“okay, this is really good… You ready?”

Go ahead

“When is a jar a door? …wait…I said that wrong… When is a door not a door?”

Timing is critical to get a laugh. And it’s high time to get a laugh.

Did you see that video about the Texas lawyer that came to court with a cat filter?

“I’m not a cat”

I understand that.

And I can’t stop laughing. Boy did I need to laugh.

This are serious. Have you seen the latest reason to be afraid? My phone buzzes every couple hours with a new one.

This is SERIOUS.

Bzt

So many people are not SERIOUS ENOUGH.

Care harder.

Worry More.

Maybe I’ve reached the end of what I can achieve by worry and fear.

“Can you hear me, Judge? …I don’t know how to remove it…I’m prepared to go forward…”

I can see that. I can see that a laugh is exactly what I need. It’s what I need more of.

The jester was part of the king’s court. A laugh can be a bridge to peace. A laugh can be the shortest path from point A to point B.

A laugh can help show that point B isn’t where I want to go, point Z suits me much better.

I just remembered how to remove the worry and fear. I am prepared to go forward at this time.

My friend put a Valentine’s concert I Facebook. All these classic songs beautifully sung by her and her guitar strumming boyfriend, melting my heart. And they got to an old favorite

I would walk 500 miles and
I would walk 500 more

I’m listening to her sweet voice and thinking how strange it is to hear a woman sing that very male love song. Granted, she’s harmonizing with her sweetie but even a that little bit of a shift changed it.

…Just to be the man who walk a thousand
Miles to fall down at your door

My daughter has been taking karate and after watching her, I joined an adult class. Her sensei has all the little warriors shout out in unison:

I DO MY BEST

In my class, I do the same. This is not a class for being cute. The teachers ask me for more than I knew I could give. Last week I came to Wednesday class worn out from all the thinky work at my job, ready to do my best. I was weighed down and I knew it, but I was going to power through.

I only tripped a little at the beginning and I kept going. At the very end, I tripped hard. It took a long time to get up. It hurt and I felt so stupid. I had overestimated my best, and hurt myself.

In the Proclaimers song, he overpromised. Not likely to be called upon to make good on his thousand-mile commitment. The point is he will go to the end of his strength for her.

Past what is reasonable. Pushing through the blocks.

I learned after my fall how to get up and keep going after I overshot. Doing my best does me getting up and trying again. Failing, but going for the long haul.

Showing up with love for someone else, doing my best for the one I love or even my own self is what this looks like.

Walking 500 miles and walking 500 more. Or like my Sensei teaches, don’t just strike the target, strike past it and leave all the force where I mean it to go.

I’m not going to be successful every time. But even after I trip, I can get up and do it again and the second strike has a good chance of landing. That’s how love goes when I do my best.

Self-helpy gurus will say that annoying thing to encourage grown women to find a satisfying activity, especially a new career: ‘ What did you love to do when you were a kid?’

I shake my head and think of how limited my choices were at that age. All I did when I was a kid was read through the library.

Hmm.

Here lately I’m letting that count. These hundreds of books I’ve consumed are even more fun than when I was in single digits.

I’ve leaned into my love of reading in the last couple years. I’ve read more than a hundred books each year for the last three years.

When I allowed myself to feel the reality that I had written a book myself—not just one but four! —I engaged with books as an equal. They are colleagues, not experts.

The books were less magical; they became earth and food and life-sustaining art.

Writing a book is a particular and rare thing. This weekly wonder is writing. It has a different structure.

There are some bits that I write that I are not weekly wonder pieces. This platform has it’s own shape and voice that I’ve created with you all.  I want to pull back the curtain to share some of the choices I have made as I’ve built this essay over the last 10+ years.

The goal is to serve the action immediately. Funny, my action is seldom action. The Weekly wonder has ideas, thoughts, perspectives or wonderings.

It’s in the title.

Fuzzy cloudy soft-edged ideas can move in and out of focus. I slash every word and phrase to get to the hard nugget, a useful idea to be carried around and used. Every weekly wonder leave piles of clauses cut from my sentences.

You can’t be in the text.  I don’t know what you are thinking. We don’t do anything, unless I can prove it.

I’m the only one I can about. I have to admit what I am thinking, feeling, doing as my own. I have had many of you (yes, you, readers) write to me over the years to tell me I am not alone. I’m grateful to you.

The art of this feeds me. I hear that it feeds others, doubling my joy.