𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐀𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐬: 𝐔𝐧𝐭𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐬

Well, hello. I already have somebody in. Thank you. Thank you for joining NADA's M Center. I see naut which suggests to be nautical, and I am a nautical girl. Hello and good morning. It's still morning here in Pennsylvania along the shores of Lake Erie. In Erie, Pennsylvania. My name is Kathy Joy. My Cadre name is Speak Wonder. And my dog is obviously addled about something. She thinks she's constantly on neighborhood watch. Okay, Gracie, do you see the sign behind me? It says grace. I picked that up at a salvage yard.

It used to be the name of. I don't see my lips moving. Do you? Nikki, can you see me? Can you see me and hear me? Starting to feel a little paranoid about if the technology is going forward. For instance, my printer is not cooperating today. So raise a hand or give me a heart if you can see and hear me. Nikki says yes, and there's some hearts. You guys are too good to me. So I have a different background. I have my grace sign. I have my trees. It's kind of a purple background, almost an art deco type of thing.

And I went to a thrift store and found this beautiful vinyl tree to put on my wall. And hanging from that tree is my cuckoo clock. So you're getting to know a little bit more about me. I think we learn to know each other when we get to be in our spaces via technology. There goes my phone. Oh, you know what? I'm just going to hold my phone. I have one of. I love the deco. Thank you, Nikki. And the thrift love. I love thrifting. It's just great. Good to see your face, too. So now I'm holding the phone up until my arm grows tired.

Can you hear John Denver in the background? I hope the sound, the ambient sound from my music device is not too loud. Yeah. John Denver, probably my favorite song artist. And you know, the thing about John, he was first of all, gone too soon from this world. He was a poet before he was a musician. He was a poet and his words are just steeped in meaning. Not too loud. Oh, good. I have tech support here in the house. So one of the songs I highly recommend before I get into the meat of my talk today, Untying the knots, is I just wanted to share a few lyrics from Seasons of the Heart.

If you have occasion just to listen to cue up hear part of or all of one song from John Denver, I would recommend Seasons of the Heart. I'm walking here beside you in the early evening chill. A thing we've always loved to do. I know we always will we have so much in common so many things to share that I can't believe my heart when it implies that you're not there Love is why I came here in the first place Love is now the reason I must go Love is always I ever hope to find here Love still the only dream I know that is a poet's heart at work.

And then set to his lovely music. Nikki, do I need to turn it down at all? There's Mel Myers. All right. Shanghai Breezes is another great song. When I hear Shanghai Breezes, I'm in old Shanghai. I'm there Never been. I've never been in real life. His song transports me there. When I hear. Okay, cool. The volume's fine. When I hear the eagle song. I am the eagle. I live in high country. Oh, I'm up there soaring with the eagle. It's just a music that transforms you and takes you places. So I thought I'd make that my backdrop and another avenue for you to get me know to know me a little better Scarf weather has returned I'm a scarf girl yeah, a nautical girl and a scarf girl.

It's a little bit breezy and only going to be around 70, 72 today along the lakeshore beary. So I put my scarf on and this. I'm so sorry if I'm moving the phone too much. This is my bird scarf. I also love wild birds. You maybe knew that when you saw the tree behind me. And then there's a painting of a tree below that that my daughter did, and. And she's mortified because she said it is unfinished. I think it's beautiful the way it is. That would be a mother's heart toward her daughter's artwork.

Nikki, we have our differences. Oh, there you go. You put the lyrics in. Thank you. They are beautiful lyrics. They're so telling. And I think the reason John's songs moved people universally is because it. In his storytelling and songwriting and lyric crafting, we could put ourselves into the story and we can tell our own stories. Thank you, Mel. Pretty scarf. I love it. I love to tie scarves. When I was working before I retired, I was wearing a scarf every day. Every day. You guys, I have summer scarves.

They're real light, almost ethereal. Isn't that a lovely word for a wordsmith? Ethereal. And, of course, my heavier winter scarves. And this looks a little bit like autumn. I'm so glad to see you and get to know you and have you here on the Cadre. True love is the only dream I know. John Denver. I'm tangling the knots, you guys. In 2024, which was only one year ago at this time, I was recovering from shoulder surgery. I. I'm actually using my stronger shoulder today. So it's my right shoulder that had surgery because I fell from an apple picking excursion.

I fell in the mud. And the way that I fell, it just tore my. Whatever that is. Rotator. It tore my rotator. That happened in fall of 23. So in March of 2024, I had the surgery. Dr. Neclaba was lovely in the consult. He explained what all would happen. He told me he had both his shoulders done and just put me at ease. So flash forward to now, and I don't know about y', all, but if you ever recovered from a surgery, this is human nature and this is me being completely transparent. I have nursed that for probably too long now.

Dr. Necloba told me it would take a full year to completely recover, but that I could resume activities as per normal at some point in time. And that time has come a while back in yet. And yet I will say, oh, my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder. My bad shoulder. That's a narrative I don't want to get used to. I want to be resilient and bounce back. And so I thought of untangling the knots in a way in which we return to elasticity physically, mentally, our outlook. So my shoulder is strong. Look, you guys, look what I can do now.

That was something I could not do a year ago at this time. I could also not move my whole arm back behind my head without difficulty and some pain. And now it is back. It is back. It is fully functioning, you guys. So I went on a walk three weeks ago and walking is something I love to do. Had frankly digressed into a place where I wasn't walking as much. So I scooted out my door pre dawn three weeks ago. 5:30 in the morning. My favorite time of day is morning and I love being awake when the sun comes up.

So I went out. Yeah, surgery and resiliency, y'. All. So I went outside and I met a neighbor that I'd seen before and her name is Rose and she's really a cool lady, super cool lady. And she said, you know, I walk every day if you'd like to join me. And I said, sure, I'd love that. And so here it is. Three weeks later, we have gone. I'm not even kidding. I have proof on my calendar. But I know you believe me. We've gone Monday through Friday Every day for three weeks running. This is the third week, so tomorrow will mark week number three.

I do take a break on the weekends. Okay, we don't go a half mile. We don't go a mile. We don't go two miles. We go four. Four miles, you guys, four miles. Resilience, elasticity. Returning to endurance. Coaxing my body back into activity. And Rose is 10 years older than I, and she is a force of nature. I'm not even kidding. She looked at me that first day and she said, I have one pace. It's a little brisk. I hope you can keep up. Can I just say that again? I have one pace, it's a little brisk. I hope you can keep up.

Somewhere in that moment, that transaction, that conversation, I understood that I had a coach and that she had been downloaded to me in a very real, invisible way. And I knew that I could coax my body back into my movement and activity. Have my feet been sore? You bet. Have I gone to the health store for lotions? Yeah, y', all. Magnesium is the bomb. Magnesium for your feet. If you have any sore feet, any aching joints, Magnesium all the way. Where I find it, it's in a cream form or a spray. I like the cream.

So I slather that stuff on both my feet at night and put socks on, and it just moisturizes and it rejuvenates and it helps with the aching country road. Take me home. Untangling the knots. This is caregiver, caregiver day. And sometimes the untangling or the untying of the knot is also about the endurance of relationships. In the caregiving picture, there are good days, there are bad days, there are in between days. There are aha moments, and there are administrative weeks, and this one has been an administrative week.

I have had calls from the bank, the financial department where mom lives, and as her administrator, as her power of attorney, it has been my task and my privilege to represent her. She often says, kathy, you're my advocate and I love you for that. Makes everything worthwhile. But sometimes it's kind of a drudge through difficulty and through financial documents I'm not used to, but I want to do right by Mom. So I forge ahead. Untying the knots. Oh, great. Now he's singing Grandma's feather bed. I just miss him in the world.

John Denver, Untangling the knots. So I'm going to read to you a short essay I wrote years ago. Do you ever have days that are never ending, A never ending loop of untying the knots Alexa, stop. Four hound dogs and a piggy we stole from the shed. We didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun on Grandma's feather bed. Hey, maybe I could use this as a microphone. That's supposed to hold my phone. Somehow with grandma's feather bed, I'm having difficulty concentrating. So do you ever have those days you need to do you need to go outside?

Please? Really being upstaged by my little corgi. I've not yet learned how to swivel my phone around so you can see her. She's a sassy girl, Gracie is. So you have to solve one problem in order to gain entrance to the real problem, you have to find an outlet, silence your phone, assist a client before you can see your way clear to untangling your own problems. In the caregiver picture, we often are untying the knots of the ones we serve. And we don't think about untying our own knots that have been collecting.

Self care is giving yourself a sacred space in which to quiet your jangled nerves. This month of August has been savoring. And savor, or savoring has been our key word, our watchword, our mile marker. And savoring has been lovely. It's been great to consider this word and to weave it into our dialogues together. It's important to schedule peace in a world that's overwhelming. Simple things will sustain you. Things such as giving yourself time to untangle the problem. And I have a little visual here.

And then I like this one with the boys on the old timey phone with the tin cans. Sharing your hopes and dreams with somebody safe, pausing during a busy moment to give a nudge of encouragement. I used to know their names. This is a beautiful, gorgeous Great Dane and his friend the owl. That's a real picture. That is a real picture. These people, these people, these animals are buddies, the dog and the owl. And for a while, they were dropping into my Facebook feed. I haven't seen them lately, but I love that picture of companionship.

And finally, on the page, it says, in a world where everyone's wearing a mask. So this was 2020. In a world where everyone's wearing a mask, it's a privilege to see a soul. And so that was my short essay on untying the knots. We had John Denver. We had some lyrics from the song Seasons of the Heart. Thank you again, Nikki, for dropping those in. Good morning. Dan Griffin. Oh, Mel. Mel Myers. My dad was from West Virginia, so that was Country Road, Take Me Home, Blue Ridge Mountains, West Virginia, mountain mama, getting everything mixed up.

But doesn't that just pull you away into the hills of West Virginia? What are those? Are those the Great Smokies? Mel, could you mention in the chat, if you're. I'm sure you know, is that the Great Smokies, not the Adirondacks? Those are upstate New York, I do believe. But I know my Rocky Mountains and I loved John Denver before we moved out to Denver and Littleton back in that would have been 1986 and we were there for 22 years. So the spirit and the culture and the air of Colorado is seared into my very soul.

And that's why I call it my other home, even though I was born and raised here in Pennsylvania. Circle back. We circle back, don't we? We untie the knots, we lengthen the rope, we give slack. There's so many really interesting and conversation worthy dynamics in the very notion of untangling a knot. And naturally it works in the world of seafaring and boats and harbor pilots. So we've had John Denver scarf, weather the tree behind me, my sassy little dog Gracie, who I love, and untangling the knots.

I hope you are able to glean something from this, about self care, about caregiving and about addressing the things in your soul that might need a little tugging at, a little coaxing out the time and patience and the sacred space that it requires to sort of figure things out. And if you have a mentor like my coach Rose, who I've known now for a full three weeks and several miles on our sneakers, then you probably are so blessed because you have a mentor. Rose, being a decade older than I, has some more mileage on her heart and more experience as a mom.

And we've had some really cool conversations which make the walks go faster. By the time we circle around the neighborhood several times we have done four miles and the sun is up. So it's just a wonderful way to unfold the morning. Untangling can be a physical body that's been inactive and that you're nudging back into motion. Untangling can be working through a conversation, giving it grace, pausing for silence. Untangling can be enlisting help of a mentor, bouncing things off of him or her. It can be scripture, it can be a song.

It could be a song lyric, a poem. The Cadre, contributors and coaches here are golden. They are a wealth of information and encouragement and tell you the stream or the feed in the Cadresphere has been life giving to me. I go in there. I'm hardly on Instagram anymore because of Cadresphere. Because of Cadre. There are some new contributors. I encourage you to look around. There are some pre recorded drop in conversations and I love the replay. Even if I'm watching live. I'll go back many times and do a replay and watch the comments that I might have missed.

Dan Griffin Good morning Dan. Are you a John Denver fan? Oh this is very telling of my age. I mentioned John denver to a 30 something and she, she said who? That's all I needed to know. But that's okay. That's okay. That's why we bring our favorite song artists into the conversation. Lots of us are fans of artists and musicians and creators are no longer on this side of heaven and so we say their name, we play their music. Yeah, I am going to see my mom June and she is known as Grandma June. She's known as Juni Bug and she is a force of nature in the nursing home.

The staff love her and today as I go to take care of some financial necessities, I will also get to visit her, have lunch and sit on the porch with my pretty bird scarf. Shannon Paul is coming up at three. Eastern Comedy through the chaos, she always has some gems to drop. Stay in the Cadre sphere and when you have to duck out and come back in, you'll always be nurtured. Enjoy being yourself, savor the moments with others and find some time today to untangle the knots. Thanks for being here.