Three Things #2

Happy Tuesday everyone! Three Things is a weekly collection of interesting people, recommendations, and snippets I want to share with you.

Here are this week’s three.

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1. Someone I’m rooting for: Kelsey Pfendler

For weeks now I’ve been following Kelsey as she attempts to become the first American woman (and the youngest, at 31) to row solo and unsupported from California to Hawaii. Her Instagram (@yourowkelsey) is full of adventures with flying fish, Q&As with followers, and bits of her day-to-day — like a radio chat with a very concerned Chinese cargo ship captain, and an epic Moana singalong.

Kelsey has been a Grand Canyon river guide for a decade and she’s raising awareness for the Whale Foundation, a nonprofit that provides mental, physical, and financial support services to the Grand Canyon river guiding community.

This is a 2,400-mile journey: the equivalent of rowing from Los Angeles to New York City. The current women’s record for this feat is 86 days, 10 hours and 5 minutes — and just over 52 1/2 days for a man.

As of this morning, Kelsey is on day 40 and appears set to break both records, with just over 200 miles to go. One potential obstacle: she’s almost out of coffee.

Visit her website for more information and a nifty boat tracker, or check out this short CNN video on her journey.

You row, Kelsey!

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2. Book passage worth revisiting:

I had a dysautonomia flare last week that humbled me in a way I haven’t experienced in over a year. It reminded me how seductive it is to believe that wellness is a destination rather than a constant negotiation, and it brought to mind this passage from Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad:

“That night, I begin to think about how porous the border is between the sick and the well. It’s not just people like Bret and me who exist in the wilderness of survivorship. As we live longer and longer, the vast majority of us will travel back and forth across these realms, spending much of our lives somewhere in between. These are the terms of our existence. The idea of striving for some beautiful, perfect state of wellness? It mires us in eternal dissatisfaction, a goal forever out of reach.

To be well now is to learn to accept whatever body and mind I currently have.”

A reminder: acceptance doesn’t mean approval.

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3. Preparing for strangers:

Like everyone else, I’ve been heartbroken by the aftermath of the earthquakes in Venezuela. But I found myself unexpectedly captivated by one part of the response: the search-and-rescue dogs.

Around 140 dogs from 21 countries have been mobilized to assist emergency responders in Venezuela, including 22 from Mexico.

Mexico’s elite search and rescue dogs — known as binomios caninos (canine pairs) — are among the most celebrated in the world. Pairs of highly trained dogs and their handlers deploy after earthquakes and natural disasters to locate survivors buried beneath collapsed buildings. 22 have been sent to Venezuela, 18 from the military and 4 from the Red Cross. Orly and Balam, pictured below, earned a medal in 2023 for their work after the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

Orly, Balam, Kenai and Halley from the Mexican Red Cross

What moves me is that someone had to decide, years before this earthquake, that each of these dogs was worth training and caring for. And then someone spent thousands of hours teaching them to climb rubble, ignore distractions, and find people they had never met. If you’re curious what that training looks like, this short photo essay is well worth five minutes.

I hate the reason they’re needed. I love that they’re ready.

If you’d like to help: Here’s a list of organizations accepting donations, and one of my personal favorites.

If you live in an earthquake area: Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety.

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Thanks for reading! If you’ve come across something interesting this week, please tell me about it in the comments.

See you next Tuesday with three more things.

Love,

Olivia

From last week:

Three Things #1