Smuggling Grace

I love when I have new questions — curiosities I’ve never considered before. Yesterday, I actually got a new answer, and I had not even asked the question.

I was walking down several blocks to try a Yemeni coffeeshop in my town, when I suddenly looked to the right and saw this:

I’ll be honest when I say that I don’t even know what these are called. People sit around these. There’s a table in the middle, and everyone pedals together. There’s a driver in the front, steering so everyone can go around town and (typically) drink while pedaling.

I’m looking these up now. Words I’ve used so far: Foot trolley, Pedal trolley, Group pedal trolley.

Nope, none of these. This does not involve the word “trolley.” Google has now gotten my drift, however, and these are called “party bikes” or “pub bikes.”

Here’s the answer I didn’t ask for: This — pictured above — is where these party/pub bikes go when they’re not partying/pubbing. This little parking lot.

I realized I had never once wondered, “Who keeps these, and where do they go when the party is over?” Once I see them pedal away, or turned onto another street, it’s as if they no longer exist. They are dead to me. Apparently, I’ve forgotten that I’m a person in my 40s who has object permanence.

This is something babies learn over time. When that rattle goes behind someone’s back or is put away, you can’t see it anymore, but it still exists. It takes a while for babies to figure this out. I guess I never got the memo on the continued existence of party/pub bikes.

And now, this has me wondering about other things, too:

I have never in my life wondered where the orange barrels go once orange barrel season has ended. Is there, like, a big warehouse somewhere? Or does every city have one? How many orange barrels exist in the world — total? I know I am not able to comprehend the number.

And also, now that I think about it for the very first time in my whole life, where do voting booths go? Do they… fold up? Who keeps these throughout the year, and when the time is right, says, “Okay, time to load them up!” Where do they live? And each year, is there a rotation of which ones get to go to polling places, or do the same ones always go out? Do they get excited that they were in use the year that certain candidates emerged or won? When they go back to the casa de los voting booths, do they talk to each other about how some people don’t know how to fill in squares correctly with pens? Or that we smell bad? Or that we VOTED FOR WHO?!?

New answers. New questions.

Midlife Object Permanence.

—Renee Roederer

I rarely lead support groups anymore. This was something I did several times a week for years. But in recent years, especially the last year, it has been an absolute pleasure to invite others to take up that mantle.

Sometimes staff members lead, but most of the time, peer leaders with lived experience, are sharing great gifts, helping people feel welcome, and facilitating good conversations. My work has moved away from facilitating directly to having conversations with and supporting the people who are now leading.

This has been a joy.

I love watching these staff members and peer leaders come into their element and exercise the gifts they’ve had all along. I’ll also say it’s deeply satisfying to watch them discover some of the magic and transformation that is possible in community circles like these.

Yesterday, I was talking with one of our peer leaders, and he mentioned how incredible it is to invite the whole group to provide feedback, insights, and encouragement, and then watch participants build one another up.

I remember having a similar realization years ago. Sometimes people would call our Helpline, and I would have some insights and resources to offer them. But I realized that the greater power almost always came when I could connect that person with additional people in community. Many times, I’ve been able sit back and marvel as connections and community care take on a life of their own in these kinds of spaces.

You can’t really take credit for it. You simply do your best to create a welcoming space that nurtures these possibilities. Then it grows on its own through relationships.

The peer leader I was talking with yesterday had those same realizations in the circle he’s leading, and it was so satisfying to watch that happen and to affirm it.

I know most of my readers probably don’t often lead support groups or mentor people who do. But there’s no doubt that you create spaces too, whether that’s inside your home, your classroom, your workplace, your faith community, or other places.

In addition to creating those spaces, I hope you’ve had moments to sit back and watch other people discover that joy.

It’s really lovely.

—Renee Roederer

“Hi Renee, how many views do we have?”

I simply never had this on my Bingo card — my Mom texting me about her TikTok views. But here we are.

And it turns out it isn’t a small amount. As of this precise moment: 97.4K.

I got this joke on video last January in the hopes that I would catch her reaction so I could send it to a friend. But then my stepdad steals the show. He’s just so tickled!

They were watching it again a few nights ago and said, “We should submit this to something.”

I sincerely think they were pondering America’s Funniest Home Videos. (LOL.)

I said, “What if I share it on TikTok?”

“Sure!” they said.

Alongside all those views, there are hundreds of comments. Some talk about how cute my Mom is here (true!). Many say that my stepdad is the one who ends up sounding like an owl. Or Mickey Mouse. (I hadn’t noticed that until someone else pointed it out.) And then someone said, “There’s no way you’re going to convince me that your Dad didn’t lay an egg just now.”

I have never heard him laugh like this before or since. Just this one moment, which I happened to catch on camera.

So, introducing my Mom and stepdad below.

They’re a hoot.

@therealnoozle

My parents are a hoot. #parentsoftiktok

♬ original sound – The Real Noozle

Over the last few months, I’ve been noticing the same Jeep around town. And by the way, I don’t mean this in any creepy sense. I just mean that it’s very colorful and unique, so it’s noticeable.

I’ve seen it parked while walking in a certain neighborhood. I’ve seen it in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s. I’ve been walking in another neighborhood when it has pulled up to a stoplight.

It’s a really cute Jeep.

But all of this has made me wonder how often we pass the same people and never realize it. Maybe we’ve been in the same grocery store with someone thirty times and have no idea. I grew up in a small town, and when I met people in high school, we would sometimes wonder if we had been in Target at the same time as children. It was one of the main places to go.

We’ve probably shared space with people who later became significant to us.

And I might have repeatedly seen a same plain white SUV too, but I would never know it.

We’re probably in one another’s presence more than we realize.

A lot of the time, people around us are carrying the very storylines unfolding in the news. People are experiencing shared hardships, but they may think they’re alone. Multiple people have a spouse with cancer. Multiple people have experienced homelessness and spent a season couch surfing. Multiple people once lived in another state at the same time, and now happen to live in this one at the samet ime.

We’re more connected than we think we are. We’re never as removed from the headlines as they sometimes seem. Those stories and those needs are in our neighborhoods too.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

What a long earthling.

Oh, friends, I’m getting back on my bike today.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve had a really strange experience. I pulled a hamstring muscle, and then it became so tense that it pushed on my sciatic nerve to the point that I couldn’t sit comfortably for about three weeks.

I went to the doctor this week. I thought it might be good to have someone take a look, but I assumed they were just going to tell me to rest it, which is what I had been doing all along.

Instead, I was given a medication. I took one pill, and overnight I experienced such a dramatic difference.

The pain lasted more than twenty days, and that was no fun at all. But it has made me more mindful of people who live with chronic pain. I don’t begin to claim I understand that experience, because for me, I only visited that world for a little while. Now I’m finding my way back out. But I’m more mindful of people living with that experience.

I’ve missed riding around my town so much, especially knowing that warm weather is limited here.

I imagine many of us can relate to those moments when we have to step away from something we deeply enjoy. And when we return to it, we appreciate it all the more.

Maybe one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is the awareness that we are enjoying something while we are enjoying it. Life can change quickly, whether in a temporary way or a longer-lasting one.

But I don’t mean to be overdramatic.

Except for this:

I’m getting on my bike again today!!!!!!!

–-Renee Roederer

I’m sure we’ve all had bouts of sleeplessness, whether it’s a season of insomnia, an illness, or feeding a newborn.

If we’ve had any sleepless nights since 1997, others have chosen, quite willfully, to be awake with us and pray on our behalf. They don’t know our names, but they choose to be in solidarity.

The Norbertine Canonesses are an order of Roman Catholic nuns in the Tehachapi Mountains of California. Every day, they wake at midnight to remember those who are struggling to sleep and to pray for them.

They think about people struggling with substance abuse. They imagine those who are homeless and don’t have an adequate bed or a safe place to be. They remember victims of domestic violence. They pray for people experiencing mental illness, situational anxiety, challenges in relationships, grief, or confusion about life’s direction. They especially remember new parents.

I think all of this is really lovely.

Some of us may value prayer, and others of us may not resonate with it. But one thing is true: alongside their prayers, these women want people to know that they aren’t alone in those moments of distress. I find that to be very touching.

So if you want, think about a difficult moment of sleeplessness you’ve had recently or sometime over the last few years.

In that specific moment, some women in California were remembering you.

—Renee Roederer

I learned about this community of nuns in The New York Times: These Nuns Wake Up at Midnight to Pray for New Moms

Over the weekend, I stood in a circle of neighbors, and together we read aloud “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes. An interfaith organization had invited us to gather, connect, and reflect with one another as we marked the 250th anniversary of the United States.

This poem was written in 1935, nearly a century ago. And yet it feels just as relevant today.

I invite you to listen as well.

David and Amy completely changed my world.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, a couple from the congregation where I grew up created a relationship of deep belonging with me and made me part of their family.

We can’t always choose the families into which we are born — though we do have opportunities to choose them in their own right — but we can also build families purely through choice. That’s what happened when David and Amy made space for me in their lives.

They are central characters in one of the chapters of the book I’m writing. But in many ways, the major themes of the whole book begin with their influence. It’s all about kinship and the many ways we choose one another.

Had he lived to see it, David would be 90 years old today. I’m grateful to reflect on that and on the many ways I still carry parts of his life in mine.

Now that I’ve lived more decades than those early years, I also know what it is like to choose young people and bring them into my family. I’ve done that too. I’ve always known how much David and Amy gave me. But now, as I’ve gotten older and had parallel experiences, I think I have a deeper awareness of what I gave them as well.

And that brings me to a thought I hadn’t considered until recently.

David was the same age I am now when I was born. We wouldn’t meet until I was nearly an adult. And that reminds me that maybe — likely — I haven’t even met some people who will someday be central to my life. I love this vision of choice. I love that there are loves before us and loves behind us.

How lucky we are to share some time with one another.

—Renee Roederer