Meet Preston

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Stopped at the post office to get my mail and met a new friend. Meet Preston. Preston is originally from Dallas, Texas. He has been traveling around the country for seven years. He calls himself a hobo. He is the same age as my oldest son, and has a red beard like my youngest son, and I felt myself going to that mother place. Preston assures me he calls his mom every day and makes sure to be home for the winter holidays. Preston is very cool. I gave him a lift to his next stop down the road. He promised me he’d stay safe, and reached over to give me a mother-son hug before he left the car.

He gave me permission to post this picture… 🙂

Preston Turrel hobo

As I Wait for My Breve

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So I’m at Fred Meyer’s waiting to get my breve. This woman comes into the produce section next to the Starbuck’s stand. I’m sort of fascinated by what she’s wearing – what looks like a towel with flaps is wrapped around her head, and she’s got this really loose, comfortable top and what looks sort of like jammy bottoms, but not really. She glances my way and I smile at her. She’s hesitant to smile back. And that’s okay.

I turn my attention back to the espresso stand. But I catch some abrupt movement out of the corner of my eye and turn my attention back to the comfortably-clad woman. A bunch of grapes have fallen out of a grape bag she’s holding and she’s a little flustered by this. I come over to help – crouch down and start picking grapes up for her and handing them to her – I’m in no hurry – my breve isn’t ready, yet – I have time.

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” she says, in what I’m guessing is a Spanish accent. I smile at her – and this time she smiles back.

And then my breve is ready.

The end.

The Really Important Things

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When I’ve read memoirs about the Holocaust it’s always struck me how – as the insanity played out on the political stage – people continued to go about their lives – going on walks, going to work, going to school, getting married, celebrating birthdays, celebrating life. It always struck me as kind of odd. But today, as I was corresponding with a dear friend, I had a kind of epiphany about it. We are, right now, living through a time that will probably be considered “historic” at some point. And we continue to go on our walks in the sunshine, and go to work, and go after our dreams, and get married, and celebrate life. And we have to, don’t we? I mean, this is our one chance at life. And if we let it all be dictated by politics – if we focused all our time and attention on the stuff that’s going on in Washington, DC – we’d never get a chance to have the sunshine, and to dance and laugh and sing and do all the really important things.

So, while we’re battling all the insanity in DC, let’s not forget to also make time for ourselves to do the things in life that bring us joy.

 

Suspended in Time Between Teacher and Student

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So here’s a cool thing: I’m sitting at my table at school, working with one of my favorite students, when my cellphone rings. It is my fifth grade teacher, Peravena! Last night I’d found her phone number and called her and left a message – and now she’s calling me back!

I hadn’t heard from Peravena, nor seen her, for probably 30 years – it was amazing to hear her voice again! As I’m telling her what having her as a teacher meant to me – and the impact she had on my life – I’m looking at my student’s face and I find myself tearing up. I feel suspended in time between my teacher and my student.

It was cosmic.

That is all. Carry on then..

That M*A*S*H Scene Revisited

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So here’s something… I woke up this morning with that scene from the M*A*S*H movie in my head – the one where Margaret Houlihan is trying to take a shower and Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John raise the shower curtain on her in front of an audience of laughing men. M*A*S*H was one of the biggest movies of the early 1970s – nominated for all kinds of awards, including best picture. I didn’t see it when it first came out – too young – but I remember enjoying it, for the most part, when I finally saw it a few years later. I never did like that shower scene, though – it made me really uncomfortable – I thought it was mean-spirited. And now here we are in 2018. I’m thinking that scene might not play well in theaters, anymore. And I’m really glad about that.

We have made progress.

It Was a Good Choice

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We’d been waiting for a sunny weekend to go for our Table Mountain hike – and it just didn’t happen – so we finally gave up the whole idea of sunny skies and just went up to Mount Baker, anyway. It was a good choice. 🙂

 

 

We Are Made of God-Stuff

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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
– Genesis 1: 27

…God is love.
– I John 4: 8

Morning prayer –
All we can be is what God, Love, made us to be – all we are made of is God-stuff. If it isn’t a part of Love then it can’t be a part of us. It’s not possible for even the teensiest tiniest piece of us to be unlike our Creator – we are perfect and beautiful and joyful and love-filled and free. Amen.
And now a hymn and a sunrise…

sunrise on the way to work (2) this one

Sunrise over Bow, WA

He Made My Day

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From yesterday –

So when I was getting ready to pull out of the Sisters Espresso parking lot this morning another person got out of his truck and started walking up to the espresso stand. He looked serious and grim. From appearances he was pretty much everything I’m not: male; tall; young; of a different ethnicity. And as I was thinking these thoughts, and feeling a little intimidated by the serious expression on his face, he glanced my direction. Without thought I smiled at him through the car window – and he smiled this beautiful charming smile back at me – totally took me by surprise!

He made my day.

“…Love is reflected in love.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

The Connections that Come from Sharing

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It occurs to me that if I hadn’t agreed to sing at that wedding back in December 1982 I never would have met Scotty. If I’d never gathered my courage and published my first book I never would have stumbled into the Amazon forum and met all those amazing hooligans who have since become such an important part of my life. If I’d never put my photos out there I never would have connected with my fellow photography buffs. If I’d never shared my stories about my drives with Dad I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to connect with the dear people who have entered my life in the last year because of those stories. And If I’d never started this blog I wouldn’t have met YOU. Even if nothing more comes from my creative endeavors than these connections with others, my life has been made so much richer because people opened their hearts and let me share with them. And my life is so much richer because YOU all have had the courage to share your gifts with me!

Thank you! ❤

***

More about the Humoristian hooligans –
So back in 2007 I was checking my first book out on Amazon and at the bottom of the book page I saw this list of Amazon discussion forums it was suggested I might be interested in. I thought I’d take a peek and see what was going on there. I stuck my toe in one of the forums – the “Christianity” forum – and my toe almost got bitten off right away – there was indignation and huffing and puffing and sermonizing and talk of hell and… yeah… so I pulled my toe out of there and tried out the “Religion” forum – and that is where I found my home – a wild and wonderful mix of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, pantheists, and all flavors of Christian – Mormons, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, and at least one Christian Scientist – and what these people all had in common was the ability to laugh at themselves and get along with each other. They weren’t afraid of talking about their beliefs and debating them – they weren’t easily offended if people questioned them, and they could talk about stuff in a way that was straightforward and genuine – and they were willing to listen to what other people had to say, too – It was like a micro United Nations.

I started my own religion on there: Humoristianity. Here are the tenets:

1) You must be able to laugh at yourself.

2) You must be able to recognize how ludicrous your beliefs might appear to others.

3) You must want nothing but good for everyone, everywhere in the universe.

4) You must have a natural aversion to meetings, committees, and scheduled events (as we will be having none of those).

5) You must enjoy the humor of… (here we had some internal conflict within the faith – but if you’re a Jerry Lewis kind of guy, you might want to think about starting your own religion – although we wish you nothing but good).

I met some of the most amazing people on there – and I still consider these people my dear friends – they got to know me, and my beliefs and thoughts, in a way that a lot of folks in my off-line life weren’t able to do – I mean, how often do you talk about religious beliefs with your co-workers and neighbors, right? All of them were writers, too, and together we wrote a book, The Humoristian Chronicles.

And some of my Humoristian friends I’ve actually been able to meet in the person! I shall include a collage below… along with the cover from my latest book, and a picture of the evening sky from last week. My offerings for today…

Are You Taking Me Home Now? Adventures with Dad
Evening Clouds over Bow
Humoristian Friends

 

Rant du Jour

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Karen’s rant du jour:
I’ve noticed a pattern. When someone from one team (and this could be the GOP or the Democratic party or a third party) gets accused of some kind of misconduct, other people from the same team immediately point to the bad stuff someone from the OTHER team did – “See that?! Did you see what HE did?!” My thought about this is…it’s a distraction – it’s keeping us from focusing on the things we need to deal with right now. If Kavanaugh attacked this woman – he should not, in any way, be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court or ANY court. Doesn’t matter what Clinton did or didn’t do. Doesn’t matter what Wasserman Schultz did or didn’t do. Doesn’t matter what anyone else did or didn’t do – the question is what did KAVANAUGH do? He’s the one being nominated for the Supreme Court right now. The corruption has to stop sometime with someone in some place. We can’t keep passing this stuff on and excusing it. I’ve come to realize in the last few years that BOTH of the major parties are full of corruption – and that doesn’t make any of it alright. We need to start at the top – with the President – and start cleaning the corruption, greed, dishonesty, and mean-spiritedness – out of there. The American people deserve better.

Please – if you’re 18 or over and a citizen of this country – vote in November.

P.S. A friend pointed out that there’s actually now a name for what I described here: whataboutism.

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