Nobody told me in the ad that my recently purchased item could
be assembled with basic tools in three easy steps—a good thing because it
couldn’t. I searched the Internet, found a desk I liked and bought it.
Online stores must like people like me.
When I opened the box, I saw at least 100 pieces, not including
screws, or those little wooden dowels you fit and glue into little wooden
holes. (Glue included.) Tracks that supported the drawers needed to be screwed
to the sides of four drawers, and their slip-tracks needed screwed into the
desk’s walls to support the tracks. Four drawers had four sides and a bottom.
There was a heavy iron frame that supported the bridge-like desk, and the top
of the desk was so heavy I couldn’t lift it. All these items plus the box it
came in and the Styrofoam that protected it were spread out on the living room
floor.
Call Casey.
Casey is my grandson. He’s 14 -year-old and a master builder, on
top of that he likes doing it.
Three evenings later, I had a desk.
That freed up my kitchen table where I had been writing.
Remember the desk I had in Hawaii where I wrote all those blogs,
and I could look out over the expanse of grass that was enlivened every morning
by the Goddess of the Green? Oh, you had to be there. Or have read The
Frog’s Song. My desk extended along one wall had a corner piece and
another portion that Zoom Zoom, our cat, claimed. Zoom Zoom became brave after
we moved to Oregon—even wandering up the street and sleeping in the neighbor’s
yard, but in Hawaii, he was terrified. The desk was his haven, it was where he
slept, ate, and grew fat. He left it only long enough to use the litter box. (Thank
heavens.) Then, as though on springs, he bounced back to his spot.
He tip-toed out onto the porch one day then quickly scurried
back inside. He must have thought that something big and scary was out there.
But we had no bears, raccoons or snakes, only feral cats, rats, mongooses, and
wild pigs. Nothing that would hurt him, but he must have figured, you can’t be
too careful.
Well, there was one particular storm in Hawaii that made my
blood curdle, and I’m generally not afraid of rain, but the coconuts were
dropping like bombs, so a little kitty cat best stay indoors.
Are we afraid of coconuts falling?
There is always something to be afraid of, isn’t there? A virus,
going against the rules, social disapproval, job loss, no food, no shelter, no
one to care for us, wild boars.
Yesterday I heard Abraham tell of being on a plane where the
flight attendant told the mother not to get out of her seat. She had three
children, two beside her and a little boy across the aisle. When the plane’s
engines roared, and the acceleration of the engines thrust him back into his
seat, the little boy, separated from his mother, was terrified.
Finally allowed out of her seat, the mother cradled the little
boy in her arms and cooed in his ear, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
I would have been out of my seat, flight attendant, or not. Now
I want to take all the frightened souls in my arms and say, “It’s okay.”
The parent in us needs to calm the child in us and say, “It’s
okay. Everything is going to be all right.”
There are people trying to frighten us. Hell, they are
terrorizing us. Remember, frightened people are controllable, and controllers
like manageable people.
Fear keeps us from our power.
I’m not saying we should run amuck, I’m saying question
authority. Be in command of your own life. (One reader said, “I think I should
go out and catch the virus and start herd immunity.) Most of those in command
are mucking around, not knowing what is happening any more than we do. And you
know the media has hyped this coronavirus to white-hot intensity. And you
notice that when race became an issue, they hopped right on over to that. (Black
lives have always mattered—why in the hell haven’t we moved past bigotry? I
thought we were smarter than that.)
It’s time we thought for ourselves, instead of waiting for
someone to tell us what to do. I was shocked to see how quickly
people hopped to the prescribed way. Wave around something scary, tell people to go home and stay there. And they do it.
Doesn't that frighten you a little?
Oh, I was talking about my desk wasn’t I? I’d offer you a
coffee, but I am a distance away. But I will go to the kitchen and warm up a
cup from my French Press (that keeps coffee tasting good for an entire day).
You get your coffee, tea, or bourbon, whatever floats your boat, and come back.
We have places to go and promises to keep.
My Naturopath says that coffee is dehydrating, and I should
drink a glass of water for each cup—no wonder I spend so much time in the
bathroom.
I’m back.
The coffee is hot, the roses have fresh water, the cat is
Obi.
Have you noticed that the world has gotten so serious that we’re
afraid to be frivolous?
Where’s the fun?
To repeat myself with Clarence Darrow’s quote, #“If you lose the power to laugh, you
lose the power to think.”
(Published on another post titled Ha, April 10, 2020—a dear
reader reminded me of it.)
One Epidemiologist said that we are killing more people with
this lock down than the virus is.
People aren’t meant to be lonely. People aren’t built for
continual fear. Fear should be short-lived, to protect us from danger, fight,
or flight, not a constant strain. People are made for interaction, for free
speech—not to be muffled. We came here to live abundantly.
Nelson Mandela (30 years in prison) said something to this
effect: that you can imprison my body, but not my soul, or my spirit.
Victor Frankl (a holocaust survivor) said that it’s man’s search
for meaning that sustains him.
Joseph Campbell isolated himself for about three years, and
mainly, he read. Since he was interested in mythology, he chose that subject.
He emerged the premiere authority on The Power of Myth.
We could consider this time to be an awakening. As nature is
thriving from a reprieve from us, so could we consider this to be a time of
healing instead of a time of sorrow.
“There’s an innate human goodness that shows up when our newborn
is laid on our chest, or when we see somebody in pain. Everyone has the
capacity to care. And sometimes it just gets blocked. We become hardened when
we’ve been hurt.”—Jared Seide, from a Sun Magazine interview.
My daughter, who is a caregiver, asked me why some people just
keep the TV on, and there is the news in the background, and they have no
reaction to it? Sometimes the most horrendous happenings are shown, and do they
get up and turn it off the screen, or be horrified? No. No response.
Nothing.
Search for your passion.
Don’t let the world beat you down or numb you.
We need our tribe, someone who cares for us, someplace safe
where we can share ideas without fear of ridicule. We can debate, but this
polarization—I’m right, you’re wrong, has got to stop.
There is a room in a castle in Germany called the Rose Room. In
the days when people lived in the castle, The Rose Room was sacrosanct, meaning
what was said in that room was sacred, and stayed in that room. You could
discuss whatever—rather like Get Smart’s Cone of silence. (Get Smart was
a TV show, do you remember it? His cone of silence was a joke, though, it
didn’t work—rather like pulling up one’s mask so the other person can
understand what you are saying.)
People come from different belief systems, and I see how we, I,
go to the areas that support that belief. As a result, sometimes, that belief
becomes gospel. (That’s how we lose the scientific method when “Being right,” overrides “Truth.”
Even scientists are people.
And there are those on the opposite side who have their beliefs,
their interests, and they to go to literature, movies, or research areas that
support that belief.
Then we come together—two separate lines of thought--and beat
each other up. (Sometimes literally. Sometimes figuratively.)
There must be arbitrators in the world that can talk people
down, that can see different sides, and thus calm souls in turmoil.
“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. You are a powerful
being, meant for great things—that’s the reason they are trying to keep us
down.
Well, they don’t know who they are dealing with.
“They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”-- Dinos
Christianopoulos.
“You have been granted 2 billion seconds on this planet, give or
take. You are a billionaire! Many billionaires, however, squander most of their
fortune on bitter recriminations about how unfair everything is. Many of them
are right, and it really is unfair. But you won’t get a refund from the
universe for the time you spent brooding about the unfairness. You lose them
just as surely as a second spent experiencing joy, only they don’t even give
you something nice to remember them by.”-- Megan McArdle, Boomerang
Megan reminded me that politics is not the most crucial thing in
the world. It’s just the one people talk about the most. That’s because
everyone shares the government; only you are married to your spouse, and you
live with your family.