Stain-glass Eyes

Adventures are like chasing a moving toboggan when your friend yells, “Jump on!!” Never sure you’ll hit the mark.  Laughing at the craziness.  Hoping the slippery, footing doesn’t end up in disaster as gravity pulls you toward the wooden sled, when you dive.  Hoping, once on, you can keep your feet up so they don’t drag and slow the ride. My daughter, Elizabeth is biking this morning and I’m tracking her on wikiloc.  It looks very cold.  I can see the snow on the foothills, near where she started out south of Eskisehir.  Sabuncu, Kütahya Province (Turkey)  I picture her mind going to a nice warm place by a fire, sitting on some big pillows, petting Ellie, and drinking steaming tea.  Elizabeth on Ancient Steps Sabuncu, Kütahya Province (Turkey) Ellie, Elizabeth's Companion But, she’s out in the cold making her adventure possible.  Her five senses logging in every detail of her trip.  In a memory-place ...

Another day, another blog.  Not as simple as it seems. I woke up last night and thought, “How arrogant, egotistical!  Ninny hammer-Dunce!!”  I was ranting at myself. Why was calling myself names?  I thought about what I recently posted in my blog and I was angry at myself.  In my last blog I mentioned journaling with the word superficial. Oooooo!  I don’t even believe it!  Argh!! I journal and am angry someone said, what I said, about journaling.  I’m angry and I wrote it!  These were my words:  'Not unimportant, but nothing that took an enormous amount of reflection on my part.  Certainly easier writing for me, more like journal entries. ’  I’m a writer.  But, what a Ninny Hammer!  What a Dunce!   Journal entries are not easy.  No writing in my opinion is easy.  I apologize to all writers.  A paragraph, even if it is a detailed, description of an event is writing....

I’ve returned from a long stay in the U.P. with my mom and here I sit at my favorite spot, at the Washtenaw Dairy.  I have a spot at the end of a long cafeteria-like table.  I always face the “Featured” table which across from mine, where all the cronies sit.  They have for many, many years.   The seats are much more than cafeteria-style.  They’re black, cushioned (seat and back), comfortable and to-my-height level.  They lean back a bit, allowing some relaxation when I’m writing on my laptop.  Next to me, on the table, sits a black and white, wooden cow.  It holds sugar packets and long, skinny straws for stirring coffee.  It’s hugged up next to a black, napkin dispenser. I had an entire blog ready to post a week ago.  It included my adventures with my mom and my family in St. Ignace.  When I read it over it seemed superficial.  Not unimportant, but nothing that took an enormous amount of reflection on...

I heard this interview my son had with Gidon Saks, on Holden's post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XPJb94qpvc It brought tears to my eyes.  The honesty.  The clarity of understanding who we are are as humans.  It speaks for anyone who has ever felt to be judged by anyone else (all of us have in some way, at some time). In   recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.   -Thurgood Marshall, (1908-1993) It shows compassion for anyone marginalized by being who they really are.  Saks has seen years of division of gender and race in his lifetime. Gidon Saks talks, during the interview, on what he saw happening in the 60s and 70s.  He said he lived through decades of political development and most  people felt difference was the least important thing  and that fact we were more the same was going to make us strong for the future. He speaks of this production as being about women taking "owners...

I’ve been wanting to write about the complexity of avoidance, (things we write on a small paper or a hope-to-remember mental list). I’d like to understand what makes avoidance prowl around all day.  Writing seems to force me think through things.  I don’t always find solutions, but I run into more self-awareness and less hiding it SO deeply under my consciousness.   I can be hopeless as getting water through a frozen water pipe. Where do I start?  Maybe it’s a good time to get a cup of coffee.  A good time to check my email?  Or, better yet, I could to for a walk.  The day goes by so quickly and it will be dark soon. It’s only noon, so there’s no chance of it getting darker than this gray, over-cast, damp day, very soon.  I've already have a hot, cup of Latte sitting next to me on the counter.  I’m waiting at the mall for an appointment at the Apple Store to get my stupid computer looked at, so I won’t be going for a wal...

 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. When I read quotes of MLK, Jr., this morning, I embraced these: “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”  “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”  “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent”  “Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better. ”  I saw this article this morning and thought of the quotes I liked by MLK, Jr. USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/01/16/martin-luther-king-junior-holiday-federal-monday-january-stevie-wonder/78844042/

Sometimes I wear items with peace signs on them.  I feel good when I wear them.  I don’t really think anyone can tell what the peace sign means to me when they see them on me.  Any more than I could know when I see one engraved in a sidewalk, put up in lights or on a bumper sticker on the back of a car.   When I was younger (much younger), it was often associated with Hippies, rebels and non-conformists.  More importantly, it was a symbol of war-less-ness.   Now I think the symbol has a more trendy association and has become translucent.   I remember having a similar conversation in October, with my daughter, Elizabeth,, about the symbolic pink ribbon for breast cancer.  She was tired of seeing it commercialized and weakened by marketing campaigns, especially the bombardment of the symbol during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I agree it’s important for corporations to donate to cancer research but it’s hard...