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One of the great and terrible things they don’t always tell you about becoming an adult is that after a certain point, there are no more excuses. You may have reasons for behaving badly, but they are no longer sufficient to justify bad behavior. Your life is no longer predominantly a reflection of your family or your school or your past, it is yours. And while you will not always control your circumstances, you are now responsible for your own character in the face of those circumstances. 

This is a burden and a gift. We must each decide who want to be, and then do our best to live up to it.

“It’s not the honors and prizes of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.”

— Mister Rogers

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Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

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Did you know that the traditional Japan almanac recognized 72 micro-seasons?

Japan’s 72 Microseasons | Nippon.com

In ancient times the Japanese divided their year into 24 periods based on classical Chinese sources. The natural world comes to life in the even more vividly named 72 subdivisions of the traditional Japanese calendar.

I thought of that fact this morning when I woke to what felt like a sea change in the weather. The overnight temperatures have been dropping, of course, but there is something else.

Along with a new chill in the air, the morning started with fog that wound between houses, draping the neighborhood in a layer of mystery. The cries of geese echoed down from above as they arrowed south.

It is the season of feathers and fog.

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Photo by Ian Cumming on Unsplash

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Recently I received the most amazing present.

I found a pickup tag in the mailbox. What could this be, I wondered, I hadn’t ordered anything. After a day or so of speculation it was off to the post office. I was given a cute little box covered in international signage (expected, I am in Canada), from Germany (unexpected, I have ordered nothing from Germany!). What could it be?

I put the box in the center of the kitchen table so that I could walk past it all day, wondering what was inside. Finally, I broke down and opened the package.

A puzzle box. You may remember that I wrote a recent post about puzzle boxes. A friend did, and she sent me this.

How incredibly, unbelievably, extremely cool.

I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years, and yet it is absolutely perfect.

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Photo by Steven Wong on Unsplash

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This year’s Genius Grants were announced this week. I love this award, not just for the secrecy and drama, or because deserving artists and innovators are being rewarded (monetarily, even!) for their work, but because the scope and creativity of their ideas helps us all think more expansively.

Here’s the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list – NPR

This year’s Fellows include performing and visual artists, writers, scientists, historians, activists and one filmmaker, Sterlin Harjo. The MacArthur Foundation considers these grants as investments in people whose “ideas, experiments, and solutions expand our expectations of what’s possible.”

Here’s to genius, whatever form it may take.

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Photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash

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“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

— L.M. Montgomery

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Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

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Sadly, today’s post is not about the fun kind of shenanigans, but the type of under-the-radar data grab that companies so often try to perpetrate upon us. Today’s alert is about PayPal, and this post from Ellen Datlow sets up the problem and happily, also provides a solution:

These options may differ depending on your location, but this push to share your data is very much an issue for anyone using PayPal US. I suggest you check your settings to be sure.

Thanks, Ellen!

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Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash

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“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result―eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly―in you.”

― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

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Photo by Drew Colins on Unsplash

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With love.

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Photo by Anders Krøgh Jørgensen on Unsplash

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James Earl Jones (1931-2024)

His career spanned three-quarters of a century and included work from stage to voice to movies, but for me he will always be Darth Vader. I’ve written about my love of Star Wars before, and that’s my anchor when thinking about James Earl Jones. 

Who else could have captured Vader’s complex and contradictory traits? Who made us both hate and finally feel for the tortured soul that was Anakin Skywalker? 

‘Star Wars’ colleagues lead tributes to James Earl Jones

“James was an incredible actor, a most unique voice both in art and spirit. For nearly half a century he was Darth Vader, but the secret to it all is he was a beautiful human being. He gave depth, sincerity and meaning to all his roles, amongst the most important being devoted husband to the late Ceci and dad to Flynn. James will be missed by so many of us…friends and fans alike.” 

— “Star Wars” creator George Lucas

A lot of tributes are being published, and if you’re interested in learning more about his impressive and wide-ranging career, I recommend reading them. Here’s just one, from NPR: Actor James Earl Jones, a beloved baritone, dies at 93.

But if you just want to take a quiet moment to appreciate the loss of this generational talent, may I recommend this: 

Thankfully, as Luke says, no one is ever really gone.

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Photo by Josh Howard on Unsplash

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Busy, Being Silly

“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”

— Horace

Hope you have fun being a little silly today too.

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Photo by Harry Cunningham on Unsplash

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