Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Have you ever taken a walk with a scientist?  It's not like when you walk with a friend and "catch up" and maybe gossip a bit and share your take on the current state of the nation.  I'm married to a scientist, and he keeps a monologue going about what he sees:  I wonder what that flower is, see that tree there?  look at the bird, what are the crows fussing about?  He points out all the things I can see as well as he can, and stops often to look closer at a web, a plant, a bug.  We've been married 45 years, but he acts like I can't see anything without his guidance.   And we are usually taking one of two neighborhood walks, so very little changes or is new.  He is an OBSERVER.  Not a conversationalist.  He believes one person should talk for twenty minutes and the other listen, then he leaves.  He is fundamentally grounded in the world of nature.  Observing, noting, allowing me to be the Watson to his Sherlock.  I'm amazed Watson didn't push Sherlock down the stairs.  In real life, he would have.  But...the exercise is good, and I think my own thoughts as he narrates.  Marriage is a compromise.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I finished a book yesterday by Charles Cummings, "The Moroccan Girl", which is an amazing read.  I enjoy Cummings' spy novels, as they are in the vein of John Le Carre and point out current social issues in a way that is palatable and sometimes profound.  I especially adored "The Constant Gardener" by Carre.  Cummings' book is gripping, and so current it takes your breath away.  The setting in Morocco is terrific, and the humor and honesty of a protagonist who is a spy novelist hankering to get a little real action in, engaging.  But it is the politics of the book that is most powerful and surprising.  I won't spoil it by delineating the plot, but keep going, for page by page the story gets better and better.  This book is as fresh as today's headlines, and yet has dialogues that force the reader to think in deeper and more complex ways.  The reader joins in the arguments, and comes out perhaps having to rethink all his/her ideas.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I went to a hardware store yesterday and on impulse I suggested we walk to a rose garden very near.  It was built in the 1930s and is a kind of secret garden, not now known to many who don't live nearby.  It is at the end of a small residential street, and columns greet you.  Inside is a bowl with redwoods and woodlands and stairs that lead to higher residential streets all around.  There are paths with rose bushes and many benches and a waterfall with a pond at the top.  It's the kind of place you expect Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron to be swaying to an orchestra.  I used to take my foster granddaughter frequently.  She loved the roses, the paths, the gardeners who would talk to us.  She brought her stuffed puppy, and was thrilled if adults pretended it was real and asked her its name.  The perfume of some of the roses is sublime, and the colors!  I saw one bush with mocha colored roses, and many white roses, my favorite color.  And the blooms were huge; almost dinner plate sized.  My husband loved it and I realized I should take my two year old grandson.  He would happily run up and down the paths.  And he'd love a visit to the hardware store too.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our two year old grandson is having a hard time adjusting to preschool.  His nanny is sick and just had surgery, so the switch was abrupt and painful.  He's acting out and miserable.  Nobody has a choice about what to do.  His preschool is fine, it's just the sudden change.  He's clearly angry and missing his nanny and the other little boy who was with the nanny.  Today he's getting to see his nanny and the other little boy, so maybe it will help him understand they are not "disappeared".  I can't help but think of the children separated from their parents at the border, and how severely traumatized they must be.  Their lives will never be the same.  Children are so vulnerable.  I look at my newborn grandson and marvel at how helpless he is, and what an enormous responsibility it is to keep children safe and loved and secure.  Our country is certainly failing in compassion and empathy.  I pray this attitude changes.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I cooked all afternoon for the new parents:  turkey meatloaf, lentil salad, coldslaw, brunswick stew with chicken and lasagna.  Today I get to hold the baby while his mother takes a nap and his father runs around doing errands.  He's doing so great and passed his pediatrician's checkup with flying colors.  His parents are deeply in love with him.  He's adorable.  Last night I hosted our writing group, and it was bittersweet.  Only three more meetings left until summer break, and actually I think the time has come to end the group.  People are struggling to come, and act as if I'm the strict schoolmarm and they're delinquents.  Only two of us are working on something and regularly send in stuff.  I know the signs.  I had a study of religions group for ten years and the last few months only I was reading the information we'd chosen.  I'm thinking of suggesting a day group just once a month for checking in and keeping up with each other.  And maybe the one other person with a project and I could do something on our own.  I may float it by at the next meeting.  Things change.  A good thing can get stale or seem to slide down the priority list.  It happens.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday morning just after midnight, our younger son and his wife delivered a baby boy.  Our daughter-in-law was able to do the labor without drugs, naturally, and amazingly quickly for a first child of an over forty mother.  We went to the hospital in the morning, and he's beautiful and plump and curious.  He looks all around as if he's taking everything in and orienting himself.  I was at their place while they were at the hospital, taking care of their cat and dog, and I lay awake that night assuming hard work was going on, when actually, it was over.  They went in around ten pm and had him two hours later.  I stayed at their place last night as well, and my husband and I were there when they brought him home.  I got to hold him while he slept, and pretty soon his mother slipped away for a nap.  After a while I put him in his little bassinet like thing, and his father took over.  I'm exhausted, but not as much as they are, but they are a lot younger, and already look confident.  A fourth grandchild.  I am so blessed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Half of our family saw a Monet show yesterday, and that was an achievement, since it was the half with two toddler boys.  The older was, of course, more engaged, but even the younger sat on a bench with me and contemplated various paintings, and picked out one with purples for his favorite.  I bought them both postcards of the paintings they most liked, and their parents bought books for them.  Lunch was the most tricky, as the younger one lost it and I swiftly swept him outside to the sculpture garden where he busied himself trying to climb sculptures, picking dandelions and running around.  Then the older and his dad joined us and we got the burst of energy out for a while, then were able to see the show with some dignity.  Luckily, there was a turtle island pond outside after, and we searched for the red eared turtle we'd seen before we went in, and the lily pad flowers were open to the sun and it was a natural reinforcement of the the paintings we'd just seen.  They may not remember the show, but every hit of beauty is a boon to the spirit.