When You Lose Old Friends, Interventions at the Zoo with Snow Leopards, and Contemplating Changes in a Supermoon

Dewi Plass’ Escapism

Interventions at the Zoo with Snow Leopards

Earlier in this week, before the Woodland Park Zoo had a bird flu scare (stay safe, zoo animals and keepers!), Glenn took me for a brief trip to the zoo to see the new baby snow leopards. Some of the holiday lanterns were already up, plus we saw chirping otters. Yes, I had to be in a wheelchair for the trip—MS still acting up—but hopefully I’ll be back to walking soon.

It was hard to be sad or angry while watching snow leopard cubs do their snow leopard thing. Also, I hope that people will remember to save the cute snow leopard cubs, and therefore the environment. I can hope!

But here’s my sad news of the week. My college roommate, Tara Polek, who helped get me through Organic Chem and went to UC basketball games with me, who moved from Ohio to Seattle just like I did, who was the smartest, kindest children’s cancer researcher ever, passed away.

Tara Polek and I in 2023

I feel like this is where I should have poetic thoughts, but I’m still mostly in sad mode. Tara had two young children and a husband, and I never heard she was even sick. In college, she was the friend who, when I caught pneumonia and the girl across the hall had to be airlifted to the hospital with even worse pneumonia, never even got a sniffle. She ran—for fun—ever since I knew her. She spent her entire life doing cancer research. I wish I had told her how much her 30-year friendship meant to me while I still had the chance.

Me, Heidi, and Tara in 1994

This is a picture of us (with another dorm mate) on the way to a basketball game my freshman year of college. Anyway, I notice that my friends tend to be smarter, better people than I am, and, inevitably, taller than me. This makes it harder when you lose them. So, make sure that you tell your friends, no matter what else is going on, how much you appreciate, how you think of them as bright lights. Because you don’t know how long you’ll have them.

Contemplating Change in a Frost Supermoon

The frost supermoon

One thing that the death of a good friend will do is make you reconsider your life and where you are in it. At 51, I have spent too much time in the last decade in doctor’s offices, not enough having adventures, traveling, seeing the world. The world seems to have shrunk, especially since the pandemic, and now, with the election, it seems more dangerous than ever to just elect the status quo.

So, I signup up for an online class called She Hits Refresh, about women over thirty moving out of the US, and I’m researching grad schools, cities, visas, vacation time, disability, and medication rules. It’s been my dream for a long time to live in France, and besides that, visit England and Ireland.

On top of that, I’m sending my next manuscript out to new publishers. I’ve got be braver with my art, and my personal life. I feel like I’ve seen my life shrink and I don’t want that to define the rest of my life, or my writing. I don’t want to live in fear.

On that note, wishing you warmth and bravery as we near the holidays. Stay strong, stay sane.