Follow the Storm

There is something about a lightning storm that helps to bring things into perspective. No matter what we do, how smart we become, how much we think we know, we will never be able to harness the lightning. As it was flashing between the mountains this afternoon, filling the darkened sky with brilliance for fleeting moments at a time, I was struck (no pun intended) by its random nature yet impressed with its organized presentation. The electrical streaks go where they choose, and it is as though they are choosing, leaving us completely at the mercy of their startling, self-contained power, and when the storm has subsided the show pulls up stakes and fades to black abandoning a shuttering section of earth in its wake. The sheer force of all that energy, gathered into one vast, though limited area, is inspiring and terrifying at the same time. It demonstrates without consideration and asks only that we watch with the proper respect and a certain amount of awe, knowing that when the curtain rises all eyes will turn heavenward and be amazed.

Fashionably Geriatric

It is hard to know what is best when faced with our own inevitable journey into old age. I don’t know who is smarter – those who embrace the lengthening of years by wearing the sweatshirt with the bird appliqué on the front, or those who deny the aging process by wearing the tube top that was meant for a twelve year old. Either way it all comes down to fashion. There are women who have given up on trying to hold it all in by changing out their jeans for elastic waste pants and their strappy sandals for something with a protective steel toe. They seem to be shouting that they have lived past a certain age and they want the world to know they are proud of it. On the other end of the spectrum is the woman who has exchanged breathing for the jeans that force her rear end up into her shoulder blades. She doesn’t notice the discomfort for the distraction her numb toes are causing inside her four inch, weapon like heels. While some women are plucking, bleaching, tucking and sucking it all in, others are enjoying the fact that they have slipped into that “comfortable” age when they can relax and let their mustache grow. There has to be some place in the middle where we can age gracefully and with a modicum of dignity. I’m just not sure it is in this hemisphere.

Tapestry

Forgiveness is something that people love to talk about today, about how it is the only way a person will heal and how not forgiving can even make a person physically sick. It can be a hard thing to do when we have been truly wronged, and I have often wondered why. Are human beings just bent on carrying around anger about things that happened long ago? I have decided that forgiveness is key to living with any sense of well-being and certainly peace, and that the hard part is not in forgiving the person who has hurt us, but in forgiving ourselves. There is something about allowing ourselves to get into a situation where we can be hurt that is humiliating and that humiliation makes the hurt hang on like a bur in a wool sock. It’s that question of “why didn’t I see it coming” or “why did I give them the upper hand” that presses in on us and quenches our ability to shrug it off. So forgiving ourselves for being vulnerable and letting our defenses down becomes the nemesis, and when dealing with a nemesis, there is only one way to go. God is a master at melting the impossible steel cage we put ourselves in when our hearts are hurting. I stop and listen for that voice that urges me to laugh a little at my foibles and believe that my vulnerability is one of the threads woven into me by a God who treasures me.

Turn Your Head and Cough

Have you ever wondered what they were thinking when they decided that pharmaceuticals could advertise on television? Next to political ads, that are nothing more than well organized bickering, the drug ads are the Mount Vesuvius of grotesque information overload. Why do I, someone who has no intention of taking medication for “ants in your pants syndrome”, have to hear about the fact that it may cause depression, constipation, acne and excessive belching? Are these weird ailments actually affecting the population in the epidemic proportions implied? Whatever happened to the days when people dealt with their sleeplessness by getting up and cleaning the kitchen floor and taking a few gulps of Benadryl? We have become a society of complex anxieties and it is a conundrum of our own doing. And do we think its just coincidence that overactive bladder became rampant right about the same time that Starbucks took over the universe? Think about it.

Beckon the Moon

The moon was hiding last night, just barely peeking through the dark silhouette of trees and the wall of clouds that crept across the blackened expanse. From time to time it would wave at the earth below, obviously glad it was suspended well above the chaos, content in its knowledge that it had one huge advantage over earth – it was not inhabited by people. Some days, and today would be one of them, actually yesterday was also one, I have to stop and shake my head at people and our constant need for attention. We are like puppies in high heels and business suits, in a never ending clamor for affection. “Notice me, think I’m cute, give me a treat, pet my ears,” we are all begging, as we wag our way through life. It makes the daily grind a tiring, often aggravating endeavor, as we struggle for approval from people who probably haven’t even noticed us, let alone approved of us. And if they do give us the “better housekeeping seal” will it make a difference, or will we continue to roll over and play dead on command, in hopes that one more bone will be thrown our way?

All In a Name

Names of books are so hard to do. When I titled my first novel String the Dark Pearl, I contemplated shortening it to “Dark Pearl”, but I was afraid that people would be looking for a Johnny Depp fan club anthology. Some authors like to spill the whole plot in their title, so mine could have been, “Always Check behind You When You’re Getting into Your Car on a Snowy Day”. Confused? Read the book. Another option is to give it a one word title, like “Kidnapped” (taken), or “Pearl” (also taken). Some authors go with themes like naming every book after a laundry soap. “The Tide Cometh,” is a good one, followed by “No Gain, All Stains”, and finally “Gasping for Oxyclean.” Some of the best titles have little to do with the book at all, but they create a poetic intrigue that makes you want to buy the book to display on your shelves whether or not you ever read it. If you do read it, you spend the entire book trying to figure out what the author meant by the title, when the answer may be simply that it “sounded neat”. For instance a book called “Beans in my Pants” may have nothing to do with beans or pants, but it sort-of makes you want to find out. It has also become popular to title a book “The Someone’s Wife”. Fill in whatever profession you want – The Teacher’s, The King’s, The Mechanic’s. These books are often about women searching for who they are apart from their spouse, so really the books should be called “If I weren’t The Someone’s Wife”, or “My Heavens, Why did I Marry the Someone?”. The working title for my new book is “Say it Twice Softly”. Don’t ask.

Was It Something I said?

The crowd was closing in when I heard over the din, a ragged voice shouting, “Stop, I wanna get off!” The voice was mine and the ride I was on was life -fast and whirling, passing without even asking me if I take cream with my coffee. Twenty-first century living has become rude, mainly because manners take way too much time and energy, two items in painfully short supply. The irony of the whole phenomenon is that rudeness takes substantially more energy than a polite demeanor ever thought of using. Rushing to take the last chair, pressing the gas to swoop into a parking space that someone else was waiting for, voicing one’s opinion over a mouth full of food, all take an extra effort, a spurt of adrenalin that could otherwise be saved for laughing at the moon, or baking cookies with a five year old. It isn’t about being nice; it’s about bothering to acknowledge the worth of the human beings around us. And that does take time, more time than stomping through life with the proverbial chip on the shoulder, but it is time well spent because of the dignity it brings to everyday. Every day.