...Through Leaves, Over Bridges
It’s been nearly five years since I met The Lovely Linda, married her right quick ‘cause she said she wasn’t interested in just shacking up, and moved to Redding. Once settled into her-now-our abode out in the boonies, I set up something of a routine that included a daily walk down to the highway with Buster the Dawg to pick up the mail or the newspaper. It was exercise for more than the body; also for the mind. Away from the computer and the phone, even for a short time, forced me back onto my own natural devices.
It was on one such perambulation that the thought came to mind: What if everything is all right? Meaning, what if my life were on track, even if it didn’t sometimes seem it. Specifically, here I was in the wilds of the North State, unemployed, and with few prospects and what was all right about that. Still, the thought had meaning, and for a while, embracing it boosted my spirits. But the feeling didn’t last, as Life seemed to be less accommodating in the details, and the notion dissipated into seeming irrelevance.
It never completely went away, but in the face of daily events, and a continuing struggle to make sense of circumstances, I found my hope that everything was indeed all right all but gone. While I still believed that there was some sort of Larger Reality controlling affairs, I was feeling that I was not significant in the scheme of things, as I had once believed; or that perhaps I had been overlooked, or was being punished. That sense lasted for most of the past four years.
Then a coupla months ago, it occurred to me that I needed to change my attitude. Linda had been distancing herself from me, not without reason, and that was surely not a good thing. She said I had too short a fuse. What, I screamed...no I didn’t. I said she was right, and I made up my mind that it should be longer. And I made it longer. I haven’t gotten seriously angry since. At least not toward her; some drivers have not escaped my wrath, though unbeknownst to them.
As I have stuck my head up again outta the foxhole, I’ve noticed that it hasn’t been shot at, and that most of the directions in which I have put my energy have been receptive. I shot a television program on collaborative divorce, and though it didn’t go completely as planned, in fact it went better. Some other plans that I made didn’t come to fruition, but usually what happened instead improved my overall situation.
Recognizing this as something of a pattern has returned me to my early thought about Things being all right. And I have revisited some earlier metaphors; like one about not running so fast that my eyes tear up so much that I can’t see where I’m going. And one about the Peanuts character Pigpen; is the dust cloud following him, or is he walking in it where It goes? Dunno. I have also reprised the line from one of Kurt Vonnegut’s characters, a fellow who went AWOL to stop his girl from marrying someone else; his approach was "one foot in front of the other, through leaves, over bridges."
It’s not easy, looking at world events, to imagine that everything is all right. That which I would involve myself in seems in conflict with the direction of our society. But perhaps it’s just that I am trying to see too far ahead. The world may indeed be outta sorts -- e.g., a recent poll says public respect for the clergy and CEO’s has dropped precipitously over the past year -- but the way our country, particularly, is being run, we shouldn’t feel like all's well.
Not so long ago I appeased myself with the notion that we are in a compost period. Maybe that was the pre-compost period.
The other day I saw a report about Michael Jackson, returning to testify in a suit against him by a promoter claiming the self-styled King of Pop had backed out of a coupla concerts, stumbled into court on crutches due to a spider bite on his foot, to answer most of the important questions put to him with "I don’t recall." (Sounds like a priest or a CEO, doesn’t he?) At one point he was asked, Did he have a memory problem, to which he responded in all seriousness, "Not that I can recall."
I think as long as we can keep our sense of humor, we’ll be able to take another step forward.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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