Goodbye trees.
Goodbye shade.
Goodbye strong branches and dancing leaves.
Goodbye birdsong and bright shiny canopy.
Goodbye tranquil vision outside my window.

I will miss your gentle whisper when the wind blows.
I will miss the comforting green.
I will miss your strong trunks and the arms you lifted to the sky.
I will miss your strength and your vibrant beauty.
I will miss your vitality.

It always seemed to me as though you were reaching up to God,
and it gave me hope that all was connected and continued.
The spark of life and substantiality you represented meant a lot to me.
The green touching the blue sky, bulwark between the ugly grey cement.
When I looked as you I felt a sense of peace.

I know it had to be done, but as I listened to the saws cutting out your heart and the roots that were causing the problem, how I wish you could have been saved. How I wish I'd kept you properly trimmed. ...So that your spirit could have continued.

Maybe it does. Maybe your souls do not die. Maybe in another life, another time, another place, my trees, my beautiful trees, will return to grace someone else's garden.

But for now, it just feels like one more big loss to be added to the list.

"He appeared normal. He spoke and behaved like anyone else. The fact that he had no heart was very well concealed. Well, that's not entirely true. He did have one. It was just not in his possession at the moment. And this is where the story gets complicated. The woman who had the darn thing was blightely unaware of the fact. Well, that's not entirely true either. She knew that she'd left the relationship with more stuff than when she entered it, she just hadn't bothered to do a proper inventory. (Had she done so, she would have found several other hearts, as well as a few sets of balls.) Regardless, his dilemma remained the same. A woman had absconded with a vital organ and the gnawing emptyness he felt was a direct reflection of that vacancy. Well, that's not entirely true either. The gnawing thing had actually been with him since he was a child. He just liked to assign blame for the condition."

----CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #387

When she read these words at the end of a Big Bang Theory Episode, they made her cry. The writer was hurt. Lost love, maybe a lost dream of what he expected to be his "Ever After."

She cried because big chunks of her heart had also gone missing. They'd had been gone for some time. No one had taken them away. No one had taken any of her stuff. Just the vagaries of time that sometimes can affect the human condition. She had suffered an invisable loss.

Some small idiosyncrasy, some tiny change or blip in the chemical makeup that brings about a misfiring synapse or lack of uptake in that vital grey matter within the organ we call the brain. Sometimes big hunks just go missing. Like the ability to feel joy, true gratefulness, peace or faith.

She no longer even had the ability to fake these things for the sake of others. Except maybe for a short time with complete strangers. She didn't actually know why that was. Except, maybe, because these people didn't actually know her. These people just smiled back when she offered them a smile; and she didn't feel any of their judgement.

Just tonight I've come to believe that I will be able to actually get rid of the clutter. I had to come to a place where I had to recognize that I had a problem with amassing too much stuff. I can barely stand to utter that other ugly word.

Years of buying too much of the same thing, with the fabulous ideas that the various parts could be put together to make great gifts or works of art. And who I would give it to.... I had to recognize the fact and how attached I had become to all this stuff.

I gave myself a lot of excuses as to why and how it had gotten so bad and what it all meant to me. However it had come to be, it had to be faced and dealt with. Recently I've been rolling slowly into the fix, but going through it all gets exhausting, especially after a lot of the clean sorted stuff got covered with drywall and construction dust. (That is nasty stuff!)

But from this day on, I vow it will go! One pile at a time, one corner or drawer or box at a time. From now on, I will try to remember to write my accomplishments down and keep moving till the worst is gone. Use it or love it. Excess is binding. You don't own your stuff. It owns you.

Boring for you and boring for me. And, as soon as I start telling anyone of the state I'm in, I think they want to flee and I feel ashamed. Not my best self lately.

Eek!

Did you see the article about the scientists who linked the brains of two rats?

This was done in the attempt to find ways to help paralyzed people.

Ah, sometimes invention trying to do good, can lead to something kinda scary.

The Real Work

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings."


~ Wendell Berry ~