One Solution

Sweetpea and Joyce

Want driftwood? Well, it’s here. Beverly Beach, OR.        True.

                                                                                                                                     

How in the world did this happen? This geological wonder was situated where the beach sand abuts a cliff. Beverly Beach OR

Want to hear about my weekend?

No?

Okay.

Well, how about what led up to it?

“I can’t write, I can’t spell, my grammar sucks, and my style isn’t all not that hot,” I lamented after three days of editing where I felt tied to the computer, rummy, and foggy-headed. Husband dear said, “What can you do?”

“I can think,” I said.

So that’s what I am doing here, letting my fingers do the thinking.

After feeling fried, after beating myself into the ground at the computer, I decided to take care of myself.

We hear of our stressed lives, how we feel fractured and displaced. There is little talk of what to do about it.

One solution: change scenery.

Go to the Beach. Now that’s a good idea. There is something about the salt air that clears the brain.

I have wanted to go to Cannon Beach, Oregon for some time, about a three-hour drive from where we live. I could have waited until the weather got better. I could have waited until next weekend when the yearly sand carving contest happens, or go for Father’s Day or our Anniversary that is coming up this month. Even the weather wasn’t all that great. No, I was ready. I wanted to go THAT DAY.

And so with a willing partner, that is husband dear, we set out on Friday night for a drive to Cannon Beach.

You can stop reading now, but the best is yet to come.

You know how it is if you are distraught, things work maybe, but more often than not drama comes, matching your fractured energy.

I got the last room at a Motel—pet-friendly—for I wanted to take Sweetpea. A few minutes later, however, the Motel called, another traveler had slipped in before me. No room. Good thing we hadn’t left the house yet. I grabbed another motel, where there were two rooms left, I reserved one. Then discovered they had a “No pets,” rule. And in small print, "not cancelable without a 24 –hour notice."

Oh, well, take the room. Take the dog. I was determined.

The hotel owners didn’t know I had a dog, she did no damage, and she didn’t let out a squeak. I worried about being discovered, but it worked. I got up at 7 am to take her out and discovered a few folks ambling around a neighborhood, some letting their dogs run down the beach. The area was as quaint as the downtown shops, and the area, the plantings, flowers, shrubs, were all manicured, even the blackberry bushes looked as though they belonged there. A small shingled grayed-by-the-salt-air house, built like a townhouse with two stories, a 1920's issue, was listed for sale for $750,000.

After a latte and a scone, we took Sweetpea to the beach. She stood transfixed at the wonder before her. We unclipped the leash and she flew over the sand, chased the birds, skidded to a halt where the rolling sand from her toenails gave her something else to chase. All this she did while grinning like a Cheshire cat.

After our beach run, the downtown area became our new stomping ground, with people leading dogs, the shops quaint, and everything beautiful with abundant plants and flowers perked by the rain. Pathways snaked in and out of cottage businesses, and the shop signs were works of art. No industrial signs, no franchises that I could see.

I loved it.

We had fish and chips and left for a drive down the coast towards home. I wrapped in a blanket in hibernation mode and felt like one of the Hornbill turtles we saw in Hawaii lazily sunning herself on a beach. 

The weather was overcast until we got to Beverly Beach where the sun came out, and a long strip of coastline sparkled in all her glory. I roused, and we walked down the beach, and Sweetpea again exploded into joy with a frolic on the sand. A Hawk appeared as though catapulted from the cliff above us, dove down at breakneck speed, put on the brakes about a foot from the ground, then swooped up again to the top of the bluff. “Oh,” said husband dear, ”he is playing on the air currents.”

Don’t take a pill to calm your nerves, take in a beach.

Spectacular.

I was like the dog, eating, napping, running on the beach, having an outing of window shopping, repeat. In Newport Beach we watched a glass blower create a vase out of molten glass, a substance like taffy candy that he alternately placed in and out of a 2,500-degree furnace.

Perfect.

We came home and watched a film called Minimalism, a Documentary, where two guys talked about getting rid of stuff.

I have tried to pare down with each move we have taken. Yes, it’s good to reduce stuff, not to accumulate redundantly, not to use buying as a drug, and acquiring as a means out-shine the other guy. On top of that don’t go crazy with Black Friday buying running rough-shod over people. That is plain cuckoo.

The fellows in the documentary felt that being minimalists made them happy. I would say, however, there was more to it than that.

They had a book to promote. They had a cause to champion. They had adventure driving place to place to give talks. They were meeting people.

They had meaning and purpose.

Long ago Dr. Viktor Frankl, an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. He wrote that identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imaging that outcome determined a person’s outcome.  Abraham Maslow wrote about becoming “Self-actualized.” Spiritual gurus show that a spiritual connection feeds the soul.

I think that is what we want, to feel we have meaning, that we offer value, that we are creative, and that we connect with a divine energy whatever that is for you. Without all that, we feel empty, and many try to fill that emptiness with more toys and more stuff.

James Clerk Maxwell often spoke on the subject of “authenticity.”  He wrote that in a society that is becoming increasingly insane, only a concern for ethics could restore sanity. He further commented that to arrest robotization, each person needs to develop high ethical standards to rejuvenate that society.

There we have it, my trip to the beach that you said you didn’t want to read, but did anyway, where I insinuated I wouldn’t write about it but did anyway.

 All that so I could stumble my way to a soapbox.

With a Little Help from my Friends

Consider the possibilities.

On the last blog, I wondered if I should continue blogging. I wondered about world conditions—have you ever gotten stuck in that, seeing what’s wrong with the world instead of what’s right?

It’s easy to do isn’t it, to slip into the easy negative view? We can be so silly sometimes. Not you? Okay, me, I can.

I’ve read of two instances where New York bus drivers looked over their disgruntled passengers and the gloom that prevailed and did something about it.

The passengers weren’t looking into another’s eyes. There was no joking, no conversation. “I know it’s dismal out there,” the driver began. “I know you have worries, so when you leave the bus I want you to put your worries into my open palm, and when I get to the Hudson River I will throw those worries overboard, never to be heard of again.”

The passenger’s mood lightened. They grinned. They began to talk, and one by one when they left the bus they held their fingers over the driver’s open palm and figuratively dropped their cares into his hand.

And he did as promised. When he got to the river he threw their worries into the water.

We don’t have to be illustrious individuals to carry some light, and I decided that is my job, to shed light, to carry light, to be lighthearted, and to hand light to others who reach out their palm for it.

So, go ahead and dream the impossible dream. And remember what Walt Disney said, “It’s kind of fun doing the impossible.”

Right now I’m wondering. How about helping to write a novel? There is a moral dilemma involved, and I wonder what your input would be.

What if a thirteen-year-old-girl confronting the man who raped her mother swung a broom, accidentally hit the man in the temple, and he fell over dead.

She didn’t mean to kill him. It was a fluke.

No one saw the accident. She could leave and no one would know. She could be a hero ridding the earth of scum. It was a lucky punch. But what happens to her psyche?

She killed her father.

This is a sequel to Song of Africa

The first 500 words:

Chapter 1

“You killed my mother you low-down son-of-a-bitch!”

Star stood defiantly, banishing a broom in one hand, a closed fist on the other.

The man spun around and gaped at the young girl, probably about thirteen years old, he judged.

“What the hell you talking about?”

 “You raped my mother. You gave her AIDs. She died. You killed her.” Star took the stance of a warrior now holding her broom in both hands.

 “I didn’t kill nobody.”

“You did.

“How many others have you raped?”

“Don’t know, didn’t count.”

Star spit on the ground. How have you lived all these years!”

“Raping virgins…looks like we might have another here,” he reached out to grab the broom; Star swung it.

The edge of the broom hit him in the temple.

He fell like a banyan tree under an ax.

“Get up you lousy bastard. I hate you. I hate your guts. You should have died long ago.”

The man didn’t get up.

Star screamed at him, “Get up or I’m beating the shit out of you.”

The man remained silent, and still.

Star went to him, nudged him with the broom.

 He didn’t move.

 “If you’re playing games, I’m not playing. Get the fuck up. I’m not finished with you yet.”

He was lying face down in the dirt, a good place for him she thought, out cold.

Well, when he wakes up he will be groggy, that will take some of the steam out of him. Using the broom handle as a lever she rolled the man over onto his back.

The whites of his eyes were showing. His tongue was hanging out. Gosh, she thought, he looks dead. Could he be dead? Not like that, one swipe to the head, and bonk, you’re dead. She could feel the adrenaline that had worked its way into white hot intensity was now dissipating. Still, her heart pounded and her hands shook. A moment earlier she had had steel resolve.

It unnerved her to do it, thinking he was faking his demise and would grab her if she got close enough, but she knelt beside him all the while holding her broom.

He didn’t reach out.

He didn’t move.

She held her hand over his mouth.

No air came out.

She touched his chest, no beating heart.

She jerked her hand back. Adrenaline surged again.

She sat back on her haunches and stared at the lifeless man before her. A heart doesn’t stop beating just like that. 

Well maybe it does, she saw blood dripping from a nostril. She looked to her broom. The top portion had metal holding the corn fibers together. It was slightly dented, but that was all. Some might say it was a lucky punch. Star, however, sat there devastated. She had killed her father.

P.S.

"We have a two-million-year-old brain that is not trained to be happy, but for survival." --Tony Robbins

Well, after my vent of the day before, I realized that negativity abounds, so if you look for it, you will find it.

If you expect it you can be fascinated. 

Addicting cat food? Ha ha ha. How did you do that? That is fascinating.

A business that treats their employees like crap?

That’s how they were trained.

Didn’t our first 12 years of school teach us to sit down and shut up? Wasn’t that under threat of punishment? Wow, being sent to the principal's office—that was a biggie.

When the bell rang we knew where we were supposed to be-- in our seats. No whispering either. No passing of notes.

The teacher had eyes in the back of her head.

But kids being kids--the moment the pressure was off they popped up like corks under water suddenly released. The teacher walked out of the room…Ha ha. Chaos.

If we are in business for ourselves and we don’t talk to people we won’t be in business for long.

If we keep holding ourselves under water we’ll drown.

Yesterday I almost sat down and shut up. My two-million-year-old brain had me. I was at the transition period of writing, as in childbirth, there is a time when you want to give up.

But your body wouldn’t let you, would it?

And a baby was born!

New life.

A new chance for the human race.

Someone will always muck up.

 You will muck up.

 I muck up.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I’m glad I’m not a brain surgeon.

Over and out,

Joyce

To Blog or Not to Blog?

I’m wondering if I should stop blogging.

You know that internal voice that chatters to us on a regular basis? Nine times out of ten it tells us we can’t do something. It points up our inadequacies. Chip Gaines of the HTTV show Fixer Upper,(with his wife Joanna Gaines), says his internal voice is the opposite. 

It tells him he can do it.

Even with a tummy that hangs over his belt, his voice tells him he looks great.

Mostly his voice steers him right, once in awhile it does him wrong like believing crashing through that wall won’t hurt his shoulder. Throughout his life, however, he has listened to that voice, and it has held him in good stead.

Me?

I’m listening to my voice too and wondering where to go from here.

I don’t want to abandon faithful readers.

I’m just wondering when to hold em, when to fold em, and when to walk away when to run.

I’m been blogging before the word was invented. Long ago I posted a little journal called The Frog’s Song, and I still hear about in once in awhile. Then it was unique, now blogs are more plentiful than fleas.

Maybe I should take a semantical. Stop for awhile.

I can still write whenever I feel like it, just not publish it. In a year I can choose the best content, maybe that way I will have a super blog.

Well, since I’m thinking of quitting, I can write any dumb thing I want—could anyway come to think of it. The dumb thing of the day is: what diabolical person invented canned cat food?

It has turned our two cats into monsters. Is canned cat food like cigarettes, there is something added that makes the cat want more and more?  Even our sweet little Obi with the soft voice that hardly ever spoke before has taken up mewing.  Zoom Zoom has developed a loud YOWL.

Zoom Zoom is getting old, and I noticed he was getting thin, so instead of just giving him dry food, I added canned food to his diet. Bad idea.

Even the dog lays in wait at the garage door, hoping for a chance to lick the bowls.

Here’s another gripe:  Daughter dear went for a job interview and there were eight people in the room. EIGHT.

Daughter dear has herself interviewed and hired people, and when she did, she tried to put them at ease. She wanted to find out who they were. With a formal questionnaire, you know the person is going to give you the answers they think you want, not the ones they believe.  Rather like teaching to the test.

Well, chances are the person being interviewed doesn’t really want a job—who can blame them, but they need to pay the bills, and with all the stringent testing that goes on before hiring, one would think the employees would be real go-getters. Some are. Others do the least amount of work they can get by with. (I saw that yesterday when a young man attempted to load something into the back of my pickup.)

And while I am on a rant. What about employers who insist that their employees be at their desk early to hit the computer key at the exact minute of their shift. If the employee is a minute late they get docked and threatened big-time, but they must take minutes out of their time to sit and wait. Our minutes are more important than your minutes.

And, there is always a threat hanging over their head. They aren’t fast enough, formal enough, they misspelled a word, mail is stacking up, we need overtime. And don’t talk to any person on the floor. You can during a break, that is if a person you want to talk with is also on a  break.  

And the employer says, “You are a team.”

You must answer emails within 8 minutes, starting with the oldest, even if it is long past solving whatever it was the writer asked. On top of that, there is no one higher up that can handle sensitive issues, you must wing it, (while someone critically checks what you have written). You must satisfy the customer, that is, get them to shut up.

And sitting there for 8 hours is murder on the body. Oh yes, there are breaks—right, 15 minutes, guess you can go to the bathroom.

This company worked on getting best employer of the Year and got it. Whoopee do.

And what about the Amish getting their egg delivery shut down because they weren’t mailing their eggs refrigerated.

Anyone with any know-how about eggs knows that eggs do not need to be refrigerated for about three weeks. That gives time to ship them. I wouldn’t expect the mail delivery to know that, but an egg an expert would. I bet the Amish people do, did anyone ask them?  People, think about how you are affecting little businesses.

Get a heart.

These are small things I’m talking about, yet, there are little irritants that sap the quality of life.

We can be all airy fairy and spout quotes, and motivational mumbo jumbo, and say we can be, do, or have anything we want, while people are suffering.

Suffering doesn’ have to be at the starvation level. It can be like the splinter in the finger. It’s small, but it hurts like hell, and it won’t leave you alone. It saps your energy and governs your outlook on life.

We have developed such a system that we can’t die without spending money on doing it.

And if you do, the government will swoop in and see what they can take.

#Seth Godin mentioned #Henry Ford in his blog this morning. Ford knew about wages. Every time Ford increased the productivity of car production (in one three-year period, he lowered labor costs by 66% per car), he also raised wages.”

Smart move. People with more money spend more, even on cars.

People who do not feel strapped all the time have a more lightness of being.

What if Universities didn’t force parents into a limited lifestyle so they can educate their kids? What if universities were free or at least, financially tolerable, paid for by all of us?  People graduating with a ton of student loans is unconscionable.

And taxes…if everybody paid 10% would that supply our needs? And why make it so damn complicated?

It’s a cynical day.

 I’ll be better tomorrow.

 Maybe.