Playing for Time

[Missed posting this yesterday… ]

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning here in #lfk, with sunshine and light breezes, as opposed to the urban guerrilla winds of the past couple of days. Northeast Kansas is far less windy than the southwest corner where I grew up, but I haven’t forgotten, and my heart is with the prairie pioneer women who eventually slit their wrists rather than deal with the endless gritty howl. My, that turned dark fast, didn’t it.

Okay, we were discussing sunshine and gentle breezes… this afternoon’s plan is to enjoy an outdoor wine festival and live music with sister Señorita Margarita Rita, who makes life better just by being there. Wine, lawn chairs, music, nice weather, people we know… what’s not to like? It’ll start the week on a high note.

Heads up, new subject:

Change, a fact of life under any circumstance, is always on my mind. I tell myself I don’t mind change, in fact welcome it, but as with all things, it depends. What KIND of change? Whose idea was it? Do I get to think about this? Do I have a choice in what happens? Bottom line, will it eventually be good for ME? A few months ago we were under the delusion that life was heading back to “normal,” only to discover that nothing has changed except the names. And in that light, the question I keep coming back to is how much of what we’ve lost was real to start with?

And this:

I see scattered comments to the effect that most social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter, should be shut down in the name of information management, sanity, control, pick your cause… but I do hope people keep a thought for society’s mice, who are pretty quiet but always here. When it’s physically, psychically, logistically difficult to maintain relationships with other humans, we mice somehow find each other and make the kinds of connections that get us through life. We aren’t subversives or even rebels, as such, we simply function better on a less frenetic, less peopled basis. Phenomena like Facebook and Twitter, when we manage them right, fit the bill perfectly, so we (I) need them to not go away.

On the days when the big dark hound sits on my chest and refuses to break eye contact while assailing me with an endless litany of my failures as a human, I need my social media friends saying “I know. I’ve been there. It gets better.” I was never part of a group, and too solitary to really be a best friend to anyone, so the internet is perfect… it allows for space while providing community and I’d be lost without it. When even one person thinks you can survive, you can. Leonard Cohen put it perfectly…

******

The weather stayed beautiful into the evening, a good time was had by all, and I was too lazy to post this before bed…