Weblog 47

January 1, 2007~ 9:45am



A new year was rung in, and I slept peacefully through it. LOL! Went to bed at 3:45 pm yesterday, and woke up at 7:45 am today. (I trust everything is in order....even without my participation and cleaning up?) I am sitting here at home on this New Year's morning, and feeling reflective and full of the milk of human kindness. Even 'hopeful'...? Dare I say that?

I am determined this year to let all sleeping dogs lie- to let events happen around me without my usual carping and criticism. In other words, to be more accepting of others and events beyond my control. To pay minute attention to the goodness and blessings that have been given me, regardless of my worthiness- or even my abilities to make the most of them. I plan to be grateful for life itself. For each unrepeatable moment. To see the miraculous everywhere, right down to the planets staying put and spinning out there without my help.

And in the spirit of this magnificent sunrise above, here is my new prayer for his new age of dawning wisdom and appreciation- this new year's poem. This is the one gift I can give you because I am one without other tools, without the ability to bake or build or hazard anything beyond these lines thrown on a screen. That's what I can do.....that's what I'll be grateful for....


......In These, The Best, The Only


......In These, the best, the only
......times, it's incumbent upon the sane
......to remember that nothing
......is
......mundane
......or trite or uninvolved with you. We are
......the spoke parts
......of the wheel, the braces that hold it fast together
......as it rolls and pitches along. No matter
......if the route
......is downhill, still there are flowers to be seen
......in every craggy wall. There's a moonshine
......sun, a mixture of the ridiculous overlaying
......all, that quite undoes
......us every time. The rising up, the insolence of life
......asserts
......its foolishness over the ashes
......and the dung. The hands wrung haven't
......a whit of influence. Be glad, be joyous
......in the ride, the tide is turning
......even
......as I write this. Always
......something
......wondrous in view and ever new
......and second chancing
......each quick glance, the resurrection is the life that ......comes
......in morning
......light,
......in arms
......entwined, not pointed
......to our doom- in the narrow room
......of death- there perched the bird.



So a happy, happy- consciously happy- new year to all of you. May blessings clobber you from January through December, and even if they don't- there's always that possibility- that tantalizing carrot of the spirit we all need- all of us- as we make our way gingerly through the dark.


January 2, 2007~ 7:30am
Nope. I was too precipitous in my hopes for the new year. Indeed, it is S*O*S... and just as wipeable with toilet tissue- still as noxious. And now I am going to bed- after typing my digits off at work today- to fall into electronic, hand-held solitaire, as well as the end of my book about the Skinwalker (really creepy, btw. Shivery creepy.) But now it's come to the part with all the scientific theories, etc. I like such things soooo so much better when they're mysterious. Life, too--

I like it like that.


So I vow to become more mysterious myself- not as wide open; not accessible unless you know where to look and how to come in the door.

There are too many nuts out there- some in the can since last year and man, I've developed some FIERCE allergies in the time since. But I'm locked up tight- safe, sound-
and far, far away. (Someday, remind me to tell you why Canada is my LEAST favorite place on earth. Bring dinner.

The story's gonna take a while.....)


January 3, 2007~ 7:00pm
OK....now having made my world a bit more "Canuck-less", I can once again breathe easier. I feel more in control of what goes in and out and am back in the scratchy saddle and ready to ride the virtual range- with fences this time- and thus, the view is friendlier- and I can lay down what I like without the annoying gawking. (Not this place. This is for general consumption, but we all need places where we really let our hair down.)

In short, I am happier with a good set of keys in my pocket. I should know that by now, but it appears I still have to learn it. Over and over again....

Today was beautifully sunny, and a big full moon staring down this morning. Drivers were not too aggressive out there on the Badland roads- (but my God! who woulda thunk we'd have to be dodging BICYCLISTS- in January, for heaven sake! Wow.....it's either the end of the world

or the start of a new one. My vote's for 'new'. How about you? And speaking of 'votes', I got the biggest kick out of a printed flyer stuffed in my mailbox when I got home today, showing a picture of our new mayor (we have the youngest mayor in the United States here in Pittsburgh. What? You didn't know that? You don't watch David Letterman?) - and there he was with the slogan, "LET'S REDD UP!" Our baby-faced, movie-handsome mayor with his hands on his hips, grinning for all the world like a young Steve Reeves- our own Superman, sans cape- and ready to give us RECYCLING -"for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!" LOL! (The "redd up" is actually what caused the grinning. Only a Pittsburgher would be familiar with that Pittsburgh-ese expression which harkens back to out Pennsylvania Dutch roots.) But we get it here!-- nothing's too 'slippy' for us that it slides right on past. No sirree.



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