The good old days

I am composed of so many layers that figuring out what shaped me into the person I am today would be more complicated than discerning the number of people who have replaced the gold leaf on an ancient, but carefully maintained family mirror.

Told to love myself by pop culture while gently admonished to be aware that parts of me are unmentionable, untouchable, and downright ugly is a conundrum that I believe many intelligent women of my generation face.

I grew up knowing that women are capable and strong, creative in practical as well as decorative ways, but that femininity required me to appear as small, and delicate as possible, to be ludicrously ignorant of obvious things, and compliant beyond endurance. The worst label in the world was to be a loud mouth, crude, obnoxious woman.  Sometimes the worst thing was simply to act like a girl.

Nature made me long legged and tall. My father saw me as "healthy." My mother saw me as too big to be really feminine.  I had to be smart and that meant smart enough to know when to play dumb.

I grew up on the cusp of the liberated woman.  That would have been wonderful if I hadn't tried so dutifully hard to be "what I was supposed to be."  Talk about conflicts.

Those good old days where the idea of nursing a baby in any kind of company was abhorrent, where, even if we had had social networking, we would never have dreamed of putting up pictures of ourselves in provocative positions, because not wearing a bra when you were flatter than your mother's pancake turner, was still considered flaunting yourself in public, were tantamount to running the gauntlet in almost every area of life.  No matter what we did -- somebody objected to it.

My father loved educated women, but they fell into two categories: the ones who stayed home and raised children and the ones who never married and lived for their careers.  Most of the people I grew up with felt the same way.  You couldn't have both and do justice to either one. I suspect he was right, but the standards for both were higher then.  Mothers did what people expect daycare and school to do now and career women had to perform twice as good as any man to be considered passable. Today most people have no choice and we have altered both the situations and the standards to fit the need.

Elderly people were, and often still are, forced into the position of great gray-haired toddlers devoid of the intelligence, dreams and desires they've had all their lives. Older women were seen as pathetic people who needed to be grateful for the attention given to them now that they were physically less attractive by the standards of youth. That is changing, but not fast enough and it is going through the same growing pains everything else is.  You don't have to act 25 when you are 75.  You don't have to act at all.  You should be wonderful just the way you are and people need to take the time to discover who that is.

There have always been people who refused to change, who whine and dither and blame, and that will never change.  But in the good old days they were acceptable as long as they stayed in their designated rut.  I see that changing today. The ruts are shallower and there are opportunities galore for those who want them.

All these thoughts fill my cracks and crevices.  They are part of who I was and who I am. I look back on the good old days and I'm glad they have been evolving.  There are a few things that I think might have been a little better, but they are outweighed by the circumstances surrounding them. Change takes time and nothing takes more time to change than the way people think.

No piece is too small

We are all part of some gigantic puzzle.

I don't know how all the pieces go together, or even where they all are, but I do finally understand that we need each and everyone.

No piece is so small, so insignificant, that it becomes less valuable than the others.

Destroy another piece, in body or soul, and an entire world becomes less whole, less stable.

No one is an option and even when nature removes a piece on her own, it is because another has been set in its place to fill it up.

It is the way things are.

I am just too close to see the big picture.

Forever

How many times have I said, "I wish things could stay just the way they are forever."?

Those were the best moments of my life and some of them I can actually pinpoint because I remember thinking -- one day I will look back and remember this -- and I do.

I remember sitting in the big wing back chair at my Dad's house, reading a book and holding my new son.  It was a day I'd dreamed about most of my adult life.

I remember watching him climb up on the step of the bus to go to kindergarten and how I didn't want to let him go so far away without me.

I remember when both of the boys left for school together the first time and I knew that they were growing up. I wanted them to just stop right there and be that age forever.

Those years were the sweetest ones, but life just keeps going right on and I have to keep learning to let go; knowing that my love is strong enough to cover vast distances and longer times.

Love is amazing that way.

I don't think anything else in existence is as strong, or long lasting, or pliable.

Loving your children is forever.

Scapegoats

I have felt very unsettled for a while now, but I look around at our country and I don't believe I am alone.  The good old United States of America has become an oligarchy and the values of those few do not have the best interests of our country, or us regular people at heart.

Honest, hard working people are working, not to support their families, or communities, or any of the mother, home, and apple pie, traditions of our country, but to feed the mouths of a greedy few who, instead of letting the profits trickle back down to us, send our jobs out to people more desperate than we are who will work for pennies.

The rift between "us" and "THEM" is so huge now that electioneering has become the theatre of the absurd.

Rich people like Trump don't even have to pretend to have manners or knowledge.  They simply say whatever pops into their mind and whatever they think will give them the response they want.  It doesn't have to be based on truth, or respect, or dignity, or anything at all.  It just has to be a good satisfying show.

Desperate people know they are working, or trying to find work, as hard as they can and they are getting nowhere. Worse, they are losing ground like no generations before them have done since our country began.

Politicians evade the real problems because it is to their advantage not to open a can of worms.  If they keep us focused on the touch words of the modern American election, we might forget the real issues and just vote for the guy who makes us feel empowered -- even if that guy is the very one who will strip the last vestige of power from the hands of the average men and women who voted for him.

Now, when our country is under siege from within, it is even more important than ever, not to vote willy nilly because Mom and Dad were always republican, or Trump stirs up our angry masculine, or Jeb comes from American aristocracy.

We need to take a deep breath and let go of the feel good glee that comes from getting in one good kick at the scapegoats, and think more about what we really need to reclaim the land of the free and the home of the brave.  (Clue:  it isn't open carry guns, or building fences around our borders, or worrying about who is marrying who.)

From a mind's eye view

My life is returning to normal, which will make my friends chuckle because I live in Normal.

The last few weeks were the first time I could run in and grab a few necessary things at a medium sized grocery store, but today was the first time I could go into a store like Target and actually shop around.

Since shopping is not a sport, nor a hobby, for me, this shouldn't be a big deal, but I find it is really nice not to have to count on someone else to pick out what I need, or want.

I am also working on something for Bestest and that bit of work makes me feel more grounded, more necessary.

And next week I am back to volunteering at the elementary school library two days a week.

I have not volunteered anywhere since April 2 and I really haven't done much of anything else since then.  I feel better when there is some order in my life.

When I don't have these benchmarks in my life I begin to fixate on other things.  I suppose that is my mind's way of tricking itself into thinking I am working, but it's honestly very destructive.  My anxiety level soars after four months of accomplishing nothing. I begin to doubt my worth as a human being.  I find fault in everything I do.  I become hypercritical of every action, thought and micro thought. 

Life starts spiraling downwards.

I guess there is a part of me that seriously believes we all need to be contributing something as long as we are alive and breathing and this is all I know how to contribute at this point in my life.

You or me

I'm tired of the people who lie and exaggerate in this world.  People who are intentionally out to use other people and those who don't mean to be mean but are.

People quickly develop a reputation for exaggeration, for drama, for not telling the truth.

I knew who these people were even when I was a small child.  They aren't really fooling many people. Not more than once or twice.  We all catch on. In fact, the more of those people we meet, the better we become at discerning their methods and personalities.

Parents who use this sort of control are not very effective. Before their children are teenagers the kids usually have it figured out.

No one who is really in control believes the lies and declarations of those who want to wrangle control with deception. Deep down inside we are constantly aware that they are finaglers.

We are taught to be polite to these people and they count on that, so they wreak havoc until they bring people to the end of their rope.  In the bitter end, because it often comes to that, the bitterness flies out of frustrated mouths and relationships are severed.

The answer is different for everyone, but intelligent people can't trust liars and exaggerators and drama mongers, so they either suffer through every moment with them biting their tongue, or they avoid them, or they try to be nice and move on without giving them any power to move them in any way.

They are not going to change. The only one who can change what happens is me or you.

Hopes and dreams

Not knowing isn't just a spiritual thing. 

There is a real concrete reason to be glad I don't know a lot of things.

Not knowing isn't quite the same thing as being unrealistic, but it does leave room for hope.

I started writing this post thinking about not knowing, but it occurs to me that if not knowing frees me to hope, then I need to think about what I'm going to hope for.

If there is power in hoping, in visualizing, in focusing my energy on something, then I want to be very clear what that is.

I don't want to waste it on something like, I need ten dollars by tomorrow.

And maybe I don't want to risk it on some preposterously far away dream like, I want to be a movie star.

So, I think I'll break it down to basics.  What is the next step I wish I could succeed at that will help me achieve my dream or next goal?

Now I can visualize myself doing that.  

I imagine myself waking up in the morning and feeling ?????  I see myself getting out of bed and doing ?????  Then I ?????

Now instead of focusing on how I feel I think I"m going to focus on that.

Cycles

Anyone can walk along the edge.

Staring into the abyss, unaware that their foot is going to be the next one to slip.

Forgetting that life for us is as tenuous as the dandelions that populated last year's lawn.

We can be ripped up by the roots, mowed down where we stand, or live until our hair is gray and wiry and ready to fly away.

Eventually everyone goes away.  There are no ghostly dandilions standing all winter to brighten up the snowy yard.

I don't know exactly what that means, except that perhaps there is a cycle to life as brutal and as secure as the sun that comes up every morning, or the seeds that blow out of the dandelion's hair.

No matter what happens in the end, because there is always an end, right now I need to hang on for dear life and see what happens tomorrow.

One

Awakenings are inevitable if we live long enough.

Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle awaken to worlds far removed from their comfort zones and yet each must go on - reawakened, reborn, into the reality of the now.

Youth or age, it can happen to anyone.

High expectations, inexperience, believing that life can be skimmed off the top, or that it is simply following the rules because that is fair, eventually collides with the wall of reality. Then, curse, or wicked gnomes, depression, or wicked people, whatever the catalyst is, throws us into a darkness full of numbness and nightmares.

The past puts us in a position never sought after, never wanted, and perhaps undeserved, until one day awakening to the frightening truth that life is still going on, we realize we are totally unprepared for it.

The young expect Prince Charming to come in and carry them away on a dashing stallion.  The old try to walk in their old footsteps, hoping to recapture the past just as it was.

The lucky realize this is a second chance, a rebirth, a time to build new ways in new places;  that it's literally time to get down off that high horse and stop staring down into the rut of those faint old footsteps, that all birthing has labor pains and all building starts one brick at a time.

Awakenings are slow and one is the magic number.  One thing at a time.  Just one, because each one is difficult enough all on its own.There is no efficiency expert here.  No grabbing the bull by the horns and leaping over this mess into happiness. It is one foot in front of the other until one day you realize the gait is almost normal.

And then it starts getting easier.

The way it is

I don't believe any connection is deeper or more unconditional than that of mother and child.  It doesn't matter if they are 27 and new, or 65 and 37.  The dynamics never change for the mother. She is fiercely protective and forever finding the good-hearted baby she held in her arms.

It becomes more complicated when the mother and child are two adults. The nurturing of a child requires allowing them to become independent and that independence becomes the pivotal point of all future conversations, because a mother knows everything when you are five, but when you are both adults that security ends.

Still, no matter what else is going on, the love never wains.

Hindsight

Hindsight is one of the most over rated experiences anyone can have.

It's like a coloring book that clears itself out waiting for a new interpretation. There's no way to know what crayons were really used once the page has been whitewashed.

I am as guilty of writing things in neat, orderly, progressive cohesiveness as anyone. It makes stories more comprehensible and more fascinating, but real life is seldom that straightforward.

The decisions I made in the past were influenced by:

The era I was living in.  Was it the sixties, seventies, eighties?

The people I lived closest to. My husband, my children, my siblings, my parents, even my friends.

My awareness of our financial state at the time. My health and the health of those around me.What was going on when I went to work, or was at work and what was going on with anyone else I lived with's work. It depended on the advice whispered in my ear by well meaning busy bodies and loving people too.

It relied upon so many infinitesimal variables, that I will probably never truly remember exactly how I came to think and do the things I did.

I can tell you, in this moment, what I think happened and why, but tomorrow that may not be true.

I can tell you that I know I loved parts of people I no longer want to be around. I still love those parts of them that drew us together, but parts change, circumstances change, people change and sometimes the love gets buried so deep it's no longer accessible.  When that happens it's like bringing two magnets together, negative end to negative end.  They simply repel each other. Living with someone under those circumstances is really too difficult.

Still, in hindsight, I would be hard pressed to tell you exactly how those things occurred.  It was never one single event, or one trait, or even one person's fault. The universal gears only had to move one cog forward and a billion others subtly shifted. Then that shift was interpreted by a billion different people in a billion different ways and a new era began.

Optimistic?

Insecurity is born when something bad happens, with no warning, right when you least expect it. The first 49 years of my life were liberally peppered with these things.

I have developed a sort of shield that protects me from this sort of thing now. Part of it is to avoid people who don't really like me and part of it is to stay away from people who lie, because there are people who lie just to get what they want, knowing they cannot, or will not, do what they have promised to do.

I am not strong enough to deal with these people.

I am a naturally trusting individual.  I tend to find the best in the worst situations, hoping that will give me a way to stay grounded and not plunge into those very dark places I know are right there waiting for me.

Insecure and naturally trusting are not particularly compatible no matter where they meet, but perhaps they are found together in mostly true optimists?

Water puppies

Once, when I was in fourth grade, I decided that if I ever had to come back as an animal, I wanted it to be an otter.

I put a great deal of thought into this, right down to the fact that I would be eating fish! Raw!

But I decided that if I were an otter, fish might taste differently to me.

I liked the way otters looked with their professorial noses and furry bodies. I liked the way they held their babies in the water. And I liked the fact that they loved to play - even when they were grown-up. At the time I read that they were the only adult animal that did this, but I don't know if that is true or not.

I've been watching them ever since and my love of them has not waned. They slide down into the water and roll and romp and play like happy water puppies. Then they curl up together and go to sleep. That seems almost ideal to me.

And, as an added note, as I grew up I noticed they have a fondness for abalone. I do too! Only I just like to look at the shells where they prefer eating what's inside, but maybe I'm on my way.

Through a (distorted) looking glass

I sometimes believe I am just a bundle of feelings attached by thoughts, or perhaps a bundle of thoughts attached by feelings.

Either way there are lots of both and I am often not sure which ones are more valid.

It does make a difference and yet, in some ways it doesn't.

I can't avoid having the feelings.  Trying to do that only makes them burrow in deeper where they multiply and grow in dark sometimes sinister ways. I can't let them rule the roost either, because not all feelings are valid.

But thoughts without feelings can be invalid too.

I've been reading about cognitive behavioral therapy where I try to minimize distorted thinking by looking at a list of common cognitive distortions.

This seems like a reasonable way to bring these two parts of me together. If you type Checklist of common cognitive distortions into your computer you can try this out for yourself.  The list is followed by some suggestions for using it. Simple and more effective than you might think.

The idea is that after a while this kind of thinking becomes more natural than the distorted thinking.

Think of buying a fun house full of crazy mirrors and, over a period of time, replacing each one with a simple framed one with no distortions.

In a hard place

It's difficult to walk the line between fantasy and fiction.  So many parts of our lives are really based on both.

Everyone has dreams and part of the romance in life is pretending these dreams are true, but there are very few saints, or arch villains in our relationships.

We are all just people and that means our inner life, our souls, our intentions, are a cocktail of good and bad, greedy and kind, self serving and philanthropic "stuff."

Sorting it all out probably isn't even possible and it is certainly not possible by the people closest to the need.

That is why we need really good mediators, attorneys and judges who make decisions based on fact, not feelings.  That may not be entirely fair, but it's more fair than the process of guilt and hindsight.

Life is hard.  Contracts need to be honored. A solid basis for the future relies on bedrock decisions before hand. Otherwise the sands just keep shifting back and forth and the same old problems just keep hanging around, disguised as different things. Whoever has the most money soon becomes obsessed with retaining it now their emotional connection has altered.

It's horrible that these very difficult journeys need to be made right when everyone is feeling the most fragile and broken, but that's when they start and it is far too easy to mistake guilt for no rights at all.

Happiness is . . .

It seems to me that much of the so called "beauty and happiness" in this world is really the self impressed posturing of people who want to point out that they have something others don't have because they have done something others don't do.

They got up earlier, stayed up later, worked harder, made better deals, bought better stock, live in a better climate, own better cars, better clothes, better anything that could be used in a competition to be the happiest and most beautiful.

If that is the measuring stick for happiness, it becomes necessary to be around people who want the same things, because without them you miss the one-up-man-ship and the beauty of the moment is tested.

But I don't really believe these things are real happiness, nor do I believe they are necessarily the best sort of beauty.

If something requires a price tag to be considered valuable, it brings up all sorts of questions in my mind. Is a $500 skirt really any better than a $20 one?  Why?  If it lasts longer, or keeps you warmer, that is one thing.  If it comes from a designer store I think it is questionable.  If you have to train the eye to see the beauty, then I wonder if you aren't just training the eye to see beauty your way.

We are taught to want so many things done in just a certain way and I think that is teaching people to turn away from the road to happiness and fall into the rut of conformation.

Shel Silverstein has a poem in his book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, that talks about the wonders of the world and I like the last line: But all the magic I have known I've had to make myself.

I think true happiness and beauty fall into that same category.

In the beginning

Don't let anyone retell your story.  It belongs to you.

Pack up your memories. The way you remember them.

And step into your future.

The road may be steep at first, and full of darkness, but that is so you will be forced to let go of your baggage and continue on wiser, but lighter.

I promise you, there are better days to come and they are already inside of you waiting to come out.

You are not the first to trudge through this awkward place and you will not be the last, but you are the one you will learn the most from.

Take the hands of those who love you and let them guide you when you need help.

Your journey is just beginning.

Goodbye

She peeped over the back seat waving goodbye
Not for the first time, but that time it was different
That time she knew what goodbye meant.

She got good at goodbyes.
Said it six more time before going off to college.
And many more since.

It was good training.
She didn't expect anyone to stay long
Unless they took their time packing up.

People come. People go.
Life goes on anyway.
She guessed it wasn't the miracle it felt like.

The miracle was how long she stayed
A place marker in time
Moving on.

There are worse things

July 4, 1981 we came home from the fireworks display and my husband dropped his bomb.  He had already rented an apartment and was moving out right away.

Our son's eighteenth birthday his father planned to serve me with a divorce stating that he would take custody of our younger son and our house and I could move out and contribute to their well being.

Our daughter's twenty third birthday she walked into our bedroom to find her father making a porn film while I was in the hospital.

We were divorced by the time he announced at Christmas dinner that he would no longer pay for our son's college education.

My ex was a fan of holidays.  He did some of his best work then.

There really are worse things than living alone and one of them is to live with someone who doesn't love you.

Seven simple thoughts

Life is a process.  It begins. It ends.  Whatever lies between those two points depends on a lot of things, but I find the quality is better when I keep the following in mind.

Simplicity is the real spice in life. Whittling things down to their essence brings out their true flavor.

Love is something you give away.  It feels so good to love and if it comes back? That feels good too.

Control is an illusion.

Drink coffee. It's easy to gather around a cup of coffee, mix the grounds with a little olive oil and it makes a great facial, and if you google it, you discover it is almost a miracle drink.

Moderation is the great equalizer.

Only you can be the final judge on what is best for you. That's your job.  May you grow into it. 

Damage control report

We discovered they built vast geometric structures, chewed away immense parts of the earth and destroyed everything they came in contact with.

Pest Control lay traps baited with uranium to attract the worst of them, hoping they would use it to destroy themselves.

In the interim we got out the wind tunnel vacuums, sucked up their colonies, and washed away the worst infestations right away.

Earth has been quarantined until further notice.

A little bit of thinking

It's a shame there is not one big editing tool, or phrase, that works specifically for each life. However I relate to the world could be run through some process that would maximize the quality of living for me.

If I have a scientific leaning I might remember: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and ask myself how does this pertain to what I am about to do?

If I am Bible bent, I might remember: do unto others as I would have them do unto me.

The process might be as simple as pausing and thinking about what I expect will happen if I do, or just say, this particular thing.

Time spent perfecting my actions might be compensated by the time I save not having to clean up from those times I reacted without thinking and made a mess of things.

Of course it is impossible to gauge every possible reaction by so many different people in so many different circumstances, but many of life's problems might be averted by a little common sense, a little pause, and a little consideration.

You don't want to live so consciously?  Don't worry.  I never measure up to such high standards.  The human part of me tends to jump ahead of the spiritual thinking part all the time.

But I'm just saying, what if it didn't?

Not quite an inner child

Everyone does the best they can.  What else can they do?

But some are more sensitive than others and that can work both for and against them.  Parents cannot give what they do not understand the need for and they give what they do not understand the danger or injurious nature of.

Just taking a child somewhere they can have fun, or buying them things is a sort of benign neglect. Children need people that actually help them understand who they are and what they need.

Children don't always know when they are tired, or what their body needs to eat, or how to prepare for life after childhood. Even adults don't always understand these things and so adult children are born.  People not necessarily traumatized by brutality, but by benign neglect.

One of the worst parts of being an adult child is not even knowing they exist. Once that is acknowledged there is still a lot of work to be done, because children of all ages are all different.

Relying on just one person to care for that little one, play with it and love it for exactly who it is, so that the rest of the adult can go on leading a grown-up life and being productive, is almost impossible.

A really great support system includes lots of different resources, but the important thing is that it is tailored to the needs of each particular person, adult, or child.

Trembling silence

The rumblings of discontent never seem to be audible.

The earth shakes, wine glasses tremble, people leap out of bed and run for cover and the world continues to turn.

Storms lash the land with lightning, tornadoes suck up whole towns, and I chalk it up to nature.

Seas swamp the levies, snow crashes into crevasses, ice holes crack open across rivers and I think winter is waning.

It is the silence that terrifies me, the minute I take something for granted, the unremarkable moment when my life tips over and everything changes.

Raison d'être

People seem obsessed with things that honestly don't seem that important to me most of the time.

I look at a beautiful child, or a flower, or even the sky and find myself in a sort of wonder that anyone or anything could be that beautiful.  I cannot think of one time when that thought was immediately followed by the question, in my mind, of, "I wonder why he, she, or it is here?"

Had you asked me who I was at three I would have said, "Linda."  That was enough for me.  I didn't ponder anymore over it than that.  I did ponder over that place called heaven where we all were supposed to have to go and where the only person I knew there was my grandfather and the truth was that I didn't even really know him, but I counted on him knowing me cause he was my momma's daddy. And I pondered over divorce where a family broke into two pieces and the kids had to go live with one of them and I hoped my mommy and daddy didn't get one of those. I thought about those sorts of things and things like the best word to name something so people would know what I meant. That was important to me.

Life was full of things to explore and I was full of curiosity and energy.  I slid pretty seamlessly from one topic to another and it was good.

Then people grabbed me by my long curls and began telling me who I was and why I was here and at first I wasn't all that impressed, but I was impressionable. Children belong out of necessity because they need to be cared for or they don't survive long, so I was soon among those searching for who I was, who you are, who we are and why we are here, assuming it wasn't just an exercise in conjugation.

There were literally whole foundations set up to tell me who I was, depending on which label was stamped on my soul the day I was born, but the how and the why were up for grabs. Everyone seemed to have their own agenda.  I was scrubbed, buffed, polished and dressed before I was even old enough to walk. My interests were headed, honed, refined and annulled before I was old enough to have a voice.

I was supposed "to be" a little lady, a good student, a musician, a writer, a credit to the family, a wife, a mother (in that order) and finally a grandmother --  and had I ever truly understood all these things I might have been totally overwhelmed, but as it was, I just went blithely on being me, excelling at those things I loved and falling helter skelter through the holes at everything else.

It's been a whirlwind life. A chaotic one. A lovely one and frightening one and when the roles are called up yonder I hope I'm there and not still wandering around down here wondering:

Why am I here?

Expectations

This morning I was thinking about expectations and it occurred to me that my very first thot, on February 1999, was about that, so I looked it up. You can too, here is is (http://lindaangellsthots.blogspot.com/2008/02/expectations.html) and decided that when something comes up again and again it must be important to me.

Expectations can simplify life, but only if they turn out to be true. Otherwise they become surprises, which are something else altogether, because surprises can be good, or bad (and occasionally something in between, but not too often.)

Personally I prefer to avoid expectations whenever possible.

If I expect the worst I may be conjuring up unpleasant possibilities and turning them into self fulfilling prophecies. If I expect the best I may be setting myself up for disappointments and those are almost too painful for me to deal with anymore.

No expectations can allow me to be fully in the moment, unencumbered by comparisons and better prepared to either appreciate it or deal with its reality.

In the end this is all easier said than done. The first trick to living consciously -- is to remember to do it.

The most dangerous person around

In 1962, Abraham H. Maslow wrote, I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

So my question is this: what if the only effective tool you feel you have is a gun?

When you feel threatened, or angry, or annoyed, and your temper is short, or you've had a rough week, or a bad day, and some jerk gets in your face -- what happens when that gun is right there?

What about that car with the red faced, raging, lunatic, screaming obscenities and waving his arms on the road behind you?  Do you need to protect yourself from him?  Does he have a gun? Do you?

What about that idiot parent who carelessly leaves a gun around and your child is killed?

What about those people who see danger in every look? 

The beauty of a hammer is it's short range effectiveness, but even a police officer is a liability when a child raises a toy gun in the park.

To talk is human

People talk.

They talk all the time.  Everyone talks about those things that interest them.

People talk.

Some people claim they only talk about important things.  Others talk about themselves.  A few admit they mostly like to talk about other people.  And a few others will talk about the person they are with.

People talk.

Sometimes people say they don't like to talk, but that often means they don't like talking to you.

People talk.

And when you find someone you can talk to, really talk to, someone whose interests are similar enough to yours so that the two of you can ramble on and on without boring each other -- you are very lucky.

Cause people talk.

Listening

So you think you know what I think.

I will have a conversation and then turn around to hear, "I know you don't like . . . " And it has nothing at all to do with what I don't like.  I usually try to correct that misconception, but the same trouble that caused it, still exists.

Stop thinking and try listening.

It is actually amazing how little people really listen to others.  I have been the one who called someone and had them tell me all about themselves and hang up before I got a word in edgewise or told them why I called!

Family is one thing, but what about professionals?  Nurses and doctors ask questions and later it becomes obvious they missed the answer.

I enjoy chit chatting, but in the end communication is an art some people just don't have.  They don't say what they mean. They don't hear what I say.

Without listening there can be no real two way communication.

On the road again

I suppose there has always been a standard for being chosen.  The best has been in high demand since existence existed.

In the beginning it may have simply been existence, but I suspect it quickly moved on to what was biologically most prudent. The one who had the best chance of surviving. The healthiest looking, the strongest. The one with the most balanced features. If you can't be smart, at least be pretty.

Of course that quickly moved on to the one who could provide the best, the best hunter or gatherer, because surviving is high on the list of needs.

And then came the one who was so adept at survival that there was surplus that could be traded for necessities.  Money was born!

It was not refined money yet.  It was still bulky -- furs, crops, things that were still basically real and necessary, but that quickly evolved into silver and gold.  Our magpie DNA was emerging.

It was no longer a matter of valuing eating, and being sheltered and safe.  There was extra now and where to put that extra gradually grew in importance. The power to hunt evolved into the hunt for power.

It started as actual arm to arm combat, but even that has been refined now.  We simply let our money do the talking and although that may sound like a more civilized way of handling things, it really isn't.  It is more devastating world wide than any local battle could ever dream of being.

Now, one person, who simply inherits a chunk of change from his once worthy forbears has the possibility of destroying a people, a continent, a world. Because, like Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof,  "If you're rich they think you really know."

And the only real fail safe is to really think and to teach our children to think and not to forget that when we stop thinking and just react -- we are on the road to ruin.

The best human zoo

The best human zoo, the one with the most kinds of exhibits is probably television.  Not particularly the fictional programs, although they say something about our tastes and mores, but the reality, HGTV,  and documentaries.

It ranges from those primitives who have this urge to be "Naked and Afraid, to those who have inherited their money for so many generations they are the personification of our decline.

There are the buffoons, the ones ready, willing and able to demonstrate crudity for hire.

The extraverts who feel the world deserves them in majestic doses and at even greater costs.

The creative whose limits are exceeded by almost nothing except the universe.

And those rare breeds who are simply quietly, brilliantly, working to make our world a better place.

All in all homosapiens sapiens is a volatile, dangerous species with more power, abilities and needs than the earth can afford to support much longer, ignorant mostly of its own mortality.

Independence

I remember going to one of those cemetery walks. One of the characters was a local pioneer woman who had lived out on a farm with her family.  Through the years the children grew up and moved on and and finally her husband died.

There she was, alone, getting older every day, chopping wood, growing her own food in the garden, tending the animals, totally reliant upon herself for everything.  Even company.

She kept a diary, of course, or we would not have known about her at all, but of all the things she wrote about, she seemed to take everything pretty much in stride.

I understand alone and I can make do, but I don't have to boil water to wash my clothes, or grow peas to eat them.  I can go to a library, or store, or just order books through my kindle. I talk to people on the phone, on the computer and I can listen to the radio or watch television.

It is hard for me to actually understand what it was like to live as alone as many people must once have been.  A broken leg might have actually been a death sentence and the flu most certainly could have been fatal. Boredom probably didn't exist, there was too much work to do, but enjoyment had to come from the satisfaction of surviving.

Life on the prairie was for the innovative and strong.