It's a Beautiful Day in Our Neighborhood

View from my window.

The leaves are red, the sun is shining, the air is crisp, we bought a house.

I slept last night.

This morning as I wiped bacon grease from our microwave and encountered that ring of rust around its turn style, I thought, We had to buy a house to get a new microwave.

That’s not really the reason, but I am tickled to have our offer accepted. We haven’t really bought it yet, you know, the loan process and all that.

The house was on the market one day. We viewed it the next, began filling out acceptance forms that night, placed the offer the following day—that was after 40 pages of forms, plus a loan pre-acceptance letter, and numerous docu-signs.

The next day the listing broker said there was another offer on the house.

I sent an addendum upping the price to cover the closing costs we had asked for. They were showing the house twice that day.

I couldn’t sleep that night.

I tried various thought patterns, seeing the house as ours, trying to keep fear out of the equation, knowing the house was our’s, relaxing.  I really believed that house was for us. It doesn’t look like a Davis house, but it hugged me when I went inside, it's cute, upgraded, and immaculately kept.

The house is in a neighborhood, but as it turns out, it is right on the edge of the city—the city boundaries are wiggly, and this house landed in one of the outside wiggles.

 I can legally have chickens!

The owners have chickens, and their beautiful secure chicken coop  comes with the property, and it has a well.  I like well water. It has a separate building my husband can use for a shop. Perfect.

I’m thrilled.

I’d stop writing so much about me if you would tell me about you.

What would you like to see on this blog?

For me to shut up? (If you felt that way, you wouldn’t be here.)

For me to tell you something you didn’t know? (What do you want to know? I probably don’t know either, but I’ll give an opinion.)

Yes, I know blogs are supposed to give information or instructions, be funny, or entertaining. I don’t have expert advice on know how to be a master in any field, how to be an expert blogger, gardener, farmer, scientist, and regarding technology-- forget that.

No expert advice is coming from me.

But the value of a blog is that you can talk about anything you want. People can read you or not. We can connect, have a discussion, we can talk about life and its idiosyncrasies. 

#Life. That is the reason we came to this planet.

So, I think that’s what we ought to talk about.

To learn its mysteries.

To find value in the little things.

To encourage each other.

To find ways of #coping, of getting along, of overcoming traumas.

To see with new eyes the world outside our window.

I have used that analogy often, the view out the window. It depends on which window we are looking through as to what we see. I see the beautiful red tree in the yard. We could look out and see garbage cans.

Choose which.

Don’t you think that is true with life,that we have a choice as to where to look?We can let others choose for us, see pictures the media puts before us, of murder and mayhem, or look out our own window, and watch the kids throwing leaves, laughing, falling into great piles off red, yellow amber, rust, tan?

Leaves I raked.

You know how little we know another person. They have a right to their privacy, that’s a given, but I’m thinking of someone I met who said they didn’t care much for social media, that they would rather sit and talk. I thought, great, tell me about yourself. The trouble was, I didn’t get much.

I wonder why we are so separate from each other.

In The Life and Death of American Cities, Jane Jacob’s describes what happened when urban renewal built superb, monolithic brick and glass towers for the city’s poor.  There were burglaries, rapes, assaults, and hallway muggings. 

On the other hand, some of the tattiest neighborhoods remained stable. Their crime rate was low. What was the difference?

Community.

The shopkeepers worked at their windows watching the neighborhood, the butcher knew everyone on the block. Little could pass their watchful eyes, besides, people are less apt to harm those they know.

It appears now that people are so busy, so overworked that they go home, crawl into their houses and pull the sidewalk in behind them.

Do you want more historical facts? (Ha, ha, hee, hee…somebody said that history is a lie we have all agreed with. Another said, “History is HIS STORY.”

Who wrote the story? Do you want a conservative telling the story or a liberal? Whose story would you believe? Is anyone unbiased?

I love trying to unravel ancient history, myths, legends, ancient civilizations, those sorts of things, and we must glean from whatever information we can find. We must be discriminating; we must go where no man has gone before. What feels right? Now they say that dinosaurs had feathers, would you have believed that 20 years ago?

How did we get to be the peoples we are? Many savages or semi-savage peoples had tales of a Golden age where people had better weapons, better boats, better towns, and higher forms of religion.

What happened to those people? Did they succumb to wars, natural disasters, comets, aliens, internal decadence, or a lack of concern for the planet?

The dark ages did happen. And then came the Renaissance-- derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras.  Wow.

We are led to believe that it was a linear line from cavemen to now. What happened to the cave dwellers? Did little people of Hawaii called Menehunes exist? And did they one day walk into the jungle never to be seen again?  Who built the pyramids, and how?

Science is now talking about a holographic Universe, and that our brains, as well, have holographic qualities. #Quantum physics postulates that there are black holes that will not crush people but are portals to another place or dimension and that space travelers can use those black holes, and wormholes, as well, to travel and even create their own.

Some even suppose that space travel can be faster than light.

Scientists have found that atoms once together, then separated long distances, still communicate instantaneously with one another—like lovers feeling what the other feels.

Some may scoff at this, but remember, people scoffed at Copernicus for saying that the sun, not the earth was the center of our solar system and that neither earth nor sun, was the center of the Universe.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  -- Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

I turned around from raking leaves, and there she was:

Contemplations of the Week

Well, it’s been an active week in Davis land.

Between searching for houses, researching manufactured homes, finding a Loft I like, (single-wide module) having the loan officer say he would not loan on a single-wide, placing an offer on a piece of property with an old loan pre-approval letter, thinking, of course, that if I got one loan preapproval it would show them I was capable of getting another.

Nope.

It sent the listing broker into a tailspin. Hey, they don’t want someone to buy property--whoops get a loan on it--until those people know what they are going to do with it. However, for us, it was a catch 22. We wanted to know we had the property—and they are flying out of here faster than the ducks migrating—so we can decide what to do with it.

Guess I listen to a different drummer.

I have noticed that if we decide we want something, that decision spreads through the air like pollen tinkling someone else's nose, and they decide they want it too. So, I figure we ought to jump on a decision as soon as we make it. My scenario is I place an offer, secure the property, use a 60-day escrow period to obtain a loan, if something goes awry, and I drop out they have just made $1,000 from our earnest money.

Seemed simple to me.

Nope, not simple.

Guess they were afraid to risk taking something off the market for a flake like me. (It’s been on the market for months already, and the owner didn’t get a chance to decide.)

The Listing Broker wouldn’t present it.

We withdrew our offer.

The Universe has something better for us.

This experience sent me thinking…about how important it is for bureaucracy to cross the t's and dot the i's.

I read a quote recently that went something like this: “If we stop telling stories the culture will die.”

I began thinking about this comment, that metaphor is important, “He was the black sheep of the family.” He was not a sheep. He was not black, but he was different and stood apart from the group, as does a black sheep. It works. It is colorful.

Similies work. Hey “Cool as a cucumber,” tells us a lot.

Images stretch our mind. Jesus often taught in parable. He said he was using a parable. Bible scholars called one story, “The parable of the prodigal son.” It was a story to teach. Did people take it as fact?  Don't know. Probably some. Yes, it is reasonable given the story. But to forgive, wasn't that the bottom line?

Something God didn't get with the Adam and Eve story. And so we have had an excuse to put down women for millennia. Good old inquisitive Eve had guts. She had the courage to want to be as wise as God. 

The African's say they don't know what God is, but His highest attribute is Imagination.

I have noticed that people have trouble with analogies and allegories. Remember Plato and his, "The Allegory of the Cave?” In Plato's story, the shadows of statues are reflected on a wall from the fire behind them. The shadows, according to Plato, represent what we see of life. We see only shadows, not the real thing.

Lose stories and we lose something as old as time and as important as breathing.

People read non-fiction more than fiction. People like reality shows.

Jump into the cold water. Read some fiction. Let someone like Ray Bradbury fill you head with fancy. It’s like running away to the circus.

I guess my experience with the Real Estate Agent—not my daughter, but another, sent me into this mode.  She was a teacher sent to say, “Don’t lose vision no matter the results or what people say.”

Imagine

It's wonderful to be here
It's certainly a thrill
You're such a lovely audience
We'd like to take you home with us
We'd love to take you home

--John Lennon and Paul McCartney

From Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band

At 8 o’clock on February 9th, 1964, 73 million people gathered in front their TV sets to watch The Ed Sullivan Show.

I was one.

That was the night the Beatles appeared on television in the U.S.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

-- John Lennon

I watched the movie presently in the theater,  Eight Days a Week, a documentary by Robert Redford last week and watched and listened to the Beatles again. The mania that ran rampant was incredible, and then because of an off-handed remark by John Lennon, much of the world turned against them.  His remark was not meant to be insulting, nor was it in any way against religion. He was only stating facts. They were more popular than Jesus.

Jesus probably laughed. The people didn’t.

From Imagine to Help where John Lennon poured out his soul with his discouragement:

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round
Help me, get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me.

—John Lennon

When I heard them sing Help, however, the sound was so upbeat, that it didn’t seem like a cry for help until I looked up the lyrics.

I understand how a person doing their art, loving what they do, wanting to be successful, practicing their hearts out, and then not really understanding the hoopla if they do become successful, especially WILDLY successful as the Beatles were.  Crazed mobs could have crushed them. That’s plain stupid.

They considered not calling themselves The Beatles anymore, and that’s when Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was created.

This was an alter-ego group that would allow the group to experiment musically.

One astounding thing about the Beatles is that they really liked each other, and that releasing any work required the complete agreement of all four.

An effort where the players get along and are happy in their work shows in that work.

I’ll get By with a Little Help From my Friends.

“What would you think if I sang out of tune,

Would you stand up and walk out on me?”

 --John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Wishful Thinking?

I’m sitting off the highway on a gravel road beside a sweet piece of land.

The sun bathes the area that a half hour earlier was washed with rain. There is a humongous oak tree in the center of a cleared, grassy, mowed area of native wetland grass. Behind me, a small river, I didn't know existed, snakes through the farmland. Maybe it’s a drainage ditch, doesn't matter, it's beautiful.  I imagine my house sitting behind that Oak. 

I wonder if I sit here long enough I will imbue my energy into that property and the owner will feel compelled to sell it to me.  No for sale sign. Just wishful thinking.

The road is posted, “No trespassing.” I’m only a car’s length away from the highway.  An hour earlier I drove down the road on the other side of the river, also posted as “No trespassing” but I inched my way along so I could see across the river to this side.  I drove until I could see that a house was situated way back, down the long gravel road ran alongside the river. 

Amazing where Oregonians will plant themselves.

The Oak Tree, that's not mine, but I wish it was.

I know I tend to ignore signs and go where I do not belong. I am very respectful of property, though, and try not to disturb anyone. I suppose I am conditioned from early childhood to go where no child is meant to go. My friends and I rode their horses into areas fenced areas that cut off exquisite destinations children ought to discover.

My hometown of The Dalles Oregon is sitting almost entirely on solid basalt so digging post holes is an arduous task. Farmers would plant a fence post maybe 50 feet apart, and string barbed wire between the planted posts. Between those secure posts, small “floating” posts held the wire strands apart, but the posts dangled above the ground. We kids would find a post that was loose enough to lay on the ground, stand on the wire while someone led the horses over it. Then we would put it back up. Hopefully with none the wiser.

I was lucky to be mentored by a farm girl who let me ride her horse, and who taught me a few things about respecting property, but not fences. I guess it’s like coloring outside the lines.

Earlier in the day on route to another property, this one listed for sale, I drove past a sign that said

“SLOW

CHILDREN

 PETS

 OLD MEN”  with no commas, not telling if the driver ought to go slow, or that the children, pets, and old men were slow. 

I sat in a dry car while rain splattered the windshield and pondered the property. Did I want to live there? 

It was sloping, treed, overgrown with blackberry bushes, shaded, and then the morning sun called me to the valley beyond, and I followed it until I ended up here beside a road dreaming of a house behind a giant oak tree.

I wrote a note for the Oak Tree property’s owner and put it in his mailbox. “I adore your property by the road. Want to sell 1-5 acres—buildable of course?” Name, phone, email."

Wishful thinking?

That night I drove with my husband out to show him the property, and there was a rope across the entrance.

Guess that’s my answer.

P.S. To see my 92-year-old friend June’s exquisite paintings check out www.joyceslandingpage.com. And the story of a painting I loved and lost.

From Creating Your Own Reality to Creating Your Own House

Worse. Not this house.

It was in shambles. A wreak. Holes were punched in the drywall, exposing the studs, bare cement floor in the living room.  The kitchen was a disaster. All flooring needed to be replaced.

A dumpster, yep that’s what that house needs.

And a complete renovation.

I would be embarrassed to let anyone see that house right now.

But, if you are thinking about a fixer-upper, the before pictures ought to look bad, real bad. For then the renovations will look good, real good.

Someone had broken the lock to a door leading to a crawl space under the house. That “crawl space” was ceiling high and we could see that all pillars, beams, and flooring looked great. Overhead access to plumbing and wiring would help in any changes. needed or wanted. The house is situated on slanted ground. The portion sitting on level ground was built on a cement pad, the portion over the hill was built over wood floor joists.

 A few months ago my daughter found that house in foreclosure, and it was coming up for auction. She saw it as a flip house. I saw it as a money pit. Any possibility for profit seemed unlikely.

But, as our house...

The house did not sell at auction, so now it is back in the Bank’s hands.

I spent the last two weeks processing the idea of that house. I didn’t like it. It was dark, dreary and depressing. My husband liked it which didn’t help matters.

But, motivated by the Reality show Texas Fixer-Upper with Chip and Joanna Gains I began to see that sows ears can be made into silk purses.  

However, since the house was foreclosed, it gives the owner or heirs, a right of redemption. That means they can buy it back. And that first 6 months was reset at the auction. It goes until March.

It is unlikely that they would pay the fees associated, and satisfy the loan to boot. Since they let it foreclose and go through an auction,  it would appear they want out. Also, we believe the owner died, and if he has any heirs I can't find them.  However, to begin renovations, one wants a clear title.

There was a key under the house that opened the front door. We went in happy to see what it was all about, measured rooms, and drew a floor plan. We didn’t touch anything and locked it again. Was that illegal?

Whoops.  I didn’t think about that.

But hey, we have a Real Estate agent daughter, although she was not present at the break-in , so she’s home free.

To be continued…

P.S. Is this déjà vu for some readers?

About 16 years ago I was writing about building a log house.  

I am so jealous of homes in Waco Texas where you can buy a house situated on green lawns the size of a football field, complete with gorgeous mature trees for $50,000, put $150,00 into renovations and have a dream home that in Oregon would cost $500,000.

So, what do you want to talk about?

Making Palatable the Unpalatable

I think about my siblings losing their mother at a young age, and how hard that was for them.  I think of Abraham’s teachings that say we create our own reality.

How do we reconcile the two?

You might completely discount the idea of creating our own reality. That’s one choice.

We could say, “Shit happens. Our choice is how we respond to it." That’s another option.

It could be that on the river of life we occasionally run into boulders. Hitting that boulder tells us we need to change direction, or it tells us we have something to learn from the experience. “Don’t let it break you,” it says. “ Love yourself to life.”

It could be that we chose that experience before we were born.

But then, we didn’t know how much it would hurt. We didn’t know how vulnerable we would be. We didn’t know the ramifications of a mother’s death and how the family would change as a result of it. We didn’t have a crystal ball, we only knew some things, but then being born we forgot even the little we did know.  And so we suffer. And now we want to kick anyone in the teeth who says, “You know, you create your own reality.”

This may be far-out for some readers.

 It is a take on how some people think.

It is one of our many options.

For much of our life creating one’s own reality is a foreign concept. And if we do create our own reality, most of the time, it is unconscious creating, for we are often dashed against the rocks.

However, the belief that we create our own reality carries with it the understanding that we are not victims. If we do create our own reality, then, it follows that we can change it.

That rather makes the concept of creating one’s own reality more palatable, don’t you think?

”Everything is Energy

And that’s all there is to it.

Match the frequency of the reality you want,

and you cannot help but get that reality.

It can be no other way.

This is not philosophy.”

This is physics. “

--Albert Einstein 

You've Jumped in Whether You Realize it or Not

The river of life I mean.

 The question is, are we paddling upstream, or going downstream?

It’s hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it?

Oh, I suppose there are those who want the river to be more like a pond, and float their boat, and drift.  That sounds appealing at times. 

So we’re sitting there idling when suddenly the river overflows its banks. It fills our pond and washes us over the edge.

Well, shucks, I wasn’t prepared for that.

Has that ever happened to you?

My most favorite analogy in the whole world is Richard’s Bach’s little river creature from his book #Illusions. The little fellow is clinging fast to the rocks when one day he looks up and has a revelation. “The river knows where it is going,” he says. “If I turn loose of the rocks the river will carry me along.”

But the others, also clinging to the rocks, say to him, ”Don’t be a fool. That river you so cherish will dash you against the rocks, and you’ll be killed.”

Still, the little creature decides to trust the current.

He turns loose, and is at first dashed and slammed against the rocks, but then the current carries him wild and free.

And the ones downstream, seeing him, say,  ”See he flies. It’s a miracle.”

Good place to stop.

If, however, you care to see what our little river is doing read on:

As many of you may know both my daughter and I took Real Estate Licensing classes, passed our exams, were background checked, all our little digits were fingerprinted, fourteen images, we paid MLS dues, Oregon dues, took an “Ethics” class.” then decided we didn’t want to be Real Estate Agents. All beginning agents must sign with a company and as we didn’t find one that suited us, we opted out.

Mainly me.

I likened it to the fellow who wanted a Rolls Royce, got one, drove it around the block and said, “I don’t want a Rolls Royce,” and took it back.

My license is effective until February. Nina’s expired on her last birthday. She took the necessary 30 hours of extra training to reinstate it, then found an agency she liked.

Ta Da!

Their in-house “training” is not the workbook variety but good helpful, pertinent information, one on one.

She is  jazzed. I’m jazzed for her. I believe she threw herself into the right river.

Nina Birchwood, #Hybrid Real Estate Agency, licensed Real Estate Agent, able to sell in the State of Oregon

P.S. My new dot com address for "The Best Damn Writer's blog on the Block" is http://www.bestdamnwritersblog.com

From the ole Crap Buster.

A friends’ husband categorized me as that, and it warmed me for two years.

I’m semi Woo Woo.

I find I am often in the middle. I go to far-out groups, and say, “Okay guys, dampen it a little.”

If I’m in the mainstream group, I say, “I’m out of here.”

Motivated by Caz Makepeace's #Y Travel blog, I am adding my two dimes and a nickel's worth.

I am astounded at how many travel bloggers are out there, and how many travel full time. #Caz Makepeace is one. She travels with her husband, two young daughters, and has a highly successful blog and website.

 I am in awe.

Uh oh, serious mouse encroachment--erased material. I had to begin again.

Double mouse encroachment

Back to the blog: I have traveled a bit and loved it. I stood beside the Parthenon in Athens Greece as a golden sunrise enlivened it.

I climbed the stepped pyramid at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan and stood at what was once called the “Holy of Holies,” that room at the tip top. 

From my lofty perspective, I looked out over what was once a city, the temple of the warriors, the ball court and the Yucatan Peninsula where the horizon was flat as a pencil line drawn across the page of my vision.  

I’ve been to some places, but as you can imagine there is a whole world that I have not touched. I believe as Caz puts it “Travel is not to run away, but toward.’

Perhaps our move to Hawaii was to run away, and that’s the reason we didn’t like it, but I have no regrets. To travel is to rise above and beyond who we are, to experience a new day every day, and to step out of our present conditions.

Imagine sitting in a dandelion-dotted field in Germany, the green so green it brings tears to your eyes,  and you are eating cold pizza from the night before, and it is the best you have ever tasted.

“When you travel, life around you is constantly changing. This means you never get lost in the blur of mundaneness. You’re highly aware of what is happening, how things move from one day to the next, and how to flow with change.

“It’s a mindfulness so easy to tap into, which is why I feel travel is so addictive.´--Caz

Can you remember what happened last Tuesday? I can’t.

Regarding her travel blog Caz writes: “It feels like it’s not very powerful because you’re just helping someone find a good burger, but in reality, we’re helping people create moments and memories. It’s those moments and memories that shape and impact their lives and lead them to new horizons and help them experience JOY.”

Caz went on to talk about Chakras and cleansing, and going to a spiritual medium, and said, ““Believe me when I say that writing this post brings me tears.”

She wanted to write about who she was but in doing so felt vulnerable and felt that people would judge her as being woo woo, or cuckoo and she realized that she was afraid of being criticized.

I realized, too, that here on this blog I have dampened who I was because I feared people would think  I was cuckoo, but in the process I come across lukewarm.

I do not want to be lukewarm, but then I wonder who am I. What do I believe, and what do I want to share?

And blogs can be so self-centered, but then what choice do we have, you aren’t here talking to me. It is a one-way conversation.

As I mentioned before I intend to go to a Tony Robbins 3-day event in November, and I know some people love him, while others have a strong negative reaction.  He is threatening. He doesn’t pull punches. He has been doing his work for so long he can read people and that is scary.

People are going to think whatever thoughts they want so we might as well do our thing and let the chips fall where they may.

"The possibility of having dreams come true is what makes life interesting,"--Paulo Coelho

What? It's Almost Over?

Summer, I hardly knew you.

When you were a kid, did you want summer to never end or were you anxious to go back to school?

I was on the side of wanting summer to last forever. Well, I would let winter in there, for I loved the snow too.

Then I did. Now I’m not racing down hill on a slid.

Oh but the summers, three whole months--heaven. 

Oh, later on when I was a teenager I had to pick cherries and peaches and apricots, but that was preferable to school. And I could ride my horse.

With my affection for horses, you can see why I must wish on a white horse now and again.

Want to have a conversation?

My horse wasn’t white and truth be known I prefer non-white horses, but they can be quite spectacular when cleaned up and gorgeous, and they are for wishing upon.

This is the only known surviving  picture of Boots and Joyce

Guess I’m waxing nostalgic, realizing that life changes and the body changes, and I’m not young anymore. 

Youth, you didn’t hang around long enough.

Richard Bach, author of Illusions and Jonathan Livingston Seagull said, “If you wonder if your mission on earth is over if you’re alive it isn’t.”

So here I am attempting to follow my mission, putting one foot in front of the other, and letting my fingers do the talking.

Odd that I didn’t like school, for I love reading, and learning, but being penned up for 6 hours a day, plus preparation and riding the school bus or walking to school—that shot the entire day.

I have mentioned before that one of my pet peeves is homework which ought to be called school work, but isn’t, because it is school work brought home.

Let kids be kids.

While I am on the subject of learning I found that the Barnes and Noble bookstore is kept afloat by selling adult coloring books, a new craze.

Walking through Barnes and Noble the other day I noticed that they are filling the tables with the classics—Hemingway, Steinbeck. Great, read those, but I wondered where the new Steinbeck's are. 

Ray Bradbury said, “If you can read you have an entire education.”

I'm Dumb

But not this dumb

#Jon Morrow said if I’m not getting massive traffic on my blog I’m dumb.

He gives away massive amounts of free stuff. If I want it, however, I must sign in with my email address. He must have me on his counter at least 20 times. Sneaky.

And then driving my ten-year-old grandson (eleven in October) to our house today and hearing about how he could make a paper thin computer keyboard proved Morrow right. I am dumb.

The paper-thin keyboard could be made with graphite. Graphite is an electricity conductor, pencil lead is graphite. It’s a little more complicated than that if one draws a circuit board with a pencil, and with wires, clips, a ground—human fingers work as the ground—and a  USB port one could type on the paper. That bit of news was followed by states of matter of which people think there is three, solid, liquid and gas, but he said there are four. The fourth is plasma, that is a state of being. And Star Wars Light Sabers are not made of light, he said, but of plasma. Next, he told me how they made the robot BB 8 in the latest Star Wars movie.  BB 8 is round and rolls, and if his head fell, my grandson says, he would still work. The body and head work together with magnets. And Tesla could create earthquakes, and stop his own…

My brain is fried.

Except, somewhere in the recesses of that brain, I am smarter now.

.

This week we found five acres and a cute little house we liked, decided to put in an offer the next day figuring it would go fast. The following day the owner chose one of the three offers that came in that day. And it was not us. What? One buyer came in with half the money for a downpayment. The nerve.

And here I had already mentally put in a brand-new kitchen.

I grieved for about 10 minutes, then said, “Okay great master, you have something better in store.” And I am relieved. I can breathe easy again. Sometimes the Great Spirit just has to watch out for me.

  

What did I want to talk about today?

Oh yes, I wanted to ask about this conundrum…

Happiness.

Most everybody says they want to be happy.

People search for happiness.

They pray for happiness.

They read Oprah about it.

Many write about it.

Our constitution says that everyone has a right to pursue happiness (not necessarily to have it) which implies that it is something everybody wants.

Why then are most stories about suffering?

If someone is just happy they are boring.

Give someone a dreaded sickness, allow them to overcome it, and people lap it up.

The hero must struggle.

The hero must overcome obstacles, he must work for it. If he just went with the flow and life was good, nobody would want to hear about it.

Well, we might ask him this: “How did you do that?” But if it came easy it would be suspect.

Please explain this to me.

I’m dumb.