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Small observations, unfinished questions, things that made me laugh, quotes I appreciate, and thoughts that aren't quite finished... ─────── I was typing in my notes the other night, and after answering the question of ' what I was doing,' my husband replied, "I'd like to meet this 'Ideas' person one day, because you talk to them an awful lot." ─────── Growth requires deliberately choosing unfamiliar discomfort! ─────── Every person has a story worth telling. ─────── Sometimes you feel like a mirror, unseen, and only reflected for what you are to them. And then there are those times when somebody makes you feel seen - like you matter, you’re important and they care… And sometimes, those little things can keep you alive. ─────── There will always be people who think of you, one way or another. The goal isn’t to figure out which one you want to appease. The goal is to figure out who you are and then be confident and brave enough to actually be that person. ─────── There once was a writer, who liked to use words… Some sound like wisdom; most were absurd. ─────── mental ponders... ───────

This topic could go very deep, but for here, I’m only going to scratch at the surface of it. I live in the South, and around here the Southern answer would be: ‘that’s what Jesus did in the Bible… he answered questions with a question.’ But that’s mimicry without any real reason. Another answer could be to tease or aggravate; strike up a smile at the unexpected. The real reason I give questions though, is out of my complex thought. It is my brain churning the options, evaluating the perspectives, predicting the outcomes, reading the circumstances, calculating the depth of involvement and looking at whatever the situation may be, from any and all angles I can conjure up in my mind. Some people call this overthinking; personally, I call it deep thinking. Most things in life are not as simple as black and white. There is almost always a gray area in just about every situation. This is where my brain functions. It has been trained over time to hover somewhere in this middle gray area; examining one direction or another before deciding which way makes the most sense. My brain just instantly thinks of all variables and possibilities over any given moment. I learned at an early age that my mind is the only defense I really have. Sure, I’m physically apt and capable, but it’s how I can absorb and contemplate a situation that will get me through whatever I’m in. You know that age when children start to discover the world around them? They observe everything, soaking it all in. But then their little minds get confused trying to understand things they’ve never pondered before. Like, the sky is blue. It’s always been blue on pretty days like this… but why is it blue? Why does it change to different colors? What makes it blue? Is there a crayon in the sky? These are the things we take for granted and ignore every day, while there are millions of little brains out there just bursting with unanswered questions. I’ve always been inquisitive. Even at a young age, I would ponder something to death until I had reached the end of my current understanding, and only then would I ask… but my questions were not usually questions of ‘why’, so much as something specific; such as: which came first – the chicken or the egg? (yes, I really did ask this as a child – my mother has documentation of it). My children would also question me, a lot, especially with ‘why’. While this got to be incredibly annoying (I had an over-why-er) I tried to give them the answers they were seeking. Maybe not always in depth, maybe not explained well enough where they fully understood, maybe not even in a nice voice, as frustration would settle in… but I didn’t want to ignore their need for understanding. Although I will admit, that I didn’t always do this – especially as a new mother, as time teaches us all. I wanted my children to question things – even me (which would often hold me accountable to question myself). I didn’t want them to mindlessly follow what they were told, simply 'because I said so'. I wanted to teach them to think for themselves and not follow someone (even me) along like mindless sheep. I didn’t want them to lose that sense of wonder, of asking, of learning – I wanted them to feel like their inquisitiveness mattered. (On a side note, we did have regular talks with each of our children about the possibility of times when they would need to listen to us, without any understanding, in situations of danger or emergency – so we had a code word for when those moments would happen.) We’ve all had that thirst for knowledge in childhood. Even you had that blossom of wonder once. There was a time when you didn’t know all that you know. Regardless of how old you were when it changed, once upon a time, each of us was yearning to know more, to quench our thirst for knowledge and learn all we could about the people and the world around us – to discover the unknown. Somewhere throughout life though, we tend to lose that wonder and curiosity… and the familiarity of it all starts masquerading as a comfortable standard of understanding. But what if we still kept that inquisitiveness about life and the things around us? What if we didn't stop questioning things, and we didn't just accept things are the way we've been told? What if it's not about the answers, but it's really about the questions? It's often the questions that we aren't asking that are the questions that most need to be asked. I believe that's what wisdom truly is - accepting what we don't know, looking deeper and realizing how much there is left to be questioned... and then questioning it with an open mind. I have found that the best answers rarely end my questions. They only give me better questions to continue asking. In seeking out my own truths, and in questioning my own certainties, I began noticing how easily we tend to stop questioning things. We simply accept and move on. Sometimes life won’t allow us to question things. Sometimes we’re too weary to wonder. Sometimes the answer is comfortable enough that we don’t want to look underneath it. Sometimes we trust too much. And there are times when certainty simply feels safer than admitting what we don’t know. But what if we didn’t? What if we stopped looking at things as if we knew them and began to look at everything in life as if it was our first time seeing it all. If you woke up in your world tomorrow and had never known anything about life, the world, people, anything – it was all brand new. What would your questions be? How differently would you see things? How differently would you think? I’m not suggesting we should abandon what we know. I’m merely suggesting that we not be so certain, that we lose the desire to take a deeper look and question what we think we know. What if the thing you’ve been the most certain about, is the thing you most need to question?

Iceland wasn't on my radar... but I discovered it, while searching for a sliver of hope to cling to. I have spent over a decade trying to figure out how to cope with my trauma. Searching for something, anything, that I could grasp onto when I felt like I was drowning. There are so many positive phrases, proverbs, parables, and scriptures that help hold people together – trust me, I know… I have sought them all out. Scouring the internet, looking into philosophies, reading about different religions… There was nothing I found that seemed to settle my soul. I was desperately hunting for just a little thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, it won’t always be this bad. Then one evening in June 2023, while sitting with my little tribe watching Rainn Wilson’s “The Geography of Bliss”, I found my thread. This show, this episode, seemed to resonate so much with what I had spent years trying to navigate and change, about and within, myself. The episode was based in Iceland, and I felt like I had finally found a group of people who collectively thought like I was striving to. As the show was playing, I kept getting so excited that I had found a people who think like I had been working to change my mindset to be, and what I was desperately trying to help show my family. Seated on the floor while the rest of the family were sitting on the couch behind me (this is a regular thing – I’ve always preferred the floor for some reason, ever since it was Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers) I kept turning around with such enthusiasm at what I had discovered, only to find my humans staring back at me with confused blinking eyes, and dumbfounded faces in bewilderment that my newly developed monotone personality had just completely flipped into overzealous enthusiasm. They smiled and nodded while I explained my excitement, only for the blank stares to return as they didn’t find my revelation nearly as riveting as I did. I had found words to voice what had been growing in my soul! One little phrase, that became my mantra, my motto, my calling card… it is who I have become. In my quest to find some sort of a foundation that I could stand firm on; I stumbled upon a culture shaped by the understanding, that the ground itself may move beneath your feet. A magical land of fire and ice (shifting glaciers and erupting volcanoes) where the weather can not only fluctuate between three different seasons, but all within one hour. It is an island that is alive and ever changing. This constant volatile change in nature requires flexibility and adaptation. You can plan and prepare all day long, but when the unpredictability of nature laughs in your face, you eventually get the joke. You cannot control what happens. In the show’s episode, the then mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr, who compared living in Iceland to “being raised by an alcoholic mother; she’s beautiful, but you never know what you’ll get.” You can prepare for what you can, but the rest is completely out of your hands. Within that mindset, there is an expression that is so often used in Iceland, that it has almost become the country’s unofficial motto; Þetta reddast. Petta Reddast, pronounced (thet-ta re-dust) is an Icelandic phrase that literally translates from Icelandic to English as: þetta = “this”; and reddast = “to be rescued, fixed, resolved, or sorted out” But I feel that there is so much more depth and meaning packed into those two little words, that we need to go deeper to fully understand the impact of the phrase. Þetta reddast might sound like sunshine and rainbows, but you can’t have one part of the culture without understanding all of it. The harsh nature of the island has cultivated adaptability and cooperation. Everyone bands together to ensure a good harvest, or you die together. The extreme environment of Iceland requires you to not only be flexible, but this constant shifting cultivates creativity and innovation. That applies not only to nature, but to everything in life. A pattern began to emerge: prepare, cooperate, adapt, pivot and trust that it will all work out. That’s when the gravity of what that little phrase held, hit me hard and I came to understand the full depth of its meaning. The way my brain interpreted that was considerably less poetic: you can give life everything you’ve got and be moldable, or you can remain unyielding, half-arse it and wallow in your own shyte. This concept hit me hard. I love the idea of being responsible for the effort put in, and not for a guaranteed outcome. It has a certain fairness that just made me feel vindicated somehow – as if it confirmed that all my efforts weren’t entirely in vain… Although I could not see the fruits of my labor, it did not mean the seeds were not being planted. I had learned the hard way, that I can’t control what happens, no matter how hard I try. But I had also come to learn that when what exists no longer works, I have to create a different way. I had come to learn that I could do the best I was able to at the time and broaden my mind, then somehow, it will all work out in the end. What that meant in my life, was that if I continue in my efforts, think creatively, and do the best I can, then no matter what happens, I have literally done all I can do… and therefore, it will somehow all work out in the end – one way or another. Maybe not the way I envisioned or wanted, but it will still all work out. Another aspect of this philosophy that surprised me was the contradiction of it all. A culture shaped by an environment that is so difficult to predict, had developed an expression that sounds so remarkably relaxed. What captivated me was this cultural emphasis on accepting what couldn’t be controlled, adapting to what changes, preparing for what’s possible, and knowing you gave it your all… what else can a person do but enjoy the moment one does have. It seems harsh realities and unpredictability often teach us what’s outside our control. This feeling of being out of control can be scary and uncertain. But this phrase gave me a safe reassurance that I did my part, what more can I do –but bend to the way the wind blows, and enjoy the moments I do have. I so badly wanted to be like that! To stop allowing the traumas to affect me in ways that destroyed me as a human. I wanted a steadiness inside my soul that circumstances couldn’t shake or take away. That’s what Þetta reddast did for me. It gave me a voice when I had none and understood my thinking without having to say it in so many words. Sometimes we spend our whole lives looking for meaning, only to find we just needed the language that finally explains what we’re trying to say, to finally set us at ease. Þetta reddast isn't the belief that ‘everything will always work out in your favor’. It doesn’t promise that life will be fair, that preparation will prevent loss, or that doing everything right will produce the outcome we want. For me, Þetta reddast is a reassurance that I can prepare. I can adapt. I can recognize what is beyond my control. and in doing what I can with what is available – I loosen my grip on what happens next, and allow challenges to sharpen me instead of destroy me. þetta reddast.