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.
Do I really want to do this? Do you think it's a good idea?
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
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