And yet, I am grateful. The sun is shining. There is breath in my lungs. My legs work. I have a roof over my head. I have food in my fridge. There is love, laughter, and light in my life everywhere I look.
I give thanks to the medical professionals who cared for me this year through shingles and a ruptured appendix. I’m grateful for those who showed compassion and kindness for my father in his final days.
I’m grateful for sports, especially women’s basketball. I haven’t done a complete count, but I may have attended over 50 sporting events this year, spanning the NCAAWBB, WNBA, NWSL, NFL, and NCAAWVB in three states. Sports have brought new friends into my life and deepened my connection with people I’ve known for years. They deliver joy when desperately needed and never fail to surprise and delight. Thank you.
I’m grateful for family, friends, and colleagues who stepped up when my chips were down.
I’m grateful for my mom and sister as we grieve separately and together. They lift me up.
And then there’s Tiffany, the love of my life, my person, my partner, who has been, well, everything over the last 12 months.
Lear has long been an inspiration of mine, and that love for humanity, the arts, and civic duty caught me off guard. His words, work, and commitment to ensuring all kinds of families are honored, respected, protected, and seen in this American experiment also matter to me.
After brief remarks from a representative of The People for the American Way, Mike Royce and Gloria Calderón Kellett explained how the afternoon’s event would go, and then the complete title sequence was presented on screen, performed by Gloria Estefan.
This is it. (oh-oh-oh-oh) This is life, the one you get So go and have a ball.
This is it. Straight ahead and rest assured You can’t be sure at all.
So, while you’re here, enjoy the view Keep on doing what you do Hold on tight. We’ll muddle through One day at a time.
So up on your feet. (Pa’ arriba!) Somewhere, there’s music playing. Don’t you worry none We’ll just take it like it comes.
One day at a time! One day at a time! One day at a time. (Un día a la vez, lo tomas un día a la vez). One day at a time, one day at a time. One day at a time!
As the lights came back up, my nose was runny, and I was desperate for a tissue to dab my eyes. We would go on to laugh uproariously for the next two hours as Rita Moreno, Isabella Gomez, Todd Grinnell, Justina Machado, Marcel Ruiz, and Stephen Tobolowsky reminded us how good they are and how funny and poignant this show was and is.
Despite the laughs, I didn’t stop crying until the final ovation. Family had been at the top of my mind all day before we arrived at the show. As I did my Saturday morning ritual of reviewing what music I had been listening to recently, I realized Cleo Sol had returned to the top of my spins. A year before, her album Gold was what I would listen to on my daily commutes to visit my dad in the hospital. Without consciously thinking about it, I had already begun to revisit that series of terrible events that would dominate the final months of 2023.
One of the three episodes the cast performed was titled “Best Birthday Ever!” and featured Rita Moreno’s Lydia uncharacteristically sad and unwilling to celebrate herself. Throughout the episode, we learn that she’s mourning the loss of keepsakes from her childhood in Cuba and the possibility that she will never get to see these images or hear sounds from that time. By the end, she is treated to the experience of hearing her mother’s voice for the first time since her death, and it fills her with joy.
I suspect I will go through similar whirlwinds of emotion over the next few months. I remember last fall viscerally, and if this weekend is any indication, my feelings will be turned all the way on, and that’s fine.
All emotions are welcome. Let’s feel all the feelings. I just don’t want to get lost in the sads. Much like at the Table Read, I want to balance the melancholy with opportunities for joy.
This past Wednesday, my family hosted a musical tribute to my father, Kevin Toney. I wasn’t an active participant in the production or planning. Outside of doing half of a rough draft of a script for the M.C., I tapped out.
“This is not for us,” I said. “This is for everyone else.”
It was more than that, of course. It was my mother’s gift to his musical legacy. The show was a retrospective of his work in a way he had not done during his life. It spanned eras and genres. It merged his faith with his soul-stirring compositions.
It was expertly performed by his talented friends and loved ones, including my sister, Dominique Toney. Video of him talking about and performing his work played throughout, allowing him to speak for himself even though he was gone.
Despite this spectacular show, it couldn’t give me the one thing I wanted: Kevin Toney alive in the room.
The show closed with a video of my dad alone on stage at a piano. The audience can’t be seen, but you can feel their presence. They are in awe as his outstretched fingers glide across the keys. It’s Kevin Toney, the entertainer, in all his glory. One foot is on the pedals, and the other rests under the bench. He was tall with long arms, so he leaned away from the instrument, giving himself room to move. I watch as he hears the sounds in his head before they exit from the strings on the piano. A phone rings. It’s his. It’s my mom. He finally banters with the crowd a little bit, and they chuckle at this break in seriousness from the maestro. He turns back to the piano and closes with a flourish.
It’s quintessentially him, and what I felt intensely in that moment was his absence.
Everyone did right by him, but Kevin Toney was not on that stage. My father is gone.
In the three months since he passed, the primary feeling I have had is relief. I’ve been relieved that he was no longer in a hospital attached to machines and stuck in bed. I’ve been relieved that the stress of being his advocate was no longer a burden for my mom. I’ve been relieved not to make myself physically sick with worry for all of us. I’ve been relieved for life to be taken off pause.
I’d been dreading the show, though, as I sensed some new emotions creeping in as it approached: sadness and loss.
During the tribute, a montage of photos was played on the video screens. One image took my breath away: a picture from my parents’ wedding reception. My father shared the frame with my grandmother and my uncle, Mike.
Michael Saunders and Kevin Toney are the two most influential men in my life, and they are both gone now.
On this Father’s Day, I’m allowing that reality to wash over me and accepting this next stage of grief.
In what ways is my life a tribute to theirs while I’m the one alive in the room?
I have been searching for an app to replace Evernote for quite some time now. Although I thought Notion was the one, I eventually gave up after using it for nearly two years as it was too heavy for personal use.
First, I stopped using it to capture my “read later” links. Instead, I used bookmarks and read later in Safari until I stumbled across Anybox in a newsletter or blog post. Since then, I’ve been bookmarking everything I read in Anybox. It works across all my devices and browsers, helping me stay synced between my personal and work laptops.
Recently, I started using Apple Notes as a primary rather than occasional tool. I use it as my journal and for storing digital keepsakes. I’m still exploring its features and learning to use smart tags to my advantage.
My awareness of the relative ease and utility of Notes began as my family collaborated more in keeping track of my dad’s Cancer treatment. We shared documents where we captured his systems and care plans, wrote official messages from the family, and even managed memorial service planning together over the last few weeks.
I’m also using Habitify to track my habits. It’s a paid app, but not a subscription, with a one-time fee to unlock all features. It does the data visualizations I was missing before, and it’s cute and simple to set up. Tiffany goes with paper, though, because apps be snitchin’.
Today, I recreated my run tracker in Sheets after exporting and transforming the data I kept in Notion. It now presents my data precisely as I want, and I can tweak it when my needs change.
I have learned that I don’t need one perfect app to rule them all. Most apps have gotten very good at doing one thing or a limited suite of similar tasks well, and separating these tasks makes it much easier to switch or sample other things instead of worrying about the sunk costs in one über-app.
I’m currently in Bedroom Jail. I can no longer count myself among the NOVID crowd as I tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday evening. I probably contracted it on January 1st. Happy New Year!
I’m not alone. My case has been mild so far, with two rough nights of sleep (last night was better) and a fever for about 36 hours (currently on about hour 31 of an average temperature unaided by medicine). It’s day four. I’ll retest and hopefully get home release tomorrow, allowing me to move about the house with a mask next week.
I’m thankful for getting my fourth jab back in September (along with my flu shot). I’m four months from that shot, so protection has started to wane, but it is likely assisting in making this a smooth bout with the illness for me.
While isolating, I finally added an LA County Library card to go with the LAPL one I’ve had since I was eleven. The Libby app optimizing my hold decision-making across library systems is a game changer.
The revelation that the app could handle multiple library cards came to me via Threads and the Books/Librarian community there. Another conversation with “Movies Threads” participants got me re-invested in Letterboxd (find me!) and has me eyeing Serializd, though I’m already committed to TV Time. I’ve also had chats about Cringe Entertainment and Stanley Cups, two things in popular culture I get the sense that I’m now too old to “get.”
I like Threads. It’s been part of what’s kept me from going stir-crazy in Bedroom Jail.
I will fight against inertia by being more deliberate with my time. Time is not an infinite resource, and the contours of life can change rapidly. Do what serves your heart and spirit and gives your life meaning. Remove what doesn’t. Only waste time if that is precisely what you intend.
Social
Continue your commitment to being thoughtful, open, joyful, empathetic, and giving in all my relationships. Compassion and grace come first. Initiate interactions. Don’t be a passive friend. Be an advocate for those you love.
Professional
Be bold, brave, and demanding excellence of myself and others.
Be a humane, sincere, and compassionate leader.
Remind your colleagues what you bring to the table.
Deliver for your team.
Be vocal about accomplishments.
Be hyper-focused on providing business value.
Continuing Routines
Daily Meditation
Daily Journaling
Daily Exercise
Daily Newspaper Puzzles with friends
Weekly Personal Punch List
Weekly Professional Punch List
New Habits Under Consideration
Learn a little every day
read a little every day
watch a movie at home a week
watch a movie in The theatre once a month
Break bread with someone you enjoy once a week
Stop Doing
Mobile games that are meant to separate you from your time and money
looking at my devices before I get out of bed
procrastinating on things that I know will brighten someone’s day
I turned 48 this year and celebrated with my family at Mother Wolf—a restaurant selected by my sister and that you may have read about recently. It was a rainy day, but it was a lovely, quiet way to spend it, given what the rest of the year would bring.
Tiffany and I traveled to Paris and Barcelona in May. We took a cross-country train ride that delighted me. I spoke bad French and Spanish and learned the magical powers of a properly made gin & tonic. I should have blogged about this trip. Maybe I still will.
My fashion concept was heavily informed by Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style and the hyper-targeted brands I see on Instagram.
I learned what a subacute is. I dealt with the reality of an aging parent and what that means.
April 23rd will be the day I most remember. It was my dad’s 70th birthday, and the day he revealed his cancer diagnosis to us.
My mother, sister, Auntie Pat, Tiffany, and some incredible family friends have been fantastic this year. I’m honored to have them, especially when things get complicated.
2023 was a melancholy year, but things will get better. Holidays may look different with a Goldbelly Thanksgiving and a Christmas Eve restaurant dinner. Time with family may be around hospital beds with masks on, but life will be.
Money
The money story this year is an interesting one. After nearly 12 years of marriage, we combined our finances. It has eased both our minds a bit to see it all together. The simple answer is all my money went into our joint account, where bills are paid and investments are made.
I earmarked funds for travel and took the upgrade whenever possible.
Tiffany says she’s feeling flush, so maybe most of our discretionary income went towards building our nest egg.
Sitting courtside at Sparks games remains the best splurge. Our friend circle has expanded because of it, and the intimacy of the experience is always joyful. It’s my church. It keeps me sane.
I was most excited by our celebrity seat neighbor asking for our phone number. Money may not be able to buy you happiness but if you use it right, it may provide ways of accessing it.
Resolutions
I don’t have any 2023 New Year’s resolutions written down anywhere that I can find. I didn’t blog about it. It’s not in my journal. There’s no weird project I started in Notion and promptly forgot about. Nada.
I do have in my head that I wanted to be a good plant dad and was successful. All our plants are thriving thanks to being committed to the scheduled tasks in the Planta app.
I will make some resolutions for 2024 that will continue cultivating what I have learned about myself in 2023. Honoring commitments to my loved ones while integrating my whole self at work and with friends is necessary at this stage. I don’t have time to compartmentalize. Sharing more about how I was doing emotionally with more people than ever has played a significant role in navigating the challenges of the last 12 months. I did not acknowledge that I was struggling during the summer. I did not ask for help. I only voiced concerns early and often if solicited.
Doing so eased burdens and cleared the fog, giving me the clarity and strength needed to be the son and brother I have been required to be in the last few months.
Time with people I enjoy has been scarce since 2020, and this year, I still haven’t had the frequency of hanging with my friends that I would like. Those COVID “safe-at-home” behaviors have created hard habits to break.
I could have been a more confident leader in 2023. I have been actively correcting that over the last month and want to continue that push into 2024.
I don’t remember if it was Anna or Melle who remarked on our booming voices and boisterous laughter last night, but the statement was true. We sat around an oval-shaped table eating lumpia and pancit and garlic rice and Menudo and donuts at Robinson Space in the middle of the Historic Filipinotown neighborhood of Los Angeles. The room was decorated for Christmas and revolution, and we were having a grand old time.
These old friends hadn’t been together in this configuration since before the early days of the pandemic. It had been two years without our usual round of March birthday brunches and drinks. Two years without quick get-togethers or whatever we used to do when a plan could come together without worrying about our mortal safety and that of those we love just by breathing the same air with people we like for a while.
And yet there we were, drinking white claws and seltzer water and making small talk with new acquaintances.
It was a family dinner. It was a celebration. It was recognition of the work one of us had been doing during these desperate times. While most of us had been in our own homes protecting our butts, Melle had been in the streets of our city making sure our neighbors didn’t go hungry. Her organization, Polo’s Pantry, was in its infancy when the needs of those she intended to serve increased exponentially. At the same time, many of the government services they may have depended on became unavailable.
Melle and the community coalitions she is a part of sprung into action to meet those needs. They did so from nearly the moment stay-at-home orders began at the time when we didn’t fully understand the risks, the safety protocols, or how long we’d be living this way.
“I say ‘I love you’ through food,” she said as she spoke to the attendees last night. Food is a love language. It had brought all of us together on a Saturday night to laugh, cry, learn, and share.
I’ve been journaling twice a day for three weeks now. That’s coincided with a morning routine of no internetting, my new day vibes playlist, chores, and meditation.
The journaling is usually not spectacular. Most days, it’s a diary of how I’m feeling, what earworm was in my ears, and what I plan to do with the day. I recount the day in the evenings, including minutiae like what I consumed, whether food or entertainment.
Some days, though, it’s been about deep reflection, An opportunity to reconsider my actions or an interaction. It gives me a chance to release a rumination into words or process something stuck in my craw.
I weigh 235 lbs. In my adult life, I have almost always weighed about 235 lbs. There was a time a little over a decade ago when I was uncomfortably in the 240s. During the first few months of the pandemic, I dropped down to the low 220s. But, regardless of changes to my diet or physical activity, my body tends to settle here. Sometimes there’s more muscle or fat or water in the mix, but this is me.
I don’t feel unhealthy at this weight. I don’t feel unattractive at this weight. I like myself at this weight.
I work out daily. I don’t have nagging or chronic pains. I like the way I look in my clothes (and when I don’t, it’s usually a challenge with a clothing item rather than some imperfection I find in myself).
I like me and this body.
I haven’t always felt this way. I don’t always feel this way now.
But, far more often than not, I look in the mirror and like what I see. I’m stepping on the scale without judgment. It’s just data.
“Let’s keep these wheels in motion Tell me where you wanna be”
— Jessie Ware
I deleted Twitter and Facebook off my phone this morning. On the latest episode of The Shop, Naomi Osaka, Wanda Sykes, Kevin Love, and Jadakiss discuss social media and the generally negative experience it has had on their lives. There’s a uniqueness to their situations as people of renown deal with many people with unsolicited opinions and advice.
Wanda Sykes noted that we’re told as kids not to talk to strangers, and yet, we get on these apps, and that’s all we do.
Jadakiss says he has to remind his kids and his team that the shit going on on Twitter is not real life.
Naomi Osaka only installs Twitter on her phone when she needs to tweet something, and then she deletes it again.
I was catching up on my stories last night: The aforementioned The Shop, Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Morning Show, and Nailed It. I sampled Foundation (keep it) and The Wonder Years (pass). And for about half the time, I was also swiping around Twitter. During Foundation, I realized that I didn’t want to be distracted ad yet there I was. I put my devices down, paid attention, and took in the experience in total. When I switched over to Nailed It, I remembered what the people had made by the show’s end and caught a lot of the small, hilarious moments that I fell in love with when it first premiered but that I have missed as the seasons have gone on and the pull of these apps gets stronger.
Again, this morning, I found myself going to Twitter when I merely intended to turn on some tunes and start my morning routine. Because of the tweaks and intentions I set early in the week about how I want my mornings to go; I could catch myself and course correct. I recognize how frequently those apps are vibe stealers.
Today’s wake-up from Headspace was about taking control of your tech experiences. The brief meditation asked me to think about the relationship I wanted to have with my tech, and there was clarity. I don’t need to be rid of these experiences altogether, but I don’t need them on my phone.
So Twitter and the always problematic (and rarely used) Facebook are gone. So are several social media apps that I never use but were sitting there waiting to pique my interest again and get me back on the sauce.
I’m grateful for a commitment to morning rituals this week. For music and chores and coffee making and meditation and journaling before being sucked into notifications and messages and the terrible or absurd or disappointing news of the day.
I’m grateful for evenings with music, journaling, and reading (I’m on pace to get three books down this week!), a set bedtime, and leaving devices outside the bedroom. I’m grateful for giving myself permission to break or tweak a rule when it serves a larger goal.
The days didn’t always go as planned, but I have found that my ability to navigate the days, be more present, be more gracious, be a better me improved with each day.
Now let’s see if I can keep it going. Removing those apps feels like a commitment to that plan.
