"This beautiful day reminds me of…"

I had a business meeting today.  I was with several coworkers, and we met outdoors.  At the conclusion of our business, we walked together for a time.  The July air was cooler than it had been in weeks, and there was a light breeze.  There was no cloud to be seen in the stretch of bright, blue sky. 

“Such a perfect day” commented one of my friends.

“Yes.  You know what this reminds me of…” said the other.

“Yeah, 9/11.” 

Part of the fallout of trauma is that the most random things are triggers.  These triggers go to a deep part of our brains, and can have fight or flight responses. 

But it is a sad commentary that our civilization has been so uncivil, that a cool breezy day without a cloud in the sky can trigger a nightmare such as this.

Carrot, Egg, or Coffee – another over think

I like internet memes.  Some make you laugh, some are zingers, and some make you think.  The great ones do all three. 

I have a friend who posted what is actually a parable in meme form.  It said:

Grandmother says... Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee; "Which are you?"

A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft. She then asked her to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The granddaughter then asked. "What's the point, grandmother?"

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity--boiling water--but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her granddaughter.

"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?

---AUTHOR UNKNOWN —

 

As ever, I have positive and negative feelings about this story.  On the surface, it appears to be a wise grandmother’s advice to a struggling child.  But then, as ever, my brain kicks in and I start to pick the story apart. 

I think it is a normal feeling to want to change the world around you.  Heck, this is why I am blogging. What Grandma is not telling her granddaughter in this story, is what it will take for the coffee bean to do its job. 

Let me get totally crazy on this train of thought for a minute:
First off, you smell an aroma, you taste a flavor. But, I digress.

Carrots are pulled out of the ground and refrigerated. Hmm. Coddled. 

Eggs are plucked from the nest and refrigerated. Hmm. Coddled. 

But a coffee bean?

Coffee “beans” (which are actually pits of a small red fruit) are selected, washed, dried and fermented, dried again, stripped, sold, aged, sorted, shipped to another country, roasted at 250-500 degrees, bought, and are crushed to powder.

And only then are they subjected to the hot water of adversity.  The implication of this story is that the coffee bean changed the hot water.  It didn’t.  The hot water is still hot water. 

The coffee beans have spent their lives in adversity, and have certainly been in more heat than a 212 degree pot of boiling water.  They have also been subjected to all manner of indignities before they ever got to the hot water in the first place. 

And, had they been put right in after harvest, like the carrot or egg, the results would have been undrinkable, and actually toxic. 

Their ‘life experiences’ were tools in a toolbox to make the message of coffee palatable for the masses, and their plunging into the water is what they were processed to do.  It is the highest thing to which a coffee bean can aspire. 

The ground coffee beans are now waste. 

Another point, the carrots and eggs are still functional (edible). The egg was pretty unpalatable, even dangerous, without being cooked.  What was once little more than an ingredient is now a stand-alone entrée.

Now, back to this parable; perhaps the idea should be that to change the world, and to have yourself and your essence (ideas) be palatable to the masses,  you need to be willing to be ground up and put yourself out there.  We need to be willing to waste and wear out our lives to infuse the world with our essence. 

We have seen it throughout world history. 
And most, while loving the initial idea of changing things, are not willing to do this. 

I could have also mentioned the inherent corruption, and lack of oversight to fair-trade practices that run throughout the coffee industry, but that is an over think for another day…

I believe in dogs - an essay

Once I got settled, I joined a book club.  Of all the books we have read, one sticks out.  It is “This I Believe” and is based upon a radio show from the 1950’s.  When compiling the book, they sought essays from ordinary people, as well as archived transcripts from celebrities from every walk of life. 

Our book club assignment was to write our own essay.  I have a running argument with a fellow book club friend over cats vs. dogs.  We agreed to write our essays as counterpoints to our ongoing battle.  Here is what I wrote:

Canines are More Than Teeth

They have eaten my music, my toys, my shoes, my clothes. They have drawn blood, left scars and covered me with saliva.

And yet, their beautiful, loving loyalty wins them my undying admiration every time.

I believe in dogs.

I have a friend whose dog, Missy becomes so happy to see me that she urinates every time I go to visit. I know of no human, no matter how much they have missed me, or how long I have been gone, who pays me this honor.

Dogs have a gift of what I call “immediate intimacy.” The sniffing, the licking, it all amuses me to no end. We humans have to deal with our elaborate rituals of personal space, and handshake-vs.-hug, kiss on one cheek, or two? It’s crazy. Dogs come over, and with a sniff and a lick, you are friends. It’s easy.

I do not own a dog right now. I get my ‘puppy love’ from friends and colleagues who go out of town, and leave me to care for their 4 legged children. Different sizes, different breeds- custom, cross, pure, I take them with me. They pass no judgment on my food container-filled car. In fact, they revel in the new sniffs, and interesting odors. They ride curled up on my seats, or perch themselves on the little tape holder between my seats-and survey the traffic, putting Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra to shame. They look Royal. To me, they are.

I was dog sitting for my best friend’s Cocker Spaniel, when I received word of a friend’s suicide. The dog, immediately sensing my distress, came, and was by my side the whole rest of the weekend, even though I put on that fake “brave face” that we humans do. The dog sensed my distress, even when the people around me did not.

The Greek word for a spinster is αγαμος, or agamos. I choose to split it aga-making the prefix, from the root agape. Love. Or, as the King James translators used it, charity-the pure love of Christ. The suffix, -mos then becomes then a root that is found in the word δεμος, demos, or people-the origin of the English word democratic. ‘Love’ with ‘democracy’ therefore becomes something different than the more traditional α-γαμος a woman without a wedding; it becomes the challenge to love ALL MANKIND with the same love.

I am not there yet, but my dog friends teach me this. Therefore, I believe in dogs.

The name I chose for this blog

The other day, I had a talk with someone who thought he knew all about me.  He had the impression that I was a sunny optimist, and his take on my recent funk was not typical of me.  He said he thought I was a glass-half-full person, usually. 

Well, I believe I am.  I believe I am also a glass-half empty person.  And I also believe this applies to everyone.   

When you face the reality of this object lesson, the fact of the matter is that both are equally true.  A simple optimist/pessimist question becomes a riddle, a puzzle. 

To my thinking, to deny either of them is to deny the other. 

This got me pondering.  Some would say over thinking, but hear me out… 

I also believe we are the glass.  We are partially full, we are partially empty.  The emptiness and the fullness gave me the idea to write this blog.  It sparked the idea that this partial-ness gives us our humanity, empathy, and capacity to see the world as we do. 

We are told in Corinthians (KJV) that we see through a glass darkly. [1]  I think Paul was talking about us as human, fallen creatures.  The Greek for the word darkly is αἴνιγμα, or enigmati, source of our word enigma.  So it is not just seeing our world as through rose colored glasses, or even sunglasses.  It is seeing our world as a puzzle. 

This object lesson is one of those puzzles. 

I don’t think the emptiness is negative, or positive, only that we make these things so.  Likewise our fullness – it is not a positive or negative, it just IS. 

There ya go.  The name came, and I began...

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[1] 1^st Corinthians 13:12- for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

How I knew I was finally home, again

This is a record of my trip down to Blues Alley in Georgetown to see my roommate sing with her band. Great Night!

http://www.bluesalley.com/

A little background: As I got off work, and headed home through the 5 o’clock traffic, I could not help but think about the course that life takes. I have struggled lately with the concept of “destiny”, chaos theory, and random chance coming into play in people’s lives. I understand that we all play small roles in each other’s lives (or large ones), but I am uncomfortable with the idea that all of these roles are part of some greater plan.

Take music, since this is, indeed what this extraordinary night is ultimately about.

My point: There are musicians, writers, actors, and artists who meet just the right people, at just the right times in careers, and it launches them into the stratosphere of publication, fame, and wealth. Is this destiny? Talent, however, sometimes seems to be irrelevant. While on the other hand, truly talented individuals often toil in relative obscurity, and never achieve the recognition so richly deserved. This is my explanation for most pop music today, and much of the sitcom fare of the Television airwaves.

Where are our Mozart’s, or even our Beatles of the new Millennium? Where are the innovators? And why do we as a people stand for mediocrity, when there are so many exceptional individuals out there, many of them known personally to us? Why is history replete with this lesson? Does God, arguably the author of this great destined plan, care about excellence? I choose to believe so, thus putting my ideas of destiny at risk.

To put this in modern terms, it is the classic Gates/Jobs debate of the past 25 years. Yes, Apple is the better computer. But Gates had broader application, and publication, and therefore, we fly about the internet, (usually) on the often defective wings of Microsoft. Even this journal entry is being composed on a system far inferior to that which Apple can do.

But, I digress. Yes, people, I do think like this all day long, why do you think my conversations run on in wild tangents?

Back to the Music.  My sister and I had reservations for the 10 p.m. show, so we headed down about 9. It was sleeting slightly, so we stuck to the major thoroughfares. We took the 270 to the 495, to the GW Parkway, and went over the beautiful Key Bridge into what for me would qualify as “old stomping grounds.”

The (Francis Scott) Key Bridge has old-style French lights, and in the light fog off the Potomac and the sleet looked like a French Impressionist painting. It was very lovely. Treacherous, but lovely.

I have not been in Georgetown in years, but my teenage years were full of weekend nights down there, going to clubs, movies at the Key Theater (well just the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I did play Frank for a few years).

 

This area, especially at night, feels as familiar to me as the concrete walk running down to my parent’s home. The roads are no better paved than they were in those days, and as we made our way over M street’s chunky asphalt that often has holes that go clear down to the old cobblestone and beneath, it seemed wise to get out of the sleet by making a right on Wisconsin and parking in the Georgetown mall.

As a cheap teen I would have NEVER done this, opting instead to drive around looking for a free street spot or some old alley where I could park my Mom’s Monte Carlo next to a dumpster. Not tonight. I parked my pansy Volvo in the very lap of opulence, and excess. At $4 an hour, I know actual babysitters who make less for watching live children.

We made our way up through the mall, passing endless unique boutiques of rich do-dads. None of the familiar chain stores here, real estate is too precious.  We walk past fountains of brass frogs spitting water, out into the night and the real Georgetown that I came to know as a teenager.

The brick sidewalks were slick and sleet covered as my Sister and I jaywalked across Wisconsin Avenue. Blues Alley’s address may be Wisconsin Avenue, but it is indeed up a real, easily overlooked alley. We waited outside in the light sleet while the previous show’s patrons exited.

I expected my roommates’ family, and the families of the band members, whom we did see, but in our line were a surprising number of Russian-speaking people, perhaps here to appreciate Jazz, America’s only truly original art form.

A blonde woman clutching her boyfriend’s arm started screaming as a medium-sized rat ran up and into a hole by the door of the club. What is a true city alley without a rat, huh? The bouncer said its name is Hermione.

As you enter Blues Alley, you are immediately struck by how small the place is. To have been here in the 60’s and to have seen Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, or Charlie Byrd here would have been overwhelming. It is Jazz at its most intimate-bold, in your face, and true. I wondered how the enormous Yamaha Grand Piano had gotten through the tiny doors. It had been there for a while. I was really drawn to it, as if it put off some otherworldly energy.

My Sister and I sat over to the side, and ordered Dinner. I had heard the crab cake Sandwich was good, and in the $10 range, which was about right budget wise. Sis thought the food was so-so; I thought it was very good. Cheese on a crab cake is a controversial topic for me, as it often masks the taste of the crab. I would have liked it better without the cheese.

The band playing is a 7 piece Jazz Band. There are Keyboards, a guitar, a bass, a drum kit, a trombone, a sax, and a 6 string electric violin. Much of what they played was free-form Jazz, with the guitar often taking the lead. The guitarist played a hollow-body black Ibanez with abalone trim-gorgeous! The horn section does not usually sit in with the band, nor does the violin. The Violin player has appeared on the last three of Lenny Kravitz’s albums. They were amazing.

The first few songs reminded me of early Chicago recordings-before the demons of pop stole Peter Cetera’s root R&B soul. The horn section really played well, though I would be surprised if the sax player was much older than 19. Some of the Jazz arrangements were very tight-more like Basia arrangements. I really liked that.

My roommate sat in for 2 numbers. She had told us that she was so nervous for the first set, she had just held on to the mike stand, but that nervousness was not apparent for the later show. Before she went on, I was able to speak with her. I told her she smelled really good-which she did-like flowers! And I had the chance to tell her that I could not be any more proud of her than I was at that moment. I teared up. She had come a long way from my 17-year old self telling her 13-year old self she had to sing music from the Who that was already “classic rock” when we were performing it in the ‘80’s in our little band.

She sang a spirited version of the Beatles “Oh Darling!” and after finishing said “That’s one of my roommate’s favorites.” I could not have been more touched. The second song was one she wrote, and how cool was it that her own music was being played at such a prestigious venue! I am telling you, it was the best.

The Band’s last few songs had such a hauntingly familiar quality to them, that I could not put my finger on it at first. It had a swirling, mystical feel, with a blues drum beat. Then, it came to me, and I felt so silly that I had spent my entire adolescence listening to that sound, that I had taken it for granted-it had become background for the lyric poetry that was the music of The Doors.

It was that instrument that set the Doors apart from any other Rock band-that swirling sound-like rain through wind chimes that fills Riders on the Storm’s haunting beginning jam. A Hammond Organ, played by a nodding Ray Manczarek filled their sound with an ethereal quality like nothing else. I, however, had fallen prey to that common seducer-listening for the Voice.

The Doors were a Blues Trio when Jim Morrison joined them with his deep voice, and spooky poetry. I had forgotten how their music was good for its own sake, without the insane helmsman that everyone remembers. Silly Rabbit, it was good of this lovely band to remind me that it is all about the music.

Afterwards, I was able to go up onto the stage, and see the keyboardist’s Hammond Organ. I had been so enamored of the Grand Piano, and all of the Legends that had no doubt sat at that instrument (not the least of which is the immortal Eva Cassidy) that I had ignored the little keyboard.

As I brushed my fingers up the piano, hoping that some leftover energy would somehow infuse itself into my own little spirit, I also touched the Keyboard of the Hammond. If there ever was a sound that exemplified my teenage years, it was that sound. Somehow, I am drawn to it, the way I am drawn to Handel’s Water Music, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, or Barber’s Adagio for Strings. It, for me, is the essence of Home.

I have spoken to my roommate in depth about my struggles with destiny. She, for one is a big believer in it. I told her that tonight, as I heard her sing, on a stage, where she absolutely belongs, where I have always known she belonged ever since I first heard her singing at 12 years old along to INXS tunes with my Sister, and I made her be in my little garage band, that perhaps she was embracing her destiny after all, and that she was almost making me believe in the idea that we all have one. She said, “I will get you believing in it yet!” Perhaps she will.

Jaywalking back across the wet streets of a sleeping Georgetown, I stopped halfway across, and did a little spin. “I am finally Home.”

Written on the first anniversary of 9/11. What it was like for me...

9/11/01-9/11/02 i was not going to write it down but i decided to write it down because it seems like everyone in America has an opinion of that day and i can remember it as if it were yesterday and if i live to be 100 it will be there ready to grab my throat with one hand and my gut with the other and even though my family and friends turned out to be ok i did not know they were ok and it scared me and i couldn’t cry for a month i just shut down and then when i did cry i could not stop and now i see a little kid in a fire hat and even though he is just playing or trick or treating it makes me wanna cry and it does not matter and i don’t care if anyone reads this it is for my own sanity because i am thinking of it too much and dwelling on it too much and second guessing too much and i still cannot get through to the god i eventually found again but needed to redefine and maybe if i wrote it down the way i thought it like i thought it on that day in my own distracted internal dialogue like i think all day long it would not come to me and make me not want to wake up in the morning because the only thing worse than reliving all those images over and over in my mind or on my tv is to think of that day and to wake up and think it could happen all over again it could happen all over again and it might happen all over again and be even worse and i would turn on the tv again to that awful day, this awful year all over again and no matter how safe we think the skies are and how safe we think the water is it could happen all over again and i cannot shake the feeling that it is just a matter of time but what is even weirder is the first memory i have of that day is looking down and noticing there is toothpaste running down my nightshirt awake suddenly early so i walk to the tv-on bathroom Matt Lauer is talking loudly my toothbrush in mouth i go see plane in building fire-oh god the trade center those poor people what a terrible accident-second plane no no no no don’t let this be just let it be a movie it looks just like a movie change channel cnn no no no same thing I need to be sick this is not my america this is not my country who would do this to my country my country does not get attacked not since pearl harbor but that was military this is civilians this is thousands and thousands of civilians how many people are in that building horn honking i need to leave for work how can i go to work who would buy a marriage license today who would buy a passport today or ever ever again is this why i did not move to egypt how will my cousin get home from egypt now why did i buy a us flag last saturday they must really hate us to do this who would do this i just need to think how can i think war we are at war walking into my work security lockdown search bag hunt for my badge i never wear it anymore why would I need to we have nothing anyone wants up the elevators how will those people get out it looked like people jumping no it was just office paper let it be office paper but it looked like people paper does not have arms have to stop thinking about it cannot think about it no go into my cubicle just like those poor new yorkers did and then they died i can’t stop it and the god i believed in did not stop it and i cannot even fathom what god must think of this or where is he in all of this i can hear the tv on in nicks office not my dc too not my hometown too not every relative i have i feel beyond sick kathy works in the pentagon sometimes i wonder no she wouldn’t she would not be there now not my best friend that I have had for 20 years send an email to her work just hit reply if you are ok please be ok i know how busy you are why did i move to utah why am i so far away from my sister i bet that plane flew right over her work over her my becky she is my only sister i have now lorie comes over looking as sick as i feel and says the building collapsed how do you get out of that you don’t get out of that a plane full of fuel would be like a bomb of course the buildings fell why won’t kathy answer my e-mail and now pennsylvania my godparents live in allentown not there too why pennsylvania shanksville isn’t that in the middle of amish country what is going on that they would target there they think it is muslim extremists boy are we going to feel like assholes if it is another mcveigh what a terrible thought but all these thoughts are terrible where is the loving benign god that i thought i believed in how can i sit here at my desk staring at a blank screen where is kathy’s e-mail please just hit reply please be there the pentagon is a mile from your house i hope people got out i just want to go home go home and curl up and sleep but if i sleep i might wake up and it will happen all over again and the first thought i could remember is watching that tv with toothpaste running down my shirt.

Some background

It’s Pioneer Day.  It is the anniversary of the day that the first LDS Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.  Brigham Young, riding in a wagon due to Yellow Fever was helped to his feet, feverish and sweating,  looked over the Salt Lake valley, and said that ‘this is the right place’.  

The statue shows him standing with his counselors, upright, and grandly gesturing, only a cane to indicate any infirmity.  This is what happens when you get your great grandson to carve your statue, apparently. 

 

It was my right place for 13 years of my life.  From 1990 to 2002 I lived in the “crossroads of the West”.  I had financial, medical and spiritual failures and successes.  I had 2 careers I adored and a decent car in the first time in forever.  I had happiness and heartbreak. And, in the end, I came home to the East.   

I had planned on leaving, following a job offer to help in a school in Egypt.  My second cousin had set it up, and it seemed like a wonderful opportunity.  And yet, when the contract came, I could not bring myself to sign it.  It was as if my heart prevented my hand from putting my name on the paper.  It was July of 2001.  I did not know then what stopped me.  It was embarrassing at the time to make that phone call.  I was turning down a chance of a lifetime.  I felt so stupid, and yet, when I made the phone call, my heart had a strange peace. 

The Utah State Fair is in late August/Early September, and runs parallel to the annual Greek Festival.  Utah has the largest Greek population west of Chicago.  These are people whom, when their own country was embroiled in war, came to Utah.  They worked in the numerous mines throughout the State, and opened some of the best restaurants in the West.  I attended the festival every year, dragging my various friends with me to introduce them to Greek food and culture.  Anytime you can get a taste of any culture other than white America out West, I would jump at the chance.  I constantly missed the diversity of the Mid-Atlantic.  It started my love of all things Greek, which has continued to this day. 

I found myself in the Chapel of the Church, on a tour.  I sat down, and on cue, the choir began to sing. Their choir is in the top at the rear of the Church, so we did not see their faces, but they took full advantage of the domed design of the roof of the Church.  The acoustical bounce filled this small Chapel with sound.

I feel bad for choirs in Utah.  The bar is so impossibly high, with the Tabernacle’s choir just down the street.  And yet, this small choir was amazing.  They did a Greek chant that was so moving; I got a lump in my throat.  The choir director then said that they would perform America, The Beautiful, because they were so grateful to have a country to flee to, that would allow them to keep their culture, and be free at the same time. 

From the moment the choir began, I remember there being this weird electricity in the air.  If I had a lump in my throat before, this time I was crying, and I had no idea as to why.  The feeling stayed with me all that weekend, and when I passed a kiosk at the fair that was selling American flags, I got one – it was a total impulse buy.  It was also Saturday, September 8^th.

That Tuesday, as I experienced what our world experienced (a blog post to follow explains what my experiences were that following year) these weird epiphanies kept coming to me. 

My Cousin had to flee Egypt, speak French at the airport, passing herself off as an expat European. She then flew to Brussels before eventually making her way home.  My own apple pie face and American English could not have fared as well. 

Utah was 4 Months away from hosting the 2002 Olympics.  There was talk of cancellation.  Suddenly, as the decision was made to continue to host the games, Utah suddenly had all of the money it needed to improve roads, and build Security infrastructure to make the games safe.  The community had a sense of pulling together.  I decided to stay for a while. 

The games were amazing, and I will always be grateful I stayed for them.  After adjusting for Security, which was mostly paid through Federal funding, the games broke even.  This quieted the local critics that hosting the games would be a debt-ridden white elephant, causing generations of deficit.  The venues are still used to this day by locals, tourists, and future Olympians who train in the thin mountain air, and unspeakably beautiful terrain. 

 

But that Christmas, my Grandmother asked me to move back East.  I think she knew she would not live much longer, and my Sister was burdened with caring for both of our parents as well as her.  My Uncle had died, and our small family felt even smaller. 

When I went back to Utah after that visit, Utah’s enormous families made me think of my small one, and that they needed me.  So at the end of 2002, I moved back.  I’ll post about that transition as well. 

Pioneer Day is a State and religious holiday in Utah.  There are parades, and when the desert gets enough moisture not to burst into flames, there are fireworks.  It’s a fun day, and I miss it out here in the East.  Oh, back East we have little things, sometimes a bike parade and a Dutch oven dinner, but it’s not the same. 

The Pioneers left Missouri for what was then, and for 3 years after they arrived, Mexico.  They had been forced out, less Pioneers and more like refugees.  Native American friends in Utah told me of stories of their own ancestors feeling sorry for the ragged, starving groups that staggered into the valley to begin a new life.  Irrigation and heavy fertilizer coax crops from the ground and continue the agrarian culture prevalent in so many Mid-American places. 

As I approach the half-century mark of my time on this Earth, I do feel the desire to look at my journeys in life.  Things were easier and harder in Utah.  The cost of living was half what it is here.  And I never felt unsafe there, even in the dodgiest of neighborhoods.  My western friends would tease me for locking my car, and front door.  But I was alone in many ways out there.  I would spend holidays, and even had major surgery without any family around.  My friends were always supportive, but there is a family photo from that time that speaks volumes.  The photo is of my family all together at Christmas.  My Sister has the phone up to her ear.  I am on the other end of the phone.   

And this is why I hitched my own wagon east, where things begin. 

Beginning, again

I didn’t want to do this, you know, before, or now…

I fought having a blog for years.  I had one back in 2009-2010, but it was more of a health diary, as I negotiated a forest of rather frightening problems.  I know keeping a journal is therapeutic. It is a recommendation of my Faith to record our lives. I just thought that my mundane life was not worth recording, aside from the composition book journals that I keep, mostly for personal reference.

I have friends who had taken to digital format to post thoughts, and I found their insights helpful, as they lived and moved and had their being[1].   I think they call people like me “lurkers” people who quietly read and do not post themselves. 

But I need this.  I have things to say, and if I am able to possibly help some person with my musings, or even my problems, perhaps it will be worth it.

So here I go.

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[1] Acts 17:28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.