Country Road, Take Me Home, To The Place I Belong... On The Road Again

Antietam/this week

Not a single filter has been applied to any of these photos.

Country road, take me home, to the place I belong.

I did not grow up listening to country music.  In fact, my parents both did not like country music, and that is putting it politely.  I don't know why I like country music against the odds; it is something that is all mine.  

Sure, I have lived and traveled around this country and have seen sea to shining sea, but if it comes to the options of a sunny beach vacation or a mountain retreat, I'll be coming around the mountain when I come.  The vast spaces, the earth sounds of a forest, the sound of wind moving through ancient, historic, or untouched parts of the land, and the musical instruments that echo these sentiments all feel like home to me.

When I start feeling stir crazy, and/or the hustle and bustle all becomes too much for me, I find myself fleeing to vast spaces, Dolly Parton and friends blasting.  There's something about the experience of a long drive on an open road surrounded by vastness that heals me.  And Dolly certainly grew up with these same teachers of music and sound.

New Paltz, NY/October '18

Perhaps it is the type of company I keep, but I find that most of the people I know have some sort of desire to travel.  Wanderlust has been my constant companion, but sometimes I think it is more than that.  In fact, earlier this week I wasn't feeling well at work and the people who sit around me were all chatting the afternoon away, so I finished my work and left a little early and headed to the open road for some consolation.  On this drive is when I started thinking about all of this.

Stonington, CT/Thanksgiving '18

As you probably know if you follow me on social media, I am often taking small trips all around.  This winter, I've been to Connecticut, San Diego, Colorado, Arizona, and Los Angeles.  It can oftentimes feel hectic with one thing right after the other; the days are long and the months are short.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO/December '18

Inevitably, things eventually settle down, and I stay put for a few months.  Most people experience post-vacation blues, but I often think that it is something deeper with me.  A sinking depression sinks in, and I find myself having the symptoms of going stir-crazy without realizing the cause of it.  I'll get truly depressed and apathetic, and won't know why I am feeling this way.  

It happens every year, and you'd think that I'd see it coming and find a way to stop the train before it reaches the station.

Oatman, AZ/December '18

But I don't stop the train in time, and then I find myself pounding on the door of an unlocked cage.  It won't be long until I find myself driving on 70-West waiting for The Road and The Mountains and Dolly Parton to tell me where the car is headed.

North East, MD/late summer '18

It helps me to think of what a gift waking up in the morning is.  Some people never leave their house and are perfectly content; some people never leave their house because they can't.  

The things I have seen with my own eyeballs in my not-exactly-short life so far are things some people can only dream of.  Even the mundane days of driving to work (45 minutes on 695 each way), or the days working at the cat shelter or one of my many other volunteer jobs, these days are all gifts.  

San Diego, CA/November '18

Sometimes I lose focus of the grand picture, and upon realizing this, I will find myself marching to my car to find a vast space upon which to set my gaze.  

To be perfectly honest, I think my subconscious is the one grabbing the keys and marching me to the car, knowing that there is a lesson that needs to be learned and that I subconsciously know where to find it, in the absence of actual travel.

Glen Burnie, MD/this week

I spend most of my days/months/years feeling lost for some reason, and sometimes it takes wandering off to get found again.  It doesn't help the blues, but it does help me get my perspective back in place.

Let's do a road trip with this blasting, y'all:

It is Yes and Amen.

Send me funny memes please thanks.

WALK MS 2019!!!

Hello! 

It’s that time of year again to start planning Walk MS 2019!  This year's walk in Annapolis is Sunday, April 14th, so put a big circle on your calendar and block out the dates in your virtual calendars! 

Last year, I came out from hiding to share that I was diagnosed with MS and have been on treatments which are pretty hellish. CLICK HERE TO READ THAT POST. I had a very, very long time to think about the messaging around how to tell you all about my MS Journey, and I am really proud of how it all went. 

I started a team for Walk MS at the same time as I released the secret to you, and I set a VERY lofty goal for my team – to raise $1,000 for the walk.  I thought, “If 20 of my friends and family each donate $50, that is A LOT of money.”  I planned on being able to support giving out 20 gifts to friends and family who donated, considering that $50 is a LOT of money to me, and I assume it is a lot of money to you, too.  If I am giving $50 away, it is gonna be because of something important.

I couldn’t have prepared for how generous you all were. 

With the combination of the sheer generosity of my friends, family, and even my colleagues, and my company matching cash donations handed to me, do you know that we raised OVER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS??????   

We raised $3,010, to be exact.  

I literally can’t even THINK about this without starting to cry.  It has taken me 2 days to write this note because I keep needing to walk away for a while.  I was, am, have been completely overwhelmed by the generosity shown.  You took a stand.  You didn’t participate in “slacktivism,” (Slacktivism (slactivism or slackervism, a portmanteau of slacker and activism) is a pejorative term for "feel-good" measures in support of an issue or social cause. Slacktivism is showing support for a cause with the main purpose of boosting the egos of participants in the movement. The action may have little effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed.)…  you did something tangible – you worked at least part or maybe a full day’s wages just to hand that cash over to a cause that is important to ME.  My cup runeth over, and I will never, ever, ever, ever forget that first MS walk as Team Veronica’s Friends & Family.

Here are some photos from last year's walk:

Look at my beautiful team.  I do feel like some folks are missing from this photo because they came a little later.

I was the keynote speaker for the walk in 2018!  I told my story of my journey with MS, and how I came to my first Walk MS the year prior.

Thank you to Jen and her family, who made the whole schlep, and the kids didn't complain at all!

CJ & Joy!

It was an absolutely chilling 34 degrees, and after walking that far, I can never feel my legs afterwards, but my team walked with me, dragging kids and strollers, and they SHOWED UP that day... more than just physically. 

Everyone who donated $50 got a team tee shirt, and when you donate over $100, the MS Society gives you a tee shirt.  I also made a beautiful bracelet for everyone who donated, and TBH I wanted to keep every single bracelet.

Money, money, money... must be funny... in a rich man's world...

It is hard to pry my hard-earned cash out of my hands, and so I am very careful with where I toss charity money.  I love charities like The Gary Sinise Foundation (click to be directed) and organizations where you can actually SEE where your money is going.  I am not alone in this – I hear it a lot.  So… I want to tell you where the money you gave and continue to give is going.

Where your money went in 2018:

The National MS Society provides resources to those affected with the disease for education, support, and research.  What that looks like in real life, in Veronica’s actual world:

EDUCATION

There are many opportunities to attend seminars and even an annual retreat where I can go and learn what resources are available to me and anyone who is a bit more progressed in their disease than I am, such as wheelchairs and different kinds of access help, as well as ideas about what special nutrition needs I should be considering.  When I was brand new (and scared) to the disease, most of what I learned about what I am going to go through came from content/pamphlets/websites run by the National MS Society.  This experience needs to stay exactly the same and better for the next Veronicas that come through.

SUPPORT

This is the biggest one, I think.  In addition to virtual assistance, like support rooms, webinars, and hotlines, the National MS Society helps to host support groups to people all over the dang place.  I attend one support group pretty regularly – it meets the first Sunday of each month, and there is usually a guest speaker there to educate us (it is open to MS patients and family and anyone else who wants to join.)  We learn all sorts of things, from physical therapy ideas to medical marijuana details.  It’s also a good thing to just be around people with similar boo-boos so that you can point at your boo-boos to each other and everyone can nod in solidarity. 

RESEARCH

I got an email and also a USPS mailer about this upcoming seminar taking place at a hotel near me.  Click here for the details for MS Breakthroughs – learning about breakthroughs for people affected by MS, what’s in store for the year ahead and enjoy a research update from a keynote speaker.  

It’s dinner and then the program. I was really excited about this, so I went online to register myself and my mother and Sue, and I had my credit card out, all ready to pay for the registration for the three of us, and guess what…. IT IS FREE.  I stared at the screen because I thought it was a mistake.  And then, in that same moment, I thought of each of you who contributed last year.  THIS is where your money goes.  Important things like this.  I am not a rich person, but I am also not struggling terribly.  I am very fortunate.  There are many, many patients with MS who have no job and can barely cover their medication who would not be able to attend such an event if there was a cost.  This type of cost-free opportunity gives EVERYONE affected by the disease an equal chance at understanding their disease and the research around it.

So there – that is where your money went in 2018! 

TO JOIN THIS YEAR'S WALK WITH ME, please register for the Annapolis date using my page: CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY TEAM PAGE 
And when you are joining a team, find "Veronica's friends & family." 

If you cannot walk, but still just want to make a donation, my friend found this part a little confusing, so I wanted to give you this screenshot.  Go to my page, click "Donate" at the top, and the next screen will look like this, and you can tell whether you have my team info in there:

Thank you all for being a friend.

Yin and Yang (Graphic. You've been warned.)

Yin and Yang describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

***

I used to work with a lady named Alice.  Alice appropriately chose a career in HR.  She just loved people and accepted them at their word.  I have never truly met anyone like her.  I shared a lot of my day-to-day life stories with her, and it amazed me how she would react sometimes.  

For example, one of our friends told me that she was going to get married.  I had serious concerns about the guy, whom I had only met a couple of times, and those couple of encounters left me a bit puzzled and concerned.  But, when I told Alice that our friend was getting married, before a single beat passed, she was screaming in excitement, saying, "How WONDERFUL!!! Oh how fantastic!!" Where my reaction was hesitancy and cautiousness, and yes, even some cynicism, Alice opened her arms widely to this celebration of someone else's happiness.  She didn't need to understand it, she just needed to celebrate it.  She is a truly wonderful friend.

True, Alice may have a snug-fitting, well-worn pair of rose-tinted glasses on, but I've seen her get serious when needed.  To be honest, it is people like Alice who surprise me and catch me off guard.  Of the several types of personalities people have, ranging from perpetual cynics to oblivious young souls, Alice was something else; she was electively, radiantly joyous.  I believe that Alice chose - demanded - to be contagiously joyous in spite of her surroundings.

When something a bit awful happened, from passing aggressive junkies in the street (we worked downtown Baltimore in a sometimes-sketchy area), to learning about her children being bullied at school... you cannot break this woman.  She whisks away the negative with the ease of a professional matador, and she hails and celebrates the positive like a trumpeting herald. 

I'll tell you why these types of people are precious.

I tend to end up in situations that others would not consider normal, but to me, they do seem to happen quite often.  I am going to share something with you that I have not told many people.  It has been a couple of years since this incident, and it has stuck with me.  In fact, I am often haunted by many stories like this which lurk around in my mind like tigers in the night.  

It was towards the end of a regular work day at my office downtown Baltimore when I decided to run downstairs to the Starbucks to grab a pick-me-up coffee.  This particular Starbucks is a Tier A location, meaning that there basically is not an hour of the business day that the place is not SLAMMED with customers.   

I ordered my drink, and then grabbed a seat at the long table, sitting next to some other customers, including a VERY GOOD LOOKING (there, I went on record with it) young man who was just there chilling with his coffee and reading a book.  I vaguely remember making small-talk with him, something about how he is in the military and in town for work...eh, that is all I remember, because what happened next paused the world.

This horrible screaming started coming from the bathroom area, towards the back of the store where we were sitting.  It was a man's high-pitched screaming.  My first reaction was that someone had slipped on the wet floor and fallen, since all I could see were legs on the ground behind the wall, and because the people around that area were not panicked.  I checked to make sure that the Starbucks associates were calling 911, which they were, and then started walking over there.  The Guy I Was Sitting Next To came with me.

It took me a beat to understand what I was looking at.  He had not fallen.  This mid-50s man was being attacked by a young-20s kid.  When we realized this, we started running, and Guy and I stepped between them.  

Can we pause the story here for a second so that I can highlight the above mention that no one was panicked, that no one else was helping?  There was a crowd of people, and in this fight-or-flight situation, everyone else flew.  Is it because they are so calloused because of our society, they figured it would sort itself out?  Were they really just scared and so they ran?  This is one of the things that haunts me. 

So, Guy had the Kid, and I had the older Gentleman.  It was hard to get him to stop sobbing, and his face was very jacked up, and his English was poor.  I am showing you these pictures because it has been a few years since this happened, and because I want to be clear about this imagery.

He started telling me that he has no idea why this is happening.  Why is he being attacked?  Why?  He was just waiting to use the mens room!!

I tell him to sit at the table, just sit and take a breath.

I go to the kid and listen in on what he is telling Guy.  I pick up on that Kid thinks that Gentleman has stolen his cell phone, and so he was beating the tar out of him to get it back.

I go back to Gentleman and ask if he stole Kid's cell phone, and Gentleman is completely confused.  What?  No.  My phone is in my pocket.  Here it is.   It is a black iPhone.  He puts the iPhone on the table.

I go to Kid and say, Gentleman is saying that is his iPhone.  Kid looks at the phone and says that is Kid's phone.  

Guy says, "Okay, well, why don't we call your cell phone number, to prove it?"  Everyone likes this plan.  I look at Guy and he kind of shoots me a look, which I know to mean that I have to do it because his phone is owned by the government and this could get ugly.  I dial the number, and guess what happens?

Kid's cell phone starts ringing... from within his very own pocket.  

Yep, they had the same exact cell phone.  Kid saw Gentleman's cell phone, and assumed that he had stolen it.

Kid kind of chuckles, knowing that he has just made a huge mistake, and he starts bolting for the door.

I start chasing him, taking his photo and telling him to pose for the camera.  We hear the sirens coming.

He ran away.  And that was it.

The medics and police arrive, and they start talking to Gentleman, getting his report, fixing his broken nose.  He has no health insurance, he is visiting from Haiti or somewhere.  He is supposed to go home next week.  He just bought these brand new eyeglasses with the last of his money.  What is he supposed to do now?

I take his eyeglasses while he is talking to police, and I bring them to my desk upstairs, and I clean the blood off of them, and use my little eyeglasses kit and some superglue to fix them the best I can.  They looked somewhat presentable.  I rush them back downstairs.  Gentleman is very grateful and laughs, swears they look like new.  I know that they don't... they are scarred.  We all are.

I was so sad for this man.  I still am.  All I could do is sit there with him, letting him be in the moment, letting him be sad and take all the time he needs, holding his hand as he cried, as he was so confused and lost and hurt.  

By the time we parted, we were joking with the paramedics, and everyone had a smile on.  The paramedics made sure to stick around for a little while, just to be in good spirits with us all, to communicate to this man that not ALL of Baltimore is a piece of trash; not everyone here is a terrible piece of scum.  I remember these moments very clearly.  The setting sun, the twinkle-light covered trees we sat under, the holiday shoppers going about their business, and people ice skating and having fun across the street. 

I had tons of photos and that kid's cell phone number that I was able to call into the police the next day.  I am not sure what ever came of it.  Probably nothing.

One thing that sticks out to me to this day is that, unlike that man, I never was truly surprised at the situation.  He was SO devastated, so shocked, so saddened that in an entire room of people, he was beaten to a near pulp, and 95% of the people in that room didn't say boo about it, didn't stop the beating, and went about their normal business. 

I could see it in his eyes, as they swept the room, that he could not actually believe that this was happening to him.  I wonder how a similar room would have reacted if this had occurred in his home town, wherever that is? And this was his learning experience with America? I am not surprised by it; I am exposed to this sort of atrociousness enough to consider it run-of-the-mill. What does that say about me?  What does that say about me???

So, I need people like Alice to help to bring some sort of balance to my life experience.  I need her because I am desperate to see that things are also being healed and celebrated, instead of only being destroyed. 

Thank you, sincerely, to the bright lights out there.  Thank you to those who are electively happy - not out of oblivion, ignorance, cowardice, or naivete, but out of sheer determination.  You help me keep my head above water, when all I see around me are bunch of perceived sinking ships, and all I hear are people screaming that the ship I am standing in is sinking.

Let's keep trying to bind ourselves together in a pact/life-ring of elected optimism.

Send me funny memes.

💓

Good Ol' Favorite Things

Good ol' favorite things

I wish I saved more of my dance costumes.  

The good news is that I remember most of my dance moves.  😃

Do you have some "favorite things to do" that you have absolutely no explanation for (or so it seems?) Everyone loves things like walks on the beach, quiet time over coffee, hanging out with good friends, settling in for a few hours of Sonic The Hedgehog or Grand Theft Auto.  Some sickos even enjoy things like sweating over a garden, toasting themselves in a chair by a pool, or picking things up and putting them down at the gym.

A Strange Child

One thing I remembered a while back was one of my favorite things to do as a child.  When I was a wee lass, I used to love to stick my finger in the straw hole of cups.  I did this quite frequently. 

Do you see that razor-sharp star?

I always had to stick my pinky into it.

WHY???!!  Have you ever tried to pull a straw OUT of there? Do you see what the straw goes through on its way out?

I do not recall EVER being able to get myself out of it... in fact, all I can remember is time after time inevitably going to my dad, either bemused, or full on screaming in pain for him to cut it off of me.  I remember that several times, he'd have to pull the car over on the side of the road, bring out his pocket knife, and cut me out.  He's always say to me, each time, exasperated, "Why do you do this to yourself?????????"   I never knew.  I guess I thought I would be able to get out of it?  It was just one of my favorite things to do. 

I also loved to do normal things that little girls like to do, like play with Barbies, color, build tree forts, and tap dance/ballet.  And play Mario 3 with the cheat codes provided by my brother.  

As an Adult

I have lots of favorite things to do now which are far less painful. I love a good road trip, and a rainy day, and doing laundry.  I'm trying to force myself to get back into reading actual books and magazines, instead of just endless scrolling on The Screens. 

Last autumn, Prime offered me Oprah Magazine and some others for like $5 for the year, so I ordered it. 

Now, one of my favorite things to do is to scan where all of the contributors are from, and I always get excited when I come across far-off  (as well as near) lands which I have visited.  I catch a gasp of air when I see "Port Angeles, WA" come across... I have breathed the air and touched the sea waters of Port Angeles!

I also  have too many hobbies, and not enough at the same time.  Archery, Yanni, singing, the Hippodrome, church, writing, traveling, and crafting... it's a lot to keep track of.  And yet, I focus on none of them 100%.  What's the deal??  Human condition?  Wanderlust?  To tell you the truth, if I had a companion to join me, I would sign up for many more things... tap dancing, bingo, ballet, and more frequent hiking.  What are some of your hobbies and favorite things?

Orbeez

ORBEEZ

I am the type of adult who enjoys things like coloring, Disney, glittery things, Uno and other card games, and dancing in public, and so anytime I catch a whiff of a new fun thing, I need to have it!

One of my friends and happy hour champions, Lindsey, and I were chatting about this at a happy hour a while back with a bunch of our other friends.  She said some of the wisest words that I have ever not heeded:  Don't drink & Prime. 

In absolute full disclosure, she was preaching from experience, because she was telling me about some of the fun things she's come home to, without remembering ordering... however... this is not the case for me.  I don't actually drink that often, and so I always know what I order from Prime... and so there was a perfectly logical explanation for how Orbeez came into my life.

A bit over a year ago, I read an article about how some redneck in Florida (or someplace where this would not surprise you) was arrested, and his children were taken away from him, because he filled the back of his pickup with Orbeez, plopped his kids in there, and drove around town like this.

I needed Orbeez, whatever they were.  I ordered them off of Prime the same moment I finished reading that article.

So, I bought one bag of them.  They are water beads.  You can buy them, and even a little gun for them, which is like a marshmallow gun, and it is fun for hours.  People also use them in foot spa things, and you've seen them used in vases for plants and bamboo in various restaurants without taking note.  Oh, and you've seen them in those fragrance things.

Stop paying $10 for these.  Just grab a few of my Orbeez and some essential oils or something.   You're welcome. 

So, I bought them, and brought them into work, and distributed them.  Over a year later, and we are all still playing with them. (Also, I have moved to 3 different buildings over the past year, so sometimes I will be visiting a different building, and see Orbeez at someone's desk... They came from me.  My Orbeez are all over the company at this point.) They are so pretty, that people just put them in a vase and put them on their desks.  

There's regular size...

They start out the size of a seed. Leave them in water for a few hours and they grow... AND THEY BOUNCE. 

And there is GIANT SIZE:

After soaking a few hours... (they look like BRAINS)

After soaking for a day

"What is the point," you may ask.

Nothing.

They are fun to look at.  And they are fun/therapeutic to smash into one thousand bits of SQUISH.

And, once you are finished with them, you can toss them into the garden, to keep The Things a bit hydrated during the melty days.

Have you made any fun discoveries worth sharing about?
(Please send me the Prime link...)

Unpublished

I feel compelled to tell you that I often write blogs, but never get around to publishing them, because they don't feel quite finished to me.   In this case, I am going to just publish this one, even though 1) it is from October, and 2) it contains characters of the past.  It's okay.  Some events are timeless.  Enjoy this unfinished draft.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HELLO.
How is everyone??
October was insanely busy for me!  I am glad that I don't have to do anything for a few weeks.

Adulting

I email or text Gym Rat just about daily to inform of my spills and trips.

And this happened the other day...

3:22 pm Veronica: GUESS WHAT

3:22 pm Gym Rat: wut

3:22 pm Veronica: i just realized my shirt has been on backwards

3:22 pm Gym Rat : OMG

3:22 pm Gym Rat: that's so you

3:22 pm Veronica:  It IS so me.

Narrator:  It was so Veronica.

3:22 pm Gym Rat: did you spill something on it too?

3:23 pm Veronica: earlier...  but fortunately, it was technically on the back of the shirt... so   now it's on the back and no one can see it.

3:23 pm GR: lolz.  smooth.  you should start doing that from now on.

3:23 pm GR: and switching halfway through the day

3:24 pm Veronica: yes... or just switching it before and after lunch

3:24 pm Veronica: i might need to go blog about this real quick

3:24 pm GR: YES!

I have been in very important meetings today and literally no one has said "HEY YOUR SHIRT AIN'T RIGHT." Sometimes people assume that I know that my shirt is on inside out, or that there is food or plants in my hair, or that there's food on my face.  PLEASE CORRECT ME.  I don't have a lot of mirrors in my life and also I never think about it.   I am a community effort, people!  

The other day when I was walking around Marshall's with a pair of jeans, and by the time I got to the Housewares department, I noticed that a cane wielding old man was walking directly behind me.  Probably 85 years old.  He followed me and followed me, and I tried to just be patient about the situation, as he examined every item that I examined, and touched every thing that I touched. 

Finally, he grabbed the pants I was carrying, and started speaking to me in Portuguese, saying what seemed to be something along the lines of, "These are nice, oh, they are black, I didn't know you needed pants."    I stared at him blankly.

Then he realized that I am a stranger, and laughed and laughed and apologized, and said he thought that I was his wife, whom he now had totally lost somewhere in the store.

These types of things happen to other people, right?  Is it really just me?

These funny little stories end up scribbled on post its and jotted down in my phone because they are silly and bring me out of myself a little.  The silliest things inspire me or make me over think.