Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I babysat my younger grandson yesterday then Facetimed with the older this morning, so I've had my grandparent hit.  In five days the granddaughter comes with my daughter, and the whole family will be mingling for our younger son's wedding.  We're cleaning like crazy today, and hoping what we fix stays nice until our guests arrive.  This is the time for me when expectation can wire me up, and then I become over sensitive and get my feelings hurt, so I'm hoping to buck that pattern and just enjoy whatever happens.  I know I'm thrilled with the couple getting married.  They are well suited for each other.  My test?  If there is more energy in the room when they are together rather than less.  They are full of plans and hopes and dreams, as they should be.  I think back to when I married my husband 43 years ago and I can still feel the exuberance.  As Margo Channing would say, it's been a bumpy ride, but I wouldn't change it for anything.  I wish the same for these two lovebirds.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I and two friends went to a presentation last night about a trip the four of us hope to take in the spring to the Galapagos.  We were pleasantly surprised by the commitment the company has to using local people and resources wherever the go, and their foundation, which puts money back into small businesses, relief and other aids to these places.  65 cents of every dollar the company receives goes back to the local economy.  The guides are local, and invite you to really learn about and meet the people who live there.  And the cost was low.  No fancy frills on these trips, but the attention to details and care they take impressed me.  So maybe we will not be tourists in the usual sense, but travelers with respect for the places we visit.  We felt excited coming home after, and like it makes sense to support this company that tries not to be invasive, but cross cultural instead.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had my little getaway with my friend, and though it was slightly less that 23 hours, it felt like a relaxing, renewing time.  We swam, wrote, went to a bookstore and shoestore, ate a lovely lunch and dinner at the club, explored the architechture, and she played on two different grand pianos while I was her sole audience.  We really had fun.  We had two swims and she taught me some of the water aerobics she'd learned at the Y.  But mainly we reconnected, listened to each other, and enjoyed each other's company.  This retreat will stand me in good stead as the wedding festivities come up next week.  I feel reenergized.  We were careful in our speech, and it made the time together dear.  The effort and the risk was worth it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had to take in our elderly dog this morning.  She couldn't walk and wouldn't eat and cried out in pain.  She's there overnight tonight, and is having a pain shot and complete rest.  Each time we bring her in now we're afraid she won't come back home.  Our vet is such a compassionate and tactful doctor, and talks about the balance of her quality of life versus her pain.  He rules out surgery and invasive procedures, because she's at the end of her life.  But he makes us feel that he's giving us the truth and not sugar coating what is happening with her, so he's her advocate mainly.  We'll see if upping the dose of her pain and inflamation meds will help.  If not, it may be time to let her go.  Tough decisions, but we have a partner at our back:  our vet.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I finally finished a wedding quilt for our younger son and his fiancee, who are marrying in two weeks.  It's very imperfect, and the stitches are uneven, but it was made with love.  I remember when I was sewing my rakasu, and the sewing teacher at the zen center said it was meant to be not perfect, but rocky and uneven as the path we tread.  I had just struggled with learning about my macular degeneration, and I knew whatever I continued to do visually would be not as elegant as before.  Not that I was ever an amazing seamstress.  That was my mother.  I was a very sloppy imitator, but I inherited the love of making things with my hands.  It gives me such pleasure.  So I sew away, not oblivious to my lack of skill, but despite it.  And I believe my kids have appreciated the effort, if not the result.  A blanket made with love:  I've sewed one for each of the kids now, and they have their own families, and their own meaningful objects.  But the gift of it has been rewarding for me.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We watched the DVD of Wonder Woman last night, and I had tears in my eyes, as I did both times I saw it in the movie theater.  The truth of politics and posturing, the cost on ordinary men, women and children, the outsized egos and careless games the people with power play:  these reminded me of the fear of each of us about North Korea and how people can drag us into danger and death without any appreciation for a value of life.  Wonder Woman's faith in humans, at least some of them, and her belief in love, could not be more Buddha-like.  We see the world as it is, but we choose love and compassion, not despair and anger.  I hope some of our politicians can rise above greed and hunger for power and stand for us, like the NFL players today.  The truth is we must love our country while seeing the racial and gender inequities that affect us every day.  Stand with love and solidarity with all people and against destruction and nihilism.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We never watch the news, but last night we caught the end of the Newshour, and Shields and Brooks were discussing the possibility of Trump going to war over North Korea.  They were so depressed that fear shot up in me like a rocket.  We are in this netherland where a lot of us are waiting for something to cause Trump to resign before he triggers an apocalypse.  We petition, call our representatives, march, but yet, there seems to be nothing that stops or moderates his behavior.  I'm up to date, but I'm wondering what good it does.  The left watches its news and the right theirs, and a lot of people in between are just making up news like a children's fairy tale.  In the meantime, Trump is changing our lives in many ways:  from campus rape to health to immigrant status to a free for all on Wall Street to climate protection rollbacks.  Great damage has been done, and we will be, for the foreseeable future, repairing, not moving ahead, just like the hurricane and earthquake victims.