Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for February 2020

reeling from the KFOR “remarkable woman” fun

Several years ago, Handsome and I attended an awards dinner where my sweet Dad was being honored by his Knights of Columbus peers. After an effusive and much deserved welcome speech, the emcee invited Dad to the front and handed him the mic. Dad smirked while everyone applauded, then he said in his perfectly deadpan voice, “I had a speech written but seem to have left it at home.” Then, pretending to pat down his own pockets and turn to look behind himself, he shrugged one shoulder and actually left the stage. Dad rejoined the family with exactly the same smile he wears when launching a spectacular knee-grabber. The crowd exploded into laughter and applauded again, because of course this is exactly how Joe Dunaway would accept an award. I decided then and there, that if I ever won anything I would do something equally clever and evident of such charming humility. Such unbelievable arrogance to not have a speech! It turns out that Dad is a tough act to follow in every way, including this.

You guys, I have not even won anything, but I have so much to say! You all have poured out such love that I am soggy from it. Warm and pliable and smiling, pulsing from every syllable you have arrowed my way. My heart is full, is what I am trying to say. The magic here is that literally every single person who has expressed love and friendship to me holds a vital space in my heart. One evening as my husband read to me some names and notes that I had not heard from personally, I could not stop crying. How wonderful and bizarre to feel so connected. Please know that I have always felt this way toward you. My life is brimming with fascinating people. Inspiring, hard working, generous, amazing people. You all set templates for me constantly.

Dad calls this situation a “Mutual Admiration Society.”

Thank you to all of our friends and family who conspired with Handsome to include me in this fun nomination. I thank you truly both for the words you shared weeks ago (covertly, ha!), and I thank you truly for the tidal wave of love notes you have been pressing here since. Your affection and support have landed squarely in my heart, and I am letting it all sink in deeply. It will not go to waste.

Forgive me, though, if every time
someone quips, “you’re famous!”
I instantly think “don’t you mean INFAMOUS”
and do the Three Amigos dance in my mind. Okay.

we are INFAMOUS

Thank you, Ali Meyer, for your listening heart. Thank you for your talented storytelling and your discretion. I aspire to your skillful, poetic brevity. You and Travis helped us feel seen in the best ways, and we hope you and your families feel welcome at the farm always.

Thank you to my sister Angela for sharing her time to do an interview and for her immense love. I know how lucky I am to have her as a friend.

Thank you to Handsome for being the world’s most supportive and most protective husband, period. He just will not allow anything but love and freedom and safety here, and for that I am eternally grateful. And thank you to his colleagues, our friends, who were in on this.

Now that the story has aired, we feel compelled and excited to share more of our Lazy W Family Outreach stories. So far we have just flown under the radar with hints and glimpses. It’s all a relatively fresh undertaking and one which we are determined to keep fluid and responsive month to month, season to season. But right now feels like a good and strong time to open up. I hope you’ll follow along with that! Feel free to join conversations both here and on our Facebook pages (here is the blog page). We will be posting fresh new community events soon.

One more thing, friends, before we all get sleepy. I am thrilled to be meeting so many new Oklahoma readers! I think you are all from Oklahoma? Thank you for introducing yourselves and for leaving me notes here and in messages. I am having fun contacting everyone slowly. Thank you for understanding that I do this between chores and running and cooking, ha!

Speaking of chores (last thing, promise), I do not want to alarm you, but we collected thirty eight eggs over the past twenty four hours. Thirty-eight!! Also? The frogs have come out of  hibernation and the roses are all breaking dormancy. The countdown to true spring is gaining momentum.

Happy waxing moon indeed.

“UBUNTU: I am because we are.”
African philosophy
XOXOXOXO

a cat story for love week

Happy belated Valentine’s Day, friends! Handsome and I have celebrated with a handful of traditions as well as a few fun new treats which I’ll post about later.

But for now! What a sweet and loving week we have had at the Lazy W, mostly because of two small cats? I never expected to say that.We have needed more mousers here, more cats who could be tasked with snake patrol once things warm up, and that should be soon. So after a few days of searching online ads and messaging with nearby offers, Handsome settled on a pair of young cats from a woman in Harrah who takes in ferals and strays and has them fixed and immunized, etc.

On Tuesday evening we drove to pick them up. They were over-the-top sweet and much smaller than they appeared in photos. They cuddled us, we said our goodbyes to the woman, and we drove our feline quarry back to the farm, where Klaus welcomed them with exuberance and hospitality. I tried to play it cool.I should cut to the chase here: We fell in love with the cats. This was especially annoying to me, because I generally do not get the obsession people have with cats. No offense, but I like most cats from a distance. I only agreed to adopting more because my sweet, wildly convincing husband had said they would be outside cats with a job to do. Earn your keep, and all.

Another chase worth cutting to, and keep in mind that these animals are closer to the kitten stage than lion or tiger. Okay: they slept inside with us. Also, we decided, very seriously and unanimously as a family, to make blanket piles and cuddle puddles and all sleep downstairs with the new farm residents, so they could get used to us.

The next day was Wednesday, frigid cold and raining in Oklahoma. I did not have a run that morning, so I spent lots of time trying to think of what to do with this new situation. When Klaus and I went outside to do chores, I carried the kittens to the hay shed, intending to introduce them to Forest Cat and show them where the working cats eat. Maybe get them to sign their W-2s.

Okay I’m just going to tell you. They bolted. After a few minutes of tentative interaction with their much larger, much less social coworker, I turned my back to talk to Johnny Cash (the gander), and when I looked back they were gone. Into the dark, dismal, cold, wet February gloom, two skinny little motherless babies had vanished.Also, I have a lot of feelings this week thanks to hormones and the full moon.Chase, cutting!! When Handsome got home he tried to make me feel better, like it was an inevitable happening to lose feral cats, but I knew he was as sad as I was, and I felt awful for it happening on my watch. I just thought they would follow me! I was aghast. We missed them. It was a long, worrisome, sad day that was also, it is worth mentioning, filled with some business about Jocelyn and some plenty stressful hours at the Commish. We were verklempt.

By evening, though, each of them had been found. They were hiding nearby, the boy between two large bales of hay (I barely caught his eyes in the gloom) and the girl in the forest (Handsome had to show her how to navigate the predator fence). I cannot relay to you the joy and relief! You might never have guessed we only knew these animals for eighteen hours, ha.

In the days since, we have decided the will be indoor cats until they grown bigger and stronger and have a better bond with us to not hide, if they get scared. Here are some facts:

  • They love hot breakfast in the morning. And if they don’t get scrambled eggs and warmed milk they try to steal your coffee.
  • They use the litter box, thank heavens because I cannot emotionally uphold such a serious deal breaker right now.
  • They are supreme cuddlers, affectionate and endearing, which is the job of all babies in nature.
  • Cats, it turns out, are difficult to reprimand and are terrible followers.
  • Klaus is patient with them, allowing all antics except playing with his toys.
  • The little boy is a gorgeous black and silver tabby, named Johnny Ringo. Sometimes we call him Toonces when he is naughty. He has a suckling fixation that absolutely heartbreaking.
  • The little girl is a perfect silky black with snowy white feet and a few white splashes, including this sweet white dot on her lip. We call her Domino for now, but it doesn’t fit perfectly.
  • Cats are crazy. They really do stay awake all night. That is not a myth. And they actually love yarn toys and foam rollers. My macrame artwork is at risk.
  • I don’t know anything anymore. This in in the category of Paradigm Shift.
  • I love them. Don’t tell my husband. Definitely don’t tell Klaus.

Questions and marital negotiations remain about more animal additions, much larger animals, but that whole story will simmer on the back burner for now.Gotta go. I have an attention starved 130 pound dog on my arm and two hungry kittens lurking nearby.

XOXOXO

exonerated five, takeaways from an evening with raymond santana

Last Monday I was lucky enough to attend a fascinating speaking event with my sweet Mom. Edmond’s Oklahoma Christian hosted Raymond Santana as part of their 7th annual “History Speaks” speakers’ series, and it was time very well spent. You may know his name instantly from the Central Park Five saga, but before diving  in I want to point out that much of the university’s literature and commentary touted him, instead, as one of the exonerated five, and I find that beautiful.

Mom and I sat in a sold out auditorium, knowing that several annex rooms had also been filled, where guests were watching the live conversation on big screens. Mom and I chatted with a few people seated near us and made notes of all the books being recommended (Just Mercy by Brian Stephenson among them).

When the University’s president introduced Gary Jones, their Dean of Students, the gentleman who organized the event, he invited us all to pray as a group, to agree that racism is a sin, for help seeking to understand more than to be understood, and for insight and courage to live well. They also played a video montage of previous years’ speakers, and I found myself wishing I could go back in time and listen to every single one. Certainly, we will pay attention in coming years and make a point to attend again.

Whether you have seen the Netflix series When They See Us and watched Oprah’s subsequent interviews with both the players and the actual people involved, or read about these events real time since the awful events in 1989, I think that you would find Mr. Santana’s remarks deeply valuable. He spoke life over his story and over his future. And he offered that same, powerful life to the audience. It was beautiful in every way, and when you consider the ugliness in his life, the injustice and suffering that happened to him at such a tender age, this beauty is a remarkable thing.

I could talk for hours about this 90 minute conversation. If you ever have a chance to hear Mr. Santana speak, jump on it. He is so overflowing with love, insight, and strength that  you cannot possibly walk away feeling defeated in your own circumstances. Mr. Jones echoed my thought by commenting on how often we “complain about stuff that really isn’t that bad.”

Santana spoke of the 1989 events, of course, and did a good job describing the root of each misturn. Fear, mostly, is what came across to me. Natural fear and innocence and compliance, and the opportunistic tendency some people have to exploit all of that. He spoke of childlike hopelessness, and of bewilderment; but also he eventually spoke of the power of education in prison. Books were his arsenal for reframing his entire life. He named some of the formative titles and expressed with relatable affection how they helped him shape his thought process.

After being imprisoned for seven years, Santana was finally exonerated. But he made sure we understood that exoneration did not, and does not for others still, necessarily mean freedom. For someone ripped so traumatically from his childhood, he had an insightful grasp on the importance of finding safety in your home. He described the ongoing, residual pain from how deeply his character had been vilified.

“It is easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.” ~Frederick Douglass

Santana shared the back story of the genesis and production of When They See Us, and everyone especially loved his building Twitter banter with director Ava DuVernay.  If like many you were unsettled by the documentary, he pressed us gently to remember that what they shared with the public was a watered down version of the truth. He also walked us through his feelings and thought process about how sharing any version of the truth would affect his friends (particularly Kory), how it would affect their futures. Because every story we tell does have an impact. It was a valuable reminder to me.

Okay. Let’s bask in some of the life he spoke over his story!

His faith was tested repeatedly. He had to learn how to be a fighter. But time has given him the perspective of not just being exonerated but of crafting his own freedom. He named blessing after blessing after blessing in his life and exuded spiritual energy as he spoke. “Back to back blessings,” is how he put it. It gave me goose bumps. Isn’t that how life is, really? Yes.

More on being a fighter, Santana described how it felt to be like a boxer, to always be waiting for the bell to ring, but also maybe not wanting it to ring. Over time he developed the skills and momentum that would eventually help him build The Innocence Project. He continued to find ways to “channel that fighting energy and get proper revenge by being successful.” When asked how it felt for the state of New York to never have apologized for the wrong done to him and the others, he just smiled and pointed to the fact that they have to see him on television all the time, watching him make something with his life. “God puts us on the platform. He gives us our voice back so we have to use it.”

This part grabbed my attention in a special way. In The Alchemist, we read that blessings ignored can become curses. If we are blessed with a voice, with a platform, then we are expected to use them. Ignoring such a blessing could become a dangerous curse.

Someone in the crowd asked for advice to a person on the brink of giving up. Santana had nothing rehearsed to say, nothing poetic, he just shrugged and shook his head almost like he was confused and said, matter of factly, “Never give up. Plain and simple.” He elaborated, gently, that giving up is just not an option. He suggested that we strive to envision our futures, seeing possibilities beyond our circumstances. I was deeply moved and reinvigorated for so many private battles in my own life.

Okay, friends. I could continue for a long time but will close up now. I am so thankful to my Mom for bringing me along to this beautiful evening. I am so humbled and inspired by everything Mr. Santana had to say. And I hope that some of this can transfer to your heart, to your life, for any battles you are fighting.

“Envision your future. See your possibilities.”
~Raymond Santana
XOXOXOXO

february refreshment

At some point every winter, a point that varies in both duration and location on the calendar, I get noticeably tired; and the feeling of being so tired first catches me by surprise then worries me. I am surprised that an abbreviated work day (ending at sunset, between 5 and 6 p.m.) can drain me so thoroughly; and I am worried whether the fast approaching longer workdays (also ending at sunset, but gradually closer to 9 p.m.) will be sustainable.

Then we are gifted a late winter weekend like this, and everything feels right and natural again. Everything feels possible after a few consecutive days of clear blue skies, sublime warmth, and trace breezes. We indulge in a long, slow series of outdoor projects and hobbies, shedding first our gloves mid-morning then our coats by lunchtime. Eventually we bare our pale arms and maybe legs to the almost forgotten throb of true sunlight. Having endured so many months of that filtered silvery gray, that colder atmosphere that is beautiful in its own way but still distant, impersonal, this sudden onslaught of heat is buttery. Seductive. Very personal.

indoor green keeping my blood flowing

So I am no longer worried about being able to keep up with the lengthening days. I trust that my energy and life force will soon redouble. This gorgeous first weekend of February has reminded me (again) how energizing the sun can be, how it helps us meet the clock. This productive and happy first weekend of February has reminded me (again) of how motivating and sustaining new work is. Progress. Enjoyment. Long hours spent lost in work that we truly love.

Johnny Cash the gander loves to hunt treats…xoxo

The fabled groundhog, by the way, assures us of an early spring this year, which echoes the Almanac. We could still see all kinds of crazy weather over the coming weeks, but after the past few days I feel neither tired nor worried about that, either. I am excited head to toe, inside and out, by all of the work before us. Grateful that such bliss can be called work. Wide eyed about nature and cycles and the myriad possibilities being laid at our muddy feet.

Happiest of Februaries, friends!

“Often, the sweeter the first fruits of a habit,
the more bitter its later fruits.”
~Frederic Bastiat
French economist
(quote found in Atomic Habits by James Clear)