August Worthy Stuff
Susan Edition
If it’s August, it must be my turn, and I may not be the right person for the job this month. Still, I’m happy to take a shot at it. I’m a little short on movie recommendations and recipes, but I have plenty of life to share and since ALSSI is really just about #womenslives if you boil all the church talk away, I’ll share a little about mine.
Forrest Gump’s mama said life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re going to get—and I think that’s a sturdy enough metaphor. It holds up, in my experience. But as I texted Cynthia last night, life feels to me more like a salad bowl with every blessed thing in it. One bowl, all the everything. Personally I like to curate my salad a little more carefully than that, but all-the-things all-the-time seems to be what’s on the menu no matter what we order. At least with chocolates you have a choice whether to eat any. Life is an all-you-can-eat-and-keep-eating-until-closing salad bar containing everything you can name, but also all the things you don’t have words for.
I knew this a month ago, but I know-know it today.
We’ll start here: My mom died July 17, just an hour or so before Cynthia and I were scheduled to have a photo shoot—the kind of pics you need for promo stuff when you’re in the podcast biz. If you ever wonder what you’ll do right after you get the phone call that your mom just died, I’m going to suggest that you probably won’t know until the minute it happens. What I did is put on a little lipstick (which I never wear) and go for pictures.
There’s something about a bit of normalcy when the world turns upside down that can be lifesaving medicine.
