesson - and it was painful.

But now all that waiting and lesson learning is behind us as we revel gleefully in independence. However, actually getting the license wasn't as easy as we hoped it would be either. 

We showed up yesterday morning with all the 43 documents they require. Only Chloe was allowed to go in. All. By. Her. Self. My baby. She had to face down the intimidating bureaucracy of the DMV without the support of her mother by her side. I'm intimidated and I'm an adult (some might debate that). But the new safety laws require only the person with the appointment is allowed to enter the building at the specified time. So I sat in my car twiddling my fingers helplessly.

Finally, she comes walking around the corner and I'm all thumbs up and smiles in the window and she's shaking her head no. Uh oh. At least she's not crying. Yet. I couldn't imagine what went wrong. We triple checked all her documents before going. Unfortunately, we didn't check them closely enough. It turns out, one of the official documents Chuck signed in his given name and the other (that was supposed to verify the first document) was signed in his nickname. They were having none of that. The signatures must match. End of discussion. 

The reason she wasn't crying yet was because they told her she could come right back if she got the documents signed correctly. Thank God Chuck wasn't out of town. We rushed back home and then immediately back to the DMV. They let her back in and the rest is history. She is now a licensed solo driver and it only took two trips to the DMV in the same day and 2 months of waiting.

Funny side note...the first place she drove to was a bar. A Poke Bar. She had already made plans to meet her friend at a Hawaiian Poke Bar for lunch after getting her license. The first place I drove to - the library. Of course I did. She's much more social than I was.