Life, actually…
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LAST YEAR WAS THEN, THIS YEAR IS NOW
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Don’t know about your situation, but here in the Deep South the year is starting off muggy and stormy and overcast and misty with occasional bursts of blue sky crisscrossing chalky marshmallow clouds.
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Warm weather prevails, split wide with unpredictable days of cold and salt-shaker snow that seldom holds to the ground.
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Today is much like most of the New Year days I’ve wrestled during an over-extended lifetime.
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In other words, life is fairly normal Down Here. Toss in some illnesses and bruises and squabbles and internet skitishness and an epidemic of misinformed chatter…and what you have is still about as predictable as variant sunrise and slowmo thinking.
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I traverse the day and, like that long-ago dude Diogenes, I scan the horizon for some honesty and goodwill and non-fakery.
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Do I succeed? Yes I do—that’s because I have learned through infinite repetition of effort that I pretty much discover whatever I am looking for.
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Blinders and purposeful denial get me what I need most of the time.
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What have I noticed that will propel me through the New Year?
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I LEARNED THAT getting a smile out of some people is like trying to tap dance on shag carpeting.
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I LEARNED to avoid certain downer-type humans, the kind described by Harry Truman as about as helpful as a pitcher of warm spit. There is a place for such people, but that place is somewhere other than where I am, if I’m lucky.
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I also get along by NOTICING the unnoticeable.
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I NOTICE that the yellow Victorian house with the white picket fence rises ’mid urban sprawl as if nothing around it has ever changed since 1906. That’s somehow comforting.
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I NOTICE the wild-haired woman who bursts into my shop with bags and baggies swirling about her.
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“You got a shirt?” she sputters, sans greeting and how-do-you-do’s.
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“You got a scarf I could wrap around my head?”
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She smells of talcum powder and confusion. She is frantic, her long black hair or wig becomes her halo. She is nervous and wants to scoop the contents of my ever-present basket of free lollipops into a bag.
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I am almost speechless, but I do have to protect the bookstore and its necessary commerce. I limit what she can remove unpaid but allow her to take something with her.
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As she rushes out of the shop, free candy and bandanna and bookmark in hand, she asks if she can have a free book. I shake my head and she disappears to the street, leaving behind momentary chaos and a heavy cloud of talcum.
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I NOTICE a lone survivor outside the store…a small scraggly leafy plant peeking out from between concrete slabs.
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As I pull closed the door, having waved away the powder, I again spot the everchanging weather…the clouds spin swiftly by, reflected in the large windows making up the storefronts across the avenue.
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Now I recall something Alex Haley once advised, “Find the good, and praise it.”
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Not a bad thought for the day. Alex Haley and Harry Truman and Diogenes accompany me back into the shop.
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I get busy trying to make other peoples’ day a bit more liveable
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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.
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