Goals In 2026

Saturday, December 27, 2025

I usually fail at traditional goal-setting. Not because I lack interests—quite the opposite—it’s because I can’t seem to choose just one direction.

Goal setting has always felt artificial to me. I try, but my beginnings drift toward their endings quickly. Time has taught me that my mind works best when I am noticing, listening, and following threads. My lists of desired outcomes tend to harden too quickly into expectations—and expectations often drain my energy rather than organize it.

So in setting goals for 2026, I’m applying personal insights gained over many years. Instead of declaring ambitions, I’m taking another approach: naming practices—ways of living that support curiosity without turning it into a series of obligations.

These are my plans for the new year.

I will take steps to learn basic Spanish, gently—mostly by listening. There will be no fluency deadline and no pressure to perform. I’ll choose programs that allow me to hear the language without strain and give me enough time to absorb vocabulary naturally.

I will keep writing my blog, but with clearer boundaries. I want to practice blogging from multiple perspectives rather than maintaining a single voice that tries to cover everything. A friend has suggested that I experiment with Substack, and I may—using a time-limited trial. Clarity matters more to me than reach.

I will work more with my camera and focus on small, coherent projects—one subject at a time. I won’t try to build a portfolio. What I want is to learn how to see more carefully.

I will do physical core exercises daily for 10 or 15 minutes. My focus will be continuity, not intensity.

Retail work will remain part of my life—not as identity, but as social engagement. I’ve learned that being among people matters, even when the work itself is ordinary.

Property care will continue, emphasizing seasonal, more realistic goals. One improvement per season is enough. I will aim for stewardship, not perfection.

I will finish a back-shelf creative project—Little Miss Merry—which has stayed with me. Finish it this year. Not expand it. Finish it.

I will invest in the stock market by employing a simple strategy: I’ll remain calm. And continue learning how to evaluate possibilities more clearly, stay steady, and avoid reactive moves.

I intend to strengthen my “mental core” by making regular room for intellectual experimentation—reading, listening, thinking—and release any feelings that I must carry everything forward. I will be an interested visitor, not a collector.

Finally, I’m adopting a simple rule to keep my 2026 plans viable:
If a goal or intention begins to demand urgency—something that must be proven, measured, or justified—it’s likely unaligned with how I want to live now.

None of that’s a retreat.
It’s refinement.

— Diana

Hearing Is Knowing

Friday, December 26, 2025

I had planned to wind down this listening series—focused on long-appreciated vocal artists—by stepping back and making observations about sound and musical genres. But something unexpected has happened along the way. By focusing closely on artistic styles, writing about musicians’ unique deliveries, and staying deeply attentive to how musical communication actually works, I’ve found that I can’t quit listening.

I’m no longer paying much attention to genres, backgrounds, or music as accompaniment to productivity or outcomes. Instead, I’m listening, paying attention itself—and seeking presence. I want to stay with sounds longer—to hear them doing their work.

Many of my earlier thoughts about “hearing music” resurfaced recently when I was visiting a neighbor’s garage. On most Friday nights, a group of long-time friends gathers there simply to play music together. No audience. No metrics. No urgencies beyond the shared pleasure of making sound and keeping time.

My “hearing memories” revived and renewed something essential. I have known—personally experienced careful listening and how it compels. Such listening feels vital. Yet, today, we mostly listen differently. Because we’re immersed in musical worlds that too often demand performance, circulation, and justification.

I’m not into re-circling nostalgia. I’m not into longing for vanished eras or arguing that music was once “better.” I’m into something more elemental that’s happening. By listening carefully, again, to humans singing, vocally or instrumentally—I am hearing them—as fully inside their voices.

This listening slows one down. Asks for patience. Asks not to scan ahead for what might be coming. Instead, it asks for staying with what’s here, now. Close listening alters the sense of time: it makes songs stretch, silences matter, and imperfections more meaningful than distracting. A sincere listener is less interested in quantity—or heavy listening—and far more in depth.

Something within me softens while listening to a singular voice, human or instrumental. There are sounds that don’t carry a brand or a narrative. They carry a “life”—shaped by contradiction, limitation, courage, and persistence.

Listening closely and hearing an artist’s lived history is a form of genuine respect.

I don’t expect others to hear exactly as I do, or to be drawn to the same voices. I’m simply inviting participation and noticing. Consider what sounds make you stop and lean in? Consider what sounds refuse to fade, even after a song ends, and a voice winds down?

Close listening helps us know where originality truly lives—and, equally important, in the encounters between the sounds and listening. It’s renewing my feelings of curiosity and wonder, pairing them with the acceptance that not everything needs sorting, explaining, or resolving.

Some things ask only to be heard.

I plan to keep listening—slowly, attentively, and without rushing to name what I find.

If you’ve been listening along with me, we’ve shared those quiet spaces between notes. We feel quietly grateful—and very much in the know.

— Diana

Unique Voices

Wednesday (Christmas Eve), December 14, 1015

I’m delighted to find myself right around Christmas—perhaps the most musical time of the year—thinking about music again and wanting to write about it.

My recent music-related posts have been about listening, particularly to performers with unmistakable presence and unique delivery styles. Their voices cannot be replicated, which leads to questions worth considering.

Why do some voices resist imitation completely? Why do certain singers and musicians remain instantly recognizable, even though there have been generations of covers, tributes, and technical study?

We often say a voice is “one of a kind.” That’s rather vague—almost sentimental. Actually, it’s because listening itself is remarkably precise. We hear a single note and recognize the artist immediately—before melody, before lyric, before context. We know who it is almost at once.

That recognition doesn’t come just from technique. We know that vocal ranges can be matched. Timbres approximated. Phrasing analyzed and rehearsed. And yet, we hear some artists as possessing something essential that never transfers.

There have been countless tributes to Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, and Amy Winehouse. Many are impressive; some are genuinely beautiful. But they don’t feel complete. The outer shape may be there, but the interior weight is missing.

It seems logical, then, that a singular voice isn’t built from sound alone. It’s built from a life—and a particular life is audible, in timing, pressure, and its collision with the world.

Louis Armstrong could not have sounded as he did had he been born into comfort. Nina Simone’s music cannot be separated from her intelligence, her anger, her discipline, or her refusal to soften herself. Janis Joplin’s voice—carrying both defiance and hunger—is inseparable from the era that shaped her and constrained her. Amy Winehouse sang with an emotional directness that felt almost too exposed in a culture that practices concealment. Peggy Lee, writing deeply emotional songs, sang in a soft voice, creating impact not through force but through rhythmic shifts and carefully placed pauses.

Imitating artists cannot replicate another’s suffering—or the precise way an individual metabolizes experience prior to releasing it as sound.

And releases aren’t always tidy. Singular voices may include strain, cracks, or unevenness. They often ignore rules of prettiness or balance. In fact, polish can become the enemy of recognizability. Too much smoothing erases the friction that makes a voice distinct.

Many technically perfect performances leave us untouched because they arrive fully resolved—closed, complete, leaving no space for a listener to enter. I’m always wanting to feel a connection, sensing a presence that’s still unfolding.

Unrepeatable voices leave room and feel porous. They allow us to sense the human being “inside the sound”—the one thinking, remembering, insisting, sometimes even breaking.

Social timing matters, too, because certain voices emerge when the world is ready—or perhaps not ready—for them. They arrive as tensions that matter to listeners. A voice shaped in opposition, one that defies erasure, carries an urgency that cannot be rehearsed into existence later.

Voices that last are reminders that originality does not belong only to the past. They show us that originality is fragile, and dependent on conditions—social, cultural, personal—that cannot be mass-produced.

And so I return, again and again, to certain artists. Not drawn by nostalgia, but by recognition. They keep reminding me that music is one of the rare places where individuality can survive intact—and unflattened.

Another post will focus on genre, and why it can fail us when we try to describe what moves us most. Meanwhile, I’ll keep listening for what refuses to be copied—and wondering what it costs, and what it requires, to sound like no one else.

— Diana

Perspectives

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

There’s something uniquely grounding about reconnecting with long-time friends. The conversations are nostalgic, and often honest in ways that only shared time allows. By the time we reach old age, we’ve weathered unexpected challenges, made adjustments, and lost assumptions. We’ve quietly revised our earlier plans. Our gatherings feel open and rewarding—usually because we no longer feel the need to pretend.

Old age—spoken plainly—exerts a powerful influence. Especially when it’s allowed to surface not as a deficit, but as a lens shaped by experience. It reflects years of altered priorities, softened ambitions, and a growing clarity about what matters. Old age draws not from our younger decades—when we were busy projecting forward and planning futures—but from what we’ve learned, and continue to learn, after those early plans met reality.

The more I understand about human evolution and adaptation, the more I appreciate being in this stage of life known as old age. Recently, a minor car accident prompted me to visit urgent care—less out of alarm than out of prudence.

The physical evaluation itself was unremarkable. What surprised me instead were the reactions of the healthcare providers. Each commented on my high activity levels, absence of medications, and continued engagement in work outside the home—observations I had never considered notable before.

That attention lingered and raised unexpected questions. Would this new awareness be helpful—or might it subtly alter my internal balance?

When things once taken for granted are suddenly labeled “remarkable,” does ordinary confidence shift into something more like pressure? Does acknowledgment invite risk—physical or otherwise—where caution once lived comfortably?

These thoughts can easily spiral into philosophy. But they also point to something real. Over time, we learn that new knowledge recalibrates perspective. It changes posture—how we carry ourselves—not just outwardly and physically, but inwardly and psychologically as well.

Nothing dramatic emerged from that medical visit. We acknowledged the ordinary strains and stiffness of a well-used body. I sought the evaluation less out of fear than out of mindfulness—a desire to be attentive, and to have the incident documented should anything develop later.

Perhaps this, too, is part of aging well: not resisting uncertainty, but noticing it, holding it lightly, and then returning—more comfortably—to the quiet business of living.

— Diana

Hearing A Presence

Friday, December 19, 2025

Tomorrow is the winter solstice of 2025—the day our planet offers its fewest hours of light and quietly turns back toward longer days. The semi-annual solstices are about timing. And that has this one reawakening me to a listening experience I’ve somehow overlooked.

While I’ve reflected on—and written about—voices that enter a room and change its atmosphere, I’ve left one essential vocal artist standing quietly at the doorway:

Peggy Lee.

Not because she demands attention—but because she never does. With Peggy Lee, less is always more.

Listening to her becomes an exercise in recalibration. Lee doesn’t lean forward into the listener; she lets the listener come to her. In doing so, she alters the very terms of engagement. You don’t consume a Peggy Lee song. You lean in. You adjust your breathing. You become careful.

Where Louis Armstrong carries weight—joy braided with sorrow—and Ella Fitzgerald moves with brilliance and lift, Peggy Lee works in a narrower register. A deliberate narrowness. A choice. And within it, something quietly commands—and happens.

Peggy Lee’s timing is everything.

She doesn’t rush toward a lyric; she places it. Sometimes she arrives a fraction late. Sometimes she lets a word trail off, as if deciding—mid-phrase—how much truth to reveal. Silence, for her, isn’t an absence but a tool: a held breath, a raised eyebrow—one you can hear.

In songs like “Fever,” the drama isn’t in volume or flourish; it’s in restraint. Lee barely raises her voice. She doesn’t sell the song; she assumes it. Her confidence isn’t showy. It’s settled. Adult. World-aware.

Listening to her, I’m struck by how much authority can live inside softness.

Peggy Lee’s presence feels personal without being confessional. She doesn’t invite us into her interior life so much as let us sit nearby. She doesn’t ask us to identify with her pain or her triumphs; she asks simply that we notice—and pay attention.

Perhaps that is why Peggy Lee’s singing still feels so modern.

In an era when performance often leans toward maximal expression, she reminds us that meaning can reside in what is withheld—that intimacy can be created less by exposure than by precision. She teaches us that timing—true timing—isn’t just musical, but emotional.

Listening to Peggy Lee, I don’t feel dazzled. I feel addressed. She seems to change the room not by rearranging the furniture, but by lowering the lights.

Today, finding her again, I’m not merely listening to the music. I’m listening for something within it—a presence that doesn’t announce itself, but waits. Patiently and unmistakably, for anyone who slows down enough to hear it.

— Diana

Listening for Presence

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Yesterday, I wrote my first of several planned posts about listening to music, and I paused. Soon, something different and subtle struck me. I was highly focused on writing about music, but wasn’t rushing off to research or make lists. Nor was I working on organizing sections, say about eras, or trying to build arguments toward a point of view. Instead, I found myself involved in actively listening itself.

I wasn’t listening constantly, nor methodically—but differently, very thoughtfully. More slowly. More attentively. I found myself listening for something, and not simply to something. That “something” has always been hard to name, but it’s something I constantly search for–and I always recognize it instantly when it appears.

To me, certain voices don’t merely enter a room—they change the space. The air feels altered, and as a listener, I feel myself being addressed—and personally. This doesn’t depend on volume or virtuosity. It’s likely to arrive in a whisper, a pause, a cracked note, a breath held just a beat longer than expected.

Here are examples: While listening to Louis Armstrong, I realized I’m not just hearing sound; I’m hearing weight—as if he’s carrying joy alongside sorrow, humor braided with endurance. When Ella Fitzgerald sings, I hear something like generosity in her phrasing—as though she’s opening space rather than filling it. Nina Simone’s voice creates a world where feeling becomes thought itself—urgent, unyielding, refusing comfort. Janis Joplin sang as if nothing were protected. Amy Winehouse sang as if she already knew the cost.

Here’s what strikes me: these are voices that don’t ask permission. They don’t soften themselves for acceptability. They don’t sound engineered to land well—they sound natural and necessary.

When I hear them, the idea of “performance” feels inadequate. Performance suggests polish, presentation, and a certain distance. Instead, I hear presence. I sense the singer fully inside the moment, and bringing me along without barriers between experience and expression.

Presence can’t be trained into someone, and presence can’t be copied. One can imitate another’s phrasing, tone, and even style. But “real presence” isn’t a technique; it’s a condition. And listeners know it when they hear it.

I often think about how rare this feels today—not because artists lack talent, but because so much contemporary music is filtered through expectations of marketability, branding, perfection, and constant visibility. Today’s technologies create pressure to be seamless, consistent, and endlessly repeatable. Earlier music, by contrast, often allowed unevenness. Performances included roughness, surprise, and even discomfort.

That may be why I return so often to voices from earlier decades—or search for modern artists who feel somehow outside the machine. I seek those whose sounds are as though something real is happening to them as they sing, not just through them.

I’m not suggesting that suffering creates great art, or that pain is a requirement for authenticity. But lived experience—fully inhabited—leaves traces. Great artists allow those traces to remain audible.

Listening in this way makes me consider my own habits. How often do I listen while doing something else? How quickly do I move on when a song doesn’t immediately reward me? How conditioned have I become to smoothness—to ease?

This is my second post about listening to music. Not to make a conclusion, but to create something more like a tuning fork. A small way of noticing what resonates—and what doesn’t.

In another post on this topic, I hope to stay close to this question: What makes a voice unrepeatable? Not better. Not more famous. But singular—so that no matter how many imitators try to cover an original, something essential refuses to transfer.

For now, I’ll keep listening for presence. And I’ll gamble that once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it either.

— Diana

Letting Go, Mending, Learning

Tuesday, December 09, 2025

Several weeks ago, after leaving my sales job in a large retail department store, I turned my attention back to a long list of needs waiting at home. I contracted for a new roof, got long-overdue electrical repairs done, and—perhaps in the biggest emotional task of all—helped my beloved donkey, Pimmy, transition to her new home.

Fortunately, that new home is nearby and I visit often, which softens the bittersweetness. Pimmy is a “special needs” pet, living with Cushing’s disease and Type II diabetes. Over the past year, I carefully managed her diet, and she lost nearly 200 pounds. She now looks bright, alert, and almost youthful again.

Her “new person” is a retired nurse—gentle, steady, and knowledgeable—who understands Pimmy’s conditions and is both vigilant and deeply caring. Pimmy now wears a grazing mask and spends her days roaming a generous pasture with her new buddy, an aging Arab gelding. The regular movement is doing wonders: she’s walking more freely, her energy has lifted, and her coat is turning fluffier and shinier, as if she’s growing into a chapter all her own.

Meanwhile, life with my two horses has kept me just as busy. With Pimmy settled, I turned to repairing fencing, cleaning the barn, and making a few improvements to the horses’ living space—projects that had been quietly waiting for months. Horses have a way of creating their own to-do lists, and mine certainly did.

Rosie, who is sturdy but sometimes finds trouble, managed to develop a hoof abscess. It needed soaking, wrapping, and all the fussing Rosie insists on not enjoying. And Sunny—sweet, distractible Sunny—somehow scraped a surprising patch of fur off her face. No dramatic story, just the everyday mysteries of horse life. Between meds, bandages, and gentle reassurance, they’ve needed both hands-on treatment and the simple comfort of my presence.

All this work has kept me grounded, but I’ve also become aware of another familiar pattern: the slow return to isolation whenever I stay home long enough. It’s not that I don’t love being here—keeping the property in shape, caring for the animals, tending to the endless little realities of country life. I do. Yet after a while, I begin to miss the hums of human life. Conversations. Laughter. The ordinary noises people make while going about their day.

So, I decided to rebalance things. For this Christmas season, I’m taking a part-time job at a fast-moving retail discount store. A few short shifts each week will give me a little of the outside world again—energy, chatter, and a constantly changing flow of faces. And, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I have a growing curiosity about retail as an industry. Now that I’ve learned how a traditional department store operates, I’ve also wanted to understand how the bulk discount retailers run their show. My new seasonal role will give me a chance to find out.

What I’ll ultimately do with my expanding retail knowledge is anybody’s guess—mine included. Maybe it will simply satisfy my curiosity. Maybe it will help me better understand the rhythms of modern commerce. Or perhaps it’s just another way of staying engaged with a world that keeps shifting under our feet.

For now, it’s enough that this will get me out among people again—listening, learning, and feeling connected—while still allowing me to come home to the animals and land that make up the heart of my days.

— Diana

Pimmy’s New Beginning

Sunday, November 30, 2025

My middle-aged donkey, Pimmy, may soon be living in a new home. It’s bittersweet to even write that, because the past year with her has been so intense, so emotional, and so full of learning.

Pimmy’s health crisis last year took me completely by surprise. I was unfamiliar with Cushing’s disease in equines, let alone equine Type II diabetes. By the time I understood how sick she truly was, she needed to be hospitalized in an equine ICU—days of specialized care, IVs, monitoring, and the kind of worry that settles in your bones.

When she finally came home, it was with lifelong medical needs: daily medication, careful feeding, and the responsibility of helping her lose nearly 100 pounds. At first her treatment routine was twice a day, and eventually it shifted to once daily, but the vigilance and devotion never lessened.

Through it all, Pimmy remained sweet and willing—devoted to “her horses,” Rosie and Sunny, even when I had to separate her from them so she wouldn’t overeat. They stayed close, calling to each other over the fence, a small reminder of their bond. I became unexpectedly proficient at mixing medications and administering them to a donkey who had her own opinions about anything that didn’t involve hay. And each time I walked toward the barn, she greeted me with hopeful, hungry brays—touching, funny, and a bit heartbreaking.

But she adapted, and so did I. Over the year, Pimmy lost the weight she needed to lose. She looks wonderful—bright-eyed, balanced, and healthy. Somewhere along the way, this stubborn little donkey transformed into “my big puppy,” easy to handle, affectionate, and smart as all get-out.

Through her recovery, my biggest worry remained her future. Donkeys, when well cared for, can live forty years or more. At my age, I know I won’t be here for the whole arc of her life. Rehoming her has weighed heavily on me. Anyone responsible for Pimmy would need to understand the realities of a “special-needs” donkey—the monitoring, the daily medication, the vigilance around weight. Not everyone can take that on. But for the right person, the reward would be immense. Pimmy, in my fully biased opinion, is one of the sweetest donkeys on the planet.

And then, early in Thanksgiving week, something unexpected happened.

A nearby neighbor, Alison—someone I only vaguely knew, though I knew she was a horseperson—texted me out of the blue asking if she and her husband could come talk. After so many years living near each other, I had no idea what she might want.

They arrived and told me their old horse had recently died, leaving their remaining elderly gelding lonely and unsettled. Softly, and very respectfully, they asked whether they might “borrow” my donkey for a few weeks as a companion until they found another horse.

Because they’re experienced with horses, they already understood the essentials of Pimmy’s care. They played with her, scratched her in all her favorite places, and fell for her immediately. And without much hesitation, we made an agreement: Pimmy would go to their place as a companion. If they loved her—and if they could manage her medical needs—she could stay permanently.

A remarkable part of this is that Alison, besides being a lifelong horsewoman, is a recently retired nurse. She understands chronic conditions; she’s comfortable with medications and observant about details. She asked the right questions, noticed everything, and handled Pimmy with a calm confidence that reassured me instantly.

Yesterday, Alison returned with several friends who were excited to meet Pimmy.

We all escorted Pimmy, who wore a grazing muzzle, as we had to walk across a pasture, to meet the elderly gelding. Those two hit it off right away. And, everyone adored Pimmy—her sweetness, her curiosity, her gentleness. I watched her step into this new circle of people and animals and felt the full bittersweetness of those moments.

Letting go of a beloved companion is never easy. She has been part of my daily rhythm, part of my barnyard family. But alongside the ache, I could feel something else—relief, gratitude, and a genuine joy. I could see clearly that Pimmy was stepping into a home where she would be appreciated, understood, and deeply cared for.

It felt like the universe whispering, Here. This is the right place. This is the right time.

That it’s Thanksgiving season, too, has me feeling a special mixture of gratitude and humility. Gratitude that Pimmy is healthy and happy, that the right people appeared at precisely the right moment, and that she will be cherished in her new home. And, humility in realizing that letting go—when it’s done with love—is also an act of giving care.

Pimmy will always be an essential part of my story. But now she belongs to a new one, and that’s bringing me a quiet, hopeful peace.

(Note: The photos, “moments of transition,” were captured by our friend, Susie.)

— Diana

Creative Longing

Saturday, November 29, 2025

I keep wondering why certain objects can hold such power over me. They’re not things that glitter or impress. But cameras. And computers. Tools that can capture images or help me shape words. Tools that let me look more closely and think more deeply.

Yesterday, on Black Friday, I impulsively purchased a lightweight laptop—an extravagance I can’t quite justify, and one I’ve argued with myself about since clicking “Buy.” At the same time, I felt a strong tug toward using my camera more often. Something is dawning on me: I’m not really longing for the gadgets themselves. I’m longing for what they represent—seeing and understanding.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to anything that helped me make sense of the world. I was a confused, unhappy youngster who studied people’s faces, their gestures, the tiny habits that revealed who they were. I was always searching for clarity.

My adulthood carried the same pattern—observing and learning through books, conversations, history, and the complicated turns of human nature. And for many years now, I’ve written almost daily, using words as a way to understand the world around me.

Underneath all of this—beneath the reading, the writing, the curiosity, the endless blog posts—is a quiet truth: I look because I want to see. I write because I want to understand.

So when that high-end laptop appeared in the Black Friday ads, something in me stirred. Something hopeful, almost childlike. I brushed aside my doubts and ordered it—not because I needed a new computer, but because I wanted the possibility it represents: mobility, clarity, freedom to explore ideas wherever I happen to be.

In realizing this, my doubts have softened. The laptop has even renewed my interest in photography. Not in “taking pictures,” but in pausing long enough to truly notice something—
a slant of morning light,
frost edging a fence board,
the expression on a horse’s face.

A camera grants permission to look a little longer, to silently declare that this moment matters.

The new laptop is on its way, and the battery for my camera is charging. Yes, the laptop is a luxury—I already have a perfectly good one—but it isn’t lightweight enough to carry with me. And at this stage in life, I’m finally admitting something simple: some people crave adventure or entertainment; I crave clarity.

It’s no surprise, really. Part of it comes from where I began, still seeking the clarity I never had as a child. That clarity now comes from noticing, reflecting, and catching the fleeting things that daily responsibilities make easy to miss. It grows as I put words to feelings and capture images that echo something within me.

These yearnings aren’t weaknesses or indulgences. They’re my learned way of staying awake to the world—choosing what my mature eyes and mind want to truly see.

Yes, I’m “wasting” money in a sense. Tools come and go. Cameras break. Laptops age. But the more profound desire—to see, to understand, to express—has never faded. These threads have run through my life for decades, woven into my work, shaping my aging years, and helping me rebuild after losses. They’ve colored every blog post I’ve written.

I keep reaching for creative tools not because I want more possessions, but because I need ways to follow the parts of myself that still want to grow.

So my impulsive purchase isn’t wasteful after all.
It’s a way of keeping my inner world alive and bright—
one image, one insight, one small moment at a time.

— Diana

Thanksgiving 2025

Thursday, November 27, 2025

In the very early hours on this Thanksgiving Day—and somewhere between drifting out of sleep and deciding to get out of bed—I found myself thinking a great deal about my mother. Not about her holiday meals or the rituals of past Thanksgivings, but about something quieter and far more enduring: her creativity, especially as she expressed it, in her clothing choices.

She had a way of dressing that was a little unusual for “those days.” People might have called her overdressed or a touch too polished for everyday life. Yet if she were strolling into a department store today, she’d simply be called stylish—bold, intentional, and entirely herself.

My own style has wandered a long road. During my working years in the corporate world, I wore the expected uniform: suits—navy, brown, black—paired with conservative tops and sensible pumps. Nothing daring, nothing loud, nothing to draw a second glance. I wore a kind of professional armor—respectable, reliable, and utterly unremarkable.

When retirement arrived, I traded corporate life for horses—beautiful, messy, mud-slinging horses. My “style,” if one could call it that, became functional layers, dusty denim, barn jackets, and shirts no longer resembling their original colors. Horse life doesn’t care about fashion; it cares about surviving the elements and getting hay out of your clothing and hair. I spent years happily dressed in what was only describable as rags-with-purpose.

It wasn’t until much later, when I found a job in retail, that I realized how far I’d drifted from any real sense of style. Surrounded suddenly by fabrics, mannequins, new arrivals, and customers asking for advice, I felt nudged to re-engage—to look again, learn again, and find my footing in a world I had set aside.

And that’s when my long-past style influencers quietly began resurfacing.

I found myself drawn to earlier icons—especially the simplicity of Chanel, her confident elegance, and her refusal to apologize for beauty or individuality. I re-discovered that Chanel’s originality speaks to me, still, even after all my years of practicality and barn dust.

One of the more “interesting” designers who followed in Coco’s House of Chanel was Karl Lagerfeld. I discovered his bold creations after starting to work in retail. At first, I disliked them wholeheartedly. Karl loved to scrawl his name with messages from Paris all over his designs. I swore—loudly to myself—that I would never wear a garment plastered with an egotist’s name and scribbles.

Until, on a whim and unable to resist, I brought a pair of Karl’s Jeans—they had large and rhinestone-encrusted cuffs. I finally got up the courage to wear them in public—and found my jeans becoming noticed up and down the street—greeted not with laughter, but with appreciation. Real appreciation. For their sparkles, their boldness, and mostly, the humor of it all.

After that, I softened—began studying “the Karls.” I’d try on a piece or two and, after that, buy one and wear it in public. I discovered that being noticed could feel…fun. Beneath it all, though, my clothing choices always drifted back to clean and timeless Chanel lines—ones my mother would have admired.

So early today, my mind wandered to fashion—my mother appeared as my guide. At first, her presence confused my drowsy self, until I realized that she had been my guide—the style influencer that I never fully recognized, until now.

Here, in my later years. While reflecting sleepily on my recent journey in retail and hearing my customers ask, “What is my style?” (and asking myself, what’s mine?), I could see myself gradually viewing “something called style” differently. Most importantly, this morning, I understood how I’ve learned to appreciate what my mother quietly handed down to me.

Today, I’m thankful for all these—for the subtle inheritance of taste, for the courage to express myself, and for a mother whose sense of style found its way back to me—long after I thought I had left it behind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

— Diana