This is a test

A new human being comes into the world and parents are overwhelmed by their love and sense of responsibility.

They want to give that child the best food possible, devoid of chemicals and artificial hormones, food to build a strong body and mind with.

They want to provide the safest environment and most stimulating surroundings possible.

They want to give that little mind a chance to reach its full potential and that means avoiding stimuli that programs them to have short, twenty second attention spans, because that's what television and movies play to. A little bit goes a very long way.

Good parents watch them fail and wait to see how they recover, wanting to do it for them, encouraging them, but knowing that if you never fall, you never learn how to get back up.

And after all that careful tending we toss them out into the world to see if they will swim, or fly, or slither away -- and become a happy, healthy, wonderful adult.

And part of who they become is a credit to us. And part of it is a credit to themselves, because they are not our clones.  If we have done a good job they are distinctly unique human beings who provide us with our final test:

Loving them for just who they are and not who we thought they would be, or wanted them to be, or needed them to be.

A different drummer

Born to  a Midwestern couple back in the middle of the twentieth century when boys were supposed to be boys, he was all boy.  No one even had an inkling that he saw nothing at all recognizable past six feet. His teacher thought he was "retarded" and sent him for special testing with a psychiatrist.

He and the psychiatrist played chess and later the parents were informed that he was very bright, but very strong willed.  Glasses and a little talk about differences (mainly that if the words said color me blue, he was NOT to color it red even if he thought it looked better,) got him through first grade.

By second grade he'd found his groove, excelling in anything he liked or found interesting and horrifically failing at anything else.

His size made him appear to be a super candidate for sports, but early on he disabused everyone of this.  Instead the neighbors would call to tell his mother he was "sleeping" in the sun in the middle of their driveway, or sidewalk.

By fifth grade he was expected to choose an instrument and learn to play it.  He began with the oboe, but quit, telling his mother that by the time he got the sound out, the other students were already on the next one.  They switched him to Bass Violin because he was tall and strong.  He carried that to and from school for several months before he balked.  He didn't like doing that.  Music was no more his forte than sports.

It became obvious that his interests were not going to lie in that suburban ideal of the perfect son, or to put it in other words, he marched to a different drummer.  He did have other attributes. He could walk out and pick up an injured animal without a second's thought, or trouble.  He was loyal to the death when he believed in something and he was strong.

Shunning formal education left him working at a factory and later working as the custodian for a nursing home, but his health wasn't so good.  He had been expected to die before he was three from a serious kidney problem.  Add years of smoking and drinking, several bypass surgeries, seven stints in his arteries and the wear and tear of overworking his back and it was amazing he was still up and around.

He managed to weather five marriages, have four children, seven grandchildren, one great grandchild, give up drinking and draw wild animals like St. Francis of Assisi. He never learned to follow the crowd, or achieve what traditional society requires of successful people, but he was every child's favorite uncle, a loyal best friend and a brother who is still always there for me.

And today is his birthday!

A glancing moment

Autumn is my favorite season.

This morning I heard the geese calling.  Not an unusual event, since I live a block away from a lake and often hear a pair of geese flying over and honking away as if to say, "Here we come, make way for geese!"

But this morning the honking was more insistent and gradually I became aware that there were more than a few geese overhead, so I went out to my deck and looked up.

The sun was glancing off the breasts of hundreds of geese, in so many different Vees that I could not tell where one began and another ended. Yet, they seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

They curved in and over the lakes then back around and over me, following some invisible current of air I could not see.

It was an extraordinary moment, sunlight pooling around bronze leafed trees, golden breasted geese flying overhead -- like a scene from Krishna's garden.

I stood there listening and watching until there wasn't a single goose to be heard. Then realized what a let down I was experiencing as the world returned to normal.  A subtle shift returned the day to me without the magic of the previous moments.

And yet, it is mine forever, a glimpse of eternity manifesting in my own backyard, the splendor of ages that never changes, but is seldom seen.

And I am profoundly grateful.

The good, the bad and the unexpected

Life is a learning process.  Anytime I think I know it all, that I won't have any more unknowns to deal with, I am in for a surprise. Some of them are good and others not so good. 

The good things tend to get taken in stride.  I assume they come as part of the package, rewards well earned, just nice surprises.

The not so good ones can really rock the boat. The farther along I am, the more these things affect me.  They may seem unfair, or wrong, or simply out of my league-- but the fact is: they are there!

And the only way to deal with them is one step at a time.

Then, afterwards, I tuck them away as lessons learned.  I now have one more experience under my belt, one more known way of dealing with something that is uncomfortable, or awkward, or just plain ugly.

In fairy tales and myths the hero goes through a series of trials before he comes into full being.  We are the heroes of our own stories and every lesson brings us closer to fruition.

The picture you present to the world shapes your world

I saw a Facebook post today.  It was put there by a good woman who I am sure meant well, but I found it disturbing.   First of all she gave credit for the quote to someone who didn't say it, and would not have said it.  Then she misinterpreted its meaning, twisting it to fit her own small understanding of the world.

I wonder if she would have had such high praise for these words had she truly understood where they came from?

I can understand people whose opinion differs from mine.  I can appreciate intelligent debate.  I can even appreciate your right to say what you think however uninformed it is.

I do not appreciate fear mongers, or people who spread hate in any form. 

If it is "cool" in your community to think you are better than other people because of their nationality, color of their skin, who they love, how or etc. then I am glad I'm not there, because YOU are the kind of person I don't want to be near.

Carefully cultivated ignorance, hate, and fear mongering will be what destroys this world in the end.

Who could ask for anything more?

I haven't done anything to merit such a wonderful life.

Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed by all the good things that flow into, around, and over me.

I woke up early yesterday, ready to work and the day sped by.

Today was pretty much the same.

Other than my Achille's heel, which is actually pretty much my whole foot, well, really both feet, I am so fortunate.  I actually fell asleep rocking in my chair the other night and woke up with a bruised heel!

The rest of me seems to be pretty sturdy.

Life couldn't be better.  I have work to do that I love.  My children are loving and happy.  My grandchildren a joy that brightens my life in every way.

My world is filled with love.

Who could ask for anything more?

Privy

In the nearly predawn hours of this morning I set out to buy coffee.  I would like to tell you about the lovely sunrise I saw along the way, but it is an overcast day and there was only a lightning of the gloom.

I live on the edge of town where one might expect to see fog lying like a chilly blanket over cornfields now cut and waiting for next year, but the fields were up and out of bed, shivering along with me and there was nothing except stubble on those early morning fields.

Instead, as I entered the more populated part of town, tiny clouds began skittering across the road and I saw fog rolling across yellow grass like an unearthly tide coming in on the wrong side of day.

It was on an empty lot, fenced in to protect some invisible, thing that man felt was too precious to be left unguarded. I wondered why this lot and none of the others would be rolling in fog?

It occurred to me that maybe it was a cloud farm!  After all, only tiny bits and pieces were escaping through the fence and onto the road!  The rest seemed to be in a continuous state of coming, but never arriving.

It is near Halloween and time for all sorts of eerie and unexplainable events to start occurring.  Perhaps this is where it all begins and I am the only soul here to witness the birth of fog on the edge of a Midwestern town at the beginning of a dark and gloomy day the week before the spookiest night of the year.

Mind doctoring

In the beginning communication was probably a series of gestures and grunts, howls and screams.

Later when those things turned into words and we realized we had minds, people began taking advantage of them to control us with superstitions and voodoo and other mind games.

Now we have whole professions dedicated to the proposition that these minds can be doctored and fixed, dissected and bisected by science and strangers, by talking and analyzing, and charging us insane amounts of money for things that might better be handled by a best friend.

Because who knows me better than my best friend? The careful ear of a best friend is worth it's weight in earrings and then some.  A true best friend does not over react, or push me into insane action, or tell me things just because I want to hear them.

That friend will listen to me anytime of the day or night, not for the money, but just for the love of me. 

And the beauty of real, honest, intelligent love is it's the biggest miracle worker in town.

Perseverance (Tuesday's thot that somehow didn't get posted here)

 It's a great day!

Today my daughter passed a very important test and she did it all herself.

She failed it the first time which is understandable.  All the way through school she needed extra help to get through, to pass tests, but today, many years after she finished school, she passed this one all on her own.

It says a lot about her perseverance, her new ability to study on her own and her extraordinary ability to concentrate enough to pick up the nuances.  It also speaks to the ability to overcome fear, because the fear of failing was certainly there.

I know it was a tough test, because a friend of mine with a degree in English had to take it twice!

So . . .hooray!  I am so proud of her!

Imperfections

Sometimes I feel the need to defend myself when in actuality the truth should be enough.  My own personal honor code is pretty strict.  Mostly because I know what it's like to have someone step on my toes and I never want to do that to anyone else.

If I had to make up stories about something in my life, I would want to step back and re-evaluate why, because (in my experience) there will be consequences eventually.

The misstep of being caught in a little white lie is probably just a tiny hiccup in the course of a life, but the cliff hanger drama of the big fib turns ant hills into mountains.  They are the stuff that ruins relationships.

Before that happens I try to ask myself what I am afraid of?  Why do I feel I can't tell the truth?  And if it's a big enough problem then how does it fit into the frame work of who I am, who you are, who we are.

Most things aren't as complicated as they seem in the beginning.

The closer we are, the fewer duck blinds I need to camouflage my imperfections.

I am an experiment

Observing is usually an interesting way of studying something first hand, but what does it mean when I am observing myself?

Occasionally I look up and see where I live.  It is the last in a long string of places I have lived in my life and especially in the last fifteen years.  Looking back on those other places I realize that I was searching for myself. 

I grew up with expectations that reflected my mother's generation.  I married a man more grounded in my parent's generation.  I felt conflicted about my own generation and raised my children accordingly.  Then, suddenly, I was free to be exactly who I was.  There could be no more blaming on anyone or anything.  

I thought I knew who I was, but each place I lived ticked one spot off the list of who is me.

I discovered I could do almost anything, but my role as a mother and preschool teacher who liked to write and paint and be creative fit me better than any nine to five well paid job.  So I retired.  One box checked off the list.

I thought I wanted to live closer to nature and farther from people, but that turned out not to be true either.  I am a city girl who enjoys visiting nature.  Box two checked off.

I thought I wanted old classical furniture and houses, but that too turned out to be untrue, at least in the price range I could afford. So here I am in an apartment complex, living in a "luxury studio apartment" with bits and pieces of furniture I liked too much to get rid of.  I am always surprised how much this seems to really be me.

Little by little, by the process of doing and undoing, I am discovering what truly suits me and sometimes I feel like a hamster under glass being observed by myself.  It is certainly not conventional by old world standards.  And by old world I mean the world I grew up in and based my values on for at least fifty years.

But it is feeling more right with every week that passes. 

It only requires that I experience and evaluate and honestly look at my life without the old censors and that is harder to do than I imagined, because censors are autonomic pieces of me carefully pressed into my psyche and sanded smooth over long years of use.  I barely notice they are here and yet, they are what make me uncomfortable in my own skin much of the time.

Learning what to let go of and what to embrace, what to create anew and what to cherish from the past is a slow painstaking process.

I am both the scientist and the experiment. The results are unknown, but the way is too rich and full of flavor to give it up.

Challenges

How easy it is to think I am the only one, or the first one, who ever thought these thoughts!

It is difficult to bring up unpopular ideas, or ideas that go against the grain of a large portion of anyone's culture, because there is always the certainty that they will not be discussed with an open mind, but merely crushed by the fear of even thinking them.

Having thought them and then finding that others in the distant past thought them too, makes me feel a little sad, knowing I was not the first.

But it also helps validate these thoughts.  If others, with much greater minds than I have, could think them, then perhaps I am closer to the truth than might be popular.

After all, being a common, or popular, thought does not guarantee that something is the truth. 

History is full of absolutes that eventually proved to be false. And not just false, but terrifyingly dangerously false.

Human beings are more comfortable with the fabrications they know than ones that challenge their traditions.

Experience the possibilities

I am always amazed at the inspiring people who are in my life.

People whose interest and enthusiasm catches me up and carries me onto new and beautiful experiences.

People whose dedication shows me what is possible with just a bit more perseverance.

People whose faith is different from mine, but whose experiences are the same.

People whose innate goodness goes way beyond what I find in most.

I am surrounded by a world succeeding and flourishing in spite of the limitations of short sightedness.

Imagine how it could be if ignorance and fear could be obliterated.

Sometimes we trim the fat and lose the pig

Simplify, simplify, simplify!

I am always trying to find the root of the problem, because it seems to me that it should be easier to fix the foundation of the leaning tower than to rebuild the whole thing, but straining to over simplify can lead to some faulty conclusions.

I've known people who take a phrase like "absent minded professor" and decide that if you act like Fred MacMurry in the movie, you must therefore be brilliant, but sometimes people are simply crazy without the added bonus of intelligence.

Just like being poor doesn't necessarily mean you are lazy, or dumb, but it also doesn't mean you are guaranteed salt of the earth humble and kind.

And being childlike doesn't mean you are angelically good any more than it means you have some kind of disability.

In our society I see people over reaching all the time.  We want our loved ones to be special, so we seek out bizarre behavior and pretend that it's something good in disguise.  It can be, but . . .

It's totally possible to just be curious and curiouser and nothing more.

Simply difficult

The boss isn't fair.  The pants are itchy.  The shirt doesn't fit  The egg yolks are yucky.

The patients are crabby.  The students are rowdy.  The world is not right.  Everything is off.

When things are not right we start close to home and begin the blaming game.

Some people never get any farther than that. 

Remember Mr. Wilson, or Mr. McOnion, or maybe you remember Lucy? All of them are famous for being crabby, but in some kind of cute way that made us smile. 

In real life, crabby people are less endearing and more annoying.  We want to fix whatever is wrong for them, or in them, or around them.  We want to pour milk down their throats and watch them turn into beings of light.

That means identifying the problem, but the problem is:  the problem is not the problem!

On children it can be as simple as being sick.  Adults are trickier.  A childhood problem that isn't solved becomes the provocation for one more problem after another and after years the roots and tendrils are all tangled up together.

Sometimes we give Lucy five cents and pretend it's all better -- and surprisingly enough that can work.  Other times we just keep fixing all those broken tendrils and the distraction is enough to make it bearable.

Figure out what the real problem is, then the problem IS the problem and life should be a lot simpler.

It's just that THAT is not so simple.

The gift of gab

I am responsible for every word that comes out of my mouth.

When I share a something I need to understand that my words make a difference and I should have some idea what that difference may be.

Spreading rumors, or information I am unsure about can cause serious repercussions. 

Sharing bad news should have a point.  Am I looking for a way to fix a problem?

Or am I one of those people who simply likes to be miserable and feel upset?

I need to be especially careful when speaking around children.  They take most things quite literally and they take them to heart.

The gift of gab is seriously abused by so many people. 

Communication is one of our most interesting abilities.  It can start wars and wreak havoc, but used judiciously it is almost magical.

Unconditional love

Why do you do that!?!

How many of us can answer that? 

I like Atticus's  words to Scout:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

And one way to step into that skin, to walk in his shoes, is to listen to what he has to say.   Really listen!  In fact, maybe listen twice as much as you talk, or even three times as much as you talk.

Sometimes the real problem is buried in among so many things that it is hard to find.  Kind of like those hidden picture books children love so much.  Given enough time people often find the answers themselves.

Nothing ever makes as much sense to me as something I discover for myself.  But it's hard to discover these things if I am busy defending myself, or trying to come with answers and excuses.  I need a safe place to think and maybe bounce my thoughts off of a loving person.

Unconditional love is one of the rarest things in our world.  I often find myself believing I have to be this, or that, or do this or that to be lovable even when it isn't true.

So when you want to help me maybe the first thing you can do is not give me advice, but just give me a safe place to talk.  Let me know you care enough to listen and if I do ask you for help then show your unconditional love by giving me nonjudgmental suggestions.

I  don't want to think I am some kind of cause, or stereotype.  I just need to know that I am me and that is okay.

Every day

Special occasions should be special!

However you decide to spend that occasion, it should not be the same thing you normally do. 

If you can't do something extraordinary, then you need to save something you CAN do, something you don't do on every day.  It is up to you to make that time unique and memorable and different from all other days.

That's not to say you can't start a tradition.  Doing the same thing every year is actually pretty special all in its self.  Like fireworks on the fourth of July or a tree at Christmas.  If we had fireworks for every holiday or a tree in the house all year, they wouldn't be half as exciting.

So when the occasion doesn't already have a traditional celebration it's your chance to be the creator of a new tradition if you like.

Maybe one night a year you watch To Kill A Mocking Bird, or maybe one day a year you get all la tea dah dressed up and go to tea, but whatever it is, it is special and means something to you.

Even peanut butter and jelly can be special if you use cookie cutters and make sandwiches in the shape of hearts, so it doesn't have to be extravagant, just different.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one special thing about every day?

Beastly beauty

It is only in looking back that I realize that every feminine trait, in our house, was ascribed starting with the number of inches one stood above the floor.

The more petite a woman was, the better her chances of being beautiful.  One could not be tall and beautiful, or graceful, or charming, or any other adjective associated with the creme de la creme of womanhood.

Once it was ascertained that she would not be small there was no point in allowing her to take ballet, or raise her expectations of ever being pretty, or popular in the classical sense.  She could be handsome, intelligent, successful, but never a beautiful woman. That door was closed to her because of her genes.

Like all children I simply accepted the truths of my childhood.  I would never be beautiful and any attempt to do so was embarrassingly ridiculous -- rather like having one leg and expecting to be a ballet dancer.

So I cultivated other things.  My heroes were mostly men like my father, which mostly served me well in the long run -- and yet, I longed to be beautiful, or adorable, or any of those things automatically out of my reach because of how tall I was. 

It wasn't until recently when someone made me feel both beautiful and adorable, that I realized how many of my habits had developed in an attempt to camouflage my "disability."

At various points in my life I was able to keep my weight down to dangerous levels, hoping that thinness would make up for height.  I have a fear of having too much "stuff" in my life, as if that, too, might pare down the inches.  I have avoided anything that might highlight my lack of beauty, preferring to be seen as an intellectual, or super woman rather than a pathetic giant trying to be what she isn't.

Looking back, and looking at some of my lovely nieces who are as much as six inches taller than me, I finally realize that beauty has nothing to do with height.  In fact, many beautiful women are much taller than me. 

The only thing awkward and ugly about me was my idea of my self. 

Now, I am retired, gray haired, fat and, amazingly, feel more beautiful than I have in my whole life.

Life enhancers

I have noticed that many people live crisis to crisis and while that is understandable, it is also a shame.

Perhaps because I work with small children, I notice there are many things in between the crises worth noticing and celebrating.

Placing my attention on a situation makes it bigger, more important, and while I can't ignore a crisis, I can certainly choose to not blow it up bigger than life.

The culture of my past tended to focus on these sad and bad moments. People remember the year of the big tornado, or the Christmas ruined by Uncle Arlo while, at the same time, forgetting the day baby Jimmy smiled for the very first time, or that time the sun came out right in the middle of a thunderstorm.

In a way, I think this is proof that good things happen more often than negative ones.  We simply don't have time to celebrate all the good times, or at least we think we don't.

The force of a negative experience seems to outweigh the pleasure of a positive one, but if I am truly present I discover there are more positive ones between the bad ones than I might have guessed and they are worth celebrating.

Life boosters, life savers, natural medicine for body and soul that are there for the taking.  Don't waste them.  Who knows what negative experiences do to us.

Positive ones, whether they are as small as a deep breath savored for ten seconds, or being licked by a happy puppy, when celebrated, are true life enhancers.

Listen and learn

I have only dreamed of flying once in my life.  All the other times I have dreamed of swimming.

In my dreams, breathing underwater seems as natural as out of it.  I love water.  I have always loved water! 

Whether we were at the lake in Minnesota, at the ocean watching the waves roll in, or in my bedroom watching the water shadows from the pool down below, there is something mesmerizing about water.

Yet, I am a very poor swimmer.  My father tossed me in the lake at two and I swam.  He towed me out to the sailboat when I was eight and I loved it.  But . . . my mother was terrified of water and she carefully and methodically passed that fear on to me.  I was a bright child.  I listened to her tales of nearly drowning when she was a child.  I heard her warning about the dirty water. I understood her story about being able to drown in a tablespoon of water if you weren't careful.

She kept me from ever taking swimming lessons, or going to the public pool until I was nearly eighteen strictly out of fear.  There were a few halcyon years when I swam in shallow water fearlessly because I knew I could stand up, but I was never able to give up that paralyzing fear that I might drown in deeper water.

I did not pass that on to my children.  They all passed their life guard tests and are fantastic swimmers.  I wish I had their confidence, but even after having our own pool for years I was never able to find that.

And that is a shame, because I think I am a water baby out of its realm and that is a great loss.

Professionals

When did we hand over our entire selves to other people?

I think the majority of people want the optimum health, whether it is physical, or mental, but in today's world there is such a glut of information on how to do that it is easy to be overwhelmed.

Embracing first one and then another "miracle" diet, vitamin, habit, or exercise and then hearing that it was not effective, even if it appeared to be for me, made me doubt my ability to care for myself in the very best way.  I don't think I am alone in this feeling.

People may say they have no doubts, but any intelligent person always has some doubts and I really believe that is how we slowly gave up ownership of our own bodies and handed it over to the "professionals."

Now many of the "professionals" lay claim to that and tell us what to do and how to do it, with an assurance that I believe is not founded in reality.

IF they really are professionals then they should be consulted, but it is not reasonable to turn our whole self over to anyone else without any reservations.  I had a friend who could afford a personal trainer.  He was god in her eyes and despite the fact that she was in continual pain from the exercises over several years, he insisted he knew best.  Until . . . she ruined her rotator cuff.

As comforting as it may seem to go back to those childhood days when Mom or Dad knew exactly what we should or should not do, we really cannot hand over responsibility for our own bodies to anyone else.

Even though it may be uncomfortable, I need to look upon doctors, nurses, dentists, and other pros on television programs and Internet ads as consultants.  If I cannot talk freely with them about my real health and feelings, then they are not in my best interests.

Anyone insecure, or egotistical enough to be offended that I am questioning them is not a real pro. 

Ears

Ears are great places to show off earrings.  Right about eye level and relatively simple backgrounds for those fancy baubles, which, if I am lucky, are not a distraction that deafens ears which should be listening.

I love good listeners!

People who really hear what I say.  People not thinking about what they are going to say when it's their turn.  People who know how to pay attention.

Listening is probably one of the most respectful things I can give you.  It says I value what you say, what you think, how you are interacting with me.

Ears are the first ambassadors of the world.

They can be deceptively dangerous if I don't use them to really listen to what others are saying.

Friends

Imagine buying a house forty years ago and the day after you move in someone knocks on your door at 6:30 A.M.  It is a tall woman bearing a warm, homemade coffee cake.  Her name is Judy and her back yard butts up against yours - sideways.

Later that day, while out on your patio, you see a man with dark brown hair, who looks a little like George Maharis, mowing the lawn.  It is John, her husband.

You are neighbors for about three years and even then you realize they are the best neighbors anyone could ever have.  You have tea with Judy almost every day and not once does she throw you out of her kitchen.  She almost becomes a surrogate mother, teaching you how to sew everything from neckties to suits and cook almost anything from scratch.  She teaches you mothering and when you adopt your first child, the two of you babysit for each other and then you move to different parts of town, but a bond has been forged.

When I am stranded, who do I call?  Nope, not ghostbusters.  John!  He has come out and picked me up late at night when the Megabus broke down and from the ER when they thought I was having a heart attack.  And today he put together these stools for me in less time than it took me to nearly ruin one.  When I asked what I could do for them in return?  They gave me their home grown tomatoes!

I remember once, when I hadn't seen them for years, I got caught out in a thunder storm on my bike and showed up at their back door before seven in the morning on Easter and they did not blink an eye!

People like this are rare in my world and so very precious I don't even really know the right words to use when talking about them.  But they are the kind of people that make "friends" an almost sacred word.

Mystery abounds

It's a fine line between sweet and scary mysteries.

Soul mates think the same thoughts in the same moments and are charmed.

A sweet voice calls from the woods and we are terrified.

Echoes from the unknown are chillingly frightening.

Brought up speaking of ethereal creatures we cling to the finite ones and anything that steps beyond the boundaries of understanding raises fear like the hackles on a black cat at midnight.

There is no supernatural.  There is only the undiscovered.  The misunderstood.  The misrepresented.

Mystery abounds!  It stands before the closed doors to beckon us forward.  Calling us to investigate, to study, to decipher, all those amazing things we think we already know.

Let science go where no man has gone before and discover our true potential.  We may be finite creatures, but I am pretty sure we are infinitely more complex than any of us believe right now.

Manipulators

Sometimes the hardest decisions turn out to be the best ones in the long run.

There is a time and a place to take care of the underdog, but not every person in need is an underdog.

Some of them are simply manipulators, people using other people because it is convenient and fun and easier than changing themselves.

And there are people who believe being manipulated is a form of love, but it's not.

Loving someone means wanting the very best for them.

No matter what you want.

That feeling I get

I experienced something today that I had forgotten even existed. 

It is the deep seated warmth and sense that all is right with my world that I used to have coming home from elementary school in Springfield, Illinois.  I don't think I ever felt it again after we moved away from Butler school.   Maybe because I was older and knew more about the world, or maybe other things changed, but whatever the reason, I feel blessed to have felt it today.

I'm not sure what brought it back, but I suspect it is because my world is full of soul deep loving people right now. 

There is no gossiping, no complaining, no mistreating in my immediate world.  Everyone in the inner circle treats everyone else with loving respect and care -- and that's the way it should be.

The rest have been relegated to the outer limits.  They still have a place, but it is at a safer distance.

Bestest says my control ends at the tip of my nose.  He's right, so if I can kiss you on the nose we must be pretty well suited for each other.  If I can touch you with my hand we need to be happy to be around each other.  If I don't want to lay eyes on you we are better off apart.

It is possible to treat people humanely, help them out, even stand up for them, without bringing them into your inner circle. 

That is not being selfish, it is being intelligent.  Negative things cause illness, aging, sadness, depression.  Eliminating as many as possible only makes sense.

That little bit of warmth I felt today?  It just might be a glimpse of heaven.

Drama

I feel for children.  They get caught up in their grown-ups drama all the time.

Children are born knowing when they feel bad and when they feel good, but by the time most of them are five they become confused and it's understandable, because children are natural apers.

It is important for a child to copy her grown-up.  It is how she learns to cross the street, eat with a spoon, beware of the big dog inside the fence. 

When children see their loving parents freak out over inconsequential things, cry copious tears because some distant relative might be sick, beat their breasts over causes better served by simple hard work, they understand drama gets attention even it they see no reason for it.  Pretty soon another human being has been taught to over react and under think a situation.

It's a poor legacy to give those we love.  A child under these circumstances has no idea how negatively all this commotion is going to affect him.  He sees other children being rewarded for what appears to him to be nothing while he gets sent to time out. 

I work with a lot of perfectly beautiful, intelligent children who do not thrive or stand out simply because they are starved for attention and have no idea how to get it appropriately.   Teachers model it, other children model it, but for the kid raised on drama these things are like raindrops in a cyclone and before long they become a "problem child."

If people are going to have children they need to prepare them for the real world and not a life of misery.

There is only so much one teacher can do in six hours with 28 children.  When evaluations go home, those parents who have been too busy suddenly show up,  irate and full of drama as if making a lot of noise is the same thing as rearing a happy healthy child.

In the good old days

I saw something on a social networking site about can we auto correct humanity and I didn't even watch all the way through, because it's the same old story.  The first cave man said to his wife, "We don't need no new-fangled fire.  The sun was good enough for my daddy and it's plenty good enough for me.  These new people huddling around their fires, isolated in their caves, no one's talking to no one anymore!"

And if we could auto correct?  Can you imagine how screwed up it could be?  Think about all those sites showing how auto correct changed their conversations?  No more cars!  Or was that wars?  Or maybe it was go for wars?

Remember when electricity was still a novelty in out of the way places back in the 1940's?  People were afraid of being electree cuted just cause they couldn't do their business before dark.  And then there were those telly phones!  Golly!  Wimen was setting around talkin' all day and couldn't get nothin done.  It meant no more talkin over the fence while hanging out laundry and dirty clothes just piling up!

But when television came into being, oh my!  Kids quit reading.  Husbands and wives stopped doing anything in bed except watching the tube and couch potatoes were invented just in time for the microwave.

And in spite of all these things, we still have teachers and doctors, scientists and mathematicians.  We still have friends both on and off our computers and phones and tablets.  We still have children and we still make a million choices a day about how to raise them.

 Just like in the olden days, some people will fail and some will not.  Some people will be happy and some will not.  Some people will make good choices and take advantage of the good parts of new inventions while others will not.

We're the same old human beings we always were.