Purchased a new mattress last week. Mattress heights have grown incredibly in recent years. As a result, I had to buy new sheets. Got some 680 thread exotic cotton sheets from Costco. These are not flannel sheets but they are definitely warmer than my old sheets. Must have been the warmth from those sheets that woke me up at 5:58 AM today.
Once awake I knew there was no returning to dreamland. Let me tell you last night’s dreamscape was a very active. People from my past were judging all the aspects of my life from my job choices all the way down to my food choices. Somebody (in my dream) was yelling at me for ordering an elk steak at the Church Key restaurant in London Ontario. Hey my dreams can be very, very detailed and I assure you the Church Key’s curry fries remained delightful even in my dream. I woke up mumbling, “Bite me,” to that vague phantasm who tried to destroy my foodie joy.
Anyway, I got up. Got dressed. Made the coffee. Ate my cereal. After delivering my wife coffee to her bedside I went out for a twenty-minute walk.
As I set out the light was a soft pink glow quickly turning golden. But given the temperature, a mere 34 degrees, I was utterly but pleasantly surprised by the songbirds. Those little feathered flashes of color were in every yard tweeting and trilling their unique melodies. After a couple of weeks of every other day snowfall having dry roads to walk on and an avian concerto to provide the soundtrack to my exercise circuit lifted my spirits. ‘Twas truly nature’s own meditation workshop.
When my third of an hour outside over I sat down to peruse today’s news. To quote Joni Mitchell’s immortal song “California”, “Sitting in a park in Paris, France. Reading the news and it sure looks bad. They won't give peace a chance. That was just a dream some of us had.” All the joy from nature’s chorus evaporated after just scanning two or three paragraphs of the morning newsfeed. After maybe five minutes I had to push my chair away from my computer. If I didn’t, I was going to start hyperventilating and crying at the same time.
Me, I am not sure where events are leading for our world and for us. My hope is that sanity will prevail. In the words of my erstwhile guru Don Hurff offered to me so many years ago (we were watching the 1AM waves on a clear and starry night in Ocean City), “Governments will come and go and the human spirit can survive under any of them no matter how awful they are. Let us hope we people have the sense to keep that in mind when someone is thinking about pressing the nuclear button”.
Don’t know where this game of geopolitical chicken will end. Pray that it comes without large swaths of the earth laid waste. Know I am praying for peace. We all should be praying, and working, for peace. Know I love you all. Okay I love most of you, the rest of you I like a great deal.
I will leave you with a beautiful and calming piece of music. The Cinema Paradiso love theme.
Wise words, my friend. Wish I could be more optimistic.
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