Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend and I went out looking for sponsors for a fundraiser for an organization that mentors schoolkids from kindergarten through college.  It is a good cause, and we hit the road on the buddy system and possibly were successful at several businesses.  It's stressful no matter what, and we were pounding the pavement when a former patient of my friend stopped her on the street to ask medical advice.  I discretely moved away, as I didn't want to overhear inappropriately, but the woman went on and on, and I was left standing on the sidewalk looking like a vagrant.  Fifteen minutes later my friend caught up and apologized.  Yeah, I said, and at least she might have apologized to me for interrupting our conversation.  But she didn't, and my friend said next time don't leave, because I'm retired, not her doctor any more, and she had a nerve to solicit free advice.  Well, as I was waiting for her, I saw a sale sign in a store we like, and we both went in and I came out with a dress.  So I was grateful I'd been stopped long enough to notice the sale.  Ah, how the good deeds get sidetracked by a sale sign!  But we feel we probably got at least two sponsors, so the foot soldier method was successful.  We patted ourselves on the back and headed home.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I reluctantly attended a meeting about a gala I'm helping with, for a very good cause and I was feeling guilty I hadn't done anything since the meeting before, but at the end, the facilitator of the meeting praised me for my ideas, and said I think outside the box and that was just what the group needed.  His kind words energized me, and I'm going to follow up on my goals today and for the next week.  He inspired me.  He began the meeting with a meditation, and that reminded me that yesterday when I was reading to my grandson, preparatory to his nap, is was arranging pillows and I asked what he was doing.  "Making a nest" he replied.  He had pillows all around himself and his two stuffed birds in the middle.  He adores birds and trees.  And speaking of getting him to sleep, what I do is turn out the reading light and close my eyes, snuggle next to him, and breathe deeply, slowly and loudly.  It works!  A kind of toddler meditation. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went by myself to see "IF Beale Street Could Talk" yesterday, as I wanted to catch it before it left the theaters.  As with "Moonlight", Barry Jenkins has bathed the film in a color, this time yellow-gold, instead of blue.  The characters are wonderfully precise, as in James Baldwin's book on which the film is based, though Jenkins has shuffled up the chronology and changed it up a bit.  This is a blues elegy for all the young Black men who get incarcerated mistakenly, or for petty reasons or for racism.  It's of it's time - the seventies - but also nothing has changed in 2019.  We know it, we're in 2019.  So there is an unbearable sadness and hopelessness pervading the film.  Beautiful people, struggling, but to little avail.  The acting is lovely, and Regina King, as the girl Tish's mother, is extraordinary.  It's a lonely, true, but heartfelt world Jenkins' presents us with.  Love is everywhere, if you just look.  But love isn't enough.  It does not overcome.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Oh, boy.  I finished a great thriller last night, "The Burglar".  It was written by Thomas Perry, whose Jane Whitefield books I adore.  She is a woman who helps people disappear.  Battered women, innocent people with people after them.  How she does it is riveting, and you learn a lot about disappearing.  I used to work with battered women, so I know there truly is an underground to aid those whom the law cannot or will not help.  But this new book of his has a new main character, Elle, who is a burglar in the rich enclaves of Los Angeles.  She doesn't hurt people, but one day she is in a person's house to burgle, and she discovers three bodies.  She tries to let it go, but when the police can't seem to see the clues she has discovered, she investigates.  Soon people are after her, and the reader learns a lot about home security, state of the art cameras, and the art world.  I couldn't put it down.  I kept saying to myself, why are you rooting for her?  She's a criminal.  But she was abandoned as a teenager, she's 24 years old, and she only takes what insurance will replace, and has her own code that seems reasonable in the book.  Whatever.  The line gets murky because she is so smart and determined to see justice done.  It's fun.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm a ruthless reader these days.  If a book doesn't grab me I put it in the pile for the no-kill dog and cat shelter store, and they sell the books for $2 to $3.  I did that yesterday with two books, one of which I struggled through a quarter of it, the other, I wasn't about to try.  So much for that author!  Yes, she's best selling, great for her, but she'll have to continue her rich lifestyle without me as a fan.  I went right out and searched for tried and true authors, and found three books, and began tackling the first yesterday afternoon.  Goodness, I'm getting picky!  I used to read cereal boxes and my mom's trashy novels and reader's digest chopped up novels and anything I could lay my hands on.  Now I mainly read non-fiction and biography, with a few mysteries and my fave authors, like:  Rebecca Solnit, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Roxanne Gay and Kate Atkinson.  A new Toni Morrison is cause for rejoicing.  I've reread all James Baldwin, but had missed "If Beale Street Could Talk", so I bought that yesterday.  Yes, I love Tommy Orange's book "There, there" and Kiese Lemon's "Heavy" and Dave Sedaris' "Calypso", and I try friends' recommendations, but let's face it, I haven't got much time left and I want what I read to grip me.  I do love Lucia Berlin's stories and adored her memoir.  I'm not completely rigid.  But give me a book about trees, or crows and ravens, or Paul Kingsnorth and I'm absorbed.  Let me read poetry, new and old.  But novels, not so much.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I went to see a matinee of "On the Basis of Sex", and though RBG is a hero of mine, and I loved the documentary, the film was a bit disappointing.  I'd loved the film "Marshall" about Thurgood Marshall and an NAACP case that defined him early on in his career, but though "On" is a similar formula, it doesn't have the power or drama of "Marshall".  Maybe I knew too much from the documentary, or the acting, though adequate, just isn't fiery.  It will make a good film to show for informational purposes though, in high schools, and for those who don't know the history.  Felicity Jones, or the writers, just didn't capture RBG.  Anyway, seeing the real RBG at the end did bring tears to my eyes, and the case itself is interesting to this day.  Jones wasn't able to show us how persuasive RBG must have been in court.  I'd like to see video from it, if it exists.  She must have been something else!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're doing sheets and towels and laundry from our four night house guests.  It feels good to get back to ordinary life, and rest from the exhaustion of the weekend celebration.  I'm having lunch with the bride's mother today, and we'll recap and share our experiences.  When the photos come, there will be a surge again in the event.  The rain is over for a while, so my husband and I took our morning walk, and noted the blossoming of tulip trees, snow bells, lilies of the valley, daffodils and the general joy of green in response to rain.  I love that the days are getting longer, and the moon last night was huge and bright.  The wedding night, we all saw the blood moon, mysterious and captivating.  I've marched, partied and socialized myself silly, now a few practical matters have to be attended to, and then new goals:  our son's 50th birthday, babysitting the younger grandson 3 times next week, writing for my group, and reconnecting with friends whom I haven't seen in a few weeks, given my trip to Texas and the trip south before that.  As I said, ordinary life.