Routines and Surprises

            Most days I take my dog for a walk up through the local park.  The whole walk is close to two miles.  I meet interesting people from time to time and a few regulars here and there.  I am a friendly person and appreciate friendliness in others.  I am intolerant of people who have their dogs off leash, as if the park is their own backyard.  I will say something to those people about how it is important for the comfort of all of us that your dog be on a leash.  My most amusing encounter was the time a man's large dog came running for my golden retriever.  I wasn't sure if we were to be lunch or all would go well.  The man chased his dog yelling, "Hunter, come, Hunter, come."  Hunter's point of focus was my dog.  When Hunter arrived he sniffed around and satisfied, moved on, his owner running behind him yelling, "Hunter, come!"  When he passed I said, "That's why we have leashes”. His reply, "I don't need a leash." 

 I chuckled at that for a bit and, apparently, am still.  Then there have been the encounters where the owner of the leashed dog says, "Oh, he's friendly," and I allow my dog Cali, who loves people and dogs, to greet the other dog.  When the other dog snarls and barks and I pull Cali away, I say, "I guess not too friendly."

Today I started out on my walk and was stopped by my neighbor and we stood and talked for ten minutes or so just catching up.  Pleasant chat.  I continued on to the park.  As Cali and I reached the baseball field of the park and we walked across like we usually do, a dog came bounding towards us dragging a leash.  I stopped.  I noticed  the dog was a puppy.  Behind her came a man running and calling her name.  Behind him  three young girls also running and calling her name headed towards us.  The man, obviously a body builder, who wore a sleeveless Superman shirt that displayed not only arm but chest muscles, was quite apologetic as he untangled his puppy from my dog's leash.  He took the puppy away and the young girls arrived to ask to pet my dog. 

 As the man took down a soccer net near the other end of the field, the puppy escaped again and joined us.  Two of the the girls talked about how my dog looked just like theirs.  The other girl, the owner of the 4 month old lab puppy, talked about her other dogs at home.  We talked about dogs in general and our puppies in particular as Cali received a lot of love from the young girls. They were very sweet and friendly.  After several minutes, I told them to have a good day, they responded in kind.  Cali and I continued our walk.  

As we did, I thought about what a nice encounter with the girls we had.  Such positive energy between the girls and me and the dogs.  I thought about missing working with kids and how uplifting they are.  Such a random encounter made my day.  In all of the negative news and serious situations in this world, much of it brought on by poor leadership, this little piece of Americana gives me hope for the future.  Children are our future.  We must work to leave them a world that bends towards positivity, that preserves the natural world, that points to all that human beings have in common...like talking about pets in the middle of a baseball field on a random Saturday morning.

                                                                                                         

Let There Be Light

       I made it through the 1960's without being stoned or drunk.  In fact, I've made it to 2018 in the same condition.  I am not a fan of recreational drinking nor pot smoking.  Fortunately I am a mostly optimistic person who believes in feeling the feelings I'm having and enjoying life as best I can each day.  I'm not into judgy-preachy as to what I believe you should do, although I admit I do wonder why people feel a need to alter their reality with pot and drink, when there are other ways of escape that are less invasive.  If you're  reading a book, for example, or watching a movie, or taking a hike, or engaging in conversation with friends, you  can stop, halt, change direction of how you are  interacting with the world.  If you're drunk or high, you are drunk or high until you are not, until your buzz fades.  The buzz controls.    I recognize some people like that aspect of drinking and toking, and truly, not trying to be judgy-preachy here, just wondering.
     All of the above being said, I also think that if you want to drink or smoke pot and are of legal age to make such a decision, and are doing so in a responsible manner (not driving under the influence, for example), then no government should restrain you.  The act of the drinking or the toking must be outside of the law, as is the purchase of the means to drink or toke.  To prohibit drinking or smoking pot by law and concurrently prohibiting the sale, is to create an underground market for sale of these commodities.  The government then requires itself to ferret out the players in the underground market of its own creation! How does this make sense, or lead to the political idea that government should be minimally involved ?  Government in this way creates the problem to solve the problem.  What?
     Several sovereign states of the United States, by free electoral process guaranteed by the constitution, have declared that the sale of marijuana, like alcohol, is legal.  Not only the sale and making of each, but the using of each is also legal,  all subject to certain conditions.  It's up to the states to determine the laws surround the legal use. 
     In the past couple of days the Attorney General of the United States has summarily decided that the states don't have that right.  Why?  Because he doesn't believe in smoking marijuana.  This is not a good enough reason.  We are talking states rights, individual freedoms, a couple of concepts that the AG should be upholding in his capacity as AG.  But he speaks instead as an individual on a mission to uphold his belief that there is some moral depravity in smoking marijuana.  There is a large body of evidence that informs how the medical use of marijuana is helpful in and of itself. No morally deprave judgment in the evidence.  The AG has no such problem with guns.  He upholds guns rights, even though mass shootings have occurred with too regular frequencies in the recent past.  He picks and chooses the rights he wants to uphold.  He is misguided and wrongheaded in confusing his personal beliefs with the rights of others. 
     There is so much work to be done in this world to further justice in race relations, peace between nations, the empowerment of women, minorities, marginalized citizens, homelessness, to name some areas.  Focus, AG, on those areas.  You are the head of the JUSTICE Department, not the prohibition police.  Allow law enforcement to help with these crimes that exist, rather than trumping up new areas for overworked, overstretched police departments to change their focus.  Keep your personal beliefs, and politics, out of the quest for unification, for justice.  Stop the divisiveness. 
    Whether by jest or in an attempt to help me through a rough spot I was in over the holidays, my son-in-law wondered what I would be like if I got drunk.  I told him we'd never know, because likely I would not get drunk if I haven't done so by the time I'm 70.  Still, I'll keep that option open.  Know that whether I do or not, my beliefs will not impinge upon your right to drink or smoke pot.  Do you.  I'll do me.  But let's keep the government out of it!

Bridges

     Concrete paths and guard rails guiding to the next covered bridge.  Many boundaries to contain the traveler on the journey. The known.  Under the concrete, the solid, water flows.  The fluid. The unknown.  Beyond the bridge greenery, hope.  All part of the picture.  All part of life. 
     Boundaries are necessary.  They protect us, guide us, check us, remind us that freedom cohabits with boundaries, as do the unknown and the known.  Or what we think we know, which is the best we are able to at any given time.
     Covered bridges offer protection to the elements when traversing water.  They themselves provide boundaries, even without the concrete paths, without the guard rails.  Covered bridges are for the roughest part of the journey, when the water is deepest, or treacherous, or merely impedes the safety of the journey.  The path from here to there pauses now and again in the covered bridge of my mind.
     

Happy Birthday, Mom : )

      Happy 115th birthday, Mom!  1903 is, historically, a long time ago, and yet you are still so very much alive to me in the memories I have of you, the pieces of me that are you, the love that I have for you.  I wonder what life was like when you were born.  Just after the turn of the century, new immigrants continued to arrive here, World War I was in the distant future.  You joined five siblings, and there would be two more.  You were the sixth child, just like me! You told me once that you cannot imagine what I will see in my lifetime as you saw so many changes in technology from electricity to cars to airplane travel to a man on the moon.  You did not live to see the internet, which is rather the defining technology of my life. 
    When I think of you, I think of strength and devotion to belief.  Raising Jeanne Marie and I, just 12 and 7, after dad died when you were just 52.  You never worked outside the home, choosing to live frugally yet providing us with a solid private school education.  You devoted your life to causes, most specifically the Catholic church's causes, as well as dabbling in political causes from registering voters, to allowing our home to be a polling place, to actively campaigning for John F. Kennedy.  You listened to people talk about their problems and tried to help.  You didn't stop.  You were President of the Senior Citizens club.  You were generous with your time with your grandchildren.  You had many friends and were a great friend to many.
    While you were not formally educated, you were well read and modeled the importance of reading and learning.  You supported my writing, complimenting my efforts at poetry and prose.  You encouraged me to be the best of who I could be.  I continue to live my life to make you proud.  I know you would be.  You taught me humility and not to be boastful and to help others.  The touchstone of your life was faith---in God, in humankind, in yourself.  I see that now.
      While you were not openly affectionate, you never turned down a hug or my hand in yours or on your arm. I understand you were likely not raised with overt affection and it was difficult for you.  Your sense of humor helped me to see the world in absurd ways and to realize comedy is the flip side of the coin of tragedy.  The quick sense of humor I have, the part that carried me through so much tragedy, was a solid life lesson from both you and dad.
       I never saw you cry.  Although you must have carried great sadness through the deaths of your husband, your son, your daughter, your siblings.  You told me on more than one occasion that I had leaky eyes.  I still do.  But then, as now, the tears that flow do not impede my actions.  I, too, am a strong woman.  You have modeled that.
      I miss you, Mom.  I wish I could sit at the kitchen table and have a cup of coffee with you and discuss for hours the state of affairs of the world and the problems in the family and how they can be supported and fixed.  I watched you do this with my older siblings.  For hours.  I know we would have had much to talk about, I think I reminded you of yourself in many ways.  I am my mother's daughter.
     So on this anniversary of your birth, I remember all the times.  Some not so positive.  Many times I was not given what I needed, but I never fault you for that.  You were going through so much in your own life and you did the best you could.  I turned out quite okay, in fact, quite well.  I never believe that what I was not able to receive from you was withheld because you were callous, but rather because you were human.  I marvel at all you went through and maintained a steady course that allowed us to grow and develop into mature women.  For this I am so grateful to you.
     Happy birthday, Mom.  Forever alive in my heart.  Thank you for being you and for loving me, encouraging me,  and believing in me!  I feel your strength and your spirit and your pride.

New Year 2018

     The holiday season officially comes to a close today with the celebration of New Years.  This year, more than most, I wave goodbye to it quite vigorously.  It's been an odd time of trying to connect, and almost connecting, and missed connections, and a touch of togetherness here and there.  Usually at this time of the year I feel a spirit that is pervasive and brings joy.  I looked for it for the past few weeks and found it missing. Perhaps something missing in me as well.
      2017 held many positive pieces for me.  Travel, reading, friends, family, writing, theater, goals set and met.  I feel grateful and blessed to have celebrated 70 years on the planet, and am gearing up for many more.  So much left to do before I sleep, or some such semi-quote.  And yet, there is a pall as well.  A step off, I feel.  I try to overlook it, to let it ride, but I carry it with me, sitting on my sleeve, hanging on my heart, burrowing in my brain.  My optimistic nature  acquiesces to the tumult and spirals.  I recognize this.  Depression.  I am familiar with the fight. 
     I will do what I do when the doldrums develop.  I will ride with them and on them and over them until the waves pass and like a successful surfer I will ride them to the beach.  I will look outward and consider the state of the world and the rantings of the man-child who would be king and shake my head and say no, this unconscionable divider of the nation is not the cause of my state right now (although contributory to my feelings of lack of justice).  I will turn news of him off.  Narcissists cannot thrive on backs being turned.  I will look inward and contemplate how the death of my closest friend since I was born, my sister, rocks my world, but is not the cause of my state now (although the focus of many losses in my life).  I will grieve her and go on.
     Recently I have returned to one of the enjoyments of my childhood---painting by number. It's soothing and keeps me off the computer as I watch tv in the evenings.   I had done one rather easy and mindless rendition of elephants on the veldt.  For Christmas, I thought to paint two Clydesdales ready to pull a sleigh. I would finish that and a smaller pic of Santa Claus before Christmas.  But the Clydesdales  were quite a project of simple numbers and mixing numbers.  I finished on New Years Eve.  I was so focused on the pieces to the painting and judging how I blended this and that here and there, that I was in a near constant state of disappointment, even as I carried on to completion.  I was looking at all of the little parts and missing the whole.  When I finished yesterday, I took a picture to send to my daughter.  The picture was the whole.  And it was beautiful.
     This year, 2018, I make no resolutions, other than to live life to the fullest I can.  I doubt that I can thoroughly give up being disappointed and looking at the little parts of life and judging and worrying as I move along.  But I hope, and here is the hope I found missing earlier, I hope that I can carry on to completion to the beautiful whole, and then pause to appreciate that whole and all of the necessary imperfections and flaws that in some sort of alchemical wave created the beauty.  This is life.