Noticing

November 2025

Artwork by Anna Brones

Marriage, Community, Friendships and More

Is it just me or does time at the end of the year fly by more quickly? Lazy days of summer hit differently than fall.  In our house, things seem a bit more chaotic. We are trying to fit in activities to maximize sunny days, thinking of when vaccines can be squeezed in alongside car maintenance and planning for snow tires in preparation for skiing. Fall is an optimum time for travel and our favorite time to get away after school kids are back in a school routine. 26 Days till Thanksgiving and 52 Days till Christmas. Gulp. 

Marriage

This year I finally acquiesced to my husband’s decades long requests to go to Moab with him. Not being a mountain biker or hiker, I really never saw the point. I would rather he went with the guys and I had the quiet house to myself. Boy was I wrong. I cannot tell you the number of times I thought or uttered the words magnificent and majestic. The Arches National Park was otherworldly and I wished many times that our GeoPhysics major daughter was with us to educate us on what we were seeing, although Mr. Fox did a great job. We divided up the 15+ hour drives over two days which will need to be three for future returns. But we really enjoyed each other’s company as we listened to podcasts, music and enjoyed the silence from time to time. 

The one thing I loved about Mr. Fox from the get go was that he is not a talker. I could not bear to live with a babbler. He rarely speaks a full sentence. After 40 years, much of our communication is conveyed with a look, a smile, a squeeze of the hand and I appreciate that SO much. Thich Nhat Hanh taught that,”When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.”. This year I gave Mr. Fox the gift of my presence but was gifted back 100 fold in the reminder of how deeply I care for him and so grateful we still get to be present in each other’s lives. 

I wrote in my journal these notes after reading about someone caring for a loved one:

What is here in this strange, quiet space between caregiving and grief?

You don’t have to be perfect to be present.

Love doesn’t always look like joy. Sometimes it looks like patience. 

Letting go is not failure. It can be an expression of grace. 

Even in loss, there is grace. 

I have been thinking about our marriage and health with deep gratitude a lot lately and what it is to love someone this deeply. I read somewhere that to love someone deeply is to learn the art of holding on and letting go - sometimes at the very same time. As we both grow and evolve and growing old changes us. We are often waking up to a different version of ourselves both to ourselves and to our partners. We cannot change the effects of time marching on but we can challenge ourselves to show up in the best way possible. As Ram Dass said, “We are all just walking each other home.”. 

Community

I am a student of Priya Parker who is known for her continuing work on the science of Gatherings and therefore community. It is a topic I have been fascinated by for some time. I read a great article called Six Points of Connection to Repair Shared Trust, by social entrepreneur, Aaron Hurst. His Key Take Aways were as follows:

Workplace loneliness is a growing issue fueled by the erosion of everyday connection. The decline in connection and trust is the result of more than a century of technological and social change. In divided times, shared action often builds more unity than shared opinions.

His solution is The Six Points of Connection for us to consider.

1. Know Thy Neighbors. It is hard to feel rooted in a place without knowing your neighbors. We are blessed to have a proactive neighbor, Priscilla who organizes our Annual Potluck & is a great noticer on her daily walks.

2. Community of Identity. One of our deepest human needs is to feel seen. That happens most powerfully in communities where we share a core part of our identity — whether it’s culture, ethnicity, gender, faith, queerness, caregiving status, disability, or a personal experience that shapes how we see the world.

3. One on One Connection. What makes close friendships thrive? Three ingredients are essential: consistency, positivity, and vulnerability. Without regular time together, shared enjoyment, and honest emotional exchange, relationships struggle to grow.Research backs this up. It takes about six meaningful interactions with someone to start feeling connected — and roughly 200 hours to form a true best friend (Hall, 2018, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships).

4. Third Places. Strong communities need more than homes and workplaces — they need places where people naturally gather, linger, and connect. These are “third places”: parks, cafés, libraries, gyms, community centers, farmers markets, barbershops, and places of worship. They’re the informal living rooms of public life.

5. Activity-based community. Doing something you enjoy with others is one of the most reliable ways to build a connected, healthy life. And yet, participation in regular group activities has steadily declined. Only one in four U.S. adults belong to a local club, team, or hobby group that meets regularly (General Social Survey, 2022). That loss doesn’t just affect our social lives — it impacts our well-being, our neighborhoods, and the local organizations that depend on community support.

6. Community Service. Helping others is one of the most reliable paths to connection, meaning, and joy. When we step up to serve, we don’t just strengthen our communities — we strengthen ourselves.

Reach out if you’d like the entire article to read. It is good food for thought whether you are a leader in your community or a participant. 

I cannot recall who said it but “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, but when I look around my peers locally, I can see who will endure the ebbs and flows of the business because of the strong community they’ve built. These are the business models that will endure the crazy flexing of big tech money in our business. 

No one comes to mind stronger than Todd Shively of Ensemble Real Estate. Their group is 6/6 on all the points above at all times.. Their agent board votes on where their money is spent, what organizations to support and how they gather with each other, embodying not only the values of community service but also community identity. 

At Windermere I am especially impressed by three colleagues. Lena Maul who is the Broker/Owner of the Windermere North offices. She has built a strong community by instinctively understanding all six points above. Lena creates community through gathering and social collaboration of her agents, creating a safe space to be known and to learn.

Another noteworthy person is Dina Jardine Harvey of our Eastlake branch. She is the manager of that office and shared with me her Master Mind Group that she started to create community and collaboration for her team. She was the inspiration for me to start a Midtown Master Mind for our offices. Learning through the exchange of knowledge is one of the best ways I’ve found to deepen the bonds within a community.

Joe Easterday, Owner and Manager, of our Mt Baker office. Whenever I am honored to teach there, I am struck by their camaraderie and deep sense of community. I love how they turn their office into an art gallery and feature local artists. They have many educational opportunities in house and do so much to support the local communities.  Where so many offices sit empty, Mount Baker is definitely a Third Place for all.

How can we each be cultivators of community and culture in our daily lives?

Friendships

I showed up with an open heart and mind to Modern Elder Academy’s campus in Santa Fe and made many new friends. It has been a while since I have put myself out there. It felt like the first day of Kindergarden. It felt like everyone already knew one another and had formed their cliques. My mind played every trick in the book on me but I stayed open minded and open hearted and ended up having a life altering experience, learned a lot but also learned so much about myself. MEA has a weekly email called Weekly Wisdom and I saved one on the topic of Friendships.

Friendship asks us to practice two things at once:

Be grateful for those who celebrate us. 

Compassion for those who are still waiting their turn. 

I cannot speak to male friendships. But after 66 years I can speak to female friendships. There are those that feel light, easy and supportive and there are some that carry unspoken tensions. 

You know when something really great happens to you and you have friends who don’t say anything? Or if they do, they cannot be happy for you. You can feel the insincerity and their pasted on smile. 

Hopefully to counter that, you have friends who cheer you on and insist on celebrating? Let me tell you that those people are rare. To be a real friend, you will want to celebrate a win even if you are still waiting your turn. You don’t immediately measure their wins against your own timeline. You don’t quietly pull back because it’s not yet your season. It’s not about who claps the loudest but about noticing the ones who clap quietly even when they might be hurting. It’s about recognizing that life moves in seasons but we are all not blooming at the same time. Make sure the one you are calling a friend shows up wholeheartedly without hesitation, because your happiness does not threaten theirs. 

I have preached repeatedly that you are influenced by the five people that are in your inner circle. Who they are matters. Reflect on who shows up and how YOU are showing up for them. If they don’t have your back when you are not in the room, it’s time to let them go. 

I challenge you to make a plan to reach out to a friend with your support. If they’re up, congratulate them on their success. If they’re down, check in with them. It could be as simple as a text to a friend you see every day or a note on a neighbor’s door. Whatever it is, I want to hear about it. 

And Other Miscellaneous Things

I just got a Substack from On Being by Krista Tippett. She was my reason for traveling to Santa Fe. Perhaps if you treat yourself to reading her SubStack you will understand why I have been under her spell for decades. She is the best female interviewer of our time, in my humble opinion and did not disappoint. 

This IS the November blog post of Noticings and I normally would be giving a nod to the important holiday of the month but I did that November 2023 and it was a popular post & not much has changed, so I am giving you the link here for all my tips and tricks for Thanksgiving. 

I am sharing a few fall recipes that I hope to try this year that you might be interested in also. This time of year the kale & butternut squash combo cannot be beat. Pomegranate always delivers a fun burst and pop of flavor and fun and with walnuts or pepitas for crunch, how can you go wrong? 

There used to be a great Greek restaurant at the foot of Queen Anne and for much of my 20’s I would dine there once a week and always starting out with the saganaki where they light the haloumi on fire with ouzo and say “opa!”. The plain, non descript slab of haloumi magically transforms into a gooey mess of deliciousness. Having that on your orecchiette is brilliant! Try this Orecchiette Salad With Halloumi Croutons Lastly, I love a caprese salad. We feast on homegrown tomatoes and basil all summer, then transition to peach caprese. I had never even thought to use persimmon caprese but it is well worth a go! 

I’ve also been blessed with a future son-in-law who loves to cook. He recently made Cuban oxtail (rabo encendido) from the cookbook The Cuban Table (with some tweaks from his dad in Miami). I am always grateful to share the table with good food and good company, and this belated birthday dinner for Mr. Fox was both! Also, always love an excuse to use my cute new napkins ;)

The only thing I bought on my trip to Moab were these cowboy napkins!

Last But Not Least

I wanted to mention the artist and writer Anna Brones who has generously allowed me to use her 2025 calendar images for my blog posts this year. Anna is a paper cut artist whose work is instantly recognizable for those in Seattle. I have bought over a hundred of her postcard calendars and recently her Lunar Moon Calendar for a dear friend. Her seminars are fun to be a part of for even a non artist like myself. What I appreciate the most about Anna however is equal to her artistic talent she is a deep thinker and a gifted writer. Her Substack called Creative Fuel is astonishing to me. 

I am so glad I discovered her and you might too. Her 2026 calendars are now available!

Wishing you all a wonderful November, lots of yummy foods to keep you warm, trying your hand at baking both sweet and savory, travel, discovery, cuddling up with great books. 

I also strongly encourage you to join me in supporting Washington’s Backpack Bridgade, an organization that helps feed local school children. With SNAP benefits not being funded this month, it’s more important than ever to show up for our communities.

XOXO,

Coach Diane

Blog Artwork by Anna Brones