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I Can See Clearly Now…

What a difference a new windshield wiper makes. Just one, the driver’s side. Less expensive than two, stick to what is needed.

The streaks across my field of view are gone. No need to stretch or cower – to see.

Easier to see oncoming as well as ongoing. What a difference it makes. So clear.

Are We Reaching?

Booting the computer first thing in the morning…

“Signal Strength: Excellent
Status: Connected”

It’s good. All one could really ask for.

Seen Around Town: Walls II

A few days ago, I bogged about the nature of walls. In response, I received this insightful comment from a Danish friend. These comments are gifts and I feel they are well worth passing along:

So – thanks to you my Danish Friend, and I hope you do not mind that I repeated your comment:

“Walls are protecting us from the outside. Sometimes they are thick of bricks and we feel protected…but we can not let anyone in.

Too thin walls don´t give us much shelter – especially not if we live in an earthquake area, like Haiti. And who cares about the color on the wall, if we know the walls are too thin to give us shelter, anyway.”

These comments go to the heart of walls – not what they hear, or say, or their dress, but their very nature.

Thin walls give too little shelter, thick walls sometimes too much – perhaps as is alluded to here, it depends upon the ground on which we, and the walls stand.

Beautiful comment. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

God Speed the Plow

It’s out there. It’s waiting. I just heard the rumble of the truck.

The plow wall.

Those who live in warmer climes have no experience of the plow wall – the enormous mound of scraped ice and snow brusquely deposited by snow plow blade across the length of my driveway.

I like living on a corner. Not tucked in, tidy and neat on the street, but exposed.

Exposure costs. More tonnage gets dumped in my path, icy silage for my shovel and spinal column. My snowblower won’t touch it, the plow wall demands handicraft.

Last week my mailbox took a hit from an errant, but Very Apologetic Driver. It gets that from time to time, another benefit of exposure.

I found it, knocked back in the snow like a tipsy reveler, mouth agape, a look of surprise about the eyes. The mailbox itself is fine, but its wood support post broke clean off.

Despite email and internet, mailboxes still receive, contain and dispense news from the physical world. No need to go outside the box on this one, the small interior space of any mail or post office box handles a lot – hopes, fears, information, invitation.

My mailbox, though in top shape, is now busted off at its ground. Come a thaw, the husband of the Very Apologetic Driver and I will dig a new hole and reset it, or maybe I’ll just do it myself.

In the meantime, the unasked for deposits of frozen muck accorded to my driveway have become a gift. The frozen terrain scraped from the streets now firmly supports my mailbox. I still shovel it, but with a smile for its service, I am grateful.

That Special Thing

Exactly how odd it is that I seem to be emotionally attached to a freebie black plastic ink pen given out by my bank?

It is just a pen, it is just a bank, albeit staffed by unusually friendly people. People I really needed to be friendly last summer when I was sorting through my life, and the lives of my children, after my husband left.

I imagine most folks have some sort of trove – maybe old jewelry, bits of paper, a stone, even a stale piece of hard candy. That special thing.

A stash of economically valueless items that have become priceless not for what they are, but because they hold what cannot be captured in a word, or an expression – it is held in the thing – yes, the special thing.

Relationships and the people that populate them are sometimes such things. Stand-in’s, sometimes stunt doubles, for energy passing by that wanted to be. The stuff that drops into our world as process or form, for us to be able to see or reflect on it. Memento’s of habit and flesh, or the occasional pen.

And we keep ’em. At least, from time to time, I do. To remember the good, or the not-so-good energy that once passed through. And because the special thing has the power to stop, to dissuade relentless time, for just the length of a black plastic pen.

It lies with two other, less remarkable pens, at the bottom of my worn leather purse. Reminds me of these times when so little means so much.

Weather on Demand

The arrogance of mankind.

“Weather on demand,” the radio DJ said, online, on the radio, in the air.

Forecast the pattern coming to a sky near you. Tune in, listen, count on it – it is coming in the air.

Human word nets cast over natural events, be comfortable, it’s handled – feel control you can never have.

Cloudy words, rainy days, frozen atmosphere. Take a guess, use your radar, no one ever knows what’s coming.

To the World

I am an unabashed fan of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is one of those clever holidays that actually arises from the spring festivals of yore. While cynics eschew the paper hearts, candy and roses, the nature of the holiday is, well, nature.

About this time of year, things start to stir – seeds, thoughts, hearts. It is telling that we are a culture that requires a designated day to express love.

I just googled “love” – “a strong positive emotion of regard and affection.” Ah, but that author missed those that love to hate. The definition of love, I think, should reside more in the realm of “passion.”

Passion, such a beautiful word, one with a heartbeat. Even for those with darker passions, the word lives.

But love, at its hopeful best, is a quixotic, shapeshifting feeling unserved by a four-letter word.

Love is the highest product of humanity, a gift of our nature – whether for partner, friend, animal, endeavor – it is what connects those of us walking the planet at this time. Love is seed, fruit and harvest for the world.

If you are reading this, you and I have most likely crossed paths at some point in life, and for that I feel lucky. And if I haven’t met you, well, I hope to someday. This blog is my love letter to the world. Live love into the world when you have it, take some when you need it.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

This just in…

Just heard on the street…The Neighbor is taking the stage name “Psycho-Bubbles.” Coming soon to a playbill near you.

Change in the Air

Scuffling dust brown sparrows in the pea gravel strewn island of an empty parking lot. Their songs caught my attention. Bare branches stretch for warmth, insular winter breaks. Spring is coming.

The Written Word…

“Collaborative divorce” is an oxymoron.