Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been observing some of our grandson's lessons, which his dad is supervising. This is TK, which is preparatory to kindergarden. They look fun and he tolerates it all with snack breaks. His afternoons are free and he's wound up like a top from sitting so much. It's way worse than actual school because no real recess and no running around mindlessly with cohorts. Hopefully, he will be safe for kindergarden in the fall. He needs socialization so badly. He and our four year old grandson tried to play Monday, but keeping social distance was impossible. They did best at a nearby park where they climbed trees. But digging in the dirt next to each other is what they crave. As I said yesterday, parents are stressed to the utmost, and there is not much help we can do to assist, even if we can now be in a pod. It's a mess, but again, there are some good signs, like 12-15 year olds have 100% success rate with the Pitzer vaccine. Another encouraging thing is the involvement of parents with what their kids are learning. They are taking a careful hard look at what education currently is, not what they experienced. We need so much more investment in teachers and schools and overall direction. But each district is a little fiefdom, and lack of equity is hurting us as a nation. I hope Biden can redress some of this deterioration. It will be a challenge.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I have a little five year old torando grandson and his dad staying with me for two weeks. It's exhausting! More books at bedtime, running up and down the stairs, not wanting to eat dinner but hoping for dessert anyway, full of enough energy to power a metropolis. I don't know how I did it with four kids! But I do know I was much, much younger! He's a cuddler, and tells me he loves me multiple times a day, and he's been isolated for a year from his preschool and friends. He's wired up, and T-K on line is helping a bit but not enough. They have to be careful because he's prone to ashma, and yet the tradeoff is horrible. I feel so much sympathy for parents. I did not have to deal with the internet or a barrage of technology. Maybe our culture was already trying to make us couch potatoes, but they were not doing a very good job. I rode my bike miles and swam and played softball and ran around like a manic, and now the pandemic has made obvious that we now spend our time staring at things. I was happy to read in Dear Amy in the newspaper today that when a reader complained of criticism on Facebook about her by a cousin, that Amy countered she used to get upset and disturbed by postings on Facebook, and she just closed it down feels happier. I KNOW I don't want to do Facebook, and I'm noticing I look at my phone too often. I keep my desktop out in my studio, so that I only do my email and blog one time a day. I can see how easy it is to be "checking". Checking what? That I got a message or sale annoucement? I do not want to be imprisoned by mostly unnecessary information. And I want to control my imput as much as possible, so my mind is free from messages I really, really don't want. I'm a Luddite, but the alternative seems to me so much worse.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our daughter just gave us the third season of "The Expanse", a scify TV series that we were skeptical about but have come to enjoy. My husband is more scify than I, but this series is growing on me. Visually it is glorious. I fell in love with a small space ship a couple of episodes ago, and when I think of it I smile. I have become attached to some of the characters, and I love the diversity on display: Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Native American, Samoan. It's so refreshing, and they have meaty parts, not just token roles. Though all the characters seem human, there are the Earth dwellers, the Martians, and the Belters, so the conflicts and delimas are human as well. Power, greed, altruism, and the urge for unity spin around the plots. The show reminds the viewers that we can't leave the planet and our problems behind, so we best solve our issues here on earth. But we just find it entertaining. And visually, it is a dazzler.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're having gorgeous weather, and although we know it means drought and fires, the heart soars in joy for the beauties of spring. We've searched several places for a birdbath for our yard, this being our anniversary present to ourselves, but everything is either breakable or gaudy or both. We tried again today, but the lines were so long at a couple of nurseries that we gave up, and we won't try again on a weekend. THe whole world wants to plant flowers and tomatoes and blossoming trees. I understand. We want OUT of our houses and away from our laptops. I have discovered that garden statuary is pretty junky and ugly. We both like the Mexican pottery, but it's too bright and busy for our yard. The metal birdbaths are adorned with herons or splashing birds, turtles or frogs. Nice for the grandsons but not really our taste. My brother used to send terrible garden decorations that I couldn't bear to put in the yard. I gave them away, except for a resin fox that has orange fur. My brother was a redhead so I keep it behind a jade plant so I see it going up to the front door. But I would never have chosen it. Recently our younger son gave us a statue of a cat, white, with a broken off ear and another fracture. He said they were going to put it in the trash, and I think we are going to get to there. It's like having a wounded animal statue. My husband and I will find something we really want, but it seems like it going to take a while. Oh, well, it keeps us busy.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We met our daughter and her two kids at a park along the bay, and the day was beautiful and the two playgrounds wonderful. But at the toddler playground two dads were unmasked, and were yelling and running around with their daughters. At the second playground, there was an unmasked man again. After we looked at the bay and had lunch, we encountered two men unmasked, and had to go around them, and on the path, occasionally, a person or family was unmasked. Why endanger others? I just don't get it. There was also a man on a motorcycle roaring down the path when we just arrived. This path was for children, families, people walking their dogs and bicyclists. It used to be easier to ignore differences between people, but being unmasked says it all: "I don't care about you or your life, or your tiny children or grandchildren. You can't make me". It's deeply sad. It seems to be young men often feel the need to violate safety rules. Is the testosterone in their blood causing the risktaking? It reminds me of when I was a teenager and volunteered to be a Candy Striper. I was assigned to a rehabilitation facility nearby, and most of the ward where I helped consisted of young men paralyzed from the neck down or waist down from car accidents and dangerous adventures. Their whole lives were before them and they threw everything away carelessly. Perhaps they had hurt others in these accidents as well. I don't know how you teach concern and respect for others, but whatever it is, they had missed it by a mile. It was tragic.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We went to my favorite nursery this afternoon looking for an anniversary present for ourselves. Last year we did nothing, and this year we won't as well, but my husband suggested we at least give ourselves a gift. First he thought of a Native American store nearby, but we didn't see anything online that grabbed us. Then I thought of something for the yard, and we headed out looking for a birdbath. We'd had one that was my parents, but it broke years ago. We now have a lot of birds in the yard but no dogs or cats, so we could safely have one again. But when we looked, nothing really grabbed us. We found a little stone elephant we kind of liked, and a small stone stupa, then I found a plant I love, but after we'd wandered for a while we sat on a bench and admitted nothing sang to us. We had been hoping at least this place would have succulent gardens in dishes, but somehow they don't have them right now. Perhaps the woman who created them is gone, fired or the pandemic downsized the nursery. We are going to try a couple of other nurseries tomorrow, and perhaps we'll find a birdbath or something surprising that causes a zing. I'm at least touched we are celebrating the anniversary to some extent. Last year our daughter was dying, Covid was terrorizing everyone and celebrating seemed obscene. We are slowly healing.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday's shooting in Boulder was where I lived for seven years, and I still have friends there who might have been in King Sooper's but we not so unlucky. I am ashamed to be a part of a country that is so violent and adamant about not protectin its citizens from guns by enacting gun control legislation. I have been supporting Gabby Giffords' efforts for many years. Why is the right of a lone individual to kill whom he pleases set above the rights of ordinary citizens who don't want to be victims? It's insane. There is no safe place to be in our country. Not in your home if you are one of one in four victims of domestic abuse. Not in places where we buy our food, or listen to music or gather to celebrate. You need to be underground in a fallout shelter to keep the crazies at bay. When I was young and teaching in Fiji, the Marist Brothers from New Zealand, who were my bosses in the high school where I taught literature, confronted me about the Vietnam War, MLK's assasination, and RFK's murder. I told them we have always been a violent country, and had this John Wayne myth about not needing anybody's help. We've always exported arms. When Europeans landed here, they violently wiped out most of the native population, herded them into barren landscapes and then used slaves to do their work. We could decide that is not who we want to be. We could make reparations and attempt reconciliation. But since students are not taught our true history they feel there is nothing to be rectified. We need to commit to caring and concern for others: our neighbbors, friends, families we don't know just like our own and people different from us but trying to live a life in pursuit of happiness. But happiness that doesn't harm others. We are all interconnected and interdependent, but we carry the myth that we don't need anyone else, and if we're unhappy it's someone else's fault. We need our educational system transformed and made relevant, so we can see not just who we have been and who we are but who we could be if we are determined.