“Bobcat seen on Flintcove Lane, seeking babysitter.”
…hmmm, the posting on the neighborhood blog was a bit different today.
Not the Usual Suburb
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Be Willing To Close The Door
In the fullness of family
it is difficult to close the door
shut out the cry for “mommy”
and sit still.
There is no silence really
even when the door is shut.
Even if, somehow, everyone has agreed
to “quiet time”
doors are slammed
refrigerators are opened and closed.
Feet stomp loudly
even on carpeted floors.
Whispers are louder
than normal conversations.
The closed door becomes a symbol.
To Mom, it is a declaration of Self.
“Me time.” Recharge.
To the family, the closed door says,
“Rejection.”
No matter how much explanation.
No matter how many articles or books
are shown and read
about the restorative nature of “me time for moms,”
the family only sees an action no less cruel than
Abandonment.
If she manages to close the door for a while,
the family looks at her with questioning eyes
when she emerges to see
“how she’s changed.”
They seem concerned that they may
somehow no longer be in the same
order of importance in her life.
“Mom’s just not the same”
For Mom,though, that moment behind the door
was salvation.
The Longest Path
The longest path is the one between you and your loved one after the call saying that he is dying.
Idleness
“Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” – Virginia Woolf
Sit Still
Do not travel far to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the Truth where you are now, you will never find it.-Dogen
Embrace Difficulties
The Brook Would Lose Its Song If You Removed The Rocks- Brook Would Lose Its Song If You Removed The Rocks-
American Proverb
We Are Stardust
“At one time you were a mountain, you were a cloud. This is not poetry, this is science.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
Want My Opinion? Oh, hell no.
Earlier this year I thought I was going to lose a longtime friend because he said I wasn’t “honest enough” with him. I only said good things about his writing, his opinions, what he was doing, etc. and he felt that just couldn’t be right. I couldn’t possibly like everything he was doing.
He said that it can’t be a really true friendship if we only say god things about one another. We have to be able to say the good and the bad. Truth.
Now, I have another longtime friend who is at risk because, at her insistence, I gave my opinion about how she might beheld through an enormously stressful period right now by asking doctor about anti-anxiety medicine. Wrong answer.
She now thinks that I am belittling her and thinks she can’t manage her life well.
Then earlier today I asked my husband to “speak more deeply” about a topic. He was offended that I didn’t think he was already “being deep.” (We had barely started the conversation; I was wanting more).
So I guess I need to shut up.
Something I’m doing is offending people who are very important to me. Maybe I just need to go away, alone, for awhile. Something is out of sync and the place to look first is in the mirror.
Shoot The Morning Finger
What would cause you, young, late-20-something year old male, to “shoot me the finger” so aggressively early yesterday morning?
It was a sunny and not yet oppressively hot day. I was standing with my bike in the bike path, patiently waiting for all the cars to pass the cross road. I was stationed well back from the road so it was clear I wasn’t a threat to cars. I wasn’t going to somehow lurch out into the road causing you to brake or dodge me and my little bike.
I don’t even look like a cyclist. I don’t have the spandex. None of my clothes match. My helmet isn’t event same color as my fifteen year old bike. I don’t look like an athlete. How could I be a challenge of any sort?
There you drove though. You and your passenger seat buddy. He was looking straight forward and it was his huge grin that even made me look at your car. It was then that I saw you leaning over from the driver’s seat to shoot me the finger through the open window.
If you wanted to offend me you didn’t. Your action was irrelevant to me. I just wondered what is in you that would cause you to do such a thing.
The others cars cleared the road and I continued on the bike path. The little brown rabbit off on the side chewing his morning grass made me smile.
A Surprise from Hemingway
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” –Ernest Hemingway
BethenyReid 