running

                                        Running

               I am running….David and Camille are 8000 years behind me in the Tomb of the Eagles high on a cliff in Orkney Scotland.  I was back there just a moment or two ago having crawled on my hands and knees into that ancient space, underground, exploring, breathing in the warm earth smells, feeling for a split second those oh so long ago people brushing by me, carefully bundling their love ones into the small forever niches in the walls.  I want to ask why they are also burying a magnificent Sea Eagles with the bones but thieving Time intervenes and I will never know.

The air is so clear and the rollicking, rolling North Sea far below is blue green and white with foam against the jagged stones that form the cliff base.  A long path reaches back to everyday, to the modest building that now houses the skulls and bones that once lay in the Tomb, to our car and to stable NOW.

The path slopes ever so slightly. The short, rough grass smooths down and as I begin to move the clutching pull of gravity lets go a bit. My feet begin to flow along the path…faster and faster.

Caught for a short time between the worlds, untethered, I am free… I am running…I am almost flying!

For five long minutes I am filled with an eager, youthful joy. Laughing aloud, knowing I will not fall I jump and twist a bit building a forever memory. 

It was the last time I ran.

Tea

(In response to a 'prompt' to write about 'tea'.)

                                                            Tea

 I don’t like tea.

The warm soft rush of coffee puts the world in place for me each morning and keeps me upright for the rest of the day. I used to drink about nine cups from dawn to dusk.  This was in the days when everyone wasn’t so enamored of “healthy living,” you know, when we were all freer, shorter-lived I guess but probably happier. I smoked back then not realizing that that was not a good idea. Mild COPD established I quit cigarettes at last and the daily intake of coffee also dropped to about three luscious cups a day. Proud of having taken that step eighteen or so years ago I still miss the great conversations fueled by that enlivening, expanding catalyst of coffee and a smoke late into the night. What worlds we conquered, what weighty problems solved breathing smoke and sipping brown elixer. Oh yes, a purist, I always drink it black!

Unlike tea, grown in endless sheltered rows along protected mountain sides in India and China, picked by gentle female hands in the early morning, coffee was discovered by rough goatherds along wild hills in Ethiopia. Watching, intrigued by the way their herds, wearied by the long trek to pasture suddenly seem to come alive, playful, almost dancing, as they munched the low green berried plants that grew there, they, too began to nibble and chew. Word spread, experiments were tried and in time the lovely vibrant liquid became a favored brew among the sophisticated intelligentsia of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. Coffee houses popped up everywhere, home to exciting conversations lasting far into the night.  Revolutions were planned and aborted, gossip, rampant, made reputations and destroyed them between sips, books were planned and scientific theories probed and proved. Reaching eventually to the Americas, thank god, paired with the intoxicating leaves of the tobacco plant the wonderful addictive practice that I delighted in was born. Healthier now, of course, I may still indulge in half my passion and do so, tasting and toasting memory each time I lift the cup.

I do not like tea.

bestie

I am writing a new blog in my heart…trying to find the words to thank my wonderful sweet friend for all the fun and enjoyment he has brought into my life…..’bestie’ hardly covers the love and connection from this great person!  Nadeesh (that’s Tommy to you) is a treasure we all benefit from and share! When I find the words big enough to say a proper ‘thank you for being .who you are…I’ll write them down

Thanks

                                                Thanks

I say “thanks” a lot…the everyday kind I mean; when someone holds the door open for me even when they seem to be in a hurry, or moves their cart out of the way in crowded super market aisles. When a car stops to let me pass I wave a thanks. A post on Facebook that makes me think a new thought or a particularly lovely poem or short story or essay brings a grateful thanks. A phone call or a text reminding me of something important or just shares a moment out of a busy day,,,thanks.  Some might think it really silly that I always thank my dog when she brings me something she believes is a special treasure or curls up close to me, warm on a particularly cold night. A waiter who pulls out my chair for me, graciously or not, gets a thanks.

When I have walked around an uncrowded store and haven’t bought anything I smile and say thanks to the owner who frequently looks up, surprised, and grins in return.  I learned that one from a guide to getting along in France where customers Bonjour  the store owner upon entering and always merci when leaving.

There’s something that happens in the saying, something that changes what is viewed by some as an automatic, rote response into an ephemeral but very real touching of someone else. A tiny rush of recognition, of honoring another being, I see YOU and give you ME in just a very swift, quickly forgotten moment. Out of all the myriad contacts that happen each day a few are set aside and given extra value by that one word, thanks. It is as though we brush our fingertips in passing. I am enriched and grateful…Thanks.

P.S.  thanks for listening.