#gratitudeNow: Berry Responsible

So the other day, Missy went grocery shopping. She brought home a big pack of fresh strawberries. There’s this funny thing we often go through with these. They’ll sit in the fridge, unopened, not hulled, and slowly go bad. Then, just when I want some, I reach for them, and have to throw them out.

I hate it.

Missy and I talked about it as I was helping her put away the groceries. And we agreed that we’d just cut them up, so they’d be ready to go, whenever we wanted some.

Later that day, I did it. Cutting board, knife, ten minutes of effort.

I’ve been noticing something about what I did, and about being an adult, in general.

I think part of being an adult is recognizing that you can expend effort ahead of time, to rely on yourself later.

I’m super looking forward to having some of those strawberries. I feel damn good knowing they’re going in my belly, not the trash.

And I think a whole lot of things are like that. That there’s joy in the delayed gratification that comes with effort. Not that it’s like some video game achievement, and once you’ve done it, you don’t have to again. There’s dishes stacked up on the kitchen counter that really need my attention. I’m going to get to them today. And when I do, it’s going to be a berry nice feeling.

Maybe I’ll reward myself with a bowl of strawberries and a little whip cream for it.

#gratitudeNow: A never-ending echo

So one of the bad things that resulted from Spacey’s passing was that it also, eventually, took down the website and feed for the Big Little Podcast.

I struggled for a while trying to figure out what the heck to do about it.

Brother really was the technical arm of our podcast effort. He secured our hosting, set up our gear. In hindsight, I wish I had been more involved with that, and that we’d made sure to share credentials and responsibility for that stuff equally.

But, there’s really a subtle but important psychological reason why it was that way. Spacey was really quite introverted. Being behind the mic was always exciting but exhausting for him. As we created the show, and grew it over time, each of us struggled with bringing equivalent effort to the show.

I have a big personality, a big mouth. I’m a charismatic and compelling public speaker. I don’t say that in a boastful way. Brother was a technical genius, and a skilled artist. Everything he designed and created had a beautiful look and feel. We sort of naturally fell into our roles, with me as the go-find-em guy for guests, and he as the wizard behind the scenes.

And together, along with Mae, we created a really special environment, that let people speak to who and what they were.

But, it did come with cost. Which is that when the horrible accident that put him in a coma happened, it caught us completely by surprise and without any sort of disaster recovery plan.

After he passed away, I found access to the recordings through a different means. Thank goodness. So, I bought a domain, and ended up creating the archive.

It’s not done, but I’m steadily getting it together. There are 57 episodes, and most of the little-somethings already up in the archive. And I won’t stop until it’s all there.

I was going to wait until I was done to release the thing to the world. But three or so weeks ago, I changed my mind.

And I’m so glad I did. The work of creating the archive is sometimes really, really heavy. I think about Spacey all the time. I miss him terribly every day.

But sometimes, as I work on the archive, and re-listen to our shows, it’s joyous. He was so smart, sweet, funny, and kind.

There’s roughly 200 hours of the show. 200 hours of him helping others, lovingly teasing me and joking with me and our guests. 200 hours of us appreciating one another.

And as much as I can, I’m going to make sure all that never fades from the world. I’ve got my eye on it. When the archive is done, I’m going to approach some folks about ways to make sure it never goes away.

So many people have contacted me about what the show has meant to them, about how sad they are at his passing. And that is helping me process my own grief.

I’ll say too, that there’s work on the archive people can help me with, if they want. I’m definitely looking for help filling in those missing show notes and transcripts. If you want to get involved in any of that, go to https://www.biglittlepodcast.info/news-contact, and use my email link there to drop me a note.

There’s a saying that as long as we speak of them, those who have passed away never completely die. I know I’m going to be talking about him forever. And listening to him through the archive.

It brings me a whole lot of joy to see that all over the world, people are still listening to him.