The Heroic Heart

First do no harm.

That is good advice for any sort of living.

Most of us would never dream of purposely hurting someone we love and yet it happens all the time.

The gifts we give can be two edged swords, severing independence and creativity and self respect when that was not our intention at all.

There is a time to step in between our children and some dangerous force in the world and that is when they are young and vulnerable and unable to defend themselves.

Once we have given them the tools they need to stand on their own two feet, though, we need to step back and let them try it out.  Better to fall on your face when you are 22 than 42.  Better too, to do it when you are not supporting anyone but yourself.

If you never fall, you never have to learn how to get up.  Life is a series of lessons.  What is good and sweet and necessary for the young child becomes a cruel lesson in keeping adult children weak and dependent on us.

I feel terrible when my children need something, especially if I can give it to them, but it is not my feelings that are important -- it is my children's feelings that matter.   Nothing makes a person feel better than knowing he, or she, can take care of herself, or himself.  It is powerful!  It's worth a little suffering.

It is the hero's tale, the coming of age story, the necessary annealing of a human spirit I would never want to deny someone I love.

Allowing that to happen takes a heroic heart.  Parenting is not for the weak of spirit!

Once Upon A Semester Dreary

I remember the days when  I read simply because I loved to!  Then, I read because I was supposed to, and I still loved it!

Finally it happened.  It was no longer enough to read something and enjoy it.  I had to read it and see it through the eyes of another person, a person who seemed to draw no joy from it at all.

Always before, if I liked it I told my dad what I liked and we talked about it.  Dad would fill in all the bits and pieces surrounding it and everything came alive!

That changed when I went away to college.

Suddenly I was too far away from home to talk to my father about what I was reading every night.  What had been recreation and fun, became drab and dreary.  To me that meant I hated all these novelists and playwrights and so, I missed out on generations of good writing.

What a shame that was, but what a vast treasure trove of reading it left for these years in my life!  Once again I have someone to set the stage and once again, I am loving what I read!

Who knows what will come next!

Pickin' Up Legos

How often do I hear comedies based on the banalities of child rearing?   Just today I read an article where a mother was trying to justify doing something she liked by saying she did it, “as a reminder that we're more than the Legos we pick up and the butts we wipe.”

I understand where she’s coming from.  Society often allows us, or even tries to force us, to devalue staying at home to raise our children.  It is a valid point if we ignore children while we are at home, but even minimal care of a child is the most important work any human being will ever do in the whole course of their lifetime.

If I said that you created those children in your own image and it was now your job to nurture a whole new generation of people who would become the doctors, lawyers, scientists, farmers, poets, teachers, builders and parents in this world, would it feel more important to you?

That is what a stay at home parent is doing.  It is what any parent is doing to some extent, but like anything we do some do it better than others.

Don’t underestimate the value of teaching a child to pick up his Legos, or teaching him cooperation by helping him do it, or teaching him consequences if he refuses to do it.  That little piece of plastic can do so much more than make tiny houses.  It is only one of many valuable learning tools. 

The same thing is true about wiping his butt.  Cleanliness keeps us healthy and being cared for makes us feel worthy of attention.

If every child grew up feeling loved, wanted, and had someone to patiently lead him or her towards self-fulfillment, what a wonderful world this would be.

Natural Progression

I just read an article about places banning children.  It made it sound like this is a terrible thing to do, but I've seen it coming for a long time, and, I love children!

We've come a long way from the idea that children should be seen and not heard and that is a good thing.  However, as is usually the case, we have gone way too far over the other way.  I was in a restaurant at a party not too long ago where two young boys were so rowdy they actually threw a shoe into the cake!  Their mother and grandmother didn't seem particularly concerned at all.  I've been other places where junior hangs over the booth into the next booth and the people pretend to think it's cute, but that cuteness wears thin fast when you go out to eat and cannot escape someone else's child.

We all make the mistake of trying to be polite and understanding while unruly children scream on planes, talk during movies, run through restaurants and their parents mistakenly believe we love them so much that we all think it is cute.  Nobody else's child is that cute after a minute or two.

Now, because parents are unable to set limits for their own children and find a way to be considerate of other people who are out trying to enjoy themselves, restaurants, theaters, airplanes and even stores are stepping in and no one really minds at all - except the parents who are slowly going mad because they can never escape the children they are bringing up to be loud and rude and annoying.

It isn't necessary for children to behave this way.  Of course infants will sometimes cry, but we used to get up and walk away with ours if we were in a public place.  And older children can be entertained and taught to do more appropriate things than the ones who are driving folks to create these bans.

Let's not blame this on curmudgeonly others.  Let's put the blame where it belongs, on inconsiderate, unconscious parents.

Searching

I found the most beautiful framed poster today and I cannot find anything about it anywhere!

After spending hours searching for it, or something similar, I am posting it here and asking if anyone knows anything about it.

I don't know if I am even allowed to post something like this, but it is only to try and discover who the artist was, or honestly anything else.

My Thots

Sometimes my heart is too full to write about what is in it.

I have so many joys, but there are a few heart breaking things going on too and to talk about some without the others, feels wrong tonight.

I am tired too.  It is a good tired, an honest one, but it doesn't leave me any energy for figuring out how to say the hard things.

So, tonight I think I will keep this thot short and sweet and just say that I am grateful for all the beautiful people in my world.

Forever is Forever

I like the idea that everything is one.

The idea that my laugh might be felt in the wind that touches a person on the other side of the earth fills me with joy.

The thought that rain water has been around for all eternity fascinates me.  Maybe the raindrops falling on my face once fell on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, or even yours.

I believe that love is more powerful than anything else that exists.  It allows me to carry you with me, wherever I go,  forever more.

Like Tiggers

The beautiful thing about babies is that babies are beautiful things!

Their hearts are made out of sugar, their smiles pop up like springs!

They, too,  are bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy,

Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!

But, the most wonderful thing about babies is that we all start out as one!

Babyhood seems to have its own code of honor and behavior.

All people are people unless they are Daddy and Mommy -- then they are Gods.

If you can't chew on it, or play with it, it has no real purpose at all.

Feelings are for expressing yourself and they should be used honestly.

Hang onto what makes you happy and let go of everything else.

And while I agree they do things that would terrify me if they were six feet tall and totally untamed, I do believe they have much to teach us.

When Lainey picks up any toy person, the first thing she does is kiss it! 

Hooked On Power

I have five remote controls by my chair in the living room and I don't even consider myself particularly up up to date technologically.  I have one for the electric fireplace, one for the ac/heater, one for the television, one for the dvd/vcr player, one for the Roku, and in the other room I have a remote for the fan and another television!

For a person who has never sent a text message or taken a photo with my phone I find this amazing.  I do have a very good little digital camera though and both a lap top and regular computer where I take care of most of my business.

I do not have a kindle, but I know they are coming just like I know my next phone will be able to text and get my email.

I suppose the day is near when no one will use paper at all and that is good for the environment, but for those days when electricity goes out I would always like to have paper and something to write on it with as well as a few good books.  Less than five years ago I spent five days without any power at all.  I was able to read a book by candle light to kill time and write thots that I stored up for all those days.   

This morning I am waiting for the local cable company to come work on my Internet, so I need to get this posted before something cuts out again!

Uh, Mom

"That's my boy!"  Shades of Music Man done at Miller Park Summer Theater, way back when.

Kitschy movies where the mother says, "Meet my son, the doctor."  The pride in her voice leaving no doubt about how she feels.

Whatever it is our children do, mothers are so proud of them.  Right now all Lainey has to do is walk across the floor and smile and we are all instantly charmed.

They never cease to be our babies, no matter how much expertise they develop.

I asked my son to stop by the doctor's office and pick up my prescriptions while he was out today and right after he left I began double thinking it all.  Would he be able to find it?  Would they let him pick them up?  What if they gave him a hard time? 

And then I remembered -- he's a trial attorney!

One face

I went over to the apartment swimming pool for the first time today!  It's actually very nice.  They had a relatively shallow pool for children and a big one for bigger people.  Lainey and her Daddy got in the smaller one and she had a great time.

Of course she has a great time just walking down the sidewalk.  Every flower, every bush, every person who walks by receives all her attention.  She smiles and says, "Hi."  Then she smiles some more and waves bye bye until they disappear.  In fact, she would be happy to follow them waving bye bye if we let her.

I love this age.  She is totally un-self-conscious.  There are no mysteries in life yet.  There are only things that make her smile and things that make her cry and sometimes the dividing line is only whether or not Daddy is within sight.

I doubt if most of us can even remember when one face made everything in the world okay, but if you can then you are truly blessed.

Waking Up

Canaries are supposed to need total darkness for a set period every night, so I always cover Jack's cage up with a big beach towel around nine at night.  He seems content with this.  Most of the time he is almost silent in there.

I have to admit I sometimes wonder what he's doing, but no matter how quietly and carefully I try to peek, when I can see him, he is always sitting there with his eyes wide open looking back at me.  Maybe that's what he does, sit there wondering what I am doing.

Yesterday I woke up and looked over to see that I hadn't pulled the towel completely down.  Jack was down on the bottom of his cage, head cocked to one side, looking at me!

I try to uncover him every morning at nine, even if I'm not ready to get up, but if I sleep in, there is a problem.   I can sleep with him flying back and forth across the length of his cage, but his bathing habits are a little harder to ignore.

One morning I was awakened by someone flicking water in my face!  I had taken Jack's swimming pool out of his cage, but he had gotten down in the water bowl and then climbed out and flicked water all over me -- several times!  It was difficult to believe he didn't know what he was doing!

I suppose by bird standards sleeping in is a dangerous thing.  They don't see well in the dark, so once it is light it is time to be up and at 'em.

I, on the other hand, see just fine and if I can't get to sleep, am sometimes awake at 3 AM.  I don't appreciate the water, but I actually love it when he sings.  Lying in bed listening to that sweet voice warbling away is a beautiful slow way to wake up.

Life is pretty good when these are the things that I am thinking about.

Like Turtles

How often are good manners, graciousness, and a calm voice mistaken for weakness?

Every time I turn on my television I hear people ranting and screaming, as if by raising the volume and decreasing the vocabulary they can make more of a statement!

The only statement they make to me is that I tune them out.  Actually I turn them off and I can't believe the reality is much different than that for the people there in person.

Bullies rely on loudness, aggressiveness, and brute strength, in order to make those around them cower and I do cower, but it is done out of a sense of self- preservation.  Intelligence forces me to out wait the storm and then to proceed to do whatever it was I thought was right in the first place.

Strength comes from within.  Built upon experience and courage, as well as intelligence, it is not something that stands out like flags, or weapons, or even diatribes.  Strength manifests in what gets done, often in silence and without much fanfare at all.

Beware the bully because he incites the masses.  You may have to look deep for the real heroes.  It is the quiet man or woman standing in the background, willing to listen and learn and then act deftly who usually makes a difference.

They are the lovers, the ones who really believe in what they are doing and are willing to do what is necessary to get it done.  You might even fear them if what they want is not what you want.  They are much stronger than rabble-rousers and fighters.

Steady and sure, they are like turtles.  Quiet, unassuming and willing to work within the frame work of polite society, they are remarkably good at finishing what they start.

Hang On Tight

Tiny tethers, invisible threads, made out of words and pictures and feelings connect me to a world that has no substance in the presence, but whose existence gives substance to everything.

The quality of life so often depends on things that money can't buy, and I can't rearrange to suit my heart's desire.

Of course, as my father once said, in the course of things, it is easier to have money than not to have it.  It's just that in and of itself it isn't enough.

I remember reading somewhere that great minds focus on ideas and small minds on people, but it is my personal experience that people are involved in everything.  When I lose focus of them, I lose the richness of whatever is transpiring, or about to transpire, or even has transpired.  After all, what is an idea if it by-passes humanity?

So I am like one of those smiling kids you see in the hospital, the ones whose aunt sent them a big bouquet of balloons.  I stand here holding on to these strange little tethers and at the end of each one is what makes my life worthwhile, bits and pieces of me without which I would be someone else.

Sometimes I just gather them in close and surround myself with them, trying to sort out who I really am, but the truth is that I am a tall little girl covered in balloons that lift me up and stretch me out, and make me look like the person you think I am.

Bippitty Boppitty Too!

The best stories are always the true ones.

Even if no one believes they are true.  Even if I never tell them they are true.

The real fairy tales never really began with once upon a time and they never really end with happily ever after.

They begin with a name.  And a place.  And a feeling that everyone might like to have.

The only difference between the tale and the reality might be that in the telling of the tale, everyone knows it is magical.  In real life it's easy to miss that detail.

What if I pointed out the magic in your life?

Could I be your Fairy Godmother?

Have A Good Trip!

I paused one day and realized that I have a one way ticket and its good for the duration of this life on earth.

Whatever does, or does not come later, right now I am on the fast track to old age and I need to keep my eyes peeled on what is going on around me.

The point is not how many stops I make along the way.  The point is how much those stops mean to me.

Every time I linger -- whether it is for a couple of decades or the moment it takes to breathe in the scent of the pine trees overhead -- I am filling myself.  Not like that proverbial camel who had so many possessions he couldn't get into heaven, but with the richness of earthly experiences.

When I get to the end of the line it would be awesome if I can hop off saying, "That was great!  I'm so full I can barely move."

I am not shipwrecked; I have arrived

 I left this city in June of 2002 and when I settle into my new apartment here in June of 2012 it will mark the end of an incredible odyssey. 

Ten years of living and loving, learning and longing have given me perspectives I never dreamed of the first fifty years of my life.  I always thought adventures were for the young, but I tacked mine onto the end of my life and I'm glad it worked out that way.

All those romantic notions I had at eighteen were still here, but by fifty they were supported by a tried and true foundation.  I didn't know it, but I was strong!  Strong enough to weather the ups and downs of notions that really can't support you for very long, but shouldn't be missed altogether.

It's fun to stand of top of the mountain, even if just for a second, knowing that when you plummet, or slide, or jump, or get pushed, off -- all will still be well.  Not only that, but there will eventually be other mountains to climb and they will be full of all sorts of wonderful surprises.  Dragons and caves, treasure and magical waters abound for those seeking them!

I was thrown back up on this shore, a ragged and worn out traveler, one year ago today and had no idea where I was.   I didn't recognize this place as home.  I thought home was a place, but home is the look in someone's eyes, the feeling that all is well, a sense of belonging to something good and solid and bigger than myself.

I am home.

Be Honest

Everything is open to interpretation.  Someone pointed out to me that their child does not act like them at all.  While I agree that is possible, not likely, but possible, sometimes it is necessary to step back and look at the whole picture.

Put ten people in a room and have something happen.  All ten of them will have a slightly different story to tell, but the basics are usually pretty close.

All children yell and scream, but not all children do it all the time, or think it is the best way to deal with discord.

And all children try things they know better than to do, but if the consequences are unpleasant enough, they will think twice before doing it again too soon.

It isn't the occasional bit of misbehaving that defines who a child and his parents are.  It's the constant and preferred way of behaving that does that.

Parenting takes an awful lot of patience and perseverance.  I've heard it said that it takes one breed of dog six times to learn a new trick and another breed fifty times!  Children are just as diverse and they think too, so the brighter the child, the more ways they may find to do something whether I consider it good, or bad.

I always hope that what my child learns will carry over into similar circumstances, but sometimes that connection just isn't as obvious to them as it is to me.  It is my job as a parent to teach them to connect the dots and that is easier if I am honest with myself.

It is counter productive to say I don't do something if I do.  Honestly, it is better to just admit I don't care than to say I don't do it when everyone can see I do.

I still think children grow up to be like the people who raised them. It is possible to change that, but it usually requires a great deal of conscious effort on the part of the adult child.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

I just read an entire article about a woman's attempt to stop yelling at her children -- for a week!

For a week?  That means this is her preferred method of communication when her children don't obey?

If you want someone to listen to you, talk more quietly!  Believe me, it works!

It doesn't always mean the children will jump to cooperate.  Sometimes it is necessary to get up and go over to assist the child in the right direction and sometimes it is necessary to remove other more tantalizing things to clear the way for them.  Once in a while it is even necessary to go through what I call ascending threats.  That goes something like this:

Please pick up your clothes.  If you don't pick up your clothes I am turning the television off.  (And I do that.)  And the game machine is being put away until tomorrow.  (And I do that.)  And now you get to sit on your bed until you pick up the clothes!  I've hardly ever had to go farther than something like that because I can let them sit on the bed all day if they like. (No books, no toys, no nothing, just them and the clothes.)

Parenting is a pro active job.  The object is to pick your battles and make them ones that will benefit your children as human beings.  I'm willing to negotiate some things and even give in on things if there is a good enough reason.  I'm not here to make them, or me, miserable and I am not here to teach sitting on my backside and yelling useless things. 

It is my experience that children act the way they live and they do the things they see done.  It is why we need to raise our own children.  Then they will grow up acting like us.

It isn't rocket science.  It's just simple common sense and I have proof that it works.

Fascination

It today's world almost everything can be repeated.  Movies come on DVDs.  Television shows are horrendously over played.  I can write and rewrite to my heart's content.  Songs can be recorded, dubbed over and re-recorded.  Books can, and, for me often must, be read more than once.

In short there is room and time to practice and study and perfect almost everything!

Except real life!

The really important things in life usually only happen once.  It's a do or die situation that is never totally the same twice.  By the time it happens I may have a quick moment to dip into my reserves of experiences, but no time to sort out which ones really worked and which ones only muddied things up.

Or at least that is the way it has always felt.

Now I am discovering I can take my time -- even if it makes someone else impatient!  Even if it makes someone else really mad!  And honestly?  Most of the time nobody cares at all.  The pressure to respond immediately and as if I really know mostly came from me!

Time goes faster as I get older and I find myself going slower.  Giving myself time to savor the richness of even my spur of the moment decisions is one of the perks of being retired.  Almost everything I do is something I want to do on some level.

That makes complaining or being unhappy rather pointless and that is a fascinating to think about.  It gives things a completely different perspective.

Infinite Meeting

I am about as in touch with my feelings as any one human being can be, so when my thoughts about me conflict with your thoughts about me I am perplexed.

I worry that I may have misled you in some regard.  I think it is easier to sound better than I am when all you have to judge me on are my own words.

There is much to be said by standing next to someone during a crisis and perhaps even more when there is a conflict between the two of you.  My highest self is almost always on top when I write.  The rest of me shows up when I least want it to.

I want you to love me, warts and all, but trusting in that takes more faith than I can muster sometimes.  I don't know how to get around it, but I know it goes a long way when you share your own insecurities with me.  It takes a lot of faith to trust someone with that and a lot of courage to believe they will hold it gently in their heart and never toss it back at you.

You've grabbed me by the hand and led me into extraordinary places.  I suppose the next step is to allow that hand to materialize into flesh and blood and see if it can still hold on.  But there have been people who spent their entire lives writing to one another and never met at all.

And there have been people who met each other face to face and one of them turned to stone.

I think if we meet, it will be like watching two crystal clear pitchers of water siphoning themselves into one another.  Anything else will disappoint me.

The Gift

Sometimes over striving is the most pointless thing in the world.

I can study for a test.  I can practice for a recital.  I can memorize techniques for almost anything.

Except being me!

The more I try to design and perfect a real me, the farther I move from the actual thing.

I am amazed to discover that when I just give up and allow my real self to emerge I turn into that thing I value most in other people.

When I think about it, it is pretty egoistical to think I wouldn’t be just like most people, but it never seemed that way to me before.

Before it always seemed like most other people have all “those” qualities, but that somehow I never developed them.  Kind of like waiting to grow up, but this is grown up for me. 

Leave it to a child to lead me to myself, because I realized that my desire to honor him by being me set me free.

The Naming Of A Soul

What's in a nickname?  My sister and I have talked about this for years.  Her nickname as a very young child was, "Pretty."

I always took that to mean my parents thought she was the pretty one.  She swears it was because my father used to call her his "ugly duckling" until she cried one day and he changed it to "Pretty."

As a very young child I was called, "Angel" or "Punkin."  But by the time I remember my sister being called "Pretty" my name was "Idjit."

Our youngest brother ran around singing a song, "All I want for Christmas is a Poodle de Dink." and his nick name became, "Pooh Dink," or variations for most of his life.

And then there was my other brother who had the misfortune to be called variations of "Thomas" with the emphasis on the last syllable quite frequently.

I know people who are called Roo, or Jo, or Sweetie and one unfortunate person, "the fungus in the basement."

I think most nicknames are born out of affection, a few out of need since their parents seemed to get stuck,  naming them Big Bill, Little Bill, Middle Bill and Baby Bill, and some out of a desire to be someone else.

Once, long ago, in some cultures,  there was a belief that if someone knew your real name it gave them power over you

I think the grandest thing in the world would be a name we got to pick ourselves, one that only our closest friends and family even knew was us.  It would be a powerful name, a secret one, the key to the inner sanctum chosen and shared in a meaningful coming of age ceremony.

The Humanity Gene

It’s funny what I’ve learned in life.  Not at all what I expected, but in the long run I guess it is exactly what I was supposed to learn.

Early on I learned to wave good-bye, to just pick up a hand and flick the fingers back and forth as if chasing away a fly, or some other extraneous thing.  Bye-bye.  No big deal.  The moon will still rise, the stars remain in the sky and the sun comes up whether you can see it behind the clouds or not.

There are constants in the world.  The trick is to find the ones that pertain to me.

Whatever I do to one side has to be done to the other or things don’t equal out, they won’t be balanced.  Except that in reality that seems to take care of itself because what they say is true, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.   When the world feels skewed: when things seem out of whack, they really are okay.  They have to be okay because that is the way things are.

This place where I am?  These things I do that make me feel good?  These people who are so important to me?  I need to find our common denominator.  What is it that ties us all together?

I used to think that was a flaw, an imperfection in me, something that needed to be fixed or hidden or changed.

But maybe it is my link to the world, the common denominator, the constant that I can put my finger on and follow.  Maybe it is not my fatal flaw.  Maybe it is my destiny.

In A Word

I think the most incomprehensible word in the English language is love.

It is a concept that sparks the most heinous atrocities and the sweetest acts imaginable.

Everyone's idea of love has one thing in common -- it is one of the deepest rooted motivations in our psyche, one whose origin we may not even be aware of.

"What I'll do for love," not just a song, or a poem, but something whose foundation begins before a child even has the ability to say the word.

It is the invisible carrot on a stick, the knife in the back, the holy grail and the match that lights the fire, not just in our libidos, but in almost every self righteous, or self sacrificing act along the way.

Depending on my interpretation of it, it justifies almost everything and it is harder to deny than anything else on earth.

Sometimes I think the most loving act of all is to step back and let go, but even then what is let go can rock eternity.  If ever there was a word with the power to cause a nuclear reaction -- it is love.

The Journey Home

Home is such a subjective word.   For me it means that place where I am most comfortable being myself and my apartment is definitely my first home.   Here I have my bed, my few treasured possessions and the place that I come back to again and again.

Yet I have a second home, a place I go to be with people on holidays, a place where I seem to always be welcome and have been for a long time.  And I have other homes along the way where I have hung my hat whether it was my straw sunbonnet, little white ball cap, or winter wooly. 

Today, as I traveled along I55 I had a need to go home, a need to stop and see my brother, to visit the graves of my grandmother and great grandmother, to pause in front of my parents’ grave and give them a heads up.  And so I made a grand detour moving from home to home across the heartland on this sunny July day in the year 2011.

It turned out to be brief.  Ten minutes here, five minutes there, in between two of my children called me on the phone from their homes and I even stopped at my sister’s home along the way.

Now I am in my apartment, but I realize that home truly is where the heart is and that it can depend on the moment.  On occasions, that can even be a place I’ve never set foot in, but where my heart is irrevocably touched by those I’ve met along this Way.

What's It All About

Sometimes I wonder if everyone is waiting for the day when they feel that they have arrived, the moment when they realize who they are, know what they are doing, and why they are here.

I've had plenty of time to do that, but I never feel like I am any more than -- here.

Maybe that is because I am always around people who seem to know so much more than I do.

I listen and although I know what they are talking about, most of the time I don't really feel I know enough to really jump in there and contribute anything new, or unique.

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the conversations, or appreciate what I hear.  I am always hungry for new ideas, new thoughts, new experiences and there seems to be no shortage of that. 

Maybe, for me, that's what it is all about.

Everything In Its Time

I live in sister towns whose total population is around 100,000.  We are definitely urban and yet there are small town aspects that stand out here.  I hear roosters crowing when I volunteer at one of the local elementary schools and there was a boarding stable for horses up the street from where my own children went to school in the eighties.  I have no problem with either one of those things.

Our town council recently issued a proposal that would allow up to four hens of certain breeds and require a $5 permit, an enclosure and a distance of at least 25 feet between the chickens and adjacent lots. Roosters are not allowed, and residents can not slaughter chickens.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I wonder at such specificity.  Perhaps they are just trying to avoid future problems, but that these things are so important brings to mind other things people seem to accept without question.

If a rooster crowing is a real problem, what about dogs barking?  Or worse!  I used to own a lovely home in a beautiful neighborhood and every weekend was ruined by the sound of gasoline powered lawn mowers and log splitters and weed whackers and radios.  One at a time, each one trundled out their noisy toy so that the entire day was polluted with the sounds of technology.  I'd be surprised if anyone heard a rooster crowing, let alone birds chirping, or the wind rippling through the leaves of the trees as these things whirred through our days.

Cleanliness and health is an issue, but noise seems to be part and parcel of community living.  The kind of noise that is considered acceptable, or offensive is an interesting phenomena. 

Then come the other no nos.  We were not allowed to hang clothes lines and play houses had to match the architecture of our homes.  Around five o'clock the smell of over used charcoal lighter filled the air until any sane person would go inside and turn on the air conditioner to escape it.  Everyone has things that they don't care for, but it seems to me that most of it just falls under learning to get along with others.

Now technology has developed to the point where we are interrupting movies and concerts, classes, weddings and even funerals because we have this undying need to connect with each other.  Yet I'm betting that many of these people with an uncontrollable urge to twitter, talk, text and connect all day, go home at night and instead of talking to those dear ones, who they are so attached to that Aunt Millie's funeral sounded like an arcade, plug into video games, computers and television. 

I want to shake them and say, "Now is the hour!  This is when you are SUPPOSED to connect.  Look at each other face to face, gaze into each others' eyes and talk!" 

Renewal

There is nothing like a change of scenery.

Labyrinths, medicine wheels, cedar trees,

Racoons lurking in the swaying violet jungles of backyard worlds,

The unfamiliar routines of old friends getting back together

When I'm sixty four accompanied by the air tuba,

Duets that can't be heard anywhere else on earth!

Bill Bailey belted out on vocal cords with twinkling eyes for an audience of one.

And I will go home renewed!

It's Been One Of Those Days!

Whose roads these are I think I know
He's on his way to prison though
He will not see me driving here
At eight miles an hour and ear to ear.
My little car does think its queer
To drive so slow this time of year
It strains and grumbles to chill the air
And still the sweat runs through my hair
The roads are packed, I'm in a tizzy
I might as well be driving an old tin Lizzy.
But I'll arrive with hair all frizzy
Yes I'll arrive with hair all frizzy.

The Cold Hard Truth!

A little education is an embarrassing thing.   I can start a million conversations.  I can even end them, but it is the continuing of them that is sometimes difficult.

That means I'm good for the short haul.  I am a jack of many trades and really master of none. I am a hostess's dream.  I can float from one person to the next without batting an eye. A dab of Rumi, a dash of Shakespeare, a "little bit of this, a little bit of that..."  Keep it short, sweet, perhaps superficial and don't linger too long in one place.

Actually I am being hard on myself.  I can delve a little deeper on some subjects and I am the consummate listener.  That's what most people really want -- not someone to talk to, but someone to listen to them talk.  I learned that as a child sitting with my father.  I simply basked in his presence.  It didn't matter to me if he talked about the Rosetta Stone, or Stratford upon Avon.  It only mattered that he talked to me!  And I did learn a few things.  Listening is often under-rated.

I simply don't retain many of the details.  I am still often caught in the desire to bask in someone else's knowledge, or presence.  I am in awe of people who really know what they are talking about.  But I fear looking as illiterate as I often feel too.  I'm one of those sad people who know how much I don't know....and it's a lot.

I am learning to simply admit it.  I say, "Oh really?  Tell me more about that!"  I mean that and as long as you can live with that, we are okay.  I truly love learning and the fact that I don't retain all the details does not dim my love.  I realize it is simply a part of who I am.  Unfortunately it sometimes dims the enthusiasm of those I am with.