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Seen Around Town: Walls II

February 19, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday | Leave a Comment »

God Speed the Plow

February 18, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

That Special Thing

February 17, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

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Weather on Demand

February 16, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

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To the World

February 14, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

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This just in…

February 10, 2010 by Cynthia

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

Posted in Reflections on the everyday | 1 Comment »

Change in the Air

February 9, 2010 by Cynthia

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.

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The Written Word…

February 5, 2010 by Cynthia

“Collaborative divorce” is an oxymoron.

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Seen around town

February 4, 2010 by Cynthia

“What would your walls say?”

– Slogan advertising interior decorating services

Everyone has seen them. Catchy phrases and advertising slogans. They are everywhere. This one was on the back of a green van sorely in need of a romp through a car wash.

It had the desired effect. An image of my relatively recently painted walls warmed my mind. I am fond of desert hues.

The Greek philosopher Plato thought of the mind as a cage, and birds as thoughts that flew across the vault of that inner sky. Some birds roost for a long time, some don’t. Birds, like most critters, including humans, depend on some place, maybe a couple of walls, to call home.

Walls contain, they stand, and they fall. When they aren’t obstructing things, the secret thing walls do is listen. Listen to winged things like laughter, sighs, silence or lies. What the walls say depends upon what the walls hear.

Walls, what roosts within them, gives some character, leaves others haunted.

Desert colors offer me wide open spaces in a world that sometimes feels too small. That’s what my walls say.

Posted in Reflections on the everyday | 2 Comments »

A Penny for your Thoughts

February 3, 2010 by Cynthia

Ah, month’s end. Month’s beginning. Since becoming a single head-of-household, I have struggled to find the right budgeting method to best manage our limited finances.

As seen in the crises of our times, managing money is no small feat. In the same light, lucky are those who have money to “manage” at all. So I’m not complaining.

Now money might be considered a medium of energy exchange in our culture. You got a lot? You can do a lot of things. Not much? You can still do a fair bit, but what energy you do have, has to get creative. Too much for what you need? It can get all bound up – maybe bloat, groundlessness, waste. Too little and the wind dries out whatever tries to grow, burns off too fast.

There’s a balance in there somewhere, like caloric intake, unique to each person and the life they are trying to live.

I balanced out January with exactly $0.02 to spare. I was jubilant.

On Sunday, I related this fact to a lightly-known clerk with whom I occasionally commiserate at my local big-box grocery store. Striding by, a sort of rough looking gentleman overheard my comment and remarked, “better it had been $2.00.” I smiled broadly and replied, “yes, but $0.02 was enough.”

Paucity does not impress me, I am not hoping for long-term residency at the bottom line. But the next time you hear someone say, “that’s just my $0.02,” remember that sometimes that $0.02 makes all the difference.

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