I meant to finish a writeup of last night's DET@UTA match. I will do that later today. Getting my sports chops back feels good. However, a conversation with MouseMom made me realize the need to address a serious issue that has been weighing on a lot of good people.

The essay is called "The Kids Are Not Alright." It comes from decades of working with kids in crisis. Sometimes we forget our grownup problems filter down to the very people we sometimes try to shield from life's harsh realities. This serves as a reminder that the images and discourse are sometimes as inescapable to them as it is to us. 



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Teach. Preach. Model love in the face of so much ugliness. 

When 9/11 happened, I volunteered with the local chapter of the Red Cross. My reasoning was that I didn't want my nephew to come to me at some point in the future and ask what I did when America was under attack. I was 38 at the time and too old and out of shape to consider a military career. Being a wimp didn't help. either. 

Volunteer orientation was packed and offered some unintentonally funny moments. The Red Cross Wonk Lady who addressed us at first looked around the room and said something she'd obviously been saying over and over for the past two weeks: 

"I am glad everyone wants to help and we all feel a lot of things about the attack on The World Trade Center. You need to know that we will not be sending volunteers to New York. They have enough people who are trained to handle this kind of emergency.  You will be working in the Nashville area, most likely on blood drives."

Around the room, there were a few people groaning. Helping at home was fine with me. I'd evolved into a to-the-bone homebody, so I was happy to not go to New York. 

Red Cross Wonk Lady continued:

"I'm sorry if that is disappointing news to some of you.  If you don't think this a fit, you can go with no judgement from us."

At that point, a Lithe Young Thing wearing a gauzy shift stood up and waved her hand.

"Excuse me." She took a deep breath and looked mournfully at Red Cross Wonk Lady.  "I HAVE to go to New York!   just have to!"

Red Cross Wonk Lady's lips parted.  We all saw she was forming the question we were asking ourselves.  Before she could say it, the Lithe Young Thing continued, this time louder and with more emphasis:

"YOU HAVE TO SEND ME TO NEW YORK!"  Pause. "I'm an actress!"

Red Cross Wonk Lady did not respond.  She simply looked through the Lithe Young Thing and continued with her presentation.  Lithe Young Thing stood there, stunned that her passion did not move them to load her precious self on a plane full of artists, dancers, and playwrights hellbent on saving New York. There's a part of me that is hoping she's looking back on this and cringing and another, kinder part of my id that hopes she's forgotten this. 

I bring this up because it's a good bet there are people begging anyone who will listen to send them to Minneapolis. *  You know, it is just as meaningful to let Minneapolis know we stand with them here in Nashville.  It is also meaningful to both literally and figuratively carry water for the next generation.  This may sound weird coming from someone who grew up in a white suburban family, but my parents taught me about The Black Panthers.  They took me to Centennial Park to see Africanist and Latin drum ensembles.  The taught me about my own family and our sometimes problematic forebears.  Slave owners and Christian fundie abolitionists sometimes shared branches of my family tree. A cousin by marriage used his fame to work to make East Tennessee literate. (Cousin Alvin, you would have adored Miz Dolly!)**

There is something just as sacred and serves as much of an act of social justice to pass on a love of learning and a desire to continue our traditions to our children. We need to act as guardians of our language, our stories, our history, our music. our food, our art, our crafts, our gestures, our dance, our beliefs...all of it is there for us to learn from.  We need to ask Auntie about that special sweet potto pie, or what it was like when people can home from the war, who ate squirrel brains and eggs and how mean was that old horse in the back forty? and how neighbors came to each other's aid.  We can't afford to lose any of this.  What we sometimes forget is those stories were sometimes useful teaching tools. It's all important and it is its own form of resistance in a world where education is being pithed of its importance. Nurturing creation is also an act of caring. 

Resistance can be found in acts that foment peace and deeds that are done in love. 


*A few years later, I did travel coordination for Katrina and Rita relief.  Gurl, I got stories! 
**When I took a job working at an inpatient psychiatric trauma unit, my mother told me I was continuing a grand family tradition of working with the certifiable.  My great-great-great grandfather rode with General Hood, an uncle served under Patton, and there I was working in a psych unit. 

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Yesterday, one of my clients asked me if I thought life would get back to normal, and if so, when.  Not sure what to tell her. For what it's worth, I've been hearing this question since the COVID shutdowns in 2021. People are desperate for things to get back to some semblance of safe and quiet.  Our minds and bodies tell us we need this, while each news cycle reveals a world that gets scarier by the minute.

Folks mostly come in three flavors: Smug Sore Winners, Apathetic, and Outraged.  The first of the three can't wait to storm some illusory castle they see as rightfully theirs.  Stepping on the necks of people they see as in their way is just gravy. The middle group isn't just trying to keep the home fires burning.  They want to pretend nothing out of the ordinary is happening and as long as they are holding their hands over their ears and chanting, "La! La! La! La! La!" 

The final group is the Outraged.  I get why they feel that way. To see people raging at each other because someone told them to when they have far more in common with the people they hate than the people they listen to is tragic.  The violence that is fomenting on both sides makes some of feel sick and sad for our people. 

There's a part of me that wants to go to Minnesota if it secedes, but not to live in Minneapolis or St. Paul.  I want to go to Lake Woebegone where the biggest news might be the discovery of recipe theft at the Lutheran pot lucks. That's right.  Lena knows something and she's not talking!  I know it's not a real place.  Same goes for The Village of Nothing Much and Dog River. When my friends' older kids tell me they wish they could live in those places and they're serious, I know we need to do better for them and the young'uns they're going to bring into this world. ​

It's been a minute.

I've been...pouting. No. Really, I, uh-  

I've been pouting.

When I got out of the hospital on December 31st, 2020, everyone around me said the same thing: "God didn't bring you this far just to drop you on your keister."

Fair enough.

My prayer life from then on consisted of me waiting for signs.  I watched doors open and shut, reminding myself that sometimes what we see is not what we are destined to take on. Was I supposed to go back into pediatric psych care? Law? I knew family, marriage, and love were off the table.  God had been telling me no to that for years.  Was I supposed to be a minister?  Insane, unreasonable avenues presented themselves and some went away when I started to examine the details, and then there were others that I knew were not the right thing. 

"Look!" God says, "I did a thing!" (Isaiah 43: 19) Unlike when Jeremy Clarkson says that, one has to look and see why God wants us to note His new thing.  What I saw was a clearer view of how I was blessed.  I have a studio, music, and a body of photographic work that has become the stepstool to move me to the next part of my life. 

I have also found peace and a greater degree of discernment.  Forgiving and then walking away from people who need to leave me alone and find their own joy was one part of it. Learning to narrow down that focus and lose the almost comically desperate need to be seen is another part of this. Setting my own boundaries and definitions for what connects me to that which is bigger than me could never happen at seminary or divinity school.  I know that now.  And to my friends who never left and a few who have found common sources of joy: Thank you falettin' me be mice elf agin!

Even though I know as 2026 progresses, things are gonna get loud and crowded at times, God also revealed that life is good when I am sitting in an overstuffed chair cuddling my cat bestie or reading a good book.

Some things I am looking forward to in 2026:
Ovechkin setting records.
​Exploring new ways to move.
Reading.
More sushi! 
Getting my studio in order.
Going back to school.
The best garden ever! 
Fingers crossed I have a treatment team that will help me stay well. 

There are other things I haven't listed.  Maybe I'll write about them later on. Until then, I hope everyone who sees this is prepared to have a great 2026! 

XOXOXO
Warrior Churchmouse, MouseMom, and Marigold the BossyCat

 






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​This has always been what I would call a very Nashville story. 

Way back when the original Turnip Truck was situated in an old gas station in East Nashville. (Wanna prove your Native Nashvillian cred? What was the store called before John Dyke settled on the Turnip Truck?  I'll put the answer at the bottom of this blog entry.) 

Sorry.  I wandered.  The American music scene lost one of its original, most eccentric voices this week.  Among my people, there has been a decades-old ongoing debate about the true inheritor of Woody Guthrie's mantle. All of the usual contenders are great.  I love Arlo for creating that Thanksgiving radio staple, Alice's Restaurant. Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp both have the heart and soul, but all three of these gentlemen lack the combination of hippie energy in the form of approaching the world with love, the antic sharpness of one of God's jesters, and the ability to leave his field of concerns fallow as Todd Snider. 

Yesterday, I met with my new PCP and her staff.  They are part of a faith-based medical group.  I mentioned to my mother that there was a crucifix over the door of the exam room and framed Bible verses on the reception desk.  For me, this is not a big deal.  In fact, it's a comforting reminder that God has my back.  She agreed.  

We couldn't help but wonder about non-Christians who visited this clinic.  Was the religious imagery off-putting?  Did they even notice?  If they did, was it seen as a case of what some social science types refer to as ambient Protestantism in the southeastern US.  In the interest of disclosure, I tend to avoid other kinds of businesses that include fish or crosses in their signage or promotional material. Those emblems seem to hide a multitude of sins I'd prefer to avoid. Yet I was okay with my doctor's office having a cross over the door. 

Should I be okay with this?  I want to be.  I also know one of the perks of living in a big city is there are options for people seeking healthcare. Moreover, there is a part of me that says it should be okay to have faith-based environments among the choices offered.  I want to feel comfortable being open about my faith just as I want other people who desire the opposite to be comfortably free from faith.  I was taught that religionn and politics were not fodder for polite conversation in public. Can there be a middle ground? ​

​There are six of us on the chat and five of us have noticed that our friend has what looks like the ugliest fetish we have ever seen sitting on her desk. In a private side chat, one of my former classmates, Faye, asks me if I recognize it. I tell her I don't and affirm that it looks mass produced. We are all politely waiting for our friend to talk about what she's been doing lately and hope the mystery of the ugly little figure on her desk will be solved.

No such luck. She says she's still doing work on community gardens and co-ops as a response to the spread of urban food deserts.  While this is good news, some of us are getting impatient with the weird ;ittle thing staring at us from far side of her desk. Finally Ben, who has never had the strongest of filters, breaks our silence about it.

"Claire, what the heck is that thing?"

Claire, who has always been the sweetest of us, but can also be a little out of the flow at times, starts to pick up various items as Ben responds, "No.  Not that.  THAT."

She finally grabs the small, brightly colored stuffie that looks, to me anyway, like a bad Chinese bootleg of a Maurice Sendak Wild Thing doll. 

"Oh. This?"  She holds it in front of her computer camera for all of us to see. We hear a voice from another room as her nine-year-old granddaughter calls in to her:  "Can I have my Labubu, Nainai?"

"Not until your parents pick you up," Nainai, er, Claire addresses someone off-camera. "How many times did I tell you to quit teasing your little brother with your Lulu?"

There is a sigh from off-camera.  "It's Lah-Boo-Boo, Nainai! Gah!"

Claire orders her to go play a game with her brother, which is met with another, "Gah!" but the girl complies. 

"That's a Labubu?"  Faye asks.

"So you've heard of them?" Claire sits the one we've been examining back on her desk.  

"Kids these days. Do those things have a backstory? Do they do anything? To think I used to complain about my grands' Horror High and Bratz dolls."

I do not have children and will sometimes play the childless cat lady card. Besides, I didn't want to ex[lain the happy little pile of plush gargoyles and assorted stuffed monsters who occupy a corner of my studio. 

XOXO,
​Jas