Harbor Pilots

Hello Cadre. I am Speak wonder. I do a thing called harbor pilots on caregiver day Thursdays. As a content creator, creative professional speaker and an author and a fellow human being, I should have listed that first on my resume. Fellow human being, we're in the trenches together. I don't know about this hat. What do you think? Sunny out today in Erie, Pennsylvania. I am in a cafe called legendary. I often cannot figure out how to flip my camera and today is one of those days. So I might have to turn the whole camera around.

Beautiful cafe, coffee bar. I am enjoying something called the Grinch which is matcha latte with strawberry and almond milk. It is legend, legendary. And I'm at the coffee shop Legendary. So I think in the chat because it's always fun to interact. So in the chat here. Thank you for hopping on. I see Carrie's here and others are joining. Thank you so much. If you could put in your favorite coffee shop, maybe you're not even a coffee person, but most coffee shops make fabulous tea, boba drinks, sparkling things, smoothies, many healthy choices here at this legendary cafe.

And they also have really good vegetable wraps and all kinds of good things. So wherever you are in the world, in the United States, why don't you write down Hey T. Nora, thank you for joining me. Your first live. Why don't you write in the chat? I'm inviting folks to write in there the name of their favorite coffee shop. Whether you're a coffee aficionado or just occasional or not at all, maybe your favorite hangout when you're ready for something refreshing on a summer day. I could definitely say today qualifies for a summer day.

In Erie, Pennsylvania. It is May, technically still spring. 77 degrees, sunny. Yesterday I went to a lilac festival in Rochester, New York. About two and a half hour drive one way. Traffic got a little hectic in Buffalo area and then it eased out. And Rochester is a beautiful town. It's a college town. And there are lilacs every year this time of year. And when they peak, they open their fields to the public and they are groomed. By groomed I mean they grow them intentionally for people from all over to come and enjoy.

We walked. I went with my friend Laura. We walked and walked. T north and Iowa. Thanks. We walked and walked and walked. We both said throughout the day we wish we had brought our pedometer. Pedometer. To calculate our steps because I think we got probably a five gig in which is three miles plus unless you're on the metric system. Well, that is Kilometers. But I digress. I wanted to touch on a few things today. It's going to be kind of a random Cadre today on Harbor Pilots caregiver day. Let me pause for a moment.

Lynn says there's a physical measurement to space and to objects in space and to the stress relationship between space objects and the energy of both. I forgot. I forgot to take notes. This is a physics class. Oh, no. I feel like I'm stuck in one of those dreams where I'm on a college campus and I forgot to attend one of my math classes. That's mind blowing, Lynn. Thank you. Last week I talked about the cosmos and I talked about. I think I have my notes from last week. I talked about how it's been a whole week.

I can't remember, but it was really good. If I seem scattered, it's because I'm in a public place and I've seen some of y' all get on the Cadre and talk from a coffee shop. So I thought I'd be brave and do the same. The WI fi here is good, and I think I'm coming across. Okay. Give me a thumbs up or a heart if my broadcast is coming through. So good to see you. So yesterday was a lilac festival. And the reason I bring it up particularly is to give you an idea of how to celebrate someone and then to talk a tad about creativity.

So I had a birthday in January, and my friend Laura here in Erie, Pennsylvania, gave me a beautif birthday card, which would have been more than enough. And in the card, though, it said, instead of a wrapped present, I present to you that you choose an experience, a destination, and we'll go when the weather's good. Now, back in January in Erie, almost the entire vast lake was frozen over. We were getting record low temperatures and lots snow and ice. And what a lovely thought in January on my birthday for her to suggest that we do a road excursion in nicer weather.

So I went online and I found out, well, I had known for years that there is a lovely, lavish lilac festival in Rochester, New York, every year. And I said, let's go there. So in those, you know, stark winter months, we had the cozy outlook in anticipation of a road trip in May. They're at their peak now, mid May, and the lilacs were absolutely fabulous. Happy birthday, June bug. Yeah. Mom had a birthday recently. 94 years of age, 94 summers, 94 autumns, 94 winters, and 94 springs. Is she blessed?

Yes. I put that birthday present before you as an idea for something you could give a loved one, a friend, a co worker, somebody who you hold dear and would like to bless on their birthday, graduation. It doesn't even have to be to commemorate a holiday. It can be a just because and offer them instead of a physical gift, the gift of a memory. And that's what Laura did for me. And so we took off yesterday. We had a plan. We had gps. We still managed to get lost inside a vast, multi layered, gorgeous cemetery.

We both happen to like cemeteries. We like to research. Well, maybe not deep dive research, but look at the tombstones and determine when they were here, if they served in a war. I think walking through a cemetery is a declaration that you mattered and somebody mourns you and your life meant something. It is a wonderful thing to tour intentionally. Cemetery yesterday, however, was not necessarily intentional. We got lost there because we thought at first that was public parking for the festival.

It was not. So we went through this labyrinth, and I do mean labyrinth, I mean this several city blocks wide in Rochester dating back to the 17, maybe 1800s and going forward. So that was quite the side adventure. And overall it was one of the loveliest birthday gifts I've ever enjoyed. Was the gift of a memory, a destination and events. And the smell of lilacs. Lilacs. Can you top that in a birthday present? So wonderful. And I know they don't grow everywhere in all climes, but they grow out here.

I think they grow in Colorado. Right, Lynn? Yes, they do. Loved it. Loved every minute of it. Where the word creativity comes into play is we didn't have a plan for lunch, which was lovely because we kind of went where the road took us when we got hungry. We were not yet at the festival and we agreed, let's find a place to eat. And we found this cute little town in New York called Leroy L E and then capital R O Y. And they had a scratch kitchen, which I understand means they fixed the food on the premises.

And we had fabulous handcrafted sandwiches and homemade potato chips. The creativity was that we weren't so regimented that we were locked into a time and a schedule. We quickly discovered upon reaching our destination that there was no parking and that some of the parking, which usually is open to the public, was muddy and just couldn't park there. Your car would get stuck. So we had the option of parking in a neighborhood or in the city. We chose a metered parking spot that gave us about three hours to traipse around and then we had to be back.

And it was just the best. We missed some fabulous People, the people who host it, who greet you at the gate, and who help you find your way through the flowers and fields. We're all ambassadors for beauty and definitely proud of their city of Rochester. I read something recently about creatives, which I am one, and just wrote down a couple things to share with you today on the Cadre. I really did one thing. When you travel to a coffee shop, you need to have your notes in front of you. Okay, it's here.

You know, I'm just going to wing it because I remember what I wrote down. What I read was about creatives who are rejected. In the story I read, this young lady who loves to crochet made a scarf for a friend and her friend rejected it and she said, no thanks, I'm not a grandma. So she probably inadvertently, and not in a cruel way, she refused the gift, the hand stitched, lovingly stitched woven gift of a beautiful scarf, because she put it in a category where it wasn't enough or it wasn't beautiful in her eyes.

I say that as a caution to anyone who's struggling to put something creative into the world. Even if it's not your vibe, it's not your thing thing, it's not what you would choose to wear or purchase. Be kind, be generous, and applaud the creative work. I used to think as a writer, I have a very fragile ego. That's not true because I write fiercely and fearlessly. I write what I feel passionate about. It's when my words are thrown to the wind that I get out of sorts. It's what I put into the world when it's criticized.

Now there is healthy critique and that is valid and that is good. And we creatives, whether we're writers or singers or poets, musicians, whatever, artists, portrait artists, whatever it is that we do creatively, we should give ourselves the advantage of mentorship, healthy critiquing. But what I'm getting at is when our work is tossed aside is not valid. That hurts. That just hurts. And it also acts as a cautionary tale for how we react to somebody's work. Here's a real world example from recent days.

My granddaughter presented me with something a three year old would color out of a coloring book out of the lines, many colors. It's beautiful. You know why? Because of the one who made it beautiful. You know what I did as her oma? I put it in a blue frame and hung it up in Grandma June's room at the care home for her to enjoy works of art, works of music, works of poetry. Have their place. And if they don't, have their place in your heart or your taste, be kind and applaud the Creator for their effort, for their unique approach to things.

And I guess I'll conclude by saying the Creator himself, who threw his hand across creation and said, let's have lilacs and let's have them smell really good, did that for us. You know, we could go through this world without olfactory nerves. There might be people who prefer to those of you, including me, who have airborne allergies in the spring, and we sneeze through the springtime months with all the pollen. Maybe we'd do better without the scent, but I love the scent, so took a Claritin and dealt with it.

How wonderful it is that we're gifted with the sense of smell and taste. We could easily get through this life eating food without the benefit of the color, the way it lands in our palate, and the sensation of taste, of savory and of sweet. But we have that, too. What a blessing. I'm going to conclude my country. I'm going to drink my grinch. I think it's called a grinch because it's got green in it. Matcha latte with strawberry. And I'm. I elected for almond milk instead of dairy. Hey, this was fun.

Legend Erie is the name of the coffee shop on Peach street in Erie, Pennsylvania. Coming to you live if you've got me on the replay. Thank you for taking the time and joining me. I'm Kathy Joy. My handle on the kadosphere is speak wonder, and harbor pilots is my go to. I make these little boats out of road maps. This is a physical symbol of being in the harbor and finding those friends and family, even strangers, who are kind enough to adjust their pace to yours, come alongside your boat and get you safely into port.

Since we're in Legend Erie cafe, I'm going to invite you to be legendary in all your creative works today and join me next week. Shannon Paul's coming along later. Comedy in the chaos. And yeah, I'll see you in the harbor.