What Is Going On Here?

This is the third post of my re-booted blog. 
I started several years ago and actually kept it up and going for a good while but then life intervened and once again I found myself starting my life again...and again...and yet again. 

It has been exhausting but along the way I've picked up dozens of stories and experiences that I want to make sure are thrown out into the world.

I'm visualizing the ticker-tape parades of decades ago. Random bits of paper floating in the breeze. 

Except that today there is to ticker-tape. I'm not in a parade. These random bits last about as long as the parades did except in the digital world there is not crew of street sweepers to clean up after me.

Watch this space for daily ruminations. Probably usually daily. 
You know how things are. 

I Will Not Go Silently

Well, here in Texas we are a few days away from tiptoeing our way back into something like regular life. This isolation thing has not been easy on me. And it's not been easy on anyone, I do understand.

And I understand that I am not a special case. And that I am fortunate to be safe, warm, and dry and under no particular pressure as a result of the self-containment.

That said, I am not a willing captive.

It doesn't matter where.

I am in solidarity with all creatures confined. Fish in tanks. Birds in cages. Any animal longing to be somewhere else. (Please note that I am leaving out the problem of humans confined in prisons. This is a short essay on me in isolation. I don’t have space or strength for a rumination on guilt or innocence and justice. I’ll straighten out those problems on another day.) 

I've been most worried about the people trapped in terror - often in real danger - because of who they live with and the societal horrors they face every day.

I am being forced to confront the loss of my freedom to go and come as I damn well please. I can’t remember a time when there is a “someone” who tells me NO when I decide there is something to be done that needs my participation outside my four walls.

And I don’t like it, not one little bit. Tell me I can’t go somewhere, and I’ll try to figure out a way, damn your eyes, to make it happen.

However...and this is the point I am laboring to make...I am being an excellent sport at this point in our collective global history. I am following the conflicting guidelines to the best of my ability. I am protecting myself and others from my potential germs. I am doing what I can to flatten my part of the curve. And I’m being a veritable ray of sunshine.

You are welcome.

But I don’t have to be happy about it.

After a Very Long Break - The Bitch is Back

Morning brings its own set of challenges, does it not? Now that we are in isolation, I warily open my eyes at dawn and do a quick inventory. If all of the body parts are in place, then I check the headlines to see if I’ve missed anything. Then, and only then, am I able to entertain the question of whether or not I will participate in the day. 

Some days, I will confess, the answer is “no”. I roll over and go back to sleep. 

But following this approach has made it very difficult to get anything done and so, as of this week, I have decided I will be better off if I do the day in segments of about fifteen minutes. This is inefficient but it seems to be working. I try to stay on task while keeping an eye on a clock. 

* * * 

I do have plenty of time to read my email. I don’t delete any of it, so I have about three thousand things that need to be deleted. I do remember a time when my emails were often important. Now, I get rid of coupons for savings on flea medicine for the dog and the digital equivalent of that mess of advertising that hits my regular mailbox on Wednesdays. This is not progress -  especially the emails offering cheap air tickets and cruises. My email has become just another place filled with things I’m not interested in.  

*** 

Based on what I see on Facebook and Instagram and other social media outlets...the world is dividing itself into new interest groups. 

You have folks who tirelessly send out affirmations of love and support. Some religious, some spiritual, some calling on the human race to rise to higher levels of humanity. 

You have the folks who are determined to stay political. Frothing, sweaty, enraged. Looking for some kind of political action, retribution, punishment..these people are furious in the true sense of the word. 

And the practical minded. Crafts to do with your kids...especially using toilet paper rolls. (Ideas offered with no sense of irony at all.) Reorganize your closet. Wash your shoes. Remove stains. Repair something.  

Then there are those who challenge us to take this opportunity to transform ourselves into better beings than we usually are. “Don’t go back to what used to be normal. It wasn’t that good and it should have never been accepted as normal.” And so we should take a class, tour a museum online, visit amazing places without leaving our hand sanitizer behind. And eat kale. 

And those who want us to see beauty. Flowers. Birds. Fields of tulips. Beautiful horses. Mountains. Lots of pictures of puppies and kitties. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

I personally enjoy any videos where the animals talk. Especially if they move their lips. 

This makes me wonder. To what degree do these groups overlap? 

I doubt that the political ones are looking at tulips and watching kitties try to get out of boxes. 

Those who want us to be doing acts of kindness are probably not cleaning their closets. 

We need to do a Venn Diagram that charts the overlap. I would do it, but it would take longer than fifteen minutes and I just saw a squirrel run past my window. 

***

I think the Universe is sending a strong message to the world to just shut the f--- up. 

It’s clear the Universe is very, very tired of humans at this point... especially the humans who are careless about spreading disease. And the ones who are violent. And the ones who commit crimes large and small against others.  

We are messy. We are jumpy. We make a lot of noise that disturbs natural systems. We are foolish, greedy, and stupid. We have bad humans everywhere. Global. Hiding under rocks on every continent. And shame on every single one of them. 

This virus is like a giant shoe stepping on an anthill. Stomp. There you go. You are wiped out. What a shame the Universe isn’t able to carefully sort out the good from the bad. But that’s not how it works. 

I Have Abraham Lincoln's File

Or rasp. Sort of.

Fifty or so years ago, my great aunt gave my father Abraham Lincoln's file. It's about fourteen inches long, and has a handle into which a metal file is inserted. Now, you're thinking..."That's cool...what's it worth?"

Nothing, I think, except fifty years of amusement.

You see, the essence of this file dates to Lincoln. But over the years, handles have split, and been replaced on the files. Files have dulled, and so they've been pulled and put into perfectly good handles. The file it its current form is old, and banged up, but I'm certain Abraham Lincoln never saw it.

But he had a file...and somebody got it...and passed it on from hand to hand.

So, here is the question that has stuck with me for fifty years. Is this, or is it not, Abraham Lincoln's file?

Begin Again Again

This is a rock formation in Salina, KS. Picture me sitting under that big rock on the top. See my little face on the right?


It's Monday, that day of the week when I decide to mend my ways. Once and for all.

Tuesday will come soon enough and the rationalization will start about why it's inconvenient, or hard, or too hot or too cold...embarrassing or pointless. The beauty of rationalization is the creativity it inspires. There is no end to the possibilities.

But, for today, it's Monday and I've done some laundry and some dishes. I've checked my calendar and have decided that I really must get my hair cut tomorrow.

It wasn't always like this. When I was working, Monday was for cringing. I would feel the weight of the thousand pound rock that hung over my head, waiting to drop. The hot breath of deadlines and unmet expectations was on my neck.

When I was a public relations executive in Chicago, I realized one day that each day I would do exactly as much work as the new stuff that arrived in the course of the day. That is to say, I'd jump in to my day, writing and calling and meeting and strategizing...all the while new projects were lining up like a new rank of soldiers.

At the end of the day, I had exactly as much to do as I had done.

There is actually a school of warfare that arranges troops like that. A shoulder-to-shoulder row would be backed by another and another. As the front row members would drop, the next guy behind would step up to take his place.

Ideally, the column would be able to advance and march over their fallen comrades, and thus win the battle.

But in my work life, it was often the case that my troops were pinned down, meeting the foes but not advancing a foot. It required enormous energy and concentration to hold that position. I would sometimes wonder whether holding the position was something like winning. It wasn't losing...at least I wasn't losing ground. But I wasn't making much progress in taking the hill.

Now that I am no longer working in the wider world, which still embarrasses and annoys me, it is much harder to measure my progress and advancement.

Am I holding the line by just doing what I want to do? I paint, I write, I've been making quilts for my granddaughter. I read. I go to endless doctors' appointments. I go to the gym.

Missing is the thousand pound rock, which makes me feel suspiciously guilty, but I'm getting over that. It actually feels really good to not have a rock hanging over you.

But what is the measure of the days? How do you decide whether you had a good day or a merely average one? The answer to that question will almost always get you a stupid answer. People assure me that I'm doing exactly what I should be doing, and maybe that's true. I'm not bothering anyone, and I'm not aware of being in anyone's way.

All of this points up the danger of using outside measurements to decide on one's value as a human being. The fact is, those measurements are meaningless, anyway. But it's hard, so very hard, to give them up. It felt good to be important. It felt good to have three meetings stacked up. It felt good to hear the phone ring and be late for something else because you were busy. The seduction of the exterior world is sweet and addictive.

Giving it up is exactly like breaking a long-standing addiction.

I'm working on giving up the long-standing addiction to food that is not good for me, and I discover that I will side with the addiction in every battle. What a blessing I never developed a taste for street drugs. I'd be drooling in a gutter or dead. There is something in us that loves the rush of the forbidden.

And when, in your life, you are given the time and leisure to do whatever you like, the forbidden races to the front of the line, ready to ask you to dance.