Sore Must Be The Storm

I was writing at my desk. The window o the left lets in good writing light. Behind me, the big living room window gives a view of the immediate world. As I wrote, I heard a hard thunk on that front window and knew what had happened.

Two tiny feathers stuck to the glass. On the patio below lay a small bird. My heart sunk. Things have been weighing on me more than usual.

In the opinion section of Sunday's paper a guy writes that the orange maggot is his president and mine too. Talk about making my heart sink. I worry our democracy is doomed and may have already died. I didn't think it was as fragile a thing as the hollow bones of a small bird, but there it lies.

Burdened by this sadness, I made some lunch and ate by myself wondering what to do about all these things. Feeling, despite my thoughts otherwise, that I have to do something.

After lunch, I came back to the living room to read. Just before sitting down, I looked at the window. The two tiny feathers have come unstuck and blown away. Dreading the sight of it, I looked down at the patio.

The bird had flown away.

Turns out that this thing I thought dead was only stunned. Had I watched, I would have seen its eyes open and its wings returning it to the air. I didn't have the patience for that, nor the faith.

Still, the bird flew away. Twenty minutes removed from despair, I find hope, the thing with feathers, has taken wing and my heavy heart along with it.

Republicans, Take It Away!

There's a great Looney Tunes cartoon in which Bugs Bunny, trying to create trouble, saws Florida off the continent, sets it afloat, and shouts, "South America, take it away!" It's a thought I've had often about Florida, but I'm taking a larger view post-election and am ready to give most of the country away.

In 2016, I was angry, ready to fight and save the republic from those silly Republicans.

Today, I'm angry again, but ready to give up. It's clear that I'm out of step with most Americans. About all I can say is I don't claim it was all rigged. We lost, fair and square.

As for fighting to save the republic, like Bugs Bunny, I'm giving the country a push and shouting, "Republicans, take it away!" It's their country now and they have to run it. I'll disagree with a lot of their ideas, but instead of fighting, I'll keep score and boo from the cheap seats.

I bet a lot of folks voted out of anger and maybe against their self-interests. I'm not mocking that, but when one of those folks complains about some change, I may smile and say, "it's your country now, I just live here."

A coward's way forward? Mostly, I'm just beaten down. I'm joining the new party of no. After having lost this badly, I need to rethink all my strategies and learn what the winners have to teach me. That includes the folks on the right and, much more importantly, that cartoon rabbit. He never loses.

Hamlet in the Litter Box

Talking with friends about cats, of all things, I said, I kind of enjoy scooping the litter box. This raised doubting eyebrows. No, really, I said. It's like a Zen garden.

One of my friends told me, "scooping litter is not like a Zen garden" full stop.

I didn't protest, didn't know how to press my case, and was in no mood to argue with friends. But tonight, Hamlet came to me: "for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." I felt immediately better though not about litter.

I was scooping litter, but I was thinking about the big project my work partner and I have taken on. The number of people who have told me I'm crazy, I might as well be Hamlet tearing pages from the books. "Words, words, words."

This afternoon, I believed them. Madness for sure, a project simply too large. Impossible. Hopeless. I'm not making any progress. My conclusions have been off the mark. I don't deserve the trust others have invested in me. I was almost set to pack it in, declare it a failure, declare me a failure. I could have called the whole thing a prison were I thinking of Hamlet then. But it didn't come until I was sifting the litter.

That's when the words came. Some of them. I've memorized less Shakespeare than I'd like. Scooping litter, my mind remembered, nothing either good but thinking makes it so.

I smiled at a clump of litter. Shook my head and laughed a little thinking what my friends might think watching me. I scooped the litter clean, smoothed it, drew a curve in it with the edge of the scoop, and smoothed it away.

Thinking makes it so. Nothing bad or good but thinking makes it so.

Perhaps the work project will prove more than I'm able. This afternoon, thinking made it seem so. Tonight, the litter box clean, a small grin still at play on my face, I'm thinking it otherwise. Denmark may have been Hamlet's prison. A litter box may not be a Zen garden. But the wind has just turned southerly and, mad as I may seem to have taken this project on, I just may yet know a hawk from a handsaw.

Rereading the Past, Perhaps With Love

Tonight, I picked up a book to re-read. Sticking out of it was a page of notepad paper I used as a bookmark the first time. Inside the book's front cover, I'd written "December 25, 2007, from Mom and Dad." That brought back a couple memories.

First, Dad was still alive then but, the book was, as most presents were, picked out by Mom, according to a list I'd given her. By then, I'd been making Christmas lists since 1974. Most of the time Mom got most of what I'd listed. It occurred to me, holding the book, how seldom I mention that about her.

A second memory came from the notepad page. On it were notes for teaching. This was when I taught at-risk kids at Cortland Alternative School. I recall almost exactly what I'd planned on that page: making a piece of student prose look like a poem so kids would see how periods work. I wanted them to understand that only one thought should lie between capital letter and ending period. Switching to the next thought, it's time for that period and another capital letter.

All this brought me to a couple conclusions.

First, that was a hard job that I did well. I didn't think so then because I measured success poorly. I thought I had to do impossible things and so I kept failing.

Which is why conclusion two was a realization that my supreme unhappiness and depression then wasn't all because of the school, the administration, or any outside force. It sprang from within me because I hadn't learned how to measure myself, how to know that imperfection could still be wondrous and was almost always better than good enough .

I really wish I could have felt that then. Might have saved what came next.

About half a year after reading that book for the first time and writing that notepad bookmark, I came to where the road diverged not in a yellow wood, but within my mind. I chose a path that led to so much destruction and hurt.

I often wish I could go back, choose again. I can reread a book, remember teaching notes from a career I've since left, but there's no changing what was done. Instead there's me learning to apply better measures. There are all the choices I make now.

And Frost wasn't wrong. There's no real difference between the paths. Way leads onto way. Had I not chosen poorly then, I'd have chosen poorly some other time. Having chosen poorly then, I've made good (and bad) choices since. Life really does go on. We keep reading, turning pages one after another.

Turns out that living can be a hard job, but with the accurate measures and continued choices, I come back to myself and smile at the man I meet.

I recall the man I was sixteen years ago and find room to be loving toward him. I remember the child I was, receiving what Mom bought me for Christmas. I see her trying her best, probably measuring success and failure as inaccurately as I have. We learn these things from one another.

Maybe eventually, choice after choice, rereading after reading, we come to some understanding, perhaps even to grace. Despite all we've learned, we look at ourselves past and present with tenderness and maybe even something like love for who we are becoming.