The walk with the dog this morning started with a smile. The neighbors 4 houses to the south, Brandy and Jared, are the type of folks who really overdo it with decorating for Halloween. Flying witches, front yard gravestones the whole nine yards and with a tip of the hat to the harvest season a couple of bales of straw with corn stalks and some jack o lanterns. After Halloween I noticed the corn stalks and a teeny tiny straw bale out with the trash. My notice was heightened as I had just watched a video extolling pumpkins as great compost material. The pumpkin idea was a mixed thought as I was thinking next year I would try a pumpkin out in my unloved area by the alley. Additionally my sister Donnell was about that time scouring her world for funky pumpkin seeds from Halloween leftovers to plant come spring. So it was kinda pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins on the brain. Pumpkins sure but here was a tiny bale and corn on the stalk announcing itself as trash.
I rang the doorbell and Brandy who's always friendly said of course. I could have the tiny bale and the pumpkins but not the two full size bales still on the stoop. She had plans for those for Christmas decorations and would let me know when she was done with them. I grabbed the little bale and dropped it by my neighbors with chickens and mentioned the corn stalks (with corn on it!) but the husband seemed uninterested. (Dude free chicken food!) It's always tough to read when nice people are just being polite to the weird neighbor and when they mean it. This morning that question was answered. The bales were on the stoop with a note big enough to read as I walked by "DOUG - YOURS". I guess she knows Cooper and I walk by 'bout every morning. In the 'burbs walking is a weird rarity but if you do it enough the neighbors get to know you and you find out a lot of them are nice.
The music this morning is a derivative of the weather. Outside is white with a dusting of snow freshening up last week's big dump but with an added level of fog. The whole scene reminded me of an impressionist painting I remembered seeing. In looking on line I think the Monet I'm remembering is not actually the snow scene. The play with light and the quiet the picture embodied, if only in my memory, was this mornings walk. The thought of that painting left me wondering what were the Impressionists listening to for music. Google left me a beat off for the time frame but with a good suggestion none the less - Ravel.
Ravel - if you're my age is the music from the movie 10, Bolero, that's it that's all I know. Sorry, apologies to all the music teachers that wasted their degrees and knowledge on my young self. Perhaps some seeped in as I own and enjoy a CD of Ravel by the London Symphony and am following it with a Boston Symphony of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I think the Vivaldi is actually Deb's (My 10;~). So I would suggest to any music appreciation teachers reading and dealing with young male minds - tie it to sex! (I'm sure Deb would tell me I could remove the words "music appreciation" & "young" from that last sentence.)
Ah it's a new year, with all that implies. Later today I'll get off to the gym a necessity once you get past 50. Last week it was empty. This week and the next few it will be packed. We all do try to start the year on a positive note. It is however tough to keep the momentum to build and not slide. If you haven't read it already consider reading Atomic Habits a great practical inspiration. The author also has a great weekly encouragement/reminder/blog which is free.
As last year was making the thought obsolete I came up with a great slogan for my last year - screw you 22. I hope yours was better and to define any year by your Father's death is to overlook all the wonderful, great and amazing moments that held it together. Death was in the end a kindness for my father as replacing the calendar with a fresh one. No doodles and coffee stains - death gives us, the living, a fresh page. That was the peace of this mornings walk. Quiet, fresh white, a foggy view ahead and behind but in the moment me and Coop trudging along - just good, hopeful.
What added to my spirit of renewal was watching this video. I've randomly followed the on-line life of this family but had not checked in for a while. They've gone from a small garden plot and a simple hope to feed their family to a farm/homestead feeding themselves and others. All while sharing what they learned. It's the next level that the video outlines (spoiler alert) of using that do it yourself spirit to uplift a whole town. That is big stuff. It's the stuff that makes a country great again.
Doesn't matter if you own a red MAGA hat, are a free trade libertarian, or are the bluest union man, this country lost something important when we demoted primary jobs, mining, farming, manufacturing, to a lessor value. Economic development as practiced by most cities and states consisted of giving incentives to build a mall or a stadium. The mall would entertain, provide tax revenue, and if the city or state was entertaining enough it would draw good paying secondary jobs (like government, education and medical). All without having to stoop to dirty, tough primary jobs. Lattes, art and sports and don't worry we still make something, we've got Hollywood.
Thing is I believe that economic development scheme is upside down. Allow a man a job, a hard physical primary job, and he will organically create a need for those secondary and tertiary jobs. Raise food and he'll want a place to sell it. He'll need a doctor, institute government (limited of course;~), and if there is a few bucks left over at the week's end a latte. Some art or sport and perhaps a good movie to zone out till it's back to that hard work again. The flow is natural in this direction unnatural in the other.
I believe this unnatural road of economic destruction at least coincided with another unnatural road that began in 1971. I think we are only beginning to have those turkeys come home to roost and to mix the metaphor the turkeys have been dropped off a cliff. OK, OK, wings out no problem, no problem, splat. I don't think at this point there is a stopping the splat. But maybe just maybe we as individuals can use whatever resilience we have created for ourselves (like say a garden). First to feed ourselves and limit the splat. Then like some crazy tattooed kids or that other non poultry bird rise up. Feed ourselves, grow for many, create a market and yeah make and enjoy a good cuppa coffee. Not into gardening, sure would be a good time to make/manufacture something. First that you need and can use. Perhaps later something others could buy. Businesses that begin with "I need X" and grow to "I can sell X". Clearly, tatts and all there is a generation coming of age that gets this. That is my hope a nation full of signs that say "Established in 2023". Doug A.
Comments
Post a Comment