Shhhhh....

 I think the Internet is sleeping.....

Another quiet day, some friends on vacation, some at work, some home sick (get better!!), and some apparently sick of me (a common malady).

For those who tried, but couldn't see the video on my post "Alone Part 1", here is the link. 

Quiet days, though busy at work, are at once valuable and scary.  They allow me to think, to be productive, to re-center, to begin again, to contemplate.  A friend asked if my religion encourages medication, "No," I said, "not as in yoga or humming or chanting, but we are to find quiet times to contemplate, to think deeply, on the messages of life and love and to focus on higher things than paying the bills.  We are to be grateful for the simple gifts that bless our lives, a home, children, friends, good food, freedom to worship.


But, when the quiet settles in too deeply, I think on things best left alone, of past mistakes, decisions made in haste, words spoken in anger, bells that can not be un-rung.  Life, for most of us, is a series of mis-steps, wrong turns, bad choices, and regret.  We apologize when forced, forgive when asked, and hope that we are also forgiven.  The quiet unsettles my soul by forcing me to think too much about events that can no longer be changed, outcomes so deeply embedded that guilt, sorry, and forgiveness are moot points in a life of pain.  


So we let go and move on, but do we?  Do we really let go of the hurt inflicted by others or do we just find new targets for our rage?  Do we store injustice in heart shaped bottles until someone says the phrase we have been waiting for and we uncork the anger we have so lovingly saved and nurtured. 


There is a lot of pain in the world today.  Social, economic, religious, political, ethnic, and racial memories stir hate afresh every day, ensuring a never ending supply of excuses to hit back, as if our anger today can bring back grandpa, now long dead, or clear the name or regain the land of generations long long past. 


I have a list, like all of us, of grievances I would like to file with the universal complaint box, and if you want to know how petty, shallow, vain, and selfish I am, just ask me for the list, but it's long, and you may need a sandwich and a cot to get through it all.

When the world gives me quiet days, I try to go through the list, not with a check mark to ensure that my list is long and healthy, but with an eraser, to make it shorter, or to at least fade the lines on the deepest ink. Because, you see, I have too many things too do, and so little time to do them on my quiet days.


I need to play more piano, take longer walks, sing louder, read under more trees, kiss under brighter stars, snuggle deeper, eat better, help more often, and lose myself in paintings that make me gasp. 


See, I told you quiet days make me think too much.