Tag: 2020

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Grieving ‘Normal’

Chemival | Dreamstime.com

“Four years ago, this week was the last normal week of our lives.”

I saw this unattributed quote on Facebook yesterday. Of course, it’s in reference to the start of Covid, when “lockdown” and “quarantine” crept into our everyday vocabulary. But four years ago this week, I was visiting my friend Kristin Burge in the hospital. I sanitized my hands after touching the elevator buttons to get to her floor, kept my distance from people coughing down the halls — confusion added to an already crippling experience. It wasn’t a normal week for me at all. And her memorial service on March 14th was far from normal. Few were masked in the church; some cautious loved ones opted not to hug. Her death marked the beginning of a year of grief for me, one that started with losing my friend, but one in which the whole world grieved the loss of “normal.”

Below is a condensed version of the piece I wrote for her, “Heroin, the Thief,” which was published in the Flyer on March 19, 2020. May all who’ve loved an addict and all who’ve lost a loved one to addiction find peace.

Kristin Burge, 1982-2020

I lost my friend to heroin this week. It was not quick and painless. She did not push the needle in and float off on a peaceful cloud into the ether. The last sound she made was with her body — heavy and limp, falling to the floor with a thud. She had overdosed on a batch cut with fentanyl. First responders arrived 20 minutes after the 911 call was made. She was without oxygen for too long. She went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated four times the first day in the hospital, her chest and ribs broken to bits from the compressions. She spent nearly a week on life support as tests were run. Scans showed severe brain damage. She was completely unresponsive. A week, unable to communicate, twitch a toe, or even flit an eye. I sat at her bedside, talking about everything and nothing, joking and crying, and holding my phone up to her ear, playing some of our favorite songs. Her family gathered, her mother and children, friends, women from church — praying, pleading, mourning a life cut short … hoping for a miracle.

I lost my friend to heroin two years ago. It was not quick and painless. She was running from a contempt of court warrant for a bogus case that just wouldn’t end. She’d go to jail, 30 days, 60 days, be released. Repeat. Fines piled up. She couldn’t pay them. She was buried by an endless cycle, a broken legal system. She was running from a man who wanted to hurt her and wound up in Louisiana. She fell ill there and went to the emergency room. Diagnosis: endocarditis, likely a result of shooting up. Doctors performed emergency open heart surgery to replace a valve — they gave her a pacemaker. She came back home to heal, but didn’t stay long.

I lost my friend to heroin four years ago. It was not quick and painless. I drove her to Heroin Anonymous meetings. Sometimes she’d be high, but I’d pretend not to know; showing up was the first step. Once, after her boyfriend beat her badly, I took her into my home, where she detoxed for a few days — angry as a hornet, her insides churning, wanting more and more and more of the drug. She took a bunch of generic sleep aid and ibuprofen, hoping it’d knock her out; perhaps she wanted to dream through the worst of it. She slept for days, but the urge remained.

I lost my friend to heroin a decade ago. It was not quick and painless. It started when her dad died from cancer. She couldn’t cope, and his pain pills helped. It progressed with an ATV accident. Surgery, metal pins in her leg. Doctor prescribed pain pills. They helped, maybe too much. She took them for too long; now she needed them. When the doctor said no more, she got what she could from a methadone clinic. At some point, it became easier to get drugs on the streets. Heroin felt good — even better than pills.

I lost my friend to heroin. It was a slow death, and it hurt like hell. Her mother lost a daughter. Her sons lost their mother. The drug took her from them long ago. We mourned her in life, for years. The urge writhed through her blood, guiding her every move for more and more and more. Her kids were taken away, she couldn’t hold a job. She ended up on the streets with who knows who doing who knows what, all for more dope.

She was a good person. She was smart but made bad decisions. Her path kinked along the way and rerouted her aims. In moments of clarity, she tried damn hard to kick it. She loved her kids. She wanted to get better and spend time with them. She wanted to help people with her story of recovery. She’d been in rehab (this time) since December. A couple of weeks ago, she snuck out. The urge won.

I lost my friend to heroin this week. It was not quick and painless. We watched her die, slowly, for a decade, but she pushed the needle in for the last time. We watched her body swell and convulse on life support as it shut down day by day. As I write this, doctors are doing the necessary work to find donor recipient matches for her salvageable organs and tissues. By the time you read this, she will be at peace.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

2020: The Year We Grieved

CREDIT: Herbert Goetsch | Unsplash

I started this year as many do — ready to embark on new goals, embrace new beginnings, welcome a new year with hope. 2020 vision, we all said. What could go wrong?

My birthday is in January. I can’t remember what I did on what must have been an uneventful turn of age in 2020. February, too, is a bit of a blur. What marked the real start of this year — at least where my lasting memory of it will forever be marked — was grief.

A longtime friend overdosed on heroin in early March. She’d struggled with opioid addiction and substance abuse for years. I tried to help her through much of it, offering a place to stay, clothes and food when she’d lost everything (which was every few months), and connecting her to resources that could help with recovery. She had at least two false starts in rehab. After a couple months in the last one, she snuck out and had her final dance with a needle. I remember the moment I read the Facebook message: “I just wanted you to know that Kristin is in ICU in Methodist North from a heroin overdose. Doctor said that she will more than likely not make it.”

Herbert Goetsch | Unsplash

Looking with hope toward 2021

The punch in the pit of my gut, the pang in my heart, the panic. I spent the better part of that week at Methodist visiting my friend, who was in a coma, as doctors ran tests to be sure nothing else could be done, to sort out possible organ donation in the likely case that nothing could. Between my visits, the news was abuzz with the novel coronavirus. Cases had spread in Washington and it was beginning to look as though it was going to be a pretty big deal, even here. Face masks weren’t a thing yet, but every time I walked into the hospital, I wondered if I was at risk for COVID. Was someone infected there? Was this all being blown out of proportion? I stopped at sanitizing stations and rubbed my hands down to be safe.

At the end of an emotionally draining week, my friend was taken off life support. Her memorial service was the last large gathering I attended this year. I carried hand sanitizer, avoided hugs with anyone aside from Kristin’s mother, and winced when someone coughed or sneezed nearby. Had they not heard of coronavirus yet? There are too many people in this room, too close together, I thought.

I grieved for Kristin, of course, but not in the way I would have if it wouldn’t have coincided with the emergence of a worldwide pandemic. I’ve grieved for her throughout this year, but with no hugs, no face-to-face conversations with friends who knew and loved her, too. My sadness over her loss was inadvertently overridden by a new punch in the gut, a different type of panic — one I wasn’t familiar with at all. How many people will die? Will I die? How bad is this virus? How far will it spread?

As the next few months unfolded, we all grieved. We grieved for lost jobs, loved ones who succumbed to COVID. We grieved in the absence of friends and family, for the loss of “normalcy,” whatever that might have been. We pined for gatherings, concerts, theater outings, for any thread of hope that this mess would right itself. We longed for conversations, handshakes, workplace camaraderie, a beer at a damn bar. The world turned upside down, and we were given no clear instructions on how to best proceed. There was no united front.

In some ways, I’m relieved that Kristin’s struggle ended just before the world’s battle with COVID began. She’d likely have been on the streets, risking infections of all types, but perhaps especially the virus. She wouldn’t have had a safe haven like some of us have, nor easy access to soap and showers and sinks. There are many others like her — homeless, struggling with addiction or mental illness, isolated in the truest sense.

With all that’s been lost this year, I’m more grateful than ever for what I do have. A roof over my head, a job (though we’ve been working remotely since March and I miss the shit out of my co-workers), a partner who handles my COVID-fueled existential crises in stride, and so much more.

If you’re reading this now, you have survived this year, too. Perhaps we’ve been through the worst of it. At the very least, we can look at these broken pieces and be thankful for what’s left and how far we’ve come — and to look with hope toward 2021.

Shara Clark is managing editor of the Flyer.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Miracle Brings Christmas Cocktails to The Liquor Store

CREDIT: Melissa Hom

Ok, sure, it’s still a little early to be busting out the Christmas and holiday events, but we could all use a drink these days. I mean, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet! But something I think we can all get behind in this rollercoaster of a year is more cocktails. And the ones soon to be on tap at retro diner The Liquor Store just so happen to be of the Christmas variety.

Melissa Hom

The ‘Bad Santa’ cocktail’s mulled red wine and Christmas spices will have you feeling both naughty and nice.

Starting on Black Friday, November 27th, the Miracle pop-up bar will be setting up shop at The Liquor Store. Miracle is a New York-based global pop-up concept that “partners with bars and restaurants around the world to offer masterfully crafted Christmas cocktails in cheery holiday-themed settings.” Indeed, diners have been warned to expect over-the-top Christmas themed décor all around the restaurant, with contributions from local Memphis artist Lindsay Julian (founder of She. Builds. Things.)

Miracle’s cocktail offerings will be served alongside the restaurant’s regular menu, and The Liquor Store will have expanded hours to accommodate guests seeking some Christmas Spirit(s). A few specialty drinks include the Fruitcake Flip (brandy, rum, amaretto, fruitcake, cherry bitters, whole egg), Bad Santa (mulled red wine, port, orange liqueur, Christmas spices), and Christmas Carol Barrel (tequila, coffee liqueur, dry curaçao, spiced chocolate). Cocktails are priced between $6 and $15 and are served in kitschy glassware. A few rounds of these, and you’re sure to have visions of sugar-plum fairies dancing in your head, too.

Melissa Hom

The ‘Fruitcake Flip’ mixes sweet amaretto, fruitcake, and cherry bitters with brandy, rum, and a whole egg for good measure.

There are a few changes to Miracle’s usual format, with COVID-19 in mind. All cocktails will be available in a to-go format, while dine-in reservations are restricted to one hour and parties of six or fewer. Wednesday nights, however, offer a quick in-and-out experience; if guests are uncomfortable dining in, they can reserve a 15-minute time slot to take photos alongside the Christmas decorations and pick up their orders (with a minimum spend of $40). Holiday themed Cocktail Kingdom custom glassware will also be available for purchase, with a chunk of proceeds heading towards the James Beard Foundation’s Open for Good campaign, which helps independent bars and restaurants affected by the pandemic.

The Liquor Store is also adding expanded hours through dinner service Wednesday-Saturday nights, to give diners more of a chance to check out the restaurant’s holiday makeover.

Miracle at The Liquor Store (2655 Broad Ave.) runs from November 27th-January 2nd.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

The 2020 Democratic National Convention Reinvents Televised Democracy

Michelle Obama speaking on the first night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

American democracy is messy, and it always has been. In fact, it could be argued that disorderliness is a feature, not a bug, of the Founding Fathers’ system.

One of the messiest aspect is the political nominating convention. They didn’t exist in the time of George Washington. Overtly campaigning for the presidency was seen to be uncouth, as Alexander Hamilton notes about Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Parties, themselves a concept Washington despised, chose their candidates through caucuses — the mythical “smoke-filled rooms.” But in 1831, the anti-elitist, conspiratorially minded Anti-Masonic Party decided to choose their candidate in the open. Andrew Jackson thought that sounded like a good idea, and the first Democratic convention took place the next year.
The conventions became a quadrennial gathering of the party faithful. Sure, most of the decisions were made by power brokers in the smoke-filled rooms, but delegates loved to get together and hoist a few brews while talking politics. It was a good bonding ritual for the parties, and entirely in character for a country whose founding revolution was hatched and planned in the taverns of Philadelphia and Boston.

Eventually, as democratic spirit spread, state-level primary elections developed. The delegate system was similar to the now much-despised Electoral College: Voters chose a slate of delegates who would then go to the national convention to cast proxy votes for their candidates during the roll call nominating session. Thus, John F. Kennedy was elevated by the grass roots in 1960. But the conventions were still the last word, and it was — and remains, at least theoretically — possible that convention wheeling and dealing could yield a different candidate than who won the primary vote. This is what happened during the Democratic fiasco of Chicago 1968, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California primary, and the anti-Vietnam War Eugene McCarthy, who held an lead in pledged delegates, was passed over in favor of Hubert Humphrey, who hadn’t received a single primary vote. The party was bitterly divided, and Humphrey went on to lose to Richard Nixon. Since then, other attempts at old-fashioned convention shenanigans, such as Ronald Reagan’s run at Gerald Ford in 1976, have fizzled.

The modern convention is a coming out party for the candidates, and an opportunity for ambitious young politicos to get some exposure on the biggest possible stage. The conventions routinely attract the largest audiences of campaign season, doing not-quite Super Bowl numbers, but close, even in our fragmented media world. As such, the conventions have become made-for-TV spectacles with a political par-tay attached.
But here in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has made gathering the party faithful in a big arena an extremely bad idea. Who is going to conduct a campaign if an outbreak lays low your cadre of enthusiasts? Faced with an unprecedented problem, the parties were forced to scramble for solutions. Being the party out of power in the White House, the Democratic Party went first. Instead of gathering en mass in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they did what everyone else has done: gone virtual.

Children singing the national anthem at the 2020 Democratic National Convention

This could have been a disaster. Indeed, I was expecting a disaster when I tuned in for the first night of the Democratic convention on Monday. The festivities kicked off with a virtual “Star Spangled Banner” sung by a chorus of children who appeared only in separated images resembling a giant Zoom chat. It was a little corny, but hey, we’re talking about a political convention here, not a Cardi B show.

(Man, it would be great to be able to go to a show right now.)

For everyone who has ever had their Zoom meetings delayed by participants trying to figure out how to unmute themselves or bandwidth issues slowing conversation to a crawl, glitches are an expected feature of business and social gatherings. But aside from the occasional minor hiccup, the virtual Democratic National Convention has gone smoothly.

It has also been unexpectedly compelling, in a way that is tough to put a finger on. There is a certain primal power in a mass rally, with shoulder-to-shoulder masses cheering a single champion, elevated on a pedestal. The first person to exploit that power in moving images was none other than Adolph Hitler. With the help of his favorite filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, he used the Nuremberg rally of 1935 to deify himself to his followers. The response in democratic societies has been mixed since the defeat of fascism in 1945. Punk rock, for example, was in its own way a response to the fascistic spectacle of arena rock. Donald Trump, more than any contemporary politician, understands the power of the rally, both to energize his followers and attract the cameras of national media outlets. But this virtual Democratic convention has seen none of that. If the Democrats are trying to differentiate their brand from Trumpism, it has worked. Instead of Trump’s seething ball of white nationalist resentment, nominee Joe Biden has been seen sitting calmly on a teleconference, listening to the problems of average Americans.

The lack of a podium has been a great equalizer. Normal people, like Amtrak conductor Greg Weaver and elevator operator Jacquelyn Brittany are exactly the same size as political power players like Bill Clinton and Chuck Schumer. There’s something bracingly honest about seeing the best speaker of the convention so far, Michelle Obama, deliver her impassioned plea for national sanity while sitting alone, just like everyone else. The convention is speaking the painfully familiar visual language of the Zoom call. The keynote address took advantage of the form by editing together 14 speakers, including Memphis-area state Senator Raumesh Akbari.

The keynote address, featuring Georgia’s Stacy Abrams (center) and Tennessee state Senator Raumesh Akbari (top right)

Best of all has been the Roll Call, the tradition where the delegates from each state are called on to formally enter their vote for the nominee. Normally, this would done on the convention floor, with delegates in funny hats shouting “The Hoosier State casts 11 votes for Bernie Sanders and 89 votes for Joe Biden!” into microphones. For the virtual convention, delegates picked spots in their states and delivered the votes virtually. The first voters, from Alabama, cast their votes from the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, where the recently mourned John Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten to within an inch of their lives on Bloody Sunday. Puerto Rico’s delegates delivered their votes in Spanish. The lone Kansan spoke from the middle of a field. Rhode Island used the opportunity to introduce America to its state dish of calamari. The whole affair distilled the essence of American democracy: The real power rests not with the bigwigs, but with the normal people in their little towns, giving their consent to be governed, not ruled. The form may be different out of pandemic necessity, but it has proved unexpectedly poignant.

Categories
News News Blog

The Flyer’s May 6th Digital Issue

Here’s the story lineup (and links) for this week’s digital issue. Enjoy! We’ll be back in print next week, May 12th. — BV

Letter From the Editor: Who Was That Masked Man? — Bruce VanWyngarden

The Week That Was: Hate Groups, Drake Hall, and More — Toby Sells

A Project Deferred: Students’ NASA Dream is Victim of COVID Crisis — Maya Smith

MEMernet: Yellow Brick Young Ave., Pho Binh Strong, Huey’s — Toby Sells

The Lay of the Land: What’s Next as Tennessee Restarts? — Jackson Baker

Sonic Popsicle: Paul Taylor’s Merry Mobile — Alex Greene

Books: Claire Fullerton’s Little Tea — Jesse Davis

Food: ThunderRoad Delivers Drinks and More — Michael Donahue

We Recommend: LightClub Memphis Holds Weekly Twitch Stream — Julia Baker

Film: The Midnight Gospel — Love, Loss, and Podcasts — Chris McCoy

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Filming While Black in Mississippi, Rocking Afghanistan, and Other Experiments as Oxford (Virtual) Film Festival Continues

‘Anacronte and the Sorcerers of Evil’ by directors Raul Koler and Emiliano Sette plays May 1-8 on the virtual Oxford Film Festival.

The Oxford Film Festival’s online experiment is in full swing, providing quality movies for the quarantined. Partnering with Memphis company Eventive, most of the films that were set to appear at the festival’s annual long weekend will instead stream online for viewers in the Mid-South.

It’s not just the films that are online. On Friday, May 1st at noon, one of the filmmaker panel discussions that make the film festival experience unique will be streamed on YouTube. “Creating Black Stories in Mississippi” will bring together Chris Windfield, director of the documentary 70 Years of Blackness; Je-Monda Ray, creator of Getting To The Root; and Kiese Lymon, author of Heavy, with moderator Ethel Scurlock, professor at the University of Mississippi. They will talk about their experiences as people of color trying to create new works in the South.

Director Daniel LaFrentz is a Silicon Valley native who learned filmmaking in Louisiana. His feature The Long Shadow, which won the Louisiana jury prize at last year’s New Orleans Film Festival, is a story of corruption and redemption in the deep South.

THE LONG SHADOW Trailer from Daniel Lafrentz on Vimeo.

Filming While Black in Mississippi, Rocking Afghanistan, and Other Experiments as Oxford (Virtual) Film Festival Continues

Music history is thick with stories of people who broke new sounds in new places, but few acts had as steep an uphill battle as District Unknown. As the only heavy metal band in Kabul, Afghanistan, they tried to force open a culture kept in chains by the Taliban. Director Travis Beard followed the band for seven years to create his documentary RocKabul. 

Filming While Black in Mississippi, Rocking Afghanistan, and Other Experiments as Oxford (Virtual) Film Festival Continues (2)

Animated and experimental shorts are always a favorite feature at film festivals for me—and not just because I’m married to an experimental filmmaker! The hour-long Fest Forward Global bloc of short films brings together directors from China, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and the United States to present new and different visions of reality.

‘How and Why Don Jose Dissipated’ by Israeli filmmaker Moshe Ben-Avraham screens in the Fest Forward Global short film bloc.

All films are available May 1-8. For more details on how to watch, visit the Oxford Virtual Film Festival page on Eventive. 

Categories
Cover Feature News

New Year, New You: Ways to Reinvent Yourself in 2020

CREDIT: Illustrations by Greg Cravens

Resolutions. We’re supposed to have them, right? Become a better you in the new year! Exercise, save money, eat right! Those things are great and all, but we’ve laid out a few other ideas to help start your year off, as James Brown says, on the good foot. Godspeed.

Clear the Clutter

Last year, as I prepared for a move, I’d poke my head in the spare room and scan the piles of stuff that had accumulated. After living in the house nine years, it had become a catch-all. Thrift store scores, stacks of old magazines, clothes I no longer wore but couldn’t let go of. Each time I surveyed, I panicked. Why did I have so much stuff? Where would I begin in sorting this mess? The thoughts overwhelmed me. I avoided the room like the plague, until I couldn’t anymore.

Illustrations by Greg Cravens

I’d bet many of you have the equivalent of my old spare room. Maybe it’s not a whole room, but perhaps a closet or a junk drawer, the backseat of your car or a garage. Studies have shown that clutter creates stress — giving us heightened cortisol (“stress hormone”) levels, preventing our ability to focus, triggering avoidance measures, and hindering creativity.

Let us not carry so much stuff with us in 2020. Start with baby steps, setting aside, say, 20-minute increments to target one area. Ask yourself: Do I really need three ice cream scoops? Have I worn this jacket in the past year or two? Am I ever actually going to collage with these magazines I’ve held onto for a decade? Pack up the items you no longer need and donate them to a local charity. (And don’t leave the donation boxes in your trunk for months. Finish this task!) If the items hold no value, close your eyes (like I did) and throw them in the trash where they belong. Then ride the wave of clean-space satisfaction.

While you’re at it, declutter your digital life, too. Too many photos saved in your phone, taking up its memory? Back them up, maybe even print some of them, and “delete all.” It’s okay, they still exist. Are you a perpetual unread-email offender? Hell, if you’re not going to read them: 1) select all, 2) de-lete! Do you have 1,700 Facebook friends and only communicate with 50 of them? Does their existence on your timeline cause you to frequently roll your eyes or quietly assert “Idiot!”? Click that unfriend option.

Tidy up your physical and digital spaces and kick off the new year with a clean slate. — Shara Clark

De-Program

I knew I had a problem when I dreamed in a Reddit scroll.

My dreaming brain did its thing — stress at work or wonder in a fantasy land. But it was all formatted in the too-familiar structure that included a heading, a catchy title, and a post. I woke feeling shamefully programmed, kind of like these lines from MGMT’s “TSLAMP” (Time Spent Looking at My Phone):

“Find me when the lights go down

Signing in signing out

Gods descend to take me home

Find me staring at my phone …

I’m wondering where the hours went

As I’m losing consciousness

My sullen face is all aglow

Time spent looking at my phone”

A wave of developers — the people who brought the world everything from Facebook to push notifications — have publicly admitted that they designed apps and phones to hook customers using the same brain pathways as gambling and drugs. I wanted to de-program from all that toxic fuckery. Here are some things that worked for me.

Check your screen time — Quantifying the issue allowed me to see it fully, plainly, and start reducing it. This method is a bit like counting calories, though. It can be tedious, but the unfiltered data about your relationship with your phone is right there … on your phone.

Start a fire — When I have a blazer roaring in the fire pit, my phone seems like this inconsequential rectangle full of worlds I no longer care about. My brain de-programs in the trance of orange-and-red flame, the smell of burning wood, and all of the merry hisses and pops. Don’t have a fire pit? Head to Loflin Yard or Railgarten. Grab a drink. Turn off your phone and tune out.

Take a hike — Nothing de-programs a digitized brain like the woods. Overton Park’s Old Forest Trail has been a refuge for me since I moved here more than a decade ago. Its many trails are clearly marked, but the trees, vines, and brush grow wildly (more or less), much the same as they did when tweeting was something only birds did.

When I’m hiking, I’m not watching to see how many likes I got on my IG breakfast post. I’m watching the trail, making sure my next footstep isn’t into deep mud or on a rattlesnake.

Dive in — Yes, some phones are now “waterproof” (check tech specs closely there). Yes, some headphones are now fully submersible. So yeah, you might be able to hear The Joe Rogan Experience while lapping the pool, but you shouldn’t. The pool is another de-program zone. In the water, you focus on more elemental things — not drowning, for one. Also, more likely than not, you will be physically separated from your phone.

Lean into all of that. Be in the moment. Your phone will wait. Mine did. — Toby Sells

Stay Hydrated

What affects your heart, kidneys, metabolism, and cognition? Water. And odds are, you’re not drinking enough of it.

The average human body is comprised of more than 60 percent water. In fact, you could say we’re just walking, talking bags of well-organized water with some trace elements like calcium and iron added for flavor. With that much wet stuff sloshing around and catalyzing the chemical reactions we all need to continue walking and talking, you’d think that a small drop in hydration wouldn’t be a big deal.

You would think wrong. If you’re operating at an aqueous deficit of as little as 2 percent, you will start to feel symptoms of dehydration. If you’re exercising or competing in a strenuous sport, your performance will begin to suffer. You might be more prone to cramping, and your reaction times and thinking might get worse. By the time your deficit reaches 4 percent, your body temperature could start to soar, and your heartbeat could get irregular. If it gets worse, you could become disoriented or faint. If you’re chronically dehydrated, things could go south very badly with very little warning. If you’re one of the 7 percent of women and 13 percent of men who have the right kind of body chemistry, chronic dehydration means you’ll get kidney stones. Trust me, you don’t want that.

So what to do? The answer is simple: Drink water. The number that’s been bandied about for years is eight, 8-ounce glasses of water per day. That’s not true for everyone, as bodies come in many shapes, sizes, and exact compositions of trace elements. But it can’t hurt. It’s unlikely you’ll drink too much water, although hyponatremia, a condition where the salts in your blood become too dilute, is no fun.

You can get water from coffee (the diuretic effect is too small to cancel out the water you’re gaining, unless you’re chugging java like Special Agent Dale Cooper on a three-day stakeout), from soups and stews, and from foods like lettuce. Sports drinks, like Gatorade, are useful if you’re exerting yourself or are outside in hot weather, but too much over time will deliver too much sugar. Your best bet is just plain tap water, ingested steadily throughout the day. If you’re thirsty, you’re already getting dehydrated — especially if you’re older. Your urine should be a pale color. If it’s dark yellow, have some water.

The best part of staying hydrated? It’s great for your skin. Drink a lot of water, and you’ll look younger. So make a resolution to hoist a few H2Os in 2020! — Chris McCoy

Get Outside Your Comfort Zone

If ever there was a man devoted to his comfort zone, it’s me. What’s that expression — stay in your lane? I do, and how. I write about music and books and sometimes booze and nightlife, and I spend a lot of time going to concerts or reading, sometimes while drinking. Still, for all my devotion to my familiar routines, the most rewarding experiences from 2019 all came when I mustered the nerve to get outside my comfort zone. I played a new game I thought I’d be no good at, tried cooking a new meal or two, and even went to a health spa while on a press trip. I adopted a kitten despite having unconsciously inherited my dad’s distaste for cats. Turns out, I love cats!

More recently, for the holidays, I took a trip to the mountains of Idaho to visit my girlfriend’s family. In a word, it was terrifying. Everything was cold, and I was surrounded by rugged, outdoorsy types who looked like they’d never heard of Big Star but could ski down a mountain blindfolded. But I was determined to have a good time. I listened to Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” and Otis Redding’s “Merry Christmas Baby,” and those familiar holiday tunes never sounded as sweet as when they reminded me of my home. I read the local alt-weekly, and I marveled at the high desert scenery as we wound our way up steep mountain roads and through Boise National Park. I saw snow and lived. And I’m not talking about a light dusting or flurries that never had a snowball’s chance in hell of accumulating. No, I mean snow up to my knees. I rode an inflated inner tube down a snow-covered mountain. Not only did I avoid breaking an arm or getting frostbite, as I was sure would happen, I had a whole lot of fun.

Sydnie’s family wanted me to ski, but I decided that was a little too much outside my comfort zone. So I decided to take baby steps. I’ll get there, in my own time and after a lesson or two, and I’ll probably fall down a lot, but that’s okay. For a Southern boy who restocks the milk and bread at the first sighting of snowfall, I think I made some serious strides.

So however you do it, get outside your comfort zone this year. After all, all the things you love now were new to you once, too. — Jesse Davis

Get Civically Engaged

Do you want to be more civically engaged in 2020 but don’t know where to start? A Memphis City Council meeting is a good option. There, you can learn about what’s going on in the city and some of the issues that elected officials must tackle. The group meets every other Tuesday at city hall to discuss and vote on things like land use and new developments to utility rates and public transit budgeting.

The meetings are open to the public, and the agenda for each session is published online the Thursday prior. At each meeting, attendees are given the chance to voice support or opposition before the council. For those who can’t make it in person, the meetings are streamed live online.

Another reason to visit city hall is to attend the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) meetings. The board meets the second Thursday of every month and is tasked with investigating allegations of misconduct by the Memphis Police Department. Under Tennessee’s Sunshine Law, these meetings are also open to the public.

Earle Fisher, a pastor at Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church and activist, is often at public meetings. Fisher says his faith drives his civic involvement. “My faith motivates me to fight for social justice and black liberation in a city plagued by poverty, inequity, and political misrepresentation,” Fisher says. “We need more people of good will to be conscious, committed, and connected to what’s going on.”

In an effort to encourage increased political involvement in Memphis and Shelby County, Fisher founded UPTheVote901 in 2017. The nonpartisan collaborative works to empower, educate, and register voters. The group meets once a month, and the meetings are open to the public.

Whatever cause or issue you’re passionate about, there is likely a group created to address it. From the Memphis Bus Riders’ Union to the official Black Lives Matter chapter, grassroot efforts abound.

To find other ways to get involved and see a schedule of local meetings, check out the Memphis Activism Calendar online. The calendar was created to strengthen and unite the activism community. It lists meetings, workshops, trainings, demonstrations, rallies, and other ways to get plugged into social and community activism around the city. — Maya Smith

Find Your Roots

Viewers of the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Who Do You Think You Are? on TLC find themselves drawn in to family histories of strangers. Admittedly, some are celebrities, but the various grandmas and uncles of these celebs aren’t famous, and yet their stories are often compelling. It might make you wonder if you have some amazing ancestral tales. Chances are you do, but you’ll need to do some investigating, unless one of your more dogged relatives has constructed a family tree with plenty of history and anecdotes.

Still, much of the fun is in looking through past records to see who’s who in your bloodline. There are a couple of ways to get started. Google genealogy sites and you’ll find plenty of options. One of the more popular is ancestry.com, a subscription service. You can build your family tree and research its ever-growing library of data. Be forewarned that there are many variations in so-called facts. Any given ancestor’s name may be spelled various ways, a birthplace may be approximate, dates — birth, wedding, or death — can be all over the place or missing. But if you like puzzles, you’ll enjoy gathering the references and seeing which are likely to be accurate.

Much of the information you get going through these sites is little more than names and dates. You’ll often find places people lived and military services. It’s more of a challenge to find out who they really were. Some professional genealogists and many amateurs gather information that talks about personalities and achievements, and that’s grand if you can come across it.

While you can rely on what someone else has done, there’s lots of satisfaction in doing it yourself. In other words, go talk to the old people in your family and take a recorder. Ask them to talk about themselves (they’ll love that) and about family stories, tales that have been passed on, and who were among the notables. I once visited an elderly aunt and she was happy to unload a big box of photos she’d had stashed away. I made her identify whoever she could until she got tired and threw me out. But I’d gotten a gold mine of information about my forebears and a great appreciation of their lives.— Jon Sparks

Grow Your Own Tomatoes

Growing your own tomato plants from seed is easy. In addition to being able to pick your own home-grown tomatoes, you get a feeling of self-satisfaction knowing they came from seeds you placed in the soil.

My last summer’s crop began with seeds I planted April 1st. The late Gary Barnett, who owned Bi-County Feed in Holly Springs, told me the first of April is the right time to plant tomato seeds. If you plant them too early, the seedlings will be spindly.

You can use a can with holes in the bottom for drainage, flower pots, or peat pots. I used egg shells. Put the shells back in the egg crate after you break them in half. Tear the top off the egg carton. When you’re ready to use them, poke a hole with a pin or a small nail in the bottom of the shell.

I put regular potting soil in each shell, just a little below the rim, and planted three or four seeds in each. You only need a little soil over each seed. I put them in a north window at my office and sprinkled them with water, using salt and pepper shakers filled with water, until the seedlings emerged.

Turn the plants each day so they’ll grow straight. Don’t let the soil dry out. Four weeks later, the compact plants are ready to plant outside. Keep them watered after you plant them. They like water. I still was picking my tomatoes at Thanksgiving.

I’ve had success with Roma tomatoes, which are a determinate variety. This means all the tomatoes basically will come at one time. You also can plant indeterminate varieties. These will keep producing all summer and into the fall.

I asked noted garden expert Felder Rushing about which tomatoes are better than others to grow from seed. “A seed’s a seed’s a seed,” he says. “Seriously. Seed Savers [Exchange] has over 4,000 types of tomatoes, and they’re all grown exactly the same.”— Michael Donahue

Help Others

In your search for the new you in the new year, you may find that helping others might be a step in the right direction.

This might involve volunteering time at soup kitchens or homeless shelters, but sometimes, opportunities may find you. This happened to local humanitarian, entrepreneur, and former musician, Matt White, who received national attention in June 2016 for spearheading Chauncy’s Chance, a fundraising campaign for local disadvantaged teen Chauncy Black.

It all began when Black approached White in a Kroger parking lot, offering his assistance in carrying White’s groceries to his car in exchange for a box of donuts.

“I felt a gentle tug telling me, ‘Buy this kid some groceries,'” says White.

He took Black into the store and bought him $70 in groceries, meanwhile finding out that Chauncy was a straight-A high school student who regularly picked up odd jobs to help his sick mother pay rent. After shopping, he gave Black a ride home, where he saw firsthand how little he and his mother had.

“When we got to his house, I was truly humbled,” White says. “He and his mom had nothing. They didn’t even have beds or furniture … and nothing in their fridge.”

White posted about his experience on Facebook and started a GoFundMe to raise money for a lawn mower for Black so he could earn some extra cash. To their surprise, the campaign kicked off, earning more than $300,000 within a few short months. This afforded Black and his mother new opportunities, like a new home, car, job, and school.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that this single post would create such a tidal wave of kindness and encouragement from everyone,” White wrote on his Facebook page.

He has since led other online fundraisers, most recently Rick’s Redemption, which has raised nearly $4,000 for a minivan for a local homeless man.

White attributes his connection to God for allowing him to help people like Rick and Chauncy. “I tried to fill a hole with money, music, jobs, and relationships, but I just didn’t feel fulfilled until God pushed me to help others,” he says. — Julia Baker

Embrace Change

There’s something to be said for the idea that the best response when you’ve hit a wall in your personal development is to challenge it with a wrinkle so new that it not only is different from your habitual mode but may actually run counter to your usual practice. Case in point: I have a friend, a well-known local political figure, who, after a lifetime of being a soft-living sybarite, took to soaking in ice-cold bath water first thing in the morning. He reports new energy and a revitalized outlook.

Don’t wear suits? Start dressing to the nines. Conversely, do the jeans and jersey thing if you’re already a Beau Brummel type. Unmechanical? Learn how your car’s motor works. They say that people are, at some level, their opposites. Find that level, and get it to work for you.

As the motivational speaker Jim Hemmerling says, “Self-transformation is empowering, energizing, even exhilarating.” It’s also practical. There’s the example of the frog in a pot of boiling water. That meme is usually cast as a matter of the frog being thrust into the already boiling water, in which case he will either escape or the water will slowly be brought to boil with him already in it and he will get himself cooked. In the first case, the frog reacts to sudden, threatening change thrust upon him. In the second case, the frog passively accepts a lethal situation. Let us posit a third case — one in which the frog acts, without outside stimuli, to choose his own environment, proactively, and hops out of the pot on his own to investigate other opportunities.

A side effect of dramatic change is the sense of epiphany that normally goes with it. Not all of us will have an experience akin to that of Saul of Tarsus, who, in a flash of blinding insight, we are told, went from being the persecutor of a new religion to a historic role as its major proponent. But we all will have activated a new animating paradigm of some sort to go with whatever new gestalt we’ve created.

The change need not be monumental. Start cooking your own breakfast, if you don’t already. Leave for work 15 minutes earlier every day. Build in time at the gym. Whatever. And stay with it. By the time the new mode becomes a habit, you will likely find that your mind is now conditioned to look for other useful changes. Keep ’em coming. — Jackson Baker

Meditate

The benefits of meditation, long extolled in the East, are being widely recognized in Western medical research. Gone are the days when middle America viewed it as mere cultish exotica. This time of year, people from all walks of life are adding meditation to their resolution lists, and it’s easy to see why: We all could use reduced stress, greater focus, and the ability to ride out life’s ups and downs with a more even keel.

One clinical trial noted that the simple act of breathing is key to meditation’s benefits, being directly tied to increased levels of noradrenaline, a chemical related to our most intense forms of engagement. It even helps the brain grow new connections, “like a brain fertilizer,” in the words of sciencedaily.com.

For many who consider such a state of mind out of reach, meditation retreats can be a great way to jump-start a new routine. The Memphis area has countless yoga schools and ad hoc retreats, but two in particular jump out if you’d like a little more space.

One is the Magnolia Grove Meditation Practice Center in Batesville, Mississippi. Started some 15 years ago by the renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, it is modeled after his other centers, the Deer Park Monastery in California and the Blue Cliff Monastery in New York. Though one can book personal time whenever they’d like, most visit during group events, such as the silent retreat hosted in the spring (May 20th-24th this year). Other events, like the January 20th-23rd celebration of the Lunar New Year, or “Tết” (an important festival in Vietnamese culture), are scattered throughout the year.

At such retreats, expect to spend mornings meditating in your preferred style with others gathered in the great hall, followed by pitching in with chores and plenty of free time to contemplate one’s breath and steps.

Meanwhile, the Gray Bear Lodge is another nearby space, off the Natchez Trace Highway near Hohenwald, Tennessee. While Magnolia Grove is also a monastery and centered on its own school of Buddhism, Gray Bear is more eclectic. One retreat they’ll host this April is focused on Taoist Healing Sounds. In Chinese tonal therapy, specific notes promote harmony and balance. Other retreats, workshops, and lectures abound.

Sometimes learning how to change your mind, and thus your body, is just a matter of calling “retreat!” — Alex Greene