You must think like me or you are wrong!

 I have a couple of bloggers that I follow that for the most part are like-minded. Some are fitness related (as in, yes, the fat guy is trying to keep a positive mindset) and some are simply just people who write words and share their thoughts that I like to read. 

Sometimes, their posts can be a little entertaining. I am sure that it is because my mind is pretty skewed. One blogger who likes to run, posted "Running may not make you live longer, but it will feel like you are going to live forever." Rather than thinking that running makes you feel better, my mind interpreted that as "Running makes you feel like your day will never end."

Another blogger, who lives in California, posted one time about how horrible her day had gotten. It was after quite a dry spell, and since she lives close enough to work to be able to take public transit or walk, she had gone someplace in her car. The car that she had owned for over two years. She had gone someplace on a day when it rained and she ended up stuck in a parking lot for two hours because the car she had owned for over two years was getting rained on and she did not have a clue how to turn on the wiper blades. Did not know whether she had the owner manual or where it was. Did not know how to look up online the correct process for turning on her wiper blades. And yet, she was allowed to drive.

Another blogger, who I was kind of (ish) a friend with for a while, and who is a professional college professor using her knowledge and talents to expand the minds of young people, took umbrage with a comment I made that if you refused to accept that one person might have a political opinion that differed from yours, they are allowed to have and express that opinion. The post that killed any chance of a friendship we might share was when I mentioned that if you proclaim to eschew any kind of violence towards others (apparently only those who agree with her political leanings) but have no problem describing torture and death to someone with a different viewpoint from yours, you might be part of the problem. Might be.

Another person absolutely lost their mind when I brought it to their attention that the Second Amendment does NOT allow people to own firearms, but is in place to protect against government infringement of the right to own firearms. More entertaining still was when I suggested that maybe since I might disagreed with their gun control thoughts I should infringe on their First Amendment protection for freedom of speech. If I find their words offensive, I should follow their line of thought and suggest we control what words people can use.

Just a thought.

You Did Not Miss Me While I Was Breathing

The Kerrville Folk Festival is a music festival held for 18 consecutive days in the late spring/early summer at Quiet Valley Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The Kerrville Folk Festival was founded in 1972 by the husband-wife team of Rod Kennedy and Nancylee Davis. Much like the fabled Luckenbach Texas where “everybody is somebody,” the Kerrville festival is a gathering of singers, songwriters, musicians, and people who just love music. The last time I visited Luckenbach, there was not a lot going on, but it was amazing to watch the groups of people playing instruments and singing, moving from one group to another much like the murmurations of starlings. It was just so laid back and comfortable. It made me wish that I had some musical talent other than listening to and appreciating music.

The first time I went to the Kerrville festival, I missed an artist who would grow to be one of my most favorite songwriters and performers, Mary-Chapin Carpenter. I missed her performance by just one week. This was shortly before she would become the name that she is now. Both of these venues showcase amazing voices and wonderful storytellers. I think that is one thing that I need that makes me really appreciate a song or an artist. I want to hear the story. Much like a good book, the story carries the emotion of it for me.

I was listening to her music this morning as I made my way to work and one of her most haunting songs came into rotation: John Doe Number 24. Carpenter based this song on a true story. In the early hours of October 11, 1945, two police officers came across a scantily dressed black youth rummaging in an alleyway in Jacksonville, Illinois. He was believed to be mentally ill, and because of his bizarre behavior he was committed to an institution later that month where he became known as John Doe No. 2. In spite of attempts to trace his family, John Doe No. 2 - later John Doe No. 24 - was never positively identified, and he would spend the rest of his life being cared for by the state. He died November 28, 1993. Carpenter read his obituary in the New York Times while sitting in a Starbucks café in Washington, and wrote the song from his perspective.

The most poignant part of the story, at least to me, is the last stanza:

I'm wandering down to the banks of the great big muddy

Where the shotgun houses stand

I am seven years old and I feel my daddy

Reach out for my hand

While I drew breath no-one missed me

So they won't on the day that I cease

Put a sprig of crape jasmine with me

To remind me of New Orleans

There are a lot of words in this song that I am feeling lately. This last stanza is probably the strongest.

I wish you peace.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

I heard the phrase “Home is where the heart is” on the way to work this morning, and it made me think for a minute. There have been many times that my actual home was where my heart was, but that has not been the case for a long time. I love where I am living now. I have great neighbors and a quiet neighborhood. I am close to my mountains. And while I have made it very comfortable, I could walk away for a good reason.

Some days I am looking for a good reason more than others.

Where, or what, is your heart? Are you able to find it? Are you able to share it?

Are you willing to share it? Would you want to share it?

Is you heart a place, or a thing, or a person?

Where, I might ask, do you want it to be?

As a child, my whole world was my home and my parents. The extended family was always there (ish) but mom and dad were constants. Later, as we got the opportunities to travel a little, I realized that my parents were my world. I could go anywhere and be happy as long as I was with my parents. I learned years later that one must truly make their own home. You have to place your heart where you want home to be. And sometimes, you have to take your heart and find a new home. But you make it what you want it to be. You fill it with what makes you happy. And, if you are lucky, you find someone that will help you make it happy. Even luckier, you find someone that wants you to help make their home happy too.

Violence

Why is violence acceptable?

Get off the gun ban bandwagon.

Get off of the noisome screeching that happens whenever there is a shooting. Guns are not the problem. You do not have to like guns, but you should realize that guns never have and never will cause a person to do violence upon another person.

Period.

The real demon, the real problem, is the act of violence. Why do people feel that the solution to everything is violence? Where is the breakdown that causes a person to believe that violence is the answer? It is not a recent thing, it did not just happen last month, or last week, or last year. This is something that has been building for a long time. The instances of domestic violence and spousal and child abuse has seen a tremendous increase in numbers. Road rage, retail rage, airline rage, all of these are increasing. 

And nobody seems to care unless it involves a gun.

Now, I KNOW that people care, but typically it is only if it is a particular violence that impacts them directly. Apparently nobody cares if someone drives a van through a crowd of people, or uses a knife to end a group of people’s lives. What about the guy that hit his two sons in the head with a hammer to knock them out, then blew up the house they were in that was filled with propane? So, cars and knives are acceptable methods of violence but guns are not? I do not see things that way.

A breakdown of weapons used to commit violent crimes shows that the most likely weapons used are hands, feet, and mouths. This followed by household items and then hardware tools. Yes, handguns are there next, but the list is filled with other weapons. The one single thing that is present in each of these crimes is violence. Someone at some point said that violence is the way to accomplish what I want or to get what I need. Why is it acceptable to have a bounty on a football player and the type of injuries you can inflict on him, until suddenly it goes too far. 

Why is it acceptable to tell rioters that they need to “Burn the city down!” or why is it acceptable to cry “Eat the rich!” or “Kill all cops!”? Is it the motivation that drives this? Is it truly okay to incite riots and violence, burning cities and looting businesses for political gain? 

Why is violence acceptable? So many people are crying that something needs to be done, and I cannot stress how much I agree! But that something is to treat the cause rather than the one part of the act that you do not like. Why are children thinking that they need to act out in anger, that violence is acceptable? Grade school teachers are struggling with this and they should not be! The public is expected to just accept that a child running around a restaurant screaming in people’s ears and slamming things off of their table just because mom did not buy him an ice cream cone. (This, by the way, was my experience just the other night.) There was no discipline nor even any attempt to reason with the child. If children are not being taught an alternative, then when, or even if, are they going to learn this? Why is violence acceptable? 

And in asking why is violence acceptable I do also know that there are times when violence is the answer. I will, and I will encourage anybody, to defend themselves and those who are unable or unwilling to defend or protect themselves without prejudice. A mother protecting her children, a person under assault, protection of your self, your family, and your property. But these are reactionary. “I want your “X” (X = money, car, property, body, etc.) and I am going to use violence to take it from you,” is not acceptable and never should have been. “You  are going to slow in the fast lane, so I am going to ram your car or shoot at you as I pass,” really is stupid.

Why is violence acceptable? 

Personally, I believe that by focusing on the one single aspect of violence (guns) it minimizes the entire problem that violence has become acceptable. Forcing someone to act or think a certain way or to take something you want from them, forcing them to do something against their will. Violence, or the threat of violence, needs to not be a thing.

Meditations

This morning has been a morning of reflection and meditation. Some have been of past friends and family. Mom and Da have been on my mind this morning. Thoughts of what Da taught me growing up. Silent teachings by his example. Stewardship and responsibilities. He bestowed upon me my love of the outdoors, specifically my mountains. I learn from him about the diverse beauties of the desert, the great plains. Seeing, and having a desire to see, every corner of this continent. 

Mom taught me that I need to care for others. It does not matter whether I know them well or I am even in their proximity. I need to show that I care by asking how I can help rather than if I can help. Help when you can without seeking for the recognition of your works. Mom also taught that if you are going to laugh about something later, you might as well laugh about it now.

I do try. 

Another thread in my thoughts this morning are three people who grew up as neighborhood friends and went through school together. A was married for years and came home from work one day to be told by her husband that he was not happy with her and their children and had found someone else and that they were getting divorced. She moved into an apartment, then took a job in another city and moved affairs. Their children grew into their own selves and have moved into their own families and other parts of the country.

D1 was on his second marriage and to all appearances happy, but had reconnected with A as a friend (important) and eventually the two had decided that they would be happier (important) together. D1 and A were both silent about this, but D1's ex-wife did post something about changes in her life. She did not broadcast things, but would answer anybody who asked her privately. 

D2 asked, and then got vocal to A and D1, and, I am sure, to anybody else who would listen. Neither A nor D1 replied publicly, but kept their private life private. So far, the only comments I have heard from A was a mention that karma happens when it became public that D2 in all his sanctimonious expressions was arrested for downloading child porn. 

I guess my take on this is both do what you need to be happy, but let others be happy as well. I need to remember, and I do feel I manage to do this, that I have my own faults and really should not judge others.

One Day At A Time

 I realize that a lot of my posts sound as though I am completely down and out, that I am in a completely dissociative state, but I would like to offer that I use my blog to vent a lot. I do  not like to use it only for negative thoughts so I really do make an attempt to post good things as well. I suspect that I, like many others, find that I will live in the moment when things are up. I would rather live in the happy than risk losing it as I stop to note it online.

I have what I call “Thank You” moments. Moments where I make a conscious effort to thank God, the gods, Spirit, whomever, for the moment I am experiencing. Yesterday I had one such moment. Before I started my day, I was sitting in the death chair (a chair I obtained after someone had died), and Dougall was sitting with me. He was sleeping that completely relaxed, boneless sleep of pure contentment. Siobhan was snoring under one of her blankets (all of the blankets in the house are hers…) and I had a blue blanket a friend had made for me for Christmas a few years ago thrown over my lap. 

And suddenly, time just stopped. Liminal space. That space between heartbeats. And just that quickly I knew I needed to be thankful. I needed to recognize that there are glorious tidings in the world. That was one of them

And then, my heart beat once again, then again, and then started to keep rhythm once more. Maybe a little slower pace, maybe greater at peace.

I reminded myself that I need to remember to see these moments. I reminded myself that one day at a time works. If not one day, then one hour. If not one hour, one minute. 

I wish you peace.

Who Will Remember Me?

 A line I read just recently was "You can tell how loved you were by who remembers you after you are gone and how they remember you."

I have a hard time thinking that anybody will remember me. I have never done anything so significant that anybody would attach my name to it. There will be no statue, no memorial. Hell, I do not even want a funeral. I get told that the funeral is not for the dead but for the living. I have been to my fair share of funerals and to tell the truth, not many of them made me feel that I needed that moment of reflection. Too often the people that were talking at the funeral were saying things that others wanted to hear rather than what they felt in the real world.

I have heard people say the most horrific things about a person (behind their back, of course) only to spew love and kindness about them at a funeral with an audience. If you are going to say something about me, dead or alive, it damn well better be true. Good or bad, do not speak falsely about me. Trust me, people will believe the bad more quickly than the good. Also, the bad probably carries a lot more truth in it.

Another indicator is how quickly and completely your are minimized. I know it goes both ways, but it never ceases to amaze me how rarely people will invite you into their lives. It might just be for a bite of food or a ride or even just to sit and talk. You know that you are forgotten when the actual get-together turns into the hollow "Let's get together sometime" that never happens.

As I said, it does go both ways and I meant it. I just get tired of making the attempts and getting a literal or figurative busy signal. Another line I frequently see is "If they wanted to, they would." Well, the do not.

Once in a while I am surprised by who actually does remember me. A co-worker recently was asked by one of his neighbors if I still worked here. Now, this neighbor is a current state representative with whom I worked over the years. Our paths crossed although mostly in the margins. And yet, I must have had some small impact for him to remember my name. Debate is open for whether it was a positive or negative memory.