I used to have a practice of using my birthday as an opportunity to do an annual gratitude litany. I worked a bunch of days straight with no break including a big weekend at Mubdie’s: A Creative Collective, and then I spent Labor Day itself doing my annual fall house-cleaning. I also cleaned my deck and watered all my plants (I’m not going to lie, I have a lot of succulents!). That whole effort including a total house-declutter and deep-clean, took 10 hours. Then I was right back to my ‘real’ job on Tuesday, so I have not had time for blogging. Accordingly, here’s the annual gratitude post.

 

I’m not going to name names, because I might forget someone. But if you are one of the people who support me, you know and you know how grateful I am. You might read between the lines and recognize yourself. Handwritten thank-you notes for recent birthday accolades will be forthcoming. All that being said. . .listen up.

 

Looking back on September 2025 through my birthday this year, I’ve had so many blessings or universal smiles or what have you. (Thanks to the deity of your choice, inserted here.) If the old ways of Roman Catholicism held, I would ask for some of that grace to be shifted to my cousins who are battling ALS and give them some respite. (Prayers for those cousins, offered to the deity of your choice, inserted here.)

 

Some of you might know (or might not know) that three years ago, one of my specialists did a biopsy of tissue in my worse-affected leg, looking for an explanation to some new symptoms. He had a particular progressive neuro-muscular disorder in mind. My luck held on two levels that day: One, I did not have that disease (the name of which I blacked out of my mind as soon as he said that I don’t have it!) But, TWO, the pathologist discovered two troubling genetic strains, that suggested that I had or would have B-cell leukemia. Well, good on them for sharp eyes! So, they got me to a hematological oncologist and by the intervention of the angels, one that had studied the connection between that very leukemia and nutrition especially low Vit D, which I have always had.

 

Why do I mention this? Because, in the last year, it turns out that her interventions and my diligent application of them, has popped those strains into remission. For you science wonks, it’s CLL/SLL immunophenotype downgraded (I think that’s the word) to monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis. In the last year, I was able to get to (a) totally normal range; (b) which has persisted for more than twelve months; and (c) therefore, I am released from care with only annual follow-up testing. As that doc says, I’m now more likely to die “with it” not “from it”. I am so, so lucky in that regard. And the last year has seen that, and I am grateful for it.

 

So so many people whom I know have diseases that will end their lives far far too soon, so I know keenly how fortunate this is. And, for any who are skeptical about healthcare in America, I have to say that I have always tried hard to earn enough money to pay for private health insurance so I can get good healthcare, and I will testify that private health insurance is TOO EXPENSIVE and without it, it is very very very difficult to get the kind of healthcare that I’ve been able to get with it. But damn, I’m had years where I spent $1300/month on private health insurance for me alone, not counting a separate policy for my son. That is just too damn much for most people to pay. It damn near killed me to do it and lots of other obligations suffered because I had to do that, which I deeply regret.

 

Anyway, I made it through, I’m in normal range and likely to stay in normal range, and I’m enormously grateful for it. I only give those details so you understand how much I have for which to be immensely thankful in that regard.

 

Another area that has troubled me a lot in the years since I moved to California is the fact that I left my dear dear friends in KC behind me when I came west. Those friends had stood by me, and I had stood by them, for three decades. I missed them with an uncontrollable intensity and still do. They helped raise my son; they saw me through not one, not two, but THREE divorces; they enriched my life and my son’s life; they shared their trials, tribulations, and triumphs; and they witnessed mine. We did for each other without expectation of payment or return. I never had to hire anyone to do anything at my house in the years when I lived alone, and if any of them needed anything that I could do (from a spare room to a landlord nasty-gram), I was delighted to be able to do what I could. It was just the way of the tribe and I miss that.

 

But in California, forming that tribe has been difficult for me. Without the plethora of art galleries, coffee shops, live music, political rallies, and libraries in which I and my people congregated “back home”, I did not even know where a person of my proclivities could go to meet any like-minded folks. In the last year, though, I have started to see some of that emerge for me. I’m overwhelmed with joy by the friends that I do have here, because my first few years in California saw some extraordinarily sad and lonely hours. (which my son and one or three of my siblings helped me navigate, thankfully). So, I’m grateful for friendships that have solidified in the last year. There are some absolute gems in the basket of ordinary pebbles, and I hope they know who they are.

 

A lot of that has arisen out of my decision to throw myself at the development of an art collective. Whatever else that undertaking has meant, good or bad, it has allowed me to meet some fine people. Some are creative cohorts, some started as customers and became friends, and some are ships that currently just drift in and out. All of them entwine themselves in my life’s tapestry to comprise and augment its richly woven hue.

 

It cannot be unsaid that I sometimes complain, which anyone who knows me from my KC days will find ironic. (MYWOC, anyone?) As the good little recovering Catholic and childhood trauma survivor that you know me to be, I inevitably think everything is my fault at first. When I realize that some things are just not my fault, I tend to over-compensate and loudly demand justice. That, too, is an unwanted symptom of the neurobiological impacts of trauma that I need to unlearn. So I’m not there yet. (Here I must quote my mother, laughing: “When someone starts a sentence with, ‘I know I’m not perfect. . .’, they actually think they are!”) So, I won’t say that I know I’m not perfect. But I DO know I’m not perfect, and I make mistakes, and I try to own them. Consider apologies extended, and if you want an individual and specific one, you know where I am — you will have it if I know it is needed.

 

There’s a soliloquy beautifully delivered by Derek Jacobi in the BBC version of “Claudius” based on the Robert Graves work. Claudius studies the assembly, gauges their level of wrath, and steadily meets each hostile stare. Then he quietly says, “Some say that I am half-witted. Well, that might be so. Why is it then, that I have survived to middle-age with only half my wits, while thousands around me have died with all of theirs intact? Evidently quality of wits is more important than quantity.”

 

I often think of that speech. I have been accused of being defective, thankless, ungrateful, broken, worthless, and deficient. Yet, through all of the accusations, and the circumstances which gave rise to their utterance, I remain steadfast and devoted to improving myself. As my grandmother extolled us to do, I just keep putting my best foot forward — and now I’m laughing again, at the memory of something which happened after my truly terrifying accident in 1982. For those who don’t know, I was struck by a moving car and thrown four stories in the air. I landed on the car’s hood and bounced through its windshield, then catapulted 100 feet away from the vehicle, landing on the street, my right leg crushed in 32 places. Later, as my mother sat by my bedside, one of my law school professors came to visit and timidly asked “was it her good leg or her bad leg?” My mother replied, as only she could, in an amused voice: “I didn’t know she had a good leg.”.

 

The professor stared in chagrin, if not horror, as all the Corleys in the room burst into hysterical giggling, a proclivity that has gotten us through some awful times. The ability to laugh carried my sorry self through whatever difficulties I experienced in the last year. I expect my sense of the absurd to sustain me through the next year as well, along with the goodness and graciousness of my friends; the forgiveness of those whom I might wrong; and the unfailing kindness of strangers.

 

Mugwumpishly tendered,

 

Corinne Corley

 

The Missouri Mugwump®