Can I Help Whoever’s Next?

I fear we are slipping to the dangerous side of angry. I have been in the Post Office twice in the past week and both times I witnessed a confrontation between angry mailing patrons and a postal worker. Both times were men; red-faced, cursing, stomping out of the room men. Note to self: when you’re going for the big, offensive exit , wear something other than sneakers. They just don’t have the impact on the tile floor. I have to wonder what goes on in a person’s life that allows them to spend so much energy on mailing a letter. Seriously, you’re walking into a building and leaving a piece of mail, be it a package or a letter, it is still just mail. Granted, the people behind the counter are not gushing with joy at seeing you, but they’ve learned that even the kindest of mail patrons will turn on them if they happen to run out of the Albert Einstein stamps. I watched a woman today trying to stuff a pair of shoes into one of those flat mailing envelopes that will go to the moon and back for less than $5. They were rather large shoes, like maybe a man’s size 13 and she was huffing and spitting, doing all she could to make them fit into the thin cardboard receptacle. I could see her blood pressure rising as the seconds ticked by and I made a decision. I’ll mail my stuff tomorrow.

Privilege

Crest the hill on I-70 at just about the Genesee exit and you will find yourself staring at a phenomenon without equal as layer after layer of mountain range comes into view, purple and ethereal, a majestic expression of the miracle of creation. Now go back and crest the hill again with Mozart’s 40th Symphony filling your car, a furious cacophony of notes and instruments flooding the airwaves and your soul with the brilliance of a man near the end of his life – a majestic expression of the miracle of creation. Mozart, in conjunction with mountains may take more breath away than the average human can embrace. So much fearfully perfect energy wrapped into a single moment can’t be explained in words so must be appreciated without comment. So be silent in the midst of the screaming beauty, the unfathomable riches, and try to remember to breathe.

Are We There Yet?

I have come to the realization that adults are nothing more than over-sized children, and just like children, should never be dealt with in large groups. Get a group of creative people together, add a bit of food and drink and just see how much you accomplish. You will be left with a room of toddlers, all talking at the same time, and waving their forks in the air to make their point. When they realize they are not being heard they will talk louder, some might even stand on their chairs, and a few will resort to throwing things in order to get the group’s attention. Given enough time, many of these people will forget why they got together in the first place and will begin entertaining themselves by making faces at each other, and laughing without restraint. If you took away the beer and added a sandbox, you’d have a scene from the local daycare - same amount of hair and teeth, hopefully less tears and in the end everyone will need to stop at the bathroom before going down for a nice nap.

Breathe

As evening rolled down over the mountains today I was struck by the oncoming close of yet another summer day and the way time rushes past us in a swirling, breathtaking, arbitrary blast. It never gives us the chance to say, “Wait, something big is happening, and I am afraid I’m missing it”. It is a locomotive screaming towards the station, puffing wildly, no holds barred, hang on for dear life, did you see that ride, and we are to adjust at breakneck speed or be crushed on the tracks. People around me are growing up, growing old, growing weary, getting lost, enduring disease, and dancing in the rain for reasons about which I am unaware, because I have simply been too busy to ask. Desperate to know, but crashing through every day with barely time to stop the hiccups, thinking that if I let one plate stop spinning, life as I know it will go tumbling into a ravine of disorganized underachievement, and if that happens I will be wasting one of the most precious gifts we are given. Time. So the question becomes - are we wasting time when we are doing nothing but relishing the fact of life, or are we wasting time when we are accomplishing what we have deemed important?

Collateral Damage Control

I have been told that I could live in complete happiness with only a few rudimentary supplies – a nail clipper with file, tweezers, a jar of Vaseline, Q-tips and dental floss. Life is really a series of grooming efforts, a constant battle to keep from grossing yourself out, and to remain acceptable to the viewing public. There is something about knowing that there is no remnant of a previous meal crammed amongst your molars that gives a person a sense of well being, and nail filing is really nothing more than pure economics. Jagged fingernails snag delicate clothing, and letting toenails go without benefit of a pedicure will lead to grotesque witch toes that can’t help but poke through the end of your socks and in extreme cases, your shoes. Vaseline is an absolute must in surviving a Colorado winter, where the air is not only cold but dry enough to turn shoe leather to stone. Without Vaseline, our lips would be replaced by frayed, battered flesh that would bleed every time the wind blew. And cotton swabs … well if you don’t know the joy of a gentle but thorough ear swabbing it’s time you expanded your horizons. Tweezers are probably the most crucial tool in this packet of essentials. You never know when you’re going to walk past a woman in a restaurant say, who has missed the inch long whisker projecting from her chin. I try not to over react, but I have been known to drop my tweezers, which I always carry, near her plate with a look that says, “choose to do the right thing”. For heaven’s sake, people are trying to eat! Tweezing is a commitment we all must make for the good of our fellow man. Tweeze with vigor and without fear, for there is only one place for a whiskered woman, and the circus has left town.

Where's the Cobbler

Shoes are the most difficult article of clothing to purchase. The problem is that the ones that are beautiful are very often meant to be worn only by the manikins modeling them, mainly because their weight is supported by a metal rod rather than their feet. If you’re planning to actually walk in shoes like that you can count on major foot surgery in your future. It’s something about the design, especially in women’s shoes, that seems to be a product of poor planning. When the toe of the shoe has a sharper point than the ice pick in the Psycho movie it is time to rethink our priorities. Whose idea was it to make women’s high heels with room for only one toe in the front, and not even your big toe? You have to be one of those people born with an inordinately long middle toe to benefit from the average high heeled shoe. I think shoes should be sold on a trial basis only. You could make a deposit on them and take a walk around the mall. If you come back free of tears and sporting only minimal bleeding then they’re a keeper. My favorites are the athletic shoes with that special gizmo in the heel to propel you into space when you stand up too quickly. They cost as much as a second mortgage, which works because they are the size of a small condo, which could come in handy after you’ve dragged them around on your feet all day. If you push two of them together they can sleep six quite comfortably.

Lone Traveler

The thing we forget when we are planning our schedule is that we probably won’t have buy in from the world at large. If you have exactly ten minutes to get to your next appointment you will invariably end up on a two lane road behind the woman who has taken it on as her mission to keep speeds under control on her section of blacktop. She is usually driving a Subaru Outback, two tone wagon, with a bumper sticker that says something about how saving whales will bring world peace to Tibetan monks, and if you were wondering, when she is driving on the road you happen to be on, she does own it and thus has control over all drivers lucky enough to be in her lane. She considers it a gift to be able to drive 30mph in a 45 mph zone, and she won’t even notice the endless line of cars behind her that she is holding up. She has a calling to encourage those around her to move at her perfect pace. When the road finally goes to four lanes and you pull up next to her at a stop light, she will look straight ahead and keep both hands on her steering wheel, and then you’ll realize the truth. She isn’t trying to slow you down or be in your way. In fact, she doesn’t even know you’re there.