An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson
When I cross the street I look both ways, even when I’m in a crosswalk, even with there is a light telling me I may, and I look both ways even at a crossing of two one-way streets where I shouldn’t have to look. Drivers in the early morning aren’t always paying attention to someone like me.
People like me are concerned about where our country is headed, but first: Safety while running.
On our way home from the Farmers’ Market,last Saturday morning, I noticed my favorite rose was already blooming. This pink climber is a “volunteer”—that is, no one deliberately planted it in the narrow crevice between sidewalk paving and concrete building. However it sprouted, it’s grown to be enormous! It is also gorgeous, as is the woman at right. Gary called out that I wasn’t taking a photo of her but the rose, and she laughed. She’d moved out of the frame by then, but I wish I had a photo of that grin!Continue reading →
Yesterday, we marched with thousands locally, and with millions worldwide. I wish I could verify a number, but the government offices that used to do that aren’t allowed. There were babies strapped to a parent, children in strollers, others holding hands, young people and people with white hair. In the background of the photo is the Burnside Bridge. If you look closely, you can see it’s lined with more protesters waving and holding signs.
Idealism serves us now not in the achievement of it but in the striving toward it.
Most of the time, the crowd was too dense for me to take any photos at all. Some people turned their heads when I photographed their signs. I have protested every war since and including Viet Nam. I do believe I was photographed during those protests. Men in the iconic dark suits took my photo during the Seattle marches. But after Kent State, men in 3-piece suits and women in business attire and wearing heels walked out of downtown office buildings to join us.
This afternoon, we are having neighbors over for a meal. To that end, I started cream of mushroom soup yesterday (I still need to add the cream and maybe sour cream). First thing this morning there was a false fire alarm, probably someone burning sage? Not everyone evacuated. I’d done my Wordle and got “genius” on Spelling Bee with both pangrams [Wordpress thinks I’ve misspelled both focaccia and pangram—how to tell a computer to look the word up?], read an article about Beethoven’s aging genius, and searched without much luck for confirmation of number of the millions who protested yesterday. I got to pet the building Greyhound and talk to neighbors. Fire trucks came and then declared us okay to reenter. I have black olive focaccia in the oven.
I am at heart an optimist. I was reading books about faith and ethics while I was still a child of ten, looking to find my way toward goodness. I was taught and believed and still believe that goodness matters, that what we call goodness is something to pursue and to praise.
This is a jellyfish, the orange west coast “sea nettle”, Chrysaora fuscescens. I have seen this jelly cast on shore my entire life; it is the one my dad warned me about because they do sting like a bee. [The “moon jellies,” water jelly, Aequorea sp., are mostly colorless or blueish and I herded small ones in the water without harm when I was younger.] This one is upside down and much, much larger than any I saw as a child, though not quite as large as the one we found recently that measured more than 22 inches across. The beach is littered with sea nettles just now, mostly broken but also some whole like this one.Continue reading →