Good morning. I hope you had a really peaceful Thanksgiving. There is no new writing from me this week/ I needed to recharge my batteries. Instead, I’m sending along my wife Arle’s brand new essay. If you enjoy reading it it as much as I did, maybe you would like to subscribe to her ‘Letter to You’ newsletter? That would make her really proud and happy.
Thank you, friends. See you next Friday.
-Serge
_____
The most powerful weapon against your daily battles is finding the courage to be grateful anyway. -Unknown
A girl like me has never owned much to brag about if your scale involves money and expensive things. Money runs in the opposite direction from me for some reason, it always has. Since the day I was born.
I’ve become good at being poor.
I’ve always had a knack for fixing things, solving problems, often non-conventionally. An outside the box thinker.
Because I’ve been in a lot of situations where I had to be.
I’ll joke with Serge sometimes after I impress him with a skill he didn’t know I had, which if I’m honest, I probably didn’t know I had either in the moment and I will shrug and say, “I’m just good at being poor”.
And I am.
As an example, just recently, a homemade stylus for Blake when they were quite agitated to have lost the tip they had been using and then also couldn’t locate the extra tips that Serge had bought for them for just such an occasion.
It was a Saturday night, food was cooking. Pizza and wings for the kids, stir fry for me and Serge as I watched the whole thing unfold. The upset tone Blake had, the solution Serge wished he had for them. I slipped away quietly after a few minutes, pretty sure I was about to save the day, but saying nothing in case I couldn’t pull through with the Frankenstein tech pen.
On my way out I stealth swiped a regular pen out of the drawer, a little hunk of foil and waltzed out of the kitchen unnoticed. I grabbed a q-tip from the bathroom drawer before landing in my bedroom. I threw it all down on the blanket and plopped down with my phone. I had done this before. Years ago, before kids. But my memory is rusty, so I wanted to just do a quick internet refresher. I had all the things I needed. I disassembled the pen, threw its guts to the side. It bled more ink than I was expecting, staining the very tips of my fingers black and gray and ruining my pretty, freshly painted green nails. I cut the q-tip in half and shoved it up, cotton side down, into the hollow body where the ink tube and tip had just been. Then, I carefully tore the foil into a smaller, more manageable piece and began to wrap it meticulously around the tip, being sure that the foil was making solid contact with the cotton tip but not covering it. I then used the rest of the foil and a piece of tape to secure it all in place.
Now the moment of truth, my heart was beating hard! I pick up my phone and try to navigate it with the new stylus but… NOTHING. I try some more but nothing was happening. What did I do wrong? What am I missing? I revisit the instructions online which, admittedly, I did only skim through, and I see what I missed. I forgot the cotton tip needed to be just slightly damp for the whole thing to come alive. I lick it because I’m too impatient to get up and walk to the bathroom sink. I lick the tip and again, go after my phone with it…
IT WORKS!
It works and I am elated.
I’m so excited to gift it to Blake, I run downstairs with it immediately. Blake had ducked into their room at some point while I was building this thing though. Serge can tell right away I’m excited about something and asks me what was up? Where I had gone. I told him I could tell that Blake was really disappointed to have no tips for their stylus because they REALLY wanted to complete a drawing for a friend of theirs. I explained to him that I had remembered making one for myself years ago when I didn’t have the loot to afford a real one and learned online how to makeshift one.
He called Blake down and we showed it to them. I handed it over with a damp paper towel and explained how it worked. They didn’t give us much in the way of a reaction but that’s a teenager for you. I could tell they were thankful and relieved to be able to accomplish what they had set their mind on. That’s all I was after. Solving a problem for someone I love.
It REALLY is the little things that count.
Not long ago, my therapist asked me if I had ever heard of a concept called the “Law of Attraction”. I paused and pondered but it wasn’t really ringing a bell for me immediately. It sounded like a couples counseling term to me, so I shrugged and said “Nope, I don’t think so…”
She went on to explain its concept and very quickly it was resonating as something I actually was familiar with in that it seemed like something I have, maybe subconsciously, practiced most of my life. It’s the belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life. I’ve always had a pretty positive mental attitude. A look on the brightsider. A pro re-framer. A negative to positive alchemist. But shit gets hard when you get older and the responsibilities pile on and you start to lose yourself in the flood.
My family has been going through it lately, and for a long time if I’m honest. It’s been really difficult to remain positive at times. It took me years to get to a place where I could finally become just kind of “unbothered” by The Shit. It’s been good hard work, and, listen, I’m still not perfect, it’s going to be forever a work in progress. It’s hard as hell to get there when overt judgement seems to be constantly rained down upon you by people who possess a drop in the bucket as far as knowing anything real about you at all. I’ve spent just a little too much time letting other people tell me who I am.
Thankfully, I have found peace in the chaos. I know who I am. I have a lot of insecurities but who I am at my core, that was never one of them. I know who I am and I know who my people are. I no longer waste my energy trying to psychoanalyze why people act the way they do. I don’t need to understand why people hurt people much any more, even though I think it is human nature to want to find meaning behind the pain they are projecting. Every person on the planet is manifesting their own thing and it’s just really none of my business. All I can do is act accordingly for myself, which looks like strong and purposeful boundaries with people and things that make me feel unsafe, to care for and love on my family and nurture those relationships that serve my best self, be present in moments and take care of my own needs.
From verywellmind.com:
Some things that you can do to incorporate the law of attraction into your own life include:
Be grateful
Visualize your goals
Look for the positives in a situation
Learn how to identify negative thinking
Use positive affirmations
Reframe negative events in a more positive way
A more optimistic outlook obviously can’t serve to solve all of the problems in life but it damn sure is the keystone to staying on track.
I guess it’s just that, this Thanksgiving I’ve got this stuff on my mind. I am grateful for all the things I have in my life. Things money can’t buy. And I just wanted to put it out there, some shared juju because the holidays can be especially difficult, into the internet firmament just in case it lands on the right people.
I’m grateful for so much in my life, I would never be able to do a list justice… But I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. (Edit to say: After writing out my list it really did give me a sense of perspective and appreciation so 10/10 would recommend you try the same thing!)
2023 LIST OF A FEW THINGS THAT GET ME THROUGH THE DAY:
Iron Maiden loud in my van
my house plants
morning sex
hot tea w/honey
Milla playing violin and singing “The Man Who Sold the World” by David Bowie
bacon
Bruce Springsteen - Land of Hope and Dreams
candles in the bedroom
painting
throwing a football
supportive friends and family
our Halloween decor
feeling Serge slide closer to me in bed in the middle of the dark night
Charles Bukowski
Friday night pizza picnic dates in bed
Will&Grace
therapy
Blake telling me my mac and cheese is incredible
bones/bugs/taxidermy
thrifting
clean sheets
the seat warmer in my van
looking at old photos of the kids
hiking
the kids having friends over
The X-files
Bright Eyes - Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
writing
my friends sending me funny memes
our non-traditional Thanksgiving tradition
“what if scenarios” with Serge
dogs
FaceTime
pineapple TRULY
invites to events and activities
The Rivet
Hartley’s Potato Chips
baseball
holding my newborn baby nephew, Bo
coffee with friends
Hey there, everyone, thanks for reading and being interested. I just wanted to reiterate my infinite thankfulness to you all today and every day. Your likes, comments and direct messages really do my heart well. I love having you around and I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.
Wishing you and yours a really nice Thanksgiving, however that looks for you. For Serge and myself, we have none of our kids on Thanksgiving Day. It was a choice we made 3 years ago because it just made sense. It was ridiculous trying to share and coordinate the day with all the different people who love the kids and want to see them so we just gave it up. Serge’s kids go with their mom and do their thing and my kids go with their dad and do their thing. It’s nice actually. For the kids especially, I think. Not to have to be subjected to being pulled in 12 different directions, multiple 45 minute car rides, 4 turkey dinners.. that’s no fun for anyone! So they go that way and get to spend a really cool and relaxing turkey day elsewhere and Serge and I get a day where we can do something cool and special together, like a 10 mile hike! …or a day like this year, in bed because one of us is sick (me). So, then, we figure, a day of thanks can be celebrated any day of the year, so, the Sunday following Thanksgiving we have our own non-traditional tradition of a chinese food fest (mega hit with the kids) and then, after the food coma subsides, we go cut down our Christmas tree. It has honestly become my favorite holiday I think. Because it’s ours.
Love, peace, acceptance, freedom, adventure,
Arle
I got my hands in my pockets, kicking these rocks
It's kinda hard to watch this life go by
I'm buying into skeptics
Skeptics mess with the confidence in my eyes
I'm seeing all the angles, thoughts get tangled
I start to compromise my life and my purpose
Is it all worth it?
Am I gonna turn out fine?
Oh, you turn out fine
Fine, oh, you turn out fine
But you gotta keep your head up
And you can let your hair down
You gotta keep your head up
And you can let your hair down,
I know it's hard, know it's hard
To remember sometimes
But you gotta keep your head up
And you can let your hair down
-Andy Grammer, “Keep Your Head Up”
Photos: Arle Bielanko unless otherwise noted
Edited by Thunder Pie
Email: arlebielanko@gmail.com
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mind·ful·ness
/ˈmīn(d)f(ə)lnəs/
noun
the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.
"their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition"
a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
Best of luck on your substack journey Arle! It's gonna be fun...
Well I am glad to finally put a voice to all I have read by Serge bout his beloved Alre wife. I agree with everything you’ve written here. Positive thoughts, feelings, words, and experiences truly matter in our own lives and to a large extent, form our lives and greatly impact the lives of those around us. Miss B will always remember she is enormously loved and blessed to have you for a step momma. Hard for me to use a plural pronoun for singular person. My bad. Thank you for your transparency and great thoughts on gratitude. I live with my 88 year old Mom who has dementia and have found that an attitude of gratitude, along with simple positive words and actions helps to keep my sanity. Simple joys matter. Let everything that tres to invade and complicate life, even thoughts, let them to go. Replace it with goodness and kindness. My sister just divorced anfter 37 years, and moved in , along her high functiong special needs son and this peace matters to all of us, more now than ever. “Inhale Exhale, move on” 🤔