So back in 1985 I started saving my yearly/monthly calendars.
I’m not sure why.
So that makes … what? Forty years in 2025.
I suppose it started out as just a way to remember birthdays, appointments, to do’s and other important (or unimportant) dates I was prone to forget. This was before the days of “Siri, remind me ….”
But it morphed into jottings of my hopes and dreams, my frustrations, my successes, my problems, my New Year’s Resolutions (difficult to look back over today), my very … non-Facebook life.
As I skim through the pages of years/years of pages, I see emerging themes: family, children, travel, career, wife, ex-wife, coming out, husband, grandchildren, parental deaths, medical issues, joy, sorrow … Life.
I’m not sure what to do with them. Leave them to my daughters? Burn them?
The National Enquirer? People Magazine? The highest bidder?
Here’s to my new calendar for 2025 and whatever it may bring.
On our drive back from Baltimore the other day, Robert and I stopped off at DC for a couple of hours to go to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. We had never been before and were eager to do so.
“The National Museum of African American History and Culture has accomplished what once seemed like an impossible dream: opening a museum dedicated to a people’s journey and our nation’s complete, unvarnished truth.” (museum website)
We only had time to explore the lower floor, which curated the horrific exploitation of slaves from West Africa. Fascinating. Disturbing. Meticulously documented.
“Slavery and Freedom uses first-person accounts and striking historical artifacts to tell an incredibly complicated tale. The exhibit traces slavery from 15th century Africa and Europe to the Civil War and Reconstruction in the United States. This vital history emphasizes that American slavery and freedom are deeply intertwined, and that the story of slavery is in fact a shared one that resides at the core of American politics, economics and daily life to this very day.” (washington.org)
The wonderful fellow who introduced us to the museum at the entrance suggested that after we explore for a while, we go to the Contemplative Court to “wind down and reset” after the museum’s lower floor trauma.
As I walked through Warren Square here in Savannah this morning, these striking yellow blooms stopped me with their glorious December beauty.
“Farfugium japonicum is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteracee, also known as leopard plant, green leopard plant or tractor seat plant.” Wikipedia
Their big green leaves actually do look a bit like tractor seats!
Yes, I know. Pride is traditionally celebrated in the month of June. But it’s SO warm down here in south Georgia that we opt to have it in October. But today was a VERY warm October day.