I was on a slippery slide from Tuesday (my declared blog day) until today Thursday. But I had to chuckle when I titled this blog, for Natalie Goldberg, commented to her writing class that Thursday was one of the best titles. I think she likes titles that bare no resemblance to the material, but hey, this one does, it really is Thursday.
But what happened below happened on Tuesday, and that day I found this quote from my daughter as I was cleaning a cupboard.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win
glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those
poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray
twilight than knows neither victory nor defeat.”
--Theodore Roosevelt
As I drive down the street, tulips, like Cinco d Mayo table decorations, reds, yellows, and orange off top the side, grace one home’s pathway from the street to the front door, and at another house a Magnolia tree’s white/pink blossoms rain down like snow. Farther along, across a through street, there is a long driveway to a house set back from the street and alongside the road a sign reads: "Please excuse the weeds, we’re feeding the bees.”
All looks peaceful. The people are nice, going about their business. And I love spring.
I drive up to Bi Mart and a block away, parked along the street sits a huge, mondo bus—one of the biggest shiniest RV's I have ever seen, awash with right-wing slogans, and rude pictures of ex-presidents and their wives, that jars me back to reality. All is not peaceful.
Darn.
So where do we go from here?
We live in a time of contrasts and downright craziness.
Folks, we cannot let joy slip through our fingers.
Back home, I go to my computer to clean it up a bit, and find that in 2023 I wrote a blog titled “Coffee, Tea, You and Me,” about a group of 6 people coming to together in the summertime, under the spreading maple tree to discuss “truth” to tell of their lives, and to receive support or a kick in the pants if that is required. I see there isn’t much kicking, but there is a lot of sharing.
I grew to love those people, and decided to open the group again. Maybe you will remember the content better than I do, and perhaps this rendition will morph into something different from the first. We might both be surprised.
In 2023, a special friend followed me and the group, and would comment and feel that she was a part of it. She’s gone now, of the type of disease that nearly always kills its host, and that includes young people. I feel her watching from the sidelines. Perhaps that is one reason I feel nostalgic about this group.
Come along with us as we enter Ollie’s back yard and sit under the tree, pour coffee or tea and occasionally break out the wine in celebration. Someone brings a snack each week, and together we traverse life.
These meetings will not take up space on this blog. Next week, I will offer a link so you can read them or not, your choice.
Here goes for Number One of “Coffee, tea, You and Me:”
Once upon a time, there was a land where people had a precious device sitting in their homes, on the table, in their study, their office, in their kid's rooms, out on the porch—wherever they were.
A group of six people left their devices in their vehicles to gather outside Ollie's house and to sit under her maple tree. Ollie, the tree's supporter and waterer, popped the cork on a bottle of Vino, "Time to switch from coffee," she said, and filled six glasses on the tray atop the round coffee table before them. "To truth," she said.
The rest of the group chose a glass and clicked each other's. "To truth."
"But, how do we find the truth?" says Twinkie. "Hold on one minute," she jumped up, "I'll be right back," and disappeared into the house.
Shortly after, she appeared with a platter of cheese, crackers, and grapes. "Okay, guys, no feet on the table, food's here."
"We were on hold until you returned, Twinkie. Thanks for the snacks." Sally picked up a cracker and a slice of cheese and, while waving the cracker about, said, "Here we are drinking to something I have no clue about."
"Well," says Sid, "You know some things to be true, your dog there, us as friends, the weather, the kindness of people."
"Do you think people are kind?"
"Most are. Most want to assist their fellow man. Really, you see how boundaries drop in a crisis, or if someone has an accident, how they rush to help?"
"But we don't want a crisis to bring out the good in people."
"No, but we see it there. And most people want a better world; we just disagree on ways to do that.
"I believe Mr. X is accurate," says Harvey, leaning back in his chaise lounge and propping his wine glass on his belly.
"Really? I don't think so," says Twinkie, "He says the world is flat."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," chimes in Sally, "hasn't he ever traveled in an airplane--you can see the curvature of the Earth. And what about objects in space? Planets are round. Our sun is round. The moon is round. Why would the Earth not follow the pattern of round objects traveling in a circle around a round sun?
"It is illogical," says Sid, sounding like Star Trek's Spock. Maybe Mr. X wants to be unique."
"Well, he's got that, and people listen to him, but he is spouting nonsense."
"I guess it's true for him," says Sid.
"So, what do we do with people who have influence, but are spouting garbage?" asks Sally.
"Some people like to ingest garbage."
"Oh, Sid, that's disgusting."
"Well, you know that 'What is one man's meat is another man's poison.'" says Harvey, popping a cracker into his mouth, then wiping the crumbs off his mustache.
"That goes way back to the 1500s," says Ollie, " so I guess they had the same problem then, but, whoa, do we just let people believe whatever they want?'
"Won't they?"
Ollie shrugs, "Yeah, Sal, I guess they will. I guess we have no control over that. But we should try to have factual information."
Sid refills her glass and offers to top off the others. "People don't want the facts. Facts are dry. They want sensationalism. It makes them feel."
"Then the problem lies in people's feelings," says Ollie.
"I guess so. That's why headlines are so alluring—Their writers want them read--private or commercial. You know the old adage, "If it bleeds, it leads." Sensationalism works. So does fear. Fear is built into us."
"Yeah, but we've had fear up to our eyeballs," said Ollie. "Our reptilian brain has become a raging crocodile. Hell's bells, we don't even know if what sets us off has been written by a person or a robot."
"You're right; it's funny when you really look at it," says Harvey. "Like Forrest Gump's run and his followers not knowing what to do when he stopped running."
"Yeah, like that."
"I don't think it's funny at all," says Sally, "we're being deceived, lied to, facts are distorted, and many are ignored."
"Yeah, I know. But look at it this way," says Sid, "we're adventuring beings. We like the unusual, the absurd, the outrageous. The blowhard gets attention."
"Ain't that the truth," says Ollie.
Hey, we found a truth," says Twinkie.
"Only Sid, "What do you think? Do we throw out all Mr. X says because he has some cuckoo ideas?"
"Well, it makes me question his judgment."
"What evidence does he have that makes him believe that way?"
"Maybe he lives on a flat planet."
"I get it," said Simad, who had remained quiet until now. "He's living by a different set of rules. If you don't throw in some absurdities, you're boring."
"Hey, that's a writer speaking. Simad, do you think it's hype? Could he have information he's withholding from us, or is he speaking allegorically? Maybe ‘plains of existence,’ or something like that.”
"I don't know. You will have to ask him. If aliens abducted you and you are here to tell of it, you might get some attention. If you've visited Mars, you might be listened to. If you have a brain anomaly and see everything as flat, we might cut you some slack."
“Some would. Others would think they should put you out of your misery," says Harvey.
"If you got rid of all the people who disagreed with you. You'd be alone on a lonely planet," says Twinkie.
"I will let you disagree with me. I want you here--the young ones are smart."
"Thanks, Sid."
"We all know that fear gets attention. More medical ads first ask if your toenails ache. And you think, yeah, my toenails are aching; what shall I take?"
"Your toenails are aching?"
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do. But our initial goal was to search for truth."
"Good luck with that," says Sid. "There are some universal truths, like gravity, which we can't explain, and some truths we agree to, like E = mc2, matter is neither made nor destroyed. But is that really true? I don't know. But it's accepted until proven wrong. We trusted Einstein."
"So, we believe people we trust?"
"Pretty much."
Many people didn't trust Darwin.
"No. His theory of evolution challenged the established view of a Creator. Like Copernicus telling people, the Earth isn't the center of our solar system. The sun is."
"Then they were thinking small. Instead of understanding that species change over time, they went to the bottom line. Darwin threatened the idea of the Bible's Creation story. Instead of saying that information came from the pantry of life, and I get to choose what goes into my pie, they think its going to jump in. And they try to keep everyone else from putting it into their pie."
"Well said, Sid. I get a little testy when someone challenges my thinking," said Sally.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"…we can't even agree to honor that."
"A lofty goal, though."
"Yeah, maybe we should reach for goals instead of searching for truths, for it seems that people have their own 'truths' of which there are many."
"I'll drink to that." Ollie holds up her glass to be filled.
"How about, instead of frustrating ourselves, such as, if we say gravity is real, someone will counter it with, 'There are places where it isn't, like in space.' If we say your dog is real, some will say, 'He is an illusion, as is all life.'"
You must choose what feels right and then be open to changing your opinion if data presents itself. Sid mentioned the pantry, I think of it as a Smorgasbord where we can choose what to put on our plate."
"You're right, you like anchovies, I don't," said Harvey. You take them. I'll leave them."
"Wise choice."
"But," added Sid, “I don't want anyone to give me smelt under the guise that it's an anchovy. I want true anchovies."
"I guess it's for us to dig through the pile and see what rings true.”
"That is all well and good, Sal," but I want help finding the truth," Sally sighs.
"Well, we can't find it all in one day. Let's meet next week, same time, same station."
"Here, here."
Sid throws back the remainder of his wine and says, "Did you hear the one about two old couples walking down the street? The two ladies are in front with their husbands trailing behind them. "So," says one man to the other, "what have you done this week?
"We went to a new restaurant. The food was great, the prices good."
"What was the name of the restaurant?"
It was, uh, oh, like a flower."
"A rose?"
"Oh, Rose," he calls to his wife, "What was the name of that restaurant we went to last night?"
P.S. Listen to Dolly Parton sing Let It Be. It will move you to new realms. Paul McCartney is on the piano, and Ringo Starr on drums.
https://people.com/dolly-parton-covers-beatles-classic-let-it-be-7692894