Fearing future ill-defined
And the ghosts of what’s behind
No clear map and no rewind
It’s not the deal I thought I signed
The path swerves becomes a grind
Not the journey I designed
Then breathing deep I clear my mind
And search for goodness which I find
Here and Now
We’ve all eased our eyes open in the morning and found those little bits of matter clinging to the edge. They are commonly known as “sand” from the “sandman” who has “entered” and deposited these specs unless of course you sleep with one eye open gripping your pillow tight (Metallica Rocks). Anyway we wake up with sand in our eyes and that started a train of thought leading here today. Did you ever wonder how many grains of sand get left in your eyes over the course of a lifetime? Me too…but we’ll talk about that later… First let’s look at where else we often find sand on our body. Well now that I think about trips to the beach and believing that this is generally a family blog, we’d better skip a description of where sand ends up although it’s fascinating how it might get there. Maybe we had better dial this back to memories of the first time we discovered where that sand can get to and for me those first memories seem to be tied to a state park lake near Burlington and Danville or Middletown called Lake Geode. It was a funky little beach on a lake dedicated to fishing and camping. There were boats for rent and a little snack shop or bait shop which in my case often turned out to be a snack shop for the bass and blue gils . Well in that shop on the counter there was almost always an actual “geode”. What’s that? Well a Geode is a rock or a rock formation that due to geological reasons became hollow enough in the middle so that a crystalline structure could over thousands and sometimes a million years could develop. These centers are just brilliant and beautiful things and you can still find a few geodes at the park today.
Now it seems to me that as I grow wiser many people are like Geodes…. They are hard on the outside and seem unremarkable for a long time. And then something comes along and they crack. Now instead of just crumbling they reveal what’s inside and we find that inside they are dynamic, shining, beautiful, and able to amaze the world. So does that mean we should want everyone to crack? Maybe not, however, maybe we should look carefully to find the brilliant features of people when they get their lives disturbed in radical ways. Maybe the best facets of their spirit will become evident if we accept their new form.
Okay back to the beach and the sand…. One of my favorite memories of Geode was a camping night when a couple of us long-haired freaky. People (about 16) years old) went down a side trail to the beach for a slightly illegal swim. We swam a while and then sat on the sand looking at the night sky. There were tons of stars in the sky and the age old question came to mind. Are there more grains of sand on earth than there are stars in the sky? Well there are 41, 900 or so grains of sand in a pound of sand. Yet, the science tells us that there are way more stars in the sky than grains of sand it’s just that we can’t see them all. I’ve always wondered how much other stuff that could amaze us and yet we can’t or won’t see it? Now the other day I was looking at a chemical formula for DSMO (you can look it up if you want)… and started thinking about things at an “atomic” level. My mind drifted back to the sand vs. stars thing and I added in the molecules concept to the contest. Well after a bit of research it became really evident that it wouldn’t take a whole Lake Geode full of H2O molecules to surpass the estimated. Number of stars and in fact after a rough calculation it would’ve probably only take about ten drops of water atoms to equal the stellar count. So there I cat in my memory thinking people may have inner beauty that I will never see, yet I’d better look for and be aware of. Also I thought. About what we count and what we use our numbers for. You see ten drops of water. In my swim trunks would be a large number of atoms and yet the thought of grains of sand in my trunks or a star up my backside would be far more disruptive. So what did my memories of Lake Geode teach me…. Well it’s important to look inside and that numbers are important to understand for what they are and for what you might want to use them to say.
I understand that right now you can’t swim at Geode….but someday you will be able to and when you can… think of the sand, the stars, and the water and enjoy the experiences possible in a little state park in Iowa.
You will find the finest sand
Where the big lake meets the land
But try to hold it in your hand
Then you may start to understand
That you can spend an extra grand
To have the latest brand
But if don’t let your mind expand
You won’t land where you planned
Listen to the drums from a distant marching band
Well its “corn on the cob”season and this for people who grew up in Iowa meant eating the world’s best sweet corn for a couple weeks each year and then the rest went into feeding hogs -then non-human variety.
Now while the average person in the state of Iowa and the rest of the US spends 38.5 days of a life brushing their teeth, yet that as sweet corn eaters know is woefully inaccurate.
You see when you get a small hull or “corn skin” caught between your teeth and can’t wedge it out with floss—you are going to spend 16 hours of waking time a day scouring that tooth with your tongue. How do you avoid getting the stuff caught in the first place? You can’t ! Don’t worry about it! The corn is worth it! Sometimes you have to understand the meaning of the word sacrifice right?
However, we have it made when it comes to oral occurrences. Until 1867 we had no real higher ed special training for dentists. Dentistry was a trade apprenticeship passed down by two other community professionals. You went to the blacksmith and had him extract your teeth without any pain killers or if you had a few more dollars you could go to the barber shop where the town’s barber/surgeon was located. Well thankfully it wasn’t long until Harvard dentistry teaching methods spread and we were on the way to todays less barbaric practices. It didn’t Huron that methods. For putting people to sleep and numbing surfaces advanced around the turn of the 1900s. Also due to the evolution of artificial substances replacing teeth became a bit easier. Before this people who had money could get replacements by buying either the existing teeth of a healthy person from them, try to find teeth from a cadaver or have teeth constructed from ivory, gold, silver, or even a hard rubber substance.
Anyway let’s go back to the eating of sweet corn. There’s a special time of year when this special corn is priceless and it’s coming upon us. It’s why we hope the farmer’s get rain, why we hope the county fair will have good food booths, and if not we will find a roadside stand that sells the stuff fresh from the field.
I guess what I’m saying is that it is time to experience the taste of the corn and the power of your teeth. It’s time to focus on a simple experience as it happens and that’s a big part of seeking peace and joy. Okay peace and joy with a bit of fresh dairy butter and a light coating of salt.
And in honor of this experience….
In EIGHT LINE RHYME TIME today’s word is “tooth.”
As I recall my youth
It didn’t take a sleuth
To see I was uncouth
When I first escaped Duluth
Now I’m longer in the tooth
As I sit here in this booth
I’ve traded Baby Ruth
For Martinis with vermouth
Somewhere Between Tongue and Cheek.
This is a new (and hopefully daily feature of the blog and podcast when there isn’t a feature. For me, it is important to keep the creative spirit and the sharing of it alive and flowing more frequently than Has been the case lately... so
Welcome to
Eight Line Rhyme Time.... just eight lines that end in rhyme and hopefully create a prompt or a smile...
Today’s word is WORD!
I sat down with a nerd
To discuss the sacred word
Its meaning soon was blurred blurred
That’s where things turned absurd
No drama had occurred
But much trauma was inferred
The passionsbrew was stirred
Setting off the Anxious Herd.....
Free Speech
Well yesterday or July 13th which could be one and the same depending upon when you’ve exposed yourself to this digital debris was National French Fry Day in the good old US of A. That makes today Bastille Day. Now there’s some debate regarding. The matter of “French fries originating in France, however Bastille is undisputed as a great triumph of the French people against the tyranny of the monarch—right... Okay let’s take a closer look. A mob. Stormed the prison and claimed a great victory and in the history books it sounds great and yet the facts—since when have we worried about facts in history books? About 100 common folks/revolutionary citizens died in the storming of the prison while only 1 guard lost his life. Oh and the prison didn’t have a lot of people. To free. How many you ask? Not thousands....not hundreds...no not even 10. The actual. Number of prisoners freed was seven. We’re these significant political figures—-hmm? Well you be the judge...it was four forgery convicts, one person convicted of incest, and two people being detained due to “lunacy.” So maybe this Bastille thing was more symbolic than anything...Okay it would appear that the French claim the method of cooking these fries, yet the people of Belgium have the world fry museum and the Canadians take the cake when it comes to super coating fries as they use gravy.
All that being said Americans take the crown when it comes to this food product and here are some amazing bits of info.
Americans consume fries. At a staggering 30 pounds per man woman and child. Yep we chow down 9 Billion 900 Million pounds of these things a year. The Golden Arches started selling an order of fries at a dime a pop and they. Well caught on. In fact &% of all potato’s grown in the US wind up being sold as fries at the big M supper club. Now if your head is swimming. In grease and salt let’s try to provide some perspective on how many fries this is. If you took all these fries and laid them end to end they would stretch. For over 4 million miles. Breaking that down further we have 9 and a half round trips to the moon or you could circle the globe at the equator 188 times. Oh and if it’s too hard to fathom this let’s covert fries to something more substantial ...let’s say building bricks. If you took the weight o the fries and converted them to bricks, Americans eat enough to circle the globe once with 3000 miles worth of bricks left over. Taking this further. We eat enough Brick/fries to build 26,900 houses per year.
Are you starting to get the picture?
Now let’s turn to the question—“would you like fries with that?”
It would appear that lot’s of people regardlesss of any characteristic—race, gender, religion, disability, eye color, toilet selection, shoe size, taste great or less filling.... say YES! To the question. This makes me wonder if there aren’t other questions that fit into seeking peace and joy that we could ask and that lot’s of people would either say yes or no to more often than not. Let me toss out a few.
Would you like a living wage with that 40 hour. A week job? Would you like to insure safe and high quality educational environments for our future...otherwise known as children and young adults? Would you like to wake up each day and see one or more of your neighbors smile? Would you like. To supersize any of these? Okay... that’s enough ... please pull ahead and pick up “your order”.
Well it’s been a few days since the last entry. It isn’t a case of writer’s block for as I’ve mentioned before writers don’t have some magical character trait that get’s blocked or they don’t have any different “blocks” than other folks.... We may have insecurity spikes that we listen to but I suspect wiriter’s have blocks because we’ve decided to name our idea brewing periods differently than let’s say proctologist’s who deal with blocks of an altogether different nature.
No ...no...actually there’s been a flood of ideas swirling around and Ive been trying to find a narrative link between them...did. This happen? No... however...having a crystal clear path has never been a requisite before... by the way how do we justify the term prerequisite/. If you have to have. One course or characteristic before moving. Toward something else it is is a requisite...that is it is required and must contain something fundamental if it is needed before something. Else. ...oh well.... For a better criticism of the “pre” prefix see George.Carlin’s discussion on preheating, prerecording, preboarding, etc.
Okay what are the ideas that are som difficult to forge into an entry?
Here goes...
On. July 7th. We celebrate the birthday of one of our country’s most remarkable citizens... Leroy Satchel Paige. On July 8th we mark the public unveiling of the declaration. Of Independence and then on Friday I started thinking about throwing in the towel as a saying and an activity because I couldn’t figure out how to join the first two.....
Alas given a few more hours to swish these things around—-the magic of creativity strikes and the words below came flowing out of the hopper.
Satchel Paige was the first African American pitcher in the major leagues and although he didn’t get his chance until he was. Past his prime...he pitched in pro ball until he was 59....Getting out life expectancy charts from when he was born and calculating today’s equivalent. That would mean he was pitching well into his 70’s if not. Into the young 80’s . Yet pitching was only one thing you might. Know him for.... he came up with some famous quotes...like (paraphrases are here because I’m not looking them again)..
“Don’t look back something might be gaining on you.” “How old. Would you be if you didn’t know your age?” “ and my favorite “Work like you don’t need the money—love like you’ve never been hurt—and dance like nobody’s watching.” Now that last one for me translates into don’t let money. Be your sole motive for pursuing a purpose. Don’t let all new relationships be framed by the worst parts of past ones. Finally your dance is something that comes from inside and is personal that doesn’t have to be shared...and yet you have to dance it.
So these seems like important words in terms of seeking peace and joy... you know don’t look back is a command to live in the now... and speaking of important words... how about that Declaration of Independence?
We celebrate July 4 as the date on the document and yet the public was first informed of it four days later? I guess twitter and facebook weren’t working in the greater Philadelphia area for some reason...or maybe the leaders wanted to be out of town by the time. The news hit? Also it would shock many to know. That many of the original signers did not sign until August. Let’s imagine for a second. If social media had existed back in 1776... Would King George have had a cyber crew posting. That red coats were really the only color that good people liked? It would be interesting to have a real time account of what our founding fathers would have treated. Would we still be reinterpreting so much...well probably ...Would. You have contributed to George Washington’s go fund me page for the troops at Valley Forge?
Okay I know these two segments didn’t flow that well and that’s why I almost threw in the towel....and what a saying that is.
Now most if not all of you know that refers to what a boxer’s corner does when they give up the fight. They tell the referee their fighter is finished. So I tried to find some history. On how long this towel throwing has been a practiced symbol of surrender. What I found was pretty interesting.
Like our “democratically oriented representative republic and the idea of mixed races playing professional sports... the towel itself isn’t all that old historically. The “modern” towel was invented in
Turkey about 500 years ago, but didn’t get into the hands. Of people around the world in any large numbers until the industrial revolution when towels could be mass produced. It was well into the 19th century when towels became a staple of the linen closet. Then again when you think about it... we didn’t have indoor plumbing so you didn’t carry a towel into the bathroom to take a shower. We didn’t have modern dryers so washing and drying towels couldn’t be much fun. People didn’t go to the beach or pool and because. They spent hours out in the field or garden they didn’t plop down to get a tan.
Wow ... are towels a human luxury item.... what does it mean to dry off with one?
How quietly does history sneak around and change what. We experience without us. Taking the time to think about it in today’s terms or how often to we assume things have always been this way and will always be this way... and how does that change how we experience how things are right now? Well those are some things rattling around in my mind... but they are not easy...so maybe I’ll throw in the towel for now...
INSPIERATION?
I read q quote that went something like this///
We have art ( I would change that to creativity) so we can survive reality.”
I don’t know who said it or something close to it and it’s like a lot of things I write—certain parts of it have been written before in some order. Why heck the other day I thought I should just write out an unabridged dictionary—then I would have written every book that has been written or will ever be written. Well sure, you would have to put the words in the right order and such, but that would give you some choices and isn’t that what life is about? Oh I guess I’d have to include some punctuation clues because Have you eaten, Grandpa? Well that’s different from Have you eaten Grandpa?—especially ifin’ you’re Grandpa.
Another fuzzy quote I just gotta a hankerin’ for is...
It’s trims for me to respectfully disregard the impossible.—again I don’t know where I picked up some of that word gathering, yet I’m gong to use it with the unapologetic sneakiness of a poet.
Alright...enough on that .... here is where. We are headed today.
I was feeling a bit pre-inspired. Oh you know. Not of what I speak? Well I get a bunch of energy built up that cries out for some words or a song and I sometimes need an object, a quote, a tune or a piece of sweet corn between my teeth to serve a s the tap to let something pour out. Today I tried a few things and nothing really turned my crank enough...until I though about wishing I’d be inspired... and then what do wish upon? Well we wish upon a star or stars right?
HJere’s the problem.... it’s a long time till the time of night when stars other than the big bad sun are visible. To be wished upon although I’m sure if I could hear solar winds these stars would be saying ...”you wishes are very important to us, please. Stay on the line and the next available red dwarf or super nova will be with you shortly.” However, upon further reflecting I remembered that the sparkle we get inspired from left that star millions and millions of years ago... by the time it gets here it’s used sparkle at best. In fact it the automotive equivalent of sparkle that’s on blocks in the side yard with Chester the nut passed out underneath.
This sparkle is the past and well I’d say it is time to quit wishing on changing the past in general. Maybe if we think of the light from the start as something from the past offering a glimmer of today in the dark it works, but as far as something that guides our present or future...hmmm I’m not sure.
Some might use the stars as something to reach for...we get told to reach for the stars all the time right? Maybe if the stars are a symbol of exploration that works for seeking peace and joy...otherwise maybe reach for a dictionary and starts carving away the words you don’t need. Reach for the piano and listen for the song that’s sounded. By the tones and the silences in between, reach for the paint and dip your fingers in... draw upon and with yourself. Reach for the phone and recreate or create a friendship. Then tonight when you see the stars you will be a star because you already created and you are now just shining down.
Well
Twinkle twinkle ...for now
It was 163 years ago on July 1 that Mr. Darwin released. His ideas about evolution into the general public. Of course, everyone adopted these ideas immediately (please keep your fingers off the screen to avoid dripping sarcasm.) Anyway with this way of looking at things we started or continued with a vengeance. The practice of looking at change as evolution—you know survival of the fittest sort of. Some folks lately have argued that it’s not the fittest but the nicest and most flexible that survive through adaptation and fittest or not what are the survivors going to say Anyway? “Hey Mr. Researcher Man, there were some animals better than us....but when we all took a nap in a tree a butterfly in New Jersey flew 7 feet which set off a hurricane in the tropics that sent a boat into uncharted waters and when three drunken sailors finished a fourth barrel of rum they threw it onto our island. Now because we were napping this barrel flew over our heads and a little remaining rum dripped onto the ground where these superior creatures Were stationed to protect us. They had to check the rum for safety and well... they got happy and invented reggae. Now the sloths didn’t care for that and Pat first but grew to like it but all the slothstomping around mashed our protectors into the dirt while we napped in the tree above.
Oh I digress... The point is ... there are questions when it comes to evolution and well during the pandemic the workplace sort of evolved?
Almost three of four workers now say they would like to work at home at least part of the time. So what does that say for the evolution of workplace culture? Well I don’t know.... it’s another adventure on the trip of seeking peace and joy. One thing for certain is that some folks have fallen in love with the remote meeting platforms and for my purposes we are going to pick up our Kleenex and Jell-o. And call these meetings “zoom.”
Well I’ve been “in” or “on” a zoom call or two. Notice that we used to be in meetings but now we are on zoom? It’s a small distinction but when it takes off would you rather be in the plane or on it?
Okay what I observed with the Zoom we need to push it to evolve. If they don’t we are in some workplace trouble in terms of cooperative creativity. On the other hand while thinking of one of these calls Some song lyrics cane to mind for me and they describe the people in the squares on a call.. So far I only have a couple verses one of which i borrowed from another activity I participated In...but it was “in-person and so I’m using it here.
The chorus is coming together and the third verse is not far behind and I’ll record. And share it over the weekend.
For now... I’ll look for some peace and joy in the multi person work call and sing these words to myself while we all wait for the moderator to join the call.
No Title Yet
Tyler Wears a shirt and tie over his cut-off jeans
We all stare at the power point not knowing what it means
Frank sips a glass of Vodka well he should have stayed with soda
Wendy’d like to help us all but she’s just a worn out yoda
Pastor George fills up his square streaming phony piety
While Little Lucy shuts down from techno-based anxiety
Andy the accountant smiles because wow these calls are
cheap
The CEO is nodding off while his spreadsheet’s counting sheep
Morrison
