Harbor Pilots

Good morning, Cadre. From my patio, from my little apartment. See, it's back there. There's the entrance, there's my wind chimes. I'm speak wonder and I live in eastern standard Time in Erie, Pennsylvania. If you go that way about three miles, you'll be at the bayfront and you'll see the bay of Lake Erie. Then on the other side, you'll see the 11 beaches. There are 11. And sometime I'll go into a little more detail about Erie Peninsula. It's a beautiful peninsula. It's a state park. It's free of charge to get in, and it's beautifully kept.

It seems like each and every beach has its own vibe, its own theme. One of them, I believe it's beach 10 is excellent for kite flying. There are little inlets, there are places where families like to go because the waves aren't as big for the littles. Yeah, we have waves. We, we have waves at the lakeshore at the beachfront of Lake Erie. Many lighthouses. It's just a beautiful destination, great walking place and a bird sanctuary and a wildlife refuge. So I would have to say my place is a bird sanctuary because I'm a wild bird enthusiast.

I have red winged blackbirds. I've had tufted titmouse this morning. Also I have had something that I look forward to seeing every year and that's the rose breasted grosbeak. And they're just so unusual. They're almost exotic looking, like they should be from some tropical island. Don't you love the bird song? And of course, I've got my wind chimes here. So my theme every week is harbor pilots. This is Caregiver Thursday. And I have a couple notes that I took. And I tell you who gave me a good launching off thought was Bessie Hodges.

On her talk earlier this week, she talked about there being a thousand ways to get it right. I love that there are so many ways to get it right. And she talked about courageously offering your imperfect offering with courage. Offer what you have that is imperfect. Offer it now before it's polished and bright and perfect. She also used the word fabulosity, which I've incorporated now into my vocabulary. Fabulosity. And today's Cadre will be rather abbreviated because I have an appointment that I need to keep.

But I just thought I'd talk about a myriad of things. Birdsong, the onset of spring and then summer, and the imperfections that we can live alongside. And we can live alongside conundrums and unfinished business. Hello there. Get to the Root with Rachel. Good morning, True North. Hi, P. Melanie has joined. Oh, tell me more about yourself. So I'd like to have you put something in the chat. So if you have a favorite wild bird, could you pop it in? Could be a robin, it could be a house wren. Pop it in the chat.

And I also like hearts. Love seeing those hearts. And maybe you like the sparrow. Maybe you don't know the names of the birds but you enjoy them. You know, give me a thumbs up. What's not to love about birds? I do feed them. I feed them black white oil sunflower, which I buy at tractor supply because you can get a big old 40 pound bag for right now for under 20 bucks. And they, they really do go for that. Yeah, I get chippies and I do get squirrels, but I figure they're hungry too. I used to fight them.

Now I just live alongside them and. Yeah. So love my wild birds. Thanks for the hearts, Cardinal. Yep, yep, Rachel. I love the cardinal. I've had males and females here. The cardinals are really quite a spectacle. We get some sort of songbird on the peninsula. I'll have to come back to you with that one. It's a migrating bird. Also on the peninsula, trumpeter swans came through. That was back in April. That's pretty cool. For about a week, week and a half, they came and rested on the bayside of Lake Erie on their way north.

Tundra swan. Tundra swan. Trumpeter. No, tundra swan. And they're bigger than Canada geese. And Canada geese are big. So I. There is a thread, a common thread to what I'm coming to you with today on Harbor Pilots, which Harbor Pilots is the picture of all of us being boats bobbing around in the water. And our harbor pilots are those comrades who come alongside us and help us get safely into port and tie us up to the dock for a rest, a respite, some creativity, some ideas and some encouragement, especially on caregiver day Thursdays here on the Cadre.

My person is my mom. I have a 94 year old mother and her name is June and she's known as June Bug at the nursing home. Always has been known as June Bug. And she's a pure delight. She had her 94th birthday this month. I go see her once, sometimes twice a week. She loves music, crossword puzzles and wild birds and laughter. And she has a sharp, keen wit. Catches me every time. Well, sometimes in an effort to be the perfect daughter, I trip over my own feet because we are imperfect and our offerings are imperfect.

And as Betsy said, the Other day here on Cadre, there are a thousand ways to get it right. So on the d days that we feel like we come up short or we could have done it differently or better. What if we entertain the thought we. We did it right in the moment. It's so easy to be an armchair analyst after you've done a kindness to somebody or carried something you made to another and you sort of stand back and say, huh, could have been a different color. I could have added cinnamon. Why are we so critical?

That was the way to get it right in that moment. That was the thing to say or to enjoy in that moment. Let's leave it be. I was recently on the peninsula with a friend. We love to get in the car and just travel around the tip of the peninsula. Then we go to a place called Perry's Monument and it's where a battle was fought during the Revolutionary War. Lots of history. In fact, if that battle had not been won by the Americans, we would be paying homage. Homage. Homage. I never know how to say that to the queen.

So that was a pivotal battle. And it's also called Misery Bay, where many men went down during warfare. Yeah. What I'm getting at is there is another place on the peninsula that we love to pull into. It's about a mile in and it's called Horseshoe Bay. And there are, I would say about a decade dozen, maybe 15 boathouses in there. They're fascinating. So people live in these houses. We were wondering how they get their mail, but I mean, of course they've got post boxes somewhere and there is one that is floundering.

There is one boathouse that is not doing well. Now these, a couple of them I'm told are year round dwellings. How they do that I don't know. Except that I do know from what I'm told that Horseshoe Bay is sheltered. There is a ring of trees that harbors it from the open waters. And so it is somewhat a sheltered area. However, we do get lots of high winds, winter and ice icy weather in Lake Erie every year. So I would say the majority of majority of these boathouses are made sound and closed up for the winter.

And then they come. The families come and enjoy them and live in them throughout the summer months. There is one that is kind of catawampus. It. It's just kind of listing and it's sad. And so my friend Laura and I talked about how that one house is not occupied. It's leaning, it's just kind of bobbing in the water and it just felt Kind of sad. Kind of like when you feel a loss or a grief point. Because something that was lived in and enjoyed is. Is now going to meet its demise. There are many things wrong with it.

It cannot be rescued. And not sure why it hasn't been dragged away yet, but that's an incongruity that we learn to live with. That's a good visual example. Looking out on Horseshoe Bay, all those pretty little boathouses with little docks and jumping off points for swimming and the rowboat tied to it, because that's the only way they get to the car. And they row out to the car, they go get their groceries, and they row their groceries back to the house. It would be a certain kind of specific lifestyle to live in one of those.

Even for a few months in the summer. Summer months. Looking out on that beautiful bay with the boathouses and seeing one of them not doing so well. Again, a metaphor for life. We can live alongside the incongruities, and we can be courageous about that. And the imperfections don't have to be a stumbling block. So I have here. Let's try to learn to live alongside the things we cannot change. Is there something you cannot change? I know I can list probably five things right now, but I won't, because you have story to tell, and I want you to think about your story.

Is there a relationship that's just not. Not changing? It's listing a little to the right. It's floundering a bit. Can you live with that mystery? Can you ride it out? Can you do one thing a certain way and then not berate yourself later? There are many ways to do a good thing. One of the good things we might do is sit quietly with the discord. I had a counselor once, Theresa, who used that phrase in my navigating some difficult relationships. And she asked me the difficult question, but the necessary question.

Can you sit with the discord? Can you sit quietly in the discomfort of that moment? And it helped me. It helped me to realize that something can be unfinished business, something can look a bit broken, and we can still enter into that moment. You can even embrace that moment. Will it change? Will it become perfect? Maybe not. Maybe not. Let's bring in the courage to sit with the discord, feel the discomfort, talk about it, and let it sit. We're used to fixing, painting, overlooking, ignoring. But how about sitting with it?

So thank you, Betsy Hodges, for giving me fodder for my Cadre today. You said we can courageously offer our imperfect offerings. And so I have the start of a haiku to finish up today. Fabulosity, Courageous, imperfect gifts. Guys, when I get the third line, which will be five syllables, I'll post it in the conversation. How's that? Be well. Be you sit with that which is not perfect and bring your imperfect gifts to the conversation, to the day. Bring them into the light and have a look. There's so much to learn in silence and in intervals of discomfort.

So ponder that, and next week I'll see you in the harbor. It.