Maisa Space
Bob and Baby Steps
Maisa Space as a longer vision is, and likely will remain, a work in progress for awhile. Baby Steps. As a parent I always struggled with which movies from the 80’s would still be relevant and not offensive or otherwise verboten. Rewatching any of my favorites generally brings some mixed emotions. First they are really funny, and often inappropriate and at times dated, and very dark. I thought anything with Bill Murray or John Candy in it was hilarious. What about Bob? was not an exception.
We watched it as a family this summer, and it does capture some of the difficulties of the human experience in a refreshingly honest, and comedic manner. I feel at times comedy is the last bastion of people being able to share how they truly feel. For some of us, we have so much to say, but it just can’t come out in verbal conversations. How can we unpackage complex emotions and existential crises if we can’t talk about it? Maybe it is cathartic to explore and to even laugh at our shared struggle. Either way, we laughed through Siggy’s existential crises and Bob’s obsessive compulsive stalking, and the healing journey for everyone. Well everyone except for the author of Baby Steps.
The name Bob itself brings back memories. From trying to push them both as babies in the double, Bob stroller. And again as Maisa and her siblings would be silly and call everything Bob for reasons unclear to any of us except for Maisa and her brother. Our “Google” shopping list would grow to 100+ items of all things Bob for reasons I never quite understood. Maybe they heard it from the Radio Station. But alas, I digress.
As we try to learn to live without our sweet (and at times cantankerous, witty, and wise) Maisa, we are going through baby steps ourselves. It is hard to do the little things, and really hard to do the hard things. Everything is very much baby steps to the elevator, and there are always a few steps backwards. But the point of this post isn’t a movie review, it is to announce that Maisa Space, as a bonafide legal entity, is here. Its current incarnation is as a Donor Advised Fund with the Minneapolis Foundation.
Baby Steps and 12 and 5 Steps
There are stages of loss and grief. In a way, I guess they seem seem similar to something from Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-anon Twelve Steps programs. Though, of course, they are completely different. There is often referenced as a path through grief as The Five Stages of Grief. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. For me on a daily basis, the all are a thought soup, and come with different intensities with each day bringing a new spoonful. I would say that the path through the stages are most definitely not linear. I am hopping between the stages faster than a weather vane can spin. As I jump from shock to anger, to catharsis, engaging with me might seem as friendly as Goose trying to engage with Mig 28’s in Top Gun. I try to bargain with my denial, shock my depression, and accept my anger.
That said, there is also an idea that there is a sixth stage, which is trying to find purpose and meaning from catastrophic loss. This feels much like wandering the desert, looking for a sign on how to let yourself move forward and how to let yourself live. How to let any joy or light through the prism of grief? We know that we want to do something that can help other families, and our young feel like this is a world that they want to stay in. It is obvious that our society is sick and there are so many things that need to change to make it better. Where to start?
A Maisa Space spawned
We are proud to announce that Maisa Space is now real. I guess it was always real, it is just now a real entity that is recognized by the IRS and/or government. We setup a Donor Advised Fund with the Minneapolis Foundation as the manager. A Donor-Advised Fund, or DAF, is a charitable giving vehicle that allows individuals to donate assets to a public charity, which then manages and invests the funds for future charitable grants. Think of it like a charitable savings account. With this DAF, there is accountability and transparency. Once assets are donated to the DAF, they need to eventually be donated to a charitable organization.
It was almost impossible to get Maisa to ever spend anything on herself, she was very frugal and would probably have been happy living in a tree if we would have let her. Therefore we will be making donations of her savings to the Maisa Space DAF through the Minneapolis Foundation, and then in turn funding charitable donations that will spark connection, research and support for mental health, and space and dark skies.
Thank U 2 Maisa Space Subscribers
We want this to be a place to connect. To connect and remember Maisa, and to connect with each other. To connect to our curiosity and drive to advance our knowledge of our brains and ourselves. To connect to nature and quiet. I am truly touched by each and every subscriber, and for those wondering about the paid level of subscriptions, we will be donating those on a periodic basis to Maisa Space DAF. We don’t ask that you join the paid level (of course unless you want to), but that you reach out and make meaningful connection. To someone, anyone. Money can’t buy that and I feel, that so many thirst for connection, and yet can’t find it. Here is the first $416 from paid subscribers to this blog that we donated to Maisa Space.
We have also funded our first grant, that we will talk about in a future post. We will be funding more in the future of course and would love to hear any ideas of particularly good 501c(3) or school programs that promote connection for all, especially neurodivergent kids. For those that want to skip the paid subscription and donate directly, here is the link to Maisa Space DAF at the Minneapolis Foundation. Peoples can also write checks payable to The Minneapolis Foundation Maisa Space Fund and mail it to The Minneapolis Foundation at 800 IDS Center, 80 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis, MN 55402. Direct donations will receive letters for tax deductibility purposes. That is all, I am going to make some baby steps to the refrigerator.