Reflections on Resources

Yesterday as I peeled peaches to freeze for a winter supply, I kept thinking about all of the hopeless in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast who have had nothing to eat for days. I kept imagining how they would love a sweet and juicy peach.
This morning, as I had my morning Starbuck's coffee, I thought of those that don't even have water to drink.
As we took our cats to the kennel because we will be going on vacation for a couple of weeks, I thought of all of the people who had to leave their pets and everything else they owned behind.
I just now took a shower and thought of all the people slogging through muddy, rancid water with no way to even wash their face.
I am stunned and saddened and searching for answers, but not the same answers for which all of the pundits on cable television are searching. I'm looking at all of us, and wondering why and how do we, in a country that has almost unlimited resources and prosperity, allow so much poverty to exist? Because poverty is the issue here. All of those who stayed, with the exception of some fool-hardy folks who thought it would be a lark, were the poor, infirm and disenfranchised. All of the cable commentators talk about how beautiful New Orleans was. I loved New Orleans like everyone else: the great food, strong coffee and beignets, the beautiful old homes, even the quirky characters on Bourbon Street. But it couldn't have been that beautiful with that many poor lurking on the sidelines. Now I wonder at what I didn't see and what I might be missing in my own back yard. I am going to become a CASA volunteer within the next few weeks (Court Appointed Special Advocate - whose mission is to speak for the best interests of abused and neglected children involved in the juvenile court system.) As such, I'm sure I will be exposed to some of the poverty and neglect in my own back yard. Hopefully, I will make a difference.

Saturday Morning Thoughts

It’s been a fruitful and frustrating week. Fruitful because the early garden is finally out. In fact, this morning the peas, spinach and lettuce are up. But we had a loss in the back yard as well. The mulberry tree had to be trimmed back because of damage from last winter’s ice storm. That meant the branches holding the bird feeders had to go. We’ve moved the feeders, but the birds are still confused. A blue jay was sitting on top of the light by the patio this morning looking around as if to say “what’s going on around here?”

We spent Wednesday in Kansas City painting my mothers living room. It took almost as long to drive up and back as it did to paint and put things back in place. It’s amazing how fast some things can be completed and how refreshed a few hours of accomplishment can make you feel.

In contrast, the slow and frustrating has been occuring in one of our bedrooms, the one with the leak. When Corina, our foreign exchange student from Moldova moved into that room, we told her not to look at the ceiling. She didn’t seem to mind as teenage girls don’t seem to be aware of their surroundings other than the computer, television, music cds and the clothing on their bodies. Unless a cute boy happens to walk by, something that certainly wasn’t going to happen in that bedroom. We did have the roof replaced while she was here so that she didn’t have to worry about getting her feet wet when she jumped out of bed, but the ceiling has been in disrepair far too long.

This week, we started ripping. It’s not the first ceiling we’ve taken out. That’s what you buy into when you purchase any house over a hundred years old. And, the ceiling is not what is discouraging. It is the windows. This bedroom was one that had bird nests in the windows when we bought the house. We replaced any broken glass and put on a perfunctory coat of paint after we ripped off the black wall paper, but the windows are still pretty bad looking and will not stay open unless they are propped up. After days of chipping, trying to pry open the top half of the window and pry out the compartment cover for the weights, sanding and priming, we reached the conclusion this morning that replacement windows might not be a bad idea. The windows are too poor a condition to be restored, primarily because of the years when the bad roof offered no protection.

Sounds like the struggle I’ve been having with my weight. I read recently that the average woman over forty can count on gaining a pound a year. Well, I’m certainly average, but not sure I want to accept the additional weight. I think sometimes, just like the difference a good sound roof can make for an old house, a good sound head can make a difference to the rest of our body.

Spring

The Flint Hills have been burning this week, an ancient rite of spring passage that brings new life to the prairie each year.

No matter how long we live here, I am always surprised and confused when it begins. I smelled smoke when I went out front to retrieve the Sunday paper. It wasn’t until later when I saw the haze surrounding the entire town from our back porch, and remembered the blood red sunset of the night before that I put two and two together.

There is beauty in the burn. The lines of fire can be seen for miles. When I was in college, a friend and I would park on a hill on the west side of Emporia and watch the fires from a distance, a view is now obstructed by a housing development. I remember once we drove out into the hills, over the gravel roads, trying to locate a particular fire. It seems we drove almost fifty miles without success. Darkness and old country roads can alter your perception of distances.

The smoke from the burn can create stinging eyes and breathing problems, but it also delivers some of the most glorious sunsets on the planet, a phenomenon that was noted after the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. For almost three years after that massive explosion, glorious sunsets were observed in much of the western hemisphere. We’re fortunate to have beautiful sunsets year round in this part of Kansas, but they are really magnificent once the burning starts.

The Prairie Fire Festival will be held this week in Cottonwood Falls. We are going to attend the Blue Grass Gospel concert with some friends on Friday night. I suppose we all celebrate the arrival of spring in some fashion and would like to imagine that the lightning strikes that caused the prairie to burn centuries ago sparked a new creativity in the Indians who once called these plains their home.

Thoughts while paying bills on Saturday morning

I would guess we all dream of greatness when we’re young, but most of us end up the same way: paying bills, licking envelopes and trying to get the remittance from the utility company to fit in the envelope. We’ve accumulated more junk than we know how to deal with, and a few friends along the way. If we’re lucky, we get to spend a few hours in the garden or with a kitty curled up beside us as we read a good book.

We have spent more time mired down by routine than excitement. The happiest moments in our lives have come when and where we least expected it, over dinner with a few good friends, accidentally running into someone we haven't seen in a long time, traveling long distances to spend the dreaded holidays with family, or discovering worship in unexpected places. If we look back, we will note the common thread in the happiest of times is people, not possessions or even achievement.

I love writing and have been writing poetry and making up stories since I was a child. However, as I've gotten older, I've come to realize how easy it would be to let the introspection that comes with writing become all consuming, leaving no room for the relationships that are responsible for the happiest times of my life.

So if very little makes it to this blog, that's ok. Hopefully, I will be laughing with a few friends instead.

Why I Will Probably Never Have Anything Published

On a perfect day, I pet my cat Parker as I run the water for my bath. He is a gentle, shy cat. This, his primary contact with the human race is very important to him before he crawls into his hidey hole for the day. Then, when I am all scrubbed and clean, I trudge down to my favorite chair with my morning cup of coffee and picking up a recent letter from the table by my chair, I begin an answer to one of those I love far away. "I enjoyed your last letter, so," my mother writes. "do it again." How can I not? My other cat Tiddles joins me in the chair to be petted as I write. Brave cats need loving too. She jumps down when she hears the scrunch of my husband's feet on the gravel coming back from his morning run. He and I talk while he does his exercises. "Less painful that way." he says. The makings of another perfect day.

Later, on my way to the Post office to mail my letter, I stop for a minute to visit with Anna next door. She relates to me her most recent exciting adventure and imparts a little of the wisdom which only a five year old can share with you. "You're perfect, Anna "I tell her, "just perfect."

While it is still morning, before the sun is too high, I must bike to the farm market for some fresh fruit. I choose enough for pie and bicycle back, risking a few minutes to stop and visit with the geese at the river bank on my way back. If I've been wise, I've brought my old bread to feed them, these tame geese which have become so dependent over the years on the handouts of humanity. I then pedal on home taking a detour down the road which goes past the train tracks into the city. I eat some of my fruit as I ride and listen for a far away train on the rails. Company is nice on a bike ride.
Later in the afternoon, when the heat from the pies still fills the kitchen, I walk down the hill to the park. There on the swings, I swing out, high above the traffic going by on the highway below. I swing and wave to the people walking by or waiting for the bus. I swing and my mind becomes blank, except for the wind in my face. I am going to do this until I'm ninety I assure myself as I lean far back for one final climb. I'm never going to stop swinging.

Refreshed, I will climb back up the hill to be greeted by the smell of fresh baked pies. I glance at my watch for the first time this day, there's still time for a few chapters of the book I'm reading before I tidy up for the evening company and start to fix the meal.

There's nothing like good conversation shared over good food. We eat and laugh ourselves silly. "This is good." they say, as they reach for a second helping. This is perfect, I think, as the wives all help me with the dishes. Crowding into my little kitchen we chat about our husbands, their little quirks and all those things which endear them to us as we dry and put away the dishes.

When they leave, my husband and I climb the stairs to sit out on the balcony, listening for the echoes of their footsteps as they walk down the hill to their car. The footsteps are finally be lost to the overriding song of the crickets and the night which overtakes us. We call it a day, and I realize that once again, in this perfect day there was no time for writing.

"Why don't you....? When are you going to....? My friends always ask about my writing. "Someday," I reply. What do I tell my critics who think I am too unmotivated to ever finish anything. "Someday." But then I realize that my writing at best is less than perfect. How can I subtract any of it from my perfect days.

I would like to write, I would like for people to read my writing, but if I have to choose between writing one more page or swinging high out over the street below, I'll swing. I may not always have these perfect days, so while I have them, I'll swing.

Overload

That’s where I am today. I don’t often pay much attention to any but the local news, but it is hard to escape the news about Terri Schiavo. I feel so sad for her parents and family and that is multiplied by the death of the grandson of two of our friends. Sixteen years old, and last Friday he made a u-turn in front of a truck carrying a load of steel. He was finally declared brain dead and taken off of life support Tuesday. So I’m thinking about brain dead and vegetative state. I know vegetative state from sitting in front of the TV for too long and often felt like I was brain dead after some insane days at work. Both states are pretty miserable, but I still didn’t want to starve.

I’m also thinking of my mentally retarded brother and how the sheltered workshop where he works has begun calling all of the kids (that’s what I call them even though many of them are in their forties and fifties) that work there consumers. They even refer to them as consumers on the ‘incident report’ sheet. Interestingly, one of the boxes that can be checked for resolution to an incident is ‘death of consumer’. I guess that’s what will happen in Terri Schaivo’s case. The incident will be resolved by ‘death of consumer’. It appears that public opinion thinks she is consuming too much: media attention, medical attention, a small space in a small bed. What remains to be seen is what will happen to all of us in this consumer oriented society.

Starting over

I started this blog months ago, and then ignored it. Writing used to be one of my passions, but after fifteen harrowing years in management at a Fortune 500 company, I fear that I am close to being brain dead. Hopefully, it’s just sensory overload. Receiving fifty to a hundred e-mails per day that have to be responded to immediately doesn’t leave much room for creativity. But, praise be, I’ve left that job behind, so I’m sitting here waiting for the creative juices to begin flowing again, like a sugar maple after my winter of discontent.

I read this and it sounds so stupid, but one has to begin somewhere. For several years I told my husband that he should start blogging. He resisted until one day I showed him a couple of sites and told him he could do a better job. He rose to the challenge, perhaps on shaky legs at first, but now he’s been blogging consistently for the better part of a year.

I think I’ll give it a try.