A song in the night

Last night I found this: "I have been of the belief that in song I have found God. Maybe I am not alone after all."

It was written as a comment on a blog I did about the earthquake in Haiti and the people there singing to get through the nights. I am not writing now about god, however, I am writing about seeking. People seeking ... well we often do not know what we are seeking and often settle for a warm bed and silky words.

I am not a terribly good writer about philosophy, but I do write about people. Elsewhere you can read about Kierkegaard and the leap of faith or leap to faith, blind or otherwise.  I'm not going to write that blog.  But listen:

Late one night, very late, going through friends of friends of friends' blogs, I found a series of blogs written by a young woman named Lonny. All of her blogs were posted late at night. She wrote about her baby who had died and her husband who had left and her children who had been taken by the State. She wrote about too much alcohol and too many drugs and then a battle to free herself. No one had commented because she had no friends. She was apparently writing for herself. It was an outpouring of ordinary yet poignant misery, a search, perhaps, a hope. She wrote that she didn't think anyone would ever read.

So, I commented and we went on to be friends, but then lost each other shortly thereafter. I commented because I have been alone at night, or during the day, lost, miserable. To one extent or another we are all alone.

(I dabbled in Buddhism for awhile; they assure me that loneliness is an illusion, I assure them it is not.)

We are alone, but we seek connection, and there is a great joy when we discover that we have found another seeker. Someone else who has struggled.  Someone else who has yearned. Someone else who has found God in song. (I am using the term "God" very loosely here. I'm not doing that blog either, yet.)

To find a kindred spirit is such a good feeling. Perhaps that is why some of us blog. We are like the creatures in Kurt Vonnegut's book "The Sirens of Titan" called Harmoniums. All day long the harmoniums sing to each other. Some sing, "Here I am, here I am." And the others sing back, "So glad you are, so glad you are."

I need to end now and I hope I have not gotten too sentimental because my writing teacher in high school would attack sentimental writing like a pit bull mauling a jogger. But, in a sense, it is a sentimental subject.

"We all need someone we can lean on." ~ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Test blog for pictures

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Florida

Florida gets a season all unto itself.

I would like to note that while I was selecting these pictures, I was also sweeping the kitchen and found not one but two small spiders. And I will need to help them outside by myself as my husband is not into doing this although he is hell on ants. The cat is hell on moths. I guess we are a quirky family.

Paint your wagon

Ok, now I am at Facebook, Live Journal, Blogster, Blogspot, Yuku, Ipernity and Opera. I am slowly trudging through this process of finding a new space to write and show my pictures. If you are on any of those sites and want me to join you send me a PM or put your new address here. What I am going to try to do is to post this in as many places as I can as a sort of experiment to see you is where as I cannot keep so many sites open.

I feel like I am going at a snail's pace, or a turtle's if you prefer. Above it all is sadness that this is happening. When 360 closed down, 7 - 8 friends were with me at MP from the beginning. Maybe more. As I have deleted and archived my blogs I have read the comments and they are very touching. It seemed there was a mass migration pretty much all to the same place. I wasn't as sad because I only lost a couple of friends and I have been able to keep up with them on (the much hated) Facebook.

I know I can still keep up with people on FB, but it is just not the same. People can write there, but more often they post links to articles or their blogs on other sites, or post funny pictures. 

I can't ask you to tell my where you will be, because I am not sure myself which sites I will keep active and which I will allow to languish, like a forgotten houseplant in a dusty corner.

But I will be somewhere, probably a couple of somewheres, and will get into the blogging mode sooner or later. Forgive me that I have rarely commented on your blogs elsewhere - I will get back to that as well.

Food stamps

The other day I was shopping at a large market and I saw the woman ahead of me pull out her "Bridge Card", which, in my state, is a card (looks like a credit card) which gives you access to the government program called "food stamps", or SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It is our government's program to help feed those whose income falls below a certain level. It is not a generous program, I think the average per person is $134 a month. Many get less.

The woman with the food stamp card was wearing her work uniform, light blue hospital "scrubs", with her name and the name of the clinic she worked at. She had a wedding ring (no diamond). Her cart consisted of chicken wings, cheap hamburger, bulk peanut butter, cheap bread, store brand tomato soup and stuff like that. A little girl was by her side.

She is the face of American food stamps. Married, working, with children. White, if it matters, and I think it does, because many people think mostly black people get food stamps.

I'm going to guess she worked as hard as I did when I was working, and harder physically. The hardest work I ever did was play basketball with my kids (I was a school social worker). The working poor generally work on their feet, washing floors, scrubbing toilets, carrying things and so forth. "If there's time to lean, there's time to clean" said a poster at McDonald's when my friend Don worked there.

More people, per capita, get food stamps in Idaho than they do in California.

More people, per capita, get food stamps in the rural south than in the urban north.

Food stamp recipients tend to be people who are older, or disabled, or are children.

And these are the people that Paul Ryan, the possible next Vice-President of the US, wants to take food away from.

I don't know how this seems to people from other countries. I don't know if it is comprehensible to people from other countries. And I am starting to feel like I am blathering. Which I am.

Please let this not be, that a country where people can pay $22.95 a pound for beef tenderloin steaks will not give assistance to people who work all day and need help buying hotdogs at $1.99 a pound.

Buck

A good story, and I hope this is one, can be told more than once, should be told more than once. The best stories are told regularly, and even though even the smallest child has it memorized, there is still delight in hearing it.  Anyway, I hope so.

This is a true story. It happened in Canada, 2 hours drive north of the "Soo", deep in the pine woods northeast of Lake Superior. Tom and I were staying in a group of small cabins on the shore of the Lake on the edge of the Wood. It was deep wood, not logged in decades, and there was a series of beaver dams with marshes behind each one.

Buck, shown above, lived outside the main lodge, hanging around or disappearing for a day or so into the woods.  He had stumbled out of those woods, beaten, torn and mangy, half dead, and was healed by the handyman, Tim, who gained his trust through patience and the deep understanding that some beings have for others who have been mistreated. 

Somehow Buck came to like me, and liked to follow me on my trips hiking through the pines. So I took him once when I decided to make a day of it. Tom was feeling tired and not up for an hours long hike, but I told him where I was going, the edge of the beaver marshes, and then back again.

Another thing I should say is that the ground there is mostly iron ore; compasses (and I had a good one) can be thrown off by the iron and mislead you.

I had a wonderful two hours walking around the edge of the marshes, taking pictures, writing in my journal, having lunch and so forth.  Playing with Buck, who would disappear and then come back to find me and let me pet him. After sometime, when I was just starting to feel tired, I started to head back.  I'd seen all the pitcher plants and horse grass and wild orchids that I wanted to see. I just wanted to be home. Buck followed.

Bored with the marshes, I decided to head back through the woods. They are very thick and deep and seemed romantic. One can't see the sky through the branches and the air is still and dark.  It was wonderful.  I ate wild berries and carefully drank my water. I followed my trusty compass unaware of the iron beneath me that was betraying my every step.

Soon I was lost. I knew I was lost, but I trudged on still counting on the compass and the fact that I just couldn't be that far away from the Lake and the Queen's Hwy. Sometimes I would come to a clearing where the breeze blew the bugs away and the bracken was waist high.  Sometimes I could see Buck, sometimes I couldn't, but he always came when I called.

Finally, after having tripped over a hidden root, torn my jeans, and stepped in a water hole, I came to a spot where it wasn't such a great adventure. I sat on a tree stump and looked at my scratched hands and my wet feet and despaired. I was lost. I had gotten myself lost. I knew I had been wandering in circles and was exhausted. Almost all my water was gone. I was a pathetic lump and felt right sorry for myself.

Worst yet, I thought, I had gotten Buck lost with me.

Hmm. There was a thought. There was the thin shining trail of a thought. The stupid human was lost. How about the dog? Buck the dog, who had grown up in these woods. Maybe Buck was not lost.

"Hey, Buck" I called. "Hey, Buck." He was there in a flash. "Hey, Buck" I said, "wanna go home?" "Rowf" he said. "Yes!" I said, much louder. "Home, Buck, home!"  He barked with enthusiasm again and jumped with his front paws off the ground. "Take me home," I said, and he did.

Of course he took me straight home, which meant I had to climb over dead trees, through thorny brush and boggy little patches, but he took me home to the clearing where the cabins and the main lodge was. So relieved was I to be there. I got him some icy well water right away, and some for myself, and we shared a piece of leftover steak.

Buck is my hero, and someone I call up in my mind whenever I feel lost and hopeless. I used to tell this story to my children. Never overlook hidden resources. Your hero might be a holler away. For those people who are reading this story for the second time, my apologies. If you are reading it for the first time, I hope you enjoyed it.

The last time I saw Buck, he was riding in the back of a pick-up truck. Jill and Ron, who owned the cabins had to sell. They bought a house in a small town and took Buck with them, and Tim too.

Thanks for reading.

Open the Pod bay doors, please, Hal (with update)

There are a number of people who I would like to be in touch with as they blog BUT I am not able to follow their blogs.  Some people are on Google+ and I am in some of your circles. I can do that.

But I cannot "follow" people's blogs on Blogger/Blogspot. If I go to your blog, e.g. Belita's, and attempt to follow her, I get one of two messages. One is that I am blocked by the owner from the site (which I don't believe that it's by the owner), or I am told they are having trouble processing my request.

I went to Google help and apparently a number of people are having this same trouble and have been for some time.

Soooooo......I will be running around, trying to find people's blogs that I might want to read. If you know one of my old MP friends who is blogging here now, please point them in the direction of my blog. Maybe if they are following me, I will have a way to connect.

I don't see myself using Google+ much; maybe I will surprise myself, we'll see.

If anyone finds a way to contact tech support, let me know.  Thanks so much. For now I will be on Multiply.

Update: Cinnamon rocks the house!!!!  I now can follow people.  Forget everything here. 

New name

I changed my title. Actually I changed it a bunch of times. Some of the rejects were
**Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL
**If I could save time in a bottle
**5 pomegranate seeds

And so forth. I chose this one to remind myself that sometimes it is good to play it safe but sometimes it is no better to be safe than sorry. A few risks are necessary. Because being sorry when you didn't go for it is a bad feeling.

Or as Kellen Winslow might have said, Leave it all on the field.

Or as Don McLean said "I knew if I had my chance, that I could make those people dance, and maybe they'd be happy - for awhile."

Music is on my mind tonight. Can music save your mortal soul? Music winds through my heart and I am so tone deaf.

Every picture tells a story
Every story lights a star
Every star is someone dreaming
Every dream is who you are.

Be kind. We are all we have until we rest in the arms of our Mother.

Took me awhile

It has taken me awhile to be able to manage here. I will work more tomorrow, but for now I am tired.  I am not sure if I will keep this blog or this title, and I will need some time to figure out how to connect with people.  We'll see.